what was the neccesity that brougth about CG in film? the need for
> more realistic looking fakery? i give you the faux hardwood floor.....
> gothic cathedrals looked that way because of certain limitations. to use
> your example do plastic bowls look as good as ceramic pottery? what if
> you
> could make plastic bowls that looked exactly like ceramic pottery? what
> would be the point? CG in films is like putting a plastic handle on a
> ceramic pot. which might be interesting if one didn't try to make the
> handle look exactly like the rest of the pot...you know so you could
> hardly tell the difference.
There were actually many areas of necessity to develop computer graphics for films. There was, of course, the desire to create illusions that were closer-to-flawless than those created with other means. Digital manipulation meant that impossible creatures could appear to exist, that flaws and glitches could be painted out (say, an airplane that strays into the background of a film set in the 18th century), and that images could be enhanced and corrected for greater aesthetic pleasure.
As for plastic and ceramic bowls, well, there are ceramics with extremely plastic properties (one of the benefits of the space program), and plastics that simulate ceramics very well. Why have them? Well, let's say you want dishware that looks nice, but you can't afford to buy high-end ceramic dishware. If something feels like ceramic, looks like ceramic, but is actually a much cheaper kind of plastic, then why shouldn't someone use it?
I look at it this way. I own a house that's about seventy to a hundred years old, depending on who's asked. (The city and the insurance company differ.) There's some woodwork trim here, and some of it is chestnut-- a species that's died out in this country. I'll be replacing it in the near future, and I'll probably be using red oak-- which is available, cheaper, and plentiful. And I'm sure that neighbors of mine will make do with oak, or maple, or even engineered woods with chestnut-like veneers. I'm sure we _could_ hunt down reclaimed chestnut wood trim, and hire expert wood finishers to refinish it so it's consistent throughout our houses, and maybe even get the _This Old House_ crew to come in and install it... but that's just too expensive for a lot of people.
That's one nice thing about materials science and new technologies. They give people access to things they otherwise wouldn't have. It might not be what Cornelius Vanderbilt would've ordered for the Breakers, but it's better than not having much choice at all.