Random Times Movies Used CGI For Absolutely No Good Reason (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

  The Twilight franchise naturally required plentiful CGI assistance to accomplish the required amount of sexy vampire twinkle and bedazzlement. But in the final installment of the series, Breaking Dawn - Part 2, the filmmakers decided to go with a practical effect to introduce the audience to Bella’s daughter, a half-human/half-undead abomination named Renesmee. And it would have been wildly successful if their goal was to create one of the most disturbing, sinister affronts to the natural order ever put to film.

  However, this was not their intention, and so the monstrosity (which the cast and crew referred to as Chuckesme in an homage to the villainous doll from another franchise) was replaced with a digital version (seen above). While not as primally repugnant as Chuckesme, the computerized replacement definitely had its own instinctually abhorrent lack of charm. The reported reason they didn't use an actual infant to play the role of Renesmee was that the unspeakable hybrid was supposed to appear as if it could believably talk when only a few days out of the womb - which is something Look Who's Talking accomplished way back in 1989, but whatever.
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  (#2) 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

  Wesley Snipes is near the top of the "difficult to work with" list in Hollywood, a status he earned over years of commitment to being an exasperating oddball. And just as Michael Jordan did in basketball, in 2004 Snipes may have secured permanent G.O.A.T. status in the "problematic on set" category while working on the third installment of the Blade superhero horror franchise, Blade: Trinity. After he refused to open his eyes during a scene in a morgue (for reasons due to nothing more than pure petulance), the filmmakers were forced to open them for him... through the magic of computers.

  Unfortunately, they might have been better off finding a way to write Snipes's obstinacy (he didn't get along with the director and would only communicate via Post-It Notes signed "From Blade") into the script, since the final outcome looked about as realistic as if they had held him down and physically drawn fake eyes onto his lids with Magic Markers (which would actually have made for an even more entertaining story).
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  (#3) Cats: The Movie

  • Michelle Rodriguez, Jeremy Piven, Jeremy Sisto, Dominique Swain, Troy Garity

  The musical Cats was a very successful and long-running Broadway production, with a plot based on T.S. Eliot poems and songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It won its fair share of Tony Awards back in the 1980s and received mostly favorable critical responses, like the one from Frank Rich of The New York Times in which he said the show "transports the audience into a complete fantasy world that could only exist in the theater."

  Then, in 2019, Hollywood showed us all that they really should have paid more attention to the last few words of that sentence. Perhaps a movie version of Cats could have actually worked if the filmmakers stuck to the original plan of dressing the actors up in imaginative costumes with a little computer assistance here and there. But instead, they chose to fully embrace the dark power of CGI to turn legendary thespians Judi Dench and Ian McKellen into horrid abominations, then transform Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, and Rebel Wilson into the niche fantasies of those members of society who choose to attend furry conventions. Perhaps some moviemaker with a dream may try again someday, but until then, we shall perhaps only speak of names like Grizabella and Rum Tum Tugger in hushed tones in order to frighten misbehaving children.
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  (#4) 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

  In 2017, Hollywood was at the center of a scandalous follicle-related controversy when Henry Cavill showed up on the set of Justice League wearing a bushy mustache more suitable for a 1970s cop movie. Why? Well, Cavill just so happened to be filming Mission: Impossible - Fallout at the same time, and he had grown out his bountiful cookie duster specifically for the role of a CIA assassin named August Walker.

  As Cavill was presumably more willing to annoy the filmmakers behind Justice League rather than risk Tom Cruise coming over to his house to furiously jump up and down on his couch, the chosen solution was to digitally eradicate the offending facial fuzz. Unfortunately, the end result was that Superman's mug in certain scenes somehow ended up looking not just unrealistic, but simultaneously hilarious and terrifying. Which generally isn't considered a good look for superheroes outside of the Deadpool franchise.
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  (#5) John Wick

  • Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Willem Dafoe, Dean Winters, Adrianne Palicki, Omer Barnea, Toby Leonard Moore, Bridget Moynahan, John Leguizamo, Ian McShane, Bridget Regan, Lance Reddick, Keith Jardine, Tait Fletcher

  The John Wick movies are masterworks of stunt coordination and physically demanding "gun fu" precision. Keanu Reeves isn't the Wyld Stallyn he once was, however, and the use of a little computer assistance here and there (like during the scene at the end of Parabellum that saw him tossed him off a roof and pinballing off brick walls and metal fire escapes and onto a concrete alley) was understandable. What was a bit more confusing was the use of computer technology to create a substance that's readily available just about anywhere pooches dwell. Namely: puppy poop.

  In the first John Wick, the tragic young beagle named Daisy lacked the necessary defecatory discipline to decorate the front yard sufficiently and, according to director Chad Stahelski, "They wouldn't let us give laxatives to the puppy." And so the filmmakers were compelled to craft fecal forgeries to give Wick's property a vital lived-in (and crapped-on) look. All told, the effect cost around $5,000, which is a paltry sum in the world of modern cinema. But surely for the poor production assistant who would have been sent to local dog parks to harvest the required "props," the decision was priceless.
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  (#6) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

  • Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Peter Coyote, Drew Barrymore, C. Thomas Howell, Robert MacNaughton, K.C. Martel, Sean Frye

  Toward the end of the sci-fi classic E.T., the plucky kids our alien hero has befriended try to help the unclothed, disturbing-looking xeno-monstrosity escape the authorities so that it might return to space (and presumably deliver the vital intelligence to its race needed to plan humanity's demise). The FBI agents tasked with saving Earth are armed with shotguns, which seems perfectly reasonable when you're dealing with an interplanetary, telekinetic goblin with a threateningly bioluminescent pointy finger.

  But decades after the film's release, Spielberg apparently developed the same overwhelming urge that caused George Lucas to make unnecessary "special edition" alterations to the Star Wars universe. Specifically, Spielberg thought showing FBI agents wielding firearms was simply too terrifying a notion to be contemplated by our sensitive youth, and so he digitally replaced the weapons with less threatening walkie-talkies (which, when you think about it, could be used to call in more agents with shotguns). But at least later on he apparently saw the overbearing nanny-like errors of his ways, lamenting to an audience at a 30th anniversary screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, "I realized that what I had done was I had robbed the people who loved E.T. of their memories of E.T. And I regretted that."
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  (#7) 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

  By the time X-Men Origins: Wolverine came out in 2009, it had been nearly two decades since Jurassic Park showed audiences what could be accomplished with the judicious use of computer-generated graphics. So you'd think poor Logan would have had something a bit more menacing to wave around than the cheap, sad, tinfoil-looking kitchen implements the filmmakers equipped him with in his first solo outing.

  The thing is, the digitized adamantium claws have always appeared flimsy in every film Wolverine's been in. It's just that in the other movies, the effects crews created a nice balance between showing the viewers the CGI stuff along with physical props with actual weight and heft. The reason Jurassic Park worked so well all those years ago was that Steven Spielberg knew the magic of a computerized brachiosaurus goes out the window if you don’t have huge latex velociraptor puppets to help maintain the suspension of belief. It’s a fine line, to be sure. And when you get it wrong, you sometimes get a superhero who looks like he bought his equipment by calling in to a late-night infomercial.
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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

  While Jennifer Connelly had been in all sorts of acclaimed films by 2006 and even won an Oscar (for Best Supporting Actress in A Beautiful Mind), crying on command apparently was a skill she had yet to snap onto her acting toolbelt. No big deal, however - the filmmakers could simply insert a virtual drop of drippy saline during a scene in which she was required to display some proof of her emotion-driven sniveling.

  You'd think as a trained thespian she could have drawn on some past tragedy, put a thumbtack in her shoe, or thought back to David Bowie's aggressively prodigious codpiece in Labyrinth to get the tears flowing. Heck, haven't there been all sorts of movie tricks to elicit fake weepage for decades? Well, reportedly the simple truth is that using CGI is the cheapest option when compared to dragging actors back to the set for reshoots, even though (according to an anonymous insider who told The Times of London), "Everyone feels a bit dirty about it."
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  (#9) The Score

  • Robert De Niro, Ed Norton, Angela Bassett, Marlon Brando, Gary Farmer, Paul Soles, Cassandra Wilson, Mose Allison

  For his last appearance on the silver screen, Hollywood titan Marlon Brando went out the same way he entered the world: infantile. For decades Brando had cultivated his reputation of being nuttier than squirrel turds, and by 2001, the year he starred in the caper The Score, that aspect of his personality had long been perfected and was on full display behind the scenes.

  Frank Oz - best known for his years working with Jim Henson bringing the Muppets to life, but who had also made a name for himself making movies - was behind the camera. Brando showed his respect by constantly calling him "Miss Piggy" and taking great offense at being told what to do. After telling Oz "I bet you wish I was a puppet so you could stick your hand up my a** and make me do what you want," he refused to smile during a scene in which Oz wanted some levity. But no worries - with the new millennium came the ability to address such crankiness via the magic of computers, and Brando was given a digital smirk in post-production.
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  (#10) Vacation

  • Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins, Chris Hemsworth, Leslie Mann, Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Charlie Day, Catherine Missal, Ron Livingston, Norman Reedus, Keegan-Michael Key, Regina Hall, Alkoya Brunson, Hannah Davis

  One wouldn't generally associate the Vacation movies with the egregious overuse of CGI (mainly because most of them came out when computers couldn't do much more than make you wait two hours to see a naughty picture). But in the 2015 reboot attempt, it was deemed necessary to pull out all the digital stops when a scene required Christina Applegate to chug a full pitcher of beer. After she complained that drinking that much lager all at once would potentially result in barf-related complications, she was allowed to mimic the act using an empty container, with the offending fluid added later in post-production.

  For the amount of money involved, you'd think she could have practiced imbibing large amounts of apple juice or something. Or hire any third-rate magician to create the illusion of a chugalug. It was a silly situation, but when you have critics (like Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times) calling your film a "vile, odious disaster," perhaps CGI-versus-practical-effects arguments are the least of your worries.
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  (#11) Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

  • Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Christopher Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Frank Oz, Ian McDiarmid, Pernilla August, Temuera Morrison, Jimmy Smits, Jack Thompson, Leeanna Walsman, Ahmed Best, Rose Byrne, Oliver Ford Davies, Ronald Falk, Jay Laga'aia, Andy Secombe, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Silas Carson

  During the romantic interlude in Star Wars: Episode II - you know, the overlong part of the movie where nobody's attacking clones while Anakin and Padmé attack the audience’s patience - the future Darth Vader uses his Force powers (in what seems to be a clear violation of Jedi Midi-chlorian restrictions) to levitate a pear around to impress his future baby mama/victim. Now, if this were some sort of exotic space fruit with tentacles or whatever, it would be understandable for George Lucas to put Industrial Light and Magic to work on coding a digital version. But this is quite obviously a pear - the sort you can send a production assistant to find in any grocery store (or dollar store for a plastic one) pretty much anywhere on Earth.

  Deploying the already-existing produce seems like it would have been a much simpler way to go about things, no? But when you own your own personal special effects studio and have millions upon millions of epic space-opera dollars to toss around, perhaps going the CGI route actually is doing things the easy way.
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  (#12) Eyes Wide Shut

  • Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Marie Richardson, Rade Serbedzija, Todd Field, Vinessa Shaw, Alan Cumming, Sky du Mont, Fay Masterson, Leelee Sobieski, Thomas Gibson, Madison Eginton, Louise J. Taylor, Stewart Thorndike, Julienne Davis, Carmela Marner, Tres Hanley, Clarke Hayes, Leslie Lowe, Phil Davies

  Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut sure did have a whole lot of nekkid people cavorting about, engaging in acts that... let’s just say it's not the sort of movie you'd want to go see with your grandmother. In fact, the film was so jam-packed with wanton coitus and various bits flopping about that the ratings board was going to slap it with the dreaded NC-17 rating if drastic measures weren't taken to tone down the in-your-face perversity.

  While it's unknown whether Kubrick would have approved of any ratings board-placating alterations, as he passed late in post-production (after submitting a completed edit), the studio found a way to avoid having to do everything over while keeping the perfectionist director's perfectly staged orgy scenes intact. By using CGI to insert and rearrange some of the figures in frame to block out just enough of the smut, Warner Bros. was able to secure the much more acceptable R rating. A PG-13 was probably out of the question, at least without adding a whole football team's worth of digital extras to block the screen and have them all sing a jaunty tune to cover up all the moaning.
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  (#13) Tag

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

  You know Jeremy Renner has to be tough when his alter-ego is a superhero who has no superpowers and got into the Avengers with nothing more than a weapon that anyone can buy at the local Walmart. He proved his intestinal fortitude when he injured himself while trying to evade co-stars Jon Hamm, Ed Helms, and Hannibal Buress in a scene in the comedy Tag, after which he agreed to perform another take with two broken arms.

  And if that wasn't enough evidence that Renner is a trooper, he filmed the rest of the movie in pain and with casts on. You'd never know it, however, because instead of writing "Get well soon LOL" on the casts, they were painted green so that the magic of CGI could make it look like they weren't there at all. Well, almost. If you pay close attention, you can see Renner wearing a brace while he's wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and there's one part where his hands noticeably levitate oddly over a tabletop. Which begs the question: If you're going to go through all that trouble to make arms that look only semi-realistic, why not just make the movie a thousand times cooler by giving him tentacles?

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