It's no secret that CGI has seemingly gotten worse over the years, and no one knows this more than Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, who says that the decline in effects quality comes down to filmmakers trying to copy the aesthetic of video games.
"I think the simplest answer is you’ve seen the Unreal gaming engine enter the visual effects landscape," said Verbinski in an interview with But Why Tho?. "So it used to be a divide, with Unreal Engine being very good at video games, but then people started thinking maybe movies can also use Unreal for finished visual effects. So you have this sort of gaming aesthetic entering the world of cinema… I think that Unreal Engine coming in and replacing Maya as a sort of fundamental is the greatest slip backwards."
So what's the issue? In using a tool created for video games, movies are starting to feel more like RPGs than films. However, Unreal's visual effects aren't necessarily bad, but when used on projects based in reality, it can feel cartoonish. "It works with Marvel movies where you kind of know you’re in a heightened, unrealistic reality," added Verbinski. "I just don’t think it takes light the same way... So that’s how you get this uncanny valley when you come to creature animation, a lot of in-betweening is done for speed instead of being done by hand."
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