I just showed the wife Clash of the Titans. For those you that don't know (all 1 of you, I'd assume) it was Ray Harryhausen's magnum opus. It has as much stop motion SFX work as Attack of the Clones has CG. And for the most part, aside from the impressive footnot to movie SFX history, it's unwatchable. On one hand, it's impressive what they actually could do without computers... on the other... you can't believe that people actually think they would prefer this to CG in movies today. There seems to be a lack in education (or extreme nostalgia) in people wishing that they could go back to before CG. Well folks, this is it! Was it great for the time? YES! Is it great today? NO! Please, if you will, compare the 1933 with the 2005 King Kong. (The less said about 1976 the better) You can't honestly tell me that the CG in the new one left you longing for the more realistic stop motion of 1933. I think, as Kong well demonstrates, that one of the actual "drawbacks" to CG is its inconsistency. That is to say, one minute it will totally fool you into thinking it's real and then the next it doesn't. You are shaken and the 4th wall is broken (to quote ADM). I think earlier SFX techniques didn't have this problem only because they were never convincing enough to fool you long enough for the change in perception to occur. I think it's the change that's bothersome more than the actual quality in SFX. The 2001 Final Fantasy movie was this way for me. Never claiming to be totally photo-realistic, it was jarring that some scenes would appear to be right before it would drop back into that quasi-cartoon look.
Having said all that... A lot of movies do push the technology way beyond the limits. But the ones that don't (Jurassic Park, Abyss, Titanic, Matrix, T2, etc..(IMO)) are getting perfection out of a tool that could never be replaced in their movies. The additions to the OT in the SE for the most part are worthless distractions and are a good example of bad CG. And I would not trade muppet Yoda or Jabba for anything.
In summary, there will always be good SFX and bad SFX. There will always be new techniques. CG is the way forward and I hope like the rest of you that it continually gets better and better. But it is the best SFX technology that there has ever been.
FLAME ON!
Matt