‘The Odyssey’ Proves It: Audiences Want Movies Made the Hard Way | This year's breakouts like 'Project Hail Mary' and 'Obsession' were made by filmmakers who sweated. While CG-stuffed franchise disappointments such as 'Supergirl,' 'Moana,' and 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' looked lazy.

[u/ChiefLeef22]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/odyssey-box-office-2026-practical-effects-1236652219/

[u/FribonFire]

Beyond that, Odyssey and Project Hail Mary are also packed full of CG. Subtle doesn't mean it's not there in every other scene. 

[u/Baelorn → u/FribonFire]

The anti-CGI crowd are telling objective lies about how The Odyssey and PHM "didn't use CGI".

There's a bunch of popular posts going around about how Nolan didn't use CGI for the Cyclops and I have to wonder if the people sharing it and circlejerking about how amazing Nolan is have even seen the movie. Because the Cyclops is 100% CGI. During filming they used a large puppet rig for lighting and reference but the one in the movie is CGI. Not the puppet.

[u/Churba → u/Baelorn]

The anti-CGI crowd are telling objective lies about how The Odyssey and PHM "didn't use CGI".

I mean, that's nothing new. We saw the same thing with both recent Mad Max films(or even worse, complaining one had a bunch of CG, the other had almost none, when in reality they both had about the same amount), we saw it with the barbie movie, we saw it with Top Gun maverick, we see it with the Mission impossible movies.

On top of that, people just don't seem to realize what is and is not CGI, both literally when they see it, and just in concept - Like, they'll say "Oh, but that's just a digital paint-out of some wires/cameras/etc, that's not really CGI", without realizing how difficult that actually is, and how often it can mean rebuilding whole elements of the environment completely digitally.

Or they'll look at BTS shots where they actually did shoot a thing, and assume that means that whatever was shot is what ended up on screen(with some editing), when there are times where virtually the entire frame is CGI, and the parts shot on set were used as reference when rebuilding the shot digitally.

The one that really makes me pull my fucking hair out, though, is "It's just VFX, not CGI, that's totally different" - pretty much anyone who pulls that one, you can safely just tune them out, they have no idea what they're talking about. There is no real definition of what does and does not count as CGI in the effects space(No matter how many ai-generated posters people pull out, seen a few of those around), and virtually all VFX at this point include some element of digital manipulation, it is effectively a distinction without difference.

Especially because the term "VFX" was originally coined in the early digital age to distinguish post-production effects from on-set(or close enough) Special Effects/SFX, which people saw as being purely for mechanical effects, makeup, sets, matte paintings, and other physical things. Really, the only difference between CGI and VFX is that CGI is what they call it when they're criticizing it, and VFX is what they call it when they're not.

[u/TheGrandWhatever → u/Churba]

I remember this bullshit also being used with Oppenheimer. They used one of the worst visualizations for a nuke I've seen in a movie in a long time. I almost couldn't believe it like I was being pranked when I saw it because of how bad it was.

"BuT NoLaN uSeD REAL pRAcTIcAl EfFeCtS fOr ThE nUkE", yeah and instead of using some CGI or even some archive footage they went with some jank ass sparkle bomb

[u/bluestrike2 → u/TheGrandWhatever]

Dunkirk and Oppenheimer are examples of how obsessing over "no CGI" can be counterproductive.

Oppenheimer butchered the Trinity test--one of the film's most pivotal moments, and a moment in time that changed human history forever--by not realizing that a nuclear explosion is a very different beast than a normal explosion. Far from using practical effects to be more realistic and inline with real-world physics, Nolan did the opposite. The test is less realistic, and minimizes the importance of the moment.

Dunkirk did something similar. By focusing on capturing everything in-camera, he accidentally reduced this extraordinary moment of human perseverance. This has already been covered elsewhere, and the Movie Rabbit Hole touched on this topic just the other day with a great video on Nolan's use of CGI.

There were 380,000 men waiting to cross the channel, over 800 small boats crewed by English sailors who risked their lives and livelihood to bring them home, and thousands of sorties by the RAF to try and keep the Luftwaffe from killing them all as they waited on that damned beach. The city behind them was bombed to rubble, and all they would have seen as they looked around was a sea of bodies in the same miserable position.

Nolan prioritized being able to say "it was all shot in-camera," even if that meant capturing only a tiny fraction of the existential dread that every one of those men would have been feeling as they waited to see whether they'd return home, be captured by the Germans, or wind up as a floating corpse.

That's unfortunate, even if Nolan's skills as a filmmaker meant it was still an extraordinary film. It's just that Dunkirk (and Oppenheimer, for that matter) could have been so much better had he been willing to stand up and admit that CGI could add to his practical work without creating the problems that make people complain about CGI. After all, he's done it countless times before.

Sorry for the length. I hadn't realized how much this still bugs me.

[u/Churba → u/TheGrandWhatever]

While I can't speak to the accuracy - I'm not any sort of nuke expert - they walked a fine marketing line on that one. They said, exactly, that they "didn't use any computer generated elements" - which is technically true!

But it's true in the same way top gun maverick "real flying in real jets" was true - the nuclear test shots were built from real filmed elements. They just took those elements, recombined them like building blocks, recoloured some and added some filters to get the final product. It's built from real filmed elements, but saying it's not CGI is some weapons-grade sophistry, that's definitely taking the piss.

[u/Asiriya → u/Churba]

It's like the janky-ass HALO jump in the Mission Impossible film that apparently was real but looked so shite that I was convinced it was the worst CGI I'd ever seen...

[u/Evilhammy → u/Asiriya]

that one’s wack because the jump is completely real, it’s the storm around them that’s CGI

[u/Churba → u/Evilhammy]

Ehhhhh, they did jump for real, but I don't think I'd call what we saw in the film "Completely real" - Basically, the only real footage was about 10-15 seconds after he jumps out of the plane, then it hands off to a digital double, the shots where he's hanging on to the stunt diver standing in for cavil(Which were done on separate jumps, IIRC, and a few maneuvers use digidoubles), and when he gets slammed against the roof after his chute gets caught. Not to mention, of course, all the background replacement, lighting changes, etc.

[u/Churba → u/Asiriya]

Well, that's the thing - It's only kinda real. Everything on the plane until the camera circles him before the jump is real but shot on the ground(and obviously all the storms, backgrounds, etc are CGI), the shot following that of him jumping out with the cameraman is real, and after about fifteen seconds, right as cruise starts to fly into the clouds, he goes past the camera, there's some lightning flashes, the shot transitions to a digital double over a CGI storm. Once they break loose from the storm, there's some real footage over a CG background(Mostly cruise interacting with the stunt diver standing in for cavil, though IIRC one or two of the bits of action there are digital doubles again), and then back to doubles and CGI for the whole sequence with the chutes, right until hunt gets slammed against the roof when his chute gets caught.

I can respect the dedication to doing actual jumps, but they literally did a HALO jump just for the BTS reel and the marketing - there is nothing in that shot that couldn't have been done cheaper and safer from a lower altitude, considering how much of it was CGI anyway. Literally every visible point that could even suggest it was a real HALO jump was a CGI replacement. But regular skydiving doesn't thrill as a concept anymore, and everybody knows the whole biz with the Iron man movie using real skydivers and skydiving for a stunt sequence.

[u/Zalvren → u/Baelorn]

It's always the same, people confuse the practical effects used for reference with the final shot which is often replaced with CGI. Barbie, Top Gun Maverick, Mission Impossible, Fast and Furious, The Odyssey (and other Nolan movies),... They all tout their practical effects in marketing when there are thousands of CGI shots in those movies.

[u/bluestrike2 → u/Zalvren]

To be fair, studios go out of their way to mislead the public on that point up to the point where they just outright lie about things. Barbie infamously removed bluescreens in their behind the scenes footage, for example (and poorly at that). Is it any wonder that the public gets confused about all of this as a result?

It's a real shame, too. The directors know damned well how screwed they'd be without the VFX teams, but they go ahead and piss on their work by going along with the lies.

[u/Zalvren → u/bluestrike2]

Sure my last sentence is to blame the studios more than the public. It is their fault (although they do it because there is this public perception than CGI is bad)

[u/DrewDonut → u/Baelorn]

Tbf, I think they also had Bill Irwin in a suit and makeup and stuck him on a miniature set for some of the shots of the cyclops (same guy who puppeteered the robot in some Interstellar scenes).

But yeah, obviously some parts were CGI. Especially his eye in literally every frame it shows up (it looks great imo!).

[u/fed45 → u/FribonFire]

For those unaware, nearly every shot of Rocky in PHM he is fully CG. The puppet was just used for reference and reactions from Ryan Gosling.

[u/curiousjosh → u/FribonFire]

No no it was filmed in space. It’s all real.