Jurassic World Trailer: Why CGI Complaints Are Unfair

The first trailer for ‘Jurassic World’ dropped yesterday (watch it above) and after everyone had stopped cooing over the dinosaurs, Chris Pratt, and that haunting rendition of the theme (in that order), the backlash began.

One of the chief complaints about the first look at the fourth film in the dino-franchise was about the CGI used in the trailer.

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"Why does the CGI in the Jurassic World trailer look worse than the 20-year-old CGI in Jurassic Park?" was a genuine question that cropped up on my Facebook feed minutes after the trailer landed, with the same sentiment echoed across the internet everywhere by Jurassic Park fanboys.

I’ve got to admit even as a hardcore ‘JP’ fan, the CGI in the trailer didn’t exactly “wow” me, but I knew one simple fact that made it all better: The CGI in the trailer is a work in progress.

The truth of the matter is that there’s still 7 months of post-production to be done on the film, which means the CGI you see in the trailer is only half-finished. It takes months for the visual effects teams to complete their work and so early trailers aren’t an effective way of judging a film’s final effects.

The pressure for studios to release trailers so far out from release means that we’ll often see half-finished effects in the trailers that, when compared to the final film, look a bit shonky.

Director Colin Trevorrow took to Twitter to defend his film, revealing that certain shots in the trailer - including the one of the park’s gates - had been created specially for the trailer.

'Jurassic World' isn't the first effects-heavy film to use early CGI in its trailers as these comparisons between early trailers and final footage from 'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug', 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes', and 'Guardians of the Galaxy' prove.

'The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug' - First trailer launched 7 months before release

'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' - First full trailer launched 7 months before release

'Guardians of the Galaxy' - First trailer launched 5 months before release

As you can see, the final effects are often vastly different to those you see in early trailers, so if you’re worried about the CGI in ‘Jurassic World’, you probably shouldn’t be. There’s still a long way to go.

We’ll be able to see how much the CGI of ‘Jurassic World’ improves when it’s released in June, 2015.

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Image credits: Universal Pictures/Warner Bros./20th Century Fox/Disney/Twitter