Jurassic World
Discussion
FourWheelDrift said:
The comments are gold...io9.com said:
I DON'T F**KING CARE WHAT THE EXPLANATION IS FOR PRATT'S DINO PACK. I HAVE WAITED MY ENTIRE LIFE TO SEE THAT PUT TO FILM.
and...io9.com said:
Chris Pratt, on a motorbike, with Velociraptors. Your move Tom Cruise, your move.
MiniMan64 said:
jmorgan said:
So, want a cross over..... Dino vs Terminator.
Eh? Where did anyone mention time-travelling machines? I think hybrid dino's and the Rap-Pack will be enough.
Edit. I must admit I do like the films, even the third. I will go see this one (or rather when it is on telly or on the you view film thingy).
jmorgan said:
MiniMan64 said:
jmorgan said:
So, want a cross over..... Dino vs Terminator.
Eh? Where did anyone mention time-travelling machines? I think hybrid dino's and the Rap-Pack will be enough.
Edit. I must admit I do like the films, even the third. I will go see this one (or rather when it is on telly or on the you view film thingy).
It's GODZILLA! This will lead into a Godzilla sequel, just watch the inevitable clip after the credits 
benjj said:
I did see the first one at the cinema so paid for that. Saw part of the 2nd one years ago on Sky, have never seen the 3rd, would rather stick a snake down my snake than watch 4th.
I guess this is the wrong thread for me. I apologise and will leave.
I do love when people venture into movie threads to post about how stupid the movies are without actually ever watching the fI guess this is the wrong thread for me. I apologise and will leave.
king move properly!
For those expressing concern over the pants CGI in the trailer; I read an interesting comment from a VFX guy on Reddit.
Somebody alluded to it above, but this goes into quite some detail:
Somebody alluded to it above, but this goes into quite some detail:
Reddit said:
VFX artist here.
To those making comments about the quality of the CG critters in this trailer — and to anyone who has ever wondered how it's possible for the original Jurassic Park to have had such awesome CG, while [insert some more-recent movie] didn't — those are both interesting observations, and here's the deal with both.
First of all, it's important to remember that the further we are from releasing the movie, the further the VFX are from completion. Early trailers and commercials will always feature VFX that aren't "done," because our target for delivery is like six months from now, and our team doesn't find out for sure which VFX shots they're going to need for the ad campaign until... hold on... juuuuuuust about the moment they need those shots right this fking second oh my god.
Papers get thrown, people run down hallways, it's a whole Broadcast News thing.
So, we take whatever work is done on one of those shots, save off a copy, and rush a quick alternate version to completion. Maybe the animation is final, but the comp isn't. Maybe nothing is final. Maybe everything is final, but later someone changes their mind and adds another thing to the shot. Whatevs. We give them Some Version of the shot — complete with, like, color and everything, it's super official — and they release the trailer, and we go back and keep workin' on it like we were already doin.' This is how you end up with comparison albums featuring, for instance, the difference between trailer and movie VFX for Guardians of the Galaxy. Happens all the time.
As for the more general complaint that I hear a lot — "but, we were able to make everything photoreal in Jurassic Park in 1993, what gives?" — there's a lot that gives. It's complicated.
Aside from utilizing a whole slew of fairly basic (albeit smart) tricks that make it easier to look photoreal, Jurassic Park also had a few things going for it, historically speaking.
As a thing to attempt doing, it was more or less unprecedented. Just a ton of work, a ton of question marks, unforeseen innovations were certain to be required, and custom scripts and software would have to be written. They knew what it had to look like, but they didn't know exactly how to get there. Their target was a look. They'd know it when they saw it.
So, they started hammering away at it. There wasn't even a solid optimism that it was possible to pull off so much CG, at that level of quality, at that point in time — much less an absolute goddamned foregone conclusion that obviously it's possible to do twenty times as much CG at that level of quality — and so they benefited, a bit, from the exploratory nature of it. As far as executives and producers and studios and expectations go, the attempt to make that first CG dinosaur movie was akin to Apollo 11. "Oh god, I hope this is fking possible."
When it actually worked, it was an accomplishment.
That was the context for that CG work. These days, the context for the CG in, like, The Avengers, is akin to Southwest Flight 782, service from Oakland to Burbank. "Oh god, I hope I'll be able to rent a red car when I obviously make it to Burbank."
It became "obvious" (to the higher-ups) that we could do CG VFX. The process got figured out, the pipelines established, the groundwork laid, the procedures sorted... and now, the process of arriving at the end of the VFX process is seen as the goal. First you do your story art, then you do your modeling, then you do your layout, then you do your animation and sims, then you do your comp, then you render out the result. "That's how ya do it." Once the process is complete, your VFX are complete. Congratulations, let's move on to the next movie.
The problem — and distinction — is that, remember, Jurassic Park's goal was a look. They didn't know what the process would be, but they'd know it when they saw it. Now the goal is, largely, a process. Finish the process.
Are we capable of delivering CG at the level of quality you see in Jurassic Park? fking absolutely. (And, "duh," quite frankly. Most movies with big CG setpieces are actually at that level of quality.) When that doesn't happen, these days, it's because we're working under a very different set of limitations. For instance, way, way, way more shots, way more complex shots, way harder shots, an atmosphere of assumed possibility, a wee bit of studio apathy, less-and-less money, higher-and-higher rez, stereoscopic delivery... and, uh, not to put too fine a point on it... not much of a premium being placed on quality of life for the artists. (That's a whole separate thing.)
In addition to that, like I said a few paragraphs ago, Jurassic Park also (smartly) utilized a handful of tricks to make life easier. In CG, realistic shiny things are easier than realistic matte things, so they made the T-Rex wet. They did the T-Rex scene at night. They did a tremendous number of hand-offs between the CG Tippet critters and the practical Winston critters. Not to mention, there's way fewer CG shots in that movie than you're probably remembering, and on and on.
So. Yeah, it was twenty years ago, but they were also climbin' a different mountain.
Now, it's important to note that Jurassic Park deserves every bit of the VFX credit it gets. (That Gallimimus sequence blows my mind.) It's outstanding work, it stands the test of time, it's great — I know I'm basically saying, "yeah, good job with the fking Coliseum, you guys, you scrappy group of rag-tag weirdos," but. I want to make sure it's clear that I'm not throwing shade at Jurassic Park. I love Jurassic Park.
But, for being a trip to the moon with nothing but a tin can and a calculator — sorry, I'm very analogy-heavy this morning — for being just this impossible thing, it also managed to avoid some of the pitfalls of the modern CG experience. Expectations, mostly. Different flavors of expectations, at different points along the line. Being the first to do a very hard thing well isn't easy. For that matter, neither is being the 6000th to do a very hard thing well, when people are totally unimpressed with the assumption that you can do a very hard thing well. Like "come on, knock it out. We're on a schedule here."
Not that they weren't on a schedule, but. You know what I mean. I've rambled on long enough.
tl:dr — trailer VFX are often a work in progress, and Jurassic Park's CG was incredible, but arguably managed to benefit from "pioneer" culture, and set out to clear a bar much lower than we typically deal with these days
So, apart from some hammy acting, we should be okay!To those making comments about the quality of the CG critters in this trailer — and to anyone who has ever wondered how it's possible for the original Jurassic Park to have had such awesome CG, while [insert some more-recent movie] didn't — those are both interesting observations, and here's the deal with both.
First of all, it's important to remember that the further we are from releasing the movie, the further the VFX are from completion. Early trailers and commercials will always feature VFX that aren't "done," because our target for delivery is like six months from now, and our team doesn't find out for sure which VFX shots they're going to need for the ad campaign until... hold on... juuuuuuust about the moment they need those shots right this f
king second oh my god.Papers get thrown, people run down hallways, it's a whole Broadcast News thing.
So, we take whatever work is done on one of those shots, save off a copy, and rush a quick alternate version to completion. Maybe the animation is final, but the comp isn't. Maybe nothing is final. Maybe everything is final, but later someone changes their mind and adds another thing to the shot. Whatevs. We give them Some Version of the shot — complete with, like, color and everything, it's super official — and they release the trailer, and we go back and keep workin' on it like we were already doin.' This is how you end up with comparison albums featuring, for instance, the difference between trailer and movie VFX for Guardians of the Galaxy. Happens all the time.
As for the more general complaint that I hear a lot — "but, we were able to make everything photoreal in Jurassic Park in 1993, what gives?" — there's a lot that gives. It's complicated.
Aside from utilizing a whole slew of fairly basic (albeit smart) tricks that make it easier to look photoreal, Jurassic Park also had a few things going for it, historically speaking.
As a thing to attempt doing, it was more or less unprecedented. Just a ton of work, a ton of question marks, unforeseen innovations were certain to be required, and custom scripts and software would have to be written. They knew what it had to look like, but they didn't know exactly how to get there. Their target was a look. They'd know it when they saw it.
So, they started hammering away at it. There wasn't even a solid optimism that it was possible to pull off so much CG, at that level of quality, at that point in time — much less an absolute goddamned foregone conclusion that obviously it's possible to do twenty times as much CG at that level of quality — and so they benefited, a bit, from the exploratory nature of it. As far as executives and producers and studios and expectations go, the attempt to make that first CG dinosaur movie was akin to Apollo 11. "Oh god, I hope this is f
king possible."When it actually worked, it was an accomplishment.
That was the context for that CG work. These days, the context for the CG in, like, The Avengers, is akin to Southwest Flight 782, service from Oakland to Burbank. "Oh god, I hope I'll be able to rent a red car when I obviously make it to Burbank."
It became "obvious" (to the higher-ups) that we could do CG VFX. The process got figured out, the pipelines established, the groundwork laid, the procedures sorted... and now, the process of arriving at the end of the VFX process is seen as the goal. First you do your story art, then you do your modeling, then you do your layout, then you do your animation and sims, then you do your comp, then you render out the result. "That's how ya do it." Once the process is complete, your VFX are complete. Congratulations, let's move on to the next movie.
The problem — and distinction — is that, remember, Jurassic Park's goal was a look. They didn't know what the process would be, but they'd know it when they saw it. Now the goal is, largely, a process. Finish the process.
Are we capable of delivering CG at the level of quality you see in Jurassic Park? f
king absolutely. (And, "duh," quite frankly. Most movies with big CG setpieces are actually at that level of quality.) When that doesn't happen, these days, it's because we're working under a very different set of limitations. For instance, way, way, way more shots, way more complex shots, way harder shots, an atmosphere of assumed possibility, a wee bit of studio apathy, less-and-less money, higher-and-higher rez, stereoscopic delivery... and, uh, not to put too fine a point on it... not much of a premium being placed on quality of life for the artists. (That's a whole separate thing.)In addition to that, like I said a few paragraphs ago, Jurassic Park also (smartly) utilized a handful of tricks to make life easier. In CG, realistic shiny things are easier than realistic matte things, so they made the T-Rex wet. They did the T-Rex scene at night. They did a tremendous number of hand-offs between the CG Tippet critters and the practical Winston critters. Not to mention, there's way fewer CG shots in that movie than you're probably remembering, and on and on.
So. Yeah, it was twenty years ago, but they were also climbin' a different mountain.
Now, it's important to note that Jurassic Park deserves every bit of the VFX credit it gets. (That Gallimimus sequence blows my mind.) It's outstanding work, it stands the test of time, it's great — I know I'm basically saying, "yeah, good job with the f
king Coliseum, you guys, you scrappy group of rag-tag weirdos," but. I want to make sure it's clear that I'm not throwing shade at Jurassic Park. I love Jurassic Park.But, for being a trip to the moon with nothing but a tin can and a calculator — sorry, I'm very analogy-heavy this morning — for being just this impossible thing, it also managed to avoid some of the pitfalls of the modern CG experience. Expectations, mostly. Different flavors of expectations, at different points along the line. Being the first to do a very hard thing well isn't easy. For that matter, neither is being the 6000th to do a very hard thing well, when people are totally unimpressed with the assumption that you can do a very hard thing well. Like "come on, knock it out. We're on a schedule here."
Not that they weren't on a schedule, but. You know what I mean. I've rambled on long enough.
tl:dr — trailer VFX are often a work in progress, and Jurassic Park's CG was incredible, but arguably managed to benefit from "pioneer" culture, and set out to clear a bar much lower than we typically deal with these days
jammy_basturd said:
You have to ask then, what is the point in rushing out a trailer, 9 months before it releases, making everyone think the CGI will be rubbish?!
Maybe the producers have rushed a part finished trailer out to deliberately set expectations very low. People think things can only get better, the next trailer is better, so they think the film will be better still. They only need to sell tickets once and if it gets bums on seats they win.Gassing Station | TV, Film, Video Streaming & Radio | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff