Post your Spoiler-Free Elephants Dream Reveiws Here

[DwarvenFury]

Hey guys. I was thinking it'd be cool to have a thread where people can write up mini-reviews of Elephants Dream as their DVDs arrive. So, if you don't mind writing up a few quick thoughts on the movie (quality of animation/rendering, voice acting, music/sound, story, etc.) without any spoilers, please post them here.

DwarvenFury

p.s. Sorry if this is a stupid idea. I'm dying waiting for the DVD (I'm in the USA) and I'd like to hear some people's impressions of the movie.

[BgDM]

Not a stupid idea. I was actually expecting this to come up sooner or later anyway.

But yes please, do NOT post any spoilers or stuff that may ruin it for those who have not yet seen it/received their DVD's, (like me over here in Canada ).

BgDM

[joeri]

What would be considerd spoilers?
It's not a "the cook did it" kind of movie. (Or did I spoil it now?)

We could wait untill the australians get their copy, but yes, that can take up to 10 working days.

[Bussman]

Originally Posted by joeri ...We could wait untill the australians get their copy, but yes, that can take up to 10 working days.

The australians don't care about spoilers, they'll be watching it upside down anyway...

[JoOngle]

Well...I haven't received yet. But I would not mind if anyone put it online
it comes whenever it comes....

I did expect the weekend to be "off" for most delivery / postal services...at
least here in span...err...scandinavia....

[DwarvenFury]

Joeri: Well, by spoilers I meant not giving away much about the plot, scenes, and characters. I was thinking people could say how many stars they'd give the movie, what they thought of the animation, acting, sound, and the like. Basicly, I was hoping for comments more like, "I thought the character animation was amazing." rather than, "I thought the character animation was amazing in the scene where Emo and Proog each sip their pints and light up their cigars.".

DwarvenFury

[DwarvenFury]

Anyone? I know some of you guys have your DVD set, now... Your post doesn't need to be lengthy, just a general review with your impressions of the movie, and how many stars (or a letter grade) you would give the movie. Thanks.

p.s. I guess since I started this up, I'll need to post my review after I see the movie...

[DwarvenFury]

*EDIT: This Review Was Based On An Elephants Dream Video Uploaded To The Internet, So The Quality May Not Have Been High Enough For A Fair Review*

Well, one of my brothers watched Elephants Dream on the internet, and here's basicly what he thought:

1. He said that he couldn't follow the storyline. He thought the story didn't really make any progress.
2. He said that the lipsync was not good.
3. He said that he liked Proog and his voice, but didn't like Emo's voice.
4. He thought it was an okay short, and would give it a "B" for an overall score.

(I haven't seen it yet, because I'm going to wait for my DVD to get here.)

DwarvenFury

p.s. Please don't flame me or him. There weren't any other reviews posted here, and I'm hoping having one posted will prompt others to post their reviews, too.

[broken]

Originally Posted by DwarvenFury Well, one of my brothers watched Elephants Dream on youtube.com

I think it's a shame that people have found it there, not because it's copied, that was going to happen anyway (and encouraged!), but because the quality and experience there is so lousy. We're releasing properly high quality encoded versions on our website in a matter of days, it's disappointing that some people's first experience of it will be a poorly compressed Flash movie when the official release is so soon.

Regarding the story, most people responding on the internet or that I've talked to said they didn't quite get what was going on, and that they needed to see it a few more times to pick it up. We predicted that this would be the case, and that's fine for us - its a bit subtle, and we didn't want to spell anything out obviously for people. Unlike other movies that you'd see in the cinema once, most people will have the DVD or downloaded version that they can watch again and again, so we wanted it to be something that takes a bit of thought over repeated viewing. Many of the Blenderheads that joined us at the exhibition at Montevideo over the premiere weekend, although overwhelmed at the premiere, felt much more clear about it by the end of the weekend, after letting it sink in and being able to take in the hints and details.

Personally, I'm most interested to hear how other people interpreted it and what they thought it means, before we talk about what we think it's supposed to be

[DwarvenFury]

Maybe some of his critiques with the animation were caused by bad compression and/or a small sized video that was uploaded.

I hope I didn't sound demeaning or belittling to the Orange team. You guys spent 7 months of extremely hard work on Elephants Dream, and I don't want to sound like I'm making light of all of your guys' hard work. My apologies if I came across that way.

DwarvenFury

p.s. Thanks for the well written reply, Broken.

[broken]

Demeaning or belittling? Not at all! I'm very curious to see what people think and if people don't think it's the best thing they've ever seen or heard of, that's no tragedy either I didn't mean that bad compression would be an excuse for any critiques either, just that I hope people's first impression will be with a decent quality version, and not on fun, but crappy, youtube.

[basse]

Originally Posted by joeri It's not a "the cook did it" kind of movie. (Or did I spoil it now?)

he didn't do it? oh man, I was so sure.. the fingerprints on the hatchet, the alibi that got blown away by the naked secretary, and couple of years after the plane crashed, when there was that tribe worshipping a stranger wearing large white cheff hat as a mask, with face painted on it in RED BLOOD.. i was so sure...

ohwell. maybe it was the sharkboy afterall...

.b

[Alvaro]

I've seen it on ITUBE, without sound

I must say I like a lot its visual appearance and the artits direction is VERY GOOD imo. Four starts and a half for that. At the same level of any short out there produced by the big boys. It is really my opinion.

I like lighting, is quite professional and well done IMO.

I'll post criticisms when I have got the DVD at home.

[kencanvey]

Hi all just a quick note as i'me on dial-up,
I got my dvd yesterday 11th, the overall quality is fantastic, even more so, when you consider that this was done with a new team, who had never done this sort of thing, when I watched it the first time I did find it a bit hard to understand what was going on, but after the second or tenth time I was hooked, I had to keep reminding myself that this was done by -please don't take this in a negative way guys- amatures with BLENDER.

In all an excelent job, well done and thanks for all the goodies on the dvd too.

Can't wait for EDII - Judgement day

Ken

[LarryPhillips]

1st post. New Blenderhead (2 months). Great site here btw.

I just watched ED on youtube. Will have to watch it another few times (at least) to figure out what it is about. I couldn't really care less tho cos even at low res I found it to be fantastic to watch. Some of the scenes are really impressive -like the glass and the "machine" walkways. (That's not a spoiler is it?)

Who came up with those fantastic scenes anyway? (I need to look at the credits I suppose). It ranks up there with the best from "Hollywood" IMO. I'm pretty darn impressed with the character animation too. I didn't know these guys were real animators (actors). The sound and music is excellent. Voice work is top notch. The whole thing is very professional and put together very well. I don't see how they did it in that short amount of time.

Btw I could pick apart The Incredibles, StarWars lll, and other bigtime CG movies more than I can ED as far as bloopers, lip sync, storyline, etc. Of course they were made by hundreds of people, took years to make, and cost millions. That makes Elephants Dream even more impressive to me.

I'm curious to see what others will do with it since the whole production will be available to play with. Will we see modified or "fan" versions?

OK, I'm off to go watch it a few more times. I'm sure there's a message in there (maybe something about open source?). That's another aspect of this flick which is brilliant. It's meaning or plot is not served up in your face and spelled out for ya. Makes a short film go a long way IMO.

5 Stars, two thumbs up, and a "how did they do that?"

Hey, other people make short films. All things considered, I think these people just made history.

[Alltaken]

i'll wait for the official before commenting (even though i saw it already)

Alltaken

[Albinal]

Ok, here’s my review. I watched it on DVD last night. I’ve only seen it once so far but plan to watch it many times! Anyway, I’d pretty much forgotten about it to be honest and I had no idea what the story was as I had not kept up-to-date on the website.

I was very impressed with the overall quality and detail and was pleased that it had an original style that cannot be likened to any of the big animated movies (toy story etc…). I did see a couple of things that reminded me of the matrix (machines, wires and the ringing telephone!). Having said that it is not at all like the matrix!!!

The story is a bit far out and I will have to watch it again and again if I am to understand it… which is good! But I haven’t got a bad word to say about it really!

The animation, sound, music and visual effects are, in a word, outstanding.

In response to some of the more negative comments on here I would say that the lip sync is good considering that you don’t really notice it and that Emo’s voice (being slightly Dutch) is a clever acknowledgement of Blender’s origins (intentional or not).

5/5 for me. Blender rules!

[ChojinDSL]

I just finished watching Elephants Dream just now. Watched it twice so far, once with and once without the Commentary.

Things I liked:

The shading and textures were outstanding. Especially Proog's skin and face.
The "Typewriter" sequence was inspired. Great idea there. Also the "Elevator" was cool idea.

Points of Criticism:

First of all, the animation itself. The "technical" animations were good. Stuff like the switchboard, inside the phone (that was really cool). The character animations were a different story alltogether.
The movement of Proog and Emo seemed very wooden and jerky at times. One of the few exceptions to this was the "typewriter" sequence. Not the whole sequence but parts of it.

In a way I'm dissappointed in the Character Animation, but on the other hand I'm not surprised. Character Animation is very difficult, its something that takes ages to master. (Trust me on this, I studied animation, but that doesnt mean Im any good.)

When viewing the making-of of Elephants Dream, it seemed like more emphasis was placed on stuff like modelling, texturing and lighting than on animation. Which is a letdown, since even a crap model can still come across as professional if properly animated.

I guess the reason why it bothers me so much, is that pretty much everything else was so top notch.

Anyways, enough about the animation.

Another thing that really bothered me was Emo's voice. Proog's voice seemed to fit really well. But Emo's voice sounds like somebody trying to do a fake voice. It just didnt seem to fit the character very well.
I dont know how well known the two Voice actors are in the netherlands, but it sounded like they were quite popular in the Netherlands.

This is something that often happens when for example, a successful foreign animation film gets dubbed for the U.S. market. Usually they try to get some big name actors to provide the voices, regardless of wether they fit the character or not. Of course in American Animation, the characters are usually designed around the envisioned voice actors anyways.

Finally, the last thing I didnt like so much: The Story.
Im not gonna give anything away. But lets just say, I'm probably not the only one who will feel like "huh?" after watching it. The story feels like its an Episode of a series which you've never seen. It feels like there's this whole backstory which has been building up to Elephants Dream, which you never find out about.
On the other hand, its a short film, and as such doesnt have the time for exposition. I just feel like the world and the basic premise in Elephants Dream is something that is just too large to be confined to a short film.
Perhaps Elephants Dream will lead to a bigger full-length production, which would satisfy all of my points of critique.

Oh yes, one last thing I forgot: That explosion looked really bad. It would been better to leave it out or just hint at it with a flash of lighting and sound effects. Blender's particle engine really needs a lot of work in that regard.
The thing is, everything else in Elephants Dream looks really good and professional. The explosion is (visually) the only thing that pulls the look of the film down. After all, when the backgrounds and characters look that good, you expect everything to look that good.

Now, you might think that my review is a little harsh, perhaps because I'm judging Elephants Dream on the same level as certain pixar shorts, for example. But thats actually more of a compliment in the end. I do think Elephants Dream has the potential to compete with the big boys. Its just not quite there yet. But that doesnt matter so much, since I feel that project Orange was more about establishing Blender as tool which is to be taken seriously. This was certainly achieved.
Also when you consider how small the team was in comparison to "professional" Animation Production houses, what has been achieved is even more amazing.

With all that being said, I certainly feel that Elephants Dream and in particular Project Orange is the start of something that could achieve real greatness, both artistically and commercially.

It goes without saying that Elephants Dream will certainly be a great asset and learning tool to the thriving blender community.

[orion119net]

I just watched it on youtube(bleh).

I think that at the begining, the lipsink and animation was a bit funny, but later it got better. And the visuals(even on youtube) were FANTASTIC. VERY interesting art design. And I have yet to figure out the story line...

9/10
(wasnt long enough)

[yellow]

The DVD arrived yesterday and i've watched it three times already on a standalone DVD player.

My overall feeling about the movie is it's an excellent achievement for the Orange team and Blender. The atmosphere and setting are wonderful.

What stood out when i first watched it though was the character animation, it wasn't smooth, natural movement, there were points where the figures movement seemed to jump abruptly, as if a few frames were skipped but it wasn't that, it was as if the characters didn't come to rest in one movement cycle, before the next cycle started. I'm no animator so i don't know the technical terms but i think there needed to be a tiny time lag between some of the character movements.

The story i just couldn't get, but then i spend most of my film watching with my daugters so it's Robots, Madagscar and all the Pixar stuff, hardly mind challenging so I'm looking forward to watching ED plenty more times.

All the extra stuff on the DVD's is good, enjoyed the making of etc. Had to try and explain to my 5 year what 'bullshit' was though. Oh and lesbians as well.

Good stuff.