‘The Legend of Ochi’ Is a Feat of Puppetry — Its VFX Is Still Essential
We all kind of think we know what VFX looks like — or at least what bad VFX looks like. We can often feel when computer-generated imagery clashes with the visual language of a film‘s world and is too plastic-y or textureless, when that world is all of a sudden too dark or crumbling into an indistinct mass of large-scale destruction porn. Especially with greater attention now on the punishing crunches and production sprints imposed on visual effects artists and the advent of soulless AI slop, there’s been a reaction against VFX as a useful tool, a desire to do everything practically — or at least a desire to say that everything is being done practically.