Without CGI There Would Be No Comic Con

There I am standing on the corning of "Bull Street". How fitting!

This is one of the many fascinating squares of Savannah. Even if you've never been there, you know one particular square fairly well. It was the set for Forrest's tales in "Forrest Gump."

This city is fantastic. My wife and I spent five days there but we could have spent five months. While on this trip we brought along our lap top. I was tempted a few times to write a blog, but I focused on just observing all that was Savannah. I left work at home, if you call this work (no pay is involved!).

We've been back for a while. I haven't blogged because nothing has really hit me lately. I guess I'm pretty bad at this. I started writing because I found I had some strong opinions about stuff. Lately, however, the only thing that has really been bugging me is the massive propaganda machines you see everywhere. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, but what really gets me is how people just swallow what they hear. Some even swallow and become crazed robots for whatever machine's fooled them.

Today's WHAT THE HECK?!? Why don't we stop and take the time to just...take the time?

I was thinking about Comic Con a few weeks ago. People went dog-on-dog crazy about this thing eventhough when you look closely at the movies offered, yes, there's some imagination and creativity involved...but isn't it all just so much CGI fluff?

On You Tube lately they've been showing one of the episodes of the old Bill Bixby TV show "The Hulk" where he gets a special guest visit from Thor. These, of course, are characters ripped right out of comic books. It's amazing this show was even on the air with the cheapest special effects in the world! The Hulk was not a CGI created character, it was a real person named Lou Ferrigno (who you might have seen lately in "I Love You Man") just covered in green make up and wearing greenish eye contacts (which were only made for movie studios at the time---not in massiv circulation until the 90's when brown eyes suddenly really could turn blue). Thor was...well, just silly. His costume looks like any Viking costume you can pickup at the local latex stinking Halloween shop. At the time this was really the only comic book based TV show on television or in the movies for that matter simply because people could not be bothered by the low tech effects. It required you to use your imagination. That is, until CGI came along...

One of the movies talked about at Comic Con is a remake or a "reboot" of "Tron". That was one of the first movies (if not THE first movie) to use extensive computer graphics. This movie also challenged people to use their imaginations (the effects were pretty low tech despite the scale of the movie). A computer could not yet depict an entire luxury liner going belly up into an icy ocean or massive robots punching it out in an action packed racist movie. Now, Tron will be flushed out with all the latest computer generated imagery and people won't have to use their imaginations. They'll just have to sit there and let the fake visuals pummel them into submission (and take their hard earned money in the process).

These movies that use these effects are what I call part of the ADD movement. I know someone whose DVD library is full of "ADDDVD's". I can see why he's hooked. So much eye candy stimulating the brain, you can't help but be at the very least slightly amused. But where is the art? Even drawn animation has been COMPLETELY replaced by computer animation. Eye candy is winning over. And as a result, the sugar from this candy is decaying our brains. It's already happened. How come nobody cares that all our movies are just remakes of things we've already seen: TV shows, comic books, even older movies? Sure, "it's all been done before," but why aren't we complaining about it? We just go to the theater and hand them our money and there by enabling the movie companies.

There is so much hoopla about the new sci-fi movie "District 9" because Peter Jackson, who directed many movies that were remakes of older movies or famous books, took a chance on a new director and a story that had never been heard or seen before. As I write this, the results of its first week have not come out, but I hope they are good.

So in the end I say, like your dentist, AVOID SWEETS! Avoid the eye candy that rots your imagination! Go out there and look for the originality. If you can't find it, create it! I will be your biggest benefactor! (Even though, this job don't pay zip!)