Apocalypse X-Men: Apocalypse and Special Effects

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What on earth happened with the cgi? A big of chunk of this movie looks extremely outdated and almost like video game quality from few generations past. It's really unlike Days of Future Past, which looked really good. Not to mention current industry standards with movies like The Force Awakes, The Jungle Book and Mockingjay being miles ahead in quality.

Was it just the overwhelming amount of effects that made the overall quality suffer? Which effects did you think actually looked good, and which bad?

Best:
Phoenix
Auschwitz
The opening scene
Quicksilver scene
Apocalypse destroying Cairo

Bad:
Third act, the green screen with non-animated backgrounds
Green screen work in Apocalypse's new tomb
Apocalypse merging a man with a wall
Apocalypse waking up and teleporting

 

[carpenter82]

What on earth happened with the cgi? A big of chunk of this movie looks extremely outdated and almost like video game quality from few generations past. It's really unlike Days of Future Past, which looked really good. Not to mention current industry standards with movies like The Force Awakes, The Jungle Book and Mockingjay being miles ahead in quality.

Was it just the overwhelming amount of effects that made the overall quality suffer? Which effects did you think actually looked good, and which bad?

Best:
Phoenix
Auschwitz
The opening scene
Quicksilver scene
Apocalypse destroying Cairo

Bad:
Third act, the green screen with non-animated backgrounds
Green screen work in Apocalypse's new tomb
Apocalypse merging a man with a wall
Apocalypse waking up and teleporting

Outside of the man being merged with the wall I thought it actually looked pretty good.

 

[psylockolussus]

Yeah the visual effects looked quite poor in comparison to DOFP. Like I said before, it reminded of VFX for Origins.

And there were info going on around the net that the VFX companies didn't have much time for Apocalypse because they were already working on other films. and during the final few months before the release, someone said that people were working on weekends just to polish the VFX, in short, they were rushing before the release of the film.

This is another thing that didn't work out for the film.

 

[Frankeh]

It looked pretty bad overall. Clearly something went wrong behind the scenes. Perhaps it was the delay...

They need to rehire the team from DOFP. Those sentinels looked seamless.

 

[DavidHaller]

aesthetically the whole movie was extremely uninspired and so blah. (I'm still in awe about 'Days of Future Past's beautifully shot action scenes!)

I personally don't mind bad looking special effects so much but I mind action scenes without imagination and this was clearly the case here. Jean's moment was very well directed but unfortunately only the build up for the scene. I found the Phoenix effect really boring. Apocalypse's psy form being shattered by Jean on the astral plane also looked like some 90s television effect moment.

Can we maybe start again to build real sets? I am honestly wondering is there maybe a relationship between bad/fake looking cgi backdrop overkill and boxoffice disappointment? (Gods of Egypt, Green Lantern, Fantastic Four, Warcraft, John Carter of Mars, X-Men: Apocalypse, Alice 2, Pan, etc.)

 

[henzINNIT]

The effects were mostly terrible to be honest. Angel looked good I thought, and his transformation was effectively grim.

 

[GuestStar2004]

Angels wings (feathered and metal) were CGI and i thought they looked really good, i know for X3 there was some practical work going on for the wings.

 

[Tymminator]

Angels wings (feathered and metal) were CGI and i thought they looked really good, i know for X3 there was some practical work going on for the wings.

I think the wings were decent too...any chance a different team did the wings where another team did other stuff?

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

This has been a problem for this franchise from the beginning. I generally like the films (with exceptions like TLS and Origins), but their effects work is routinely substandard compared to other major blockbusters.

That being said, even though it is an issue with this franchise in general, this particular installment was not just a step below its competitors, it was a step down from its immediate predecessor.

 

[Snikt]

I was ok with all the visual effects except for the crates and cranes in the harbor. Dear Lord they looked like PS2 level graphics.

 

[BMM]

This has been a problem for this franchise from the beginning.

No, it hasn't, and certainly not to this extent. The films may not have had an over abundance of noticeable effects shots like other franchises, but low quality visual effects relative to the time the films were released didn't become a problem until X-Men Origins.

 

[Johnny-Oh]

The problem was that the scope was to huge for the budget, even then I thought most of the effects were great. What looked awful were the moments where they used green screen, it looked really awkward, then again Civil War also had some awful looking green scenes during the airport fight.

Despite all of that I think the CGI doesn't look nowhere as cheap as First Class or Origins.

 

[Zant]

Yeah I noticed some poor effects during the final battle in Egypt. Noticed the same thing during the Doomsday battle in BVS along with floating Ironman head and some poor BlackPanther and Spider scenes in Civil War.

Maybe more time should be given for post production.

 

[X-Maniac]

I didn't notice anything horrendous in the finished movie, in all honesty.

But it's almost certain that FX work on the film was affected by the fact that a large number of fantasy/sci-fi blockbusters were all in post-prod at the same time for a very bunched-up release schedule. This would have made things very stressful and competitive in getting the FX finished on time. I don't know how these things work - surely post-prod companies are hired well before filming is finished, not at the last minute?

Anyway, this film probably (?) had more FX and green screen than usual for this franchise and any poor results that people have noticed will be down to the factors I just mentioned.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

No, it hasn't, and certainly not to this extent. The films may not have had an over abundance of noticeable effects shots like other franchises, but low quality visual effects relative to the time the films were released didn't become a problem until X-Men Origins.

I disagree. The X-Jet in the first film looks worse than stuff from Star Wars over 20 years earlier. I still have nightmares of the part where Scott crashes it into the water.

Keep in mind that this film came out well after films like Independence Day and Armageddon that look far, far better.

I don't have many complaints about X2, but TLS also looks really bad with poor CGI and incredibly dated wire work. Compare TLS to even another superhero film like Spider-Man 2 (which came out two years earlier) and it isn't even close to the same quality of special effects.

 

[Flint Marko]

The X-men franchise has always been pretty lackluster from a visual standpoint (save for FC and DOFP) but the effects in Apocalypse were far worse than any recent blockbuster that I can recall. I really think it just came down to the special effects team not getting enough time to polish everything.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

The X-men franchise has always been pretty lackluster from a visual standpoint (save for FC and DOFP) but the effects in Apocalypse were far worse than any recent blockbuster that I can recall. I really think it just came down to the special effects team not getting enough time to polish everything.

Well...there was Fant4stic which had special effects that were worse than some SyFy Channel films. But that might be stretching the idea of 'blockbuster.'

 

[DavidHaller]

I disagree. The X-Men movies have been visually outstanding and very exceptional! They just forget to care in "X-Men: Apocalypse". Repeating Quicksilver's fantastic scene from "Days of Future Past" shows clearly that there was NO creativity attached to this movie at all...nobody cared. that's the easy answer.

 

[GuestStar2004]

Repeating Quicksilver's fantastic scene from "Days of Future Past" shows clearly that there was NO creativity attached to this movie at all...nobody cared. that's the easy answer.

Thats not a sign no body cared thats a sign they cared to much and wanted to do it again but top the last one and there was plenty of creativity in that sequence

 

[GuestStar2004]

The special effects were even made by the same studios/same personnel as some of the really good looking stuff out there. MPC Montreal were in charge, and they are brilliant usually. Maybe it has to do something with budjeting for the effects? Feels weird, when the budgets for these movies are very competent.

its funny because even with DOFP there was apparently effect shots they couldn't afford with their budget

 

[BeholdMe]

I was ok with all the visual effects except for the crates and cranes in the harbor. Dear Lord they looked like PS2 level graphics.

This was my issue that scene looked so bad like it really stood out with how bad the CGI was there. I'm surprised they kept that in the movie. PS2 graphics level graphics indeed that was one of the only scenes that stood out to me other than a few minor scenes.

 

[BeholdMe]

I disagree. The X-Men movies have been visually outstanding and very exceptional! They just forget to care in "X-Men: Apocalypse". Repeating Quicksilver's fantastic scene from "Days of Future Past" shows clearly that there was NO creativity attached to this movie at all...nobody cared. that's the easy answer.

I disagree I've heard more positivity from QS scene that negativity so I think people cared, you just frankly didn't. I understand you didn't like the movie but sometimes it seems like your really reaching. DOFP yes was mostly visually stunning I agree but the others no especially not that elevator scene with Storm it was cringeworthy.

 

[Johnny-Oh]

The X-men franchise has always been pretty lackluster from a visual standpoint (save for FC and DOFP) but the effects in Apocalypse were far worse than any recent blockbuster that I can recall. I really think it just came down to the special effects team not getting enough time to polish everything.

WHAT?! First Class easily has the worst visual effects in the franchise after Origins.

 

[Flint Marko]

WHAT?! First Class easily has the worst visual effects in the franchise after Origins.

While the special effects weren't great, I remember them being far better than Apocalypse - also, when I pointed to it as the exception alongside DOFP, I was referring to the visuals as a whole, particularly in regards to the production design. I think it's probably the most aesthetically pleasing X-men film yet, which doesn't say much.

 

[psylockolussus]

Through the Looking Glass and Resurgence even had better visual effects.