Why I fear Beowulf

R

reissholt

New member
So I just got done watching the second trailer for Beowulf and something struck me about it. Maybe it was all hyper-realistic graphics or the design of the film, but I just realized something quite eerie about this film: There is nothing I saw in the trailer that couldn't be done just as well in live-action.

It seems like a minor gripe when everyone else is pissing their pants over how gorgeous the graphics are, but I really hope I'm wrong in my assumption of the trailer. I seriously hope that Robert Zemeckis saved the good parts for the film, because I expect a lot more out of him. After Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Polar Express, and Monster House, there is a lot of pressure to see what new technical marvel he'll unleash in his films. I hope the character designs are not the only trick he has up his sleave because, honestly, this kind of thing has been done before by a couple of directors including Zemeckis.

But my fear is not so much of Zemeckis failing as much as the influence of this film. Will this really be the film that'll serve as the solution to convince studios to persue more than just talking animal pictures? If it does, I'm a bit hesistant. I mean, sure, we need more variety and I have nothing against more adult animation, but if you're going to make an animated film, take advantage of the medium. Because if you make an animated where the shots, acting, actions, and color can be done in live-action, what's the point? I have hope for Beowulf, but I'm not really excited to see it as I was with other Zemeckis films.
 
Some of the camera work in the red-band trailer is downright crazy. Hard to do in live-action. Besides, its going more for a 300-style look than pure realism, and as far as I'm concerned a lot of action movies like 300 might as well be animated.
 
I say the same thing about some other cartoons, usually people respond with "it's what the creator wanted".

Which I guess makes sense, but I still agree with you (though I haven't been too interested in Beowulf so I don't know if it applies here, myself.) if there's no point in it being animated, then... well, what's the point? Though I'll have to watch the full movie first before I judge.
 
In my mind, this film barely qualifies as an animated film. While completely lifelike, they still resemble CGI creations. The technique looks like it is mainly used so they can seamlessly inhabit a photo-realistic CGI world with CGI monsters and do some slick stuntwork that would otherwise be extremely difficult.

A film like this could easily flop, although it will be interesting where this process goes if it does well. It'll also be interesting to see how well recognizable actors perform under these circumstances.
 
One important factor a lot of people seem to be forgetting is the 3D/2D simultaneous releases. With live-action, you'd either need to use two cameras at the same time or go through a costly and not-all-that-good-looking process to make certain things pop out. In pure digital graphics, you simply render the film twice and it ends up looking perfect in 3D and 2D.
 
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