Tangled Review

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for!
/drumroll/

Another excuse as to why I'm not reviewing Tangled yet!  Kidding!  Just kidding.  Today I will present to you my review of Tangled.

BUT FIRST:
Let me report of my progress at SCAD.  Last week I wrote a paper about the innovations of Disney, with the intent of making this paper into a speech.  Well, I got a 100% on the paper, now I just need to not screw up the actual speech.  I not only have to make my speech this Thursday in class, but I also have a midterm quiz on Tuesday in the same class.  To top that off, I have a series of drawing I need to make by Wednesday, including a contour drawing of a skeletal system, as well as a detailed drawing of a planar head.  For those who have no idea what I'm talking about... I need to draw this:

Ok, so it isn't actually Kryten, but it looks remarkably like him.  I have to draw with tinted paper and white conte with charcoal, and I need to focus on the shapes of the planar face in the classroom.  So next time you are watching Red Dwarf, think of me.
Needless to say, this is going to keep me up late.  I have a lot of work ahead of me, and now I have another at-home project for that class for the following week.  They like to really pile it on don't they?  I sure as hell hope I have time to practice my speech, get some sleep, and get my visual aids ready (and practice with them too!).


So despite my busy busy schedule, and Kryten's pretty little head, I am going to write a review right now on Tangled.  Enjoy!  Oh, and lots of pretty pictures!  And without further ado:

Story

The story of Tangled vaguely resembles that of the original story of Rapunzel.  Girl stuck in tower, evil woman keeps her there, man find girl, something something... that is actually where it all breaks down.  In the original story, well, I'm not really sure which is the original since I've heard different takes on it.  But usually they go something like this:  Pregnant mom wants a Rapunzel plant from an enchantress's forbidden garden.  Husband steals it.  He gets caught, agrees to give her his unborn child, and actually hands her to the enchantress himself.  She keeps her in a tower... who knows why.  A prince comes by one day and hears her sings.  After seeing the enchantress use Rapunzel's hair to get in, he does the same.  From here... he wither gets her pregnant, or she is too ditsy to remember not to tell the enchantress that she's been sneaking a man in.  Either way, she gets her hair cut off and is thrown to the wilderness while he gets thrown from the tower and goes blind.  Months later, he hears her voice again, and her tears bring back his sight... awww.  In all, rather un-gruesome for a Grimm's Fairy Tale.  They actually have a happy ending.  And in some tellings, the enchantress accidentally locks herself in the tower instead... sweet irony.

Well, forget everything I just said.  Cause it ain't in this movie.  BUT, that isn't to say this isn't a good story, it is just a different one, with some similarities.

This story is actually not called Rapunzel, not because the character doesn't use that name, cause she does, and not cause it isn't suppose to be a variation of the Rapunzel story, cause it kind of is.  In fact, they were originally going to call it Rapunzel, and later changed it to Rapunzel Unbraided, before deciding to settle with Tangled.  The reason why apparently isn't because they wanted to appeal to a different market, but rather they wanted to point out that their version of Rapunzel focuses on the 2 characters of Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, not just her.

The main characters: Rapunzel, Pascal, Flynn, and Maximus

This story starts with a back story.  A drop of sunlight gave birth to a magic flower, whom Mother Gothel coveted and hid from the world for its magical properties, healing the injured and restoring youth.  When the queen almost dies during pregnancy, they find this flower and grind it into a potion to save the queen.  As a result, their baby girl was born with magical hair.  Yes... magic hair.  It glows when she sings and has the same healing properties as the flower.  Mother Gothel, now without the flower, kidnaps the infant, and raises her as her own, in a tower hidden in the forest, to keep her away from everyone for herself.

18 years later... Flynn Rider, a thief, who steals a crown, stumbles upon the tower, and thinking to hide there, is overpowered by Rapunzel, who hides the crown and tricks him into taking her to see the annual floating lamps that she sees from her window every year on her birthday.  She doesn't realize they are actually for her, sent out in mourning for their daughter by the king and queen every year, as well as the villagers who lost their princess.

Hilarity ensues as Flynn tries to trick her into going back and giving him the crown, and failing, only to be confronted by singing thugs with dreams, ex-partners out for revenge, an over-enthusiastic horse bent on justice, and a chameleon with attitude.

Think of her shampoo bill

The story is very sweet, well put together, and is full of excitement, character development, and actual plot!  Yay plot!  The one caveat I have is at the end of the movie.  I don't want to spoil anything, but there is one point where Flynn is convinced Rapunzel is in danger, life-threatening danger, and he runs to her rescue avoiding his own fate.  Only problem is, she wasn't really in the danger he thought, and I don't see why he would think so either.  Sure, she'd be a prisoner, but there was no way for him to know she was going to figure out her past suddenly, or for him to even know what that past was.  He had no reason to think the over-protective mother she had for all those years would try to kill her.  But it makes for a good story anyways and I can easily overlook this one minor flaw.

Pascal has his eye on Flynn

Graphics

This movie has perhaps the most impressive graphics I've seen in a very long time.  I dare say they are the best I've seen, and are very impressive.  The motion of the characters is fluid, natural, and perfectly characterize each character.  Mother Gothel has this stage presence and old world feel about her that the other characters don't, while Flynn has the very sly and dashing thing going on, while Rapunzel is often shy, but always a sweet character and easily makes friends with even the most unlikely people around.  Even the animals have great character animation, with amazing facial expressions.  And thank god none of the animals talk.

The Smoulder

They put a ton of detail into the modeling as well.  The clothing of the characters are designed specifically with that character in mind.  For example, Mother Gothel is suppose to be very old, so they designed her dress to be in the style of a dress about 400 years before the style of Rapunzel's.  The detail and quality they put into every aspect of this film was amazing, and worth watching again and again.

The most impressive thing I think about this movie though is the lighting.  Somehow, they managed to make this CG film look more like a painting than I thought possible.  The tower that Rapunzel lives in looks like it came straight out of a romanticism period oil painting.  The skin on the characters has a certain translucent quality that looks fabulous and really softens the feel of the movie.  The actual stage lighting (as in the light rigging) is amazing!  There are no scenes that aren't interesting to look at, with appropriate lighting for the mood, and a soft and natural feel that really ties the entire film together.

And of course there is the hair.  Wow.  Hair is usually a very hard thing to control in a movie, especially when it is 70 feet long!  They did a fantastic job getting the hair down just right.  Being magical, I guess it never needs to be washed after being dragged through the forest, because it always looks fabulous on her.

If for no other reason, see this film to appreciate the amazing work they put into the visuals, which are top notch!  The lantern scene is simply AMAZING!  They rendered over 10,000 lanterns to make these scenes!

Best scene of the movie, hands down

Sound

The sound in this is, again, top notch!  Not only did they get talented actors who really pull off these characters, but they got ones that can sing!  All the music is by Alan Menken, and god of Disney musicals.  All the Disney princess owe him their music.  (Them and a big scary plant that eats people :P)  I was so glad to hear that this movie was bringing the music back to the Disney films.  It has been too long since we last had a good Disney musical, and this one is a great addition.  The duet is beautiful, and the other songs are catchy and fun.  Perhaps they aren't at the same level as some of the other Disney songs, like those in The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast or Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I for one enjoy the soundtrack and find myself humming the songs.

Rapunzel amuses herself

Blu-ray

The Blu-ray release, which came out a few weeks ago, is an excellent release.  The quality is as good as it can possibly get.  For those who noticed the aliased hair in Monster's Inc, you will be glad to see there is none of that in Tangled.  I have watched this movie several times now, and can not find a single flaw in the graphics or the sound.  It is flawless, and a true treat for the eyes and ears.

There is one problem with the Blu-ray release though, there aren't enough extras.  I for one wanted a really comprehensive making of, and perhaps more deleted scenes or something.  However, they fit all the content on one disc (which is not a bad thing, but limits what you can put on it), so they didn't have the room to put much more on it.  I wish there was a bonus features disc, but this film does not have one.  But David, you say, there is a 4 disc set out!  Sure, that's true, but the only difference is that it includes a 3D Blu-ray of the same content as the standard Blu-ray, a DVD, and a separate Digital Copy.  In other words, it is 4 copies of the same thing, nothing more.  No bonus disc.

Boys being boys

Conclusion

I have to say this is one of Disney's best released movies in a long long time.  It is definitely worth watching for so many reasons.  The graphics are out-of-this-world gorgeous, the characters are fun and likable, the story is fantastic, and the music is great!  For an animated film that cost $260 million to make, they definitely showed how to make a CG film right.  Perhaps the ending could have used a little more work.  Perhaps the songs weren't as epic as other Alan Menken songs, but considering the direction Disney has taken with this film, they are officially out of the gutter of mediocrity and back in the saddle again!  I HIGHLY recommend this movie.  5 of 5 stars.  You must see this.  Excellent movie, worth every cent!

Go.  Buy.  Now!  If not, Max is going to find you...

Toy Story 3 Review

I know I promised to put this up earlier, but here it is, finally.  My review of Toy Story 3.

If you are reading this, and you haven't already seen it, then go out to the theater or your local video store (not in stores as of the date of this post, but you know... you could be from the future).  See this movie, one way or another, (legally though please, no illegal downloading). I will keep this short and spoiler free.

Story

The story of Toy Story 3 takes place about 10 years after the last one.  So far, as we can all remember from the first movies, Buzz and Woody are best friends and share being Andy's favorite toy,  Woody has saved many of the toys from being sold or thrown out, or even stolen, and they all lived happily ever after.  Or did they?  After about 10 years, Andy is ready to go to college, and they are never getting played with anymore.  Their attempts to get played with are futile and depressing.  They worry that Andy will just throw them out, or store them for years in the attic.  However, through a series of mishaps, they end up in a donation box heading to Sunnyside Daycare, where the promise of being played with for the rest of their days is before them.  However, not everything at Sunnyside is all flowers and rainbows, and the gang find themselves in a heap or trouble, with only Woody to rescue them.  Buzz is reset to his standard setting, but this time, in Spanish mode!

My opinion on this is very high.  Not only did they address the issue people were wondering from the first movie, what happens to the toys when they are no longer played with, but also adds a new side to the story, and we get to see things from Andy's point of view a little better.  We also get a whole new cast of characters, humans and toys, each well portrayed.

This story gets far more intense than the previous ones.  While in the past, the greatest danger they had to face was being lost, in Toy Story 3, they have greater dangers and concerns that start off right at the beginning of the movie.  The ending will really get to you, as you realize how far they are taking this film, and just how intense it really gets.  Some children might be too young for this one folks.

Graphics

The graphics in this movie are amazing.  The characters are better rendered than the previous movies (I never thought that they could improve on it but they did), the humans are far far better (I'm sure Ratatouille and Wall-E helped with that), the lighting and special effects are perfect, and the animation itself is flawless.  Once again, they showed that not only can they master the animation, but also the story, and all other aspects of making an animated film.

The character designs are great too.  There are a lot of fun new toys, many recognizable toys, and others reminiscent of existing characters (I swear to you I saw Aqua Teen Hunger Force in there).

 The Good

There are a lot of good things about this movie.  For one, the story is spectacular!  Not only did it pull me right in, but it also kept my interest, and made me really feel for these characters.  My favorite part of this movie is the very beginning, where they visually show young Andy's imagination, as he plays with his toys.  It has everything from One-eyed Bart, to their force-field dog, and even the T-Rex, summoned by Jessie's yodel, that eats force-field dogs.  (These are all lines straight out of the first movies).  It was hilarious, and a lot of fun, and a great way of getting the audience into the movie by showing how the toys were played with and how much Andy loved them.

The Bad

There were a few minor things that I wasn't crazy about in this movie.  For one, the new cast of toys included a new cast of voice actors.  Now granted, they want to focus on the characters we already know and love, and not on these new characters that will only play second fiddle to the main cast, but I felt that many of these actors and actresses did not have enough lines.  Many famous names give these characters life, but often they only have 2 lines in the movie.  While this is not a bad thing, for the sake of the main characters and the story itself, it does leave you wondering why get such big names if they are only going to be lending a few lines to the movie?

Further, it does seem as though the humans are even more oblivious to the toys' actions in this movie.  You'd think adults in charge of a daycare would try to avoid letting the youngest kids play with toys that are for the older kids.  However, this again is a minor issue, easily overlooked, and not really distracting at all.  In short, all the bad things were for the benefit of the movie, and I think were done properly, and do not distract from the story, in fact they seem to help the story.

In Short

See this movie.  This is the best ending possible of one of the greatest franchises ever made.  The graphics are amazing, the characters really get attached to you, and there is something in this movie for everyone.  Little kids will love the toys.  Adults will remember their own childhood toys, and perhaps think of their children playing with them.  And that younger crowd, well Andy is about that age, and seeing his struggle to decide, and moving on to go to college, will really ring with them.

Now that last question I have is which is the cuter couple?  Buzz and Jessie, or Barbie and Ken?

I give this a full 5 of 5 stars, they could not have made a better ending to Toy Story than this.

Update, Schools, and Review

I have been very bad lately.  The point of this blog is to help give me the incentive to work on animations, and even comics.  I wanted to use this as a reason to draw every day, to finish more animations for demo reels and just for the experience of it.  And of course to have fun.
Instead, I have been using excuse after excuse in my head, to avoid working on the things I really want to do.  The problem is, I don't get paid to do what I want to do.  In fact, I get paid very little, and only when I find the work doing freelance jobs.  This is not a complaint, only an observation, on which I have full control over the situations.  Currently, I have been doing album layouts for a wedding photographer, some image edits as well, and I just finished up a big job with a photographer who is trying to get his work in a museum.  He also has a few book deals in the works and he may want my help with that too.  I am busy, no doubt about it, but I do not enjoy the work I do, not the way I should.  I am good at image editing, I enjoy the artistic side of it, but I am forced to do menial tasks, with little reward, and limited creativity.  I don't mind a deadline, in fact I work best when under a deadline, but the work that I do is not enjoyable to me and I am unable to really get behind the work I should be doing.  In the end, I avoiding the work I want to be doing as well.  I rather spend my days doing house keeping and playing games, but this will get me no where, and I must use all the time I have to work on what needs to be worked on.
I have made too many promises to too many people that I have not fulfilled, due mostly to my lack of discipline and self-motivation.  I can not go back on these promises, I will move forward and work on these, as well as all the work I need to do for both income and education.  I have a lot of work ahead of me these next 2 days, but I will somehow find the time to prepare some more art to fill this blog by this weekend!

It's time I put my mind and efforts BACK on the right track!

This brings me to the topic of schools, which I am still looking at.  The DAVE school was an experience, and it isn't a bad school at all.  There are a few downsides, the cost being the biggest for me.  Since it is not accredited, it is not eligible for scholarships or grants.  The best a student can hope for is a student loan, in the amount of approximately $40,000!  Now this is a one year school, and it is not an unheard of price for a specialty private school, such as this, and they are well within their rights to ask for such an amount.  However, for me, since I am already in debt to a school that didn't go anywhere for me, I need to consider my options more carefully.
Luck is with me on this topic though.  It just so happens that I have been put into contact with a company, College Lift Off!, which specializes in finding the right school, at the right price, for each person.  We have been working on finding a school that both excels in the field of animation and visual effects, and is also affordable with ample financing options.  There are several candidates right now, one of which is especially interesting, and I am hoping to learn more this week.  I have tried to get in touch with them, but my timing has been off.  I must concentrate on what I need to do, which is making money, and finding a school.  I have long-since given up the job hunt, since my unemployment benefits are no longer active, so I should be spending all my time furthering my career, not just get a job.  I am a little hesitant to mention specifics at this time, I feel it is in my best interest to continue my search for now, and report back later when I have something significant to post.

So since I am currently, and reluctantly, without any art or animations for you to gaze upon, I will offer a short review on the latest anime title my wife and I have been viewing on Blu-ray, Samurai 7.

Samurai 7

 

Samurai 7 is a retelling of the classic 1954 film directed by Akira Kurosawa, Seven Samurai.  The original film is a masterpiece of cinematography, story telling, acting, and film making.  I know of no other film to date that can compete with the subtle complexities of the story and cinematography.  Seven Samurai is, without a doubt, one of the greatest films ever made.  I could go into a detailed explanation and review on how absolutely magnificent this film is, detailing the masterwork in each scene, but I will not.  For one, many people may not appreciate all the nuances and subtle ingenuity, in much the same way most people do not recognize the genius of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Of course most film enthusiast would agree that both these films are timeless works of art.  Regardless, a work of art Samurai 7 is not.


 Blu-ray
Movie
Oh, boy, where to begin.  Most of you know I am a big fan of the Japanese pop-art 'sensation' of anime.  I have been an avid watcher since the early 90's, before most people knew what anime was, so you can say my interest is not a mere passing fad.  I appreciate any good animated feature, although recently I have found little to interest me short of Hayao Miyazaki and Pixar films.  Still, I have been interested in the cover art of this particular series when I see it on shelves, and I decided to rent it on Blu-ray to give it a twirl.
Imagine Seven Samurai, now replace all the bandits with (dear God I can't believe I am saying this) Giant Robots.  Yes... Giant Robots.  Oh, I should have stopped watching there, right in the beginning of the first episode when they first showed up, I should have turned off the disc, returned it, and removed the next 2 discs from the queue.  Sadly, I did not.
In an attempt to make the struggle between the samurai, the farmers, and the bandits all the more epic and grandiose, they turned the bandits into 4 story tall robots.  It appears someone from the staff of Gundam snuck in to a staff meeting and decided to throw in a few of his poorly sketched mecha designs.  Granted, the reasoning behind this is quite complex, although convoluted.  They intended to further develop the complexity of the relationship between the samurai, the villagers, and the bandits, as well as the capitol itself, which is run by merchants.  By having the bandits steal the rice, they could sell it to the capitol, which would use it for trade, to become wealthy, and keep the villagers under thumb.  While this seems simple enough, the mechanical nature of the bandits leads to discrimination and fear for anything mechanical.  To this end, they attempted to further complicated the already complicated and well developed character of "Kikuchiyo" (Which the English dub pronounced "Kikucho" or "Kiku" for short), by turning him into a mechanical samurai as well, so not only does he bridge the gap between the farmers and the samurai, but he also brings in an innate understanding of how the bandits work and think, as well as becoming a point of hatred for the leader of the merchants, who fears anything mechanical.
Kikushiyo isn't the only character butchered by this loose interpretation.  While many of the samurai undergo minor character changes, the villagers are downright backwards.  Instead of the village elder sending out 4 men into the city to look for samurai, they decide to send 1 man, 1 "water priestess", and 1 little kid.  Of course, the water priestess is a combination of Shino and many of the villagers, yet she is not Shino, as her character still shows up.  This new character has the ability to dowse for water, or apparently samurai.  The little girl seems to have no point but to be an annoyance that dumbs down any complex aspect and retells the story for those who fell asleep.  Cute, sure, but pointless and annoying.  The rest of the villagers have little importance.  The conflict between the youngest samurai, Katsushiro, and Shino is not even existent.  Instead, they try to move the love triangle (a triangle??) to Katsushiro, the water priestess, and Kambei.  YES...  Kambei.  Oh, is that a spoiler?  Well, trust me, watching this will spoil your appetite, and probably your eyes.
I could go on.  They continue to mutilate this story by adding new characters, factions, overly complex politics, overly simplified and lacking character development and relationships, and extremely unrealistic and laughable fight scenes.  It is amazing they managed to take a 4 hour long masterpiece and turn it into a 26 episode long travesty.  The gigantic explosions at the end of the series signify not only the destruction of the capitol, but also the destruction of any redeemable quality of this anime.  There is a reason I don't watch many anime series anymore, so many of them turn out like this.  Apparently, they assumed that by sticking direct quotes from the original movie into this series would be enough to justify these mutilations, but they only serve to further bury the enormous sonic sword into the heart of Kurosawa and all cinematography.
I give this a 2 out of 5 stars.  It could have sucked even more, but it is so far from the original source, it should be banned in most countries.

Video
Oh. My. God!  This has got to be the worst Blu-ray I have ever seen in my life!  Nay.  The worst disc!  I am sure the DVD would look better than this.  Allow me to explain.  This transfer most assuredly uses a 1080p HD image, capturing all the detail, or lack thereof, that this anime boasts.  Unfortunately, like some other animated movies, banding is an issue.  That is actually a lie, banding is much more than an "issue", its a serious problem.  It is hard to watch ANYTHING with the MASSIVE banding issues this series sports.  It is consistent through the entire series, from the first unexplained and confusing flashback, to the final eye-gouging explosion.  It is downright hard to see any of the other compression errors this series has thanks to the massive banding.  Scenes that should have no banding at all are full of them.  It is as bad as trying to watch a movie with an 8-bit color pallet, only worse.  The flashbacks, previews, and reviews at the beginning and ending of each episode use a cookie-cutter effect, filled with black dots that start to look like dead pixels or dirt.  Granted this is a minor annoyance, but enough to distract me and make me want to clean off my screen.
The real problem is the fact that the Blu-ray producers decided that 50GB meant they can stick 8 or 10 episodes per disc, rather than the standard 4.  This means they instead of dedicating the extra space to quality video and audio, they compressed the HELL out of it to fit on more content.  The result....  a mess that wreaks as bad as the bog of eternal stench.
I give this a 1 out of 5 stars.  It was in HD... I think... but I bet you watching the DVD will prove less painful.

Audio
I am not really sure where to go with this.  The Japanese had much better sound than the English.  The English changed names and such.  They used decent voice actors to more or less fit the parts, and the acting is not half bad, but there is really no quality to the audio.  It just didn't impress me... sort of blah.
I will give this a 2.5 of 5, since it neither has absolutely awful quality, nor was it really notable.  Just meh.

Extras
What are those?

Overall
This is quite simply the worst anime I have seen in a long time.  Not the worst I have ever seen, but it is pretty bad.  The original movie is so full of nuances and complex relationships, as well as well developed characters and an epic battle, I was hoping to see some of this in anime form, with more explanation into what was going on.  Instead, I am bombarded with a corrupt government stealing rice from farmers through a complexly organized system of giant mechanical bandits who sell rice to "gaurdians" who in turn trade it to the merchants for land (?), who in turn sell the rice for trade.  No one eats this stuff except the samurai, who have no real part in society.  The ingenious schemes of Kambei are suddenly more convoluted and far less impressive.  The crazy antics of Kikuchiyo have turned him into a mechanical samurai equivalent of a 5th grader on crack.  The restructuring of the characters is both pointless and annoying, and only serves to further complicate matters in the wrong way.  Main characters are given completely different goals, outcomes, and roles.  All these things, while occasionally throwing in a random quote from the original film where it best suits them.  About the only thing they did right in this series was kill off the right characters in ways similar to the original film... mostly.
What is it they say?  You can't judge a Blu-ray by its cover?  Something like that...
I give this a 1.5 out of 5.  The story is awful, the video quality is unforgivably vomitous, the audio falls short of anything acceptable, and there are no extras in sight.  But most importantly, they put Akira Kurosawa's name RIGHT ON THE FRONT of this atrocity!  Kurosawa must be spinning in his grave.  The abomination called Samurai 7 is an attempt to assassinate quality film, and the Blu-ray format, as well as HD, anime, and human sight.  To call this watchable is an overstatement.  Most would probably not even rate this as bearable.  I will say it is unforgivable.  A POX on the Blu-ray Authoring group who made this pile of muck.  Even though the story is convoluted, laughable, and an atrocity to the source it names itself after, the very least you can do is spare our eyesight from the banding...

... The Banding...



... THE BANDING!!!

Avatar Review

Today, I would like to do a brief review of James Cameron's latest film, Avatar.
As most of you know, Avatar is a movie about an alien world inhabited by blue people who are fighting for their own world against humans. Well that is part of it at least. I never like to give away spoilers, although most people have seen this film already.
When I first heard about this movie, I was confused between this Avatar, and the TV series Avatar, The Last Airbender. The airbender tv series is a great animated show with a very different theme from Cameron's movie. Both were announced as movies at around the same time, and with he same name. They are even both due out this year, although one has been in theaters and the other is due out in a few months. Regardless, the confusion over the name used to be a very strong thing, and still affects a lot of people. Just doing a search for "Avatar" in Google Images, you will find the first several pages dedicated to the tv series, not the movie.
Luckily, M. Night Shamalan, the director of the airbender film, has decided to change the name to simply The Last Airbender, which hopefully will clear up any further confusion.
Now on to the film.

I felt that I needed to see this film twice in order to get a full idea of the story, characters, and effects. Both times, I saw this at an AMC "IMAX" 3D screen. This is a great experience, which I could go on about for hours, but I will keep this very brief. In order to summaries, I will split this into sections: story, characters, effects, IMAX 3D, and finally quality and overall.

Story:
I have heard many people say that this movie is just a reenactment of Disney's Pocahontas, or even Dune. However I have to respond that it is not the same, and despite the strong similarities, there is another view. All stories borrow from other stories. Whether they are movies, comics, books, or whatever, there are no original stories. So while this may borrow heavily from other titles, it is still a unique aspect, and a well delivered story. And indeed it was well delivered, closing any loose ends, bringing together all the important and even some subtle bits of information into a cohesive ending. They did an excellent job of giving this story life, and of making it enjoyable from beginning to end. The main themes are universal and well understood, with a strong message that has been repeated many times lately. Our planet is a living thing and we need to treat it better. I do like the aspect that the spiritual and natural ways of the Navi are actually measurable scientifically. By using special neural connections in their hair, they can interact with animals, plants, and event he planet itself in way we can only imagine. The connections between all these living things physically embody the ideals of many of the American tribes, and give us even better reason to believe that these beings are not just pointlessly spiritual, but that they are physically and mentally connected to every living thing.
I have heard others say that even though this movie is roughly 3 hours long, it does not feel like it. And I agree. After we saw this film for the last time, it was already after 10:30 at night, and I could have sworn it was only 9. This may be so in part to the story, and in part to the effects.

Characters:
The characters are well rounded, 3 dimensional characters with a lot of development.  While the main character of Jake Sully starts off with a past, problems of his own, and even a family, the story quickly launches him into a world where we has no more family, no more goals, and just want to stick with what he does best, despite his lack of funds to allow him to be healed so he can fight again.  The changes that happen to him so fast in his life lead to him being the character we all have to associate with.  He knows little to nothing about Pandora, he has never piloted an "Avatar" before, and he open to learning just about anything.  It is this openness, and his skills as a marine (combined with the only way he has been able to walk and run in years) that has lead him to really engage with the Avatar program.  He must pilot a biologically grown Navi body.  It is this same openness and warrior status that drive the Navi to teach him their ways, and accept him, eventually, as one of their own.  That is all I will give away, since it is really the premise of the film, but I will say that many of these characters are strongly affected emotionally by the events and actions of the story.  The heir to the clan is of course skeptical and only wants to protect his clan, his people and planet, his position, and his woman.  But as he grows, eventually he too changes his views as events unfold.  The female lead here, a Navi flying warrior, also grows.  She is next to be the spiritual leader, and at first views Jake as an enemy, then as an annoyance, growing into curiosity, to a friend, and eventually lover, only to feel betrayed later on.
Even the character of the General in charge of the human forces is well designed.  He has one goal in mind, to protect his people while they mine for resources.  But in the end, his own tough attitude and power hungry ego gets the best of him as he wages an all out war not only against he Navi, but also against his people, and the man he once relied on for intel.  Even the head of the company's operations is a conflicted characters, not wanted to hurt or attack the Navi, but not understanding their view and forced to look out for the company's best interest as he sees it.
I must say that these characters are all multifaceted, with a lot of development and emotional connections.

 

Effect

Wow!  Amazing!  I can't think of anything as amazing as the effects in this movie.  The quality of the effects is astounding!  Every minute of the work that went into this film was well worth it.  Every frame is a masterful work of cinematic art.  But lets get down to it.

The effects are indeed drop dead gorgeous.  If the story and characters weren't also excellent, this movie would still have a chance on the graphics alone.  Granted, all these aspects are astounding, but none of them show off the quality of this work as well as the graphics do.  The characters interact so flawlessly, I can not for the life of me see where the CG begins, and the acting ends.  It is just flawless.  I feel that the best part about this was the outdoor scenes.  Every blade of grass, every leaf, every animal, every drop of water, mist, clouds, fire, everything is completely believable!  It is full of subtle details that really make you wonder how they could have done so much!  The characters are a close second however.  The Navi are incredibly amazing, with perfect details and animation.  The subtle emotions on their faces, the body movement, the way they balance on their feet, their tales, even the fact that the Avatar bodies (having human DNA mixed with Navi DNA) have 5 fingers while the natural Navi only have 4, are flawless spectacular details that I only dream about doing myself one day.  Even the humans are perfect.  Makeup on the colonel is amazingly good and distinctive, really adding to the character.  The actor Sam Worthington, who plays the main character Jake, is a healthy active guy who stars in many action movies, and yet here, he is a crippled human with legs that have dystrophy (weakened and unusable).  I am amazed at how realistic they made his legs look when you see him moving around with these 2 bony weak legs, like anyone in Jake's position would naturally have.  Amazing.

On that note, I did notice two, and only two things that may or may not have been there.  With my keen eyes and attention to detail, I noticed 2 scenes, fairly close together, where is something off.  The first is a scene when Jake wakes up in ashes (you know what it is when you see it), the arm band he wears is black with little blue stones in the center.  However, without any interaction from navi or humans in between scenes, by the time he is landing before the people on his newly acquired "ride", he has a cyan beaded armband.  Why would be go change armbands, and how?  Still, I might have overlooked something there.  The second issue is actually in this same scene.  As he approaches the clan leader, the look on the leader's face is priceless (mouth agape), but it is also a little off.  This one is a graphics issue, which I have noticed twice now.  The lighting that shines onto the face of the leader doesn't look quite right in the area of his mouth, almost like too much light is getting into around his teeth.  It almost looks like he has a CG glowy mouth, but the rest of him is real.  Now it could be that it is an artifact of the light shining into his face, and is at just the right angle to make it look this way, but it did look off to me.

Regardless, if these are the only problems that I could find, then I have to say it is by far the best CG I have ever seen in my life.

IMAX 3D

 This film was presented in IMAX 3D.  In the AMC screen I went to, this is not the IMAX format screen, but an IMAX brand screen.  Therefore it is NOT the full sized IMAX screen and you may actually lose information due to this.  What I mean is that some movies, like Dark Knight, and Transformers 2, use select scenes to fill an IMAX screen, and present an amazingly engaging scene.  But the IMAX format for these traditional IMAX screen are very square, and very large, at a 1.44:1 ratio.  In fact, the average traditional IMAX screen is 72 ft × 53 ft, while the largest is 117.2 ft × 96.5 ft.  Typical films use 35mm film, while IMAX films use 70mm film.  Regardless, the AMC IMAX screens are not even close to this.  However, they are very impressive.  One big disadvantage of the traditional IMAX screen is that any seat that is not in the ideal spot can be downright painful to watch a movie in.  I have seen several films this way, where in one I was so far off to the side that I got very bad neck aches, and in another I was so far to the front I got awful eye and head aches as well.  This screen is still very high quality, and does not have this problem no matter what seat you get.  Luckily, it is a good experience in most seats.  The IMAX quality is still there, although, like I said, not in IMAX format.  This means it is not a 70mm film, not is it a 1.44:1 ratio screen, and is probably not as wide either.  But I would still say that this is an excellent experience to see.  These screens are high, high quality, and have sharp detailed images with no distortion, no noise, no dirt, nothing.  A flawless presentation.

The 3D, aka stereoscopy, was impressive, but more subtle than I would have liked.  There are 2 planes for 3D films.  The back plane, where the stereoscopy happens "behind" the screen, and the forward plane, where the effect is in "front" of the screen.  Really good movies try to utilize both, to great effect.  Downright bad movies focus too much on sticking out and can really give you a headache trying to focus on the action.  However, this movie focuses more on the back, pushing the effects into the screen.  Instead of seeing the flying reptiles hovering over the front row, you see him on the screen, while the background goes way back into the distance.  I like this for the reason that it presents itself more as a film, and less as a gimmick, and lowers the amount of headache complaints.  However, as others have told me as well, I think it should use a little more of the forward plane than it does.  I does indeed use the forward plane, and to good effects, but usually for minor foreground objects like debris and floating seeds.  It brings you into the scene this way, but I feel they could have pulled a few things out a little further to really show off the 3D.

That being said, I will say that this subtle 3D style is perfect, and looks amazing.  You get so used to it, you hardly even realize it is there after a while, you just get used to seeing it.

OVERALL

 Finally, the overall quality of this film is perfect.  You can not find a better presented film with better effects, better story, or more memorable characters than this.  The amazing visuals really bring in the audience, who are then taken by surprise by the amazing story to go with it.  Everything from the grand outdoors scenes, to the subtle details and movements, to the lighting and color, this movie is as good as it gets!

I can not give any movie a higher recommendation than I give this one.  A+++!!!  If you only see one movie this century, Avatar is the one to see.

Well that about raps it up.  Again, Avatar is an amazing movie worth seeing multiple times.  I can't wait to get it on Blu-ray, and by the time this film hits 3D in the home, I may just have to upgrade my system again.

If you have already seen it, see it again!  If you haven't, GO SEE IT NOW!

If you really get into the story and world of Pandora, check out this great book, Avatar, An Activists Survival Guide.  It shows a lot of things you didn't notice, teaches you things about the world you didn't know, and is a fun book to just pick up and flip through.

Review of Monsters Inc.

One of the items you can always find on my holiday and birthday wish lists are Blu-rays.  For those who don't know, these are the DVD-like discs that play movies in High Definition.  Where a DVD has up to ~9GB, a Blu-ray has up to ~50GB, allowing for better image, better sound, and better extras.  It also uses more interactive features, including the pop-up menus, picture-in-picture, games, and even web content, to name a few.  The image is usually very sharp and amazing, the best in the market to-date!


Well, one such title I recently watched was Pixar's Monsters Inc.  For this review I will cover 2 different aspects of the release, the movie itself, and the Blu-ray.

MOVIE
What an amazing movie!  The story is unique and fun, playing on the idea of the world of the monsters that live in your closet, and how they are more afraid of you than you are of them.  The main characters, Mike and Sully, are employees at the Monstropolis power plant.  Their power?  Children's screams.  They must frighten kids in order to power their city.  But when one monster tried to cheat on the all-time scare record, a fearless little girl, dubbed Boo, playfully waltzes into their world, where children are thought to be toxic!
This is a great movie, with lots of fun characters and surprises, and a story that really impresses me.  The characters are well-developed, and grow to care for the child they once thought to be deadly, and set out to make sure she gets home safely, even if that means they can never see her again.  I have seen this movie several times, and I still feel for these characters.
The comedy throughout the movie is spot-on.  With plenty of slap-stick, and a number of visual gags, kids will love this movie.  But there are also a number of jokes only the older audience will get (or at least appreciate), leaving most of us with something to really chew on.
There are some pretty dramatic scenes as well.  While most of the monsters are funny, cute, or even cuddly (Boo calls Sully "Kitty"), there are a few that might be too scary for little kids.  There are also a few scenes that get very intense, including the great door chase at the end.  However, I think these make this movie really spectacular.  The visuals are stunning, and colors are bright, and the setting is fun.
I highly recommend the movie to everyone who still has a little kid in them.

BLU-RAY
The Blu-ray release itself will be split into different categories, including Video, Audio, Extras, and Overall.

Video
The video on this movie is stunning!  The characters show more detail and subtly than I remember in theaters.  The colors are bright and stunning, and the dark levels are good and even through the whole movie.  The image is so good, in fact, that you can see the fine details that give away how old the movie is.  Sometimes the lighting doesn't bounce off the image just right, or the shadow doesn't quite work right.  However, this is a very minor thing and is something I would like to stay in the movie, since it shows, in-part, the evolution of the medium.  To have created a main character with long detailed fur was really pushing the envelope, and to have pulled it off so well is very impressive.
Speaking of fur, this leads me to the one aspect of this film that kept hitting my eyes like needles.  Sully's fur is detailed, and colorful, and aliased.  All the fur on this shoulders (i.e. the long bouncy fur) is aliased through most of the movie.  It can be seen in screenshots, but even more so in the animation, as movement creates an effect that makes it stand out even more.  I am sure MOST people will not notice this problem, but eagle-eyed as I am, I cannot avoid it!  I promise not to point this problem out to anyone I invite over to watch the film, as I am sure they will not see it unless I point it out.  My eyes just go right to it, and stay there the rest of the movie.  I am not sure if this is a resolution issue, a rendering issue, or a source issue, but whatever it is, it is a distraction.  I hope this is merely a rendering issue.  I am sure the HD is high enough resolution that it should be a problem there, however it is possible the rendering technique is not detailed enough to pick up the small hairs smoothly with enough anti-aliasing.  If that is the case, they would need to scrap the HD source they made, make the proper adjustments to the files, and re-render everything!  I doubt they will be willing to do that, and I would be surprised if someone in their staff didn't notice this.  It is probably something they figured would be a minor glitch no one would notice, but I hope that someday they fix this issue.
That being said, I want to say that besides this small aliasing artifact, the rest of the movie is amazing!  It IS still worth a Blu-ray release just for the video.

Audio
But the audio is even more impressive.  They remixed this movie with a Home Theater 5.1 surround sound mix, using lossless compression, for the highest quality sound.  Every sound is accurately depicted and well placed in the sound field.  The range is impressive as well.  You have some scenes where the voice acting really moves the story (and what great acting it is), and others where the sound effects and the music really take over.  The musical score is another hit, with a song by Randy Newman, and a score that really fits well with the film.  The voice acting is perfect.  They got a wonderful cast and a lot of great interaction between them.  The sound effects really take the cake though.  You can really hear the work of the foley artists who created them, and can really appreciate the amount of work that went in to adding the sounds of their world.  One scene is particular is very impressive.  The door chase scene is full of large sounds, from the booming of the factory, to the powering up of the doors, and, of course, doors closing all around you.  You can pinpoint where the characters are exactly on the sound alone.
That being said, the English version is in full quality, but also included are DVD-quality French and Spanish versions.  It is interesting to note that the animators actually made a few minor adjustments to the video to better fit the language.  For example, in one scene, Sully is trying to get Boo to go to sleep.  He uses his hands to visually act out the words, resulting in a bit of humor as well.  In English he says, "You go to sleep" while he points at her for You, then shows his fingers walking for go, followed by holding up 2 fingers for to, and then puts his hands by his head like a pillow and pretends to snore for sleep.  However, in the other languages, he does not hold up 2 fingers, but instead waves 1 finger. While I cannot figure out EXACTLY what he is saying in each language, it makes sense that 2 fingers would not translate well.  I am very impressed that they actually have these changes on the Blu-ray release.

Extras
There are actually 4 discs in this set.  That's right, 4!  The first is the movie on Blu-ray, with everything in HD.  The second is an extras disc, which should all be in HD, or at least mostly.  The third is the DVD copy of the movie, so you can watch it on-the-go, or on the computer, or anywhere you don't have a Blu-ray player.  I love this idea, cause it not only helps persuade people to buy into Blu-ray, but also gives them more value for their money.  The fourth disc is the digital copy in SD, which allows you to put the movie on your computer, and even your iPod/iPhone.  Another great idea, since this helps fight the idea of piracy.  People complain they want to watch the movie on the metro or bus, or on a trip, and that they need it even more portable than a DVD.  Now that excuse will not work with a digital copy.  It allows you to watch the movie on your computer, on the train, on the plane, anywhere you can fit your iPod/iPhone.  Obviously this won't stop pirating, but it is a step in the right direction.  Even I have made copies of DVDs before, although I only copy movies I own, and never give them out.  I use these copies as backup and to watch foreign DVDs on my PS3/iMac when they are the wrong region (somewhat less of a problem with Blu-ray).
I have not gone through the second disc yet, but I can say that the first disc has all the basic extras from the DVD, as well as a few new things, including a tour of a new ride in Disney Tokyo, where you can play flashlight tag in the streets of Monstropolis.  There was one thing, however, that was not on the first disc that I spent a while looking for.  At the end of most Pixar movies are usually gags that they like to play during the credits.  While I don't recall there being any in the movie Up, I know that Monster's Inc had both gags and a fake play Mike and Sully were using as an excuse in the movie.  They actually acted out the events of the movie in a low-budget play (CG of course) for their company.  Only, there was no singing and dancing at the end of the movie, no gags or jokes, and I could not find them on the disc at all.  I did find the short Mike's New Car (which is hilarious), and also the short that played before the movie in theaters, For the Birds, but no company play or gags.  However, it has come to my attention, thanks to my friends over at www.Blu-ray.com, that both the gags and the play are indeed on the second disc.  But you'd think they would put these regular extras on the first disc where most people will look for it
The 2nd disc advertises that it has a 100 door challenge, with 100 mini games, a factory tour, banished concepts, "and much, much more".  I have not gone through the second disc yet, but I do plan to look at it soon.  I may (or may not) update my review with the content from disc 2 at a later date.

Overall
The Blu-ray itself is impressive, but not the best by Pixar.  The aliasing issue on Sully is a distraction that seriously dampened the experience for me, but I think I can overlook it.  It is still an amazing release, worthy of a Blu-ray, full of detail and color, with amazing sound and loads of extras.  I give this a 4 out of 5 stars, due in part to the aliasing issue, and the misplaced gags and short.


That does it for my review for Monster's Inc.  This is an amazing movie, with touching scenes, adventure, and lots of comedy.  If you have a Blu-ray player, add this to your collection!  If you don't have a Blu-ray player, what are you waiting for?

Review of Disney's "Princess and the Frog"

While I am going to use this blog to mainly focus on my own experiences in my latest animation project(s), I am also going to use this to occasionally review animated films.  These are professionally animated movies which (god-willing) will not be "weakly animated", but should provide to be a great source of inspiration to animators and artists.  While new movies will always make it on my list, I may chose to review or comment on an older movie that sparked my interest or really excited me.  This will include both 2D and 3D movies, both fully animated and partially animated.  Expect to see the occasional review of such films as Wall-E, Avatar, and even anime like Ghost in the Shell.  (That isn't to say I might not throw in a true weakly animated review every so often, just to warn others).
So for this first review, I will briefly go over my view of Disney's The Princess and the Frog.  My wife and I saw this on the opening weekend, looking forward to this as a new beginning for Disney.  For us, the Disney movies started to run downhill before their Home on the Range movie, and their 3D films have just been embarrassing.  So when Pixar and John Lasseter "took over" Disney (by that, we merely mean that the team behind the Pixar hits are now involved with and directing the Disney Animation Studios), we were excited to see what they would come out with.  We were pleasantly surprised with Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt was a great movie.  This, being Lasseter's first full-length 2D film, and the first 2D film from Disney since their Home on the Range film in 2004, promises to be a new beginning for Disney and their re-emergence in both the Classic Disney story-telling and traditional 2D animation.

The Princess and the Frog really brought back the classic style and feel of the original Disney animated fairytales.  We both enjoyed this film, although we did have some criticism for it.  While I feel this is a huge leap in the right direction for Disney, I don't think this is as much of a leap they could have made.  In regards to the few concerns people had about racism in this film, I did not really see any evidence of it.  There is one scene where 2 men (dressed in a donkey costume, if that tells you anything) say something along the lines of "a girl with your background".  At first this sounded slightly racist to me, but I think it is intended to be a class issue, someone who is lower class versus someone who is higher class.  Beyond that, I think they handled race well by simply not making it an issue.
The story itself was a very good twist on the original fairytale.  While I do not want to give anything away (I really hate it when things get spoiled for me, so I try to not spoil things for others), I will say that this plays on the princess and the magic kiss theme.  It is clearly a family movie...

I must explain more clearly what I mean by a "family movie".  In my opinion, outside of the rating system (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, NR), films have a target audience that they try to appeal to.  This does not actually have to do with the rating they receive, although they have to make sure the rating is compatible with their target audience.  I have split the target audience into separate catagories.
Children: These are movies intended for children, with little to no entertainment value for adults and teens.
Family:  These are intended for the entire family demographic.  That means children, parent,s brothers, sisters, young, old.  While it tries to have something for everyone, it is often mistaken for a children's movie because it is not specifically targeted toward adults or teens.
Teens/Action: Action blockbuster, aka a Guy's Flick.  Usually full of special effects and action with some adult content, mostly defined by its violence.  Adults love these as much as teens sometimes.
Teens/Romance:  The typical "Chick Flick", and other similar movies.  These are the date movies, romance comedies, vampire love stories, and so on with little to no violence and special effects.  Both adults and males watch and enjoy these as much as teens and women.
Adults:  These films are adult films, movies meant for people who can handle adult things.  Not specifically meant for titillation and the like, these films are more adult in their structure and presentation.  Movies like Watchmen fit here despite the heavy effects and graphics, but at the same time, movies like Nixon/Frost are also listed here.  Both deal with adult issues, and contain adult situations.  That is not to say teens don't want to or do see these movies, but the target audience is not the teenager.
Educational:  These are documentaries and educational films, usually suited for the full audience range, but often targeted at a specific demographic.  They have their own listing because they are not usually associated with big blockbuster films.  Several blockbuster films will also be educational but not fit into this category, because the target demographic is not the same.
"Specialty":  This is what I call the adult X rated movies.  They are intended for the pure adult audience interested in titillation and related adult material.  I will not be rating any movies under this category, animated for not, since they are of no interest to this project or the development of animation.

As I was saying before, this is a family movie, with a lot to offer the adults and teens, as well as the children.  In fact, I would say many family movies like this one have more to offer the adults and teens than the children, who often miss the deeper layers of the film.  (That is not to say this movie is as complicated as an adult love story, but it does have more than enough to offer the older audience).  The one caveat I have is that this story seems a tad too short.  An extra 20 minutes would have done wonders for this movie for both the story, and the character development.
As far as the characters are concerned, while the original trailers had me concerned over the animal characters, I am glad to say they are not as annoying as I thought they would be, they are even downright enjoyable.  There is plenty of character development, although at times I think it is a little too sudden and needed more time to flesh out some of the character-changing events a little more.  Regardless, I was quite happy with the way the characters turned out and the way they developed with the story.  My favorite character would have to be the villain, although Tiana's over-hyper rich friend is a close second.  The villain, a voodoo witch-doctor, has an interesting and fun style and his magic was very unique and was intense at times.
Finally, lets talk tech.  Technically, I was very pleased with the quality of this movie.  I recognized that many scenes used 3D modeling, and yet was glad to see they were seamlessly integrated with the rest of the film.  The use of color was very vivid, and the imagery was very "Disney" magical.  The animation of the characters was very tight, well handled hand-drawn animation.  Digital painting allows them to make a flawless presentation of animation and shading using a variety of techniques from traditional cell-shading to the lighter airbrush effects.  The characters themselves are very fluid and flowing, with very good dance moves during all the songs, and flowing animation that really define the characters.  There is a lot of style in this movie, but it oozes with technical know-how.  They have clearly gotten down the fine details of their craft and have perfected into the art it deserves to be.  I especially love the little hyperactive reactions of Tiana's rich friend who gets overly excited quite easily, practically jumping over the other characters.

Overall, I give this a 4 out of 5.  For technical ability, I feel this is as good as you will get anytime soon, however certain other projects looming in the shadows promise to out-shine even this gem.  For characters, I feel that, while these are well-designed characters that develop well through the story, there was still more that could have been done to really bring out the main characters and really round off the others.  As far as story is concerned, it is a good story, with a nice twist, but is lacking the real evolution I was hoping.  Other films by Lasseter (such as Up, Wall-E, etc), have a point in the story when the original goal of the characters are drastically changed, and the entire feel of the movie is altered, to a point where you thought the movie was going to end, but there is still a good 20-30 minutes left.  It is this last half hour or so that really makes these films shine, something this film could desperately use to make it as bright as the other big star movies he has made.  Specifically, there needed to be more between the prince and Tiana, more between the villain and his "powers", as well as more conflict at the end (perhaps a more dramatic and even desperate scene from him), and more to bring the story to a close.
Regardless, I still feel this was a very good movie, which I would recommend to movie and animation lovers, who want to see a witty twist on the classic story, with great music, amazing animation and visuals, and good characters.  If you leave wanting more, perhaps that is a good thing.  It is always better to want more out of a movie, than to leave wishing there was less.