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.

Comments

Hollywood is dead to me

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Hollywood is dead to me

[Kierthos]

Oh thank you. I thought I might be the only one. I mean, Speed Racer? Who greenlighted that piece of shit?!

I swear, it's like for every good movie out of Hollywood, there are five marginal movies, and for every marginal movies, there are ten that are complete crap, like this one: a movie based on a badly dubbed and chopped piece of crap cartoon about a guy who races in every single episode in this, okay, admittedly, tricked out car, and he's smart enough to remember which button is the jump skis (or whatever the fuck those things are) and which button is the buzzsaw in the front bumper, but he's too fucking stupid to check the trunk for the kid and the chimp, and no one picks up that Racer X is his brother.

What's next? Thundercats the movie? Blues Clues the movie?

Here's hoping it tanks like a Uwe Boll film and Hollywood gets the message.

Re:Why the Instant Dismissal?

[explosivejared]

I am behind you all the way on Bladerunner and 2001, but The Matrix had a sound core science fiction theme along with a lot of great drama and situations...

The science of the Matrix was pretty laughable, I mean the machines are smart enough to build human farms, but too dumb to use satellites to capture solar power. A lot of stuff didn't add up. The films only saving grace, which more than made up for the plot holes, was it's deep philosophical questions, specifically about the nature of experience and what it truly means to be human. These are common threads alongside the other two films mentioned.

I think it is sort of obvious that Speed Racer isn't going to be tackling any sort of grandiose, fundamental question of philosophy. The whole cartoon was pretty campy, which the movie seems to have moved away from. This doesn't give make me hopeful about anything other than the visuals being worthwhile.

Sure, it will probably be an enjoyable film, but I would be very reluctant to mention 2001 or Bladerunner in the same breath.

Over done.

[PeanutButterBreath]

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.

Go in with no expectations at all

[Alzheimers]

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.

For the non-US'ians... trailer response...?

[Animaether]

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?

speedracer vs ninjas?

[yakumo.unr]

The CGI made me cringe.

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 ;)

Re:It's not "Speed Racer!"

[British]

Exactly. There's such thing as TOO MUCH cgi, and Speed Racer is a perfect example. It looks less like a movie, but moreso a non-interactive video game that we will see in 20 years. I'm going to skip this one.