March 5, 2025
Written by: Jaylin Emond-Hardin | Entertainment Editor
Lately, it seems that CGI, or computer-generated imagery, has steadily weakened since the days of “Pirates of the Caribbean” and the infamous Michael Bay “Transformers” movies. These lapses often leave moviegoers and critics alike disgruntled, which leads to the question: why has CGI declined in the last decade?
While Bay’s movie series was lackluster, the “Transformers” universe that he created showed fans that CGI was ever advancing. After all, it looked like Optimus Prime and Bumblebee would walk off the screen before our eyes.
Rassoul Edji, a visual effects — VFX — artist who worked on “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” explained in an interview that there’s just more work for the VFX teams and less time to do the amount that’s expected of them.
“Clients continually change the brief. Shot design and planning are no longer a priority, and we have a lot more work to get through in a shorter amount of time,” he said. “This means new work gets added to our plate and work we’ve already started (and sometimes even finished) gets scrapped. The ‘fix it in post’ mentality also doesn’t help.”
So the fingers shouldn’t be pointed at the VFX artists, but, rather, the studio and movie leadership team. Rushed filming and production schedules force artists to limit what their work is capable of, leaving CGI messy and unfinished.
However, Edji also pointed out the lack of practical effects as another reason. “VFX is often used as a crutch to fix issues which should be fixed on set. If (a movie) is planned well, changes aren’t constantly made and the VFX teams have enough time to create and refine it.
One of the best examples of Edji’s points has to be James Cameron’s “Avatar” series. Between “Avatar” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” are 13 years that Cameron and his team spent on perfecting the sequel, ensuring that their film was just how they wanted it. And in a series that is heavily dependent on CGI, this time paid off.
Of course, not all movie series can wait 13 years between movies. Even Cameron has shortened the period between movies to just three years, with “Avatar: Fire and Ash” releasing this December. But even Michael Bay spread his movies out in two to three year increments, polishing and perfecting each movie so they were lifelike.
The main issue is studios pushing for their movies to be churned out at a rate so fast that it feels like both VFX artists and viewers can’t keep up. After all, in the last five years alone Marvel has released 12 movies and 17 TV series, many of which already have multiple seasons, and is currently the biggest shoddy CGI offender that fans have complained about.
For the time being, it doesn’t seem like CGI is on track to improve, especially if studios keep pushing for a fast rollout of content; however, there are still studios and directors dedicated to providing the perfection that many have come to expect of big name studios.
Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu
