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:
Spawn (1997)
THE
SCENE: Several of them that take place in an almost cartoonish Hell. Ultimately, though, our (anti-)hero journeys to the hot place with mentor Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson) to do battle with both The Violator and Malebolgia, who is the devil of many realms. Anyway, the CGI for this entire sequence is something akin to Beast Wars meets a bad acid trip…as rendered on an Atari 2600. Everything, foreground, background, main players, the demon extras, even the friggin’ fire, is just horrendous. It almost makes the horrific CGI in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation look like The Matrix.
WHERE IT
ALL GOES WRONG: Strange as it appears, possibly with the year in which it was made. Turns out 1997 is a repeat offender on this list (An American Werewolf In Paris, Star Wars: Special Edition, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation). It’s like there’s a cancer cluster of bad CGI for that particular anno domini. But actually, a lot of the CGI in this film outside of the bad Hell sequences weren’t great to begin with. Violator looked OK when he was in dark environs, and a lot of Spawn himself, particularly the face armoring was also fine. But Cogliostro frequently came off as a bad image from the House Of The Dead 2 video game and, as mentioned, Malebolgia never looked good. I’m really curious how a creature that’s drawn as such,
comes out looking like a bad take on The Thing circa husky-snacking mode:
My thinking is that his design was envisioned as a bad three-way telepod accident involving the following:
Anyway, if your main baddie looks like an Evil Dead Pound Puppy, chances are pretty good that that’s not going to bode well for many of your other effects.
BEEN DONE PRACTICALLY:
Well, it’s doubtful that that Hell would have been available for location shooting, but the thing that worked best in the film was John Leguizamo as Clown. I’d forgotten how entertaining he was and give all the credit in the world to the guy for spending the entire film on his knees. It just goes to show that some guys can do more with some carny makeup, set of nasty demon teeth and a fat suit, than some (first time director and experienced visual effects supervisor, Mark A.Z. Dippe) can with a few million in effects budget. Spawn’s makeup and suit also worked and much of his CGI was also fine. His cape looked sort of like an Avatar lava lamp set free, but I think that was by design.
I don’t know what it was about Hell that made everything, including Violator, who looked much better both in the alley and Wanda’s house battles with Spawn, look so bad. In Hell he just looked awful. I’m only guessing but it looks like there were several practical models, perhaps maquettes, of Violator used in those Spawn battles on Earth. That could have been a way to go.
HOW BAD
IS
IT? I hope the stunt demons got some damn good virtual per diems:
IN
SUMMATION: Apparently, the Eighth Circle of Hell is the Bad CGI level.
33 comments
If I remember the Cinefex article about this correctly, the 3D model for Malebolgia was basically an altered version of a model from American Werewolf in Paris.
It shows.
"for that particular anno domini." Good GOD that is annoying writing. I can actually feel your hot mouth-breath on my face, emanating from the screen. But yes, Spawn sucks, in comic form, movie form, whatever.
OK, fair enough. This is one of the more understandable entries, but I'm still not sure it's "worst" material. Still, at least I GET the choice this time. But you didn't mention the saddest thing about this CGI creation: They didn't have time to match his mouth to his dialogue, so he just kind of flails and randomly gnashes his gums, often leaving his mouth hanging slack for entire sentences at a time. Pretty hilarious.
I remember watching one of these 'making of fx scenes in movies' shows that used to run in the 90s and they showed one scene from Spawn — it was the making of the cape.. not other stuff. Anyway, I don't remember much of this movie..
Best installment yet, David. Spot on with the "three-way telepod accident". Loved it.
1997 also gave us Starship Troopers and The Fifth Element, both of which were a pretty wonderful marriage of practical and CGI – we cant shit on 1997 too much.
Matrix: Reloaded: NO Spawn: YES!!!
It's been so long since I've seen Spawn, but I remember even as a kid thinking that the scenes in Hell looked fake as….hell?
The stuff in the end that takes place in Hell really didn't bother me as much as the scene where Spawn crashes down through the glass to confront Martin Sheen's character. Spawn's head/body/cape doesnt match and the positioning of it is all sorts of wonky. I remember even when I saw this in the theater thinking that it was just dreadful CGI during that particular scene
I saw an ILM effects artist give a lecture at my school – about Phantom Menace if memory serves me – and at the end he showed an ILM produced video called "The Spirit of Spawn" (a take off of the pre-South Park "Spirit of Christmas) which took the film's crappy VFX to task. I remember them saying that the debris that falls down when Spawn crashes through the window at the party looked like a "fucking lumber pile". Also, in Roger Ebert's 3.5 star review (!) he calls the movies version of hell, "worthy of Hieronymous Bosch". Um, sure Roger.
Who remembers Drop Dead Fred when the Young One who played Fred bounced around the ceiling CG style. That should be #1. Of course I think that was from the 80's so they may get a pass
why does it look good in some sequences and bad in others? easy: there's always more than one vfx company involved in making these movies. the hell stuff was most likely not done by ILM but by a lesser company…
Malbolgia sucks but that first transformation into his armor still holds up beautifully.
A buff guy in a rubber suit looks like a fat guy. That cape was awful, which I think was what won the director the gig. What year was The Frighteners? His cape should have looked and moved like the Death creature in that.
awesome…bring on godzilla or revenge of the sith
You thought Leguizamo was good in Spawn?!? My mind has been blown.
"My thinking is that his design was envisioned as a bad three-way telepod accident involving the following:". . .comedy fucking gold.
Kevin McHale should have been the monster full stop. That would have blown some minds.
I remember vividly how crap that movie looked most of the time (and generally was in every respect. Interesting soundtrack though) The demon guys in hell were so plainly just the same motion capture loop of Spawn from a earlier scene copy-pasted about a thousand times.
Right you are #16. John Leguizamo was just as bad as the rest of the actors who have no clue why they're there in the first place.
As for Dippe…i read somewhere he was planning to direct a family friendly "Wicked city". Anyone who knows this anime classic knows this ANYTHING but that. So i hope that's just a rumour
You guys need to add Hellraiser Bloodline to this list……man the early movies used practical effects and now in this one they used cgi….bad cgi
I remember reading somewhere that it was another company that did the fx for the hell sequences, can't remember the name, but it was the same one that did the work for American Werewolf in Paris.
Also if you look carefully at the Hell army you can see the animation of them (or real footage, they look so crappy you can't tell) is on loop, they move for 3 seconds and then they make the same movement on reverse, and so on.
I've heard that the hell sequence was not completed in time and it shows. When Spawn is thrown, there were obvious missing frames that made my eyes go wonky.
I know this site has a lot of love for 3000 Miles to Graceland, but surely the "symbolic" duelling Scorpions at the start of that film will make this list.
But in 1997, at least movies tried to use practical alongside CGI. Now it's all CGI. Every blockbuster (Clash of the Titans, Prince of Persia, etc) has plenty of reviews that mention their "unfinished" CGI.
In 13 years, we'll be looking back at these years with the same disdain we now reserve for 1997…
…Goddam, this movie sucked…
Man, some of you nerds are picky and weird. Like DOug, what would you pick as all time worst CGI? Because if Spawn doesn't rank, then nothing does. And I don't want to hear any Sci-Fi channel movies which obviously aren't even close to the same league budget-wise.
i remember seeing this in the cinema, sitting too close to the screen and nearly vomiting during the last hell sequence, never happened before or since.
sock puppet satan
#18 – those Spawn copies should have been more heavily mentioned in the article – some of them were standing on thin air.
The other vfx company that worked on this was called Santa Barbara Studios. They were the ones who also did the wolf effects for "American Werewolf in Paris", which a previous poster mentioned served as a model for that demon whats-it who runs Hell. The late 90's was a time when alot of new-fangled vfx houses were sprouting up. Woul be interested to see how many are still in business.
#26, nowhere in the title or description does it say "worst CGI in films with big budgets" or "worst CGI in theatrical movies." Quite the opposite – it says WORST CGI IN HISTORY. That's a big, bold statement. And yes, that does mean you need to start tossing some DTV films and TV stuff. But as far as theatrical films go, I don't know if you can top Mortal Kombat Annihilation, or perhaps the horrific space monkey from Lost in Space. That's about as low as it gets. If we're going to go with nothing but raw theatrical releases, fine, Spawn would probably rank. So would the horrific bronto stampede from King Kong and pretty much everything about A Sound of Thunder.
#30: Yeah, you're right. And if I remember right, because they were start-ups (first year or so's finances covered) they were undercutting the pricing all over Hollywood. But they were all shit. See "Sphere" for similar results. These assholes would say they could do anything via the magic of computers but they were fucking clueless/had no background or depth of knowledge, only 3D Max Skillz. The ones that survived ended up hiring old-school FX guys to run the studios properly.
"The other vfx company that worked on this was called Santa Barbara Studios."
I remember the credits called them Banned from the Ranch, which was presumably supposed to be cute, but the film looked horrible. In the UK it opened a week before Batman & Robin, or at least I remember seeing them one after the other, and it was a bleak fortnight.
BUT I think it was cut, either for the UK market, or in general. The action sequences featured a lot of people shooting outside the screen at things we couldn't see, and it was all surprisingly bloodless and tame. And the hell sequences looked awful. Great music though; it was a mixture of metal and techno, literally Metallic vs Orbital or something like that. But a terrible film.
But I did copy the letters correctly.
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