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Tuesday, November 26, 2002

FLCL has some of the most beautiful art of any anime I've seen to date. The animation seems to be some kind of combination of cel shading, 3D rendering, and various filter effects. Unlike most combinations of computers and animations, it's both unobtrusive and breathtaking. And, oh yeah, the story is pretty funny, too. (I've only seen the the first DVD, which contains eps 1&2 of 6.)

Oh, and one of the best sequences isn't 3D at all -- it's a several minute long sequence that takes you through the manga panels of a scene, in a virtuoso performance. The show is chock full of imaginative visuals, and I can't wait for the next two discs. 11:51:48 PM (comments [])

We finally watched the special extended version of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring tonight, and it rocked. Sure, it's now three and a half hours long, but nearly every bit feels perfect. For maximum compare&contrast, I spent last week reading FOTR. The differences between the works were much clearer to me on this go-round, but it also reaffirmed my suspicion that the movie improves on the book in nearly every way. Tolkien provided an excellent history of the excellent tale he created -- Jackson and his crew have provided the definitive storytelling experience of that tale. I can't wait for The Two Towers.

What Jackson has done stands in marked contrast with the other current fantasy adapation, Harry Potter. The HP movies have done an excellent job of creating a visual realization of the books, but watching the movies still feels a little bit like going through a checklist of scenes. FOTR, on the other hand, felt very true to the spirit of the book when I first saw it. It felt like a few liberties had been taken, but not many. On this most recent rewatching, I realized that -- in fact -- a HUGE number of liberties had been taken, including the reordering of events and recharacterization of characters. And yet, every one of those sizeable changes remained true to the original spirit of the story, and improved on the story's telling. I suspect you could teach a very interesting class on storytelling approaches simply by using the book & movie versions of LOTR as source material.

On the other hand, Metroid Prime is the complete opposite of a storytelling experience, which is OK, because it still freaking rocks. Too bad I'm killing my wrists trying to jam down on the stupid gamepad flippers for strafing & aiming purposes. 1:44:33 AM (comments [])