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Machinima - Spielbergs with a Joystick

Posted by timothy on from the popping-up-everywhere-lately dept.

securitas writes "The Toronto Star's Murray Whyte writes about the growing popularity of machinima as the birth of a new type of filmmaking and artform. The article largely focuses on Red vs. Blue but also discusses Jim Munroe's My Trip To Liberty City, in which 'Munroe adopts the genteel perspective of a Canadian tourist while meandering the seamy, violent streets of the game Grand Theft Auto.' The most interesting comment comes from the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences' Paul Marino who compares machinima to garage bands."

6 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Its new, its shiny, it smells like a truck stop by RobPiano · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Machinima is a big steaming pile of dodo and I don't care who knows it (notice not posting anonymously). Comparing them to a garage band is an insult to garage bands everywhere. A garage band usually takes at least a couple of kids to buy a few instruments and maybe took a lesson or two. They aren't creating anything very important and they know it, but its about pursuing an impossible dream and pissing of your parents. I give garage bands serious creditability because nobody expects anything from them.

    Machinima people don't seem to know how to write, draw, sing, dance, direct, film or much of anything else very well. Near as I can tell they their best skill is making hype and having a vested interest in playing video games.

    So what?

    There are dozens and dozens of video game fan sites who do better jobs of video game praise. Most of these sites don't fancy themselves special for doing it either. Like the garage band, the successful underground scene is the one who doesn't call themselves internet superstars. I haven't seen a single piece of Machinima where I thought they were able to put the whole package together. Something that was skillful throughout. In movies, hundreds of people, all of whom do their job amazingly well, work together to make something that may be a complete flop. Machinima doesn't seem to do any one thing particularly well and is mass produced like pogs or mcdonald's cheeseburgers.

    As a kid, my neighbors and I used to put on plays in the basement. Maybe I should put them on the internet and start hyping it as post-modern reflectionism and sell stills on Cafe Press. Get yourself some creditability already.

    1. Re:Its new, its shiny, it smells like a truck stop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      It's new, it's shiny, it smells like a truck stop... it's Rob Piano's asshole!

  2. Does anyone else have the balls by Monkelectric · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    To stand up and say Red vs Blue SUCKS? I'll take it on the chin and burn the karma. I thought it was *terrible*. It is *NOT* a new artform.

    --

    Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley

  3. Re:Please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    your mom and sister doesn't really count.

  4. Pure Unadulterated Shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    I am now officially ashamed that I read this shit-heap of a site. Fuck all of you faggots and shove your gay "Crapinima" up your pale, pimply asses.

  5. They're not that much better either. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Nah. Instead, they make pretentious and glorified power point presentations made uglier in game engines, while at the same time trying to pretend that their pathetic excuses for plot and artistry somehow can be compared to excellence in literature and top tier movies (when in actuality the material they produce can barely crawl above an undergrad animator's first attempt).