Re: Review of the film 300

Peter Jason wrote:
....

An example of CGI overkill was the recent and
very-long movie "Kong" in which all stops
were pulled out in the jungle scenes showing
various monsters of the Cretaceous having
their wicked way with the crew of a ship
trying (at that stage) to rescue some blond
bimbo kidnapped by this huge tender-hearted
ape.

You can't improve on Harryhausen even if the was only an apprentice on the original. See Clash of the Titans for details.

I think the problem with this remake was that it was just a copy of the original and really added nothing of interest to the story and took longer to tell it.

This post is most relevant because it reveals
the presence of mammalia, in the form of this
giant ape, during the Cretaceous period.
Together with a decidedly ugly tribe of
dishevelled Australopithecines with anger and
vengeful issues.

Yes but ... the first remake of Kong got rid of all those anachronisms and was even worse than the second remake.

Due to some marvel of cosmetic science this
blond bimbo maintained her composure (and
hair coiffe) through a dinosaur brawl, swings
thru the trees, being swung about by Kong,
rescued by her inamorato, and suffered no
more than a small scratch. Curiously, in
this movie, it was only those handsome men
who survived because the giant insects,
dinosaurs and other worthies had this
prelediction for ugly people and
Afro-Americans, some of whom were clearly
Jewish.

The CGI triumph was the killing of the
aforementioned, and now clearly
broken-hearted "Kong" on top of the Empire
State Bldg and this was very well done
indeed, giving the viewer a feeling of
vertigo, a feeling augmented by the
rising-sun dawn and sweeping vistas.

As I said in the first post, this CGI is a method in search of scripts. The Ring trilogy did it all but faces on characters. How about having seen Rhys-Davies' from head to foot in one shot instead of standing in a hole?

And then with the other characters there is always a problem with makeup. If it takes 16 hours to apply there is no time for filming. All make-up quality is a compromise with the time it takes to apply. CGI has no such problem.

There is something similar with elaborate costumes, they cost money and get damaged in filming. CGI costumes can be destroyed a hundred times over and be good as new. Beats starting filming with ten copies and always needing eleven.

When it gets cheaper look for it on TV series. Right now the number of effects that can be done in an episode it strictly limited by the post production time and the same with the makeup and costumes. Even at today's minimum of 22 eps per year it can't take more than two weeks and a day, 15 days to make an ep else you fall behind real time. With the right story to tell, as in Buffy, Angel and even Charmed, a lot more can go into a series than we see today. If Firefly has survived that could have set the standard.

But again it requires the right scripts to make use of the technique. If it is free I don't see it used on Law&Order. But consider how much actors like Andy Hawlett, the "karaoke demon" on Angel would love the CGI team not to have to go through a couple hours of makeup even day. Or Buffy. The first season vampire face makeup was much better than the later but it took to long. It took eight months to film the first 12 eps. And then a "transformation" took a quite expensive camera and a lot of time to do a transition on screen. Consider if there were no more consideration for the stage direction "transform" than for "turn left".

Typically, like "300", the story was a
pastiche of cheap nonsense.

Again, 300 was not intended as a retelling of the legend but was to tell a graphic novel fantasy inspired by the legend. First off it is a comic book. As I said at first, you have to like that genre. BTW: I don't like it that much. I bought the V for Vengeance one and didn't get passed the first few pages. But I have no problem with the generic idea. As I said, I went to see Jurassic Park for the CGI.

(To have Kong
consummate his love with the Blond Bimbo
would have required great feats of
elasticity). But in artistic terms these
movies have the choreography of good ballet
and when viewed with this insight are very
enjoyable indeed. It's a bit like
high-quality porn, which is very hard to
find.

We breathlessly await Wagner's Ring in CGI.

May it be as good as Lord of the Rings. Note we don't have too much literature or source materials that this is suited to. Clash of the Titans is a stop motion bash but had to combine just about every applicable thing from all of Greek mythology to have enough material to make a feature length movie.

Science fiction generally does not as there have to be human characters to anchor the story and the problem with faces does not occur with alien faces. So fantasy is about the only active genre which produces material where this can be applied.

But the entire crux of the issue is the annoyance with faces as they come close to human but are still animated. Once properly human faces can be made this entire issue if moot. It is going to happen. At the moment it is not clear whether figuring out how to be realistic or processing power is holding things back. I have not seen a decent human face in a still so I assume it is the former. I have seen several examples of what is meant by annoying and it is.

--
It if is lawful to expel Palestinians from Palestine it is lawful to expel
Jews from America.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3953
http://www.giwersworld.org a1
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