In The Hobbit: AUJ all of the orcs and goblins are computer animated compared to Lotr where they actually had real people in costume. So I was wondering how all of you felt about this.

Personally I think the cgi detracts just like it did for the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Doesn't look right to the eye and gives that off feeling. Did Jackson make the right choice and why go that direction?

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
Painting Lineup: Mumakil x2, Rohan Heroes x8, Haradrim, SKoDA

Personally I think that live actors are better since you get a bit more feeling in the movie rather than when you have cgi's.
But since in the hobbit you really cant push people off bridges and all that stuff the cgi's would make sense.

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If you don't let me in, Frodo, I shall blow your door right down your hole and out through the hill-Gandalf

Oh sure you can push people off bridges, just have a cgi pit instead!

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
Painting Lineup: Mumakil x2, Rohan Heroes x8, Haradrim, SKoDA

I prefer live, and I imagine the actors do too. Even in the trailer you can see one of the dwarves run right past a goblin, and the actor clearly forgot until the last second that he was supposed to swing in that direction because the goblin just stands there and falls over. FWIW, I thought SW was pretty seamless, haven't yet seen the hobbit to compare.

I prefer live action too, because it tends to be more realistic.
It's even better when the people carry heavy weapons (instead of LARP-ish ones). Fighting just because a lot more natural that way.

Obviously almost everyone prefers live action, but theres only so much you can do with suits. You can add stuff to humans like boils and hunchbacks but how are you going recreate Gollem or a severely disformed Goblin with a suit?

In the scene from TTT when the party charges out of the gates plowing through the Uruk-Hai on the causeway the last two rows of Royal Guard are swinging but there are no Uruk-Hai left, that was a really awkward error.

With the Goblins from the Hobbit I never felt like they were CGI, but that might be because I've only seen it once

Oh and I voted CGI, where would we be without it?

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I think everyone prefers live action but it's very difficult to do almost naked goblins with live actors (just like gollum). I think if they did use live actors it would look very cheap. Orcs are easy to do with live action because they have so many layers of armour and clothing that it is very easy to cover up any human features.

So i am not voting because i think it depends on what you are trying to do.

I was rather impressed with the CGI throughout the film, to me it didn't feel forced and it wasn't until after the film when i was home and looking back over other peoples reviews did i even notice that several key scenes were CGI and not real.

Defiantly want to go and see it again just to see if i notice the CGI more when I'm actually looking for it

Many orcs at this movie was real. Except Azog. At the fight scenes they always use CGI, for example when they stab each other. This is a very nice mixed technique.
They also use live actors for CGI characters (Azog, Goblin King).

And in this movie, I was really amazed from CGI.
The battle at moria was amazing!

If we compare this movie, and the Return of the Jedi costume show, we accept that the real costume, mask is not always the best solution.

I prefer live people, but I can understand why logistically that was not going to happen for the goblins. And, imo the goblins themselves didn't look like cgi to me. Azog, yes, and I would have liked to have him a real actor, but the others, not so much. Oh, and were the hunter orcs cg, or real? I honestly couldn't tell....

Bad CGI is obviously a bad thing. But everyone points out the live Orcs from LOTRs. Still, LOTRs had CGI Trolls, Olliphants, and the Balrog, and nobody was complaining about that. There were several CGI Orcs riding worgs in the big fight scenes.

Everyone prefers live, but there's nothing wrong with good CGI.

Good point, how do I remove my vote?

CGI for me means being able to go the extra mile and do what either cannot be done physically, or do what would be far to dangerous and/or expensive to do. If done well with motion capture it works. But it is still just an effect. Some film producers mistake the ability to create special effects with the ability to tell a story. It is the tale and the characters in it that are the primary focus, not whether a movie has more improbable stunts and explosions than the last one. A friend of mine maintains the rot set in with Jurassic Park and he blames Spielberg for every c r a p p y movie made since 1993.

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Aren't you a Ringwraith? Do you not have the power to edit!?


^This. It's understandable that somethings can't be shot in live action, just like the balrog or those awkward looking goblin town goblins and gollum. But like the others, Azog should have been made live action. I believe those stills of Bolg is live action. If not that is some pretty damn good cgi.

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
Painting Lineup: Mumakil x2, Rohan Heroes x8, Haradrim, SKoDA

I believe the Hunter Orcs are real actors. For the Goblins, as others have said, it would have been too difficult to do them convincingly with actors. A lot of the Goblins from Fellowship were CGI, due to numbers. I had no issue with the Goblin Town guys, in fact it was only after I saw the film that I decided I like them enough start clipping them off the sprues.

Azog I think might have been done out of necessity. I've heard that he wasn't in the two movies at all (save for flashbacks) and that Bolg was indeed to be the main baddie in the first film. When they decided to do a trilogy of it, they added Azog in as the big bad. It may have been easier to do CGI with minimal reshoots than a live actor and extensive extra shooting.

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Gondor: 2339pts
Rohan: 1318pts
Dwarves: 2482pts
Elves: 1091pts
Mordor: 2305pts
Isengard: 1762pts
Moria: 1463pts
Evil Men: 381pts

I personally thought Azog was amazing. I knew the goblins would be CG going in to the movie, and some of them definitely were, but some of them looked SO realistic, I swear they were live actors. I was expecting Azog to be CGI, but I honestly thought for a while that he wasn't. Obviously in some scenes he looked CG, but in others he didn't. I have to hand it PJ and Weta (and the actors), they did an outstanding job of making everything look so real.

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Er...what the smiley meant was I wish I had thought of that before I voted. Suggesting changing the vote was a light, and apparently unsuccessful, joke Not sure if I could anyway, if we could edit the poll results, what would be the point of having the feature?

You could CGI the real action vote the other way round...

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Published ebooks:
Instrument of the Empire
A Note of Defiance
Phantom Ships, Ghost Flotilla
More to come!

Just make sure it's good CG, or else we'll notice...

Don't worry I caught onto your joke. I wasn't taking your comment seriously. Was only playing along by poking fun at your position of being unable to edit something you want to change while being a moderator. The irony...

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
Painting Lineup: Mumakil x2, Rohan Heroes x8, Haradrim, SKoDA