I know what you're talking about (only have seen part 1, waiting for stars to align for most of original group to watch pt 2), but I have an honest question:
What CG is good CG? It's always easy to pick out it seems, ya know . . . ? But, I am curious what movies have better examples, and why you might consider them to be superior . . . thanks . . .
There are some things that realistic CG tends to have...
Real things have imperfections, they have dirt, scratches, and light reacts to these. Dirt is what gives good renders depth, a lot of times. Not just mud caked up, but, the little dusting like you have on your table that scatters the light... the details. Dirt is detail that your eye expects, and it gives scale.
A lot of it has to do with light. Light temperature is a big one (sun is blue, tungsten is orange, leds are light blue), and proper physical light fall offs. A lot of times that's where CG fire looks unrealistic, isn't so much the 'flames' as it is the light fall off around them.
Also, when mixing CG with film, the lighting has to be matched in the CG elements with the plate (film). So the lighting environment needs to be matched well in the computer to what was filmed.
Like, for example, in Pirates of Caribbean entire scenes were shot with real actors for reference, so that the CG precisely mirrored their real-world counterparts.
The models used also have a lot to do with it. Rendering is computationally intensive, so a lot of times simplified models are used where possible and then things like dirt shaders or bump maps are used to make them look more weathered (rather than increasing the polygon count). A bump map is where you would model the side of a ship hull, for example, and then instead of detail modelling all the wood panels and splines, a texture is laid on top that accounts for these giving the render cracks and so forth. A lot of times these are taken from real pictures, then converted to grayscale (the bumps work with black being the deepest, white being the lightest, and then you set how much range you want that to be at). Things like beveling corners to catch speculars on building or vessel edges, or having some unevenness to a wall.
Composing is also difficult, especially when mixing film with CG. Like getting the film grain to match on all channels, colorshifting to match the pallete of the film (and balancing this with the lighting).
This is just a little ramble, I could go on and on and on .... edgeblurs, using physically correct lights (i.e. not point-sourced lighting), having correct specular mapping, motion blur ...and on and on and on. Anyone still here
So, movies I think have better CG? I'd really have to think about it. I'd say The Matrix, 300, Sin City, Avatar, Pirates of the Caribbean series, Pan's Labyrinth, Star Wars I, 2 and 3, Lord of the Rings..... I'll think of more.. for the toon-shader stuff I'd say "9" is pretty awesome.
