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A CGI Michael Myers mask? What a waste of money.
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00:00CGI can be an incredible, immensely versatile tool in the hands of smart filmmakers who know
00:06when to use it. But as we've all seen countless times, it's all too often used as a crutch or
00:11an indulgence, where the results can prove extremely off-putting to audiences. And though
00:16literally hundreds of movies can be ripped to shreds for their embarrassingly cheap visual
00:21effects, we're looking specifically at movies that needlessly employed visual effects artists
00:26who work on scenes and shots that absolutely didn't need them. If nothing else, this is a
00:31testament to the thoughtless pervasiveness of CGI throughout Hollywood over the last two decades
00:36in particular, and that even enormously talented filmmakers aren't beyond overdoing it with the
00:41computerised flourishes and touch-ups. So I'm Ellie with WhatCulture here with the 10 most pointless
00:46CGI movie shots ever. Number 10. $5,000 dog poop, John Wick. John Wick is an incredible action film
00:55which makes extremely minimal use of visual effects, though the producers did stump up a princely
01:00sum to include a wildly unnecessary pile of dog crap during one early scene. Shortly after John
01:06has been gifted a puppy by his dead wife, the dog is seen leaving John's house to relieve itself,
01:11and the audience is treated to a shot of the healthy deposit the canine leaves behind. And while you
01:16probably assumed this was just a $2 plastic poop lobbed on the lawn, it was in fact a digital creation
01:22rendered to the tune of a mind-boggling $5,000. With the production unable to feed a laxative to
01:28their dog performer to get a practical poop, there was apparently no other choice than to rely on VFX.
01:34Given the utter pointlessness of the shot and the film's modest $25 million budget, it makes no sense
01:39at all to be so frivolous with dog poop, of all things. And the irony is they made it look
01:45so perfect
01:45that it looks fake. 9. Cold Breath – The Social Network
01:49Though David Fincher's 2010 masterpiece carried out many feats of sheer VFX magic, some of the more
01:56subtle instances of CGI are a bit, well, pointless. During an early scene where Jesse Eisenberg and
02:03Andrew Garfield's characters are talking outside in the middle of a party, it's blindingly obvious
02:08that their cold breath has been digitally superimposed in post-production. Rather than warm moisture
02:13faintly escaping from their mouths when they speak, they look closer to Superman deploying his ice
02:17breath like the fate of the world depends on it. Though Fincher's commitment to the details is
02:22admirable, in this case the botched execution is distracting enough that he probably should have
02:26just ditched it entirely. It's not like the temperature of the scene contributes in any way
02:30to the character or story beats we're watching unfold.
02:338. Johnny Depp's Face – Public Enemies
02:36Michael Mann's Public Enemies largely focuses on good old-fashioned practical set pieces,
02:41so Mann's decision to include one especially noticeable CGI stunt proves all the more jarring
02:47as a result. During the focal bank robbery sequence, John Dillinger is seen vaulting over
02:52a bank desk and there's no two ways about it, it looks totally badass. Or it would if not for
02:58the
02:58fact that Depp's face is clearly just a crude digital mask pasted over that of a stuntman.
03:03Apparently, the notorious perfectionist Mann had a very specific idea of how the shot should look,
03:09and when Depp couldn't quite get it right, he brought in a stunt double to execute it with the
03:14correct physicality while fixing the face in post. The irony, of course, is that the entire shot is
03:19ruined by the distracting CGI, which resembles Depp only as though he were rendered in the cutscene
03:25of a mid-budget PS1 game. Given that the shot could have easily been captured from behind the
03:30stuntman and likely still looked just as cool, it's an utterly baffling act of stubbornness on Mann's part.
03:35Number 7. Green Screen Rooftop – The Room
03:39It's fair to say that Tommy Wiseau's The Room is a film rife with questionable creative calls,
03:44though nothing quite raises the eyebrows like his decision to use extensive and totally
03:49unconvincing green screen effects to shoot the film's rooftop scenes. These scenes were shot on
03:54a set hastily thrown together in a car park with a green screen erected so that they could composite
04:00a shot of Los Angeles skyline in post-production. But what makes this use of CGI truly pointless is
04:06that there was actually a rooftop available to shoot the scenes on, but for reasons that none of
04:11the film's crew members have ever been able to ascertain, the director opted for Gordy Cromerkey
04:15instead. If James Franco's The Disaster Artist is to be believed, it's probably because Wiseau wanted
04:21to make a real Hollywood movie, and nothing says Hollywood like needlessly splashing cash on
04:26perfunctory CGI. Given that the film's budget somehow ballooned to an absurd $6 million,
04:32it's fair to assume that this sequence ended up accounting for a sizable chunk of that price tag.
04:37Number 6. Henry Cavill's Digital Shave – Justice League
04:41Now, on the face of things, you might protest that Warner Bros. spending roughly $3 million
04:45to digitally shave Henry Cavill's face for Justice League reshoots was absolutely necessary.
04:51After all, Cavill was contractually prevented from shaving his bushy tash until Mission Impossible
04:57Fallout had completed filming. But there were several options that Warner Bros. had available
05:02to them instead, and pretty much all of them were better than just fixing it in post.
05:06Shutting down production for a few weeks was obviously the most sensible. Though it wouldn't
05:10have been cheap, it ultimately would have prevented the film from becoming a laughingstock and perhaps
05:15even helped its box office in the long run. Secondly, given how badass Cavill's facial hair
05:20actually was in Fallout and that many fans expected to see a resurrected Superman with facial hair
05:25anyway, they could have leaned into it and reshot Cavill's entire role with a full, grizzled face
05:31of hair. When you've already sunk $300 million into a project, it really doesn't pay to skimp
05:37on the big picture stuff, and that's exactly what Warner Bros. did by over-relying on VFX.
05:42Number 5. The Rat – Daredevil
05:44The Ben Affleck-starring 2003 Daredevil movie is a baffling production for many reasons,
05:50not least its general excess of frivolous, often unconvincing CGI. And this much is made clear in
05:55the movie's very first shot, as a digital rat is shown scampering through the streets of Hell's
06:00Kitchen before being blasted by a steam grate. Director Mark Steven Johnson originally intended
06:06to use a real rat for the shot, but when it didn't move across the scene as intended,
06:10the decision was made to move on and pass it off to the CGI artists. The actual rendering of the
06:15rat isn't too bad, aided by the scene being extremely dark, but given the utter lack of
06:20storytelling necessity for the rat to even appear in the movie, it just feels like a daft,
06:25unnecessary indulgence. But in the very least, it's emblematic of the film's entire misguided
06:31fascination with CGI, and lets audiences know early on what they're in for.
06:354. Replacing practical effects with digital, The Thing 2011
06:40Now, this one really hurts. While the 2011 The Thing was far from a good movie,
06:47it was at least shot with an emphasis on practical creature effects in tribute to John Carpenter's
06:521982 original, which remains one of the best-crafted creature features of all time. And despite the
06:58film largely being shot with animatronics during post-production, the studio increasingly mandated
07:03use of CGI, ultimately replacing most of the original practical effects digitally through
07:09reshoots and literally tracing over the original in-camera work. Footage of the practical effects
07:15have since been found online, and considering how great they looked, fans were left outraged by the
07:20utterly charmless nature of the final digital result. There have even been calls for Universal to release
07:26a practical effects cut of the film, though with the film's practical effects artists confirming that no
07:31such cut exists, it would require Paramount going back into the editing room and assembling it.
07:37For a film that bombed at the box office and also reviewed badly, that doesn't seem very likely.
07:423. Digital tyre smoke, Ronin
07:45John Frankenheimer's Ronin is a ludicrously entertaining action thriller that boasts some
07:50of the most impressive car chases ever put to film. And Frankenheimer himself even boasted that the
07:56chases were all achieved in camera. Quote, not in green screens, not with computer tricks.
08:01Well, that is ultimately about 99.7% true, because while cars really were filmed hurtling through the
08:08streets of France, the legendary filmmaker strangely decided to inject some wildly unnecessary CGI into a
08:15Paris chase sequence. As Sam and Vincent burn rubber while making their escape, a ton of repulsive CGI
08:21smoke is layered over the top of the vehicle, intended to imply an extremely severe tyre burnout.
08:27Unfortunately, it looks laughably ugly and slightly undermines a sequence that's otherwise an epic
08:32triumph of technical filmmaking.
08:342. Michael Myers' Mask, Halloween H20, 20 Years Later
08:39The seventh Halloween movie was actually a pretty decent return to form for the series, for the most part.
08:45And given how little the franchise has relied on VFX over its tenure,
08:49few expected to see noticeable CGI in it. Surprisingly, the filmmakers were still tinkering
08:54around with the new design of the Michael Myers mask, even during shooting. And once post-production
08:59had been completed, a total of four masks had been used. If you keep your eyes peeled,
09:04you can even pick out shots where earlier iterations of the mask appear, while most of them were replaced
09:09in reshoots. And there's one especially obnoxious moment that occurs when poor Charlie comes face-to-face
09:14with Myers. Because the production wasn't able to reshoot the scene with the final mask design,
09:20a CGI model was instead pasted on top of the rejected practical one, the results of which are
09:25absolutely hideous. Though the shot lasts just a merciful second or two, was this method of problem
09:30solving really preferable to just sticking to the over-the-shoulder shot of Michael and avoiding
09:35all that fan outrage?
09:37Number 1. The Prairie Dogs, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
09:42The fourth, Indiana Jones, gets a ton of flack from fans for a number of reasons. And though
09:48nothing will ever quite top the Nuke the Fridge controversy, many were dismayed by the film's
09:53excessive reliance on low-rent visual effects. Just like Daredevil, this is made apparent in the
09:58film's very first shot. And again, like Daredevil, it involves a totally unconvincing and pointless
10:04digital rodent. The film's opening shot shows a rough CGI prairie dog emerging from its mound,
10:10surveying the area and quickly scurrying off before a car runs over the mound. And perhaps
10:14if this were a one-off, it might have been easy enough to tolerate. However, the awful digital
10:18abomination reappears during the infamous fridge-nuking scene, popping out of its hole to stare gormlessly
10:23at Indy for a moment before diving back in.
10:26And there you have it, that's our list. If you think we've missed something, then do let us know in
10:30the comments down below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap
10:33that notification bell. Also head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across
10:38various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture,
10:42I hope you have a magical day and I'll see you real soon.
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