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Teaser Trailer for 'Cars'; Info on 'Polar Express'
Michael Wyszomierski writes "The teaser trailer for the final Disney/Pixar film, Cars, is now available on Apple's Movie Trailers page. The film will open in theaters on November 4, 2005." And reader BoredStiff writes "The movie Polar Express will open Wednesday and could create a film genre somewhere between animation and live action. Made almost exclusively with a method called performance capture, which drops digitized human actors into a computer-animated world. The technique has been used in some video games and, to a limited extent, in earlier movies. Warner Bros. says The Polar Express is the first feature made solely with the process."
If the trailers are any indication, then this "performance capture" technology has a long way to go. The background animation is fantastic, but the characters look wooden, stiff, and completely lacking emotion. I find the animation style they've created to be very uninvolving and distracting (if those two things can coexist).
Great idea. Lousy execution.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
I've seen the Polar Express trailer in theaters a couple times, now. Every time I see it I think one thing: Uncanny Valley.
I know that the Disney-Pixar deal lasts through the Incredibles (also Cars?) but unless there's some 11th hour deal to bring Pixar and Disney back together, one has to wonder what Disney is doing. Pixar is beating them to the punch with good characters and stories, and Polar Express looks pretty cool from a technology point of view (I can't comment on the story as I never read the book).
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My guess is that Disney is either in deep denial, and will let Pixar slip away and then truly be SOL, they'll resolve their differences (at which point Disney is happy that they don't have to put out their own stuff to counter-act Pixar, which would probably put some unfinished and poorly thought out stuff (think Treasure Planet), or they're really honestly working on something very cool that will come out of left field a la Toy Story, and everyone will say that "Disney has found the magic again", and "Who needs Pixar when you've got Disney's
Disney had a pretty long dry period until they hit it with Little Mermaid. Seeing how they were progressing (albiet slowly) from the ballroom scene in B&tB to the rather cool herd technology of Lion King (years before RotK), I'm actually pretty shocked that they've been unable to link good technology to a good story, being content to let Pixar do both jobs for them. My guess is that the Pixar-Disney deal never mentioned sharing source code, so Disney presumably will have to figure it all out for themselves.
OTOH, maybe they're abandoning animation altogether so they can put out more "Old Yellar" movies. In a few years, they may not have much choice.
Really all that is necessary is a good story. $150 million worth of special effects WILL NOT guarantee a success, as much as Hollywood wants entertainment to be a widget factory and as much as all other entertainment (except publishing) wants to be Hollywood.
Movies and television shows often fail miserably because stories are "written" by formula. Tired setting + predictable characters + smartass pop-culture insults = crap and it will always be crap.
Yet, just like the game industry, when something does succeed (Pixar) everybody comes running, checkbooks in hand and starts throwing money all over the place (Disney) in an attempt to duplicate the financial success without taking the time to understand the reason for the success. People like a good story. It doesn't matter if its a book, a comic book, a television show or a movie. Only the story matters.
And note, for all their money, and all their former excellence, Disney is so busy trying to avoid paying royalties to Marvel and the Winnie the Pooh licensors (and firing their animators) that they are completely unable to compete in the animation industry. Oh sure, their name is on "The Incredibles," but buying a ticket to a concert doesn't make someone an orchestra conductor.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
You have a cartoon that basically looks just like Tom Hanks, sounding like Tom Hanks, but isn't Tom Hanks... so why not just draw him totally synthetically, rather than attempting some live-action morph effect?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
This is a teaser for a movie coming out a year from now. If you had seen a teaser for Toy Story with just a bunch of clips of toys you would of had the same rant. And again with a bug's life, finding nemo, and monster's inc.
Pixar surprises everyone time and time again with amazingly polished and deep movies. Have they given you a reason to doubt them before? No.
The racing part appears to have nothing to do with the movie, the only real hint of the movie is the clip with the sports car and the pick up talking. How can you judge a movie by that?
Relax and maybe you'll enjoy another great Pixar movie.