BEOWULF - a Robert Zemeckis film

[frankthedm]

I wish someone would shoot Beowulf as-written, or close enough to, rather than adding in all sorts of things that don't actually happen in the story, without adding in extraneous characters.

Even big name directors have trouble getting hollywood to agree to that.

Director Guillermo Del Toro has written a screenplay based on Lovecraft's story, but as of 2006 has had trouble getting Warner Brothers to finance the project. Wrote Del Toro, "The studio is very nervous about the cost and it not having a love story or a happy ending, but it's impossible to do either in the Lovecraft universe."[16]

 

[Brogarn]

I'm probably alone in this, but the graphics completely turn me off to the movie. Good chance I won't bother even watching it due to them. It's going to have to get some serious "omg. must. see. this. flick" type reviews from a lot of people to convince me to sit through that visual monstrosity. Because seriously... eww.


<--- the look on the face of my current avatar is probably pretty close to the look I had on mine while watching the trailer.

 

[Piratecat]

I just can't get past the uncanny valley. Those movies sort of creep me out.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Just watched the trailer.

Um... damn. I'm excited.

 

[Darth Shoju]

I just can't get past the uncanny valley. Those movies sort of creep me out.

It's funny, I had the same reaction to The Polar Express. For some reason this flick seems to have overcome that for me (at least from what I've seen so far).

 

[catsclaw227]

I think I might like this, and the trailer didn't make me squirm like Polar Express, but the CG Angelina Jolie might freak me out a bit....

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Honestly, watching the trailer in the theaters, this did not look total-CGI at all. My wife was totally fooled, but I had seen Polar Express before and something looked similar while I watched it. But I admit that to me it looked rather almost "real".

 

[F5]

It's in the eyes, I think. The eyes in this movie look a lot less creepy than they do in Polar Express, and I think it's because in Polar Express, you're looking at kids that, for all that they are in a fantastic setting, are supposed to look like regular kids. Using this kind of CGI to create larger-than-life heroes and supernatural creatures takes us away from the Uncanny Valley to an extent, I think, because we have no expectations about what, say, Grendel's Mom is "supposed" to look like. It's an interesting wrinkle to the Uncanny Valley effect that when you take otherwise creepy-real eyes and make them glow yellow, they are no longer creepy.

 

[frankthedm]

It's an interesting wrinkle to the Uncanny Valley effect that when you take otherwise creepy-real eyes and make them glow yellow, they are no longer creepy.

Because we now have proof the thing is not human. Until that moment, our subconscious is trying to warn us "IT'S UNNATURAL! DAMN IT, YOU CAN'T YOU SEE THAT?!" Once the conscious mind accepts "That is not a human." the subconscious calms down and says "O.k., we're cool, just wanted to make sure you knew."

 

[F5]

What all this uncanny valley stuff proves, to me, is that at some point in our evolutionary history, humanity was faced with an invasion of body-snatching doppelgangers. We developed the Uncanny Valley effect as a defense mechanism, against the alien replicants among us.

This Beowulf movie is just the next step in the invasion...attempting to acclimate us to the Effect, and make us that much more susceptible to their next invasion.

Insidious, Mr Zemeckis...insidious.