Re: How close is "Kong" to a real gorilla?

[ROBERT NICHOLLS <nichollsart@hotmail.com>]

Yes, fellow Jurassic Park 1 supporters!  In my opinion, the most convincing 
special effects produced in ANY natural history documentary or "monster" 
movie are those in the first Jurassic Park film.  These JP1 dinosaurs had 
weight, they moved with effort and as a result look so much more realistic.  
The original JP team knew when they could use CGI and made the effort to do 
it properly, but were also willing to use animatronics where they worked 
best.  In later movies and TV programmes there is almost a total dependence 
on CGI to do everything, partly as a cost saving exercise I guess, and it 
doesn't always work.  As with illustration, just because an image has been 
produced on a computer doesn't mean it is automatically better.  Like paint 
and brush, CGI is an art medium and if the artist doesn't do their homework 
the product will suffer.  Oh, my god, I have seen some BAD CGI dinosaur book 
illustrations; give me a Doug Henderson pastel any day of the week.

I'm looking forward to seeing King Kong sometime in the next few days.  Like 
Todd, I'm going in knowing I will have to accept some serious anatomical 
screw ups but I really hope Kong and the "dinosaurs" don't bounce around 
like elaborate party balloon animals.  It is hard (I know I often fail) but 
the challenge with CGI is the same as with a pencil or lump of modeling clay 
-give the subject mass...

Bob
www.paleocreations.com



> On 16 Dec 2005, Luis Rey wrote:
>
> Who can possibly say that discussing anatomy can't be fun?!
>
> Based on my own (limited) experience working with some computer  wizards... 
> I agree a hundred percent that most of the time they   don't give a damn 
> about  the realities of anatomy (sometime ago  Darren and I had to struggle 
> with some "experts" that portrayed a  bull as an Iguanodon with horns, bent 
>  bodies in every possible  direction, added fingers and toes and 
> photoshopped the elbow skin of  an elephant onto its shoulder... and they 
> called that realism!).  Being monstrous is a perfect cop-out (and if 
> everything runs at high  speed in an enormous screen in front of you, it 
> well may be that  you'd have to wait for  the DVD to really see how they 
> got all the  details wrong!).  I really hope that directors will shy away 
> from  purely computer generated characters... everything looks like a  
> computer game at the end.
>
> And yes I agree with Dan Varner that there's a bit more care for  reality 
> and anatomical details in the first Jurassic Park.