Holy shit, CGI has changed the way we
look at the world around us. Back in the 70’s if you were waiting for
the movie to start and the bucket of popcorn grew eyes and started
dancing around the counter top assisted by a reanimated bag of Skittles
you’d puke in your hat and call a ventriloquist, a priest, and a burly
cop six weeks from retirement to come deal with it. Now we can’t flip
through the channels without seeing a seemingly living 2,000 foot robot
whipping up a lather in his 17,000 foot shower or a muffin writhing out
of some bitch’s grasp as she does a walk-and-talk about menopause being a
real pisser. Superman
made us believe a man could fly but it wasn’t until The Revenge of the Sith
that we could believe that Christopher Lee had both Jedi Powers and
Phase-Shift Parkinsons.
CGI is an amazing tool that many
filmmakers wield like a digital Mjolnir,
creating worlds and creatures that take our breath away. Unfortunately
through the years some have used it as a scythe, slashing our dreams and
severing that muscle that connects our sexual pleasure organs to the
muscle that tells our mind we’re really good at using our sexual
pleasure organs. The result is oblivion.
So with that we bring you CHUD’s
latest glorious list. The twenty worst instances of CGI in movie
history. In no order. Well, except the order we decide to do them.
Brought to you by David Oliver
THE OFFENDER: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
THE
SCENE: Wolverine vs. Fire Escape. Logan’s search for the bad guys takes him to the Big Easy, where he encounters Gambit. Of course there’s a misunderstanding and of course they end up fighting. Gambit takes to a fire escape in an attempt to get away and Wolvie decides that he ain’t gonna let that happen. So he calls upon his rarely-ever used mutant superpower of Tex Avery Berzerker Rage and quickly turns the fire escape into paper clips. Had I known that Wolverine could do shit like that, I would have kicked much more ass on X-Men Legends I and II.
WHERE IT
ALL GOES WRONG:
Well, there were some other instances of dodgy CGI in the film, most notably, the almost Roger Rabbit-quality claws in the bathroom scene. But the fire escape scene is inspired in its ridiculousness. Never in any bio, character description, wiki, or other reference material has it ever been mentioned that Wolverine could turn into The Mask. In retrospect, I probably should have been concerned for Remy that Logan was going to ram a car muffler up his ass.
HOW IT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE PRACTICALLY: There were plenty of scenes where Wolverine’s use of the claws looked just fine. He effectively sliced through doors, locks, sinks, concrete, Deadpools (Okay, on a side note, just how the blue hell was Wade supposed to have Hanzo swords up his arms? Really?), etc. Doubtful that Hugh Jackman could have safely pulled off hacking down a mock fire escape safely with practical claws. So CGI was still probably the way to go here. Just not bad CGI. And certainly not cartoonish CGI.
HOW BAD
IS IT? Heh:
TORNADO CLAW!
IN
SUMMATION: Where was Tex’s name in the visual effects section of the credits? I certainly didn’t see it.
Day 2: An American Werewolf in Paris
Day 3: E.T. The Extra Terrestrial 20th Anniversary
25 comments
worst part of one of the worst films i've ever paid to see.
This was kind a of blah choice…as was the E.T. article last week. I love love LOVE the concept of this list, but so far nothing has compared to the first article on THE MUMMY RETURNS. Sure the E.T. special edition had crap CGI added in, and WOLVERINE was kind of a bland movie all around, but there are MUCH MUCH worse uses of CGI out there, including: Ang Lee's HULK, the "infected" in I AM LEGEND, the glacier surfing in DIE ANOTHER DAY, the "werewolves" in NEW MOON, the "young Jabba" shoehorned into STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE, Sam L. Jackson's death in DEEP BLUE SEA, the wolves in DAY AFTER TOMORROW, the deer attack in THE RING 2, the monster in BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF, the car crash in the beginning of ALONG CAME A SPIDER, everything in JUMANJI, and the entirety of A SOUND OF THUNDER. There are dozens and dozens of films to choose from….let's see some more interesting choices.
and here I thought I was the only one to call them Roger Rabbit claws in that bathroom scene… that was just god-awful, how did that NOT get fixed before release.
There's a close-up moment just after your .gif that you can actually see space between the claws and his skin, like they're 'hovering' there… the fx company on this film should be blacklisted for that.
Bathroom claws are so much worse. Like they went into each frame with MS Paint and drew them in. And in the year 2009! For shame. At least the fire escape scene is such a visual clusterfuck that you can't really clearly see what's going on.
I really hope to see the Neo/Agent Multi-Smith skirmish from "Matrix Reloaded" show up here at some point. When game graphics (and poor ones at that) show up in a major movie and are suppose to pass for state of the art, well kids, that makes for some of the worst CGI in movie history.
The mirror scene is bad CGI.
The fire escape scene is not bad CGI, just silly CGI.
I really thought the awful CGI claws in the bathroom scene would be the focus here. The fire escape bit really didn't bother me that much compared to the rest of the ass-disaster this movie was.
maybe the FX looked better in the workprint..? HA!
about the singing swords
I've seen bad CGI done in low budget films, i.e. Starship Troopers 3, but those films have no budget. There's no excuse for this shit.
I remember that Exorcist prequel had some really awful CG. Those wolves, man.
Die Another Day had better make this list for the aforementioned glacier surfing. Mind. Blowing. Awful.
I'm glad someone else has noticed the appallingly dreadful CGI-car-falling-into-a-ravine opening to Along Came A Spider. Since when couldn't we crash a real car through a bridge and watch it fall? Why did the filmmakers go for the doubtless more expensive and totally less ocnvincing option of CGI-ing it. Baffling. Really pulled me out of the film.
Another thing about the bathroom scene – how did he slice the sinks in half with three claws?
SPAWN. You have to do Spawn.
Where does the wreckage go? WHERE DOES THE WRECKAGE GO!!!??
Does the green screened kids running towards the helicopter in the woods at the end not count as CGI? That scene was pathetic. All those little muties running through a wooded area with leaves all over the ground and not one pine needle or fallen leaf is dixturbed by all those feet.
Man, everytime i see a new entry for this series im sure it's gonna be the Neo vs. Smiths fight in Matrix Reloaded. Looked horrible at the time, and it's only proceeded to get worse.
Sadly..I think I worked at the FX studio that did the bathroom claws scene.
You gotta throw Mortal Kombat 2 for the worst cgi. Given it was only 1997 but geez the animality was a joke
The thing that made the claws in this movie seem so bad to me was that there really wasn't anything wrong with them in any of the first three X-Men films. "If it ain't broke…", right? Whether it was more practical effects, props, or more subtle CG, the X-Men effects kicked this movie's ass when it came to the claws, even in the first one when they probably weren't even sure if it was going to look good at all.
I agree with Comment #15 (Posted by Christopher)
Spawn has some of the worst CGI ever! Especially when he visits hell. It's shockingly bad! Animated gifs would of been an improvement over the half dozen frames of animation they copy and pasted on that flamey background. They obviously at that point ran low on budget or couldn't be arsed!
Damn man, now I should make the pint that I never saw this movie. Well not in a theater, I got a hold of that leaked work print and saw all the knock off CGI, and by the looks of those GIF's nothings changed. Would have figured someone would think they need to refine those graphics for the final cut…
#18 – I disagree. The Burly Man fight is an example where hard work in special effects work pays off. It looks great. That was 2003. Compare that to Arnie's CGI cameo in Terminator: Salvation. Or (and I'm surprised this wasn't the choice for this column)… CGI Patrick Stewart in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Did technology get worse in 7 years?
So I guess I should be glad I only saw the bootleg of this fiasco? (Not that I endorse bootlegging films.. but.. eh.. in this case.. what the hell.) Sad to see the effects were as bad as the adaptation and story.
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