So I was watching Avatar a couple nights ago for the second time (I like the movie, btw), and if you've seen it you probably agree that the computer animation is great. That got me to thinking about what the future might hold for movies and animation.

If technology got to the point where entire movies could be computer animated but look so real that you couldn't distinguish them from films recorded with actual people, do you think that these would more or less take over? Would actors become things of the past since they're no longer needed (especially at the salary they receive now), or are people too attached to their favorite stars?

Personally, I don't go see movies because of a certain actor, and computer animated actors would always act perfectly (so every movie would have great acting if that's an incentive to go see it). Plus a lot of movies already have computer animated lead role characters.

Maybe voice actors will be the next big thing... time for a degree change.

wow that's a good question...maybe when the technology also becomes cheaper to use than to use live actors, so yah i think it might be the next big thing in movie history but itll prob take a while

if we accept what you've proposed, then i think that the actors these days will simply become voice actors in the future. i dont see why a good actor cant be a good voice actor.

I don't think completely animated moves would take over. Most of the time, it would be easier and cheaper to film the traditional way. The only kind of movie I can see this happening are high budget sci-fi/fantasy-type movies, and you'd still need actors for the animations. For movies that take place in a modern day Earth, they could just go outside and film. There's really no benefit to taking the time and remodelling the world in 3D, even if they had the resources to do so.

I think you have to factor in the costs of filming a non-animated movie. I have no idea how much it costs, but I assume closing down parts of cities, paying every single crew member (actors as well as staff), the price of travelling, equipment, and insurance would be pretty expensive compared to digital animation. If the animations could look completely real then I don't see why they'd go out of their way to do all this.