In a recent Twitter thread, a fan shared one of his favorite endings of a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. It was the ending of "Captain America: The First Avenger," when Captain America wakes up after being frozen for 70 years. The revelation that it's the future comes from a well-placed radio in the room.
The scene developed a conversation around the idea that Marvel characters do not interact with objects in scenes. The moment when Captain America reacts to the radio is the rare exception to the other films, which have slowly become overly reliant on CGI. It's to the point that the CGI becomes glaringly obvious.
In their review of "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania," The Post writer Arielle Lyons described the visual effects as "sickly-looking" as the overuse of purple and orange made the CGI a glaring flaw. The Post writer Christo Siegel explores this idea further by highlighting the film's flaws and discussing the overworking of visual effects artists.
Siegel's comments relate to a Vulture exposé detailing VFX artists being overworked to meet deadlines. The reliance upon visual effects leaves artists with strict deadlines, last-minute additions by the studio and dividing work between films.
During post-production of "Ant-Man," artists were pulled to work on finishing "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever." This resulted in underwater shots that drew comparisons to "Avatar: The Way of Water," which came out the following month. An obvious disparity exists between the CGI used in "Avatar" and "Black Panther," the former being clearer and more striking; this is partly due to the method of filming CGI.
CGI is not a new concept to film. Its inception into film began with 1973's "Westworld" depiction of the point of view of one of the park's robots. Though rudimentary by today's standards, the visual effect acts as a computer-generated filter to portray the antagonist's vision.
By 1985, the first fully CGI characters were brought to the screen in "Young Sherlock Holmes." The result was a figure that moved like a Ray Harryhausen character rendered with computer-generated images that bridge eras of effects from stop-motion to computer generated.
Compared to these often-dated effects, "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" remains timeless. Shots of the T-1000's transformations as they pass through prison bars or crack from liquid nitrogen use CGI sparingly to allow the artists time to create the effects impossible to capture on camera.
CGI made a new leap in 2000 when it was used in the post-production color correction process for "O Brother Where Art Thou?" Shot in the vibrant, green summer, cinematographer Roger Deakins digitized the film and performed color correction through visual effects to create a sepia-toned look of the film.
In the best uses of CGI, visual effects artists have a referent to draw upon or layer over with CGI. Often the best CGI work doesn't create a world but instead fills in the blanks. It polishes a film by adding and/or removing things often unachievable on camera. It is supposed to be a way to flesh out the creator's vision, not to create the entire film from scratch.
Marvel Studios has slowly shifted away from the practical grounding required for CGI to rely on the teams to create elements of the films like Iron Man's suit, for example. Instead, Marvel Studios has turned to a larger industrial method to develop films. The near-factory output of films has left artists overworked and leaving the products underwhelming.
The use of CGI will not slow down as we go into the biggest year post-pandemic. Though Marvel's delay of "The Marvels" has pointed to studios' recognition of the issue, it does not solve the issue. Instead, VFX artists should be rethought as holding an artistic vision deserving of equal recognition and fair treatment, just as any creator working on the film.
Benjamin Ervin is a senior studying English literature and writing at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Benjamin know by emailing him be425014@ohio.edu.
