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The answer is obviously — and might we add, emphatically — NO!

But don’t tell that to the mainstream media or Internet fanboys who for the better part of the last decade have been scapegoating CGI and visual effects as the root of all of Hollywood’s filmmaking ills.

thewetaeffect_mainSEE ALSO: This “WETA Effect” Video Is The Dumbest Thing You’ll See All Week

Thankfully, we now have this video essay — “Why CG Sucks (Except It Doesn’t)” — which brilliant deconstructs every anti-CGI/VFX argument while demonstrating how essential these technologies are to contemporary moviemaking:

The video, written and narrated by Freddie Wong of Rocketjump Film School, isn’t all rah-rah cheerleading though: Wong acknowledges that there’s plenty of poorly made visual effects out there and helps the moviewatcher understand why bad VFX are more noticeable than good VFX. But as the video concludes, CGI is rarely ever the source of the problem:

“Maybe the reason why people seem to think visual effects are ruining movie isn’t really a problem with the visual effects; maybe it’s just a problem with the movies themselves. Because visual effects have since the beginning of cinema always been a part of this art form; and CG, just like every innovation in cinema, is simply a tool on the filmmaker’s toolbelt to tell a story. But when the end result is bad, maybe it’s really not the tool’s fault; maybe it’s on the filmmaker to use the tool wisely.”

Amid Amidi

Amid Amidi is Cartoon Brew's Publisher and Editor-at-large.

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