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Reviews:Shrek
Shrek is to Fairy Tales what Who Framed Roger Rabbit is to Cartoons. Mike Meyers is Shrek, the grumpy ogre who is deep down, a good guy. Eddie Murphy is the wise cracking sidekick: in this film, a donkey (not to be confused with the wise cracking insect he voiced in Mulan). The world is laden with fairy tale lore: From Cinderella to Snow White. From Peter Pan to Robin Hood. From Goldilocks to the Three Bears. They're all here for random visual gags in this messed up world.
Of course we need a Villian: John Lithgow is the would-be King who needs only a Princess to achieve his goal of the perfect kingdom. Of course, his perfect kingdom is a warped disneyland style castle (complete with velvet rope waiting lines at the front door). Oh, have I mentioned that he's ridiculously short? He finds the Magic Mirror (totally visually snagged from Disney's Snow White) and uses it to find his princess. And Shrek is gonna go get it, in exchange for the rights to keep all those obnoxious fairy tale bastards out of his beloved swamp.
So of course there's a dragon, and a valiant rescue of the princess. There's banter between our Ogre hero, and his sidekick. There's love shared between the beautiful princess and the hideous ogre. But how can they be together when they aren't even the same species?!
So thats the plot. Its cheesy, and you've heard it before, but there's no need to let that bother you. You're really seeing this movie for the ride, and what a ride it is. Jokes are packed fairly tightly, and with a good range of target audience. Of course there are the obligatory fart jokes, to say nothing of referring to the Donkey by his 3-letter name which is going to get laughs out of all the 9 year olds who heard a dirty word. But there's other stuff too: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Matrix, and many more are given parody sequences. Of course the classic Disney movies are also given their fair shakes: the Princess nicely sings to the birds just like Snow White, but with slightly different (and truly warped) end results.
So here's the thing: the jokes are evenly spaced and vary in nature. And the best of them are absolutely awesome. The 9-year-old-boy jokes are there, but I can overlook them (ok, I laughed at a few of them). But I got a lot of good laughs out of it.
And finally, what sort of review of the latest computer animated flick is complete without a discussion of what it looks like: In short, it looks damn fine, but it was a fairly incremental step in terms of rendering and animation.
Much of the animation is really good. As with every CGI flick so far, the humans aren't quite right yet. The Princess is the best of the human characters, and she's usually pretty dead on accurate: but she always looks animated. Occasionally she breaks through at looks alive, but usually she's just almost but not quite. Don't get me wrong: convincingly animating a human in CGI is a task that so far has never been done on film to my liking. Thats why all the successful human's have been the more cartoony (Geri from Geri's game might be the best). The facial stuff is a step ahead of body language. It's just so close.
The animation on the other characters is more varied. Shrek is awesome. Convincingly animated: he has mass, he shows emotion, he moves just like you'd expect. The Donkey works most of the time, but animating a quadroped is a little harder and sometimes he just doesn't move quite right. Our antagonist is extremely well handled: the face is awesome and totally on the money, although he does move just a little awkward. The Dragon is awesome- she's handled amazingly and whoever animated her deserves mega props too: when she's bad she's so bad, and the way they handle her through the rest of the story is great.
This is nitpicking I know, and understand that I'm super picky about this stuff. Nobody has got it perfect yet, and Shrek has got as close as anyone. We'll see what Final Fantasy can do when it comes out.
The overall look of the film is quite different from what we've seen so far. They obviously have tried to capture the look of a fairy tale. Toy Story sorta revels in the fact that its computer animation. Bug's Life really feels gigantic. Antz felt more stripped down, and I feel like Shrek follows somewhat in Antz footsteps. They use a lot of matte paintings which tends to have a different feel to most of the other CG flicks we've seen which are fully 3D. Its certainly not every shot, but its obvious that they aimed for a "Look" with this film, but I felt like that look was in many ways accomplished by giving the film a claustrophobic feel. There's a lot of shots that feel flat. They look like they were shot on a sound stage. Thats partially the lighting, and partially the matte work, but mostly it seemed to me that its because they wanted things to look like those paintings that you see of fairy tale worlds.
They make up for it in other ways tho: the details in many scenes is simply extraordinary: the sheen on the princess's hair. The countless blades of grass blowing independantly in the breeze, getting bent by the donkey passing through them, the leaves in the trees. The landscape is absolutely gorgeous with a stunning level of detail. Its obvious that many of these shots were a labor of love.
The acting is solid across the board. Cameron Diaz gives a good performance (again, watch A Life Less Ordinary to see her in a really good flick). Lithgow is excellent as always (but I actually really dig him: while I don't like 3rd Rock all that much, he manages to really shine). Eddie Murphy plays Eddie Murphy, what do you want? Mike Meyers actually manages to break a bit out of his persona and Act a bit. Should Austin Powers 3 not make him a billionaire, I'd love to see him do voice work- he has a real knack for a variety of characterizations. He makes me super envious since being a voice for a cartoon character is one of my lifelong dreams, and he does it really well. Sometimes Shrek slips a bit of Mike Meyers into himself, but for the most part he stands on his own- especially impressive considering it looks like they snarfed a lot of Meyers reference footage for the animators. Same goes for lithgow. They really got the look of the actors into these characters. Very cool.
So in summary, it's a funny film. Although it's a bit short, thats not surprising: kids have no attention span anyway. The jokes vary, but the best of the jokes are truly sick and twisted. References litter the landscape, and most of them are awesome. Visually the film breaks some new ground, but mostly manages to achieve a unique look. And dammit we're just talking about 70 minutes of fun. Enjoy it. I sure did.
Of course, they would have lost some time when the Chinese hackers broke in and inserted a thirty minute "ode to the death of American hegemonism".
I went with a few guys cause we wanted to see the CG. For those of you with a life: take a date! A KILLER date movie, one you dont have to worry about being a bit uncomfortable when the obligitory sex scene hits in the typical grown up film. It seriously drew out the helpless (err, hopeless) romantic in me. It truly plays on looking past the exterior and seeing the person within. Quite good.
Other thoughts: anyone see the dragon's "lair/castle" and think "this would make a really cool Quake level"? maybe it was just me...
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If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
A lot of studios are looking at this.
We are looking to replace all our desktops with Linux boxes over the next year as people roll out of our current production. We all ready have some in house to start using now.
We switched fron IRIX ro Linux for final renders during the last year and except in a few places, all of our last three videos were rendered Linux only. This will continue on in to the production of our movie, Jonah.
So, Linux is starting to take over, it just is so new to the animation industry that it took some time.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
Greetings!
For those of you who live in San Francisco or close by in the Bay Area, Shreck is playing in full digital projection format at the AMC 1000 Van Ness theatres. I saw it there last night. Watching the film so clearly was awesome.
Cheers!
Ehttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
Taco was a little tougher on the animation than I was. The human CG wasn't perfect, but it was excellently done, and the lively performances from Meyers and Murphy quickly made me forget that it was all fake. That and the scenery, environment (foot steps pressing into the grass is a good example), and amazing lighting made the movie visually compelling.
I'd recommend this movie to anyone. I laughed more than I can ever remember laughing in the last 10 years. If you want to have fun, see it!
Jason
Just wanted to point out that many of the best-animated DuckTales episodes (and all of the early ones) were animated by Tokyo Movie Shinsha. Tokyo Movie has a long and distinguished history in TV animation. You may have also seen their animation in their recent productions Monster Rancher or Cybersix, or in their classic work on The Mysterious Cities of Gold or Lupin III. They did the awesome collapsing brick floor seen in DuckTales' opening, the quality of which came as quite a pleasant surprise to the Disney TV Animation production team!
the newfies practically *are* Scots.
;)
More than just "practically" - I daresay that there are Newfoundlanders that have more Scottish blood in them than some Scotsmen.
Sorry, what was the topic again?
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
First, go complain to the MPAA, not the RIAA. :-)
Secondly, remember computer-animated movies take a LONG to render. I think Shrek required over a year of computer rendering time with multiple computers to get 70+ minutes of computer animation at 24 frames per second. After all, movies like the two Toy Story movies, Antz, and A Bug's Life aren't much longer than Shrek is now.
Besides, two-hour plus live action movies ain't cheap nowadays, either. For a epic or action film, the budget can easily run over US$100 million.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
You gotta admit, if you walked in on the movie, he looked like a goddamned bug. :)
Yes, Dragon, in fact, that's part of the dialogue "Dragon!" And he screwed up with the family ancestors and he tries to make up for it by guiding/helping Mulan.
Evil empire or not, I like Disney and I used to watch the Disney channel everyday. I still think the first few seasons of DuckTales were *superbly* animated, especially for a series, with rich tones and well detailed backgrounds. They got cheap at the end. Same goes for Pooh.
And when the hell did Annette get old?
::sigh::
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Somewhat true, but Myer's Scottish accent is now the accepted one. Kind of like Dana Carvey's Bush Sr. - it was so over the top stylized that it really sounded nothing like him, but was what you expected nonetheless.
Incidently Myers is Canadian not American, so he may have a bit of Scot in him anyway - the newfies practically *are* Scots.
Hard to see how it's an MPAA (hardly RIAA!) scheme. How many movies are sold out - they hardly need to create more seats turnover with shorter movies, plus I don't think the average moviegoer thinks "I havn't met my 300 minute movie quota this month - I'd better see another".
It's really about attention span and box office receipts. The 3hr epics usually don't do too well because it's hard to keep the attention of an MTV-ized audience for that long. The Director may want all sort of additional shots in there, but the studio is more likely to insist that he cut it to a more reasonable length.
Americans don't know what it's like to try and distinguish a culture amongst similar speech patterns.
Its not like America is one monolithic culture, you know. There are countless speech patterns in the numerous regions around the country. A few of the distinctive accents are:
Bostonian, New England, New York, Southern (including Alabaman, Georgian), Cajun, Mid-Western (the 'neutral' accent), and we shouldn't forget 'Valley Speak' and Ebonics.
In fact, after living in Florida for a few years now, I've noticed a speech pattern distinctive to Miamians.
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satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
Pixar can re-render one of their films in about a month. Is that a long time?
Besides, computer time is cheap. What's more expensive is people time. Remember that a feature length animation takes two or three years to animate. Shaving off a few minutes here and there really does save a significant amount of salary.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
That's including credits, right? If so, that's what I'd expect. About 100 minutes (or 3600 feet).
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Ralph Bakshi's Wizards (1977) was about 81-86 minutes. F.W. Murnau's classic vampire film Nosferatu (1922) was only 75 minutes, as was the Bela Lugosi Dracula of 1931. The Maltese Falcon (1941) was 99 minutes (slightly past your ninety-minute cutoff, but still short. Casablanca (1942) at 102 minutes hardly requires more than a single evening, and Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934) at 105 minutes leaves plenty of the evening free after watching. There are certainly others that are shorter, these are just the classics I remembered as being pretty short offhand. And recently, you could have seen Soderbergh's Traffic and von Trier's Dancer in the Dark at close to three hours apiece. Going back not too far, there's Mel Gibson's Braveheart, Kenneth Brannagh's uncut Hamlet at nearly four hours (anyone who wants to can look them up on IMDB if they're interested). Don't get me wrong, I loved the nearly four hours of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, nine hours of Shoah, and the twelve hours of Berlin Alexanderplatz, but this is more a matter of selective perception - you're forgetting the older short films as well as the newer long films.
Er...So I Married an Axe Murderer?
;)
Eddie Murphy did NOT play an insect in Mulan. He played a protecting spirit in the form of a small dragon.
IIRC, he was kicked out of the spirit group for having done something stupid, but since he manages to help Mulan, he is let back in, and takes a place of pride in the house again.
It was sorta a big plot thread.
What the hell is it with movies in the last decade or so? I don't recall any movies before about 1990 that were less than 90 minutes long, some older film were epics which had to be viewed over more than 1 evening. Now it seems rare to find a movie over 90 minutes long, and that seems to consist mainly of visual effects and inane taglines.
This is obviously a plot by the RIAA to squeeze more money out of the cinemas. One or two extra sessions per day amounts to many millions of dollars in their pockets. When I pay my 12$ or so I expect to be entertained for a while by a good story, not fed a few tidbits of action and left wondering where the sequel is going to be tacked on to the half-baked plot.
I realise the quality of a movie is not necessarily proportional to its length, but there is a reason movies are a bit longer than TV show episodes. They're meant to have a bit more depth and meaning, and be a self-contained story. This doesn't necessarily apply to shreck as its a kids movie, but I would think most parent would appreciate a movie holding their young ones interest for a bit longer.
As for the advances in computer animation, I'm sorry Taco but I just don't give a shit. Think of animated movies I have seen I quickly realise that the quality of their animation mattered very little. The three most important components of a movie are premise, people and plot. Get these right and no-one will even talk about how realistic the movie is.
Well, now that this has turned into the common rant about the movie industry, I guess I should say that there are many recent movies which I thought where really great. Invariably these were not hyped at the box office, weren't popular and weren't made by major hollywood studios. Many of them weren't even shown at cinemas in my area, I had to track them down on video or wait for a TV station to show them. So to all those people who agree with what I've written above, please ignore the blithering of the advertisements and entertainment shows, find some good movie reviews (in Oz I recommend SBS's The Movie Show) and I'm sure you can find something to watch that is worthwhile.
Honestly, I find Mike Myers pretty annoying in that he's too scared to use his own voice in *anything* and is still stuck in that improv schtick.
And the other, by Roger Ebert who gave it 4 stars.
I'll wait for the video.
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/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Titanicus Andronicus? Is that where the Titus drowns Chiron and Demetrius and steals their mother's jeweled pendant?
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Why do we expect CG characters to look lifelike? We don't expect cartoon characters to look exactly like normal people? Because they're cartoons, so why do we expect CG characters to look 'real'? Why can't we just say 'okay, it's a CG character, it's not going to look real' and accept the fact that it never will? The movement in cartoons isn't quite right either, but we want CG to be right. Why do we have such high expectations for CG, but not for cartoons? The two are basically the same media, they're attempting to draw (or model/render) a complex physical object, and unless they are going to spends tons of time to paint a portrait of their character, it's not going to look exactly right. It would take even more time to make them move right, so why do we expect them to?
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Ahem.
Even though I'm a US citizen, I would dare say that your statement is made without any real understanding of Canada. Try listening to the CBC for a while, and you'll start to understand some of the differences. Most "Americans" (a term I've always hated) seem to think that just because someone watches American TV that they are "just like us."
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
this isn't much of a spoiler. but dont read anymore if you dont wanna know anything more about the movie. the thing that bothered me in this movie was the kung fu scene... it was funny, but... it consisted entirely of rip offs of the final blow from so many kung fu movies we've known over the years. there's nothing wrong with this, it's just that i think the obligatory kung fu scene is turning into just that- obligatory. still, the fixing the hair in mid-matrix rotate makes up for my complaint.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
According to The Tech of Shrek on Tech TV, the princess initially looked too human, so she looked out of place in the fantasy setting. So, they simplified the animation to make her look more 'cartoony'.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
I agree with Taco that the graphics, textures, etc. were truly impressive. Things have certainly come a long way towards looking more realistic and at times even approach looking lifelike (the intro sequence for instance). But I thought the character animation itself was rather poor. The movements are quite choppy and blocky. Not nearly as good as TS2, for example. In that regard I was a little disappointed, since I figure that getting the textures to look right just takes time, but the animation and character movements is where the true "art" comes in and I was disappointed to see that they skimped on it.
Linux was only used for rendering. The initial modeling, effects, and final compositing of the rendered material was done on SGI Octane workstations running IRIX. Audio was done on a Windows NT Protools setup.
I always get a kick outta the "LINUX DID IT ALL" articles, when in fact Linux was only used for rendering. Titanic, for example, comes to mind... a Linux-based render farm was setup to render several chucks of the background and other big pieces. The modeling was done on SGI's IRIX, and the effects and mixing of the rendered material with the film was done with SGI IRIX as well (via an Inferno setup). However, the Linux crowd might be happy to know that Pixar is in the process of replacing their SGI Octane2 workstations with Linux-based PCs for pretty much everything. They're still going to be using Sun Ultra Enterprise servers for rendering, though (go figure).
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
However, if the character has slightly-too-large eyes and simple face features (read: cartoony) then it becomes what is known as "an icon", a face without a defined personality. The character becomes "anyone", allowing you to see more of yourself in the character, therefore increasing empathy for him/her.
This psychological effect is used by most cartoonists and animators (wherever they know it or not), specially japanese manga and anime artists, who exploit it drawing simple strokes for main characters (iconizing them and making us feel attached to them), and creating more complex features for antagonists and secondary characters.
For an example, in Evangelion, Shinji Ikari looks like almost every brown-haired 14 year old kid in the world, while Gendou Ikari (his father) is drawn with much more detail, therefore making us sympathize with the boy and alienate from the father at a gut level.
(the fact that Gendou Ikari is the worst father in the history of anime warrants another discussion)
For more reference read:
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. A great explanation of how comics and animation "work" and...
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by the late Joseph Campbell, who explains why a great character in a story moves us and inspires us. This was George Lucas's pillowbook when he was creating the first Star Wars trilogy (pity that he decided to only follow his ego for the new one)
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C'mon, flame me!
No sig for the moment.
The truth is that Americans enjoy making jingoistic jabs at Canadians (and vice versa) simply because we are such old friends that we view it almost the same way as rivalries between states or provences. It's all in good fun. We like Canada, and are really glad to have them as a neighbor rather than, say, Iran or North Korea.
As for "knowing nothing" about other countries... The thing is, we don't need to... at least not in the way somebody from, say, Germany needs to. We are a huge country bordered by nothing but two allies and two Oceans. Somebody from Des Moines, Iowa would have to travel over a thousand miles to reach the nearest foreign city, and even farther to reach one where English is not spoken.
It's not that we're isolationist, it's just that we're isolated.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
but god help me find the link now out of all of the random bits I've read over the past month
;-)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
A good example of this is this stick figure fight kungfu link someone sent me:
http://games.sohu.com/fightgame/fight3.swf
in this case there is no surface texture, it is all stick figures, but the body motion and all the rest is right.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The state of the art in CGI is roughly as follows: in Toy Story, everything looked plastic...but that was OK, because all of the characters were supposed to be plastic. This goes not only for the surfaces, but the modeling and motion as well. Antz and Bug's Life improved on these quite a bit; still using the convenient exoskeleton to keep from having to animate much skin, but apart from more detail and more natural scenes (like the tree in Bug's Life), there were still some things lacking: good rendering of hair and fur, good surface textures, and realistic motion on some characters.
Stewart Little and Dinosaur began to push the state of the art; the creators of Stuart Little had to create not only realistic fur for the lead, but also cloth. In the process, they contributed to the power of Alias|Wavefront's Maya package (some of their hair/cloth code made it into Maya).
It is getting better, and Shrek illustrates this (as will Monsters, Inc.). Detail is incredible, surface textures are bright and realistic, and motion is getting better (some characters were smooth, others were lacking (a bit like the skipping motions used in Toy Story 2, in both the "When somebody loves you" bit and the airport)). Fur is looking pretty good, and hair is OK (it renders well, but despite how the various Chris Landreth Maya animations, including "The End" and Bingo have turned out, it doesn't blow in the wind much).
It is getting better, though. The faces on the humans were incredibly detailed, and there is a tremendous attention to detail, both in character animation and in the scenery. I greatly anticipate the (not-so-distant) future of this style of CGI animation.
I wish they had listed the software/hardware they used at the end (even just a kudos to SGI or Sun or somebody). It is nice to know what was used.
I dropped the accent when I moved away a couple of years ago, but I'm still quite fluent in Newfenese. Just for the sake of enlightenment, here are the most common rules of Newfenese:
Ok, some examples (Newfie version is spelled as it is pronounced):
English: I am the man who builds the boat.
Newfie: Ize duh bye ooh bills duh boat.
English: It's a fine day for sailing, isn't it?
Newfie: Tis uh fine day fer sailin, iddin it?
Engrish: All your base are belong to us.
Newfie: All yer base is belong tus.
English: How's the weather?
Newfie: Ows duh wetter?
English: Young people today have no respect for their elders.
Newfie: Ye youngsters dedays got no respeck fer oh peepo.
English: Ok, I'm done ranting.
Newfie: Ok, Ize done rant in.
I think it's important that movies achieve the "fun" or entertaining factor first, then look to be deep and meaningful. There are a good number of movies that have done this very well (see most Robin Williams movies). While I enjoy movies that make me think, my first priority when I plop down that $7 to see a movie is that I come away entertained. And honestly animated films manage this better more consistently than most serious adult films.
Well, this this thing has 5 years in development, and has recieved tremendous amounts of prainse. Has all of this raised our expectations too high?
I guess I'll find out soon...
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--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Huh? What? Does anyone else think that "thin plot, and happy gags" is the best of both worlds, or has that potential? Thin plot and happy gags may be fun entertainment, but is it anything more? Not to me. What's wrong with deep movies? Do movies have some regulation governing them that say they must be shallow, and not attempt to provoke their audiences to think deeply? Movie making is a communications medium, and an art form, like writing, or painting, or sculpting. Books can have "deep" messages. Paintings can convey philosophical ideas. Why can't movies do the same thing and be applauded, instead of dismissing it as stuff that just "bogs it down." Come on folks, don't be afraid to think so much. Entertainment movies like Shrek are fun. Movies with "deep" or philisophical themes and messages may not be full of lighthearted (or stupid/sick/boring/dumb/sophisticated/good) humor, but that doesn't make them bad.
Of course there are plenty of movies that try to be philosophical, or deep, and fall on their face. But there are others that succeed, and those are the ones that I consider to be really good. When I look for the best in movies, I look for ones that challenge me, make me think and re-evaluate my paradigms, not ones that try to find some happy medium between humor and trite messages.
"By doubting we come at the truth." - Cicero
My tivo taped the hbo first look for shrek the other day, and I was ablt to watch it yesterday. They talked a lot about the look they were aiming for in the movie, which was a fairy tale look. They weren't trying full out to go for the completely real look, so I think what is said in the review about the look and feel is dead on what the creators were looking for. the first look is pretty good, lots of shots of early storyboards and the actors doing their respective voices.
Mike Myers isn't American he's Canadian, of Scottish ancestry. The scots accent is based on one of his relatives, but overdone for comic effect.
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www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
According to The Tech of Shrek on Tech TV, the princess initially looked too human, so she looked out of place in the fantasy setting. So, they simplified the animation to make her look more 'cartoony'.
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www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Mushu was a DRAGON, not an insect. geez, just because he was small and animated doesn't make him any less of a dragon than Patrick Stewart's character in Dragon Heart.