full 3d
it fooled me, thought it was live action


amazing

Gaaaawd! I can't wait to see this one :P

Wait, WHAT??

Why would they do a movie in CG when it could obviously be done in live-action? I mean, obviously they hired the actors and they did do the voicework.

Or do you simply mean that the movie is mostly CG backgrounds like 300?

It makes no sense. A S&S myth-type movie like this, I want to see in live action! Not fake smooth-looking CG.

mlai
Wait, WHAT??

Why would they do a movie in CG when it could obviously be done in live-action? I mean, obviously they hired the actors and they did do the voicework.

Or do you simply mean that the movie is mostly CG backgrounds like 300?

It makes no sense. A S&S myth-type movie like this, I want to see in live action! Not fake smooth-looking CG.

The reason they did 'CG' is because they wanted to. Robert Zemekis(spelled wrong, probably), who had made Polar Express, wanted to make a motion capture movie for adults.

I love how it looks.

They are doing it in several different formats, and trust me, a lot of this stuff COULD NOT be done in live action. Not as well as they will be doing it. Having the people be motion capture makes for smoother balances in the people verses the monsters.

RobertTidwell
The reason they did 'CG' is because they wanted to. Robert Zemekis(spelled wrong, probably), who had made Polar Express,

Uh huh. And PE sucked. Hyperrealism defeats the entire purpose of CG, until technology becomes so advanced that you couldn't tell if you tried.

Since I can tell just by looking at that still above, this fails just like The Spirits Within.

eh...
i mean the realistic aspect of it looks cool... however to make the characters look exactly the way they do in real life kind of defeats the purpose of having some kind of cg to it. Don't get me wrong, i liked A Scanner Darkly, but they actually did something like that. This is just going to be like watching a long, long video game movie between plays. Then you just know they're gonna have a game-- hey. Maybe the game will be featuring cutouts of real people instead of cg. You never know.


I was really hoping for it to be real-life acting.

I agree with the above sentiments. That is so very lame... I mean, that women looks exactly like Jolee with her stupid looking lips! Why would you replicate something that dumb looking in 3D? Just use real actors for goodness sake... 3d has it's place, but replicating real people is a bit pointless.

The only way it wouldn't be pointless if we see Sean Connery at his Dr. No age. And Ahnold at his Conan age. Demi Moore at her Blue Lagoon age. You know, something cool like that that can be done using this technique and that ppl would actually want to see!

mlai

RobertTidwell
The reason they did 'CG' is because they wanted to. Robert Zemekis(spelled wrong, probably), who had made Polar Express,

Uh huh. And PE sucked. Hyperrealism defeats the entire purpose of CG, until technology becomes so advanced that you couldn't tell if you tried.

Since I can tell just by looking at that still above, this fails just like The Spirits Within.

I disagree. Are you saying that animation that has realistic over tones sucks if you can tell the difference between the drawing and the photo?

mechanical_lullaby
I was really hoping for it to be real-life acting.

It has real life acting. Motion capture animation means that the people act.



Those little dots track her movements and put them into the computer which controls the way the characters move. Having motion capture animation gives them a lot of room to move and work. Plus the fact that it is 3-d. This movie is going to rock.

Why do you people care so much about the method of filming though? Do you honestly think it will change the story that much?

From wiki:

Advantages over live action

In movies that contains CGI in such large amounts that the actors would have to stay in front of a bluescreen and interact with invisible computer animated characters which is added later, trying to fit into a computer animated world, it is sometimes less problematic to make everything digital, including the actors. This way, all elements would fit together naturally and have the same visual look.

The director can choose any angle he or she desires from a scene, including angles that would have been hard or impossible in a live action movie.
Limitless possibilities for rotating effect.
Costumes, make-up, body size and age can be changed to whatever is needed.
The characters will blend perfectly in with their digital environments.
There is no need to have light, colors and filters in mind when filming the motions, as this will be added digitally later.

---

Lets also not forget that some of the people in Beowulf are playing monsters. And it is an incredibly violent film. Neil Gaiman said once that is horrificly violent in some scenes. He said someones skull gets split open and they didnt shy away from anything.

There will be a game, I just looked at the video for it, its freaking bloody. Looks awesome.

Here are some pictures from the movie:

http://www.beowulfmovie.com/assets/downloads/wallpapers/03_800.jpg

http://www.beowulfmovie.com/assets/downloads/wallpapers/01_800.html

That kind of art, with those actors, hell yeah its gonna rock. Period.

I understand your premise for why the monsters vs. humans fighting would be cool but I can also understand being frustrated by it looking like a CG overlay of the exact person. The feeling that it's somehow a "waste" is because most people love live action for live action and most expect CG to be complete fantasy. Why have Angelina look exactly like herself is the sentiment I'm seeing -- and I generally agree.

Even if the fight scenes are unsurpassed, it may well annoy people to see real life actors covered in CG plastic. Like Polar Express, it is an unwanted distraction.

I am curious about the movie. I always liked the story, even as a kid.

dueeast
I understand your premise for why the monsters vs. humans fighting would be cool but I can also understand being frustrated by it looking like a CG overlay of the exact person. The feeling that it's somehow a "waste" is because most people love live action for live action and most expect CG to be complete fantasy. Why have Angelina look exactly like herself is the sentiment I'm seeing -- and I generally agree.

Even if the fight scenes are unsurpassed, it may well annoy people to see real life actors covered in CG plastic. Like Polar Express, it is an unwanted distraction.

I am curious about the movie. I always liked the story, even as a kid.

I dont see why it matters if its live action or motion capture. Would you rather have a very real angelina jolie standing there and have special effects like terminator 2 where she changes to some weird liquid shit and then into the monster? And if someones head gets split open and the actor is still moving, talking, that would look awesome, and would be much harder to do with out the cg. I'd rather everything look like it came from the same world. Also, some people can't even tell that the people are CGI. While at SDCC the guy sitting next to me asked, 'I thought it was supposed to be computer animated?'

I think there are some scenes that look very, very, very, real, and others that look less so, but that might be because of the 3d.

You don't see why it matters....

.......

It matters because as much as I like anime/cartoons/manga/comics/PS2/etc, there are some things that I want to see in live action. This way of filming Beowulf basically just robbed me of seeing and 100% enjoying a modern movie of a genre I love.

It's like asking ppl why they want to watch Broadway shows. I think plays are stupid, but I know their reasons for liking them.

mlai
You don't see why it matters....

.......

It matters because as much as I like anime/cartoons/manga/comics/PS2/etc, there are some things that I want to see in live action. This way of filming Beowulf basically just robbed me of seeing and 100% enjoying a modern movie of a genre I love.

It's like asking ppl why they want to watch Broadway shows. I think plays are stupid, but I know their reasons for liking them.

Thats different. One, you might be able to enjoy this 100% if you just got over the fact that they made it differently than you would have, and two, because a play or musical is one thing completely. Two different types of movies are one thing. It'd be equivalant to say, wanting to go and see a band live, but the majority of the show the lights were too dark to see them, and above them, was a cartoon of the band playing. I heard the gorillaz did this, dunno if its true, but would that ruin your show? It might, but, why? Cuz you didn't get to see the lead singers hear cut? Isn't a movie more about the acting, directing, and story than about how real or fake it looks?

Would you prefer that it be animated in cheap, simple animation than the way it is?

Oh, and there are animated and live action beowulf movies.

I'll certainly give the movie a chance. I'll probably debate myself whether or not to see it at the theater ("for the experience") or wait for the DVD (like I have for 300 and will for Spiderman 3).

I will concede it's a step forward for 3D computer animation. I guess I'm hoping for filmmakers to be even more daring, such as what we've been discussing here (make Angelina Jolie into a half-human/half-feline alien, for instance, without 16 hours of makeup and prosthetics for the actress, for example. They'd love that!). If that were refined and made into a common process, it could revolutionize Sci-Fi and other mediums that use special effects for filmmaking and television.

RobertTidwell

dueeast
I understand your premise for why the monsters vs. humans fighting would be cool but I can also understand being frustrated by it looking like a CG overlay of the exact person. The feeling that it's somehow a "waste" is because most people love live action for live action and most expect CG to be complete fantasy. Why have Angelina look exactly like herself is the sentiment I'm seeing -- and I generally agree.

Even if the fight scenes are unsurpassed, it may well annoy people to see real life actors covered in CG plastic. Like Polar Express, it is an unwanted distraction.

I am curious about the movie. I always liked the story, even as a kid.

I dont see why it matters if its live action or motion capture. Would you rather have a very real angelina jolie standing there and have special effects like terminator 2 where she changes to some weird liquid shit and then into the monster? And if someones head gets split open and the actor is still moving, talking, that would look awesome, and would be much harder to do with out the cg. I'd rather everything look like it came from the same world. Also, some people can't even tell that the people are CGI. While at SDCC the guy sitting next to me asked, 'I thought it was supposed to be computer animated?'

I think there are some scenes that look very, very, very, real, and others that look less so, but that might be because of the 3d.

A step forward? No way, it's a step back. Animation is there to do stuff you can't do with real actors, also to replace them, not to faf around with stupid stick on dots with real big name actors and just directly copy them... the whole thing is simply absolutely, hilariously so utterly pointless on so many levels. It's like paying 2 million dollars for a fake Ferrari when a real one would only cost you 1 million. lol!

O dear. Reminds me of the early rotoscoping animation... This kind of stuff is always what holds animation back; instead of using the inherent reality transgressing, surpassing properties of the medium correctly, they tie it ever more strongly to the tedious limitations of mundane actors. Dull.

dueeast
I'll certainly give the movie a chance. I'll probably debate myself whether or not to see it at the theater ("for the experience") or wait for the DVD (like I have for 300 and will for Spiderman 3).

I will concede it's a step forward for 3D computer animation. I guess I'm hoping for filmmakers to be even more daring, such as what we've been discussing here (make Angelina Jolie into a half-human/half-feline alien, for instance, without 16 hours of makeup and prosthetics for the actress, for example. They'd love that!). If that were refined and made into a common process, it could revolutionize Sci-Fi and other mediums that use special effects for filmmaking and television.

I believe Angelina Jolie will not be what she looks like for the length of the movie.

Also, I am so going to see Imax 3d. I don't give a fuck. That will be breath taking.

Ozone, why do the two worlds have to be exclusive? Roger Rabbit rocked. Shouldn't art be allowed - encouraged even - to go where ever it wants?

RobertTidwell

mechanical_lullaby
I was really hoping for it to be real-life acting.

It has real life acting. Motion capture animation means that the people act.

...that's attractive. it doesn't change the fact that I hate the way videogame graphics look and that will ruin the movie for me. i despise the new starwars because the movies weren't filmed on scene like the first few actually were. i hate it in action movies where you can tell the difference. there's something lost when the actor isn't in a place where they can feel the character. a blue screen is not like a bubbling blood bath. I respect Beowulf as a poem, and after seeing that horrible Christopher Lambert one with the exploding chest woman and the succubis... well it's like theme park rides. Shouldn't have movies based off of them.

RobertTidwell
Ozone, why do the two worlds have to be exclusive? Roger Rabbit rocked. Shouldn't art be allowed - encouraged even - to go where ever it wants?

But Roger Rabbit didn't simply imitate life, that's the point. What it did was take the mundane further, breaking the bonds of what you can do with simple reality! That's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. :)

That was progressive. Not that much since the whole idea was pretty old and had been done before a few times, but that's the kind of thing where it's being use correctly. But the example of this movie is the opposite, instead of enhancing one (as with animation extending the mundane), the other is simply anchored (animation limited to the actions and appearance of real actors). This technique is phenomenally wasteful in talent and money.

ozoneocean

RobertTidwell
Ozone, why do the two worlds have to be exclusive? Roger Rabbit rocked. Shouldn't art be allowed - encouraged even - to go where ever it wants?

But Roger Rabbit didn't simply imitate life, that's the point. What it did was take the mundane further, breaking the bonds of what you can do with simple reality! That's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. :)

That was progressive. Not that much since the whole idea was pretty old and had been done before a few times, but that's the kind of thing where it's being use correctly. But the example of this movie is the opposite, instead of enhancing one (as with animation extending the mundane), the other is simply anchored (animation limited to the actions and appearance of real actors). This technique is phenomenally wasteful in talent and money.

This is progressive too. You just cant see how. First, the images are much better than simple video game characters, they are, at least in some scenes, photorealistic. Second, the action sequences go far beyond what they could if you just set two people at each other with swords and told them to "pretend" that they are trying to kill each other.

Beowulf doesnt simply imitate life, it takes technology a step closer to its true purpose, it pushes the creativity of the writing, and it gives the actors a chance to do something they've never done before.

Also, I'm sure this would be cheaper than filming the entire movie with no computer effects. Why? Because there are huge battle scenes with hundreds of people involved. There is at least one dragon and two monsters of another sort. Lets also not forget the cost of make up, costumes, location, the time it would take to film scenes with such a huge cast, the ammount of time it took to work with each actor, the props, the equipment, and so on. Making an epic film out of this source material is very hard to do with out animation, they've tried and failed several times, and when its simply a cartoon, again it doesnt seem to really take off.

Using motion capture animation that looks so close to the real world is a way to open up the possibilities for the story that live action simply cant compete with, and its a way to help the audience forget that they are watching a cartoon and be engulfed in the story about them.

If you dont want to see it, thats fine, I think its fucking retarded to not want to see a movie simply because its motion capture, but its your loss.

You're looking at it as an echanced ordinary movie, I'm looking at it as crippled animation. Totally different perspectives :)

There's been a weird amount of movies & comics based on Beowulf recently. Sci-Fi Channel did a shitty movie where Grendel was some kind of small dragon in Grendel, and a new straight-to-DVD movie called Beowulf & Grendel also just came out where Grendel is a big ogre.

As far as comics, Antarctic Press did a steampunk version of Beowulf in a mini-series, Visible Light Entertainment did a painted graphic novel, and Speakeasy Comics did a mini-series about 2 years ago just before they went under.

ozoneocean
You're looking at it as an echanced ordinary movie, I'm looking at it as crippled animation. Totally different perspectives :)

So I ask again, is a comic "crippled" if it takes place in the real world, using realistic style?

Really? From what I know of the actual story, Grendle should be a man type monster, so an Ogre fits. No way to Grendle being a dragon since Beowulf specifically went after a monster that WAS a dragon later in his adventures and I think that's what killed him.

I think there was a Swedish movie not long ago that played the whole thing as a more realistic story, where Grendle was a mad brutal man that had been traumatised as a child... His mother had been raped or something so she lived as an outcast witch and Grendle was simply getting revenge on the king for what he'd done to Grendle's mother...

There was some crappy Scifi thing a while ago with either Rutgar Heaur or Christopher Lambert in it called Grendle... Very bloody and silly. Oh, and the old Halloween (first one) with Jason and all that was supposed to have been a take on the story too: a monster that comes out of the river, his mother actually being more fearsome etc.

RobertTidwell
So I ask again, is a comic "crippled" if it takes place in the real world, using realistic style?

Wha? I think you're getting a bit off-track her Rob. :)
I'm sure it'll be a very good looking movie and I hope you enjoy it! ^_^

Grendal is going to be the monster that I posted a picture of from the website.

There is a dragon in the movie.

Grendals mom kills beowulf. SHe is a monster too. SHe was the daughter of Cain. She is played by angelina jolie, you can see her tail in the preview.

RobertTidwell
Grendals mom kills beowulf. SHe is a monster too. SHe was the daughter of Cain

By that do you mean what happens in this movie version specifically, or the story in general? Because I know in the actual story, Beowulf kills Grendel's mum, and lives to a reasonabe age, becoming a king, before going after a dragon in a barrow (as a favour for another king?) and getting killed... I think the "Cain" connection was more to do with a later Christian interpretation of the story, the way you might say desert djin are Shaitan's demons, that sort of thing, it's a way of giving greater emphasis to the character's motivation (for your specific audience), as well as making it more understandable for them and "owing" it...

It's like in Snorri Sturluson's Edda's he rationalises the Aesir as actually having been human mortals who had come from the continent of "Asia", hence their name; perfectly understandable to a rational Christian man that wants to take a bit of the mystery out of the stories he's retelling.

Ah, but I digress :)

Post your Grendel pic, I'd like to see!

Why does Angelina's tightsuit have a yellow ass?

mlai
Why does Angelina's tightsuit have a yellow ass?

No clue.

ozoneocean

RobertTidwell
Grendals mom kills beowulf. SHe is a monster too. SHe was the daughter of Cain

By that do you mean what happens in this movie version specifically, or the story in general? Because I know in the actual story, Beowulf kills Grendel's mum, and lives to a reasonabe age, becoming a king, before going after a dragon in a barrow (as a favour for another king?) and getting killed... I think the "Cain" connection was more to do with a later Christian interpretation of the story, the way you might say desert djin are Shaitan's demons, that sort of thing, it's a way of giving greater emphasis to the character's motivation (for your specific audience), as well as making it more understandable for them and "owing" it...

It's like in Snorri Sturluson's Edda's he rationalises the Aesir as actually having been human mortals who had come from the continent of "Asia", hence their name; perfectly understandable to a rational Christian man that wants to take a bit of the mystery out of the stories he's retelling.

Ah, but I digress :)

Post your Grendel pic, I'd like to see!

Grendal.

It's been a long time since I've read it. I thought his mom came back and killed him at the end, but wiki says you are right.

Essentially, Beowulf was a legendary warrior whose story was chronicled in this poem. All that was remained of the poem is of Beowulf being asked to kill the monster Grendel who was terrorizing a kingdom. Grendel was some kind of monster capable of living in the murky depths of a local swamp. Beowulf offed him, and then had to deal with his mother who was usually thought of as being some monster-woman, but partially human in appearance. Fast-forward to a few years later, Beowulf is a king of his own land, and has to fight a dragon, which results in his own death as well as the dragon's.