Title: Considering the huge developments that have been made in the visual effects industry, has the use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) altered and undermined the traditional Hollywood narrative structure in blockbuster in the last 10 years?.
Over the last century, the increasing in technology and computing power has made an extraordinary leap in movie visual effects (VFX). CGI is considered to be a fundamental element of blockbuster movies. On that basis, technology is shaping the way stories are told in the digital era. To be simplified, CGI is images that are created by computing process from a dangerous explosion to a realistic fiction monster. In the early days, CGI was mostly limited to science fiction (sci-fi) and action genres. It was specially used in the case requiring greatly remarkable digital special effects such as explosions or an imaginary world mise-en-scene. Recently, the use of CGI has began to spread to almost all genres that it is hard to find a contemporary Hollywood film that does not use VFX. Iron Man (Favreau 2008), The Lord of the Rings series (Jackson 2001), Harry Potter series (Columbus 2001) or Avatar (Cameron 2009) are not only the examples of high-grossing Hollywood films over the last decade, but also the illustrations of how visual effects have transformed Hollywood filmmaking. The filmmakers utilize CGI to expose the entrance to imaginary lands and breath the life on fictional characters, from the female ghost in romantic drama Just Like Heaven (Waters 2005) to the blue Navi on Pandora planet, the boy with magic wand, the super Hero in the iron suit, and the wizard and Gollum in the Middle Earth are portrayed convincingly. .
As digitally produced effects have become a prevalent trend in Hollywood movies, visual effects are sometimes perceived to over taken Hollywood blockbusters and overwhelmed the beauty of storytelling. Indeed, the extensive use of CGI in Hollywood movies raise the concern that digital revolution would create a critical break in the cinematic tradition and forecast the extinction of realistic filming movies in favor of computer-generated imagery.
