Random Bad CGI Body Modifications In Movies (13 items)

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  (#1) The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2

  • Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Ashley Greene, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning, Mackenzie Foy, Julia Jones, Booboo Stewart, Lee Pace, Christian Camargo, Mia Maestro, Casey LaBow, Maggie Grace, MyAnna Buring, Joe Anderson, Omar Metwally, Rami Malek, Guri Weinberg, Noel Fisher, Chaske Spencer, Jamie Campbell Bower, Christopher Heyerdahl

  Perhaps because casting a half-human/half-vampire hybrid infant is a challenge, the team behind Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 decided to install a CGI baby instead. As if the baby's name, Renesmee Cullen, wasn't bad enough, oversaturated CGI and makeup effects, specifically on the eyes and lips, were used to put the finishing touches on the offspring of Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella (Kristen Stewart). 

  Sadly, this CGI baby was an improvement upon an even scarier incarnation, nicknamed "Chuckesmee," a doll that producer Wyck Godrey told CinemaBlend was "one of the most grotesque animatronic babies ever to not be seen on film." 

  In a behind-the-scenes featurette available on Twilight Forever, Godfrey explained why the production didn't want to use a puppet, and instead forged ahead with CGI. "We were trying to create something that was otherworldly with Renesmee in the movie," Godfrey said. "She has to be intelligent yet still look like a baby but actually look like a more mature baby than one would be at one day old. So we ended up shooting it, and the second you’re holding it up you realize this is never going to work. No fake thing is ever going to do the trick. If you’re Bella you’re looking at it going, 'I don’t want that thing. Put it back.'"
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  (#2) Justice League

  • Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Amy Adams, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J.K. Simmons, Ciarán Hinds, Joe Morton, Amber Heard, Michael McElhatton, Lisa Loven Kongsli

  Superman with a mustache? Say it ain't so! Well, as the story goes, Henry Cavill, who plays the Man of Steel, had already wrapped principal photography on DC's Justice League - and had moved onto his next role in Mission: Impossible - Fallout. For the role of August Hunter in the Tom Crusie franchise, Cavill was contractually obligated to grow and keep a neatly trimmed mustache for the duration of filming.

  Unfortunately, DC needed to re-film some key scenes with Cavill, but due to the ever-growing mustache situation, Cavill stood in the famous red cape, mustache firmly planted above his upper lip. Although Fallout director Chris McQuarrie suggested a compromise to Warner Bros. - that he would shut down production on his film long enough for Cavill to shave his face, wrap up filming, and jet back to the Paramount Studios project, Paramount balked at stunting production, despite McQuarrie and DC agreeing to a $3 million subsidy to supplement their visual effects budget.

  Therefore, DC was forced to use CGI to digitally erase Cavill's mustache, which left the actor with this awkward sunken-in, semi-stubbly upper lip that still draws criticism and laughs. 
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  (#3) Blade: Trinity

  • Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Jessica Biel, Ryan Reynolds, Parker Posey, Dominic Purcell, John Michael Higgins, James Remar, Eric Bogosian, Patton Oswalt, Callum Keith Rennie, Natasha Lyonne, Mark Berry, Steve Braun, Triple H

  According to actor and comedian Patton Oswalt, working on Blade: Trinity was “f*cking crazy in a hilarious way.” In an interview with HuffPost, Oswalt recounted all the ways Wesley Snipes made filming the 2004 movie insanely difficult - like only coming out of his trailer for close-ups (a stand-in was used for wide frames), communicating with director David Goyer via Post-it notes and, most weirdly, refusing to open his eyes during the morgue scene. 

  Years later, HuffPost spoke with visual effects supervisor Joe Bauer, who had a hard time remembering if it was even Snipes on the morgue table because a double was used so often. However, Bauer confirmed that CGI eyes were utilized because of Snipes's reluctance to play ball. “Getting [Blade] to open his eyes [in the morgue scene] was really tricky because no two people’s eyes are the same,” Bauer said. “Messing with the human face is the very hardest thing that anyone can do in visual effects... I won’t name, but you can name the number of attempts that have failed more than succeeded, I think.”
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  (#4) X-Men Origins: Wolverine

  • Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, will.i.am, Lynn Collins, Kevin Durand, Dominic Monaghan, Taylor Kitsch, Daniel Henney, Ryan Reynolds, Danny Huston, Scott Adkins, Tim Pocock, Tahyna MacManus, Julia Blake, Max Cullen, Troye Sivan

  How does a movie with a $150 million budget miss so severely when it comes to CGI claws? The answer is twofold. During the filming of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Hugh Jackman and his stuntman would wear heavy, metal, "practical" claws between their fingers. They look great on film but, like a child wielding blades, are extremely dangerous. As Jackman told Vulture back in 2017, he has several scars on his thighs (some near his, er, sensitive parts), mainly from self-inflicted gashes. “I can’t tell you how many people I stabbed, how I stabbed myself. They were [dangerous] machines," Jackman said. After Jackman suffered through three X-Men movies in this way, a decision was made to increase the CG-to-practical ratio for Wolverine.

  Unfortunately, according to The Geek Twins, CGI and metal don't play nice together - it has to do with the weight and scale of 3D modeling. It's very difficult to capture a realistic sense of heft without props made of the right stuff. Luckily, a resumed emphasis on the use of practical claws and a slight improvement in CGI metal were at the disposal of both 2013's The Wolverine and 2017's Logan. Jackman, good mate that he is, went back to suffering for our entertainment.
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  (#5) Van Helsing

  • Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Shuler Hensley, Elena Anaya, Will Kemp, Kevin J. O'Connor, Alun Armstrong, Silvia Colloca, Josie Maran, Tom Fisher, Samuel West, Robbie Coltrane

  While fantasy/adventure films often portray larger-than-life characters, does that mean the mouths of vampires also have to be cavernous? Well, gaping muzzles and protruding jaws with extra-sharp teeth were the order of the day for the many bloodsuckers in Stephen Sommers's 2004 film Van Helsing. While most vampire tales stay traditional when it comes to the look of Dracula and his ilk, Sommers's opus, an homage to Universal monsters of the 1930s and '40s, came with a touch of new-millennium overindulgent CGI. 

  Unfortunately, the film was panned, and the exaggerated vampire mouths were singled out for ridicule. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave the film 24 percent on the Tomatometer, calling Van Helsing a "hollow creature feature that suffers from CGI overload."
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  (#6) Superman Returns

  • Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Eva Marie Saint, Parker Posey, Kal Penn, Sam Huntington, Kevin Spacey, Tristan Lake Leabu, James Karen, David Fabrizio, Noel Neill, Marlon Brando, Peta Wilson, Stephan Bender, Jack Larson, Ian Roberts

  It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a sock? Nope, it's all man - or it was until CGI stepped in. As rumor has it, while filming the 2006 film Superman Returns, director Bryan Singer was so distracted by Brandon Routh's red-underwear-wearing bulge that he ordered the digital effects team to decrease the size of Superman's manhood. Although Singer denies the claim, costume designer Louise Mingenbach spoke with Newsweek about the ever-growing situation.

  "There was more discussion about Superman's 'package' than anything else on the suit," Mingenbach says, laughing. "Was it too big? Was it not big enough? Was it too pointy? Too round? It was somebody's job for about a month just working on codpiece shapes. It was crazy." And the final verdict? "Not big," she says, and laughs again. "Ten-year-olds will be seeing this movie."
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  (#7) Captain America: The First Avenger

  • Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper, Richard Armitage, Stanley Tucci, Samuel L. Jackson, Toby Jones, Neal McDonough, Derek Luke, Kenneth Choi, JJ Feild, Bruno Ricci, Lex Shrapnel, Michael Brandon, Martin Sherman, Natalie Dormer

  When Chris Evans showed up to play the role of Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, he had gained 15 pounds of muscle to portray the First Avenger. However, that left director Joe Johnston with the difficult decision of how to best make Evans appear as the 5-foot-4, 140-pound kid he first appears as prior to being injected with super serum.

  British actor Leander Deeney was brought in to portray Rogers's emaciated frame and mimic Evans's movements to the best of his ability. The production team then decided to use Lola FX, the same firm that cloned Armie Hammer for the Winklevoss twins (AKA the Winklevi) in The Social Network. 

  A three-step process, Lola begins by taking original images of the actor - in this case, over 300 images of Evans were filmed, some with Evans acting inside a scaled-down set, and some in an extra-large costume. All of this was done before visual effects supervisor Edson Williams used Evans's face as a projection. Deeney's body was then implemented as a wireframe, and the 2D images of Evans were digitally shrunk down.

  Naturally, there are challenges when digitally scaling down a human being, some of which are still apparent in the final cut of Captain America: The First Avenger. Getting a consistently "Skinny Steve" was an issue, considering that Evans's head needed to be proportionally shrunk to fit a much smaller frame without the use of a green screen. With that, avoiding a gaunt or feminine appearance became a must, but created other issues with the background color, according to Williams.

  “It was more of a grain problem than anything else,” says Williams. “The scaled down sections of his body would become sharper and have very little grain. We would shrink him in some parts by as much as 30 percent. We took a lot of mass off. This meant we would get the skin looking sharper and as if it had no grain so we had to do a de-grain and then an overall re-grain to get the skin to match the rest of his body.”
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  (#8) Blood Diamond

  • Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, Djimon Hounsou, David Harewood, Arnold Vosloo, Caruso Kuypers, Michael Sheen, Basil Wallace, Ntare Mwine, Stephen Collins, Jimi Mistry, Chris Astoyan, Benu Mabhena

  Jennifer Connelly won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2002 for her role in Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind. So why would such an esteemed thespian need to have a teardrop digitally placed on her face, instead of simply drawing on that Method mojo to emit a tear?

  According to The Times of London, Blood Diamond director Ed Zwick decided he wanted to add the tear after filming had wrapped to see if he could squeeze any extra emotion out of one of the final scenes. And since reshoots cost money, CGI was installed to make Connelly appear that much more upset during her phone call with Leonardo DiCaprio's character.

  Shortly after the fake tear was uncovered in 2007, an unnamed filmmaker told The Times: "Acting is all about honesty, but something like this makes what you see on screen a dishonest moment. Everyone feels a bit dirty about it." On the other hand, movies have always been more than a little bit smoke and mirrors - or smoke and ones and zeroes, as the case may be.
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  (#9) Waterworld

  • Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tina Majorino, Michael Jeter, Gerard Murphy, R.D. Call, Kim Coates, John Fleck, Robert Joy, Jack Black, John Toles-Bey, Zitto Kazann, Zakes Mokae, Sab Shimono

  Back in 1995, Waterworld was made for a then-record-setting $175 million. While that is a ton of dough considering that the film was mostly panned by critics, building an entire post-apocalyptic world from scratch is expensive. Yet for all the money Universal Pictures spent on the Kevin Costner vehicle, no one realized until filming was complete that its star was losing his hair. 

  As the rumor goes, once Costner watched some of the footage, he demanded reshoots and CGI fixes to parts of Waterworld he didn't care for, including his receding hairline. A back-and-forth took place with director Kevin Reynolds, inevitably leading to Reynolds's firing. Although this version of events is disputed by Costner, back in 1995, Newsweek wrote that extra money was eventually found in the budget and, miraculously, Costner's hair looked much fuller when the film premiered. 
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  (#10) Tag

  • Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Jake Johnson, Annabelle Wallis, Hannibal Buress, Isla Fisher, Rashida Jones, Leslie Bibb

  What's more believable? That the 2018 film Tag, where lifelong friends play a game of tag for one month every year, is based on a true story, or that Jeremy Renner broke both of his arms on the third day of filming and had to wear green casts that were replaced with CGI arms for the majority of the movie?

  If you said the CGI arms, you'd be correct, as co-star Jon Hamm told Ellen Degeneres. For much of the film, which is supposed to take place in June, Renner is either wearing long sleeves or a jacket to cover his casts. However, in both the wedding and school scenes, Renner's arms and hands appear in all their wonky glory. 

  As The Ringer points out, in the scene where Renner tosses Ed Helms a doughnut, Renner's left arm looks wavy, while the right one, which is partially behind his back, shows off part of the cast. After spending millions of dollars to digitally fix Renner's battered arms, how could Warner Bros. overlook a goof like that?
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  (#11) Machete

  • Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Shea Whigham, Lindsay Lohan, Tom Savini, Daryl Sabara, Gilbert Trejo, Billy Blair

  A shower scene in 2010's Machete, which appears to show actress Jessica Alba unclothed, was in fact filmed with the actress wearing tight white underwear, and then digitally altered. Therefore, the body shown in the film's final product is entirely CGI.

  Alba, who's been against appearing unclothed in any film during her career, worked with director Robert Rodriguez to come up with a solution both would be comfortable with. As she told Scarlet in 2010, "I come from a very Catholic family, so it wasn't seen as a good thing to flaunt yourself like that. I can handle being sexy with clothes on but not with them off."
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  (#12) Terminator 2: Judgment Day

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick, Earl Boen, Joe Morton, S. Epatha Merkerson, Castulo Guerra, Danny Cooksey, Jenette Goldstein, Xander Berkeley

  Towards the beginning of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, when Robert Patrick's T-1000 arrives on Earth, he's completely unclothed and crouching over the body of a lifeless police officer.

  25 years after its original release in 1991, director James Cameron re-released the film in 2017 as a celebration, only this time in 3D. Oh, and Cameron decided to cover up Patrick Wilson's robot nethers with a piece of CGI concrete.
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  (#13) Black Swan

  • Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, Benjamin Millepied, Ksenia Solo, Kristina Anapau

  Natalie Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for 2010's Black Swan. However, according to her stunt double Sarah Lane, it wasn't because of her dancing. Lane, an American Ballet Theatre soloist, told The Hollywood Reporter, “Of the full body shots, I would say 5 percent are Natalie.”

  Lane also told Entertainment Weekly that Portman's face was digitally grafted onto her body. The dancer was allegedly told by Black Swan producer Ari Handel not to talk to the press about her work on the film. “It is demeaning to the profession and not just to me," Lane said. "I’ve been doing this for 22 years... Can you become a concert pianist in a year and a half, even if you’re a movie star?” 

  Credited only as a "Hand Model," "Stunt Double," and "Lady in the Lane," Lane is adamant that she is not jealous - even giving Portman credit for "getting into a dancer's head." Instead, Lane insists that the viewing audience needs to understand the difference between a trained dancer and an actress trying to dance. “I mean, from a professional dancer’s standpoint, she doesn’t look like a professional ballet dancer at all, and she can’t dance in pointe shoes," Lane said. "And she can’t move her body; she’s very stiff."

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