This is probably why Cats was a CGI nightmare. Rather than higher a costume designer to re-imagine the leggings and fur hats for a modern audience. Which would have required hiring union work people to make the hundreds of costumes they'd have needed they just CGI ed some cat fur onto their actors.
Did the CGI team do their best and give it their all, probably. But they shouldn't have been hired. They shouldn't have been put in a position of making costumes and worlds and extras, and, and, and. They should have been hired for what CGI is best at, special effects when physical special effects aren't possible and the rest should've been left to physical craftspeople.
There's nothing wrong with CGI when used sparingly and married with physical effects and costumes to enhance the realness of the world but when you plop some actors in morph suits on a green screen set and just replace everything with CGI your movie sucks.
Compare the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and you'll understand what I mean.
CGI people deserve a union, deserve respect, and deserve not to be treated as an isnta movie factory. They deserve to be allowed to hone their craft and dedicate time and energy to creating the kind of world-building effects we all know and love.
