Azeureus Rising

[rhoenix]

This is a proof of concept to get this movie made - but this is impressive enough by itself for me to hope they get funding.

[LadyTevar]

1. Had I not been playing FF13 the last few days, I'd be more impressed with the John-Woo bounce-off buildings athletics. The action is extremely over-the-top Cyberpunk goodness, however.

2. The security patrol designs. Again, I've been playing FF13, and it's very similar to the grunts and other annoyances I've been slogging my way through in order to know the story. This doesn't make them bad, they're very well done, and the scorpion tank is certainly a threat.

3. CG graphics are extremely well-done, with the backgrounds especially vibrant and realistic. The proportions of the humanoid figures are perfect -- it could almost have been a human actor, but it doesn't hit the Uncanny Valley. The visual effects had drama and tension, and the camera-work was better than a lot of the 'shaky-cam' shots used in several recent action movies. The drones and the masked man are a bit more anime than real but that's what you get when you have a blue-haired masked martial artist cutting apart robotic security

4. Characterization. We couldn't see the masked man's face, but he was extremely expressive without saying a word. There's some actors who still haven't learned that trick. I'm curious to see what the story behind this scene is, or if as a proof of concept it's got nothing to do with the story.

5. Sound Effects: The breathing was all we had to know this masked man was human -- and it worked very well. The rest of the sound effects were what I expected from a shoot-em-up action flick, but they merged it with the visual perfectly.

Overall Rating: 8/10

This is something I'll want to keep an eye on. If the storyline lives up to the CG visuals, sounds, and if they can keep a good characterization, this should be a good movie to watch.

[rhoenix]

That was a very detailed, and interesting review of it - thanks Tev. Having not played FF13, I'll take your word for it on the shout-outs.

The thing that really struck me in the video though were the items you mentioned as 4 & 5 - how they were able to evoke humanity, emotion, and lots of unspoken dialogue with a character wearing a facemask that completely hides his eyes.

That alone impressed me more than anything else, beyond the badass cyberpunk-style cityscape Parkour, beyond even the character designs. However, everything else conspired together to make this damn impressive glimpse.

I do agree with you though that I'd like to see if this was just a badass scene the FX folks couldn't resist doing for sheer coolness factor, or if this was a single scene taken out of an already-established plot.

However, the fact that the protagonist is a cyber-ninja wearing Scifi armor of Awesome goes a long way.

[B4UTRUST]

The character design was not suppose to be the same realistic style that Square-Enix has almost gotten to with the FF series and others. The director even said that they wanted to keep it in that middle ground between cartoonish animation and realism.

The scene shown seems to be the part of the story where Azereus breaks into the stellar city. Supposedly the city does exist somewhere outside of Earth and the story is a much larger scale. The idea is apparently part of a potential trilogy wherein Azereus starts off as the young kid who later becomes the mature warrior we see now. So I do believe the proof of concept video is a part of the actual movie itself. There's just no real story in there because as the director said, it's hard to put depth of story in 5 minutes and he felt it would be better to showcase the artwork and potential of the movie instead.

[frigidmagi]

It was very well done, although I got a couple nitpicks.

1: The security guards guns. While they pump out alot of bullets, you can only fire them from the hip. You can't aim like that. No wonder they didn't hit him. Miniguns pumping out shittons of bullets look cool but they're expensive and of limited use if they can't be aimed. Hits matter more then bullets fired.

2: Why all the pausing? It's very dramatic but in real life it wouldn't happen. If this guy had hit my post, my boys would have stayed about 10 meters away from him and demanded he lay down and if he didn't he would be shot up very quickly. Ditto the helicopter and the tank.

But I'm just being grumpy.

[rhoenix]

The character design was not suppose to be the same realistic style that Square-Enix has almost gotten to with the FF series and others. The director even said that they wanted to keep it in that middle ground between cartoonish animation and realism.

I dig that. I consider it an accomplishment that they did this style, and as Tev mentioned, didn't trip and fall into the Uncanny Valley.

The scene shown seems to be the part of the story where Azereus breaks into the stellar city. Supposedly the city does exist somewhere outside of Earth and the story is a much larger scale. The idea is apparently part of a potential trilogy wherein Azereus starts off as the young kid who later becomes the mature warrior we see now. So I do believe the proof of concept video is a part of the actual movie itself. There's just no real story in there because as the director said, it's hard to put depth of story in 5 minutes and he felt it would be better to showcase the artwork and potential of the movie instead.

I like this. If your take is correct, and at the moment I have no evidence or reason to suspect anything otherwise, this is indeed something to keep one's eyes on.

It was very well done, although I got a couple nitpicks.

1: The security guards guns. While they pump out alot of bullets, you can only fire them from the hip. You can't aim like that. No wonder they didn't hit him. Miniguns pumping out shittons of bullets look cool but they're expensive and of limited use if they can't be aimed. Hits matter more then bullets fired.

I hear that, and all of your reasoning makes perfect sense. With this in mind, I'm guessing they went more for dystopian visual effect than realism.

2: Why all the pausing? It's very dramatic but in real life it wouldn't happen. If this guy had hit my post, my boys would have stayed about 10 meters away from him and demanded he lay down and if he didn't he would be shot up very quickly. Ditto the helicopter and the tank.

Yeah - in both cases, they set it up like a David vs. Goliath duel, where nobody moves for a couple seconds until everything jumps off.

[frigidmagi]

I would still pay to see this movie mind you, the faults I found are traditional Hollywood ones that I take it as my God Given Marine Right to bitch about is all.

[rhoenix]

I would still pay to see this movie mind you, the faults I found are traditional Hollywood ones that I take it as my God Given Marine Right to bitch about is all.

I am in no way complaining - I like seeing your take on things like this.

Hell, I might even see this movie in the theater instead of waiting for it to be available to rent, if the rest of it is on par with this clip.