First images of Beowulf

N

nicey

New member
Some video game mags are showing scenes from the upcoming game so I got a small idea of how they would look, but the L.A. Times has two shots from the actual movie. Very nice.

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Tell me I'm not the only one who had to do a double-take to figure out it wasn't real. That looks fantastic, much better than Polar Express, and the Frazetta vibe is dead on in the first pic.
 
If there's one thing i can't stand, it's an animated movie that they bothered to make look so real, they might as well just done it in live-action.
And isn't this rotoscoped? They makes it worse!
 
Holy crap!! Those images are actually animation? That looks incredible.

Though I tend to agree, why not just film it live action if you're going to make the animation look live action?
 
People complain about CGI only being all talking animal movies, and when they get one that isn't, they complain about it. Talk about irony.

Looks good to me, could it have been done in live-action just as easily, but I'm sure it'll be interesting since Neil Gaiman is writing for it.
 
They didn't complain about The Incredibles for being human, and that is because they were stylized. They were obviously someone's artwork. That is precisely how ultra-realistic CG misses the point of animation.
 
This looks pretty darn good... my only concern is, if many of the characters are basically CGI recreations of themselves, like the aforementioned Jolie...
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...I do have to ask what's the point. I mean, if the studio is going to the trouble of recreating the actors in CG, why not just shoot it in live action, where the movements are guaranteed not to be stilted like these realistic CG films have a tendency to lapse into at times?

Now true, the budget of this film is far, far less than, say, Lord of the Rings was. So I suppose that's the benefit right there. Still seems like an odd choice, though.
 
I... dunno. If they were trying to make it look like a Frank Frazetta painting, then it's definitely a little too photorealistic. His paintings tend to make things smoother and less textured.

I'm biased, though, since I'm not the biggest fan of Frank Frazetta. A movie based on Arthur Rackham's paintings, on the other hand... :D
 
It's kind of hard to tell the difference between this and a green-screened film like 300. Are there any particular advantages/disadvantages to either method that would make one better than the other for this material?

It does look better than Polar Express visually, and the script by Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman I'm certain will be an impressive piece of work. However, they're making a lot of cuts to get it down to a PG-13 rating according to the LA Times article. There were rumors on Wikipedia that an unrated version would be released in IMAX, but I haven't heard anything more on the subject.
 
I for one thought making this movie through this process has got to be the stupidest thing a film maker would do. But seeing that it's cheaper to do it in mo-cap instead of live-action makes their media choice a lot more sense.

....that is, if it WAS cheaper. Turns out this film costs $60 million more than any LOTR film. And $130 million more than the Beowulf movie made a several years ago.
 
Really? Huh. IMDB says Beowulf (2007) cost $70 million to make, and LOTR Fellowship cost $93 million, with Two Towers and Return of the King costing $94 mil. each.
 
I'm glad to see more realistic human 3D animation. But what a ridiculous level of detail they went with, I don't see why they just didn't do live action. Or stylize and 'degrade' live action.

After Spirits Within which cost $137 million, and didn't profit, I thought no one would try it again. At $150 million, if it does badly, realistic humans may be out.

Advent Children was excellent, I can't find any budget info though.

Download links for the trailer in HD available here.
 
Advent Children was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon mixed with Square-Enix. At least the directors realized that they had to exagerate the action, admitting that they could have just put in live actors otherwise.

I have to agree about replacing live-action with this. I didn't see anything striking as far as composition, nothing jaw-dropping, just a bunch of cramped scenes with CG characters making disturbing attempts at facial gestures. It's cool to look at for the first five minutes, then it becomes a gimmick and everyone begins rolling their eyes and leaving the theater.
 
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