Robert Zemeckis To Remake Yellow Submarine (project cancelled)*

YEA !

How about a hand for common sense ?

 

Exactly, "creepy." Seemingly alive, yet so obviously dead (fake.) The facial expressions are phony and way off. Pure plastic. Zemeckis, you're barking up the wrong tree with this technology. I think at least Cameron realized this with Avatar and did additional animation to the faces after his motion capture.

Honestly, let's terrify kids by bringing the Blue Meanie to life in three dimensions. Jeezus, how stupid.

 

I think Cameron's folks worked out a way to capture more subtle motions on the face as well. More dots or something. While Polar Express didn't bother me much, 'cause I thought it was a charming film, I do think it's odd to choose to make a nearly photo realistic cartoon. Either go more stylized or shoot live action.

 

I liked neither Beowulf nor A Christmas Carol. I would not be sad to see Zemeckis unable to make this film.

 

Interesting how Zemeckis' new motion capture film Mars Needs Moms was a huge flop over the weekend.

 

Not the greatest thing Beatles wise, but at least Hollywood had enough sense to leave it alone.

 

Why not just re-release the original? It's been OOP for 10 years or something. I'm sure young kids would enjoy it. Not everything has to be Pixar or 3D.

 

I know two young kids who weren't interested in the original at all. My 6 year old niece and 4 year old nephew.

 

My kids love it -- they first saw it when they were 4 and 3, and they have loved it since.

 

I haven't heard/read a thing about "Mars Needs Moms", nothing at all...first I heard of it was in connection with the cancellation of Yellow Submarine.

 

The billboards started popping up in my neighborhood a few weeks ago. I figured it was just another animated feature. But the moment the trailers started airing in LA, I immediately said, "uh-oh: another Zemeckis 'dead-eye' motion-capture film."

They've also laid-off and shut down the Northern California facility that did all the mo-cap work, Image Movers. Very sad to see good VFX people lose work.

I think real animation in a cartoony picture like this works a lot better than creepy, dead-eye motion capture. Hell, for $150 million, they could've just shot it in live-action and done only the aliens as motion capture.

 

I just looked up the UK website for "Mars Needs Moms" and it doesn't launch over here until 8th April...I'd have expected it to be renamed (Mums) as "Mom" isn't a word on this side of the pond, but it doesn't look like they will.

 

So true. If it wasn't for the sad fact that fellow professionals lost work as a result, I almost hoped that they wouldn't carry on producing those "horror" movies.
Nevermind. Tintin's next.

 

Off topic, but I was just reading about Zemeckis, and came across this:

"In 1999, Zemeckis donated $5 million towards the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts at USC, a 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) center that houses production stages, an immense 60-system digital editing lab, and a 50-seat screening room. When the Center opened in March 2001, Zemeckis spoke in a panel about the future of film, alongside friends Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Of those (including Spielberg) who clung to celluloid and disparaged the idea of shooting digitally, Zemeckis said, 'These guys are the same ones who have been saying that LPs sound better than CDs. You can argue that until you're blue in the face, but I don't know anyone who's still buying vinyl...'"

 

According to a report : http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-yellowsubmarine-idUSTRE72E0ED20110315 (last paragraph) Zemeckis may be looking to continue with his plan with the YS remake.