I'm watching Dante's Peak (1997), a volcano flick starring Pierce Brosnan.
The colours are just so wonderful -- it's like being outside in real nature.
Whereas with modern movies things seem really washed out. The filming is crisp, and the composition is usually good, but it feels like you're living in a claustrophobic world. Modern movies feel a lot like living in 1984.
Is this the difference between film/digital? Or are people choosing different colour palates?
The theme of the modern era is "Realism." Not actual reality, but what people think realism looks like. Which means most forms of art/media attempt to have muted and boring colors as that is what is associated with the idea of "realism" in most people's minds.
This also means less fantastical locations, backgrounds, and architecture. Instead everything needs to look assemblable and human, meaning it all has this boring scrap metal feel with space being given the least concern in exchange for a "lived in" decor.
The mid-late 90s was an era of big budget CGI, which meant the opposite. Wild and vibrant madness because they were finally able to have it without needing 10000 hours with mini-sets and practical effects to maybe look passable.
another problem is good cgi looks like good practical effects but it's cheaper(ish), whereas shitty practical effects have a charm that shitty cgi will never have.
...Also, a lot of the films people look at and go "why does the cgi from the nineties look so much better than modern CGI!?!" actually don't look better, you're just confusing a practical effect for cgi, or they actually played to the strengths of cgi when choosing when and where to use it.
The actual cgi effects in, say, jurassic park look pretty awful if you look at them carefully (the stampeding dinosaurs scene, the brontosaurs in the background in the establishing shot for the park, etc.), but you don't really notice it unless you're looking, because they were extremely careful when and where to use CGI instead of, say, animatronics, or guys in rubber suits. You'll also notice they don't linger too long on a digital effects shot for very long, so your eyes never get a chance to notice that the lighting doesn't quite match up properly, or a dino's skin is a little too shiny.
Was watching some stuff about this the other night. And I think I agree. Modern CG got a lot better at things like lighting and texture mapping. But it losing the novelty and becoming overused meant that it wasn't getting the same love and autistic attention to detail in each shot.
If you gave the teams from some of those 90s the tools from today, they'd blow modern stuff out of the water. The limitations made them master the tools and innovate. Now it's just hammer and all of filmmaking looks a nail.
also, thank you for attending my Ted Talk, lmao.