this is the interpretation i arrived at, after probably the second or third viewing. i believe it is the only correct one, despite protestations by the orange team that the film is open to interpretation.
Throughout the whole movie, Emo interacts with none of the illusion. At one point the phone rings, and Emo goes to pick it up but is stopped by Proog paranoid that the phone is full of horrible maggot creatures and is a tool of the machine. At another point, he sees a door, which Proog prevents him to go through.
Sorry to shatter your illusion but Emo does interact with the illusion when he ‘pushes’ the moving wall, then creates the “collosus of rodus”.
Also the ‘door’ that Emo wishes to go through was Created/Projected by the incredibly cool ‘Giant Projector Cameras’ and Proog was right to protect him from the Trap. If you listen there is inviting music coming from the projected door. A trap indeed.
where? .
Well to be honest, who cares if you don’t like it? Nobody forced you to see the movie.
It was a piece of art, more than a movie, open to interperetation, it was not really there to entertain, but instead to inspire thought.
After watching it a few times, I thought it was commentary on the nature of the software world, (proog) and the way it views open source (emo), or any world, for that matter, that does not appreciate new ideas into it’s field.
I think the word to describe it is post-modern, not that I liked the style. I too think a better movie could be made using a pre-baked story line such as a well-known fable.
Jellywalker, and many others, are just expressing their opinion about the film, there is no need to go download-the-source-and-make-a-better-one-yourself-because-team-orange-had-only-10-people-for-10-month.
I seriously think that Elephants Deam could be re-worked into something that could be an Oscar contender. With only minor changes it could portray the world of Proogs delusions. The short movie would start with a very realistic scene where Emo’s mother tells him not to visit that crazy Proog. Emo insists that Proog is his friend. A few changes to existing scenes would need to be made to have Emo interacting with the real world, but we see Proog’s world. A few quick cuts to Emo’s real world, indicated by a different aspect ratio, B&W, or some other convention to indicate a different take on reality. Maybe call the final product Elephants Dream 2.0.
If I had a few months off and good Blender skills… alas, I have neither.
no apology necessary. you haven’t shattered anything. the environment expands and changes in Proog’s mind to accommodate Emo’s actions, which are beyond Proog’s control.
…exactly. Look carefully… Emo does not push the wall. He’s turning to storm off home. He doesn’t even know Proog’s imaginary wall happens to be there.
When he creates the “Collosus of Rodus” he’s not being serious, he’s making fun of Proog. You can see this in his sarcastic hand gestures when he says “all for you” and then when he does the finger tap to head as he turns to leave. His mocking does affect the illusions going on in Proog’s imagination, thus the incredible climax we see.
The doorway in the “Giant Projector Cameras” is the only puzzling bit, as clearly Emo can see the door. I think it’s a door in real life, simply leading out of Proog’s house to go elsewhere, but then Proogs delusions are intent on keeping him trapped in his imaginary prison, making it impossible for him to leave home. This was the same kind of thing that happened when the phone rang and Proog became paranoid about it really being a demonised tool of the machine.
If you listen to the director’s commentary, he mentions that Emo can’t see any of the illusion and that he’s going along with it at first just to keep his friend Proog happy.
the majority of the viewing public doesn’t really care about the realistic render after the first 5 minutes of the movie… or at all … and they just want to be entertained by THE STORY.
It wasn’t intended to compete with shrek or madagascar (it was a short,
remember?), but more probably with things like “final fantasy- the spirit
within” (which I found incredibly boring, it’s story is 2 hours long but
could probably be compressed in 10 minutes).
Other than this, it had to be:
an entertainment story (and not humorous)
a showcase for blender
a short (less than half hour) film.
From this point of view, it was a success indeed. If you were expecting
a Shrek, madagascar, Ice Age or Cars, then sorry, you were expecting
the wrong thing…
An entertainment story? how so? I wasn’t very entertained. Even with the knowledge that its proogs mind doing all of this, the story still seems kind of pointless. What was the message? that machines cloud the mind? Stories, Especially those that do not have a definate ending, should at least provide a theme or message to base a theory on. ED didn’t do that. Many of the scenes were oddly long, and music died off randomly. You want to see a good short, that blender could probably reproduce, buy Fallen Art (www.fallen-art.com). There is a story that is shorter than ED and makes so much more sense!
I personally didn’t find the rendering too impressive either, seeing as the characters seem to be overlayed onto the scene, not to mention the lip sync was off, and what skin do you know of look like that. I’d rather see a lambert with some color than look at that again! I really think the team dropped the ball on this one. Lets hope the next one is better.
Ohhhhh finally I see the sense of this topic… you are advertising.
Yes , why not? I’ll get fallen art when it will be released under creative
commons, or buy the DVD when they’ll include all the improvement to
blender and all the materials/meshes inside.
What? They’ll never do? Oh well, then I think I’ll not buy any short film.
Shrek, Madagascar, Ice Age, Cars are all surely a better bargain.
Oh boy, you sure are a funny one. . .
If you don’t have rebutal then don’t post, simple as that. Note its the first post that I mention Fallen Art, out of two. I wasn’t even going to say it. Ya know you could just go to dailymotion.com and see a rip of it. there, happy? Now you don’t have to waste your precious money! I was using it as an example. How dare you accuse me of that when I have no afiliation with them! Oh, so I assume from your post that you donated, right? …didn’t think so. Ya know, next time you go running your mouth how about you read the post! Just because it went against your point doesn’t mean that it was an attack. The advertisment remark was uncalled for.
Funny. You start a post complaining of something that is licensed
creative common (and its the first in this genre), which development
helped a lot blender development and which DVD “pay-to-have” is
full of blender materials/meshes.
Then you compare it to a commercial DVD shortfilm that costs more
than half of madagascar DVD, is shorter than the bonus film in
madagascar dvd (Christmas penguins) and surely isn’t half the fun.
You’re trying to compare apples with chocolate-snack, so I point out
that we can also compare your 15% chocolate +85% chemical addittives
snack to some real 80%+ chocolate (as Madagascar).
And then you start tellin I’m the kind of person that looks the ripped
versions of films through the net. I just don’t need to, cause I don’t
need to look your “things”.
If you’re not affiliated in any way to that trash you suggest us to buy,
why didn’t you choosed something more common as example, and
pointed also the website to order that thing? The film you “showed”
is of a commercial genre, there’s plenty of longer/better at every videostore.
If you never heard about poetry (yes, I would say that ED was “hermetical”),
never read books like those of Gibson or other “not bluntly commercial” forms
of entertainment, that’s not our fault. Ask your mommy or your teacher.
Why I think that way? Cause you can always say “I didn’t liked the story”,
but you’re saying “there was no story” when there was one, and really original too.
Have you ever seen a short CG film (freely projected at siggraph) of an old man,
a rabbit and a firefly (well, in the end there are hundreds of firefly)? No?
Well, that was another “poetic or free-interpretation short CG film”,
and won prizes too… http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382032/
If it were CG then were the hell did the animatronics come from? Its not fully CG. ED is no were near the lenght of a full film, so why compare to Madagascar (which i also didn’t like), which is full length. I in no way unhappy with the advancement of Blender, really now c’mon. Wow, and Comercial eh? If buy selling somthing makes it bad then fine don’t watch it. It is a fine peice that follows no genre and form, yet has a very well thought out story. I am not the only one dissapointed with ED’s story, and show the point that Blender could have done what fallen art did graphically. Jeez man I am trying to help the community. With out compliants we will never grow.
ED wasn’t as good as everyone originally thought it would be. I would rather see some of the animation on blender’s site that is up for “the best” nomination. Give me a break! ED could have been more polished and its story needed work. I never said it didn’t have a story either! What, do you just take things out of the air and slap them in your post?! Read what I write this time! Oh, lovely analogy, by the way, because we all know that made so much sense. this Thread is whether or not we were dissapointed in ED. I was. Thats it end of story. My opinion is given. I feel that it fail one of your three points mentioned above, and then supplied evidence on how something like this could have been done. What you do is rank and rave, really getting no where.
Oh boy, I don’t know poetry eh? Why would you assume that. I have collections of Poe and works by hemingway (you want a good short story writer look no further). Oh, and then you agree that ED was obscure then, by calling it hermetical. Did it make you feel good calling it a big word. unnessesary showing of power, which in psychological terms means you lack it.
But now after read my passage I will regress, and no longer post on this thread. I will be the bigger person and quit. Say what you want, for I wont care. I have given up childish games long ago. Farewell my friends.
You’re still comparing apples with chocolate.
You can compare ED with “The firefly man” (a 10’ short film, not licensed
creative common but still distributed for free in 2003 and actually in the
“short 2” dvd), for kind of story, distribution method, etc.etc. (even if
still ED was distributed in a better way,and wasn’t just a short but also
a showcase and a way to improve blender, but let’s jump this)
You can compare that fallen thing with madagascar , same humorous
kind of story, same distribution method (read: commercial) even if
Madagascar is IMHO at least 5 times the duration and much more fun.
You can’t cross-compare in any other way these 4 titles, nobody would
compare hot-shot or even Frankestein Jr. with Blade Runner, they are
different for genre, story, actors, budget (to make the film), etc.etc.
Poe was a poet? really? and Hemingway??? Are you so sure? I would call
them romancer, I call poet Blake, I call poet Garcia Lorca, Pablo Neruda
or Jacques Prevert. Short stories are not poetry, or you would call
Lovecraft and Pratchett poets (nothing against them, I have almost
all their books but I think they would be/would have been the first to
laugh if you would call/would have called them poets).
“unnessesary showing of power” ??? For having just named a kind o
poetry? And if I would quote Dante Alighieri, Blake or Lorca would you
tell that I’m believing to be a god like the “red dragon” (from the
omonimous film or the Blake picture)???
I already said you have all the right to say “I’m disappointed cause I was
expecting an humorous story or an action-short-movie” or “I would like
the animations were as good as the textures”.
What you shouldn’t say (cause it’s false !!! ) are things like
“it wasn’t CG” or “it had no story” ,it slanders.
P.S.: I have nothing against commercial films, I’m in the cinema at least
2 times every month and when I think a film is nearly the best in its genre
I buy the DVD.(ok, that’s not often lately, IMHO both the second trilogy
of star wars and the third chapter of X-men were disappointing, to not talk
of the end of matrix trilogy…).
But I also know that being commercial means having some million dollars as
budget, (tens/hundreds of thousands for short films) , having less strict
timeout and completely another target…