Jackal wrote:I think the CGI looks great.
I question making a movie about something like Beowulf though. I doubt that it will have anything to do with the poem at all.
I'm guessing you haven't seen Beowulf & Grendel, then. It was directed by Canadian Sturla Gunnarsson, and filmed entirely in Iceland with a great (if little-known) cast; and the final product was a pretty interesting and thoughtful film. You should check it out.
On another note entirely, I read American Gods by Neil Gaiman a long time ago -- I remember liking it for a while, but when he started dragging various and sundry ancient gods into it, it started to piss me off because he didn't treat a lot of them in [what I, being a Norse/Greek/Egyption mythology fanboy, thought was] the right way. Hopefully his treatment of Beowulf is a bit better.
Jackal wrote:I think the CGI looks great.
I question making a movie about something like Beowulf though. I doubt that it will have anything to do with the poem at all.
I'm guessing you haven't seen Beowulf & Grendel, then. It was directed by Canadian Sturla Gunnarsson, and filmed entirely in Iceland with a great (if little-known) cast; and the final product was a pretty interesting and thoughtful film. You should check it out.
On another note entirely, I read American Gods by Neil Gaiman a long time ago -- I remember liking it for a while, but when he started dragging various and sundry ancient gods into it, it started to piss me off because he didn't treat a lot of them in [what I, being a Norse/Greek/Egyption mythology fanboy, thought was] the right way. Hopefully his treatment of Beowulf is a bit better.
You're guessing wrong. I did see it and thought it was complete shit.
Jackal wrote:I think the CGI looks great.
I question making a movie about something like Beowulf though. I doubt that it will have anything to do with the poem at all.
This is my first take on it too.
With one qualification: the CGI looks great -- as photorealistic CGI in movies goes. But it seems like watching this would be similar to watching a StarCraft intro movie for 2 hours. I'm not sure I could stomach that through the entire length of a film. I'd constantly be critical of little things like their lips' not perfectly matching the speech.
Recreating a human 100% of the time in CGI is a tall order to fill.
And, like you said, it will be pretty damn hard to recreate the atmosphere of the original poem in a movie like this; not to mention the meter.
I hope they can pull it off though. Beowulf is awesome.