Why doesHome Alonelook better than the latest Marvel fare on the most advanced displays?
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I put on 2015sThe Revenantnext, and it looked pristine until the bear showed up.
On my old TV, the grizzly had been photorealistic.
The CGI wasntbad, just soft, especially against the sharpness of the live-action Canadian wilderness.
It became distracting to the point that I could hardly enjoyLeonardo DiCaprios mauling.
I figured the bear was a fluke and that maybe my TV would fare better with newer VFX.
In parts ofThor: Ragnarok, the Hulk resembled a plastic action figure.
The green-screen jungle backdrops in this yearsThe Lost Citylooked cheap enough to tip over and flatten Sandra Bullock.
(Before you ask: Yes, I had turned off my TVs motion-smoothing feature.)
Was I picking pixel-size nits that most viewers will never notice?
But I wasnt alone.
Its worse in things where the CGI wasnt done very well to begin with.
Some of the new Marvel shows almost look like something from the CW, he says.
Youre so impressed with the practical effects that you dont notice all the computer-generated ones.
The problem may not be that effects have gotten worse but that TVs have gotten better too fast.
When the first 4K sets debuted a decade ago, nobody wanted them.
They cost $20,000, and there was barely any 4K programming.
By March 2021, 44 percent of TV-owning U.S. households had purchased one.
Hollywood has been slower to adapt.
Meanwhile, most older films can simply be remastered at a single higher standard.
With 4K televisions, though, that stuff is really in your face.
It takes four times as long to render, says Angela Barson, co-founder of the VFX studio BlueBolt.
Corners are cut, and a half-assed 4K effect can look worse than a decent 2K one.
It can throw up more issues, she says.
You have to confirm the CGI matches its surroundings completely throughout the full color gamut.
Its an art form, and not everybody can do it.
It requires experts, and there are not enough of them in the world.
One of the Marvel films I just finished very recently was at 2K.
The film Im prepping right now is going to be in 2K.
And these are big tentpole films, not low-budget indies or anything, he says.
With the distance that typical audiences sit from their TVs, the benefit of 4K is debatable.
Part of me wonders, Is anybody even seeing that?
At home, Winquist watches movies with an HD projector.
I explain my own 4K CGI problem to Robert Eggers, who directed this years Viking revenge sagaThe Northman.
I totally know what you mean, he says.
Eggers has a reputation for period-realistic production design and largely avoided digital effects in his first two features.
For a $90 million movie likeThe Northman, though, Eggers often had no choice.
There wasa lot more CGIthan I would have liked, he says.
The Northmanwas shot on 35-mm.
film, but its CGI was rendered at 2K.
Hes mostly happy with howThe Northmanturned out for home viewers.
The digital versions of movies that are screened in most theaters dont have true blacks.
Blu-ray.coms review backs him up, saying that the 4K disc is wonderful, razor-sharp, and perfectly filmic.
That may be because most of the CGI is so subtle.
Other effects are more prominent, especially to the director.
I think its really strong, but I only buy it 97 percent, he says.
When those ships come in, that doesnt totally work for me.
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