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Trailer of Pixar Movie 'Finding Nemo'
tjansen writes "The trailer of the next Pixar movie, Finding Nemo, is out. Only Quicktime, as usual, so you need CrossOver on Linux machines." Actually's Disney's site has Real and Windows Media formats, so you can pick your poison.
Toys, Bugs, Monsters.. now Fish..
I dunno how long they can keep this going. However, I know for one thing I'm not caught into this preview nearly as much as Pixars past works. This movie seems like the little mermaids friends geared towards 5 year olds. Not that I'm saying that's bad or anything; just seems like a huge change of pace from Pixar.
Here fishy fishy..
R4NT.com - A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
Look, I love PIXAR movies. The CG is always awesome and I usually make it a point to see pretty much any computer animated film . . .
But what's with the 'Slashvertisements' lately. I mean, it'd be one thing if we had some article here that talked about the tech that went into it or something like that, but this is just the trailer! Is there something I'm not aware of about this trailer or movie that makes it so special as to justify a Slashdot front page post? Maybe it's just a slow weekend...
Who said Freedom was Fair?
If you know of other products, rather than chastising the initial post, why not be more informative and actually list them?
Why the big stink about unsupported media formats? I mean, is there a viable alternative format out there? Windows doesn't support DivX out of the box, and it's not mainstream enough to consider releasing in that format. Ogg Vorbis was supposed to be developing an open-standard video codec, but it's vaporware for now. MPEG4 is totally unnecessary for video of this type.
Repeat after me: "Linux users are *not* the majority." Windows users are. Don't expect corporations to force Windows users to take a few extra steps to watch their advertisements just so that Linux users aren't disenfranchised...
You probably have a Windows box, or know someone who does, so quit complaining and watch the trailer there. If you don't, then you probably don't give a shit about the movie anyway...
I am very confused. I thought that /. disliked MPAA/DISNEY/REAL NETWORKS/WMA (you know companies that support laws like the DMCA)???
/. run stories about their newest products?
If what they are trying to do is so evil, why does
MPAA BAD!
MPAA BAD!!
MPAA BAD!!!
OH something shinny!!!
It's all about content control. They don't want people out on the 'Net to easily redistribute the trailer via unapproved sites or to edit/modify them into derivative works.
Despite the paranoia of the ex-Napster crowd, this isn't about curtailing free use rights per se. Many corporations view unauthorized distribution as compromising of the PR campaigns they run and worry about "Guilt By Association" if a third party gets publicly identified with the distribution of their work.
Those who complain about affect & effect on
It's because we're so intimately familiar with the human form that it takes much more for a human form to be believable. Not only does the rendering have to be more correct, with much more involved lighting techniques, but the movements and expressions would have to be that much better too.
Animation technique that gives us a hyper-realistic monster we would only concieve of as ok on humans in a realistic setting.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Because they are making animated movies. They are necessarily stylized. By that logic, why wasn't Ice Age made like Walking with Dinosaurs/Beasts? They make stylized films. Some Japanese animated films dtrive for a lot of realism, why not make them live action instead? Animated films are an art to themselves. Yes of course Pixar, PDI, Blue Sky and many other deliberately goo for a stylized look.
;-)
You also have to remember Pixar's story. Ed Catmull was always interested in making animated films even before founding the Lucasfilm Graphics Group. One reason Pixar was spun-off was because Catmull wanted to make the animated films, while Lucas was interested in using computers to help the live action filming process, mainly for doing Visual Effects (though there were other efforts like the EditDroid and SoundDroid).
I don't see what the problem is
I think the topic you're really getting at here makes actually perfect sense. As we hear so often, Story is always the number one emphasis of Pixar - and they have developed an amazing sense for pushing the tech behind their movies selectively, in a way that technological shortcomings never distract or detract in any way from the story.
Note how Toy Story timed in nicely with the arrival of solid Phong shading techniques in the CG world - plastic toys. This is a trend in Pixar movies, straight through Sulley's fur in Monsters Inc, hair and fur having become a significant area of advancement in the industry over the past few years.
In an obvious contrast, Square's Final Fantasy, pushed photorealism on every front at once, and the result was characters that were technologially impressive but awkward to watch as actors - distracting to what little story laid underneath as there was obviously something wrong, constantly stealing the viewer's attention... You don't see Pixar making realistic humans, because they understand that sense of interference.
As much as shaders and other CG fronts have advanced in recent years, all we have now is a steadily growing library of realistic effects, which, when used selectively, can greatly assist in conveying emotion, story and character. Pixar has made very good stylistic decisions on pushing visuals in the right places at the right times.
Would realistic fish be fun to watch anyway? Actually, will fish be fun to watch for an hour and a half? A sense of weight is usually key to sucessful acting, so this is in fact a very ambitious movie in terms of animation, to compliment the rendering advancements...
In my opinion Pixar is taking the best route, generating breathtaking imagery without straining to reach for the holy grail of photorealism.
With their stylized characters, they don't have to strive to meet the impossibly high standards created by our exposure to reality every day. When you look at Final Fantasy, it's gorgeous, but the flaws are even more evident because you look at human faces every day.
When you're looking at what appears to be a living, breathing cartoon the suspension of disbelief lasts just that much longer because there's nothing to compare it to in the scope of your mind's eye.
It's like a paraphrased quote from a recent cinefx magazine... if you want to make a CG film with characters that all look and act perfectly human, just hire real people.
Ah, but what is photorealism? What does a non-stylised talking ant look like anyway?
Photorealism is the ability to make it look exactly what you want it to look like, no more, no less.
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Do you *really* think so?
Pixar has pumped out the only worthwhile stories/characters/animated films to come out of Disney since Mulan -- and I even give Mulan the benefit of the doubt for the awesome title sequence, the Eddie Murphy casting and the non-Disney ending.
Between Pixar's clout and their warchest, I'm hoping they go out on their own.
Honestly, I'm surprised that they've gotten away with as much as they have so far that's completely averse to the Mouse's canon (the ending to Monsters, Inc. is a BIG one -- doing Seven Samurai as 'A Bug's Life?' -- brilliant!).
To hell with photorealism. We've seen how far we can go that direction. Pixar, their animators and directors seem to have new -- at the very least -- touching and compelling stories to tell. Which barely any in the market can say now.
Shrek? How the hell can you go wrong with Mike Meyers and Eddie Murphy? You can't? It didn't matter that the film was ugly. It didn't matter that there was a cliché story. It didn't matter if they were pandering more to the adults in the crowd than the kids (which Antz did -- and it was God Awful as a result).
I couldn't care less if Pixar's films were a flipbook, as long as they're told with style, wit and heart. Oh, AND they manage to be the prettiest thing on the block when they're released even with their aversion to photorealism.
Y'know what? They care about the STORY -- although I'm a bit nervous about the three new films in three years thing. That's one hell of a lot of manpower.
Bottom line: Pixar has class, regardless of how you feel about Jobs and Disney. Getting out from under the Mouse's thumb can *only* be good for them. The Mouse is about cash, first, thank-you-very-much. Then critical acclaim/adoring fans.
I'm still at the point that I've been amazed by Pixar enough to believe the opposite of them. That's (to me) Jobs saying 'I've got money, and the most awesome storytellers there are to buy. So what are you waiting for... tell your fucking stories!'
--dr00gy