Ever since Jurassic Park revolutionized CGI, computer-made special effects have become commonplace in movies. What started off as a way to create some shots that couldn’t be replicated using practical means, became a tool for world building. Now, entire movies can be made in front of a green screen, and people can be made into otherworldly creatures using motion capture and other technical tools. However, when you go back and watch the original Jurassic Park, or even its sequel, The Lost World, it’s hard not to reminisce about a different era of CGI, when stop motion was first abandoned for new tech. Now, a VFX artist is explaining why sometimes older CGI looks even better than modern usage.
A recent video from Corridor Crew showed three VFX artists reacting to both bad and good CGI used in recent and older blockbusters, explaining what worked and what didn’t when it was rendered for the big screen. Regarding The Lost World, which was an early adopter of the tech, the three artists actually thought the VFX in the Jurassic Park sequel looked even better than some modern examples, especially when the T-Rex chases the bus. They explained:
When we say that VFX were better in the '90s, this is an example of what we're talking about. It's not that the effects were better, it's the mindset behind them were so much more integrated into everything. They were so much more planned out, like, you're saying it's like this whole shot was planned out exactly to all these different things happening, and they just got to add in the dino.
Basically, back when CGI was less advanced, filmmakers had to still use a lot of real world practical effects to work in tandem with what was created by computers. There weren’t full green screen sets or explosions created by a computer. In The Lost World, almost everything the dinosaur interacts with or steps in exists in the real world, including the stunt sequences. When the bus is pushed on the road, it’s an actual bus that is being slammed into. The only element missing is the dinosaur.
This is somewhat of a lost art. Making these sequences fully digital actually ends up saving production money, so creatives will often opt into CGI-created worlds and action sequences, with almost everything being animated. While this may save a production in many ways, it also can hurt the film. it can end up feeling plastic and less grounded, and work against the actors, which Mark Ruffalo has opened up about, calling the reliance on CGI “dehumanizing.”
There are certainly more reasons that CGI is starting to look worse in various projects. Aside from the lack of practical sets, CGI artists have a lot more projects relying on them at big studios, and timelines are being shortened. Artists who worked on The Flash revealed it can be a race against a release date, and they are often overworked. Also, the advanced tech allows for more shortcuts and less shots have to be meticulously animated by hand, which makes things easier, but often less precise.
It’s crazy that tech advancement can actually send us back in some ways, with the more advanced outputs being material from the past. Hopefully practical has a renaissance and filmmakers are given more room to experiment in the future.
There are a number of CGI centric movies coming out on the 2025 movie release schedule. However, if you want to revisit some incredible digital VFX done by some of computer animation’s early adopters, make sure to check out Jurassic Park and The Lost World, which are amongst some of the best movies to stream on Starz right now.
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