Beowulf - Uncanny Valley Reloaded

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alt_nick

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Beowulf trailer out.

First time I watched it I thought it was live action, but once you notice it you see the flaws everywhere. Just like Burly Brawl which I can't watch anymore without getting annoyed ;)
Some faces are very life-like - espcially Jolie's and Winstone's. The body, hair and clothes seem to still be the weak point. Somewhat toy-like.

Very nice motion capturing, though. Rendering just needs more work.
 
Is this entirely CG?

I saw it this afternoon and was thinking there was something very odd about it, the movement and skin tones etc. (this was quite low resolution too)
 
Yeah definitely looks all CG. Jolie looks very well done, as opposed to Hopkins or Malkovich whom look very CG. Some of the scenes in that trailer of the main character go between CG looking and very real. Highly looking forward to this one!
 
Angelina Jolie looked absolutely stunning.

Then again she does that in real life too. :p

The encoding was shite though. At least the 720P version - very blocky and tons of banding in low-light situations - which was like 70% of the trailer to be honest. Really disappointing, it made it difficult to keep track of what was happening during those frequent fades between cuts.

The faces looked awesome in general IMO. I wouldn't say Malkovich or Hopkins looked more CGI than anyone else, we barely got to see them. I'm sure all characters have equally bad moments - if these could be called bad, I'm not sure I agree - at times during the course of the movie.

The galloping horses did not look as good IMO. SOmething was screwy withtheir movements.

I too wonder why tehy didnt' go live-action. Maybe CG is cheaper than manufacturing all the stufgf you need for a fantasy movie, and you have to do CGI for the effects anyway. So maybe easier to just do everything with computers.

To my knowledge this will be the first animated film where actors retain their faces along wih voices. Well apart from maybe Whoopie Goldberg's hyena in the Lion King which kind of looked like her lol!

Peace.
 
How bizarre. What a strange way to make a movie. I guess it'll be fun to watch just to keep up with where CG is at at the moment. TBH I thought that the three male characters looked less unreal than Jolie -- she looked like whoever got to play with her polygon mesh went a bit overboard with the [strike]surgical[/strike] digital enhancements.
 
Definitely CG. This movie has just caught my interest, not so much that it is CG, but it is a CG movie that might not be entirely bad. CG is a fad now and it's a piss poor fad.

Pixar doesn't count, since their movies always rock.
 
Sonic said:
CG is a fad now and it's a piss poor fad. Pixar doesn't count, since their movies always rock.
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Any relation between a Zemeckis/Gaiman/Avary adaptation of Beowulf and a Pixar movie (or whatever fad cartoony CG feature for that matter) is solely because they're both animated. It's bit like comparing The Sound of Music to Pulp Fiction just because they both have live actors in them. :smile:

Edit: I hope... Gaiman already has an animated kids movie coming out and has stated that this definitely isn't supposed to be one. Then again, it wasn't supposed to be animated either until Zemeckis, having liked the script, came along with bags of cash wanting to make it as an animated feature instead of the live action movie Gaiman and Avery (who was set to direct) were looking to get funded. Who knows with big studios, though. I fear the 'edited for PG-13 moments' might stand out from the mood of the source material. We'll see.
 
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I guess I should explain my stance then. The association is between this movie not using CG as a gimmick to attract a crowd and most other CG movies these days using it as a gimmick to attract a crowd. The association with Pixar is not because both films are animated, but because it will have a strong storyline and worth watching.

I don't look at Pixar movies as fad CG movies. I look at Pixar movies as movies with strong stories, voice acting, humor, and great animation but still telling a story first and looking pretty second.

I'd see the movie if it wasn't CG...I'm full of contradictions today. :devilish:
 
Looks absolutely horrible! Is CGI making no progress at all?! Even stills are very obviously not real.
I don't get why Zemeckis continues using this most immature technology to that extent and for entire movies.
IMO the Final Fantasy movie looked better than this, though still not beliveable at all.
CG is good for stylized stuff like Pixars but not for something in a realistic style like this.
What is really the point of doing a whole movie at this point?! Surely not cost?
 
Squeak said:
Looks absolutely horrible! Is CGI making no progress at all?! Even stills are very obviously not real.
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There's been lots of progress on digital actors, just for some reason this film is either being very cheap or somewhat stylised.

Sonny in "I, Robot" and Gollum from "Lord Of The Rings" are just a couple of examples of very realistic CGI over rotoscoped actors. The technique was also used for King Kong, Matrix Reloaded, Hollow Man, etc, but those first two are probably a good example of "realistic" rendering that can be done.
 
Well I used to think Davy Jones was merely an actor under a lot of makeup/mask. He's not. It could be mainly because I'm within the "typical viewer" crowd and don't have the eyes for it, but I was really surprised to find this out.
 
xatnys said:
Well I used to think Davy Jones was merely an actor under a lot of makeup/mask. He's not. It could be mainly because I'm within the "typical viewer" crowd and don't have the eyes for it, but I was really surprised to find this out.
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Really? Lol, it would have been very hard for them to move all of the face tentacles if it was make up.
 
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