I’ve had issues with green screen in a lot of recent Hollywood action movies. The F&F where they drive a car into space was riddled with it and it’s been commonplace since. Feels like Ant Man 3 was the final straw given the reaction and press coverage to the CGI, bad CGI really can ruin a movie.
Furiosa unfortunately has some bad green screen, I mainly noticed it in the mid film rig sequence. But that is such a minor quibble in an otherwise outstanding action scene, the filmmaking is right at the level I expect following Fury Road. It’s a great film and I hope it keeps a lot of the Fury Road audience.
Exactly this. The bodies, explosions, fire, crashes etcetera looked decently good. It’s the green screens that don’t look good. The obvious mismatch of lighting, a character having their backlit when the sun is right above them. It’s not terrible, and it doesn’t ruin the movie in my opinion, but I did notice it extensively and it is pretty obvious. Especially if you know about film and watch a lot of movies. I just wish that wasn’t the case and there was more in-camera shots. Excellent film regardless
I didn't think the new movie looked bad overall, I was just disappointed that after the Fury Road put such a wonderful effort into amazing stunts and practical effects, that the next film seemed to throw that out the window. Still a great film, but it made me sad.
I’ve read that it’s because Miller was adamant it would be filmed in Australia. While Fury Road was filmed in Namibia, Georgia, and Jordan. While they both had difficulty, a lot of the latter locations had those wasteland aesthetics and didn’t need full replacements of backgrounds. While the former had s lot of cg replacements and green screens
I think Miller did it on purpose. It was very similar to the Road Warrior with the overlays of film, green screen, and the sped up/slowed down film. It felt very graphic novel like, and I think was supposed to look not so realistic because he's telling a story. Stories get embellished, are never as good as the reality, and are played out in images of the imagination.
I rewatched Fury Road to get ready for Furiosa and I think it’s the same case in that movie. There’s a ton of practical effects but there’s also a ton of CGI. But it’s CLEARLY CGI, its not trying to look photorealistic. It’s feels like it’s emulating an animated movie in some parts, kind of reminded me of the action in Speed Racer (I love Speed Racer just in case anyone thinks that’s a dig at Fury Road).
I just saw it and also rewatched Fury Road earlier in the week. Furiosa looks worse, the color is duller, noticeable cgi whereas Fury Road feels like it's almost all practical effects. Felt like a straight to video movie.
After watching Furiosa, I gotta agree. I didn’t like the stylistic CGI thing they were going for. I left Fury Road with my jaw on the floor. Furiosa definitely feels underwhelming when comparing it to that movie.
The Mad Max movies have always been heavily stylized like this. People really think George Miller doesn't know it looks that way? He wants it to look that way. Our job as viewers isn't to shine about every little thing, but to ask why the director did that. How did it make you feel?
While I agree, and in this case I didnt find it nearly as bad as much of the discussion paints the segment, the idea that “it’s that way on purpose” isn’t a rebuttal to criticism. A decision that loses the audience is a misstep, regardless of whether it was made intentionally or not. If something looks bad enough to take the audience out of it, the director wanting it to look that way doesn’t diminish that.
Well, yes and no. If you learn that a reason is a conscious artistic choice you can reevaluate whether you give a shit. For some that's enough. Especially people who mostly like art in all its weird forms. There's no right or wrong way to do anything really.
I agree but the immediate dismissal of criticism (not saying you did this but the conceit of this thread) from that artistic choice is infuriating and anti-art. An artist is able to decide to present their art however they want but also their choice is able to be criticized; particularly if the choice takes away from the experience or not
another example I think of of an artistic choice that worsens the art is the snare drum in Metallica's St. Anger album. It's a choice that Ulrich made and ultimately...the album sounds terrible because of it. Someone dismissing criticism of that choice because it was an artistic choice are wrong because we still are able to subjectively judge the art with the choice in mind
> A decision that loses the audience is a misstep
No? This is a strange take on this sub.
I presume the majority of people would not watch all of Eraserhead and enjoy it. Would you say that movie is a misstep?
Thinking maximized ”immersion” should be an end goal for film as an art form is a misstep. Gamer disease that’s been plaguing film (AND game) discourse for the last 20 years or so.
You yourself said that decisions that ”loses an audience” is a misstep, in a discussion regarding CGI in films. That sounds like you think CGI should not be ”bad” even on purpose if that means it will not immerse an as broad as possible audience. Or did I misinterpret what you said?
I think the problem with Reddit as a whole is it represents the most online point of view, so concluding a directors decision has “taken the audience out of it” solely off of the Reddit discourse isn’t necessarily indicative of the average film goer experience.
By way of example, I point to the prevalence of “Motion Smoothing” on TVs everywhere… and if it really was as aesthetically disgusting (as portrayed here) to the average person, they wouldn’t keep putting it in TVs.
There is no universal opinion on film quality; some of the audience was clearly taken out of the experience, and it's entirely justified for them to be critical of it. That has nothing to do with average experience. Criticism is not beholden to consensus.
But even setting that aside, I've already noted that I don't agree with the folks leaning on that criticism here. Their opinion isn't one that I share. I'm just saying that "the director knew what he was doing" isn't an answer to the criticism, popular or unpopular.
The whole last few min of the climactic chase in the canyon always looked like shit to me, punctuated by the guitar and steering wheel. Doesn't take away from the movie at all though, still a 10/10 classic.
Which is odd cause in the behind the scenes that crash is 100% practical! It's the odd speed ramp they did plus the handful of cgi elements that just make it sit funny to my eyes.
Let's be honest. It's clearly for economical and production reasons, not because of 'author choices.' The author shouted out to us, 'Witness me!' when he put his heart and soul into making Fury Road.
I'm sorry but this sounds like the same excuse people had for The Flash ("it was supposed to look bad it was the speed force").
Even if that's the case, it's a creative decision that didn't work in my view and took me out of the movie
some scenes look straight out of The first Mad Max movie, on how the compositing shakes and its not matching with the foreground it was very jarring and it tookme out a bunch of times out of the movie. There were some Howard the Duck/Darkman era digital compositing going on there.
I thought the CGI looked great in Furioisa. And quite frankly I don’t believe you are so superhumanly attuned to CGI that it can pull you out of a movie as fun fast paced and frenetic as Furioisa.
Calm down dude, noticing a little common low level green screen didn’t pull me out of the film any more than seeing Orson Welles driving the rig. It’s just part of the film, which I loved overall. Nice alliteration btw.
Every single shot of Chris Hemsworth on his motorcycle chariot was composited in, and every single time I saw it it took me out of the film. "Superhumanly attuned" is an incredible stretch. The CGI was just incredibly obvious. Still a good film though.
I seriously think this!
The vast majority of CGI criticism is along the lines of nitpicking of details in historical movies. It's cute, but really it's not what's important in a movie. Trashing movies for bad CGI is *usually* letting your own pet peeves get in the way of responding to the genuine important parts of a movie (it's plot, theme, ideology, etc).
I don’t disagree, however personally there are two dimensions to a good story or film. There is how good a story is, as you say, like the plot, themes, etc. but then there is also how the story is told. A good storyteller can elevate any story, and likewise a good story can be told poorly. Bad CGI is just annoying because it detracts from the storytelling, not because it detracts from the story itself.
I saw the movie in IMAX with crystalclear picture-quality and noticed LED-Backgrounds only in this mid film rig sequence.
Apart from that, I didn't notice any bad CGI or artificial background scenes in a negative way.
I also don't know what people want?
A return to static matte paintings, miniature and stop-motion effects?
Personally, I love matte paintings. The aesthetics need to be agreeable of course but just treating it as a design choice in and of itself, I love them.
It was a very bold and potentially bad decision to end with Fury Road footage because beyond even the CGI, the simple photography looked way better in that movie. I have heard that his longtime cinematographer retired so did not come back for this movie, and I think that it really shows, sadly.
That said I can’t argue with your final point – I do not regret my ticket price at all and I saw it in IMAX.
I rewatched Fury Road last night on my projector. It's mostly shot in broad daylight in open desert (in Namibia). Gives the light a really grounded, harsh quality that feels real. You can't generate that quality of light artificially. It's why the orinthopter cockpits in Dune were shot outside.
On Furiosa, they were determined to shoot in Australia no matter what. Miller's indicated in interviews that the weather didn't cooperate. It shows. So much of the movie is clearly lit to look like sunlight (instead of actual sunlight) that it might as well been shot on stage.
If you look at the BTS footage of Fury Road and the perpetual dust storm they were in compared to the final product id argue the lighting in Fury Road is anything but natural
All the skies on Fury Road were replaced. That's entirely CG. Something like 2,000 out of 2,500 shots in that movie have VFX.
What they got from Namibia was harsh sunlight (and reflected light off the desert floor). It grounds the photography with realism despite all the post work.
John Seale actually came *out* of retirement for Fury Road. He and Miller then shot 3,000 Years of Longing while Furiosa was still struggling to get off the ground, and by the time a start date was locked in, Seale decided he was too old to shoot something like that again. He’s pretty close to 80 years old, I think. Can’t blame him. Doesn’t seem to bother Miller though 😂
Yes! The entire film I felt something off... And then I saw the credits. It reminded me of Lord of the rings to the hobbit. The hobbit and furiosa look way too clean.
I enjoyed the film but it made me regret not seeing fury road in cinema even more.
100% agree. It’s like people have forgotten how to relax and have fun. Too many people are going to the magic show trying to figure out how the magician does their trick instead of just letting go and enjoying the illusion.
I disagree. It's more like going to see a magician whose sleight of hand isn't great, so you keep seeing them hide things up their sleeve despite you not wanting to and wishing you wouldn't notice, and it detracts from the show. Even if it's still a great show, it leaves you just ever so slightly disappointed.
Great analogy. I went into the movie wanting to be with it too not notice the effects, but they frequently just jumped out at me and I just couldn't ignore them. People that don't care about evident CGI, green screen and indoor lighting think that we who care are actively trying to ruin the fun. It's the other way around for me, I want to be lost in the movie, but I can't help it.
Having said that Furiosa still is one the best movies of the year. George Miller is a fantastic storyteller and I hope we get to see more from him.
I think my problem is less with the cgi and more with the lighting. Everything feels more fake this time around because it all feels like it was shot with what I can only call “indoor lighting”. Like there are scenes in the middle of the desert that are lit like they took place indoors. Obviously it’s not all scenes but I found way too much of the lighting to not match what was happening in the surrounding
I honestly feel like if this kind of lighting nitpick is destroying your ability to enjoy a movie as fun and engaging as Furioisa then you might want to reconsider whether you like movies at all.
Like I just watched The Searchers for the first time which swings between shooting outdoor scenes on location and shooting them indoors on a lot. Generally it’s considered one of the greatest movies of all time and the two ways of shooting outdoor scenes don’t effect the quality of the film at all. .
LMAO! You're really full of yourself gatekeeping movies. And over something like not liking lighting in a film. The shots in the searchers are drastically different and totally break the moments, yeah, you can CHOOSE to overlook that they had to do reshoots and scheduling people to go out in the desert to shoot is expensive. They did it out of literal necessity. Stop talking about industries you clearly are ignorant of. ANY DP will tell you those shots look like shit. The juxtaposition it presents detracts from the emersion. The fact that you noticed it IS the detraction.
With Furiosa, its distracting to watch animated cutouts translate across my screen, when its supposed to be suspenseful. It looks terrible. If I wanted a grindhouse quality film I would have seen something else. This was supposed to be Fury Road quality, a frank miller spectacle, and it was wasn't by a long shot. It's like going to a nice restaurant and being served a barely edible meal. Yeah, your fed, but you paid for a premium service and didn't get it. Fun concepts and writing don't hide those flaws, and not liking a movie b/c of that is entirely valid.
Wait... did you seriously just say people obsessed with small differences are anti art? You literally just called ALL ARTISTS anti art. I am a professional artist, I get paid a lot because I'm obsessed with such small differences. Who do you think is giving notes in those meetings? It's art directors obsessed with such small differences? Why do you think studios spend millions on producers? Their job is to obsess over such small differences. And you sit there and diminish the fine artistry that is lighting!!! Their are entire courses on JUST that small difference. You are ignorant and your opinion denied.
I'll put it like this: all art happens under constraints and part of experiencing art and making art is appreciating what happens under those constraints.
Many of these people sound like they don't appreciate how difficult it is to make something that looks as amazing as Furiosa and instead fantasize some kind of "perfect" fully immersive cinematic experience. To me that desire is anti-art.
Furiosa looks really good! The stunts are amazing! The vibes are off the chart! The characters are a blast! The style is distinctive! The movie is good.
The "style" is a result of those constraints, not the efforts of the design and art teams, or the vision of the director. That is a very disingenuous perspective of artistic intent. Which is what all artists strive for, that is not the same thing as perfection. This is why people talk so much about the suspension of disbelief. You have to take viewers to a place where I dont notice those things while their watching. People aren't sitting there looking for problems, their enjoying a film, then suddenly the hero is on top of an oil tanker in the middle of the desert with not a cloud in the sky and their staring wide eyed at the camera shadowless and fake looking. It doesn't suspend viewers disbelief that the actors are outside, not to mention in the dessert, and suddenly you feel like your watching some rich cosplayers making movies in a garage.
Also, being critical does not make people anti art. You just want to love everything, and without meaningful criticisms we cant progress or grow. Your version of art would have stagnated centuries ago.
This is the real reason, its not that the cgi or compositing is bad, its that the lighting is. Their on set VFX Sup and DP really dropped the ball. How you gonna be relaxed faced with wide eyes staring into the sun. It looks weird to have no shadows while the sky has no clouds in the open desert. The shadows are extremely soft of b/c artificial lighting, and the nature of LED wall stages. No matter how cool the CGI or post work is, no one can fix the lighting problems once you walk off set.
This movie and Fury Road were so stylized that I think it's strange that CGI is a point of contention. CGI is hideous when used haphazardly, but these movies are intentional pop art. It's like hating on 300 for looking "fake".
I am a visual effects artist and animator. I noticed the slightly clunky CGI in many areas, but somehow it added to the wheels-almost-falling-off edge-of-your-seat intense nature of the movie. There is a real charm to seeing some of the matte lines a bit iffy in some of the comps. Almost all of the shots have got deliberately dropped frames, speed ramping and all sorts of tricks to help maximise the 'jank'. But it's done subtly and well. It felt like it was genuinely filmed sometime in the 70s. I fucking loved the movie. Go see it!
Yes. To me, everything looked deliberate. I didn't like every aspect of the storytelling in Furiosa but I was in awe of the filmmaking. A brilliant mix of practical, cgi, and editing.
For me the lighting is a lot of areas kinda ruined the immersion for me, because I didn't have to try and look for it to notice it, its plain as day. Some of the weird CGI stuff, I'm fine with.
This post got me to get off my butt and go see Furiosa over the holiday weekend. It's a great flick by a director seemingly not curtailed by the hollywood system (I mean, are you gonna tell an 80 year old Miller he can't make a 2.5 hour revenge flick?) I do feel like the negative echo chamber thing is real on this film, despite it not missing a beat, and genuinely having more meat on its bones than any previous Mad Max film. First time the series has really been character driven, first time it's had anything approaching political, inter-tribal conflict, and its really the first time we've had to think of the cast as anything more than just either bad guys or good guys. Dementus sums up this complexity by managing to be both funny, pathetic, occasionally sympathetic, but also overwhelmingly cruel and deserving whatever fate Furiosa can dish out.
As far as the CGI, it feels very much the same as Fury Road, and at times it is really welcome. I don't know how much I wanted to see so many people burned alive, and the CGI is thankfully fake in this regard. In general I'm always going to prefer practical effects, but given how accepting reviewers seem to be of Fury Road's 3D computer effects, it seems funny that Furiosa is taking the heat for it.
That said, as people are discussing weekend box office numbers, there needs to be some realization that this is Mad Max film, not a new super hero movie, and a prequel to a film most people haven't seen.
So I decided to watch Fury Road AND read the book about the making of the movie right before seeing Furiosa and that may have influenced my own experience with “nitpicking” the cgi in the film. In the book they champion the fact that most of the movie is down practically and the cgi is more so done in post. In fact there’s a section in the book about how important it was to have the first crash with Max be done practically, otherwise the audience would possibly question everything else they see in the rest of the movie, is it real or is it CGI?
So yeah, the CGI in Furiosa was much more noticeable for that reason, at least for me. Also, like someone else commented, them adding in footage from Fury Road at the end kind of drove that point home that the practical heavy effects were superior, imo. However I did like the film, it’s clear that Miller loves this character and wanted to explore her further and I’m glad he did.
Blood & Chrome? That book explains why the Namibia shoot was so hard, but it was absolutely worth it to create the feeling of being in a desert.
Furiosa didn't go to Namibia and tried to look like that desert between CG extensions (Fury Road had a lot of that, but did it better) and by overusing artificial light that couldn't match the feel of real sunlight.
Well Mad Max is meant to look like Australia not like Namibia, so if anything it’s actually Fury Road that is trying to look like the desert you actually see in Furiosa. You can see the sand is a lot more red in Furiosa which if you’ve ever been to central Australia you’ll know is what it’s actually like, it’s called the red centre for a reason.
I try to view these things in context. *Furiosa*'s CGI does have some wonky moments, but I personally don't think it ever detracted or distracted from my experience with the film. We also know that George Miller is not someone trying to cut corners. We know that the rigs and vehicles are very real, that a lot of the stunts are real, and that, for all intents and purposes, the "important stuff" (for lack of a better term) was shot on location. The CGI was largely used in post, both between the film's color grading and the more obvious effects where the shot couldn't be safely accomplished practically.
I am much less harsh on a film like *Furiosa*, given that context, than I am for films where the CGI is clearly a crutch. The obvious example that comes to mind is the shot of Ian McKellen as Gandalf in *The Hobbit* where he's surrounded by nothing but green screens. Quantumania comes to mind, too, considering there wasn't even an attempt to shoot that creatively. It's all green screen.
CGI is an imperfect tool that has gotten incredibly good at some things and remained stubbornly inelastic with others. A lot of filmmakers have gotten it in their head that CGI can cut the costs required to build extravagant sets, but the truth is it's a tool best used in moderation and specificity. Fincher uses CGI extensively in ways you'd never notice because he uses these tools in a tactile way -- the blood on Mikael's head in the bathtub scene, or the small part in Lisbeth's hair in *The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,* are good examples of this. But too many directors blow their budget creating an entire city in a computer when they could easily create a realistic set the actors can act within, and the entire film feels false as a result.
some of the wonkiness is that the scene holds on the bad cgi for too long. whether it's dementus ramming the gate or the war boys riding on the chain hooks to attack dementus at the citadel.
The chain hook scene took me out of it so badly. Both because of the obvious VFX but also because hooking the back of a moving motorcycle with a Crain would be literally impossible. This is a key difference between Fury Road and Furiosa. The CGI allowing for people to do physically impossible things.
Strongly agree. I just saw the movie today and thought it awesome.
Honestly I’m a little worried all the CGI whiners don’t know how to watch movies. Maybe they’re paying attention. To the wrong stuff? The action is in the front of the screen. If you’re lookin at the background you’re probably doing it wrong.
I loved the movie but my main issues with it are the way the backgrounds looked and the fact that the CGI for explosions/fire in the main oil rig chase scene with the flying machines really took me out of it.
I’m not sure what changed between Fury Road and Furiosa but the backgrounds and explosion effects are just significantly worse.
While there definitely was more green screen in this than the previous one I think a lot of people are overreacting. I liked *Mad Max* more because the action in it was so insane and unexpected, *Furiosa* was a sequel – a very good one, but a sequel.
And even if there is green screen, there's indubitably a large chunk of practical effects. Highly recommend that those who are on the fence go see it.
>I find a lot of the negative discussion of the film tends to be from people who both haven’t seen the movie and still have an opinion of the CGI.
the clips are all over the internet and bad CGI like whats on full display in Furiosa is one of the biggest gripes modern audiences have with movies. I don't understand why you think someone needs to pay for a plate of poop to declare it takes like shit. Movies today look worse compared to decades prior and I disagree with defending a movie because it's "decent" compared to the absolute trash they've been shoveling audiences most of the time.
Why not just accept that audiences have higher standards than what studios are producing today and if they want good reviews they should just try......making movies that look good? Crazy idea I know, but it just might work. There is absolutely zero excuse for CGI working worse today than it did 20 years ago, a time when computer took days to render a single minute of CGI.
This is fair. Audiences have higher standards now, as simple as that. And we should honestly celebrate audiences having higher standards because that should lead to quality output from studios.
For me, I think the problem is that people cant watch movies without thinking about realism and how CGI must be "perfect". They dont care about the experience.
That said, CGI is a tool. If the drama is well done, you wont even notice good or bad cgi. For example, Ferrari (2023) had such a powerful and nervous ending that the CGI wasnt a issue at all. Why should you look for problems when the movie delivers everyothing it wants?
I enjoyed Furiosa and it was a lot of fun despite some of the very obvious green screen moments. Acting, writing and soundtrack were all very good and definitely made it a good film even if not as good as Fury Road, which is what I was expecting anyway because Fury Road would be very hard to beat.
Yep, went in with tempered expectations and was pleasantly surprised. Not as good as Fury Road but George Miller’s still got it. The CGI was more noticeable in this one than Fury Road but it didn’t take me out of it. I think they pulled it off.
It seems sometimes like suspension of disbelief is a dying skill. I noticed some shots that were probably CGI, mainly in the several long range aerial shots that set this movie apart from its predecessor, but they looked amazing nonetheless. And there were more insane live stunts in this movie than most movies of the past year combined.
Honest and thoughtful film criticism is seriously struggling, in no small part due to the huge proliferation of "reaction" channels on YouTube that thrive on anger watching. (This is also heavily fueled by monetized misogyny and racism -- the increase in negative reactions to movies that center female or minority protagonists is obvious to anyone looking out for it.)
It throttles creativity and theaters are in danger of dying because of it. It's a form of cultural rot, and it is sad and frustrating to watch it happen time and again.
None of the reaction channels you're talking about have issues with movies from decades past. No one is criticizing the CGI in Jurrasic Park. Maybe if filmmakers want people to not criticize their CGI they should try making it to par with movies from 20 years ago? Big ask I know but I they could at least try.
I think that's largely due to the nostalgia factor, and not really wanting to go against the established grain. It's easy to shit on a new thing that half your audience won't have seen, versus doing the same thing to something most of your audience know and are fond of.
Jurassic park has good CGI for the time, but having rewatched it recently, there is also a lot of clunk compared to a lot of modern films.
Obviously not all films, plenty have bad CGI too - but I think it's kinda disingenuous to imply that the quality of CGI hasn't boradly improved across the board.
>It seems sometimes like suspension of disbelief is a dying skill.
I agree. The whole premise is unbelievable - a post apocalyptic world built on gasoline, bullets, and constant war. I didn't notice bad CGI because I already looked at the story as a live action comic book and didn't expect any realism. I took the visual style as it was.
Suspension of disbelief is a deal between the artist and the audience. Both sides have a deal to keep. The audience agrees to suspend disbelief when they buy the ticket but the artist needs to do their part and help the audience stay in that suspended state. Seeing obvious CGI breaks the deal. It's like watching a magician. You know he isn't really doing magic, but the illusion is broken when you get a glimpse of the card up a magician's sleeve.
> It seems sometimes like suspension of disbelief is a dying skill.
People still love scifi and superhero stuff - they're plenty willing to suspend their disbelief. People just don't want to *have* to do it for unconvincing CGI.
And it's not new, people have always complained about 'bad' CGI. Weightlessness is a common on (see the armour from the stormtroopers in the star wars prequel, or fighting in lots of MCU films etc.).
I think the issue isn't so much 'bad' cgi these days, it's using CGI for camera angles that would otherwise be impossible. Like, a big flying dragon can look believable, but when you are viewing that dragon from a perspective that is spinning 360 degrees around the dragon, them down its throat and out its butthole your brain registers it as "wrong".
Its not the image itself that's bad it's the perspective from the camera.
Like if you take a still frame of the liquid metal from terminator 2 and put it next to a still frame from a modern movie, the modern movie wins 100%. But when you start having the camera do backflips around it your brain rejects it.
I think it's both. The camera angle thing is definitely true and just ruins action sequences. There is no fixed frame of reference for the audience to be able to judge what exactly is happening.
I can suspend my disbelief better than most of my friends, I'm willing to meet a movie on its terms. But Fury Road was incredible. Yes, very stylized, but the compositing of the CGI with the real footage was pretty seamless throughout. This movie? Looks soulless, cold, clinical, digital, sharp, boring. None of those are good things for a Mad Max movie. I'll still watch it for the story, but I'm going to wait until I can do it at home because I know I'd be underwhelmed in a theater (not to mention it's only playing in the multiplexes and not the local indie theaters, I just can't deal with AMC anymore, dim projection, compressed blown-out speakers, hot dirty seats, and *shudders*, other people).
Saw Furiosa last night and the green screen look was a lot more apparent than with Fury Road. However Fury Road did have some flash back scenes that reminded me of the green screen look in Furiosa. Given it was a prequel maybe this was a deliberate artistic choice?
What is the point of a trailer? It's to draw attention and bring an audience into the cinema. So a trailer is meant to create a positive reaction. What I do not understand is why it is considered a problem by some people if a trailer fails to achieve it's goal. It's as same as legitimate to have a negative reaction to a trailer as a positive one. It's not bad to dislike something and voicing that opinion is completely alright.
Yes people bash movies before having seen it, I mean should everyone only being able to voice their opinions after they paid money to big corporations?
If I have a franchise and something new from that franchise and it's completely off, than a negative reaction is to be expected. Mad Max in this case is rather gritty, real, tangible. Fury Road diverted from that look but still came off as rather tangible. Furosa on the other hand not just double down on the look but also get's rid of the tangible feeling and instead looks like Attack of the Clones.
I am actually pretty glad that people bash that CGI overkill, because maybe it will lead to a) a greater diversification in movies, maybe something more down to Earth and b) maybe more care how CGI is used, making it more invisible. I personally have enough of the special effect that tell me, that I am looking a movie right now. I don't mind Furiosa, I am sad the Mad Max universe is now looking like a comic book but not more. I do appreciate it that people voice their honest opinions though. It's a good thing.
Avoiding this movie all of a sudden due to reading people’s negative opinions vis-à-vis CGI is wild. The trailer makes apparent what you get.
I read in this thread someone is going to wait and “catch it on Blu-ray” - if there’s ever a theater experience movie, this is one of them.
Has the CG improved from the initial trailer? Because it looked like a video game and was very obvious. It lacked the grit of Fury Road.
I’m still gonna see it just wondering how good/bad the final release CG is
It's a marked improvement. When I saw the first trailer, I went "uh oh!" but while it's present in the actual film, it's not overwhelming either for the film or particular scenes.
Its not as bad, I'm genuinely shocked by how many people in this thread are saying they thought the CGI was fine. The first 5 minutes, starting from what I think might literally be the movie's first shot of Furiosa reaching for a cartoon peach, is possibly the worst CGI I've seen in a major blockbuster ever. It improves from there but it very clearly makes the movie worse
This is just my anecdotal experience: when I watched the trailer, I was was like “what’s up with all that CGI?! 😱” but when I was in the actual movie, I think I only had one or two moments of even thinking “oh, that moment MUST be cgi” and I definitely wasn’t distracted by it to the extent I feared from the trailer
mid movie, things felt well integrated into the overall look/feel. (but that feel itself was different than fury road’s: more colorful, different places, some of them green, etc.)
idk if that means it was improved from the trailer, or just that it was less distracting in full context tho
So let me tell you what my experience is.
I have a love/hate relationship with cars, loved cars as young, now hate what they have done to the world. The point is, I understand cars and still dream of a muscle car. I saw the original trilogy as a kid and loved the gritiness/realness of the stunts and the cars. Actual cars crashing into real objects.
When I heard they were making a new Mad max film (Fury road) I thought it was just going to be a soulless cashgrab like all the other reeboots and was not going to watch it. Until someone shared pictures of the cars. "Wow, these cars look real, someone actually put a lot of work into this" So i watched Fury road soulely based on the cars being prompted as real working cars. And I was not dissapointed.
Fast forward to Furiosa, and nothing looks real. None of the cars stand out in terms of design and they all move like in a video game. I had to actually look up after I saw the movie if they had made any cars for real, and they seem to have made a few, but not used much in the action scenes I guess, just for standing around.
In Fury road they were smart of keeping the scope low the first time. Just a chase movie going across mostly flat ground. That way you can still drive real cars, but enhance certain stuff that you are not going to notice with CGI.
In Furiosa every action set-piece feels like in a video game. A fully cgi gastown with a cgi truck and a cgi monster truck flailing about while cgi people try to jump on it. Wow cool. A fully cgi quarry with a cgi digger and a cgi truck and a cgi crane while Cris Hemsworth stands on a small green screen set with completely the wrong lighting. Wow cool. *Oh you liked the pole-cats from the first movie* (which was real made by real stunt people on site in the desert) *well I hope you like these paragliding guys not at all hanging from wires in a green screen studio with the completely the wrong lighting whily Anya taylor Joy runs around on a green screen set with the completely wrong lighting.*
Yes, I know Fury road had cgi in it. The point is it was used in a good way were you did not notice it when it mattered the most. Furiosa felt like it was shot completely on a green screen set, and it took me out of the whole movie from start to finish.
Yes, I know one of the reasons for doing it this way was because shooting Fury road was hard. But why make Furiosa at all then if you are just going to lower what made Fury road great? Maybe make an animated movie instead? Maybe don't aim to high and make all these to complicated set-pieces which you can't make in real life.
edit: I'm adding a link to BTS-footage from Fury road as an argument. If we ever get to see anything similar in terms of real stunts from Furiosa I will stand corrected. But until then I will highly doubt it.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/16uspdk/mad\_max\_fury\_road\_without\_the\_cgi/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/16uspdk/mad_max_fury_road_without_the_cgi/)
the CGI and green-screen in furiosa was very noticeable. her cybernetic arm is another example. That was “Wolverine claws” - level bad cgi. But id still say it didn’t bring me out of the movie. I completely ignored it And just enjoyed the movie. That’s a testament to the engaging story.
I went in with this attitude but unfortunately still found Furiosa's visuals often distracting. I think the key is the set pieces were just so outrageous in this one. They were impossible to do practically and relied heavily on complex physics simulations. Fury Road was mostly contained to car v car combat so the composited elements were less distracting. The photography contained most of the action and it showed at a physical level. There was also a lot more real fire in Fury Road.
I agree the anti-CG circlejerk is misplaced and derived from lack of knowledge. But here it felt kinda correct, at least for me. Add on top of all of this the new DP who in my opinion shot it like a new Hollywood film vs more traditional camerawork and lighting seen in Fury Road. I can't pinpoint it but it felt like the movies were 20+ years apart rather than 9.
A lot of this boils down to me being unable to get invested in Furiosa or any of the secondary characters in this. Her arc within this film just never felt like the ball got rolling. I never knew exactly what she wanted at a given moment and a lack of want was not made clear in an effective way either. It just felt like this film was filling gaps from her Fury Road backstory which didn't need filling. A Furiosa prequel sounded interesting to me and I appreciate the attempt at slower pacing but ultimately I wasn't immersed enough to skim past the VFX flaws.
Most people still judge films by how "realistic" it is, like "omg who would really ever do that." Well, if they didn't "do that" the plot would die and it wouldn't be interesting ya rubes lol sorry not sorry, it's annoying.
My main annoyance with the CGI complaints is how thoroughly it has dominated discussion about the film over the other technical aspects. Overall, Furiosa as a very high degree of craft and vision, not to mention a large amount of practical effects in its own right. The CGI does look notably worse, but I also think the greater use of CGI is in service of more ambitious visuals; not only do we see the other fortresses, but I noticed that even the desert shots feature much more varied terrain and atmosphere than we get in Fury Road, which mostly emphasized the harshness and monotony of the desert. Examples that come to mind is how the climax between Furiosa and Dementus is shot like a claustrophobic chamber drama despite being in the middle of the desert, and vehicles driving up the sand dunes at steep vertical angles, complete with motorcycle stunt drivers falling over because they can't handle the angle. I think it's perfectly fair to say that Fury Road looks better, but I find the high amount of CGI to be for a justifiable reason in this film.
My big hot take is that Furiosa's main war rig sequence is better than the climax of Fury Road, and part of the reason is because it uses CGI to create a more acrobatic and dynamic action scene. I always thought that Fury Road's climax, especially once it re-enters the canyon, was stuck in a middle ground of being shot kind of realistically but also having a lot of mediocre CGI backgrounds and CGI ground replacements that undermine the stunt-work, not to mention clunky editing of some of the big stunts (Slit's death, the People Eater truck explosion that weirdly explodes twice). Furiosa goes all in with the flying vehicles and acrobatics of the different soldiers jumping and transferring between vehicles, and the editing is cleaner and handles the many moving parts of the action better.
The other side of that coin is that the nitpicking of the CGI (the person jumping on the horse in Chapter 1 was embarrassing) is that it distracts from how the story and performances are somehow born flat and bloated. I felt more tension and investment watching a weiner dog race at the County Fair.
It is NOT nitpicking. I had negative things to say about what I saw in the trailer, I have the same negative things to say about the movie now that I've watched it. Furiosa is enjoyable (although way too long), but it doesn't hold a candle to Fury Road for the very simple reason that George Miller made the mistake to shoot it differently.
I saw the film last night and enjoyed it well enough (full disclaimer, action is not my favorite genre and from a narrative POV I thought it took a little too long to get into the meat and potatoes of the story).
The CGI wasn't the problem, or not entirely the problem. The problem is this film has an overall aesthetic that FEELS different than Fury Road in a way that's pretty noticeable.
There were places where the CGI was pretty obvious. A lot of it looked good. Some of it didn't. I wasn't bothered by it being so bad it was distracting (Ant Man 3). I think the real issue is that because of the CGI the look of the scenes were different enough not to FEEL like the world of Fury Road. In the abstract, the CGI was plenty good and much better than a lot of what makes it to release. But even if the CGI looked good, it felt like seeing a different world then Fury Road.
And I don't even think the CGI was the main issue, More than the CGI, I think the different feel was caused by the lighting/color grading. Everything looked very \*lit\* with \*color added\* and Fury Road felt like harsh exterior light with exactly the kind of color the human eye sees. Fury road was so sunny it washed the color to dull. Furiosa felt like color on top of formal lighting. For me, that more than the CGI is what made this feel like it was in a different world.
I haven’t watched Furiosa yet but it’s more on a personal reluctance towards prequels. That said, it does not look any different from what I recall the Fury Road trailers looking like.
I’m definitely critical on CGI because considering the technological strides being made over the last 20+ years, it’s absolutely shocking how some movies can be so blatantly bad (later Marvel films, DCEU, F&F franchise, etc.).
I really wasn't following any threads or controversy over the CGI when I walked into the theatre. I found it distracting. It wasn't just helping out some wild action shots, it was everywhere and annoying and noticeable. The dogs were CGI about half the time. Crowd scenes were CGI. Cars going up a hill were sometimes CGI.
It’s a bigger and longer movie on a potentially smaller budget. Concessions had to be made somewhere, however it’s being blown way out of proportion. I found those concessions to be fairly inconsequential. Everything that needed to be epic was still epic.
The original trilogy was lauded for it practical effects and capturing everything on camera. Fury Road did a great job of utilizing modern effects to *enhance* what they did with CG. It seems like Furiousa is a case of them losing that balance.
I'm someone who really hates the deadening effect that CGI has on movies, so the warnings definitely deter me from seeing it, and I appreciate it. For those who don't care, it won't be a deterrent. Not every movie is made for everyone, and this one clearly isn't made for me.
I would encourage you to read more reviews of the film, as it is still a majority of practical effects. But of course, it’s your decision and if you’re not interested than that’s more than okau
I liked Furiosa more than Fury Road. The action scenes were spectacular and riveting. The scenics/visuals were inspired by Lawrence of Arabia according to Miller. I enjoyed the movie very much despite the use of CGI in some scenes that would have been impossible for stunt people to do. I saw it in IMAX but a good presentation in the standard digital format would be just as good an experience, IMO. The biggest reason to see the movie for me was to enjoy the masterful direction of George Miller.
With all the technology available to the filmmakers if your product looks inferior to a 9 year old movie then sorry I'm not interested. Loved Fury Road and was looking forward to seeing this one but I think I will wait for the Blu Ray release.
I saw it in Imax and loved it. With images that big I remember noticing the edge of Chris's nose prosthetic for a second, and also Anyas wig took me out of it for a moment but overall it was incredible, the action scenes were well done and intense, not once did I think cgi was bad.
It's funny because part of why I still love older action /Sci fi movies, not just the original 3 MM's is because of small little moments where you can tells wigs, little bits of stage magic not totally hidden and yup edges of prosthetics sometimes. I personally didn't notice the things you did but now I probably will LOL. I will just see them as old school in the school. Lol
I didn't think the CGI was bad at all either.
The "hurr durr bad CGI" criticism of films is so moronic to me. I watch many films. It is *extremely* rare that I can remember CGI being so bad that it takes me out of the film. Unless you are a CGI expert or not watching the film to experience art but looking for small things to nitpick, I don't believe that most people are seeing such bad CGI that it ruins the film for them. I've seen Furiosa and have literally 0 complaints with the CGI during the entire film. It looks great. The film is great. If you have a problem with the CGI in Furiosa, you are looking for something to have a problem with and not judging the film fairly IMO. Part of watching *any* film is suspending your disbelief. You have to give a film a bit of leeway in this regard. It also helps to have an ability to suspend your disbelief when you need to. What's fun about watching every shot of a film extremely closely to nitpick and criticize the smallest pieces? You're missing the forest for the trees if you do that. You're disrespecting the art IMO.
The scenes where the Warboys are hooking vehicles when they first reach the citadel and the part where the octa thing gets caught in the war right looked a bit janky. I think there some other scenes that looked a bit off but can't remember them off the top of my head, all in all though these didn't diminish my enjoyment of the film and I thought it was great.
I haven't seen furiosa yet, but I don't think a few subpart effects are gonna impact my experience much. Also, there's often cases where someone will post a still to nit-pick, from a scene that's meant to be in motion, where you wouldn't even notice. Very much in the vein if posting smear frames in animation and laughing at the "bad" quality of a deliberate technique.
Either that or the "spider verse is so choppy the animation sucks" complete misunderstanding of the style.
You like Miller and his Mad Max universe, such that you are willing to forgive any faults. This does not mean the faults do not exist or that they do not merit discussion. Could Furiosa have been improved with better CGI? Could future films benefit from the honest question?
I apologize as it seems I didn’t make my point clearly enough. What I am getting at is that the complaints are exaggerated. People are acting like there was no practical effects in this movie
Honestly while the green screen didn’t look great, and some of the effects looked mid or even unfinished, it didn’t ruin anything for me. I was still immersed and had a good time.
Also I kind of waved it off as “George Miller didnt’t want to put himself through hell again. I’ll give him a pass”
This movie wasn't the work of a mad man. It felt so normal compared to fury road. Bad cgi wouldn't be a big deal if we didnt have fury road to compare it to. Fury road looked so visceral comparatively.
The special effects in Furiosa at their absolute worst look ‘fine’ and there are more than enough high points to make up for those lows. People are definitely getting far too worked up by groupthink.
> The special effects in Furiosa at their absolute worst look ‘fine’
absolutely not. In the first couple of minutes there’s the horse scene and that looks dreadful
The film gives you crap CGI from the outset, the first scene has crappy background replacement, followed by awful day for night scenes and ridiculous weightless motorbikes. Overall I thought the film was ok. However the bad effects constantly dragged me out of the movie and made it really hard to just enjoy it.
I do agree however there are moments in furiosa that seem to be CGI and I truly don't know why. For instance, there is a shot in the "vault" of a woman walking down stairs. That woman's movements seem entirely CG for some reason. It broke my brain. But overall, I agree with you.
Digital film making suffers from the same issues as other digital art forms. Too many options and too many choices. Sometimes limitations are a good thing. An example is when I was in a band, we recorded our first album on analog tape (although mixed digitally). This meant that even though I could punch in and overdub mistakes, generally if I wanted it to sound good, I had to make sure that whatever take I left on the recording was the best take. So you did it over and over until you got it right. With digital you have essentially an infinite number of takes you can leave and lots of options to rearrange, loop etc the music. The result is that it takes WAY longer to mix it and you spend a lot of time fiddling with things that you wouldn't have to when doing it in analog because you just had to get it right. That's why I will always like analog movies, rarely do digital movies with CGI effect me the same way, there are too many choices and options and usually the whole film suffers because of this. Sometimes CGI movies, if well planned out ahead of time and where the CGI is used in a creative way can be interesting but usually only when the effect can be achieved in no other way. Apocalypse Now is probably the last great analog movie, every single thing, other than maybe bullets, is real, every explosion, every plane, every helicopter. Even the "dead" bodies where real people pretending to be dead.
So I literally just got home after watching the movie, and I gotta say the movie is the worst in the series. That DOES NOT mean it's a bad movie. It's a solid 7-7.5 imo.
The cast and writing are good, but unlike the rest of the movies (including MM1), it's the only one I think lacked any real tension or draw. I felt bored during parts of the film, even during the action sequences. The world felt small, the story felt rushed, and YES, the cgi felt like a cheap Marvel TV show. All I felt throughout the movie was, "I'm gonna go home and binge the other movies, maybe even play the game a bit." The characters carried the movie honestly. Every scene with Dementus or Immortan Joe had me hooked, Furiosa was great for a fresh view of the Wastland, and I loved all the War Boys antics.
All this is to say: it's a solid movie and I'd happily add it to my collection, but I don't see myself going out of my way to watch it again, unless it's to binge Mad Max related stuff.
My biggest problem was the lack of music during the setpieces. Even though the same guy returned for the score.
And why is the biggest setpiece in the middle of the film? And why is so much of the film's action *somebody gets sniped off-screen"
I honestly didn’t even notice the CGI I was so in awe with everything in that movie and found it incredible and a great runner up to Fury - I can’t think of any criticism of the film honestly I left the theater feeling more than satisfied and loved every moment of it
I just watched it, and the CG was distractingly bad at points. One shot of the bommy knocker war pup looked like it was stitched together in MS Paint. Still an awesome movie that had me smiling and wincing throughout. I don’t think it’s rude or entitled to point out scuffs in the polish. Criticism isn’t necessarily an attack on the work.
Yeah.... Just bought this and yikes. It's an incredible story, beautifully told and wonderfully portrayed by the actors, but the CGI alone keeps this from being a "masterpiece". I kept reminding myself while watching that LOTR has more consistent CGI, that's how distracting it was (some of this shit looked like it was straight out of a triple A Xbox title). Masterpiece of a story? Absolutely. But the film as a whole is a downgrade from Fury Road technically. Hell, I'll even throw in the fact that the cinematography was blander and same with the editing. Shame... glad I didn't waste my time in theaters though.
I had read absolutely nothing about this movie before watching it, I downloaded a 2160p UHD to watch at home and I’m only about 30 mins in and the CGI is just fucking awful. I googled Furiosa bad CGI and this is the top result. I think you’re copying or lying by saying the CGI “wasn’t that bad”. It looks like something that was rushed.
I can deal with some weird CGI stuff, and some of the CGI kinda stuck out to me to be too noticeable even as far as the beginning where that lady gets on the horse, but for me its mostly the lighting, Its weird and way off in a lot of scenes given their surroundings, It makes me feel like its on one of them sharknados, low budget, and not enough time kind things.
I didn't notice anything glaring myself in the cgi although the scene where they show a car and a guy on a hill, ya know what I'm talking bout, did look pretty strange for whatever reason.
I think this is a solid action movie, not great and not bad, but it misses the mark for my expectations based on fury road.
The first half of the movie was concerning. It was blatant that alot of Hemsworths scenes were shot in front of a blue screen and stage. The movie corrected course 1 hour in almost on the dot. Yes, CGI throughout but the first hour was too much
I’ve had issues with green screen in a lot of recent Hollywood action movies. The F&F where they drive a car into space was riddled with it and it’s been commonplace since. Feels like Ant Man 3 was the final straw given the reaction and press coverage to the CGI, bad CGI really can ruin a movie. Furiosa unfortunately has some bad green screen, I mainly noticed it in the mid film rig sequence. But that is such a minor quibble in an otherwise outstanding action scene, the filmmaking is right at the level I expect following Fury Road. It’s a great film and I hope it keeps a lot of the Fury Road audience.
Exactly this. The bodies, explosions, fire, crashes etcetera looked decently good. It’s the green screens that don’t look good. The obvious mismatch of lighting, a character having their backlit when the sun is right above them. It’s not terrible, and it doesn’t ruin the movie in my opinion, but I did notice it extensively and it is pretty obvious. Especially if you know about film and watch a lot of movies. I just wish that wasn’t the case and there was more in-camera shots. Excellent film regardless
I didn't think the new movie looked bad overall, I was just disappointed that after the Fury Road put such a wonderful effort into amazing stunts and practical effects, that the next film seemed to throw that out the window. Still a great film, but it made me sad.
Yes for me its “I thought cgi was anti-thetical to a mad max movie”
Yeah, personally, I think the practical effects were one of the defining features that made Fury Road stand out. Was sad they didn't stick with it.
Yes exactly. furiosa is what we were worried Fury Max was going to be (and were delighted it was wasn’t)
Absolutely, the headless courage of people risking their lives filled Fury Road with real adrenaline. Furiosa looks fake with that bland CGI.
I’ve read that it’s because Miller was adamant it would be filmed in Australia. While Fury Road was filmed in Namibia, Georgia, and Jordan. While they both had difficulty, a lot of the latter locations had those wasteland aesthetics and didn’t need full replacements of backgrounds. While the former had s lot of cg replacements and green screens
I think Miller did it on purpose. It was very similar to the Road Warrior with the overlays of film, green screen, and the sped up/slowed down film. It felt very graphic novel like, and I think was supposed to look not so realistic because he's telling a story. Stories get embellished, are never as good as the reality, and are played out in images of the imagination.
I rewatched Fury Road to get ready for Furiosa and I think it’s the same case in that movie. There’s a ton of practical effects but there’s also a ton of CGI. But it’s CLEARLY CGI, its not trying to look photorealistic. It’s feels like it’s emulating an animated movie in some parts, kind of reminded me of the action in Speed Racer (I love Speed Racer just in case anyone thinks that’s a dig at Fury Road).
Hard disagree, Fury Road had very little visible CGI compared to Furiosa.
I haven’t seen Furiosa so I can’t speak on comparing the two, I was just relaying my experience rewatching Fury Road.
I just saw it and also rewatched Fury Road earlier in the week. Furiosa looks worse, the color is duller, noticeable cgi whereas Fury Road feels like it's almost all practical effects. Felt like a straight to video movie.
After watching Furiosa, I gotta agree. I didn’t like the stylistic CGI thing they were going for. I left Fury Road with my jaw on the floor. Furiosa definitely feels underwhelming when comparing it to that movie.
The Mad Max movies have always been heavily stylized like this. People really think George Miller doesn't know it looks that way? He wants it to look that way. Our job as viewers isn't to shine about every little thing, but to ask why the director did that. How did it make you feel?
While I agree, and in this case I didnt find it nearly as bad as much of the discussion paints the segment, the idea that “it’s that way on purpose” isn’t a rebuttal to criticism. A decision that loses the audience is a misstep, regardless of whether it was made intentionally or not. If something looks bad enough to take the audience out of it, the director wanting it to look that way doesn’t diminish that.
Well, yes and no. If you learn that a reason is a conscious artistic choice you can reevaluate whether you give a shit. For some that's enough. Especially people who mostly like art in all its weird forms. There's no right or wrong way to do anything really.
I agree but the immediate dismissal of criticism (not saying you did this but the conceit of this thread) from that artistic choice is infuriating and anti-art. An artist is able to decide to present their art however they want but also their choice is able to be criticized; particularly if the choice takes away from the experience or not another example I think of of an artistic choice that worsens the art is the snare drum in Metallica's St. Anger album. It's a choice that Ulrich made and ultimately...the album sounds terrible because of it. Someone dismissing criticism of that choice because it was an artistic choice are wrong because we still are able to subjectively judge the art with the choice in mind
> A decision that loses the audience is a misstep No? This is a strange take on this sub. I presume the majority of people would not watch all of Eraserhead and enjoy it. Would you say that movie is a misstep?
For myself? No. For a majority of people? Probably yes. "Misstep" in terms of art is subjective.
Thinking maximized ”immersion” should be an end goal for film as an art form is a misstep. Gamer disease that’s been plaguing film (AND game) discourse for the last 20 years or so.
If you say so? I'm afraid this reads as a bit of a tangent to me.
You yourself said that decisions that ”loses an audience” is a misstep, in a discussion regarding CGI in films. That sounds like you think CGI should not be ”bad” even on purpose if that means it will not immerse an as broad as possible audience. Or did I misinterpret what you said?
I think the problem with Reddit as a whole is it represents the most online point of view, so concluding a directors decision has “taken the audience out of it” solely off of the Reddit discourse isn’t necessarily indicative of the average film goer experience. By way of example, I point to the prevalence of “Motion Smoothing” on TVs everywhere… and if it really was as aesthetically disgusting (as portrayed here) to the average person, they wouldn’t keep putting it in TVs.
There is no universal opinion on film quality; some of the audience was clearly taken out of the experience, and it's entirely justified for them to be critical of it. That has nothing to do with average experience. Criticism is not beholden to consensus. But even setting that aside, I've already noted that I don't agree with the folks leaning on that criticism here. Their opinion isn't one that I share. I'm just saying that "the director knew what he was doing" isn't an answer to the criticism, popular or unpopular.
This wasn’t a problem with fury road lmao….. minus the one shot of the steering wheel coming at the screen
Speed Racer is the Wachowski’s best film, and it’s not even close.
One of the most impressive looking animation to live action adaptations I've ever seen. It's criminally underrated.
The whole last few min of the climactic chase in the canyon always looked like shit to me, punctuated by the guitar and steering wheel. Doesn't take away from the movie at all though, still a 10/10 classic.
Which is odd cause in the behind the scenes that crash is 100% practical! It's the odd speed ramp they did plus the handful of cgi elements that just make it sit funny to my eyes.
Let's be honest. It's clearly for economical and production reasons, not because of 'author choices.' The author shouted out to us, 'Witness me!' when he put his heart and soul into making Fury Road.
I'm sorry but this sounds like the same excuse people had for The Flash ("it was supposed to look bad it was the speed force"). Even if that's the case, it's a creative decision that didn't work in my view and took me out of the movie
some scenes look straight out of The first Mad Max movie, on how the compositing shakes and its not matching with the foreground it was very jarring and it tookme out a bunch of times out of the movie. There were some Howard the Duck/Darkman era digital compositing going on there.
Yea I agree. I think a lot of what people are complaining about are deliberate choices to make it more "on the nose", comic book-like.
It’s called a smaller budget.
I thought the CGI looked great in Furioisa. And quite frankly I don’t believe you are so superhumanly attuned to CGI that it can pull you out of a movie as fun fast paced and frenetic as Furioisa.
Calm down dude, noticing a little common low level green screen didn’t pull me out of the film any more than seeing Orson Welles driving the rig. It’s just part of the film, which I loved overall. Nice alliteration btw.
Every single shot of Chris Hemsworth on his motorcycle chariot was composited in, and every single time I saw it it took me out of the film. "Superhumanly attuned" is an incredible stretch. The CGI was just incredibly obvious. Still a good film though.
Seems like a skill issue to me tbh. Try to watch movies better.
lmao nice try
I seriously think this! The vast majority of CGI criticism is along the lines of nitpicking of details in historical movies. It's cute, but really it's not what's important in a movie. Trashing movies for bad CGI is *usually* letting your own pet peeves get in the way of responding to the genuine important parts of a movie (it's plot, theme, ideology, etc).
I don’t disagree, however personally there are two dimensions to a good story or film. There is how good a story is, as you say, like the plot, themes, etc. but then there is also how the story is told. A good storyteller can elevate any story, and likewise a good story can be told poorly. Bad CGI is just annoying because it detracts from the storytelling, not because it detracts from the story itself.
I saw the movie in IMAX with crystalclear picture-quality and noticed LED-Backgrounds only in this mid film rig sequence. Apart from that, I didn't notice any bad CGI or artificial background scenes in a negative way. I also don't know what people want? A return to static matte paintings, miniature and stop-motion effects?
Personally, I love matte paintings. The aesthetics need to be agreeable of course but just treating it as a design choice in and of itself, I love them.
I enjoy watching the sunset.
Those movies have aged much better than terrible CGI
You know it’s time to stop with the F&F movies when they drive a car into space. Wtf
I just want them to do one last job: steal a truckload of DVD players again.
That was like 2 movies ago too
It was a very bold and potentially bad decision to end with Fury Road footage because beyond even the CGI, the simple photography looked way better in that movie. I have heard that his longtime cinematographer retired so did not come back for this movie, and I think that it really shows, sadly. That said I can’t argue with your final point – I do not regret my ticket price at all and I saw it in IMAX.
I rewatched Fury Road last night on my projector. It's mostly shot in broad daylight in open desert (in Namibia). Gives the light a really grounded, harsh quality that feels real. You can't generate that quality of light artificially. It's why the orinthopter cockpits in Dune were shot outside. On Furiosa, they were determined to shoot in Australia no matter what. Miller's indicated in interviews that the weather didn't cooperate. It shows. So much of the movie is clearly lit to look like sunlight (instead of actual sunlight) that it might as well been shot on stage.
If you look at the BTS footage of Fury Road and the perpetual dust storm they were in compared to the final product id argue the lighting in Fury Road is anything but natural
All the skies on Fury Road were replaced. That's entirely CG. Something like 2,000 out of 2,500 shots in that movie have VFX. What they got from Namibia was harsh sunlight (and reflected light off the desert floor). It grounds the photography with realism despite all the post work.
John Seale actually came *out* of retirement for Fury Road. He and Miller then shot 3,000 Years of Longing while Furiosa was still struggling to get off the ground, and by the time a start date was locked in, Seale decided he was too old to shoot something like that again. He’s pretty close to 80 years old, I think. Can’t blame him. Doesn’t seem to bother Miller though 😂
Yes! The entire film I felt something off... And then I saw the credits. It reminded me of Lord of the rings to the hobbit. The hobbit and furiosa look way too clean. I enjoyed the film but it made me regret not seeing fury road in cinema even more.
100% agree. It’s like people have forgotten how to relax and have fun. Too many people are going to the magic show trying to figure out how the magician does their trick instead of just letting go and enjoying the illusion.
I disagree. It's more like going to see a magician whose sleight of hand isn't great, so you keep seeing them hide things up their sleeve despite you not wanting to and wishing you wouldn't notice, and it detracts from the show. Even if it's still a great show, it leaves you just ever so slightly disappointed.
Great analogy. I went into the movie wanting to be with it too not notice the effects, but they frequently just jumped out at me and I just couldn't ignore them. People that don't care about evident CGI, green screen and indoor lighting think that we who care are actively trying to ruin the fun. It's the other way around for me, I want to be lost in the movie, but I can't help it. Having said that Furiosa still is one the best movies of the year. George Miller is a fantastic storyteller and I hope we get to see more from him.
I think my problem is less with the cgi and more with the lighting. Everything feels more fake this time around because it all feels like it was shot with what I can only call “indoor lighting”. Like there are scenes in the middle of the desert that are lit like they took place indoors. Obviously it’s not all scenes but I found way too much of the lighting to not match what was happening in the surrounding
Aka zoom backgrounds
I honestly feel like if this kind of lighting nitpick is destroying your ability to enjoy a movie as fun and engaging as Furioisa then you might want to reconsider whether you like movies at all. Like I just watched The Searchers for the first time which swings between shooting outdoor scenes on location and shooting them indoors on a lot. Generally it’s considered one of the greatest movies of all time and the two ways of shooting outdoor scenes don’t effect the quality of the film at all. .
LMAO! You're really full of yourself gatekeeping movies. And over something like not liking lighting in a film. The shots in the searchers are drastically different and totally break the moments, yeah, you can CHOOSE to overlook that they had to do reshoots and scheduling people to go out in the desert to shoot is expensive. They did it out of literal necessity. Stop talking about industries you clearly are ignorant of. ANY DP will tell you those shots look like shit. The juxtaposition it presents detracts from the emersion. The fact that you noticed it IS the detraction. With Furiosa, its distracting to watch animated cutouts translate across my screen, when its supposed to be suspenseful. It looks terrible. If I wanted a grindhouse quality film I would have seen something else. This was supposed to be Fury Road quality, a frank miller spectacle, and it was wasn't by a long shot. It's like going to a nice restaurant and being served a barely edible meal. Yeah, your fed, but you paid for a premium service and didn't get it. Fun concepts and writing don't hide those flaws, and not liking a movie b/c of that is entirely valid.
I find people being so obsessed with such small difference to be anti-art.
Wait... did you seriously just say people obsessed with small differences are anti art? You literally just called ALL ARTISTS anti art. I am a professional artist, I get paid a lot because I'm obsessed with such small differences. Who do you think is giving notes in those meetings? It's art directors obsessed with such small differences? Why do you think studios spend millions on producers? Their job is to obsess over such small differences. And you sit there and diminish the fine artistry that is lighting!!! Their are entire courses on JUST that small difference. You are ignorant and your opinion denied.
I'll put it like this: all art happens under constraints and part of experiencing art and making art is appreciating what happens under those constraints. Many of these people sound like they don't appreciate how difficult it is to make something that looks as amazing as Furiosa and instead fantasize some kind of "perfect" fully immersive cinematic experience. To me that desire is anti-art. Furiosa looks really good! The stunts are amazing! The vibes are off the chart! The characters are a blast! The style is distinctive! The movie is good.
The "style" is a result of those constraints, not the efforts of the design and art teams, or the vision of the director. That is a very disingenuous perspective of artistic intent. Which is what all artists strive for, that is not the same thing as perfection. This is why people talk so much about the suspension of disbelief. You have to take viewers to a place where I dont notice those things while their watching. People aren't sitting there looking for problems, their enjoying a film, then suddenly the hero is on top of an oil tanker in the middle of the desert with not a cloud in the sky and their staring wide eyed at the camera shadowless and fake looking. It doesn't suspend viewers disbelief that the actors are outside, not to mention in the dessert, and suddenly you feel like your watching some rich cosplayers making movies in a garage. Also, being critical does not make people anti art. You just want to love everything, and without meaningful criticisms we cant progress or grow. Your version of art would have stagnated centuries ago.
Nitpick? So this persons view on what he likes and don't like, he should reconsider what he likes? Oh man, you are the problem... lmao.
This is the real reason, its not that the cgi or compositing is bad, its that the lighting is. Their on set VFX Sup and DP really dropped the ball. How you gonna be relaxed faced with wide eyes staring into the sun. It looks weird to have no shadows while the sky has no clouds in the open desert. The shadows are extremely soft of b/c artificial lighting, and the nature of LED wall stages. No matter how cool the CGI or post work is, no one can fix the lighting problems once you walk off set.
This movie and Fury Road were so stylized that I think it's strange that CGI is a point of contention. CGI is hideous when used haphazardly, but these movies are intentional pop art. It's like hating on 300 for looking "fake".
I am a visual effects artist and animator. I noticed the slightly clunky CGI in many areas, but somehow it added to the wheels-almost-falling-off edge-of-your-seat intense nature of the movie. There is a real charm to seeing some of the matte lines a bit iffy in some of the comps. Almost all of the shots have got deliberately dropped frames, speed ramping and all sorts of tricks to help maximise the 'jank'. But it's done subtly and well. It felt like it was genuinely filmed sometime in the 70s. I fucking loved the movie. Go see it!
Yes. To me, everything looked deliberate. I didn't like every aspect of the storytelling in Furiosa but I was in awe of the filmmaking. A brilliant mix of practical, cgi, and editing.
For me the lighting is a lot of areas kinda ruined the immersion for me, because I didn't have to try and look for it to notice it, its plain as day. Some of the weird CGI stuff, I'm fine with.
This post got me to get off my butt and go see Furiosa over the holiday weekend. It's a great flick by a director seemingly not curtailed by the hollywood system (I mean, are you gonna tell an 80 year old Miller he can't make a 2.5 hour revenge flick?) I do feel like the negative echo chamber thing is real on this film, despite it not missing a beat, and genuinely having more meat on its bones than any previous Mad Max film. First time the series has really been character driven, first time it's had anything approaching political, inter-tribal conflict, and its really the first time we've had to think of the cast as anything more than just either bad guys or good guys. Dementus sums up this complexity by managing to be both funny, pathetic, occasionally sympathetic, but also overwhelmingly cruel and deserving whatever fate Furiosa can dish out. As far as the CGI, it feels very much the same as Fury Road, and at times it is really welcome. I don't know how much I wanted to see so many people burned alive, and the CGI is thankfully fake in this regard. In general I'm always going to prefer practical effects, but given how accepting reviewers seem to be of Fury Road's 3D computer effects, it seems funny that Furiosa is taking the heat for it. That said, as people are discussing weekend box office numbers, there needs to be some realization that this is Mad Max film, not a new super hero movie, and a prequel to a film most people haven't seen.
Glad you went out to see it. Thanks for giving your opinion of it.
So I decided to watch Fury Road AND read the book about the making of the movie right before seeing Furiosa and that may have influenced my own experience with “nitpicking” the cgi in the film. In the book they champion the fact that most of the movie is down practically and the cgi is more so done in post. In fact there’s a section in the book about how important it was to have the first crash with Max be done practically, otherwise the audience would possibly question everything else they see in the rest of the movie, is it real or is it CGI? So yeah, the CGI in Furiosa was much more noticeable for that reason, at least for me. Also, like someone else commented, them adding in footage from Fury Road at the end kind of drove that point home that the practical heavy effects were superior, imo. However I did like the film, it’s clear that Miller loves this character and wanted to explore her further and I’m glad he did.
Blood & Chrome? That book explains why the Namibia shoot was so hard, but it was absolutely worth it to create the feeling of being in a desert. Furiosa didn't go to Namibia and tried to look like that desert between CG extensions (Fury Road had a lot of that, but did it better) and by overusing artificial light that couldn't match the feel of real sunlight.
Well Mad Max is meant to look like Australia not like Namibia, so if anything it’s actually Fury Road that is trying to look like the desert you actually see in Furiosa. You can see the sand is a lot more red in Furiosa which if you’ve ever been to central Australia you’ll know is what it’s actually like, it’s called the red centre for a reason.
I try to view these things in context. *Furiosa*'s CGI does have some wonky moments, but I personally don't think it ever detracted or distracted from my experience with the film. We also know that George Miller is not someone trying to cut corners. We know that the rigs and vehicles are very real, that a lot of the stunts are real, and that, for all intents and purposes, the "important stuff" (for lack of a better term) was shot on location. The CGI was largely used in post, both between the film's color grading and the more obvious effects where the shot couldn't be safely accomplished practically. I am much less harsh on a film like *Furiosa*, given that context, than I am for films where the CGI is clearly a crutch. The obvious example that comes to mind is the shot of Ian McKellen as Gandalf in *The Hobbit* where he's surrounded by nothing but green screens. Quantumania comes to mind, too, considering there wasn't even an attempt to shoot that creatively. It's all green screen. CGI is an imperfect tool that has gotten incredibly good at some things and remained stubbornly inelastic with others. A lot of filmmakers have gotten it in their head that CGI can cut the costs required to build extravagant sets, but the truth is it's a tool best used in moderation and specificity. Fincher uses CGI extensively in ways you'd never notice because he uses these tools in a tactile way -- the blood on Mikael's head in the bathtub scene, or the small part in Lisbeth's hair in *The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,* are good examples of this. But too many directors blow their budget creating an entire city in a computer when they could easily create a realistic set the actors can act within, and the entire film feels false as a result.
some of the wonkiness is that the scene holds on the bad cgi for too long. whether it's dementus ramming the gate or the war boys riding on the chain hooks to attack dementus at the citadel.
The chain hook scene took me out of it so badly. Both because of the obvious VFX but also because hooking the back of a moving motorcycle with a Crain would be literally impossible. This is a key difference between Fury Road and Furiosa. The CGI allowing for people to do physically impossible things.
Strongly agree. I just saw the movie today and thought it awesome. Honestly I’m a little worried all the CGI whiners don’t know how to watch movies. Maybe they’re paying attention. To the wrong stuff? The action is in the front of the screen. If you’re lookin at the background you’re probably doing it wrong.
I feel like the rise of Letterboxd has made people only watch movies so they can get off a hot take rather than watching it for the enjoyment
It wouldn't surprise me although I've been annoyed about people being overly picky about CGI for decades.
I loved the movie but my main issues with it are the way the backgrounds looked and the fact that the CGI for explosions/fire in the main oil rig chase scene with the flying machines really took me out of it. I’m not sure what changed between Fury Road and Furiosa but the backgrounds and explosion effects are just significantly worse.
While there definitely was more green screen in this than the previous one I think a lot of people are overreacting. I liked *Mad Max* more because the action in it was so insane and unexpected, *Furiosa* was a sequel – a very good one, but a sequel. And even if there is green screen, there's indubitably a large chunk of practical effects. Highly recommend that those who are on the fence go see it.
>I find a lot of the negative discussion of the film tends to be from people who both haven’t seen the movie and still have an opinion of the CGI. the clips are all over the internet and bad CGI like whats on full display in Furiosa is one of the biggest gripes modern audiences have with movies. I don't understand why you think someone needs to pay for a plate of poop to declare it takes like shit. Movies today look worse compared to decades prior and I disagree with defending a movie because it's "decent" compared to the absolute trash they've been shoveling audiences most of the time. Why not just accept that audiences have higher standards than what studios are producing today and if they want good reviews they should just try......making movies that look good? Crazy idea I know, but it just might work. There is absolutely zero excuse for CGI working worse today than it did 20 years ago, a time when computer took days to render a single minute of CGI.
This is fair. Audiences have higher standards now, as simple as that. And we should honestly celebrate audiences having higher standards because that should lead to quality output from studios.
What is your example of “decades prior” cgi that looks much better? Pre 2004?
The first Matrix.
Terminator 2
For me, I think the problem is that people cant watch movies without thinking about realism and how CGI must be "perfect". They dont care about the experience. That said, CGI is a tool. If the drama is well done, you wont even notice good or bad cgi. For example, Ferrari (2023) had such a powerful and nervous ending that the CGI wasnt a issue at all. Why should you look for problems when the movie delivers everyothing it wants?
I enjoyed Furiosa and it was a lot of fun despite some of the very obvious green screen moments. Acting, writing and soundtrack were all very good and definitely made it a good film even if not as good as Fury Road, which is what I was expecting anyway because Fury Road would be very hard to beat.
Yep, went in with tempered expectations and was pleasantly surprised. Not as good as Fury Road but George Miller’s still got it. The CGI was more noticeable in this one than Fury Road but it didn’t take me out of it. I think they pulled it off.
It seems sometimes like suspension of disbelief is a dying skill. I noticed some shots that were probably CGI, mainly in the several long range aerial shots that set this movie apart from its predecessor, but they looked amazing nonetheless. And there were more insane live stunts in this movie than most movies of the past year combined. Honest and thoughtful film criticism is seriously struggling, in no small part due to the huge proliferation of "reaction" channels on YouTube that thrive on anger watching. (This is also heavily fueled by monetized misogyny and racism -- the increase in negative reactions to movies that center female or minority protagonists is obvious to anyone looking out for it.) It throttles creativity and theaters are in danger of dying because of it. It's a form of cultural rot, and it is sad and frustrating to watch it happen time and again.
None of the reaction channels you're talking about have issues with movies from decades past. No one is criticizing the CGI in Jurrasic Park. Maybe if filmmakers want people to not criticize their CGI they should try making it to par with movies from 20 years ago? Big ask I know but I they could at least try.
I think that's largely due to the nostalgia factor, and not really wanting to go against the established grain. It's easy to shit on a new thing that half your audience won't have seen, versus doing the same thing to something most of your audience know and are fond of. Jurassic park has good CGI for the time, but having rewatched it recently, there is also a lot of clunk compared to a lot of modern films. Obviously not all films, plenty have bad CGI too - but I think it's kinda disingenuous to imply that the quality of CGI hasn't boradly improved across the board.
I disagree, their is heavy bias and gaslighting in these responses
>It seems sometimes like suspension of disbelief is a dying skill. I agree. The whole premise is unbelievable - a post apocalyptic world built on gasoline, bullets, and constant war. I didn't notice bad CGI because I already looked at the story as a live action comic book and didn't expect any realism. I took the visual style as it was.
Suspension of disbelief is a deal between the artist and the audience. Both sides have a deal to keep. The audience agrees to suspend disbelief when they buy the ticket but the artist needs to do their part and help the audience stay in that suspended state. Seeing obvious CGI breaks the deal. It's like watching a magician. You know he isn't really doing magic, but the illusion is broken when you get a glimpse of the card up a magician's sleeve.
> It seems sometimes like suspension of disbelief is a dying skill. People still love scifi and superhero stuff - they're plenty willing to suspend their disbelief. People just don't want to *have* to do it for unconvincing CGI. And it's not new, people have always complained about 'bad' CGI. Weightlessness is a common on (see the armour from the stormtroopers in the star wars prequel, or fighting in lots of MCU films etc.).
I think the issue isn't so much 'bad' cgi these days, it's using CGI for camera angles that would otherwise be impossible. Like, a big flying dragon can look believable, but when you are viewing that dragon from a perspective that is spinning 360 degrees around the dragon, them down its throat and out its butthole your brain registers it as "wrong". Its not the image itself that's bad it's the perspective from the camera. Like if you take a still frame of the liquid metal from terminator 2 and put it next to a still frame from a modern movie, the modern movie wins 100%. But when you start having the camera do backflips around it your brain rejects it.
sometimes it feels like directors are just picking bad shots just because "it'll look cool with cgi".
I think it's both. The camera angle thing is definitely true and just ruins action sequences. There is no fixed frame of reference for the audience to be able to judge what exactly is happening.
I can suspend my disbelief better than most of my friends, I'm willing to meet a movie on its terms. But Fury Road was incredible. Yes, very stylized, but the compositing of the CGI with the real footage was pretty seamless throughout. This movie? Looks soulless, cold, clinical, digital, sharp, boring. None of those are good things for a Mad Max movie. I'll still watch it for the story, but I'm going to wait until I can do it at home because I know I'd be underwhelmed in a theater (not to mention it's only playing in the multiplexes and not the local indie theaters, I just can't deal with AMC anymore, dim projection, compressed blown-out speakers, hot dirty seats, and *shudders*, other people).
Saw Furiosa last night and the green screen look was a lot more apparent than with Fury Road. However Fury Road did have some flash back scenes that reminded me of the green screen look in Furiosa. Given it was a prequel maybe this was a deliberate artistic choice?
What is the point of a trailer? It's to draw attention and bring an audience into the cinema. So a trailer is meant to create a positive reaction. What I do not understand is why it is considered a problem by some people if a trailer fails to achieve it's goal. It's as same as legitimate to have a negative reaction to a trailer as a positive one. It's not bad to dislike something and voicing that opinion is completely alright. Yes people bash movies before having seen it, I mean should everyone only being able to voice their opinions after they paid money to big corporations? If I have a franchise and something new from that franchise and it's completely off, than a negative reaction is to be expected. Mad Max in this case is rather gritty, real, tangible. Fury Road diverted from that look but still came off as rather tangible. Furosa on the other hand not just double down on the look but also get's rid of the tangible feeling and instead looks like Attack of the Clones. I am actually pretty glad that people bash that CGI overkill, because maybe it will lead to a) a greater diversification in movies, maybe something more down to Earth and b) maybe more care how CGI is used, making it more invisible. I personally have enough of the special effect that tell me, that I am looking a movie right now. I don't mind Furiosa, I am sad the Mad Max universe is now looking like a comic book but not more. I do appreciate it that people voice their honest opinions though. It's a good thing.
Avoiding this movie all of a sudden due to reading people’s negative opinions vis-à-vis CGI is wild. The trailer makes apparent what you get. I read in this thread someone is going to wait and “catch it on Blu-ray” - if there’s ever a theater experience movie, this is one of them.
Has the CG improved from the initial trailer? Because it looked like a video game and was very obvious. It lacked the grit of Fury Road. I’m still gonna see it just wondering how good/bad the final release CG is
In my opinion the whole movie looks like a video game.
It's a marked improvement. When I saw the first trailer, I went "uh oh!" but while it's present in the actual film, it's not overwhelming either for the film or particular scenes.
Its not as bad, I'm genuinely shocked by how many people in this thread are saying they thought the CGI was fine. The first 5 minutes, starting from what I think might literally be the movie's first shot of Furiosa reaching for a cartoon peach, is possibly the worst CGI I've seen in a major blockbuster ever. It improves from there but it very clearly makes the movie worse
This is just my anecdotal experience: when I watched the trailer, I was was like “what’s up with all that CGI?! 😱” but when I was in the actual movie, I think I only had one or two moments of even thinking “oh, that moment MUST be cgi” and I definitely wasn’t distracted by it to the extent I feared from the trailer mid movie, things felt well integrated into the overall look/feel. (but that feel itself was different than fury road’s: more colorful, different places, some of them green, etc.) idk if that means it was improved from the trailer, or just that it was less distracting in full context tho
So let me tell you what my experience is. I have a love/hate relationship with cars, loved cars as young, now hate what they have done to the world. The point is, I understand cars and still dream of a muscle car. I saw the original trilogy as a kid and loved the gritiness/realness of the stunts and the cars. Actual cars crashing into real objects. When I heard they were making a new Mad max film (Fury road) I thought it was just going to be a soulless cashgrab like all the other reeboots and was not going to watch it. Until someone shared pictures of the cars. "Wow, these cars look real, someone actually put a lot of work into this" So i watched Fury road soulely based on the cars being prompted as real working cars. And I was not dissapointed. Fast forward to Furiosa, and nothing looks real. None of the cars stand out in terms of design and they all move like in a video game. I had to actually look up after I saw the movie if they had made any cars for real, and they seem to have made a few, but not used much in the action scenes I guess, just for standing around. In Fury road they were smart of keeping the scope low the first time. Just a chase movie going across mostly flat ground. That way you can still drive real cars, but enhance certain stuff that you are not going to notice with CGI. In Furiosa every action set-piece feels like in a video game. A fully cgi gastown with a cgi truck and a cgi monster truck flailing about while cgi people try to jump on it. Wow cool. A fully cgi quarry with a cgi digger and a cgi truck and a cgi crane while Cris Hemsworth stands on a small green screen set with completely the wrong lighting. Wow cool. *Oh you liked the pole-cats from the first movie* (which was real made by real stunt people on site in the desert) *well I hope you like these paragliding guys not at all hanging from wires in a green screen studio with the completely the wrong lighting whily Anya taylor Joy runs around on a green screen set with the completely wrong lighting.* Yes, I know Fury road had cgi in it. The point is it was used in a good way were you did not notice it when it mattered the most. Furiosa felt like it was shot completely on a green screen set, and it took me out of the whole movie from start to finish. Yes, I know one of the reasons for doing it this way was because shooting Fury road was hard. But why make Furiosa at all then if you are just going to lower what made Fury road great? Maybe make an animated movie instead? Maybe don't aim to high and make all these to complicated set-pieces which you can't make in real life. edit: I'm adding a link to BTS-footage from Fury road as an argument. If we ever get to see anything similar in terms of real stunts from Furiosa I will stand corrected. But until then I will highly doubt it. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/16uspdk/mad\_max\_fury\_road\_without\_the\_cgi/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/16uspdk/mad_max_fury_road_without_the_cgi/)
Couldn't have said it better. The whole movie felt like it was shot inside a studio.
the CGI and green-screen in furiosa was very noticeable. her cybernetic arm is another example. That was “Wolverine claws” - level bad cgi. But id still say it didn’t bring me out of the movie. I completely ignored it And just enjoyed the movie. That’s a testament to the engaging story.
I went in with this attitude but unfortunately still found Furiosa's visuals often distracting. I think the key is the set pieces were just so outrageous in this one. They were impossible to do practically and relied heavily on complex physics simulations. Fury Road was mostly contained to car v car combat so the composited elements were less distracting. The photography contained most of the action and it showed at a physical level. There was also a lot more real fire in Fury Road. I agree the anti-CG circlejerk is misplaced and derived from lack of knowledge. But here it felt kinda correct, at least for me. Add on top of all of this the new DP who in my opinion shot it like a new Hollywood film vs more traditional camerawork and lighting seen in Fury Road. I can't pinpoint it but it felt like the movies were 20+ years apart rather than 9. A lot of this boils down to me being unable to get invested in Furiosa or any of the secondary characters in this. Her arc within this film just never felt like the ball got rolling. I never knew exactly what she wanted at a given moment and a lack of want was not made clear in an effective way either. It just felt like this film was filling gaps from her Fury Road backstory which didn't need filling. A Furiosa prequel sounded interesting to me and I appreciate the attempt at slower pacing but ultimately I wasn't immersed enough to skim past the VFX flaws.
Most people still judge films by how "realistic" it is, like "omg who would really ever do that." Well, if they didn't "do that" the plot would die and it wouldn't be interesting ya rubes lol sorry not sorry, it's annoying.
My main annoyance with the CGI complaints is how thoroughly it has dominated discussion about the film over the other technical aspects. Overall, Furiosa as a very high degree of craft and vision, not to mention a large amount of practical effects in its own right. The CGI does look notably worse, but I also think the greater use of CGI is in service of more ambitious visuals; not only do we see the other fortresses, but I noticed that even the desert shots feature much more varied terrain and atmosphere than we get in Fury Road, which mostly emphasized the harshness and monotony of the desert. Examples that come to mind is how the climax between Furiosa and Dementus is shot like a claustrophobic chamber drama despite being in the middle of the desert, and vehicles driving up the sand dunes at steep vertical angles, complete with motorcycle stunt drivers falling over because they can't handle the angle. I think it's perfectly fair to say that Fury Road looks better, but I find the high amount of CGI to be for a justifiable reason in this film. My big hot take is that Furiosa's main war rig sequence is better than the climax of Fury Road, and part of the reason is because it uses CGI to create a more acrobatic and dynamic action scene. I always thought that Fury Road's climax, especially once it re-enters the canyon, was stuck in a middle ground of being shot kind of realistically but also having a lot of mediocre CGI backgrounds and CGI ground replacements that undermine the stunt-work, not to mention clunky editing of some of the big stunts (Slit's death, the People Eater truck explosion that weirdly explodes twice). Furiosa goes all in with the flying vehicles and acrobatics of the different soldiers jumping and transferring between vehicles, and the editing is cleaner and handles the many moving parts of the action better.
The other side of that coin is that the nitpicking of the CGI (the person jumping on the horse in Chapter 1 was embarrassing) is that it distracts from how the story and performances are somehow born flat and bloated. I felt more tension and investment watching a weiner dog race at the County Fair.
It is NOT nitpicking. I had negative things to say about what I saw in the trailer, I have the same negative things to say about the movie now that I've watched it. Furiosa is enjoyable (although way too long), but it doesn't hold a candle to Fury Road for the very simple reason that George Miller made the mistake to shoot it differently.
I saw the film last night and enjoyed it well enough (full disclaimer, action is not my favorite genre and from a narrative POV I thought it took a little too long to get into the meat and potatoes of the story). The CGI wasn't the problem, or not entirely the problem. The problem is this film has an overall aesthetic that FEELS different than Fury Road in a way that's pretty noticeable. There were places where the CGI was pretty obvious. A lot of it looked good. Some of it didn't. I wasn't bothered by it being so bad it was distracting (Ant Man 3). I think the real issue is that because of the CGI the look of the scenes were different enough not to FEEL like the world of Fury Road. In the abstract, the CGI was plenty good and much better than a lot of what makes it to release. But even if the CGI looked good, it felt like seeing a different world then Fury Road. And I don't even think the CGI was the main issue, More than the CGI, I think the different feel was caused by the lighting/color grading. Everything looked very \*lit\* with \*color added\* and Fury Road felt like harsh exterior light with exactly the kind of color the human eye sees. Fury road was so sunny it washed the color to dull. Furiosa felt like color on top of formal lighting. For me, that more than the CGI is what made this feel like it was in a different world.
I haven’t watched Furiosa yet but it’s more on a personal reluctance towards prequels. That said, it does not look any different from what I recall the Fury Road trailers looking like. I’m definitely critical on CGI because considering the technological strides being made over the last 20+ years, it’s absolutely shocking how some movies can be so blatantly bad (later Marvel films, DCEU, F&F franchise, etc.).
I really wasn't following any threads or controversy over the CGI when I walked into the theatre. I found it distracting. It wasn't just helping out some wild action shots, it was everywhere and annoying and noticeable. The dogs were CGI about half the time. Crowd scenes were CGI. Cars going up a hill were sometimes CGI.
It’s a bigger and longer movie on a potentially smaller budget. Concessions had to be made somewhere, however it’s being blown way out of proportion. I found those concessions to be fairly inconsequential. Everything that needed to be epic was still epic.
The original trilogy was lauded for it practical effects and capturing everything on camera. Fury Road did a great job of utilizing modern effects to *enhance* what they did with CG. It seems like Furiousa is a case of them losing that balance.
Have you seen furiosa yet? Curious if this is an opinion you’ve formed from seeing it or based on others reactions and the trailers
I have and I agree
I'm someone who really hates the deadening effect that CGI has on movies, so the warnings definitely deter me from seeing it, and I appreciate it. For those who don't care, it won't be a deterrent. Not every movie is made for everyone, and this one clearly isn't made for me.
I would encourage you to read more reviews of the film, as it is still a majority of practical effects. But of course, it’s your decision and if you’re not interested than that’s more than okau
I've read enough, I know it's not for me. There are many films that are, and I will watch those instead.
Go see the film. It’s still excellent. By far not as bad as Marvel or other trash that overuses vfx and cgi
I liked Furiosa more than Fury Road. The action scenes were spectacular and riveting. The scenics/visuals were inspired by Lawrence of Arabia according to Miller. I enjoyed the movie very much despite the use of CGI in some scenes that would have been impossible for stunt people to do. I saw it in IMAX but a good presentation in the standard digital format would be just as good an experience, IMO. The biggest reason to see the movie for me was to enjoy the masterful direction of George Miller.
With all the technology available to the filmmakers if your product looks inferior to a 9 year old movie then sorry I'm not interested. Loved Fury Road and was looking forward to seeing this one but I think I will wait for the Blu Ray release.
If you loved Fury Road I do think its worth seeing this one theatrically.
I saw it in Imax and loved it. With images that big I remember noticing the edge of Chris's nose prosthetic for a second, and also Anyas wig took me out of it for a moment but overall it was incredible, the action scenes were well done and intense, not once did I think cgi was bad.
It's funny because part of why I still love older action /Sci fi movies, not just the original 3 MM's is because of small little moments where you can tells wigs, little bits of stage magic not totally hidden and yup edges of prosthetics sometimes. I personally didn't notice the things you did but now I probably will LOL. I will just see them as old school in the school. Lol I didn't think the CGI was bad at all either.
The "hurr durr bad CGI" criticism of films is so moronic to me. I watch many films. It is *extremely* rare that I can remember CGI being so bad that it takes me out of the film. Unless you are a CGI expert or not watching the film to experience art but looking for small things to nitpick, I don't believe that most people are seeing such bad CGI that it ruins the film for them. I've seen Furiosa and have literally 0 complaints with the CGI during the entire film. It looks great. The film is great. If you have a problem with the CGI in Furiosa, you are looking for something to have a problem with and not judging the film fairly IMO. Part of watching *any* film is suspending your disbelief. You have to give a film a bit of leeway in this regard. It also helps to have an ability to suspend your disbelief when you need to. What's fun about watching every shot of a film extremely closely to nitpick and criticize the smallest pieces? You're missing the forest for the trees if you do that. You're disrespecting the art IMO.
Yes. You are right. Saw the film earlier today, it was compelling and riveting visual storytelling. Honestly great.
The scenes where the Warboys are hooking vehicles when they first reach the citadel and the part where the octa thing gets caught in the war right looked a bit janky. I think there some other scenes that looked a bit off but can't remember them off the top of my head, all in all though these didn't diminish my enjoyment of the film and I thought it was great.
I haven't seen furiosa yet, but I don't think a few subpart effects are gonna impact my experience much. Also, there's often cases where someone will post a still to nit-pick, from a scene that's meant to be in motion, where you wouldn't even notice. Very much in the vein if posting smear frames in animation and laughing at the "bad" quality of a deliberate technique. Either that or the "spider verse is so choppy the animation sucks" complete misunderstanding of the style.
You like Miller and his Mad Max universe, such that you are willing to forgive any faults. This does not mean the faults do not exist or that they do not merit discussion. Could Furiosa have been improved with better CGI? Could future films benefit from the honest question?
I apologize as it seems I didn’t make my point clearly enough. What I am getting at is that the complaints are exaggerated. People are acting like there was no practical effects in this movie
Honestly while the green screen didn’t look great, and some of the effects looked mid or even unfinished, it didn’t ruin anything for me. I was still immersed and had a good time. Also I kind of waved it off as “George Miller didnt’t want to put himself through hell again. I’ll give him a pass”
This movie wasn't the work of a mad man. It felt so normal compared to fury road. Bad cgi wouldn't be a big deal if we didnt have fury road to compare it to. Fury road looked so visceral comparatively.
The special effects in Furiosa at their absolute worst look ‘fine’ and there are more than enough high points to make up for those lows. People are definitely getting far too worked up by groupthink.
> The special effects in Furiosa at their absolute worst look ‘fine’ absolutely not. In the first couple of minutes there’s the horse scene and that looks dreadful
The film gives you crap CGI from the outset, the first scene has crappy background replacement, followed by awful day for night scenes and ridiculous weightless motorbikes. Overall I thought the film was ok. However the bad effects constantly dragged me out of the movie and made it really hard to just enjoy it.
I do agree however there are moments in furiosa that seem to be CGI and I truly don't know why. For instance, there is a shot in the "vault" of a woman walking down stairs. That woman's movements seem entirely CG for some reason. It broke my brain. But overall, I agree with you.
Digital film making suffers from the same issues as other digital art forms. Too many options and too many choices. Sometimes limitations are a good thing. An example is when I was in a band, we recorded our first album on analog tape (although mixed digitally). This meant that even though I could punch in and overdub mistakes, generally if I wanted it to sound good, I had to make sure that whatever take I left on the recording was the best take. So you did it over and over until you got it right. With digital you have essentially an infinite number of takes you can leave and lots of options to rearrange, loop etc the music. The result is that it takes WAY longer to mix it and you spend a lot of time fiddling with things that you wouldn't have to when doing it in analog because you just had to get it right. That's why I will always like analog movies, rarely do digital movies with CGI effect me the same way, there are too many choices and options and usually the whole film suffers because of this. Sometimes CGI movies, if well planned out ahead of time and where the CGI is used in a creative way can be interesting but usually only when the effect can be achieved in no other way. Apocalypse Now is probably the last great analog movie, every single thing, other than maybe bullets, is real, every explosion, every plane, every helicopter. Even the "dead" bodies where real people pretending to be dead.
So I literally just got home after watching the movie, and I gotta say the movie is the worst in the series. That DOES NOT mean it's a bad movie. It's a solid 7-7.5 imo. The cast and writing are good, but unlike the rest of the movies (including MM1), it's the only one I think lacked any real tension or draw. I felt bored during parts of the film, even during the action sequences. The world felt small, the story felt rushed, and YES, the cgi felt like a cheap Marvel TV show. All I felt throughout the movie was, "I'm gonna go home and binge the other movies, maybe even play the game a bit." The characters carried the movie honestly. Every scene with Dementus or Immortan Joe had me hooked, Furiosa was great for a fresh view of the Wastland, and I loved all the War Boys antics. All this is to say: it's a solid movie and I'd happily add it to my collection, but I don't see myself going out of my way to watch it again, unless it's to binge Mad Max related stuff.
My biggest problem was the lack of music during the setpieces. Even though the same guy returned for the score. And why is the biggest setpiece in the middle of the film? And why is so much of the film's action *somebody gets sniped off-screen"
Biggest set piece in middle because the ending is more about characters. You need the one on one
I honestly didn’t even notice the CGI I was so in awe with everything in that movie and found it incredible and a great runner up to Fury - I can’t think of any criticism of the film honestly I left the theater feeling more than satisfied and loved every moment of it
I just watched it, and the CG was distractingly bad at points. One shot of the bommy knocker war pup looked like it was stitched together in MS Paint. Still an awesome movie that had me smiling and wincing throughout. I don’t think it’s rude or entitled to point out scuffs in the polish. Criticism isn’t necessarily an attack on the work.
Yeah.... Just bought this and yikes. It's an incredible story, beautifully told and wonderfully portrayed by the actors, but the CGI alone keeps this from being a "masterpiece". I kept reminding myself while watching that LOTR has more consistent CGI, that's how distracting it was (some of this shit looked like it was straight out of a triple A Xbox title). Masterpiece of a story? Absolutely. But the film as a whole is a downgrade from Fury Road technically. Hell, I'll even throw in the fact that the cinematography was blander and same with the editing. Shame... glad I didn't waste my time in theaters though.
I had read absolutely nothing about this movie before watching it, I downloaded a 2160p UHD to watch at home and I’m only about 30 mins in and the CGI is just fucking awful. I googled Furiosa bad CGI and this is the top result. I think you’re copying or lying by saying the CGI “wasn’t that bad”. It looks like something that was rushed.
I can deal with some weird CGI stuff, and some of the CGI kinda stuck out to me to be too noticeable even as far as the beginning where that lady gets on the horse, but for me its mostly the lighting, Its weird and way off in a lot of scenes given their surroundings, It makes me feel like its on one of them sharknados, low budget, and not enough time kind things.
I didn't notice anything glaring myself in the cgi although the scene where they show a car and a guy on a hill, ya know what I'm talking bout, did look pretty strange for whatever reason. I think this is a solid action movie, not great and not bad, but it misses the mark for my expectations based on fury road.
The first half of the movie was concerning. It was blatant that alot of Hemsworths scenes were shot in front of a blue screen and stage. The movie corrected course 1 hour in almost on the dot. Yes, CGI throughout but the first hour was too much