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Visual Effects Oscar Shortlist
nurble writes "The short list of films being considered for a best visual effects Oscar was released today. The biggest news is that the final two installments of the Matrix trilogy were snubbed in favor of Universal Studios' "The Hulk," New Line Cinema's "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," 20th Century Fox's "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," Universal's "Peter Pan," Buena Vista Pictures' "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," Warner Bros. Pictures' "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" and Fox's "X2". Finalists will be announced following the effects "bake-off" on January 21st."
Return of the King, hands down. Best integration of effects with story I've seen, and come on, nothing was more impressive than Gollum. Most expressive CG character I've ever seen, take that Jar-Jar.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
As I recall, critics were saying the only redeeming quality of the last matrix was its visual effects... Nice mood swing.
That just proves that this whole thing is a sham.
The second and third Matrix releases weren't the best in the effects department. I am blown away that Hulk was even considered.
Anyhow, the Oscars are moot. The whole academy is nothing more than a mutual-admiration society that pats each other on the back all day. They're trying to sell you tickets and DVDs, remember?
Trolling is a art,
Not only was this one of the worst films I have seen in years, but the effects were brutally unfitting. It reminded me of the movies where they take the cartoon charecter and put him in the real world. I don't think that was the desired effect though...
LOTR III will get some stupid Visual Effects or Best Soundtrack or Biggest Boobs Oscar nobody cares about and the main prices go to generic, brainless, Disney-esque Hollywood shit like Jerkinator III, Green Dork or Find Goatse.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Ludivine Sagnier has the nicest pair of visual effects I've ever seen.
Let's pit Gollum, Terminator, The Hulk, Peter Pan and all those undead pirates against eachother in a nicely computer-generated arena.
The winner claims the Oscar.
"And Gollum runs towards The Hulk, with his fierce hissed battle-cry of "Filthy greenthingses", eagerly a-snapping for fingers!"
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
Anyways, I think it's cool they nominated a movie whose visual effects were subtle but convincing.
It's interesting to note that a good number of these movies use Pixar's Rendering software. That being said, I am surprised that Finding Nemo is not in the list. Don't they consider animations for the visual effects Osar?
getSexySig();
19th century New York was recreated on the lot of Cinecitta studios in Rome. When George Lucas visited the massive set, he reportedly turned to Scorsese and said that sets like that can be done with computers now.
When I saw TPM and AOTC, I thought the effects were really cool and impressive, but not 'realistic.' They looked too perfect. I think if Scorsese had seen ROTK in 2002, he might have decided to use computers for the sets. Peter Jackson has definitely raised the bar.
I wasn't even aware that T3 brought anything new to special effects stage. They basically used the normal mishmash of off-the-shelf gags. It's horrible that T3 was ever made, but I would have set that opinion aside to judge it on special effects alone... except none of them were in anyway special.
:)
The Matrix 2 invented some new bleeding edge technology, fo sure. The problem was they couldn't find a good plot device to justify using it. But certainly the special effects accomplishments are a milestone even if the movie wasn't. I think Matrix 3 had little new except that they spent a lot more time in the CG department. How many Linux boxes does it take to render a few million sentinals anyway? Not sure it matters, one EMP wipes both out.
LORs had some amazing effects. The ingtegration with the story, the cinematography and the directoral style is probably their crowning accomplishment. Not to mention sheer volume. Like Matrix 2, they had to invent some new technology to pull off a "whola lotta something" effect. In this case, not just a whole lot of Agent Smiths, more like a whole lot of orcs and what not. And the impact was considerably greater.
My only beef with LOR effects was the places where it was so plainly obvious you were looking a miniature set. Like Isengard being washed away. Some of the scenes completely failed, slow motion water or not, to look remotely anything other than little models. I'm surprised by this as in other places the miniature effects were outstanding.
But Golem stole the show. That was a masterpiece of special effects. I hope it gets the accolades it deserves. After all, imagine had it turned out like the yellow critter in Lost in Space.
David Whatley
Stunning. If The Matrix 2-3 aren't nominated for an Oscar then we'll know that Hollywood has finally lost its last shred of credibility.
1993: Tommy Lee Jones beats John Malkovich for best supporting actor.
1998: Edward Norton does not win an Oscar for American History X.
1998: Saving Private Ryan, Elizabeth, and Thin Red Line each lose to Shakespear in Love for best picture.
2003: The Matrix 2-3 may not even be nominated for technical awards.
That's it Oscar! Go to hell. You lost legitamacy in my eyes with those first three gafes but this is stupid. What a sick and disgusting cess-pool of immorality and bad taste they are.
I was in geek heaven during the whole movie. I saw things in Return of the King I have never seen in a movie before. The rich story blends perfectly with the FX to make them almost real. Even with all the bloopers, it's believable (I didn't notice them). I don't think that anyone will come close to the quality that is Return of the King for ten years. They might get better tech running the show, but nothing like the sheer wonder between the cast, story, crew and director in RotK.
What does the academy have against the Matrix, anyway?
Probably that it sucked so bad that even the public noticed.
You do realize, that in the comic books, the Hulk can and does leap a couple of miles at a time fairly regularly, don't you?
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me remind you. Before the CGI, before Bill Bixby, there was a comic book. The Incredible Hulk ran for years before the TV series even came out. And, quite frankly, the TV series (and related made-for-TV movies) had their own faults. In the comics, the Hulk pretty much shrugs off bullets, tank rounds, etc. In the last movie, he dies after falling a hundred feet or so. A poor end to a comic book character who can leap two miles up in the air and land safely.
That being said, the movie sucked, and the screenwriters for it (John Turman, Michael France, and James Schamus) should be taken out back and beaten with a large stick.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
The most likely possibility isn't that they deliberatley snubbed both Matrix films. Both were released in the same year, so some voted for one, some voted for the other, and neither got enough to get on the list. Probably a good reason not to release two films in the same year until the Academy changes their voting in some way that can more fairly acknowledge multi-part works.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
The battle scenes with all the pirates changing back and forth as they stepped in and out of the moonlight were excellently done. Doing that on a battle-sized scale is incredible.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
I just watched "Reloaded" on DVD and was appalled by how obvious the CGI was in the big "army of Smith" fight scene. From all the cool "bullet time" photography and Hong Kong wire action we shifted to Street Fighter 6. It was a great looking video game, but it was still painfully obvious when they switched over. It's one thing for distant battle scene but when you are "close" enough to see facial expression, or lack thereof, it's just not cutting it. The faces were smoothed over and static.
Morpheus addressing Zion early on didn't convince either. It looked washed out and projected.
It probably didn't help that I just saw ROTK a few days ago on the big screen. I'm still amazed at how well that was done. There was barely a single moment of being distracted by obvious CGI even though it was far more ambitious than Reloaded. My suggestion, stay away from close-ups of human faces in CGI action sequences.
Even speech is still very tough. The only moments of CGI weakness in Gollum, who was staggeringly well done, were speaking close-ups, not action. So many muscles go into saying the letter "M" and it's a familiar look to every human (unlike leaping around on a mountain ledge).
I've read an interview with Wolfgang Becker - the German director of the "Good Bye, Lenin!" and there was a sentence I find +1 Insightful (with a slight tint of -1 Flamebait). Becker was asked about the CGI used in this film - whose large sequences take part in the pre-1989, communist East Berlin. Becker said that his film actually relies quite heavily on CGI just to remove all the contemporary signs of western capitalism in Berlin. When the journalist said that the CGI in this film is hard to notice, Becker said: "I am proud that the special effects in my film are hard to notice. Only in America the filmmakers are proud of special effects that are easy to notice".