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Speed Racer's Visual FX Uncovered
Marco Trezzini writes "View exclusive interactive samples of the digital building blocks behind the Speed Racer movie in VRMag's in-depth interviews with award-winning Matrix visual FX guru John Gaeta, Dennis Martin, Lubo Hristov, and Jake Morrison.
Including Virtual Reality panoramas of the movie locations, turn tables of the mach 5 and 6,
and many making of videos unveiling the secrets of the visual effects.
Link to 'Speed Racer uncovered' and to John Gaeta's interview." The first time I saw the trailer for this movie, my jaw hit the floor. Nobody makes live action "Cartoons" that look like this. I guess that makes me believe there is no way the movie can be good.
I feel fear that the W. Brothers were involved with this project. I also feel fear that comes from a childhood cartoon being turned into a film.
I'm sure that the movie will be enjoyable to some; I will be skipping it, though.
All they do anymore is remake crappy tv shows i never wanted to watch in the first place into crappy movies i still dont want to watch.
Writers strike be damned, im on a viewers strike!
I don't think that's exactly fair. There is some way the movie could be good. The original Matrix had neat (maybe not original) effects but it also had a very sound core science fiction theme along with a lot of great drama and situations. The dialog wasn't the best but I thought the story was very very strong. My 50+ year old aunt and uncle watched it when it came out and the one thing they remember from it is the story. Not the special effects or dialog or who was in it but the possibility of this Man Vs Machine universe.
I'll admit when I saw the Speed Racer trailer, my brain didn't comprehend anything that happened. I couldn't tell who was what, what I was looking at or even what kind of conflict the movie centered on. I was utterly stupefied. I'm not afraid of admitting that, it was just confusing and I've never seen or read any Speed Racer material so I have no precursor or knowledge of what the theme is.
If this movie is relying 100% on its stunning visual effects, it's going to be a summer blockbuster and nothing more. It isn't going to age well and might go down as being a standard to watch on the latest plasma screen until next summer when a better movie comes out. There is, however, still a very likely possibility that one or more elements comes through to save the movie. Whether it be the directing, the acting, the story or even the music.
My work here is dung.
At least, the preview wasn't. The preview was quite clearly for a movie about F-Zero.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The previews for this film really bug me, particularly the way that the cars are constantly fishtailing back and forth. I realize that this is Speed Racer and this is not supposed to be realistic, but I believe that you need some inkling of reality to achieve any sense of excitement and drama.
Its based on a cartoon! What they have created is a caricature of a caricature of reality. Granted that makes the previews a caricature of a caricature of caricature. Still, it gives me the overwhelming impression of trying too hard, probably to cover up for the script.
Then again, I thought the Matrix series was kind of dumb.
Really, the only way to possibly enjoy this film will be to go in with absolutely no expectations at all.
Forget the Matrix, forget the old cartoons, don't bring any assumptions or fond childhood dreams to the party.
Just order a large popcorn, maybe get a little intoxicated, and go watch the eye-candy.
And if there's a plot that actually makes sense, it's all gravy.
Granted it was only a trailer, but it looked like a Uwe Boll production trying to channel Jerry Bruckheimer's style. Badly. If they added that movie announcer Don LaFontaine, it would complete the meme.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
You never saw Racer X going "AHHHH!" and looking like he's going to crap his pants.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Heh. And that's different from your racist tirade how?
I'm asking because I'm thinking that Speed Racer is primarily a U.S. childhood memory keepsake.
I've seen the trailer pass by before various movies four times now (10,000 BC, Definitely Maybe, Reservation Road, The Spiderwick Chronicles - a pretty spread out mix of audiences), and all four times the audience's response ranged from "wtf is speed racer?" to "what's with the awful effects?".
Somehow I can't see any of the audience here (NL) to be immediately drawn into the movie thanks to the lack of growing up with Speed Racer, and the trailer showing a minimum of story and mostly oddly-composited (I guess it's a "visual style") live action/CG doesn't exactly help to lure people in based on the visuals.
So what has audience response been in other countries?
I, for one, would like very much to see a movie about Battle Angel Alita (Gunnm)
Stop the hatin. This movie is for the kids. Of course it's going to suck.
Gah! How can they screw up a classic!?
There aren't any Neon lights in the 1967 cartoon!
Where's the really fast talking and loud gasping!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Damn you Hollywood!
Yet another modern adaption that takes something popular from the past, completely changes it and then takes a dump on it.
That the trailer and music video were enough for me.
It'd be interesting to know what the Japanese think about Warner Bros. version of their cartoon.
But what made me laugh was the trailer clearly showed he did _NOTHING_ his whole life but think about racing, or practice racing.
So htf did he build the muscles and learn the skills to take out the ninjas they show later? lol
He's not even a pirate ;)
The trailer was all I needed. Yes, they can faithfully reproduce the cartoon in live action - very impressive. I loved how the casting of the live actors fitted the cartoon to perfection. Yes, the graphics are fun. (I work in graphics - I wouldn't say I was "impressed")
But I saw all of that in the trailer. Do I want to actually sit through 90 minutes of this? No way! I already saw all of the clever and amazing bits in the trailer.
Stop looking for realism, stop looking for cartoon - sit back and drink in this wonderful combination of the two. Know the last movie I saw where the special effects and lighting made me go - oh wow, look at this, we're in another world! - Tron. Yep, gotta go back that far to get the same kind of reaction I got when I saw the trailer. I love the vibrant colors (Trixie's ultra-red lips with so much ultra-hot-pink on screen is an image that just sticks in my mind), I love the chaotic scenery, and I love that gravity among other physics are mostly ignored. Even if the story doesn't live up to history, the wonder at which I stare at the screen will be quite enough for me - It all looks ultra-real, and that's got me excited just like Tron used to.
Why?
C'mon - "Japanimation" aimed squarely at the five-to-eight year old audience doesn't exactly scream out for a movie remake. What's next, "Kimba, the White Lion"? - oh, wait, Disney already gave us that (but they misspelled Kimba)!
I suppose it's true that Hollywierd hasn't got anything new to say - but why do they insist on trying to say it?
...because the last thing I want to watch is a movie with lines like, "I am going to win because I will drive fast, and that way I will come in first because I will not lose and I will receive the trophy for being first and driving very fast and not losing but coming in first instead!"
I grew up with Speed Racer, I'm looking forward to the movie, and I dig the all wheel steering systems!
Looks like a rush, and who cares if it ages well!
Speed Racer was cool when I was maybe FIVE. I think MTV brought it back in a prime time slot for a while and I was shocked at what a crap-fest it was from a new perspective. Why not remake something that we remember fondly, like Robotech?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Couldn't be...
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
The Matrix is one of my top 10 movies of all time. The sequels? Oh, man did they stink. It look Lucas twenty years to go from the awesomeness of the original trilogy to the woeful suckitude of the new trilogy; the Wachowski Brother and his Wachowski sister Dot traveled that same arc in what, three years?
Speed Racer? Was this even necessary? And the color schemes. My God, it's enough to make the production design on Batman and Robin look heterosexual.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
$40 million for the leading man and leading woman
$100,000 for the script
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Because Hollywood is a business. They rarely let fresh substance in, they like what they know will sell. If something has already been made, and sold well, no sense in trying anything new and discovering all too late that it will not sell. They ain't in this to make a statement about the human condition, question the limits of the imagination, or brave the unknown. Think of the loss!
-Buddy of DoQ
As a 29-year-old United Stater who watched a metric ton of TV when I was little, I barely know anything about Speed Racer. I have no idea where this nostalgia is coming from. The first time I'd ever heard of it was around '92 or '93 when MTV started showing it for a little while. I watched it once, and I thought it was lame (and I admit, most of my childhood favorites were also lame without nostalgia to help them).
My impression is that it had its heyday in the US well before I was of TV-watching age, so I guess the nostalgia is from the 34-and-up crowd. That's not exactly the prime movie-going demographic, is it?
My stupid web site
The PG rating gives away the filmmakers strategy for this film. They are hoping that the film will be a hit with the older crowd that grew up watching the movie. But they are banking on children with short attention spans. If it doesn't strike a cord with the large?/small? speed racer cult following it will still be a hit with the kids. My son never sits through live action films (still at the cartoon stage) but he would probably sit through this.
So all the discussion about disorienting CGI, poor scripts, or bad physics will probably have no bearing on the final box office numbers
Have you ever seen the cartoon? It never was about deep plot lines, fascinating characters or great dialog. It was a kid, in a super-duper race car doing various improbable stunts to win races. For God's sake, one of the main characters is a monkey. Lighten. Up. It's supposed to be nothing more than "cooooool".
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo
So, a thread where everyone gets to show how terribly sophisticated they are by turning their noses up at an action film? no way! I submit to you all that the vast majority of this trash talk is little more than fickle ignorance.
This film is certainly about visual appeal. But i can say that with just a teensy bit of knowledge in that domain, it is readily apparent to me that this is a spectacular triumph.
The film captures the recently popular technique called HDR or High Dynamic Range photography, but they manage to do it at 24 frames per second at IMAX resolutions and keep it going for 2 hours. All of the motion blur, lens flares and other camera artifacts are clearly intentional and separate from anything having to do with their cameras, most likely in order to emphasize a sense of scale or motion. Notice how the backgrounds are in focus, crisp and sharp along with the immediate foreground- this is surely the most essential element of creating the live action cartoon feel that the brief snippets of trailer are hinting at.
But the most important thing I'm able to extract from the limited glimpses I've had is that they employ all of this to convey the sense of big heavy cars racing at hundreds of miles per hour and flipping through the air as gracefully as a ballet troop in full deployment.
So what good does the optimistic assessment do me? For one thing, it gives me some joy in the anticipation. More importantly, I get the satisfaction of being truly sophisticated without sitting in a traffic jam down on Snark St.
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm only a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta
I saw a premiere of SR over the weekend and was quite pleased at the results. It's a PG movie and they have OBVIOUSLY geared it towards families.
:-)
With that said, there is still certainly enough action, story and overall fun to keep all ages involved. Having grown up watching Speed Racer during it's first run (yes, I'm that old), I can say that they did a very good job of bringing the cartoon to life. The special effects were outstanding and all of the characters were dead on.
Overall, I would go and see it again and I'm actually planning on seeing it on the IMAX this Friday. My 4 year old son also enjoyed it. Now, the truly painful part was having to explain SR to him since he has never seen the cartoons. Good thing I have the DVD's
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
According to a reporter who sneaked into an air vent (using modified Mythbuster techniques) above the Wachowski's offices, if Speed Racer does well, they plan to do a live action Urotsukidji - Legend of the Overfiend.
I'm with the Taco on this one ... it's going to be teh suxors. The trailer has convinced me: don't bother.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I'm Speed Racer and i drive real fast!
(He's speed racer and he drives real fast!)
I drive real fast; I'm gonna last!
Go! Go! Go Speed Racer!
If they added that movie announcer Don LaFontaine
Oh my Lord, somebody shoot that guy already.
Any trailer narrated by that throat is proof that neither director, producer, or anyone else involved in the film in question has exercised a molecule of imagination.
On the bright side, nice to have such a reliable indicator.
you had me at #!
Then again, my parents preferred we grow up with brains and critical faculties intact, than let TV mould us into good little spenders.
Of course I remember Astroboy though. You can bet the Yanks don't have a taste for that.
you had me at #!
I've never heard of Speed Racer, and after having my browser resized against my will on every page change of that site, then they can fucking keep it.
But you do see Racer X say "Oh No! Speed!" and look like he's crapping his pants for Speed when Speed's in trouble.
My dad didn't want to offend them by refusing it, but put it in the attic. So after school, before my dad got home, I would sneak up into the attic with an extension cord and watch Speed Racer, Aqua Boy, and other poorly dubbed sci-fi cartoons.
Am I the only one who thought the trailers looked like complete crap? I mean ... the visuals were just packed with problems, it looked terrible. It doesn't look real, it doesn't look like the cartoon, it doesn't look good. I was actually considering seeing it until I saw the first previews.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
This movie looks horrendous. I will not be going to the theater to see this.
I find it insulting that they had live actors on green screen and they then painted that trainwreck behind them.
They're using their grammar skills there.
It just looks like spy kids with a bigger budget to me.
There were several warning signs, but the most obvious is the existence of the Mach 6. This is proof that the Wachowski brothers do not "get it", yet again; we'd be going to watch Speed and the powerful Mach 5, only to have it get scrapped mid-movie and replaced with a Mach 6 of the Wachowskis' design... no, no I don't think so.
My wife and I saw a sneak preview of Speed Racer this weekend. We went in with low expectations. We're late middle-aged, and both of us were past the Saturday morning cartoon stage when the original hit TV. And the trailers looked, well, stupid.
We both really enjoyed this movie. We managed to survive the flashing colors and the noise, and I got a kick out of the absolutely amazing CGI. The actors were good (John Goodman and Susan Sarandon both rock), the story was simplistic but kind of uplifting, and we just had a good time watching it.
It's going to kill in the pre-teen market, but I think there's something there for the parents (and grandparents) as well.
No sig? Sigh...
And the existential angst of Spritle and Chim-Chim. Like something out of Kafka, you see, one of the twins is actually a chimpanzee.
. . . please add me to the list . . .Why do people keep saying this? I've seen nothing at all that would be considered good. It looks like crap all around. What are people talking about? I see some effects that try to remind us of the visual style of the old cartoon, but it just comes off as nauseating.
I too don't understand why this s getting such a bad rap, to me the effects look fine and from what I've read the story is a touch deeper than the original cartoon... basically something about a society where car racing was as important as all of the sports the US enjoys combined. That seems like an interesting basis for a story to me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm your doctor and here's the bill!
Much of these posts surprise me by their harsh tone.
This is based upon a freaking CARTOON - why is it now important that the "physics seem real?"
How much reality were we getting in Spiderman, King Kong, ANY SciFi...
sheesh.
I for one will go see it; dug that cartoon as a kid.
out
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Why not just make a fucking animated film? This flaky CGI mixed and mashed with live action actors isn't appealing in the least bit. Then again, it's not even very appealing when it's just a few completely CGI action scenes in a film. Besides, Speed Racer was unbelievably lame when I was young and watching reruns of it. I can see Racer-X managing to be a likable enough guy if he'd kill someone once and while though...
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
That's the point. Some cgi fans might like to see what the future may hold. If there's a 'story' to go w/it so much the better. Think SIGGRAPH for the masses.
The movie looks like someone playing Trackmania. Which means it'll probably be about as fun as Trackmania (ie - complete utter garbage)
I'm noticing that folks who have SEEN the movie like it, while all of the negative posts seem to be from those who have only seen one trailer... There's a TON of material on the web already, and based on what's been shared so far, this does actually look like something different and worthwhile. Forget about the source material if you want to (Apparently the Wachowskis are big fans, and put enough of their own childhood fandom into the property to make it satisfying for adults who grew up on this show as kids), forget about how "cartoony" the trailers look... This is groundbreaking film-making, and possibly the entryway into an entirely new film language (Maybe widening the opening made by Rodriguez with Sin City...) This is bending photographic film-making to fantastic whimsy... The guy who posted about the High Dynamic Range photography got it right... This is going to be a huge technical achievement, while still trying to capture some youthful innocence... This is the story a lot of us had in our heads on a lazy afternoon after school, playing with matchbox or Hot Wheels cars, brought into vivid life on a big screen. I'm in my 50's, and very much looking forward to this film! _Dave_
Seriously. The Matrix is entertaining until you read The Invisibles and realize that The Matrix is effectively a rewrite with a post apocalypse sci-fi skin slapped on it with Lawrence Fishburne as a corporate casual King Mob and Keanu Reeves as Jack Frost. Grant Morrison (more enthusiastically) has said as much. V For Vendetta was a horrifying perversion of the Alan Moore comic.... and now here comes The Wachowski Take on an old anime almost universally regarded as cheesy.
I'm smelling a pattern here.
The only thing the Wachowskis have done that wasn't swiped from somebody else - in my experience - is to make "fight" scenes into long, boring Violence Ballet - the second Matrix movie is the first time I can recall hitting "skip" during a fight scene - I don't care how good your effects work, camera work, and choreography is - if the end result is boring, it's just good looking boring.
Speed Racer? Not interested. And not just because I'm sick of the incessant Obviously CG Orgy that Hollywood has been autfellating itself with since the mid 90s. I just can't in good conscience support this "style" of derivative, unoriginal, high-budget film making. It makes my brain itch.
"it's got Christina Ricci, and she's hawt :)"
Yeah, if you're into necrophilia. Most guys like women who look alive.
I'm surprised just how many people are willing to justify the excessive use of special effects and the campiness of this movie simply because it's "based on a cartoon". The reality is that the movie is not based on a cartoon, but a warped americanized view of an anime series that was introduced to the country long before we were prepared to understand the true complexities of japanese story telling.
This is why we ended up with crap like Robotech instead of the vastly superior Macross. The visuals may have been identical, but with the culture-specific substance stripped out, the end result was little more than a mediocre product that would probably be considered a major insult to the people who actually devoted years of their lives into creating the original.
I feel bad for anyone who ever worked on "Mach Go-Go-Go" having to see what their creation eventually became perverted into.
And don't get me started on Speed Racer: The Next Generation. (Animation Collective simply isn't ready for this type of project, despite their continued success with Kappa Mikey...)
8==8 Bones 8==8
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
All icing no cake.
Of all the animes in the world, why did it have to be this?
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
I think Speed Racer is great, but you don't like it because it wasn't the cartoon from your youth. Like "Transformers". I was already an adult when that came out, so I don't "get" Transformers. But that's okay, it's not my cartoon.
The Transformers movie was a fun summer movie. I hope Speed Racer will be fun. The fact that somebody is taking liberties with it, who cares, as long as it's entertaining.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
John Goodman was a horrible choice for Pops. Speed Racer characters aren't supposed to have GOOD voice acting.
Well, of course 90% of movies are crap. 90% of movies have always been crap. Movies aren't getting worse, my friends; you're just getting older.
Am I the only person on /. genuinely excited to see this movie? Watching the trailer, I've never seen anything so gloriously, uniquely beautiful in the entire history of cinema. The Wachowskis and their art/vfx teams are doing something with the medium that's never been done before, I mean forget inventing bullet time, we're talking inventing a whole new artistic paradigm.
So what if the plot sucks and the acting is terrible? Honestly I'm looking at this movie from a purely visual standpoint. It's like Electric Sheep (http://www.electricsheep.org/)--you don't watch it because of the story, you watch it because it's *pretty*. As long as the actors aren't so putrid I'm forced to leave the theater due to uncontrollable retching, I am going to enjoy this movie. Honestly, they could just excise the plot entirely and I would still watch it, for the same reasons that I like to listen to instrumental music and look at abstract paintings. Not everything has to have story and intellectual meaning behind it.
When did it become unforgivable to just look at pretty things for their own sake?
I don't know about that. I would love to see a good Voltron movie, but I cringe at the thought of someone trying. Have you seen the leaks about the current one in development? It takes place in freaking New York. Blah. They're just trying to ride the Transformers moneywave.
What I wish is that Devils Due Publishing's Voltron comic book didn't get cancelled at issue 11 a few years ago. That was a good damn book: faithful to the old toon, yet given a lot of maturity. And the art was gorgeous.
My stupid web site