I don't quite understand the appeal... (Beowulf)

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 12:46 am

Well, Zemeckis, following up on his last CG movie, The Polar Express, is making another one of those movies that are CG but try to look REALLY REAL. I can understand going for a somewhat realistic look, but the way they do this just seems ridiculous. I mean, really, what is the point of this? I guess it's to make the special effects blend better, but I still don't quite get what their going for, since it doesn't look THAT good. Ratatouille had better animation than Polar Express. Polar Express just looked weird, and this does, too. This is really the CG equivalent of rotoscoping, the difference being that rotoscoping was meant to enhance the fluidity of the animation, which, let's face it, this does NOT. When you see the animation from a Bakshi film, whether or not the film is any good (don't know, haven't seen them, but I have seen the animation in parts), it looks good. This is just... I don't really know. It just seems wrong, and it's distracting.

As for the film itself... I don't have much to say. The trailer didn't interest me much and the only thing I can say is that I hope it's better than Beowulf and Grendel, which didn't seem to have the budget for a Beowulf movie. Beowulf, I believe, is an epic. Beowulf and Grendel was certainly no epic. This one seems to be, though, so maybe muscling past the annoying animation will have some worth to it... Or not. I'm not sure.

Silverclaw · Post by **Silverclaw** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 12:54 am

Yeah, I know what you mean. Whats the point of putting motion-capture suits on actors then turning that into hyper-realistic 'animation'? Wouldn't it be cheaper to just film the actor part, and maybe do cgi backgrounds if you want them set in a fantasy landscape? Or if they are going for creativity/art style, why not just do a real animated movie?
The Polar Express people did look kindof freaky...like puppets. Something about the faces

Still, hope Beowulf will be a good movie...and they dont have scary faces.

wolf4life · Post by **wolf4life** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 6:20 pm

UGH! NO!!!!

THE POLAR EXPRESS SUCKED EGGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost feel asleep! i would have if i hadnt eaten all the candy!

nekocj · Post by **nekocj** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:12 pm

Wanna know a secret? The reason why the motion capture hyper realistic Polar Exress didn't work? It's the eyes. The eyes didn't follow the action of the body. The bodies were much livelier. Hopefully this doesn't happen to Beowulf. I think it looks stunning personally! (Beowulf not Polar Exress) That whole movie was just a Tom Hanks jerk off session...er pardon meh language.

-Neko

wolf4life · Post by **wolf4life** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 12:02 am

what do you mean the eyes? why the heck would the eyes change a thing in the whole movie! it was so boring...its like oh no the ice breaking...hold on or youll freaking tip over! WE ARNT PAYING FOR THE MEDICAL BILL!!!

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 12:05 am

He's talking specifically about the animation, not the entire movie. The rest of the movie was terrible on it's own merits.

wolf4life · Post by **wolf4life** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 12:10 am

well the animation wasnt bad...i guess??? well a 1.5 out of 5

twirrlacurl · Post by **twirrlacurl** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:40 pm

I read Beowulf and saw the previews for the movie. And I like Angelina Jolie... but I pictured Grendel and Grendel's mother totally different. Maybe a little more vicious, not seductive. I dunno maybe i'll rent, prolly won't be caught in the theater watching it.

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 7:23 pm

Yeah, that's another thing. Shouldn't Grendel's mother be a little less... Hot? Actually, I wouldn't know, I haven't gotten a chance to read Beowulf yet. Need to give that a go at some point. Hell, I didn't even realize there WAS a Grendel's mother until recently, and I only found out there was a dragon a few days ago. I'm not sure how I missed all that.

wolf4life · Post by **wolf4life** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:58 pm

*sigh*

if she wasnt hot then you couldnt get as many guys to go...

what are you?

A WOMAN!

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 1:37 am

wolf4life wrote:*sigh*

if she wasnt hot then you couldnt get as many guys to go...

what are you?

A WOMAN!

No, but I see hot chicks elsewhere, we don't need to randomly put in a CGI likeness of Angelina Jolie in a role that it probably wouldn't make sense in.

wolf4life · Post by **wolf4life** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 1:40 am

hasnt angelina jolie always looked sexy in all her movies...well depending on the person

but yea i get your point

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 1:43 am

wolf4life wrote:hasnt angelina jolie always looked sexy in all her movies...well depending on the person

but yea i get your point

Yeah, I think she has, but they were better because they weren't CG.

wolf4life · Post by **wolf4life** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 1:44 am

true.....oh so true

cumulusprotagonist · Post by **cumulusprotagonist** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 4:33 pm

The best CG animation I can remember was "Final Fantasy:The Spirits Within".

If you want real then, that direction has possibilities...

Figarou · Post by **Figarou** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 5:42 am

ravaged_warrior wrote:
As for the film itself... I don't have much to say. The trailer didn't interest me much and the only thing I can say is that I hope it's better than Beowulf and Grendel, which didn't seem to have the budget for a Beowulf movie. Beowulf, I believe, is an epic. Beowulf and Grendel was certainly no epic. This one seems to be, though, so maybe muscling past the annoying animation will have some worth to it... Or not. I'm not sure.

Maybe the sequel will be better. "Baiowolf" Scott Biao becomes a werewolf.

NUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:15 pm

I saw Beowulf on Saturday.

I did think that the "animation" was kind of...well, let's say stiff, at least as far as the faces. Not much emoting; I've seen video-game human characters that looked more interesting. And they haven't improved the thing with the eyes very much.

That's the bad news, here's the good news!

The film is exciting and engaging. I hate Crispin Glover (twice-convicted wifebeater) but I had to admit, he really brought something to Grendel. Grendel is supposed to be kind of pathetic, almost child-like, and that definitely came through. You feel sorry for the poor bastard. The good news is that the monsters straight-up ROCK in terms of detailing. The dragon will blow you away.

There's a good bit of nudity in the film, with strategically-placed objects covering up the items in question. A lot of people are complaining about that but I thought it was rather clever the way they did it. The "set dressing" was top drawer — very lush, beautiful colours, extremely detailed, but not busy.

There's a LOT of gore. 'Course, you knew that, one monster dies by getting his arm ripped off, but that's the least of it. I saw the 3D print and there were people in the theatre around me, ducking and dodging whenever there was a fight going onscreen.

What really surprised me was that this was "only" PG-13. It's GOTTA be the strongest and heaviest PG-13 I've ever seen, borderline R. In fact, I think the only reason it isn't R is that Grendel's mother's body looked like a Barbie doll.

The film was written in part by Neil Gaiman and that's always good news. And he did a good job of it. He actually has a character refer to Beowulf by his actual name, "Bee-Wolf" ("Bear" — it's thought that Beowulf was a werebear and that's why he was so strong). Gaiman fans won't be disappointed. I saw it with a couple friends and one of them called it "American Anime."

The showing I went to was PACKED. The line wrapped around the lobby of the Regal Cinema and if you've ever been to one of those you know that's no small chunk of real estate. It's always fun to see a movie with a pumped crowd of movie geeks (like I did with 300 ).

Would I see it again? Mmmmm, yeah. It had its flaws (they mostly sacrificed characterization for backgrounds and costuming), but it made up for them, in my view. My next two movies are gonna be Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium and The Golden Compass and maybe the new print of Labyrinth they're gonna play at the Bijou, but if nothing else comes out after those I'll go see Beowulf again.

Extra bonus with the showing: they ran the trailer for "I Am Legend," which my friend Paradox Pollack is in. I got to see him on the big screen which was very cool. It looks like it'll be good: Will Smith's character isn't a testosterone-pumped muscle-head crusader-type, he's just a guy. Everyman. He doesn't want to kill the zombies, he wants to help them.

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:37 pm

Well, that's the second good review I've heard for the film. I may just check this one out, but I still say the animation used seems unnecessary. Traditional animation or live action would have been preferred, but whatever.

As for I Am Legend... Well, Will Smith will probably not top Vincent Price (or Charlton Heston, but I haven't seen The Omega Man yet), but it might still be okay. One thing, though... They're vampires, not zombies. The helping thing is new, though. In the old one (SPOILERS) Price didn't help the vampires, he hunted them down and slaughtered them. He found a group of survivors who, even though they didn't have immunity, were able to combat the disease with a vaccine or something, and eventually he transfused his own blood into one of them, giving her complete immunity. The science is a bit wonky there, but it was a pretty good movie. Check it out if you get the chance, it's called The Last Man on Earth.

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:48 pm

ravaged_warrior wrote:Well, that's the second good review I've heard for the film. I may just check this one out, but I still say the animation used seems unnecessary. Traditional animation or live action would have been preferred, but whatever.

Yeah, hear you there. There's just a personal richness and subtlety to live action that you simply can't replicate with 0's and 1's. I think there's a term for it, the closer you get to photo-realistic in terms of graphics, the cheesier it looks.

Zemeckis said he made it all Mo-Cap because you couldn't do what he did with the film in live action and come in with a reasonable budget. He said that if he'd done the film live-action, it would cost half a billion to make. I disagree. He could have done the effects and set-dressing in CG, but left the actors live action and just green-screened them into CG backgrounds, scenes and "sets." You're paying them Actors' Guild scale anyway, why pay someone else to cover them up with CG? Get your AG money's worth.

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:59 pm

Yeah, I assumed it had something to do with money.

Back to I Am Legend (sorry), I just looked at the trailer, and noticed something very familiar about the tagline. It's the same exact one used for The Omega Man back in 1971: The last man on earth (reference to the original film) is not alone. That movie was significantly changed from the novel, though.

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 5:07 pm

Yeah, as I understand it, it's based on the graphic novel.

[Shrugging] I'll go see it anyway. Friend's in it, wanna see him. And Will Smith's a decent actor.

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 5:26 pm

Graphic novel? I think the new one is based directly on the original novel. That's what I heard. They even kept the dog, which was taken out of the other ones. I'll probably see this one, too.

Dreamer · Post by **Dreamer** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 10:09 pm

ravaged_warrior wrote:Graphic novel? I think the new one is based directly on the original novel. That's what I heard. They even kept the dog, which was taken out of the other ones. I'll probably see this one, too.

YEah But :SPOILER: Didn't the dog die a little after Neville got it in the book?:

Midnight · Post by **Midnight** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:30 am

vrikasatma wrote:I think there's a term for it, the closer you get to photo-realistic in terms of graphics, the cheesier it looks.

"Uncanny Valley"?

Not quite the same idea but the closest I can think of at the moment.

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:41 am

Dreamer wrote:
ravaged_warrior wrote:Graphic novel? I think the new one is based directly on the original novel. That's what I heard. They even kept the dog, which was taken out of the other ones. I'll probably see this one, too.
YEah But :SPOILER: Didn't the dog die a little after Neville got it in the book?:

That's what everyone seems to be in a fuss about at the I Am Legend boards on IMDb.

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I don't quite understand the appeal... (Beowulf)

I don't quite understand the appeal... (Beowulf)

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