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Comment by animal_spirits | Hacker News Reader

I haven't found any sci-fi movie interesting or entertaining for the last decade or so because of all the CGI. It feels like it takes the human elements out of storytelling. Which is why I find Wes Anderson's movies such a refreshing take. They use nearly all practical effects and it is human and fun. I would recommend seeing the French Dispatch, his latest movie.

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give Villeneuve’s Dune a chance if you haven’t already. I don’t agree with the post on this one, they went to great lenghts trying to make it feel real.

Whatever your opinion is on Dune otherwise--I had my doubts on first viewing but changed my mind--it was clearly a great looking movie.

The comparison of the shadows in the article feels a bit weird, considering it's comparing shadows in a bright clear sky vs a sky with a lot of dust and debris. Especially weird considering Dune does a lot to make it's CGI feel more grounded then the competition.

All of Dune's outdoor scenes were filmed outdoors, to capture brighter light and sharper shadows. Instead of green screens, sand colored screens were used, to eliminate the subtle green glow from the light reflected off the screen. Even subtle things like having actual glass in the windows helps a lot to make a scene more grounded.

Is Dune's CGI perfect? Obviously not. But it does look pretty damn good. And I'd like to see more filmmakers use it as an inspiration when producing other movies.

If you want more info on Dune's CGI, I can't recommend this video enough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIKupTibxKQ

sci fi suffers a lot from this. Some scenes of Ad astra, The Martian, Interstellar or Gravity scream "I copy pasted the actor's head in a 3d scene", it just doesn't work at all for me, even on a technical level you feel something is off in the movements/lighting

I've recently watched prometheus right after watching the original Alien and it's just painful to watch

Alien is my favorite movie of all time. I'm still made about Prometheus. Mostly for the plot, but the CGI is painful as well.

The navigation room star map sequence was magical, though.

Moon falls just outside your "last decade or so" but would have been the exception that proves the rule. Deeply moving and intriguing sci-fi, all practical effects. I heard somewhere they used some models that were originally made for a Red Dwarf movie.

Great movie

You should check out Prospect (Trailer: [0]). It's an indie sci-fi that I believe is still on Netflix. It uses a minimal amount of CGI and a lot of props and practical effects. The director did a few AMAs on reddit. [1]

It stars Pedro Pascal before he made it big in The Mandaolorian.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSpw22HPdHU

[1] https://redd.it/9v4wu3

Also, if you weren’t aware, Prospect started out as one of the early Kickstarter-supported indie short films, and it’s great:

https://vimeo.com/90049558

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