The title of the article itself implies something that is implicitly untrue. Practical effects don't need to make a "comeback" simply because they have never gone away. Perhaps they are a victim of their own success...or the laziness of moviegoers who automatically assume that every special effect they see is CGI.

The problem is the assumption that CGI is the cheapest, easiest way out. This isn't always the case. It is often cheaper, easier and more effective to use traditional techniques. To take Titanic as an example, relatively few of the effects in the film are CGI...although most people assume that that all or most of the effects were computer-generated. Some of them are distinctly low-tech, in fact. For instance, when Jack is in the ticket office, the background seen through the window is a 2D cutout of the Titanic with a store-bought model train in the foreground.

An unwarrented and unsupportable assumption about CGI is that it is easy and cheap...at least if you are talking about CGI that equals or exceeds the quality of traditional effects techniques. This, in fact, is not the case at all. For instance, it can be a lot less expensive and time-consuming to construct a model than to create a CGI version o the same thing.

Given the premise of the article, I really don't see how printing a model via 3D technology would offer any conceivable advantage over constructing one by traditional methods. If for no other reason than that the 3D model would still need to be constructed digitally in the first place—-which we know is time-consuming—-and then detailed, textured and painted once it was "printed." Perhaps the best application of 3D printing might be where a number of unique props—-a ray gun, say—-might need to be created.