CGI dominates modern cinema and who wouldn’t love it, it’s a cheap way to make real-looking action shots without having stunt people and pyrotechnics and all of that stuff but how does it impact the audience? 

The first instance of CGI in a film was in 1973 with the film “Westworld”; this was the first time that live-action and CGI were used together. This could also be seen as a Pandora’s box sort of moment because this unlocked the use of CGI in movies forever. 

Nowadays CGI is used very often in movies and in most cases it can prove to be visually stunning like in films like Dune and Star Wars and most notably avatar. ‘Avatar” came out in 2009 and was a visual masterpiece. It was directed by visionary director James Cameron who directed classics like the first 2 “Terminator” movies and “Titanic”. 

But what made “Avatar” one of the highest-grossing movies in the world was not because of the storytelling or who directed it but because almost the entire movie was made with CGI and not cheap CGI that looks like a seven-year-old made it, but real authentic breathtaking CGI that made the world feel real and immersive. And I hate it

Now I don’t hate it because it’s a bad movie but because “Avatar” was one of the highest-grossing movies in the world for a few years running until it was broken by “Avengers: Endgame” and then again by “Avatar: The Way of Water” and all this does is show that we can make a movie completely with CGI and people will go and see it.

This makes Hollywood think that maybe live-action movies aren’t worth it if you have to pay stunt crew. And special effects people and why would you do that when you can have a team of 30-100 people and have animated a life like a movie?

Anyway, I hope that as CGI evolves people will realize that animation and live action should stay separated.  Because that is all CGI movies are just animated movies trying to be live-action.