On Why CGI Battle Scenes Stink
Or: One good thing from the 1970s
On a recent flight, I happened to spy a scene from a recent Marvel superheroes movie another passenger was watching1. I’m assuming this was from the latest Captain America movie and involved some fight scene between Red Hulk and the new Captain America. Granted I just caught a glimpse without audio, but it all seemed very CGI-silly. Even considering the whole Red Hunk thing, the behemoth’s movements were goofy and unnatural and the combat lacked tension2. At one point Captain America appeared to get kicked in the chest and hurled back 100 feet or so, his body otherwise barely in motion as it hurtles. Sure, that’s the way bodies move. This is the kind of infantile stuff CGI people do because they can, and which has largely robbed many recent movies of any combat excitement. Sure, he’s wearing armor, but still: a ribcage crushing kick hurtling him a remarkable distance and he gets up mildly inconvenienced?
Ok, so yes, old guy “back in my day” rant coming. The theme of this essays is, essentially, recent combats in movies using CGI are quite dull compared to those of the past.
The epitome of good battles of course were the first two Star Wars movies3. The use of real ship modeling in the Death Star sequence in Episode 44 and the Hoth Battle in Episode 5 remain classics. You can feel the ships breaking apart. Also, having fewer ships in battle make them easier to track. Even with pilots that weren’t important before, you can sympathize with their fiery deaths. The original 1970s Battlestar Galactica was the same way. For all it’s campiness, the battle scenes were high quality and fun (at least until they started recycling them as they were too expensive to make more of).
By contrast, freed from modeling by CGI, the battle scenes in the Star Wars prequel or the (otherwise very good) 2000s Battlestar remake were bigger, but also cluttered and impersonal. It became harder to care what was going on.
The various superhero movies unfortunately continued these trends. It’s been bad enough that they adopted the approach of hurtling each other through concrete buildings with nary a scratch. But they also began to adopt these big, colorful battle scenes that felt more like ADHD on hallucinogens than anything actually fun to watch. Don’t get me started on the awfulness that was Aquaman.
It’s one of the reasons I just don’t watch superhero movies anymore. Boooooring.
So let’s get back to some ship modeling in battles and other practical special effects, or at least less kitchen-sink use of CGI. Utopianism over the 1970s has gotten a bit overdone, I’ll admit, but hey…that decade had to be good for something other than Fleetwood Mac.
Ok, my waving cane put away, please return to your day.
Hey, it was in my diagonal line of sight. Not stalking. :P
I miss the old Lou Ferrigno days of the Hulk.
I’m sorry, but Episode 6 was the first signs of Lucas coming off the rails.
Still, perhaps, the best battle scene of all time.