Alien: Romulus (2024)

[Arnold Rimmer]

Any word on when we might get the first proper trailer? Part of me want to not watch anymore because the teaser was enough but I also just want more.

Probably by month's end if not in June.

 

[henzINNIT]

I'm not an expert on CGI, nor do I place that much importance on it one way or the other as far as creating a sense of immersion for me, but I've always thought the CGI in The Phantom Menace was actually better than that which is used in The Matrix. Heretical opinion, I know, but it's how I've always felt.

Not really heretical. Episode 1 had the best in the industry working with near unlimited resources. They created some amazing effects, many that hold up well today. Matrix was the plucky underdog that had less money, but clever techniques and a more striking visual style. I miss the old days of both, where effects teams were tasked with creating the impossible, and not just fixing crap in post.

 

[Zantera]

I'm a big Matrix guy so any talk of Phantom Menace having better CGI is crazy talk to me. I think the first Matrix is just perfect pretty much. But I do think the sequels definitely tried to do things beyond their capability. The toughest part on a rewatch today is probably in Reloaded when Neo fights all the Smiths. There's definitely some ragdoll physics that you can't avoid going pure CGI at that time.

But overall with practical I think a lot of what made it great in movies like Alien is that when you can't do whatever you want in a computer to make something look a certain way, you're forced to shoot it in a certain way, shroud it in some shadows, make it a bit more mysterious. And I think those are the moments that stick in our head the most. You think of the xenomorph shrouded in darkness, smoke and water dripping killing someone in a slightly obscured way. You're not thinking about a xenomorph on top of the drop ship in Covenant shot in bright day light (or whatever) being fully visible and feeling a lot less like a threat.

Then again you can go overboard and get a movie like AvP Requiem that requires tampering with the brightness settings on your screen to see ANYTHING.

 

[Pennywise]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1792540852499120567

 

[blueharvest]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1792918662287892985