After three movies, Robert Zemeckis is still dead set on this motion-capture stuff even though no one besides him seems to like it. I don’t hate it, I just don’t really get it. If you want the characters to look sort of like the actors but stylized, use makeup. It looks better. If you want them to look nothing like reality, just animate them altogether. Mo-cap is a weird, off-putting hybrid, like John Travolta in drag (as opposed to an awesome hybrid, like bearsharktopus). Anyway, the jury’s still out on whether A Christmas Carol will be a success or a bomb, but Zemeckis is already doubling down on the mo-crap with an adaptation of The Nutcracker. From Pajiba:
To be sure, this is not an adaptation of the popular Tchaikovsky ballet (fathers everywhere can breath a sigh of relief) but an adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original novel, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Zemeckis’ The Nutcracker will be a faithful adaptation, as well. It’ll be a period piece, set in 19th century Russia, which will explore how the cursed Nutcracker character came to be and the battle between the dolls and the mice.
You catch that? The Nutcracker, it’s about rich, 19th century kids’ toys that come to life, not what your mom used to eat at frat parties. Though if you ask me, the idea still sounds a little, shall we say, jacked off on.
Does anyone actually like motion-capture besides Robert Zemeckis?
After the jump you can watch the first full trailer for his A Christmas Carol starring digital Jim Carrey. The 3-D, motion-capture-animated adaptation of the Dickens’ tale beautifully combines two technological innovations that I hate. I’ve said it before, but look, if you want to animate something, just draw the damned thing. (and if you want to put a fleshlight in someone’s hand, use Photoshop). Motion-capture still doesn’t look as good as photography, and none of the “nifty” effects are as cool as real-world special effects like costumes and pyrotechnics. And you know how in real life you can see people’s pupils expand and contract as they focus on stuff and adjust to light? They don’t seem to do that in motion-capture, and it makes people look… well, sorta weird. Which we might be able to accept if there were… you know, any actual benefit to motion capture. I don’t want to sit through this technology’s growing pains any more than I would’ve wanted to be the first guy to get a heart transplant. “Did it work?” “Nah, he’s dead. Maybe next time we should try filling him with baboon blood first, I just have a hunch.”
Okay, now I’ve never heard of these dudes before, but I guess there is this band called The Beatles and apparently they’ve had a couple of hits over years…I guess. It’s hard to tell if they’re popular or not, because I recently bought Now That’s What I Call Music 30 and none of their songs were on it. Pussycat Dolls were on there for sure, but not these dudes called The Beatles.
Anyway, news today is that Robert Zemeckis and Disney are in talks to remake Yellow Submarine into a 3-D bigscreen feature. Don’t choke on the bong water, Spicoli, you read that correctly: a 3-D version of Yellow Submarine; an experience that sounds both amazingly awesome and yet horribly terrifying, all at the same time.
Disney and Robert Zemeckis are looking to catch the wave of Beatlemania, floating a new 3-D “Yellow Submarine” for the bigscreen, with merchandising in tow and prospects for spinning off both a Broadway musical and a Cirque du Soleil stage production. [Variety]
Fresh off this morning’s promotional shot of Jim Carrey, we now have a short video clip (below) from Robert Zemeckis’ 3D IMAX motion-capture extravaganza, A Christmas Carol. As I said of the first picture, it still looks weird. I understand the downside of motion capture - characters with creepy dead eyes, a movie that looks transition scenes from a video game… But what’s the upside? Is there really someone out there going, “Well… I like animation, but… I think it at times, it can be a little, you know… stylish.”
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All it takes is one look at an ugly annoying hipster wearing neon Ray Bans to know that the 80s are, like, totally hip again. Which makes it not all that surprising that Robert Zemeckis is talking about another Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
When MTV News caught up with director Robert Zemeckis recently, he dropped a news bomb that had our eyes popping cartoon-style out of our sockets. “I’ll tell you what is buzzing around in my head now that we have the ability—the digital tools, performance capture—I’m starting to think about ‘Roger Rabbit,’” he told us.
Hmm, the original combined super-stylized cartoons with live action, and performance-capture turns live action into creepy mannequins. So basically, his idea is to make this one nothing like the original at all? Hard to say. But between Roger Rabbit 2 and the inevitable Running Man remake, I finally feel confident unleashing my sweet dance moves again. Good thing I saved all these jean shorts with lace coming out the bottom.
