Unreal Engine Became a "Huge Step Back" for Graphics in Film, Says Director of "Pirates of the Caribbean"
Gore Verbinski explained why modern visual effects in movies look so sad.
Director of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "The Ring," Gore Verbinski, explained why modern graphics in movies are increasingly disappointing viewers.
According to the creator, visual effects in the 1990s and early 2000s were much more impressive: the T-1000 made of liquid metal in "Terminator 2," the dinosaurs of "Jurassic Park," or the giant bugs from "Starship Troopers" not only looked revolutionary at the time of release, but also easily stood the test of time. Today, graphics are treated with considerable skepticism: even blockbusters with huge budgets are partly criticized for the overabundance of graphics and how "artificial" they look.
In an interview with But Why Tho?, Verbinski linked this problem to the active introduction of Unreal Engine in the film industry. According to him, Unreal used to be considered a tool primarily for video games, but over time it began to be used to create final visual effects in films. As a result, the director believes that a "gaming aesthetic" has penetrated into cinema.
In his opinion, replacing tools like Maya with Unreal Engine as the basis for visual effects is a "huge step back". At the same time, the director emphasizes that the effects created with Unreal are not necessarily bad in themselves and look organic in Marvel films, where a conditional, unrealistic style is initially embedded.
Problems begin where strict photorealism is required. Verbinski believes that Unreal Engine works differently with light: it is worse at transmitting subsurface scattering and the interaction of light with skin, which creates the effect of the "uncanny valley," especially in the animation of creatures. In addition, part of the animation is done automatically in order to meet deadlines, and not manually, which also affects the quality.
