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In the Boston Herald, our working-class (i.e. conservative) daily, we have this from Jules Verniere:"All the phony looking computer-graphics pyramids and temples in the background are the modern-day equivalent of the painted backdrops we used to see in B-movies."
YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES!!!!!!!!
clark
Follow Ups:
"Invisible" computer graphics are great. But much too often we are seeing very poor grade graphics that look almost cartoonish. "Gladiator" was not very good at all. In a car crash scene from "Along Came a Spider" it was so obviously computer generated it looked like a game. George Lucas' much praised Phantom Menace looked very poor at times. I know there is a thread about The Matrix, but the fact is that those effects were VERY well done.Doug Schneider
have to agree with you there, Doug. But, without the effects, the movie was nothing. I think that's backward. The effects should serve the movie, not the other way 'round.An example of a movie without digital effects was "Crouching Tiger." Perhaps the limitations imposed by the lack of a bank of Sun workstations made the story a little better.
I also agree with you about Phantom -- way too much computer, not enough "flesh and blood." Memo to George L. from a person who's seen the orginal Star Wars trilogy more times than I'm willing to admit: Just because it can be done by a computer does not mean that it should be done that way.
> > > An example of a movie without digital effects was "Crouching Tiger." Perhaps the limitations imposed by the lack of a bank of Sun workstations made the story a little better. < < <Actually, I believe they digitally removed support wires from the, uh, wire scenes. I don't know if you'd qualify that as "digital effects", I sort of do. But, either way, poorly done digital effects ruin a lot of movies.
Funny/Sad thing is, and I'll often watch a movie and just get obsessed with how bad the computer graphics/effects are. I have a computer science background and a strong interest in computer graphics. A couple friends (with similar backgrounds) and I will goto movies and pick apart the digital effects of a movie. We all agree that when you see digital effects that aren't "supposed" to be seen, it looks really cheesy.
The only movie I've seen so far which I think bad computer graphics would've HELPED is "Godzilla" (2000). Where the original Godzilla's had a man in a rubber suit as it's special effect, having Godzilla a computer generated image of a man in a rubber suit would've IMPROVED Godzilla 2000. It would have at least made the movie humorous. :-)
Chia-Hao
Despite Hollywood's attempt to transform GOJIRA into some stupid new- age environmental parable, and give THE BIG GREEN GUY a feminine side, the Japanese remain true to the spirirt of Godzilla.Toho went back on their agreement and released Godzilla 2000, mainly to show their displeasure with the Hollywood version.
Godzilla will always be a guy in a rubber suit, will always destroy Japanese cities and will always inadvertently save Japan from untold monsters and alien bad guys.
It's about traditional values and icons. What is it now, 25 movies since 1953 ? Same premise, same big box office in Japan, same fun watching Godzilla stomp on some models as you had 30 years ago.
Go Gojira! Take out Tokyo!
> > Despite Hollywood's attempt to transform GOJIRA into some stupid new- age environmental parable < <Godzilla has ALWAYS been an environmental parable, most obviously in the first film. It doesn't take a post graduate degree in semiotics to see that he's an analogy for Japan's fear of the consequences of nuclear weapons.
Hello Rob,Yes, you are right, in the beginning the monster could be related to the subconsciouus reaction of the Japanese people to the Hiroshima/Nagasaki devastation. Later, Godzilla became their friend, as did nuclear power/ the nuclear umbrella etc.
One of my favorites, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS has no environmental message, except "keep pesky monster controlling aliens away from earth". Most of the G films have no message, except "don't fuck with Godzilla."
Take for example Godzilla vs King Kong. King Kong heads for Tokyo, scientists decide the best way to keep him out is put up a big electric fence. Bad idea! Nothing Godzilla likes better than electricity, except maybe nuclear power plants. So, Godzilla heads for Tokyo as well, and you then have the perfect setting for wholesale destruction of a Japanese city- which is the whole point, it's fun to watch.
You could postulate that the destruction of cities reflects a subconscious and conscious fear of earthquakes and tsunami, but sometimes a film is just a film. You can read into them whatever you wish, but in the end it's just a guy in a rubber suit that people pay their money for, not some imagined cryptic environmental message.
My objection to the Hollywood version is that Godzilla could be understood like any animal, that SHE was just looking for a nest, and that Godzilla could be destroyed. What was with the eggs and that lame ending just in case you need to do a sequel ? You don't need baby Godzilla's to do sequels. You just need a new set to be stomped on. I was hoping that Godzilla was just going to stomp on LA, but why did she head for NYC ? Anyway, after some special effects and bad dialogue, I was hoping Godzilla would just go away as inexplicably as his/her arrival.
Godzilla remains topical by using current issues such as genetic engineering: in Godzilla vs Biolanthe ( a scientists accidently clones his dead daughter with a Godzilla cell and a rose bush to produce a 30,000 ton angry monster flower with the soul of a girl) and Godzilla 2000 (aliens try and get Godzilla cells for evil cloning purposes) but the message in both is the same- "don't fuck with Godzilla".
john "yes, I've seen every one, and I like Gamera as well" dem
Hey, I quite agree. I love Japanese monster movies. The cretins at Sony completely misunderstood the appeal of the films: people like them because they're cheesy. It's not a liability, its a big part of the charm of those films. No one watching "Godzilla" on late night TV ever thought "this would be a really great movie with $100 million worth of CGI".How come it never occured to the helicopter pilots being chased around Manhattan by Godzilla to fly up out of his reach? Perhaps they can only think in2 dimensions at Sony Pictures?
Does anyone remember a Japanese movie called "The H - Man"? That scared the hell of me when I was about 9, for about a week I expected to be dissolved by radioactive goo at any minute.
At this very moment someone in Hollywood is probably pitching a $100,000,000 remake of "Santo Vs. The Aztec Mummy." I can almost hear the set up: "Mummies and wrestling are hot hot hot right now and this has them both. Tom Cruise is on board to play Santo, a champion wrestler who's also a crime - fighter. No one knows his identity, he wears a silver lame mask but most of the time he doesn't wear a shirt. We can get Jeremy Irons or Stone Cold Steve Austin to play the Aztec Mummy."
I mean, how would Santo get a full- Nelson on that radioactive creep without getting melted ?- a scientist develops a radiation proof wrestling suit for Santo who beats him into submission and then supexes him to a new cold- fusion reactor, providing Mexico with a cheap clean fuel source.Cruise doesn't have the acting ability, even with the silver mask, to pull it off. I'd cast Keaunu Reeves :" Whoaa dude ! El Horrifico radioactive hombre !"
I think Rainer Wolfcastle is the only actor who could portray Santo.
> > > Godzilla has ALWAYS been an environmental parable, most obviously in the first film. < < <
That is true, almost all of the movies were environmentally oriented.
Still gotta love the camp!
I rememberas a kid staying up late at nights watching creature feature etc..
ah, the memories...
Jack
The whole point was to use the rubber suit.Toho retired Godzilla in '95, and had no plans to make any more G movies. After Hollywood Jarrasic-Parked it, there were so many complaints, that Toho released Godzilla 2000(G Vs. Orga) in Dec. 99.
Apparently, it was successful enough that they released another in Dec. 2000(not in US yet). Its amazing how many G-fans pop out of the woodwork.
Jack
Umm . . . your background probably spoils a lot of movies for you. Undoubtedly, you notice things that others would overlook.If the wires were erased in Crouching Tiger, I guess we'll count that as 1/2 effect. But other films from the pre-digital era used wires satsifactorily.
Did not see Godzilla 2000. However, "Titanic" appeared to me as a pretty successful use of digital effects. I kept telling myself that I was seeing effects, but only because I knew what I was seeing would be wildly impractical in real life. (By contrast, some of the battle scenes in "Phantom Menace" seemed like the could have been outtakes from "Toy Story.")
It will be interesting to see how "Pearl Harbor" does. It appears that most of the film's budget was spent on effects. The actors are, with one or two exceptions, no-names; and even the names worked mostly for a percentage, not big upfront money.
> > > Umm . . . your background probably spoils a lot of movies for you. Undoubtedly, you notice things that others would overlook. < < <
When I watch a movie for the first time, I always try to ignore any "faults" in the digital effects and just pay attention to the story. But, some movies without a good story that have poorly done digital effects, I will sit through just to see how bad they are.> > > If the wires were erased in Crouching Tiger, I guess we'll count that as 1/2 effect. But other films from the pre-digital era used wires satsifactorily. < < <
IIRC, in Crouching Tiger they used much thicker support wires than in pre-digital films to provide an added level of safety. Digital erasing/retouching tends not to distract from a film as much as "real" special effects.> > > Did not see Godzilla 2000. < < <
Consider yourself lucky.> > > By contrast, some of the battle scenes in "Phantom Menace" seemed like the could have been outtakes from "Toy Story." < < <
One thing people sometimes don't realize about the outtakes Pixar did for "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life", etc... was that it actually takes more work to do them (and they're scripted).Chia-Hao
Show me a single B-movie that grossed what the Gladiator did...Perhaps those painted backdrops were sixty years ahead of their time.
But you are right, that phony stuff is soooooooooooooooo irritating...
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