‘Furiosa’ First Reactions Say It’s a Stunning Powerhouse (But No ‘Fury Road’)
George Miller's action-packed 'Mad Max 5' is drawing very strong early praise, with some qualifications.
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The trailer didn't interest me at all with the overuse of CGI
It is typical for trailers to be released while production is still in progress. Fury road had a TON of CGI, but it's impossible to tell because by release the work was completed. People don't realize how much CGI goes into movies these days and assume it's all practical FX.
It's a mix of practical and VFX. The VFX production team on Fury road was huge. The reality is good CGI is impossible to discern from practical. There's more to VFX than green screens.
I thought so too. It was really disappointing compared to all the amazing practical effects in Fury Road.
See my above comment, but fury road had a TON of CGI (maybe half or more of the action shots). People don't realize it because by the time the movie drops production is complete and good cgi is just invisible CGI. The production on Furiosa Is still in progress when the trailer was released.
I would like to see a source regarding the TON of CGI effects used in Fury Road, because everything I’ve read and seen about it states the complete opposite.
Pretty much all of the environment is CG, which makes nearly every shot a VFX shot automatically. Additionally, almost all shots of a vehicle in motion where the actors are acting was shot still and all motion is CG.
Practical and CG are not mutually exclusive.
I think this disagreement boils down to which elements are CGI.
Of course there are many background elements that are CGI in Fury Road, therefore most scenes do contain CGI. However, all the primary elements of the scenes (vehicles and characters/costumes) are generally practical. That doesn't appear to be the case with Furiosa. The most important stuff appears to be CGI in many cases.
You just have to look at the credits to see the army of people who worked on VFX for fury Road. I dont have time to dig up exact sources, but this guy touches on it at one point in this series:
Ok. When people are saying “No CGI” they mean that the movie was shot on location using practical stunts instead of filming in a green screen dome like the MCU and Star Wars trash that Disney is pumping out. There can be an army of VFX artists in the credits, but who enhanced the films effects instead of rendering entire scenes.
The first Furiosa trailer that dropped like 6 months to a year ago gave off that green screen MCU vibe. I don’t think anyone really means absolutely zero post-production when they say “No CGI”.
I understand why people are focusing on green screen as stand in for CGI (I'm sure we still have collective ptsd from the Star Wars prequels) but there is a lot more to CGI in production that goes beyond "enhancing" the scenes. Entire elements (ie vehicles) are CGI in Fury Road.
Again, everything I have read and seen regarding the effects for Fury Road was that pretty much everything was filmed practically and on location, including the vehicular combat etc. If you’re referring to a vehicle getting sucked up into the air by the dust storm, ok bro. If your talking about a vehicle driving around in the desert, once again you’re going to have to cite that claim with something other than “VFX artists are in the credits” because it flies in the face of ten years of commentary on this movie.
You're kinda missing the point and I don't know if I'm doing a poor job of explaining or what. I never said there were no practical effects. I never said they weren't the majority of the effects. I never said they filmed on a green screen most of the scenes. All that being told, there is a mountain of VFX happening in almost every shot. And to ignore it is silly at this point.
The issue that started this whole thing was the concern over what looked to be an over reliance on CGI based on the original Furiosa trailer, especially considering that what made Fury Road so special was its heavy use of practical effects for the vast majority of its stunt work and its use of CGI to enhance rather than create. No one was saying CGI and VFX aren’t done in post.
I don’t think i’m missing the point. I think we’re both talking past each other a bit and you’re being a bit too pedantic which is shifting the conversation away from its original context.
I don't think you're completely accurate here. Do you have anything backing up your claim on the amount of CGI?
Fury Road is pretty well documented for using an inordinate amount of practical effects. Vehicles, costumes, explosions, etc. As far as I know, the most CGI was for the background/landscapes of scenes. And Furiousa's hand of course. The quantity and the quality of CGI in Furiosa is my issue
I wrote an essay on this exact thing back in college. Basically every backdrop, including every mountain range the action actually took place in was totally digitally created, furthermore many of the explosions were beefed up in post production. Some obvious stuff like the sandstorm were of course CGI too. Sometimes the ground would just be reshaped a little for the aesthetics of the final shot when it's basically just changing desert to desert.
The thing is, practically every vehicle and person you saw was real, and most of the special effects like the explosions were real and looked incredible on the day, with things like shrapnel and the like being added in post.
Fury Road barely used CGI for the content people care about, the stuff that's exciting to know was done for real on location. But beyond that, it was used liberally.
I'm happy with this approach and I'm curious to see how much the new film adheres to this choice.
Your second to last paragraph is pretty much my point. Obviously there was CGI in Fury Road. But you're completely correct that the "important" stuff was practical effects.
That's where my concern with Furiosa stems from; much more of the important stuff (vehicles and characters) appear to be CGI.
Not directly to your question, but the movie rabbit hole did a breakdown of what "no CGI" means in movies. It's very long, but it covers a wide variety of movies, including Fury Road.
There is a ton of cgi in fury road. Many of the cars that crash, environments, backdrops. Yes, there are also practical effects as well. Many productions do a mix of both. This guy does a good job of explaining the bizarre aversion to CGI that is touted in press releases for every movie that gets released today:
Fury road is up there with some of my favorites, so yeah I was disappointed.
I read it's because the director is really getting up there in age and didn't want to make production as long as the first, but who knows the real reason.
I saw the trailer on youtube when it first dropped and it legit worried me. I saw the same trailer again before Dune 2 and it looked significantly better, which was a bit encouraging. I do understand where you’re coming from though, and feel much the same myself.
George Miller is almost 80 now and the movie was partly shot during the pandemic. It was always going to be much more CG heavy than Fury Road. Doesn't mean it's bad.
It's not that it's CGI that really bothered me, it's that it's not good CGI. I got the same feeling watching the trailer as I did the Hobbit.
For me, it wasn't the CGI so much as the bad green screen and compositing. CGI doesn't even need to enter into it if you get the fundamentals wrong, and that part stuck out even in the trailers.