Is CGI Becoming a Burden for Film Industry?

Valerian and The City of Thousand Planets, a sci-fi adventurous movie directed by French filmmaker, Luc Besson, and starred Cara Delevingne and Dane DeHaan. It is now the recent most expensive movie that reportedly cost $200 million for production, one of the biggest box office flops in the cinema industry. One of the infuriating and the frustrating problem that filming industry faces, is the overuse of CGI for movie production.

It is revealed that The Fifth Element was a monumental production when it was made 20 years ago, and it had estimated 180 VFX shots. Valerian, on the other hand, has 2,700 such shots. It was an enormous leap forward to be able to finally put this vision on the screen, this story of the world of Valerian that he discovered as a boy. It marks a milestone moment in his career and a milestone for EuropaCorp. This enormous difference between two Bessons’ movies convey a markedly confusing transition as this signifies downfall of realism in movies.

The failure of Valerian is a concrete evidence of CGI overuse that can poignantly undermine and disintegrate the entire movie, in which acting performances are significantly downgraded when the use of green screen is too much. It is argued that over-reliance on digital technologies and virtual techniques subsequently make film directors becoming a shameless and lazy. It is understandable that the mechanism of CGI is to save money, but the downside of CGI curtails the realistic aspect of movie scenes, for instance, large crowds, an extraordinarily magnificent infrastructure, or even the geographical landscape. The visual effects of CGI are remarkably astonishing, however, movies look lifeless as actors cannot find the feasibility of integrating themselves in a consistent link between actors and the physical environment.

Regardless of the over-reliance on CGI, Besson is still one of exceptionally leading directors in the film industry, and he surely does not have intention to present the realism in Valerian. He concentrates more on the aesthetic presentation of visual images, and he manages to help audiences understanding and absorbing his rich imagination of space metropolis. As we see the massive space station Alpha, fleetingly showing the underwater energy-harvesting district and the skyscraper-sized motherboards containing all the universe’s knowledge that is tended to by tiny maintenance-bots. Alpha is conceptually designed to be the pinnacle and concentrating site of intellectual development, a peaceful oasis where there is an inseparable connection between all life forms, engaging in continuous cultural interaction in this designated spatial dimension. Despite for the abundance of the disadvantages of CGI, it is still surely an instrumental tool to create visual image that requires special virtual techniques. CGI certainly needs to depend on the skills of an artist to rationally utilize with clear intentions, and it should be contained with limited capabilities to prevent unwanted disorder. Perhaps this watershed of Valerian would be a milestone for EuropaCorp to have a reconsideration for future movie production.

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