Cool Pics from PRINCE OF EGYPT!!!

Here are a few more PRINCE OF EGYPT images compliments of my brand new super duper scannerino. I just picked this baby up about a week ago and I decided to give it a whir tonight. Click on the pics for a larger version of each!

The first image here is an example of what I was talking about where the backgrounds and the foregrounds match. The above image is... as I’m sure you can guess... of Rameses laying down the same proclamation his father, Seti, did a generation before.

And the above is a result of Rameses’ decree. From his own lips came the greatest plague. That smokish-angel of death moves fast with the breath of exaltation. It sent shivers through me when I saw the sequence.

The above is of course a shot of the plague of grasshoppers. I haven’t really seen this sequence, but according to Agent Kushing yesterday, he wished it were longer. I guess we’ll see for ourselves here pretty soon.

Here are a shot of Moses as he is fighting his way through the dune sea. One of the things I really love about PRINCE OF EGYPT so far, is the use of scope. The small character against a vast background. It’s very evocative of David Lean. It really makes Moses seem insignificant. And it is something that isn’t done too often in animation or in live action film making nowadays. It’s probably because too many filmmakers have been influenced by the medium-shot and close-ups of television. Pull that camera back baby, it looks sweet!

I love the colors of this shot. This is from the sequence where Moses finds out the truth about what his ‘Father’ SETI did to Egypt. Just wait to you hear the sorrow in Patrick Stewart’s voice, you can feel the weight of that decision. And I felt the claustrophobia that Moses felt. According to Agent Kushing there is a ‘hallucination sequence’ around here somewhere, but I haven’t seen that.

And here, of course, is the sequence I think we are all dying to see. I’m ready for my jaw to drop. I’ve seen just a couple of shots from here, and it just looks amazing. Oh, and just to show I’ve learned something from TALK BACK, you will no longer hear me refer to ANIMATION as a genre. Animation is just another form of filmmaking with which many genres can be told. Who says I don’t read TALK BACK. However, I do think a lot of people treat animation as a genre, and it usually denotes to them DISNEY. Hopefully, PRINCE OF EGYPT will awaken American audiences as a whole to the potential of animation beyond just being a children’s medium. Many animation fans have for years been aware of what is going on with Anime, but hopefully this film will make different genres financially viable in the U.S. That’s my hope anyways.

As for DISNEY, I can’t wait to see their next films. I really think there is a weird perception that PRINCE OF EGYPT will somehow wipe away DISNEY-style animation storytelling. I’m not sure where this has come from, but I’m real sure it won’t. There is room for both and more. Back in the hey day of animation, we had so many different types of toons... it was glorius. That’s all I want... a selection. I mean, I’m everybit as excited about TARZAN and TOY STORY II as I am SHREK and EL DORADO and IRON GIANT. This is an exciting time for us animation fans. And hopefully it’ll create more fans and bring more people into the ink and painted world so many love. All I know is I’m excited about December 18th.