Just forget the words and sing along

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

King Kong is out today, and as I watch the TV spots and read glowing review after glowing review, I'm thinking one thought:

When they do that live-action movie version of The Transformers, they simply MUST get WETA Digital to do the special effects. I'm convinced now that motion capture would be the way to go to bring the Autobots and Decepticons to life. Have two stuntmen duke it out in front of a blue screen, then turn it into Optimus and Megatron duking it out in a city street. It's just that simple.

Besides, we also know WETA can do the vast, helicopter shots of ancient civilazations. Best examples are the 1930's New York in King Kong and just about any castle in The Lord of the Rings. Can you imagine using those artists to render a digital cityscape of Cybertron?

WETA to do The Transformers. It's the only right choice.

Actually, as I think about it, I sure hope that the Americans attempt to remake Godzilla again. They can do it now, and do it right. I remember when they were first making Godzilla back in 1997. The makers were so happy. They were going around boasting, "Yeah, Godzilla's not going to be a man in a suit anymore. He's going to be computer animated! Motion capture all the way!" But then, near the end of 1997, they said, "Umm, yeah, motion capture really isn't where we want it to be in order to do the stuff we want to do. It's just going to be regular computer animation."

Besides, as I do more reading on the American Godzilla, I'm starting to get more of a sense of what went wrong. Essentially, the American film wasn't made by people who love Godzilla. Toho Studios - the Japanese studio that owns Godzilla - gave the makers of the American Godzilla a list of all the character traits that Godzilla has. Think of it as Godzilla's character description. The list had the note, "Follow these instructions to make sure that Godzilla's character shines through." And the American makers went, "Yeah, fuck this," and threw out the list. Thus creating a very out-of-character Godzilla.

So, yeah. If another attempt is made at an American Godzilla, then the maker must love Godzilla as much as Peter Jackson loves King Kong.

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