And through the power vested in me, I raise this thread from the dead.
When I went to see Apocalypto I was sitting next to a couple who were obviously not enjoying the movie very much. The guy's cell phone also rang twice during the film, to give you a little insight as to who this person is. Anyway, when the leopard scene comes up, I heard the couple laughing and saying "man it's just a puppet. Looks so fake."
I admit that you could tell it was a puppet, but it was an awful good puppet. However, it got me thinking. They didn't yell out at the CGI pig at the beginning, so why didn't they accept the puppet? It's just as easy to notice that something is CGI as it is to notice that something is a puppet. In both cases it's relatively simple, for the main reason that whenever you would normally use CGI or a puppet is when it would be impossible or too dangerous to use the real thing. So your disbelief is already high because you know it has to be some sort of trick. But still, when you can spot CGI (which you can't always do, same with puppets) it looks realllly fakey. And it bothers me that the normal movie going public will accept shitty CGI, but will no longer accept decent puppets.