Demo is all right, we really don't see anything we haven't seen before. Pretty much the onlything we havn't seen is mass scale destruction. Heck even small scale is so-so, mainly because of 2 things. #1 you really need a chunk of processing time for convincing physics calculation of a good amount of debris (We still don't see the level of particle effects the old AGEIA PPU demo's had) and #2 realistic enough fire effects. #1 is at least possible with tech that we have today, but #2 requires that someone actually create the effect for use in games.

Fire as you may have gathered, is probably the most difficult CG effect to create. Hollywood took 20 years after CGI effects started in movies before it actually didn't look fake. Today fire in CG is very manageable, but before that it just made more sense to record your fire on a matte backdrop and insert the footage over one of the final rendering passes of your 3d project.

Yeah that was weird, they had the big block of "Digital Artists" (which could mean anything, including lighters, modelers, animators, compositors) at 20K a pop, and then later 3 "CG Artists", 3 "Modelers", 3 "Animators" making about a million each.
What's the diff? I'm an animator, by the way, and I couldn't tell ya...

no modeller, animator, FX artist, or "CG artist" (whatever that is) is making anywhere near a million per project.

I thought it was pretty entertaining...the physics was off but I tend to let that slide with all the CG out there.

Nothing about this looks appealing. Jumping from "reconstructing ship" to "destroying recently reconstructed ship" does nothing for me. Clearly nothing is sacred and everything can be pooped back out brand-new, this incarnation already has its first resurrected character, so what's at stake here?

Ever since Wrath of Khan, Star Trek writers have been convinced they can only produce Khan-a-likes as a path to success. I was only partially onboard after the first film, I checked out completely after the last one, but I'm particularly surprised at the laziness of this one. The CG and action direction seem to be the only areas that are getting any creative engineering in any of these films.

This is showcasing the New Generic. Blizzard used to push the boundaries for hyper-realism in CG, but everything from designs to animations in this is wrapped tightly in a security-blanket of technical and conceptual cliche.

Sign of the times, but I'm still filing a formal complaint...

It worked for me, random glitch perhaps? The list of regions allowed is fairly extensive, so it's probably not blocked (are there any missing? Canada and the US are both included):

"regionsAllowed" content="AD,AE,AF,AG,AI,AL,AM,AO,AQ,AR,AS,AT,AU,AW,AX,AZ,BA,BB,BD,BE,BF,BG,BH,BI,BJ,BL,BM,BN,BO,BQ,BR,BS,BT,BV,BW,BY,BZ,CA,CC,CD,CF,CG,CH,CI,CK,CL,CM,
CN,CO,CR,CU,CV,CW,CX,CY,CZ,DE,DJ,DK,DM,DO,DZ,EC,EE,EG,EH,ER,ES,ET,FI,FJ,FK,FM,FO,FR,GA,GB,GD,GE,GF,GG,GH,GI,GL,GM,GN,GP,GQ,GR,GS,GT,GU,GW,GY,HK,HM,HN,
HR,HT,HU,ID,IE,IL,IM,IN,IO,IQ,IR,IS,IT,JE,JM,JO,JP,KE,KG,KH,KI,KM,KN,KP,KR,KW,KY,KZ,LA,LB,LC,LI,LK,LR,LS,LT,LU,LV,LY,MA,MC,MD,ME,MF,MG,MH,MK,ML,MM,MN,
MO,MP,MQ,MR,MS,MT,MU,MV,MW,MX,MY,MZ,NA,NC,NE,NF,NG,NI,NL,NO,NP,NR,NU,NZ,OM,PA,PE,PF,PG,PH,PK,PL,PM,PN,PR,PS,PT,PW,PY,QA,RE,RO,RS,RU,RW,SA,SB,SC,SD,SE,
SG,SH,SI,SJ,SK,SL,SM,SN,SO,SR,SS,ST,SV,SX,SY,SZ,TC,TD,TF,TG,TH,TJ,TK,TL,TM,TN,TO,TR,TT,TV,TW,TZ,UA,UG,UM,US,UY,UZ,VA,VC,VE,VG,VI,VN,VU,WF,WS,YE,YT,ZA,
ZM,ZW"

Hmm. I don't think CG... maybe editing out the water jet? Or tether? Or wires? It's not as bad as that bear video, haha... a little tougher to call... I'm not ready to call it fake... though it is significantly smaller than the hulking jetpack engines we've seen.

gotta call fake.
nice CG though

I did appreciate that human trebuchet at the end there. BTW, this is all the CG from a short film with the talkie bits cut out. If you're patient enough to watch the full 6 min it's here:

http://videosift.com/video/The-Centrifuge-Brain-Project

*promote the cg

Yeah, no, a CG whale comped into a shot of a non-responding audience isn't a hologram. The video linked in Gratefulmom's comment is just AR, not a hologram - they're looking at themselves in a video monitor that's got CG animals overlaid on the feed. And the Vancouver Expo video is probably an example of the Pepper's ghost illusion, like the recent "hologram" of 2Pac, rather than actually holographic.

And good call on the "Project Blue Beam" bullshit.

Why would anyone get it confused with a kid's movie? It's not like its the first ever R-rated CG animated movie.

You know, I read a recent interview with John Oliver where he is very emphatic that his show is "comedy" and that, despite what people want to read into it, he is not making political statements. I think if I had watched this video before reading that interview I would have scoffed (as others here already have). But it's pretty clear to me now that he and his writers know exactly what they are doing.

Basically, this video is the result of John Oliver saying, "You know, when you think about this history of racism in American cinema you can find some pretty fucked up stuff. How can we make a joke out of that?"

It's not designed to be an actual literary critique, it's meant to use the facts to play up a punch line. I'm pretty sure John and his writing crew know that "The Last Samurai" does not refer to Tom Cruise's character (i.e. just because the character is trained how to use the sword and armor does not automatically make him a samurai), but it's easy to see how they can make a joke out of the ambiguity of the title and Americans' tendency for self-centeredness (I'm sure there are people in the U.S. who think the title does indeed refer to Cruise's character).

I actually don't have a problem with actors "playing outside their ethnicity" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean). I'm reminded of the recent controversy about the video game Uncharted 4 which has a white actress voice-acting the role of a black South African character. The Creative Director responded to the controversy by pointing out that a white character is voiced by a black actor in the same game, and that the decisions were made based on the choosing the best actor for the role--not on what the actor looked like in real life (read more about the story here).

As CG progresses and digital characters become a norm, I think this is an issue that's only going to get greater in the film industry. In our demand for political correctness will we demand that the actors physically resemble the characters they are portraying onscreen? That seems a bit absurd to me. But so too is the idea of excluding people for consideration from roles based solely on the color of their skin.