Var livet nogensinde bedre end i slutningen af 00'erne? Ja ja, der var finanskrisen og alt det dér - men hold op, hvor så CGI godt ud. Pirates of the Caribbean, Avatar, Transformers, District 9. De så alle ud til at være år forud for deres tid, mens selv nutidens blockbustere med budgetter på flere hundrede millioner dollars til sammenligning kan se en smule billige ud. Hvorfor egentlig?
Pirates of the Caribbean-instruktøren Gore Verbinski har et bud på svaret, men Epic Games vil nok helst holde sig for ørerne. "I think the simplest answer is you've seen the Unreal gaming engine enter the visual effects landscape. So it used to be a divide, with Unreal Engine being very good at video games, but then people started thinking maybe movies can also use Unreal for finished visual effects. So you have this sort of gaming aesthetic entering the world of cinema," forklarede han til But Why Tho?
"I think that's why those Kubrick movies still hold up, because they were shooting miniatures and paintings, and now you've got this different aesthetic. It works with Marvel movies where you kind of know you're in a heightened, unrealistic reality. I think it doesn't work from a strictly photo-real standpoint," fortsatte Verbinski. Han pegede også på, at UE ikke reagerer på subsurface scattering og lys på samme måde som andre metoder til at skabe CG. Meget af det er, ifølge ham, "done for speed,".
Det er dog ikke udelukkende Unreal Engines skyld, for ifølge Verbinski findes problemerne også på ledelsesniveau. "And then just what's become acceptable from an executive standpoint, where they think no one will care that the ships in the ocean look like they're not on the water. In the first Pirates movie, we were actually going out to sea and getting on a boat," sagde han.
Overordnet set mener Verbinski, at Unreal Engine som afløser for Maya som det primære CGI-fundament er "the greatest slip backwards." Er du enig i hans vurdering?