VFX Artists React to DUNE Bad & Great CGi

I think it really just comes down to the skill of the film makers, as it always has. I think a really good example of this is this comparison between the old and new Dune movies: this video The new Dune is masterfully crafted, and I was never once bothered by the CG, even though there was clearly a ton of it. The old Dune, on the other hand...I don't think it's aged particularly gracefully. Then again, I've never been a huge Lynch fan.

So much of this is just how _much_ work had to be done to get practical effects to work, and how practical and CGI are often good for different things. For an insane example of this checkout this video of how they did the ship landing in the original Dune movie (of which step 1 was "rent a stadium"). this video Also, I think there's a very selective bias against CGI where when it looks _real_ we just assume it's real and don't notice so we're only criticizing the portion where it failed to live up to reality.

Another series that I've enjoyed watching is the Corridor Crew. Their take on Dune (both versions) is this video

If you like this, I like corridor crew on YouTube. Here's one discussing how effects in Dune, old and new, were done, some of which were pretty surprising. this video