(Untitled)

[drakeducaine]

Must note, love "9". Gotta find a cheap copy somewhere and watch it a few times. It's odd, because although I like steampunky stuff from a stylistic perspective, I have a hard time connecting to it personally. Too much grime and too little green. Leave it to a few big-eyed rag dolls to do it, though. Most of the steampunk I've seen seems to involve

Comments

[sfwriter]

I thought the short was brilliant, but I had my doubts about the feature length version. Been leaning towards watching it though, I guess you pushed me over the rest of the way. :D

[drakeducaine]

Definitely watch it! I had never seen the short before I watched the movie, and after seeing both (movie first), the short seems like it was just enriched to turn into the movie. It's obvious that Shane Acker has had the entire world, plot, characters etc. constructed for the movie long before even the short was made. So it wasn't, for example, the two characters of 5 and 9 from the short with a bunch of extra characters added in. Everyone plays an essential role. The fact that the characters speak in 9 isn't a bad thing either, because a lot of the interaction between them is nonverbal. Actually, I felt the voice acting was a little weak for some characters, spot on for others, but the non-100% acted characters rarely speak, out of habit. Their awkward voice delivery may have actually been done on purpose, because the characters themselves aren't used to speaking out much. The movie's surprisingly deep. Watch and enjoy!

[sfwriter]

Thanks, I think I will track it down. The fact that they did talk was one of the things bothering me, because (even more so in animation), speech can open the door to so many weaknesses of writing, acting, and so on... (I guess I watch far too many silent movies. And nonverbal cartoons. :D)

[drakeducaine]

I agree with you completely. Quite a few people have wanted to do completely nonverbal feature length pictures (Disney's Dinosaur, when it was originally conceived a half billion years ago :) or in unique languages with no subtitles (Dark Crystal was supposed to be like this originally, I think, although maybe with subtitles

[sfwriter]

Yes, that was one of the things I loved about Wall-E, they let him communicate so effectively with almost no articulate language! Hm, Dark Crystal would have been interesting done that way, but it's hard to see how they could have avoided subtitles of some kind and gotten across everything they were trying to get across

[drakeducaine]

Whee! I hope you enjoy! If you ever get a chance to see the latest release of Dark Crystal on DVD, there are lots of special features on it which show the early versions of the film, in which everything is in that weird language.

Speaking of completely nonverbal animation, I forgot about both incarnations of Disney's Fantasia! It's not like any of those characters are trying to convey complex ideas or anything, but the music substituting for speech works out very well. I agree with you about Futurama and Pinky and the Brain too, the latter especially being great for combining physical action and sight gags with priceless dialog. Well written and well acted!

[sfwriter]

You know I think I bought that version of Dark Crystal (after going through three VHS tapes, I think there's a curse on that movie) - I'll have to check it out again

[drakeducaine]

I have the same curse with Watership Down, actually :) I used to rent it constantly as a child from our local library, until another family took it out, and their house burned down with the tape in it! Thankfully it's out on DVD. If you've never read the book, it's a wonderful tale, and the movie is great too

[sfwriter]

Ha, that's wonderful! Write more! (I got hold of the movie 9, by the way, I'll watch it as soon as the moment seems right.) I enjoy the chat too - feel free to shut me up anytime. :D

[sfwriter]

Er, that's Richard Adams'. :D

[drakeducaine]

Hey again! Feel free to shut ME up anytime too, I have a bad tendency to ramble :) I share in your loathing of Superman. I guess it's nice in a way to have a character without a crapton of emotional baggage and who wears his heart on his sleeve, but it's just not as interesting to me

[sfwriter]

Watch out, the next century is already here

[drakeducaine]

Hehee, he makes a fine target at least! I do enjoy watching the cartoons when he and Batman are on some escapade together, Supes is the one always getting the lasers in the face while Batman does all of the work

[sfwriter]

Well, that's probably a good division of labour for Batman and Superman. It would be kind of tough if it was Batman getting the lasers in the face. :D

I'm sure Acker did have much more in his head than came out on the screen. That's almost inevitable in movies, what with the time and cost limitations and all. Still, he did get quite a rich world across.

As for Mary and Max, if you have trouble finding it, I see that at least for the moment the whole thing is on Youtube in sections, if you want to check for it there, in quite good quality too.

[drakeducaine]

Batman's too cool to get lasered in the face! :)

Thanks for the heads up about the YouTube clips too, once I manage to get a good chunk of time set aside to see them all together, that's what I'll do!