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Shrek

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Troy

While everybody was wasting their time seeing the overhyped and vacant "Pearl Harbor" last night I slipped in and saw "Shrek" in a half full theater.
Oh man, is this a beautiful piece of work! The animation is simply stunning. The advances being made with computer character animation are happening in leaps and bounds (it's gotten to the point where the very human looking figures have similar weight and volume to claymation characters, but are much more fluid and real, yet surreal) and is the first thing you notice, but the natural settings, the blowing trees and grass, the fire and water, the quality of light . . . impeccable. I just sat there slack jawed through the 12 miles of credits in total shock when it was over. This movie makes "Toy Story" look like "Steamboat Willie".
Story wise, it's a fairy tale mainly for kids or adults that would go for that sort of thing. What saved me was whenever you could see it slipping into sappy treacle it would poke fun at itself and the whole fairy tale genre. The smoothly handled writing makes it way more than the "kids flick" many adults might think it is. Even if it was just for kids, the artistic acheivement alone makes it worth seeing for anyone.
"Shrek" and the slightly different "Memento" are the best movies so far this year for me.

Follow Ups:

I beg your pardon? Victor Khomenko 18:30:51 05/26/01 (6)
***While everybody was wasting their time seeing the overhyped and vacant "Pearl Harbor"...
Who is that "everybody"? I have no intention of seeing it.
I've got here four films with Jean Gabin, two Russian movies, plus a couple others. I am pretty well set for this weekend. It is raining heavily, so two films a day makes a lot of sense.
- Re: I beg your pardon? TAFKA Steve 09:39:21 05/27/01 (1)
  Raining on and off all weekend too. So what does this 'Braniac' rent to watch? "Black Rain" [the documentary on Hiroshima after the A-bomb (my uncle's wife is a survivor), not the Michael Douglas detective movie] and "The Last Wave" (Richard Chamberlain, Aborigines, the supernatural, and lots of rain). I feel so waterlogged, I think I'll watch "Ishtar."
  - go for the originals, i am fond of the Hope/Crosby road movies...-nt- late 20:44:58 05/27/01 (0)
    x
- Re: I beg your pardon? Rich S. 01:08:02 05/27/01 (0)
  Looks like rain here in Philly til next Friday...enjoy your movies! I recently rented " The Overcoat" from Spruce st video, very good I thought.
  -best,
  Rich
- Re: I beg your pardon? Rich S. 01:05:50 05/27/01 (0)
  Yeah, Shrek looks pretty cool. I wen't to go see the Mummy Returns recently and was really disappointed by the effects quality - really sloppy and had that rushed to make the release date quality. I remember seeing a Pixar promotional vid back in 1991 anbd it seems very dated today.
  -best,
  Rich S.
- Well excuuuuuse me! Troy 20:17:37 05/26/01 (1)
  ***While everybody was wasting their time seeing the overhyped and vacant "Pearl Harbor"...
  **Who is that "everybody"? I have no intention of seeing it**
  Well bully for you. Everybody else at the theater was seeing PH. Sorry if that wasn't clear for you.
  I kinda want to see PH and make up my own mind about how offensive / inoffensive it really is. This post was about Shrek anyway . . .
  You enjoy your "art films" and I'll enjoy my "art films".
  - No problem. Enjoy. (nt) Victor Khomenko 20:45:58 05/26/01 (0)
    .
It was OK Mart 18:26:46 05/26/01 (12)
The motion was highly robotic. I was expecting the bio-animation software that made the Jurasic Park's dinosaurs motion so fluid, but it was bypassed.
The clothing was an adequate 1st generation job, but all clothing moved similarly. A fashion designer would be appauled.
The fire was obviously a painted 2-D image on the 3-D walls, candle, & rolling balls eminating from the dragon.
The water was also 1st generation. The water was a rippling tinted surface rather than a refractive, reflective, & and tinted medium.
The fact they decided to do hair was also welcome change, but the hair moved uniformly like all the loose hairs were tied together. It looks like they depicted hair as transparent cloth with the hairs painted on it.
However, I play with cheap CG al the time & this stuff is obvious to me.
All that said, I was impressed corporately with the quatum level of details attempted to animate right done to skin blemishes. There is better but not together in one picture.

The plot although completely predictable was none-the-less delightful.
Although, my friend didn't like the donkey. He found it as obnoxious as I found Chris Tucker in "5th Element" & that floppy eared CG guy in "Star Wars : Episode 1".

....just my 2�

� Mart � �

Planar Asylum
where the speakers are thin but the music is anything but
- Pretty soon... clarkjohnsen 13:14:58 05/27/01 (1)
  ...if your sensibilities are to be pleased, we'll not be able to tell the cartoons from the real. The sad result: The end of cartoons! The other movies have never been real anyway.
  clark
  - vast difference Mart 14:09:51 05/27/01 (0)
    Cartoons aren't necessarily in the medium anymore. It's in the plot. If a caricature of a coyote falls off a 10,000ft shear cliff & immediately pops his head up to be pummeled by a 20ton boulder, I don't believe you'll be convinced it was not a cartoon especially when he shows up in the next scene not much worse for the wear.
    
    ....just my 2�
    
    � Mart � �
    
    Planar Asylum
    where the speakers are thin but the music is anything but
- Re: It was OK TAFKA Steve 09:31:07 05/27/01 (2)
  > > The fire was obviously a painted 2-D image < <
  I haven't seen "Shrek" but the animation documentary on TV showed the flames traveling down the corridor being 3-D surface-modeled with triangles in steps at increasingly higher resolution. I'm not familiar with all the CGI lingo so I don't know if this is what you meant as painted 2-D.
  - I was trying to avoid technical terms Mart 10:12:30 05/27/01 (1)
    ... mainly because I find them misnomers. You see, CG mostly works with skins. They model the surface of 3-D objects. The object is faceted into triangles as you observed. Then, the wireframe mesh is fill with 2-D triangles in 3-D space. Once, that is done. You determine what color(s) the triangles are. (BTW, this also includes the amount transparency like the skin of the water & the amount of reflectivity which determines how smooth & shiny something appears to be) Anywho, in the case of fire they obviously ran a movie of fire on these triangular panels ... like a VR version of Disney's "Haunted House" where they projected a movie of talking person onto a manimann's stationary head. Thus, the image of the fire wasn't computer generated which was move obvious with the candle & fireplace. These were just painted in place which made the fireplace really bad. It was like watching a movie at an oblique angle.
    
    ....just my 2�
    
    � Mart � �
    
    Planar Asylum
    where the speakers are thin but the music is anything but
    - "technical" terms Tom �. 14:31:37 05/28/01 (0)
      > > It was like watching a movie at an oblique angle. < <
      Often times, I have to read your posts that way.
      Standing on my head while looking over my shoulder,
      Tom �.
- Re: It was better'n OK Troy 20:59:12 05/26/01 (6)
  Well you obviously saw a different movie than I did.
  I'm glad we agree on the story which was rich and amusing. Murphy as the Donkey was that offensive to your friend, eh? Well he wasn't 1/2 as shrill as Tucker in 5thE and you could understand every word Donkey said which was the main problem most people had with the garbled ultimately stupid floppy eared step'nfetchit guy in SW. Donkey was comparable to Robin Williams in "Aladdin" in tone and "grate" factor, I'd say.
  As far as your CGI comments though . . . I do a lot of low end 3D work too and what I was seeing in Shrek was outstanding. The character animation was more refined than the character animation in Pixar's short "Geralds Game", which was the high water mark for me before "Shrek".
  Besides, I was more moved by the backgrounds and environments. This rivals the great painterly anime films like "Totoro" or "Laputa" when it comes to depicting an idylic and beautifully pastoral scene. Regardless of the technology of how the film was created, it was a visually artistic gem.
  Here's the thing about CG in general people forget; just like regular cell animation, CG is supposed to be stylized, not a replacement for filmed reality. It's not about how close to looking like real it is. It's about the sum of the technical parts working together and the artistry of the people making the film to create a world that is seamless in the context of that film. It's not about sitting there noodling apart whether the fire looked like your fireplace or not. The world created here is lavish, delicate and overwhelmingly "alive" feeling, again, much more so than any I've ever seen before.
  I will deconstruct this movie later and figure out how they did everything because it's what I do, but I'm glad the the movie totally absorbed me and suspended my disbelief. I enjoyed it as a movie rather than as a technology demo reel.
  - Re: It was better'n OK CH Chang 02:50:20 05/27/01 (0)
    > > > outstanding. The character animation was more refined than the character animation in Pixar's short "Geralds Game", which was the high water mark for me before "Shrek".
    I haven't seen "Shrek" yet, but I've seen that the animation is well done, and I've heard that it's an entertaining movie. And, that's generally why I go see a movie; to be entertained. If I want to be educated, I'll read a book.
    > > > I enjoyed it as a movie rather than as a technology demo reel.
    Here's a movie that looks like a tech demo. They went for the "photo realistic" look, and if they haven't gotten it, they're a hair away. IIRC, they (the studio) got so involved in detail, that they were down to rendering (something like) 12 frames/month at one point. It's definitely visually stunning, and hopefully it's as well writing as it is animated.
    Chia-Hao
  - I OTOH Mart 21:39:58 05/26/01 (4)
    ... was mermerized by the shear maount of CG. They modeled nearly everything but the painted fire. Thus, it was the story for me. Most CG is painted stages like green screens. However, the eneormity of that which was atually 3-D skin modeled was ground breaking.
    PS: what I do is run computer simulations of machines to isolate static, kinematic, & dynamic phenomena qualitatively & quantitatively in order to optimize designs for the future.
    As such I run CG to show temporal solutions. So, when an unnatural motion occurs, I know the numerical solution is the GO part of GIGO.
    
    ....just my 2�
    
    � Mart � �
    
    Planar Asylum
    where the speakers are thin but the music is anything but
    - I OTOH Troy 02:35:17 05/27/01 (3)
      I was just so knocked out by the grass slowly waving in the breeze and the bugs buzzing around. Juicy!
      What I do is a little different. I make pretty pictures for the toy industry- http://www.designshed.com
      Cheers, Mart
      Troy
      - I'm impressed. john dem 02:48:18 05/27/01 (2)
        
        In Reply to: I OTOH posted by Troy on May 27, 2001 at 02:35:17:
        
        Excellent work Troy- and nice site too.
        "Googie style architecture, Art Deco, Fins and Chrome, the Jetsons Aesthetic and life in the Atomic Age are icons that are important to me and my work."
        That reminded me of Tati's "Mon Oncle"- have you seen it?- apart from being very funny, the art direction is an absolute treat in this film.
        Regards,
        john
        
        Re: I'm impressed. Victor Khomenko 08:41:08 05/27/01 (1)
        
        In Reply to: I'm impressed. posted by john dem on May 27, 2001 at 02:48:18:
        
        ***That reminded me of Tati's "Mon Oncle"- have you seen it?- apart from being very funny, the art direction is an absolute treat in this film.
        That is a wonderful and hilarious film. Those scenes with a fish fountain are simply precious.
        
        Re: I'm impressed. TAFKA Steve 09:24:57 05/27/01 (0)
        
        In Reply to: Re: I'm impressed. posted by Victor Khomenko on May 27, 2001 at 08:41:08:
        
        I loved the scene with the dog growling at the fish in the shopping bag. I had a terrier that would do the same when my father came home with his ocean fishing catch.
        And those rotten boys with their pranks!

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