Proper Use of CGI

In general I'm a fan of the projects of James Rolfe---his many videos in character as the Angry Video Game Nerd; his movie reviews, et al---and most can be found on his website Cinemassacre.com. One idea that he espouses as a film maker and enthusiastic, if not professional, critic is that the use of computer generated images (CGI) is mostly out of control, and that by looking at old classics we can see the power of practical effects. Check out "Jurassic Park" or "Terminator 2": the presence of CGI doesn't make the need for practical effects---animatronics, real pyrotechnics---disappear.

In today's landscape the final battle between the queen xenomoph and Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in the climax of "Aliens" would be completely animated by computers. In reality it was a mechanical beast with two humans inside and powered by a half-dozen more with cables and rods.

The idea that CGI is a bit overused is one with which I agree.

Except for what we watched last night. For the first time ever during a scene I said outloud to Corrie: "See, this is why you need CGI." I guess these comments could be made about Peter Jackson's LotR trilogy, but they used plenty of practical effects there as well.

Last night we watched "Doctor Strange" and the scenes were his first astral trip through the multiverse.

Doctor Strange was usually considered unfilmable (so was LotR, so...); too much magic and too many trips to weird places:

And then there was the early '70s shift into outright LSD work, as the heads who made the book realized that it could be a vehicle for their altered ideas, and were taking acid as they wrote out the plots and artwork:

These things are what made the character a cult phenomenon in underground head circles, only there weren't too many of those, and sales never flourished.

I'm not the biggest Doctor Strange fan, but the idea of specifically psychedelic character does appeal to me, and I felt like they did a reasonably sound job with the movie. I'm certainly not that invested in accuracy or history or anything like that.

I did enjoy the movie. Those scenes, though, I could watch on repeat, and it specifically begs the question:

Was the first psychedelic event generated by computers and marketed for the masses a handful of scenes in 2016's "Doctor Strange"?