I didn't know they were making a House of Wax 2.

No, no, you're too kind. Folks, I'll be here all week. Goodnight!

I'm not hater...but fuck this. I'm disappointed. Don't promise me photorealism unless your going to fucking make it fucking photorealistic. Its straight up lying.

As for me, I'll be there opening night. It's always great to see something new like this. Even though Final Fantasy sucked from a story standpoint, what they did with the CG characters was mind blowing. Seriously have any of you put any thought into how subtle humans are in movement, emotion, personality traits, etc? To try and make something to mirror that using technology is probably one of the hardest things to do. It's like trying to master drawing the human body. But to have the balls to try is admirable and I look forward to the results.

save money on make-up, film, utilities, re-shoots, multiple takes, props...

Trying to figure out if this motion capture CG is cost efficient.

what's the budget for this thing. maybe it will completely disprove my guesses.

And why does everyone look like themselves other than Ray Winstone? Seems a bit stupid to me.

As for t he cgi, before it was mentioned I didn't realize it was all cg, but I did think that they had some funky lens on the camera, or had done some crazy editing. I'm reserving judgement until I see more than 45 seconds of disjointed shots, but reality is always preferable to animation, in my mind, when it comes to connecting with characters. There are exceptions, sure, but, uh, well, they're exceptions.

Sepulchrave, I don't quite get what you're saying. It's not very clear. Did you mean that both Phantom Menace and Fellowship suck because of all the CG they used? Or just Menace? Because Menace used more of the 'old' techniques - there were more models in Menace than the previous 3 SW films COMBINED. People keep going on about Menace and keep thinking everything was CG when they're looking at modelmaking mixed with matte painting and CG. They used salt on black velvet for the waterfalls and good old dry-for-wet for crying out loud. But anyway your point is unclear because you're dissing the 'rubber puppets' too. Which is it then? Also, animatronics, puppets and models are 'dead' too. Whether it's a computer or drawn animation or puppets it's ALWAYS people that breathe life into them. And what do you mean "CG without animation or breathing solidity"?? Yes of course Jar Jar sucks though. But he would have sucked whether he was CG or not - they did film the whole performance with Best in the suit and were just going to do head replacement initially, before the bean counter found it was cheaper to just animate the whole thing.

I agree though this thing seems redundant having Jolie and Hopkins look so exactly like themselves. We have only seen 2 minutes though I guess.

Trebs, I haven't seen it yet but if you're after Frazetta then the trailer and my God the poster for that "Pathfinder" movie with Karl Urban is the most Frazetta-ish thing I've ever seen.

Evil Hobbit, Happy Feet is a really bad example, because for centuries to come it will remain the most APPROPRIATE use of mocap ever. Penguins are the most anthropomorphic animals you can get (besides apes obviously), and you have thousands of them. BTW you seem to ignore that all the facial stuff was keyframed and the action sequences too. Even the "heartsong" thing was accurate to real life. I have no problem if you hated the story or whatever, but you can't fault the choice of mocap in that one instance. If they hadda used keyframing they'd be going 'til doomsday.

shut the fuck up.

All CGI...Hmm...Maybe.

BTW, you do understand the difference between interlaced and progressive, don't you? Doesn't seem like it from your post. I work in this stuff too but I'm continually horrified at the basics of character and acting that all the techies don't understand or are oblivious to. You end up with stuff like TMNT where they've seen Pixar do eye darts but have no idea WHY and WHEN to implement them. Aargghh! As for the 1080P I agree with those other guys, colour banding and posterisation overload! Quicktime is a shitload better than Windows but you DO have to encode it properly! Geez!

Kirby, you made a similar mistake. The realism doesn't have 1/2 as much to do with the "technology being there yet" as the animator creating a believable performance. I'm not one of the simplistic arseholes that says mocap is the devil but fuck it doesn't just work by itself. Also, that Jurassic Park analogy is the most overused, clichéd and inappropriate one ever. Nobody knows exactly how they moved so we're nowhere near as critical, and they don't exactly express many emotions in that film. Not to mention that they used the oldest trick in the CG book to hide problems. Night, and rain, for the most prolonged and famous scene. Go back and watch it again and see how well the daytime stuff like the T-Rex attacking the Gallis holds up (and make sure you're not talking about the animatronic stuff. There were only 50 CG shots in the whole movie. Also, as far as tech goes, they did have enveloping but not things like skin jiggle. The jiggle IS there though, because a human being ANIMATED it by hand. Don't get me wrong about the film though. I love it (except for the cop-out last-second change to the end) and love the animation. I just don't believe in rose-tinted glasses, that's all, and I'm not denigrating their achievement at all. My main problem is that you can't seriously compare those dinos with a human character. C'mon, it's chalk and cheese!

Warhol, with all respect, do you know how these things work (I'm not being sarcastic)? 1.5 years? Pre-pro and maybe building all the assets/models and blocking can take twice that long. Actual production for a year and a half? So what?. Animation is almost the last thing out the door. Yes I'm simplifying as there are things happening concurrently, but you get my drift. It's very scary how late actual animation happens these days. Fair?

Oops.

Concerning the movement of the characters, many here are mistaking scenes that are shown in slow-mo, such as the fire bridge, Anthony Hopkins' line delivery, etc. for scenes that show actual character speed (long distance shots of the cave, Jolie's kiss, etc). Again, because the trailer shows scenes in slow mo while retaining dialogue, sound effects, and music in normal speed, the animated characters seem out of sync and "fake."

As for the eyes, you people are truly being disingenuous: the eyes look just fine. I'm looking at Beowulf, Hopkins, and Jolie and am seeing absolutely normal eye movemnts and facial expressions. True, Jolie is pulling her typical "emotionally distant sex-goddess" thing, and that does make it seem as though she is other-worldy, but Beowulf and Hopkins clearly have human, "alive" eyes.

Long story short, everyone keep in mind that a film trailer alters movement and dialogue delivery for EVERY movie, especially modern trailers. Lay off Zemeckis and give this film a chance before passing judgement on the rendered movements. Comments like "hey, its World of Warcraft" obviously display a level of meanness, blatant dishonesty, and childishness rarely seen outside AICN or an elementary school playground.

This film... not so much. I was looking forward to "Beowulf" before seeing that trailer. Oh well.

Just so you know, however, "Schindler's List" indeed had several comedic moments. Some of the exchanges at the beginning of the film and later, between Schindler and Stern, were intended as relief. The laughter doesn't have to be overt to be effective. My point was that the monolithic seriousness threading through films by Uwe Boll, Paul WS Anderson, and others destroys any real drama.

You can disagree with me if you want, but don't call me a moron. And don't pose to me rhetorical questions like, "Do you know anything about film at all?" I've made four films, three of which were shown at festivals in New England and New York. They weren't classics by any stretch, but one of them won "Best Screenplay" at the Boston Underground Film Festival. So, yes, I know a thing or two about films. Thanks for asking.

Occula, I think it was Kleiser/Walchak that came up with the "synthespians" thing in the early nineties. Funny because they did some pretty damn stiff animation.

Having said that Zemeckis seems to spend twice as much as everyone else so he could well have the actors do everything on this one, wouldn't surprise me!