The death of special effects

My son and I went to see The Hulk when the new Marvel Studio film opened in Oklahoma City recently, and we were both impressed with the seamless nature of the CGI elements in the movie.  As we drove away from the theater, we started talking about how filming technology has evolved, making films like The Hulk and Iron Man possible.  I told him about the ‘gee-whiz’ feeling I had when I saw Star Wars for the first time in a little movie theater in Sugarland, Texas back in the late 70s, and we started brainstorming about the future of film.  Soon, popular stars will develop that are completely created - that is, their voices and features will be entirely generated by computers.  With the inevitable improvements occurring in CGI, soon movie-goers won’t be able to tell the difference between live actors and computer-generated characters.  And suddenly, we’ll have ‘actors’ who can look the same for literally hundreds of years.  Imagine a storyline that spans a couple of centuries - or even a millennium - it could happen.

But what happens when the ‘gee-whiz’ wears off?  My grandchildren will take CGI technology for granted, because they’ll grow up in a time when it’s the norm, instead of something that’s new and exciting.  I’ll admit, I’ve gone to a few films where the only redeeming quality was the power of its special effects.  But what will happen when special effects aren’t ’special’ anymore?

That’s easy - writing will become more important again.  The story will become more critical to the success of a film than its visuals.  Hollywood comes full circle.

Just think about the ‘website craze’ when the Internet was relatively new to public use.  A million sites sprang up that had plenty of flash - but no real content.  Predictably, those content-poor websites withered on the vine, and justly so.  As the World Wide Web has become more mature, the emphasis has shifted away from sites with scrolling marquees to sites that are content-rich.  Only the strong survive.

The same thing will happen in film.  Great CGI effects won’t be enough to keep an audience’s attention.  In fact today, the best movie is the one with both:  great special effects and a great storyline.  Marvel’s Spider-man franchise is a good example.

So, I’m excited about the future of film.  As a person who would rather read a well-written book than see a poorly-written movie, I’ll welcome the soon-to-appear improvement in scripts and dialogue.

And besides, with all this new CGI wizardry, maybe someone will be brave enough to make a movie of the Foundation Trilogy.  You could stretch that excellent storyline over a couple of centuries!

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