Histeria said:
Interestingly, I also think we have as situation where we're sometimes looking for 'fake looking' CGI, and filling in the fakenes ourselves on a subconscious level. The thing that springs to mind is the locking mechanism near the end of Indiana Jones 4. I remember being pretty disappointed at what I thought was shoddy CGI work on that when I saw it at the cinema. It was only months later that I saw the making of, and found out it was a practical effect. Sometime knowing (or just thinking) something is CGI is enough to blow the effect, when actually it's more than adequate.

You know, I feel ya.

While I didn't have that much of a problem with INDY 4 (or that scene in particular) I know what you mean. It is like the scene when Indy drives his truck through the wall in the opening action sequence and the 2 guys go flying towards us as the wall explodes from the truck impact. I figured that was CGI but it was filmed on set (!)

Compare that to the tanker truck getting blown up by Kyle Reese at the end of the first TERMINATOR. I thought for the longest time they blew up a real truck. Then I saw the making of with the model work... went back and watched the movie again.. and it still looks like a real truck is getting blown up! When you can show how you did a trick and you can still pull it off, that's magic.