What live-action films would be impossible if CGI had not invented?

The state of the film industry is heavily dominated by Computer Generated Imagery. Ever since the release of Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Jurassic Park, the advent of CGI has caused everything in Hollywood to utilize CGI to an extent, from low-budget films to big-budget spectacles.

The top grossing films right now of writing have used CGI to a massive extent, thanks to the special-effect laden plots and desire to make money. With an extensive use of CGI, brought mounting costs of budget allocated for special effects.

Suppose CGI had not been invented, or at least, had not been fully developed to allow films like Avengers: Infinity War and Avatar - meaning a lot of science fiction and fantasy films or hypothetical adaptations that are impossible to produce or adapt without making a massive failure or bankrupting a studio.

What films that are impossible to produce without the advent of Computer-Generated Imagery?
 
Well since you brought up Avatar the movie itself might still be made perhaps animated (without CGI, cel animation or computer animation that doesn't involve CGI) since Cameron from what I read is he already made the script for Avatar after making the Titanic. But had CGI never been invented either Avatar never sees the light of day, or it gets made as a computer animated film (think of how Atlantis was made, unless it was cel then correct me if I'm wrong) or cel animated, only to not be successful.

Other films that would never be made are perhaps practically every Pixar film and also the Matrix film franchise as it heavily relied on CGI in slow motion fight scenes. Also another film franchise that would be heavily effected would be the entire Star Wars prequel films since they all relied on CGI. Well for Star Wars prequels they might be still made without the CGI, but of course it still wouldn't be the same and it might of not been as successful like in OTL.
 
A lot of movies were made pre-CGI. I don't think the lack of CGI would really impact the film industry. A lot of quality movies still could be made, perhaps relying more on story than visuals.
 

Driftless

Donor
Lord of the Rings series. Much of the film was and still could be shot on site in New Zealand, but the great battles with vast armies of Orcs, Trolls, flying Nazgul, etc would be almost impossible to replicate in scope.
 
Star Wars did a really good job with bluescreen and lines drawn on negatives in 1977. The effects were awesome for the time because the audience wasn't expecting it to look so real. The point is, every new generation of improvement is better than the previous. Without CGI, much sci-fi would go on with the effects available, all of which would be better than those of years past.
 
This is a brief and dynamic list of films impossible to adapt into live-action without CGI:
  • Pokemon
  • The Matrix
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • Digimon
  • Ben 10
  • Avatar
  • Lord of the Rings
  • Transformers
  • Dragon Ball
  • Any animation/comic/video game adaptation based on sci-fi/fantasy/horror premises
  • Game of Thrones
  • Gravity
  • Toy-based movies
  • Superhero films
  • Saya no Uta
  • NieR
  • Spec Ops: The Line
  • And others.
 
Things like Jurassic Park would need to rely a lot more on practical effects*, such as miniature sets and stop motion, combined with camera trickery.

As mentioned above, some films have to resort to being fully animated to get them to work.

Most of the Star Trek series and films used traditional special effects and models, so they are mostly fine. They would just have to use them more often. The digitally remastered versions probably don't exist at all ITTL.

The Star Wars prequels would have to resort to less CGI, but there were a lot of practical effects too. They would look different, and have to resort to fewer epic battle scenes.


*well, more so than it already did, anyway

Lord of the Rings series. Much of the film was and still could be shot on site in New Zealand, but the great battles with vast armies of Orcs, Trolls, flying Nazgul, etc would be almost impossible to replicate in scope.

The armies of orcs would be possible with a huge amount of extras*. The ghosts would still work with camera trickery. The trolls and nazgul would need to be fitted in through a combination of stop-motion and practical effects. It would be possible to make a LOTR film series, but not like the one from OTL.

The Hobbit would have 100% less bullshit gold foundry-based platform jumping sequences.



*here's another thing - the budget for extras in films will need to be much larger without CGI, unless you can get away with miniature sets, trick backgrounds and close-up shots

This is a brief and dynamic list of films impossible to adapt into live-action without CGI:

I'm going to have to disagree with you on several of these things.

  • Pokémon
  • Digimon
  • Ben 10

Difficult, yes, but not absolutely impossible. They would have to be more like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? to work, though, and would look super fake. Probably better just make them full animated.

  • Transformers

If you mean the Michael Bay versions, yes. However, I must point you towards the early Power Rangers series for how they would look like ITTL.

  • The Matrix

Not neccecaryily. You could make a film with the same premise but with toned down special effects. It would look more fake, but it could be done.

  • Marvel Cinematic Universe

The MCU wouldn't work as it exists in OTL. However, it doesn't make it impossible - it just needs to be toned down. There were plenty of Marvel films made before modern CGI, such as the Incredible Hulk. Given no CGI, people would have a lower standard of how good special effects would look like.


I'm going to agree with this. Better to make it an Atlantis style animation. It would still look fantastic, though.

  • Lord of the Rings

See above for why I disagree with this. It would look more like the Kevin Costner/Alan Rickman/Morgan Freeman Robin Hood film.

  • Dragon Ball

Depends on how realistic you want it to look. Again, see early Power Rangers for what it would look like.

  • Any animation/comic/video game adaptation based on sci-fi/fantasy/horror premises

That didn't stop them making the Super Mario film with Bob Hoskins. Or the Mortal Kombat film. Resident Evil would could work, just more like Dawn of the Dead with some camera trickery.

  • Game of Thrones

Not really. A lot of that wasn't CGI. It would have to be toned down, use more camera tricks and models, but most of it would work.


Yes, this one would be very hard to do without CGI.

  • Toy-based movies

You clearly haven't seen the He-Man film. :p

(Unless you mean films like Child's Play, which was live action.)

  • Superhero films

Batman and Superman would like to disagree with you there. As would the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

  • Saya no Uta
  • NieR
  • Spec Ops: The Line
  • And others.

Don't know enough about them to comment.
 
  • Saya no Uta

For those who don't know, Saya no Uta is a horror visual novel developed by Nitroplus. It tells of a young medical student named Fuminori Sakisaka who sees the world in grotesque eyes after an emergency surgery to save his life after a car crash. Lonely and alienated, he stumbled upon Saya, a young girl in the middle of the hospital but in reality a horrific monster from another world. Together, their love will change the world in terrible ways.

I'll give you a screenshot that summarizes the game:
18obwuchx4hk6jpg.jpg


Saya attacking a victim.
 
Ray Harryhausen was animating skeletons before silicon chips were a big thing...
Cecil B. DeMille had over ten thousand extras for his 1956 film The Ten Commandments. (And it still turned a comfortable profit.)
 
In your honest opinion, how would you produce the above movies without CGI?

EDIT: And also Neopets
<shrug>
I'm not a film maker and can't tell you how they do their stuff. However: I just rewatched on Youtube the fight with the skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts which Harryhausen animated, and it's a bit clunky in places but looks pretty good overall to me.
 
Yes, this one would be very hard to do without CGI.
Not quite as much as you might think; there's always the ultra-practical method of using the Vomit Comet for the interior zero-g scenes, and wires for the exterior scenes, the way Apollo 13 or, more latterly, The Expanse have. You would have to do some tricky work to cover up the fact that you can't just edit in a Space Shuttle or ISS the way you can with, well, CGI, but probably you would either delete such scenes or reengineer them so that you don't have an actor and the background in the scene at the same time, in addition to using models. It might produce a rather different sort of film, but it would be recognizably the same underlying thing.
 
I'll expand why adapting Pokemon and Digimon to the live-action big screen is impossible without CGI.

The main draw of both franchises is fantastical-looking monster battling out with flashy superpowers and abilities along with kid characters interacting with them. That's extremely to replicate considering the amount of practical effects required to depict the titular creatures.
For example, Pikachu is a furry yellow mouse-like creature that can generate electricity and leap to trainer's body whereas Agumon is a small, upright yellow tyrannosaurus with three digits on each appendage and capable of breathing fire. It's impractical to replicate their appearances without looking awkward or creepy if an adaptation of either franchises adapted in a film without CGI.

Another thing is the settings. Pokemon's setting is based on a world where humans and creatures called Pokemon interact with each other whereas Digimon's setting is based on a world where digital creatures called Digimon live in another dimension inside digital and telecommunications systems of the 'real world'.
The difficulty comes from the fact, you're going to need a lot of puppets and models for either world. The amount of puppets and models is enough to bankrupt a film studio without the existence of CGI.
 
Movies started back in the 1880s y'all...
Yes, but that doesn't necessarily imply the feasibility of any particular movie at any given point in time. For instance, musicals were, obviously, impossible before the invention of sound films, simply because there was no way to replicate the, well, music in every theater. At most you could have a more or less fixed accompaniment, but it wouldn't really be the same thing. It's plausible that the same thing is true of later films as well, where particular technologies were needed to enable them to be made.

The difficulty comes from the fact, you're going to need a lot of puppets and models for either world. The amount of puppets and models is enough to bankrupt a film studio without the existence of CGI.
I'm not sure that's the case. Jim Henson did okay and that was with only TV budgets to play with (well, obviously with the exception of the movies he did). There are clearly ways to make heavily puppet-based works function acceptably well in reasonable budgets.
 
I'm not sure that's the case. Jim Henson did okay and that was with only TV budgets to play with (well, obviously with the exception of the movies he did). There are clearly ways to make heavily puppet-based works function acceptably well in reasonable budgets.

Even if a heavily puppet-based adaptation of Pokemon and Digimon was ever feasible, it will run to another challenge. It's quite difficult to portray the fantastic abilities and powers of Digimon and Pokemon without CGI.
This is the list of abilities and powers displayed by the monsters. Keep in mind, this is a brief list of abilities shown in the games and shows.
  • Elemental manipulation
  • Energy blasts
  • Superhuman feats
  • Flight
  • Bodily weapons
  • Psychic powers
  • Shapeshifting
  • And other abilities difficult to be portrayed by practical effects.
 
Even if a heavily puppet-based adaptation of Pokemon and Digimon was ever feasible, it will run to another challenge. It's quite difficult to portray the fantastic abilities and powers of Digimon and Pokemon without CGI.
This is the list of abilities and powers displayed by the monsters. Keep in mind, this is a brief list of abilities shown in the games and shows.
  • Elemental manipulation
  • Energy blasts
  • Superhuman feats
  • Flight
  • Bodily weapons
  • Psychic powers
  • Shapeshifting
  • And other abilities difficult to be portrayed by practical effects.

Most of which are possible with some degree of practical effects, camera tricks and other non-CGI special effects.

However, ultimately, it would be best to have them animated, if only for consistency.
 
Star Wars did a really good job with bluescreen and lines drawn on negatives in 1977. The effects were awesome for the time because the audience wasn't expecting it to look so real. The point is, every new generation of improvement is better than the previous. Without CGI, much sci-fi would go on with the effects available, all of which would be better than those of years past.
Yeah, we still have the maximum or perfected bluescreen and practical effects work reached by 2001, original Star Wars trilogy, first three Indiana Jones, first three Mad Maxs, first Terminator and Alien/Aliens, Blade Runner, Freddy Krueger; there must be some other really good examples, but, that's the cream of the crop.
Lord of the Rings series. Much of the film was and still could be shot on site in New Zealand, but the great battles with vast armies of Orcs, Trolls, flying Nazgul, etc would be almost impossible to replicate in scope.
Peter Jackson simply finds a way to do it intimately/impressionisticly, using the New Zealand army as extras no doubt.
Battle sequences akin to the many classic films about ye olde war charges.
 
A lot of movies were made pre-CGI. I don't think the lack of CGI would really impact the film industry. A lot of quality movies still could be made, perhaps relying more on story than visuals.

Massive genre shifts though, notice that a lot of the epic movies of the 50s & 60s were historic epics (sometimes of dubious historical accuracy, but that's not the point) while sci-fi and the more exotic fantasy were lower budget and quality.

If CGI were never invented perhaps the late 20th century & early 21st century would see more historic/war epics, although given the cost of extras (always an issue, there was a reason Spain was a popular place to film epics in the 60s). Given the cheapness of human labor in China perhaps there would be a lot more filming there (perhaps a remake of "55 days At Peking" (please no)), of course Eastern Europe would be a better place due to Euro-Atlantic centerness of Hollywood...
 
Top