Komodo Dragon's in Skyfall
MrEddy21
LondonPosts: 419MI6 Agent
This will be of interest to some of you, my wife works there and was part of the team when production came to film in December 2011 !!
https://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/news/komodo-dragon-stars-in-new-bond-skyfall,1017,NS.html
https://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/news/komodo-dragon-stars-in-new-bond-skyfall,1017,NS.html
Comments
I agree. I didn't like it and I thought it could have been done a lot better for a movie with a budget like this. On the other hand, I loved the fact that the subway crash was done for real. The directors could have taken the easy CGI way with that too and didn't.
Also thought the way DC got distracted and then tackled by the henchman was naff also
While I'm venting I'll also say that I hate the CGI of DC's face when riding the motorbike on the Turkish rooftops. Not a good look.
Don't get me wrong, I adore this movie, but I just think that Bond is now 'above' very obvious CGI. CR and QOS certainly did not have obvious CGI and I think having it in Skyfall, to quote Jeremy Clarkson, is like baking an exquisite soufflé, and then garnishing it with a slab of lard.
Ooh, sorry have to stop you there. The CGI used for the plane bale out / freefall in QoS was AWFUL! Its irronic the one piece of the action that didn't hurt my eyes was crap!
I am hoping to see Skyfall again (Second time) tomorrow, so I will keep my eyes open for the Dragon again. I suspected it could not have been real in the film, as they are an endangered species. Personally I thought it was a nice touch.
Damn it Peppermill, you beat me to it!
1 - Moore, 2 - Dalton, 3 - Craig, 4 - Connery, 5 - Brosnan, 6 - Lazenby
I completely agree that the free fall CGI was DREADFUL.
I cringed!
Apologies OP for the distraction, congrats to your wife! -{
In QoS, the Siena fight conclusion and the plane sequence are the most obvious examples I remember.
I don't really understand the choice to use CGI. There's good reason why Blade Runner looks more believable than something like the new Total Recall. Thankfully, Ridley Scott still knows this and sticks to the old advice he got. "Doug Trumbull once said to me 'If you can do it live, do it live."
However, as previously stated, there are reasons why the dragons are CGI. You can't film with actors that close to a real one. So which would you prefer, a CGI one or an anamatronic one? With the moves involved, you could only go CGI.
As for the sequence itself, I thought the idea was great and a fantastic throwback to the classic bond films.
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Compaired to quite a few JB movies, I thought the CGI was kept in check.... and Silva's face was v.good... got me squirming in my seat at any rate
The CGI did not bother me either, however I found the scene a bit unessessary and a laboured nod to Mendes fav Bond film LALD. it does not damage Skyfall unduly, but it undermines it slightly in my view.
The dragons made some sense for a few things that occurred, but they seemingly could have used more real footage and digitally composited it with the actors being in the pit. I suppose the issue might involve uncertainty over if they will even do anything on camera worth filming.
The motorcycle should probably just not have used the close up, or used a better rig to actually film him sitting on the bike on a wheeled platform for a few seconds.
The helicopters, I would think, could have been done for real, or had real footage layered in so they didn't look fake themselves.
Silva's face of course couldn't happen for real on set, but it looked a bit like a little too much CGI drama compared to what it appeared he was actually doing.
I do agree that they certainly are still in check with keeping it minimized, but I just thought it could have been used even less.
CGI is not a demon that should be slain but a useful tool that has its advantages and disadvantages in comparison to model effects (which can be overrated: I'm not really taken in by the space rockets used in YOLT) and today's green screen effects are much better than the awful rear projection shots routinely used in the 60s and 70s movies (the worse one being in the ending sequence in From Russia With Love).
It's actually related to a very popular study and hypothesis called the Uncanny Valley ( Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley ). In short the study finds that humans will accept Anthropomorphism either in robots or CGI when it looks less human, but then suddenly dips into this "Uncanny Valley" where we are actually disgusted by its familiarity. CGI is still no where close to reach the level of realism to bring us back out of the Uncanny Valley.
So bring this study into films. The study directly deals with human likeness, but it works with scenery and animals too. When you take a highly CGI scene or creature and then do a close up with an actual human, your actually going to exaggerate the Uncanny Valley effect, since we can now see the two and compare them side by side. Take away the close up, and add in some other cinematography tricks like shaky cam or just lots of cuts, and you lessen the blow. You may even be able to make it watchable!
But no, instead we get Bronsan's face filling half the screen with a ridiculous CGI wave behind him
Vive le droit à la libre expression! Je suis Charlie!
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www.cancerresearchuk.org
Animating CGI humans is much different and unfinished art in comparison to doing relatively simple water/weather/fire effects. Lizards are not the same as people and it seemed that the director put the CGI komodo dragons into shadows and dim light to negate their fakeness (it was lingering on their cheesy facial expressions that was a mistake).
Other than that, I saw it in IMAX and in a traditional multiplex and I really couldn't see any CGI that took away from the film, in my opinion. I usually pride (or curse) myself on being able to instantaneously spot any CGI. But only Silva's face was the most obvious and overdone use of CGI, and it would have been cheesy had it not been for Bardem's stellar performance.
It ain't no para-surfing tidal wave, that's for sure.
Vive le droit à la libre expression! Je suis Charlie!
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That made me chuckle too.
Followed by him being "Tombstoned" WWF style if I remember rightly! To be honest I thought that was the naffest part of the film but enjoyed it
Vive le droit à la libre expression! Je suis Charlie!
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www.cancerresearchuk.org
CGI is used more often with animals not only because of health and safety reasons, but likely also because of animal concerns.