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Jurassic Park Looks Better Than Modern Movies
- Thread starter konka
- Start date
As long as you don't watch this clip in a low res looping gif and look directly into the T-Rex's eyes and mouth and realize it's just a giant puppet where the mouth is dry and the inner skin in the jaw doesn't stretch but just unfolds and folds again as it opens and closes, it's a nice effect.I watched this scene with an unconscious relatability and connection to the physical world I live in:
The animation and the models are really impressive and it does a good job at hiding or distracting from the flaws, but it's striking to think how far lighting VFX has come since then where even video games lighting effects look more realistic.Still looks great
"Jurassic Park looks better than modern movies"
In what way? I never thought this film was particularly pretty looking. In terms of CGI? Yeah I don't know about that.
The animatronics hold up just fine though.
the 35mm frames help blend the cgi effects much better than the blu ray master
The effects are a bit dated in spots but are used and framed so well that it doesn't really hurt the film one bit today.
Some modern directors could learn some things from it for sure when you look at an ugly mess like Justice League or even something like Rampage which was kinda fun but outside of the gorilla the two other monsters just didn't look good at all.
But I've never been that big of a fan of Jurassic Park and one of the reasons why is the cinematography that just does nothing for me outside of the night scenes. I know Dean Cundey is a genius and did a bunch of great work with Carpenter and that his and Spielberg's choices here were completely deliberate but it just doesn't work for me, I don't like the look of the day scenes at all.
Some modern directors could learn some things from it for sure when you look at an ugly mess like Justice League or even something like Rampage which was kinda fun but outside of the gorilla the two other monsters just didn't look good at all.
But I've never been that big of a fan of Jurassic Park and one of the reasons why is the cinematography that just does nothing for me outside of the night scenes. I know Dean Cundey is a genius and did a bunch of great work with Carpenter and that his and Spielberg's choices here were completely deliberate but it just doesn't work for me, I don't like the look of the day scenes at all.
Part of the difference has to be a stylistic and directing choice, but isn't the difference also due to CG effects with film compared to CG effects where everything is digital now, where film may look a little softer while digital won't so they lean into the detail a little harder with the contrast?Also the lighting in newer films is often use to enhance and draw attention to the CG models. Like that popular image of JW:FK where the rex is roaring over the corpse of a carnotaurus that it just killed. There is a greenish blue tint, and you can see every last wrinkle on the bastard (wrinkles that often don't even need to be there). You shouldn't be able to see that much detail, and the lighting is a bit more stylized with a focus on contrast and other filter effects applied.
Whereas in JP, CG was tweaked to blend into the environments in the film and everything was lit more naturalistically. And there was a purposeful and tasteful use of motion blur and other fx. Also, details on the dinos were softened, like in that screenshot of the rex eating the gallimimus. Details on the animals, even in 1080p, are very soft, which makes sense given how far away it was. Aside from that, animations on the animals feel a bit more grounded than in JW - like you said, a major reason was to match the movements of the animatronics, but also the filmmakers looked at birds and worked closely with paleontologists (unlike in the JW films).
As you can see, there are two different reactions these screenshots are trying evoke. In JW, it's like "HEY, LOOK AT OUR AMAZINGLY DETAILED T REX MODEL. SEE IT? LOOK AT IT! AAAAAWWWWEEEEESSSSSOOOOOMMMMEEEE", Whereas in JP via the voyeuristic perspective you're more like, "Holy shit, is that a T Rex!?"
How about blade runner 2049 too? Majority of Fincher films? Nolan films? Apes trilogy?
I've never understood the modern films are ugly thing. Black Panther with its New Adventures of Johnny Quest CG is still a really pretty movie to look at. Even if you're talking strictly about cgi, when people like to point out the poor cg of modern films they're usually overlooking the massive amount digital fx that permeate almost every frame of an vfx heavy movie that were completely indistinguishable from the real thing.
Personally think this entire scene is still the best effects scene ever in a movie
Meanwhile Davy Jones is personally still the best effects creature.
I feel like it's often excessive animation that sinks a lot of modern day special effects. In Jurassic World the CG dinosaurs might have had incredibly lifelike skin textures, but whenever you saw a close up of one it was like the animators couldn't help themselves. They had a million moving parts on their faces, wiggled all around the place, every time they blinked there was a little wet "plink" sound effect. Like, aren't they big lizards? Have you seen a real lizard? They aren't exactly expressive creatures. It's an area where an animatronic can actually look a lot better, not just because it actually is there in the scene, but because a big dumb rubber machine is a better representation of a lizard than a weirdly energetic CG creation.
*The night scenes of Jurassic Park
Fixed that for you OP. People always conveniently ignore that everything that ISN'T at night have aged considerably.
Fixed that for you OP. People always conveniently ignore that everything that ISN'T at night have aged considerably.
I see a good portion of this thread is still focused on the quality of Jurassic Park's CG when that's not really what it's all about.
The main thing I bitch about with modern movies is not really related to CG itself, but instead how often it is used in conjunction with camera placement/movement/framing/etc. CGI is incredible, but it has given this toolbox with endless possibilities to filmmakers who tend to go a bit nuts with it. Spielberg is even guilty of doing this and I understand that with the progression of technology and special effects over the years that these directors want to take full advantage of them. What makes Jurassic Park stand out to me so well is how the toolbox was still limited (compared to today) and Spielberg, Cundey, and the rest had to be creative to make the most out of it. A great example being the "clever girl" scene where the actual raptor attack is obscured behind some foliage. Not only does the framing of that scene obscure any flaws in the effects, but it enhances the terror of the moment by engaging the audiences imagination. The T-Rex works because of many of the same limitations, even if some of the CG itself is dated. The scenes are so well thought-out and impacts my brain in a way that Jurassic World wasn't really able to in its Dino moments. Nowadays, the could have T-Rex's pulling backflips all over the place, and sometimes I don't think we are too far from seeing it.
Another good example is comparing the T-1000 scenes in Terminator 2 to Terminator Genysysysys (whatever). Less is more.
I think this is why 80's action flicks are more alluring to me.
I also want to note that I don't believe all modern films are ugly. Comparing something like Jurassic Park to Infinity War is like comparing apples to oranges. They are both going for different things.
The main thing I bitch about with modern movies is not really related to CG itself, but instead how often it is used in conjunction with camera placement/movement/framing/etc. CGI is incredible, but it has given this toolbox with endless possibilities to filmmakers who tend to go a bit nuts with it. Spielberg is even guilty of doing this and I understand that with the progression of technology and special effects over the years that these directors want to take full advantage of them. What makes Jurassic Park stand out to me so well is how the toolbox was still limited (compared to today) and Spielberg, Cundey, and the rest had to be creative to make the most out of it. A great example being the "clever girl" scene where the actual raptor attack is obscured behind some foliage. Not only does the framing of that scene obscure any flaws in the effects, but it enhances the terror of the moment by engaging the audiences imagination. The T-Rex works because of many of the same limitations, even if some of the CG itself is dated. The scenes are so well thought-out and impacts my brain in a way that Jurassic World wasn't really able to in its Dino moments. Nowadays, the could have T-Rex's pulling backflips all over the place, and sometimes I don't think we are too far from seeing it.
Another good example is comparing the T-1000 scenes in Terminator 2 to Terminator Genysysysys (whatever). Less is more.
I think this is why 80's action flicks are more alluring to me.
I also want to note that I don't believe all modern films are ugly. Comparing something like Jurassic Park to Infinity War is like comparing apples to oranges. They are both going for different things.
I think the new standard for modern CGI where's it's in the forefront rather than just adding depth or scenery has to be War for the Planet of the Apes. I was so regularly blown away by how convincing it was. I feel like there's a lot of suspension of disbelief when watching stuff like Marvel films, or even Blade Runner, where your brain knows that it isn't real, but is happy to go along for the ride. With War, there were times where I had to catch myself and remind myself that it wasn't actual talking monkeys. It's insane.
I don't understand this obsession with the practical effects in this movie. They looked great at the time but every time there's a practical animatronic on the screen it looks so lifeless and terrible. The CG itself looks alright in scenes with dark lighting but otherwise also looks really dated.
I just watched The Lost World.
Jurassic Park, without the remaster, wouldn't look that great by today's standards.
Jurassic Park, without the remaster, wouldn't look that great by today's standards.
Everyone does. It works on loads of levels. Brilliant film making and acting.
Puts to shame the modern day blockbuster.
As I stated earlier, show me a better example of the big family blockbuster than Jurassic Park from the past 25 years? It's impossible. The film is perfect
I watched it on Netflix yesterday but Jesus the quality isn't too great, lots of grain too. Didn't they remaster this? Netflix clearly doesn't have that version.
Like, I understand that there are some scenes that aren't perfect, but the movie as a whole is just incredible.
JP has maybe 5 % CG scenes. Modern movies have closer to 50 % CG scenes. The more you have to render, the less detailed it is, because time is cost. Most companies these days fake physics in CG scenes, because it is way too computational expensive to do right. That alone is enough to give them that weird look. Physics ground CG and make it believable.
i mean some of it yeah, like the trex breakout.
But Beast Wars: Dinobot has not aged well at all
lol
i mean some of it yeah, like the trex breakout.
But Beast Wars: Dinobot has not aged well at all
lol
Overall I think the cgi looks better in jp1 then jw.
But yeah beast wars looks like ps2 graphics.
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I agree that except for the daytime CG shots Jurassic Park looks better than most modern films. It's not just the practical effects, its post-processing as well. Too many films go overboard, like the more recent Marvel films have fairly bad CG.
I just watched Hellboy for the first time yesterday and it looks better than a lot of modern films too.
I just watched Hellboy for the first time yesterday and it looks better than a lot of modern films too.
I think that's part of it, and the JP1 filmmakers used film's texture to their advantage and 100% had it in mind when adding in the vfx. Also there's stuff you can do in digital format in post to better emulate the softer look of film stock, but my guess is a decision was made in JW2 to blow out the detail and contrast for the sake of awesome factor instead. Might be wrong though.
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I think the new standard for modern CGI where's it's in the forefront rather than just adding depth or scenery has to be War for the Planet of the Apes. I was so regularly blown away by how convincing it was. I feel like there's a lot of suspension of disbelief when watching stuff like Marvel films, or even Blade Runner, where your brain knows that it isn't real, but is happy to go along for the ride. With War, there were times where I had to catch myself and remind myself that it wasn't actual talking monkeys. It's insane.
Yep, the level of realism you can get from CGI animals now is beyond what I ever imagined it could be. Other examples being The Jungle Book, Life of Pi and The Revenant. But I disagree about Blade Runner and don't see how it's any less convincing than POTA.
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War is the gold standardI think the new standard for modern CGI where's it's in the forefront rather than just adding depth or scenery has to be War for the Planet of the Apes. I was so regularly blown away by how convincing it was. I feel like there's a lot of suspension of disbelief when watching stuff like Marvel films, or even Blade Runner, where your brain knows that it isn't real, but is happy to go along for the ride. With War, there were times where I had to catch myself and remind myself that it wasn't actual talking monkeys. It's insane.
I agree, I've always found the cinematography in Jurassic Park to be pretty unremarkable. Dean Cundey also worked with Spielberg on Hook, and I have a similiar issue with that movie as well.
Spielberg's had way better looking movies like Raiders, Temple of Doom, Minority Report, Munich, Close Encounters, Schindler's List, and Private Ryan (the latter three which won an oscar for best cinematography).
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I just realized that Jurassic Park did not have cinematography from Janusz Kamiński...
it shows
Personally I much prefer the look of Spielberg's movies pre-Kaminski.
IDK, what him and Spielberg did on Shindler's List was breathtaking. I also like Kamiński's work on other sci-fi/action CGI heavy movies he did with Spielberg like War of the Worlds and Tintin
It's not that it's less convincing, but because it's such a fantastical world I think it's much harder to be truly convinced. I know I'm comparing it to talking apes, but there's something about the grounded nature of War that makes it trick the brain in a way I don't think a more fantastical world can.
I love Spielberg films but some of the cinematography specifically the lighting bothers me a lot in some of the more recent films. The Post, Bridge of Spies, Lincoln, War of the Worlds all have it. It's a surreal look where the back lighting is just way to harsh and foggy and it really becomes distracting.
tl:dr Modern CGI isn't bad, it's great, the problem is the extreme overprocessing of the image and the "fix it in post" attitude that's making modern movies look more fake than JP
More natural looking on-set cinematography, less micromanagement in post. That's why JP has the edge.
Modern movies love to mess with all those dials and over process the image until even practical shots don't look real anymore. It's got to run through 12 different filters and have the graphics department comb through every frame to make 136 touchups.
It's not just about practical vs cgi like everyone likes to repeat forever. CG isnt the problem in itself. It's the amount of control modern effects afford the creators, and the overindulgence of control.
Modern filmmaking has so much control, and it's so easy, that every frame now gets a shitload of plastic surgury until it hardly resembles what was actually shot. Every shot must be flashy with perfect lighting and everything in perfect position with perfect color as intended by the director with absolutely nothing left untouched.
The problem is that real life doesn't look that contrived.
That's the real reason why movies look more fake now. It's not just CGI creatures replacing puppets and anamatronics. CGI can look absolutely real and the technology has improved dramatically since JP. The real problem is that cinematography today is more contrived looking than ever due excessive control and the attitude of "we'll fix it in post."
It's no longer enough to set up a good shot on a real set with the lighting you want and perform some standard adjustments to preference in post.
Now you've got to up the contrast, boost the color, brighten the main character's head a little bit, add a shadow on his left cheek, dull the red on his jacket, CGI his collar so it doesn't look messy, darken the distracting papers on the desk, replace the tree in the window, add light shafts to the window, tint the window green, run the shadows through a blue filter, run the highlights through an orange filter, add a gate in the background, sharpen the image, strengthen the rim light on the arm, move the arm slightly down, apply a little DNR, move the background character slightly to the left to fit better in the door frame, brighten the whites of their eyes, reapply artificial film grain. On to the next shot!
No wonder nothing looks fucking real anymore. Modern cinematography is contrived as shit. You could have a shot with no CG "characters" in it and it will still look fake. And those youtube videos you'll find that turn the contrast down and add a warm filter don't account for the other 1138 changes that have been made to the image already. It's not as simple as "color grading." It's the entire process that's fucked in these types of movies.
...but it doesn't hurt to try. It's interesting to see what JW might look like if they just laid off the fucking contrast a little.
Do you work in film VFX by chance? I do and this post is bang on. The amount of over-noodling of virtually every facet of post is fucking insane and then these movie studios have the nerve to cry about visual effects being too expensive.
This is why I will forever hate Ang Lee and balk at Claudio Miranda's Oscar for "cinematography" on Life of Pi.
The combination of CGI mixed with practical effects was the golden era of special effects IMO. Titanic, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Jurassic Park. Late 90's to early 2000's.
Jurassic Park was my first movie on VHS. I was blown away by the ''sharp' IQ which was head and shoulders above the stuff on terrestrial TV.
I need to give it a rewatch to decide if it still holds up. Wasn't impressed by Jurassic World, but perhaps our eyes became used to pure CG that it takes a lot to impress.
With that all said, I won't rest until they give us Jurassic Zoo where almost all the dinosaurs are feathered and proud!
I need to give it a rewatch to decide if it still holds up. Wasn't impressed by Jurassic World, but perhaps our eyes became used to pure CG that it takes a lot to impress.
With that all said, I won't rest until they give us Jurassic Zoo where almost all the dinosaurs are feathered and proud!
Jurassic World had pretty good CGI shots IMO, the scenes with the Indominus Rex were pretty good.
Someone with technical expertise can tell me why I'm wrong, but I feel that scene was handled with better care than the rest of the movie. And as a daytime scene with a fully CGI character it's pretty good.
Having said that, ILM outdid themselves, again with Davy Jones, he looks better than the Jurassic Park CGI:
Someone with technical expertise can tell me why I'm wrong, but I feel that scene was handled with better care than the rest of the movie. And as a daytime scene with a fully CGI character it's pretty good.
Having said that, ILM outdid themselves, again with Davy Jones, he looks better than the Jurassic Park CGI:
Arguing over stills misses the point: what matters is how it holds up in the film itself, and even on the big screen Jurassic Park sells its effects.
I think they hold up for four reasons:
*The most obvious is minimal usage. They used physical stuff where possible, and use CGI expertly.
*Secondly, the camera was physical. There's so much "unnatural" CG cameras over mostly-CG worlds at this point that feel weightless and wrong, even if the fidelity is far higher than Jurassic Park.
*Third, they didn't do anything by the seat of their pants. Without a "fix it in post attitude", they storyboards and did stop motion sequences for all the big effects shots. There weren't that many surprises.
*Finally, and I think the most overlooked, the animators and model makers studied animals. For a long time. And when CG rendered the role of the maquette builders largely moot, those builders transitioned into building what were essentially motion control rigs for the dinosaurs. They knew their job, they did it well, and the result was startlingly lifelike motion despite technical constraints. You can push as many pixels as you want these days but movement and animation is far more important for selling you on a breathing animal, and they nailed it.
You can read about the dinosaur input devices they created for JP here. It's really amazing craftsmanship and consideration.
This is before you get into the fact that Jurassic Park's story is far and away better than your usual monster movie. They get you invested in the characters and Spielberg ratchets up the tension before you ever see a dinosaur, either puppet or computer-generated. And that's something a lot of effects-driven films miss today as well.
I think they hold up for four reasons:
*The most obvious is minimal usage. They used physical stuff where possible, and use CGI expertly.
*Secondly, the camera was physical. There's so much "unnatural" CG cameras over mostly-CG worlds at this point that feel weightless and wrong, even if the fidelity is far higher than Jurassic Park.
*Third, they didn't do anything by the seat of their pants. Without a "fix it in post attitude", they storyboards and did stop motion sequences for all the big effects shots. There weren't that many surprises.
*Finally, and I think the most overlooked, the animators and model makers studied animals. For a long time. And when CG rendered the role of the maquette builders largely moot, those builders transitioned into building what were essentially motion control rigs for the dinosaurs. They knew their job, they did it well, and the result was startlingly lifelike motion despite technical constraints. You can push as many pixels as you want these days but movement and animation is far more important for selling you on a breathing animal, and they nailed it.
You can read about the dinosaur input devices they created for JP here. It's really amazing craftsmanship and consideration.
This is before you get into the fact that Jurassic Park's story is far and away better than your usual monster movie. They get you invested in the characters and Spielberg ratchets up the tension before you ever see a dinosaur, either puppet or computer-generated. And that's something a lot of effects-driven films miss today as well.
I have friends/connections in the industry along with some training so I know a lot about it, but I don't currently work in it myself.
The scene I highlighted earlier. The way it seamlessly moves from the massive animatronic to panning down to hide the shift into CGI of the Rex walking. perfectly demonstrates how Spielberg cleverly framed and used both kinds of effects to complement each other in service of making a single tangible realistic creation onscreen
This is most excellent. I never noticed that before. Spielberg one of the GOATs
Coupled with the fact that few digital video productions can match filmstock and viola!
Undeniable as well.
It was a technical marvel at its time of release but even as a big JP fan myself, I can't see how anyone can say the CG still looks "good" today. It's fine now when put into context."Jurassic Park looks better than modern movies"
In what way? I never thought this film was particularly pretty looking. In terms of CGI? Yeah I don't know about that.
The animatronics hold up just fine though.
*Some* scenes still look good though. Nighttime scenarios still hold up (T-Rex scenes after breaking out, Raptors).
