Why is it that a movie like Gremlins, which was all puppets and practical effects, manages to slay all its recent CGI brethren?
Most directors don't have a proper grasp of the new toys and overdose on them.
Another common problem is that the fact that they can change stuff in post leads to making major decisions in post, at the last possible moment. Worst offender is apparently Peter Jackson, coming up with new action sequences 6 weeks before Smaug's delivery date.
The entire VFX industry is in a deep crisis because of this and there's no light at the end of the tunnel yet. But there are some directors doing it right, so there's still hope.
Yoda went from a dignified elderly character to some bizarre bouncy-ball in the (nowadays only somewhat) recent Star Wars movies, and often faces and expressions just turn out wrong (as in the disastrous 20th anniversary of E.T.) or are too exaggerated, like comic book characters.
Yoda simply wasn't done well. I know I'm knocking ILM but something or someone was amiss there and the character has a LOT of problems, not taking any advantage of new approaches and techniques that Weta has pioneered on the LOTR movies and Gollum.
Coincidentally the animation director has not done any major movies after the prequels.
Also, ILM has really, really got their stuff together by Pirates of the Caribbean 2 - Davy Jones is still one of the most convincing CG characters ever. Everyone at our studio was wondering after the first trailer about how much of him was practical and how much was enhanced by CG - when in fact it was all CG.
Also, I can see the angle Lucas was going for, the old but deadly martial arts master, with his skills enhanced by the Force, but it still didn't work for me. Yet there were youtube videos about audience reactions in theaters and people went ballistic at the scene.
Do actors react more believably and realistically to a puppet than to a ping-pong ball on a stick for eyeline reference which then gets painted over in post-process with an imaginary, virtual CGI abomination?
There are many new approaches and techniques to solve this problem.
It's now quite trivial to completely paint out an actor from a scene, it was done in 2002 in TTT with Gollum so it's common today. It has also lead to the development of simple mocap systems that can work on shooting locations anywhere, so that they can have the actors for the CG characters right there, at the shoot, and still capture the performances.
Just look at the new Planet of the Apes - the character interactions are quite emotional (the scenes where Caesar speaks are really powerful), and some of the CGI is so good, I only realized it weren't real apes when they were starting to do some really complex stuff. So, it can be done well, it's just that many directors have not yet mastered their new tools.
Or look at District 9, again a real actor playing the prawns, painted out in post and replaced with CG characters, keeping the interactions
Or in the new Oz movie, they had a small LCD screen held out by green-clothed guys with live feed from the voice actor, to give something to react to.
Or am I looking at this thirty years old movie through rose colored glasses?
Yes, you are. I've watched Empire a few weeks ago and the Yoda puppet was almost ridiculous. They've barely been able to sell it as a serious character even at that time, today it'd be impossible.
And Gremlins, well I should try to see it too, I remember how much I liked it, really cool movie...
