So sick of people complaining about CGI

A man of common sense here. I fully agree.

Yeh it's really boring, especially the reactionary idea that it's a cheat. Fk that noise. CGI has opened up so many possibilities.

I actually think the cgi in Tarzan is mostly effective. The part where he is running through the tall trees from branch to branch is one of my favorite cgi scenes in recent years.

The movie isn't good, but that has very little to do with the cgi imo. 

I mostly don't have a problem with the cgi in Infinity War, but the Wikanda scenes look very tacky.

To me it's like puppetry, practical effects, miniatures, compositing, matte paintings, etc...

All are useful, but ultimately benefit from creative and capable hands. "Jurassic Park" and "Carnosaur" were released close to each other, and strategically used a lot of the same methods. JP is still celebrated and "Carnosaur" looked like/was more of a B-movie (still liked it myself).

I think CGI is bashed/blamed a little too much on a broad scale. I watch a lot of crappy movies (RedBox Horror anyone?) and forgive bad CGI, but it does take me out of the movie a bit. Sometimes the creative approaches of guys like Lucas, Spielberg, Rob Bottin, Stan Winston, etc...involve finding ways to show a little less, but in a more compelling way. Give me practical effects any day, but well-done CGI (Jurassic Park, Spider-man 2002...up to Inception and beyond) can be impressive.

I think when it's leaned upon is when it doesn't work. Doesn't hurt that computers and the software required are much cheaper and easier to acquire than ever before...

I agree with OP.

because in a basic sense, whatever kind of CGI or practical effects a movie has, the movie itself either works or does not and I don't think it matters too much either way whether it's CGI or practical effects.

come to think of it... I assume that in general CGI costs less $ than practical effects? ; because if that's true, I can see why CGI will be the default choice for many. but I guess to use the OP's apes etc example... I tend to prefer modern CGI over the practical effects of the old days.

I find Cgi rather boring. It makes everything look the same. But I don't from.choice watch many films that have it anyway, they're mostly kiddy films that I've taken my sons to, like Harry Potter, Avengers, Thor etc. They seem satisfied with the CGI.

completely agree. its getting ridiculous.

Yeah the criticism of CGI itself regardless of the actual quality always bugged me too. It's not going away, make peace with it already. Studios aren't going back to hand puppets and makeup for nostalgia's sake for better or worse.

Phil Tippett: "In the olden days, producers knew what visual effects were. Now they've gotten into this methodology where they'll hire a middleman, a visual effects supervisor, and this person works for the producing studio. They're middle managers. And when you go into a review with one of them, there's this weird sort of competition that happens. It's a game called 'Find What's Wrong With This Shot'. And there's always going to be something wrong, because everything's subjective. And you can micromanage it down to a pixel, and that happens all the time. We're doing it digitally, so there's no pressure to save on film costs or whatever, so it's not unusual to go through 500 revisions of the same shot, moving pixels around and scrutinizing this or that. That's not how you manage artists. You encourage artists, and then you'll get, you know, art. If your idea of managing artists is just pointing out what's wrong and making them fix it over and over again, you end up with artists who just stand around asking "OK lady, where do you want this sofa? You want if over there? No? Fine. You want it over there? I don't give a fuck. I'll put it wherever you want it." It's creative mismanagement, it's part of the whole corporate modality. The fish stinks from the head on down. Back on Star Wars, RoboCop, we never thought about what was wrong with a shot. We just thought about how to make it better."