"...the apparent omnipotence of special effects increases linearlly with your birth date."

"Whoa." -K. Reeves

As far as postulating this cat's motivation for making this video??-This guy loves picking things apart and entertaining people was my first guess.

Ugggh, watching this now and the opening 5 minutes include gratuitous douchebag sniper and "a Tom Cruise Production" in the openeing titles...Looks like a total piece of egomaniacal shit on par with Expendables.

Gonna down vote the trailer and hope the movie gets better, but not much hope from the direction Scientology-boy lately-He's got 3 other films in post-prod and only one looks good in spite of his hack-actiing because of special effects and story. More and more, Cruise= douche!

Eagles do pick up animals heavier than that kid so this isn't out of the question. Looking at it slower I would have to say it is real or it is better motion matching than any special effect I have seen in any modern film to date.

Doomsday killed him, have him fight Doomsday. Aliens. Whatever.

So long as the special effects are good.

"SPECIAL EFFECTS!".. "EXPLOSIONS!!!!" Those descriptions had me cracking up real good

Yeah, in the days of video editing and special effects, everyone can do some pretty badass magic.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Just saw this in a special cinema showing here today. It really holds up well - as political satire - and the special effects are great. There was more CGI than I remember - but it's cleverly mixed with real models. And pretty damn good animation for '98.

>> ^EvilDeathBee:

>> ^JiggaJonson:
@EvilDeathBee "reaching" ain't there yet. Still looks like a cartoon to me (probably bc I play too many games). And nomatter how good it gets, it will always look like the actors are talking to/interacting with empty air. Say what you will about animatronics and puppets but meeting a puppet's eyes is never a problem for actors.

Completely disagree. Did you seriously think Prometheus looked "cartoony"? Also, the CGI Yoda in the Blu-Ray Episode 1 was so much better than the rubbish puppet from the theatrical release (regardless of how shit the film is). No matter how good a puppet or animatronic is, it will always be limited in what it can do and especially how it animates.
And if and actor has trouble meeting the eyes of a digital character, that's poor setup, poor direction, poor editing and even poor acting. As I said, it's knowing when to use CGI and when to use puppets/animatronics/models. All can be blended to work well together, depends on the shot.

Ok, so the Yoda puppet was pretty shit, but I think I still prefer it to the CG one. Whether something is believable seems pretty binary to me. Its not as if either version really does a good job of hiding the man behind the curtain. Some CG I am totally fooled by. Backdrops, a lot of special effects but when it comes to something organic, something thats going to be the focus of the camera CG never really holds up. I've seen tech demos of CG faces, and tbh, I can't really tell the difference. I think the problem often is blending this CG in with the rest of the scene. Our brains seem very good at detecting inconsistency in lighting etc, too often CG elements really seem painted on top and it spoils the illusion. A lot of animatronic stuff matches CG in terms of its animation, but because its actually in the scene it never jumps out at you.

But hey, maybe one day our films will be made entirely in front of bluescreens. Pehraps the performers won't even have to wear makeup or costume, it'll all be superimposed on afterwards. For the moment I still think animatronics has the edge in realism.

Oh, I'm still watching, and it's interesting, but man the MIDI music is horrendous.

Also the film critics are so full of shit, my god they sound like pretentious fools.

But all the special effects and tech guys are interesting.

[edit] Ok, now I just had that female critic start talking about Dave dismantling HAL as a rape... urgh, she must be a joy at parties

>> ^Fletch:

Beijing may have ruined it for all future Olympic host cities, but that was the most boring opening ceremony I've ever seen. I kept switching over to "Deadliest Catch" repeats. And Paul McCartney? "I wonder if he'll sing 'Hey J...' yep, there he goes". At least the audience participation limits the amount of seventy year-old sour notes they are subjected to. Tell me that wasn't hard to watch. It was entertaining the way "FOX and Friends" is entertaining, or the way running your tongue over a painful canker sore again and again is entertaining.
By the way, Elliot finally came through and found the crab, to the relief of his crew.


Yeah. Meh for that one after seeing Beijing, China, in 2008 (why did the I delete my high definition (HD)'s recording?). The industrial revolution's ring forge was cool and nice bassy music. James Bond (007) skit wasn't that great either. At least Mr. Bean's skit was funny, and he should have been in the whole opening ceremony! Not enough special effects and colors!

Will anyone be able to 2008's summer game's opening ceremony? Oh well. Thanks goodness for recording to avoid watching 4.5 hours of it and its commercials/advertisements (ads.)/spots! What happened to Dr. Who (excluding the audio)?

I wonder if Blizzard is seeing a dime from these Homages,using their market force to promote this restaurant. Considering how well China respects the Creators of copyrighted material,I doubt it highly.And such a lame attempt at cashing in on World of Warcraft too. Murals,Big TVs. Unworthy.

Now if I were Blizzard,I'd outshine this huckster's game of an eatery in China and make their own Themed Restaurant chain. I've taken people with kids to places in New York City that are special effects extravaganzas with something "interesting" going on at about every 15 minutes. One consisted of a spaceship ride to an alien world,al la 1950's sci fi flicks.and another was called Jeckle and Hyde's
Adventurer's Club where you eat in a supposed Gothic mansion devoted to hunters of the macabre run by the esteemed Dr. Jeckle,who has a cute animatronic transformation into Mister Hyde I'd imagine several times a night. That's the idea of it: having a crew of actors interact with the customers as Magic Mirrors,or a diver speaking from a shark head mounted on the wall.3 tiers overlooking a wall of animatronic Ghoulish delight,little shows,interesting things going on all the time,here and there.

Now try that with the Lore of World of Warcraft as the theme. Maybe a several vinette plot acted out with stage swordfighting and spells special effected to life. There is also a franchise called Medival Times that has horses jousting and the knightly ambiance to boot.You sit as spectators to a 6 course dinner while a show of several acts is going on in the middle. Warcraft Dinner theatre. Both types of show have their advantages. The "stuff going on all the time" thing allows for walk in traffic,so a constant flow of money,or the Super Spectacular you sell like a Play,for a one performance ticket maybe 60 bucks a pop.With Official Blizzard merchendise at the Souvenier stand!

It could work well.It would work well.Will somebody tell somebody about this so something can be done?
KKTHXBYE! LOL

The larger problem, story-wise, is why Big Pun ignores the beating/implied rape of the unusually attractive prostie. She could have been killed while he sat on his ass.


>> ^jmd:

ehh, I'm gonna nit pick.
#1 I HATE the fake camera shake. We all know this shit is done on dollys and steady cam out the ass, then to make it look like..frankly I have no idea why they inject camera shake, I don't want to see how Michael j. Fox see's the movie. .
#2 this bad guy seems to make everyone his target.. even little kids.. so why is he still alive? He is CLEARLY dumber then a stump and is lowest on the totem pole, some other punk would have put a bullet in him long ago.
#3 Our hero guy strolls in and really does not care...yet has the means to kill every single one of them in less then 10 seconds and some how eventually finds the will too. God damn this is 5th grade writing.
#4 oh my god.. the special effects... is this supposed to be gritty real life.. or mortal freaking kombat? It looks like that 5th grader also had a say in where blood was placed... cause he said EVERYWHERE!

>> ^jmd:

ehh, I'm gonna nit pick.
#1 I HATE the fake camera shake. We all know this shit is done on dollys and steady cam out the ass, then to make it look like..frankly I have no idea why they inject camera shake, I don't want to see how Michael j. Fox see's the movie. .
#2 this bad guy seems to make everyone his target.. even little kids.. so why is he still alive? He is CLEARLY dumber then a stump and is lowest on the totem pole, some other punk would have put a bullet in him long ago.
#3 Our hero guy strolls in and really does not care...yet has the means to kill every single one of them in less then 10 seconds and some how eventually finds the will too. God damn this is 5th grade writing.
#4 oh my god.. the special effects... is this supposed to be gritty real life.. or mortal freaking kombat? It looks like that 5th grader also had a say in where blood was placed... cause he said EVERYWHERE!


Well first of all this is an amateur fan film with no budget. Second of all, can't you just enjoy a good, over-the-top short film without dissecting it like a art-house film critic with a shitty blog?

ehh, I'm gonna nit pick.

#1 I HATE the fake camera shake. We all know this shit is done on dollys and steady cam out the ass, then to make it look like..frankly I have no idea why they inject camera shake, I don't want to see how Michael j. Fox see's the movie. .

#2 this bad guy seems to make everyone his target.. even little kids.. so why is he still alive? He is CLEARLY dumber then a stump and is lowest on the totem pole, some other punk would have put a bullet in him long ago.

#3 Our hero guy strolls in and really does not care...yet has the means to kill every single one of them in less then 10 seconds and some how eventually finds the will too. God damn this is 5th grade writing.

#4 oh my god.. the special effects... is this supposed to be gritty real life.. or mortal freaking kombat? It looks like that 5th grader also had a say in where blood was placed... cause he said EVERYWHERE!