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Carrey Making Christmas Carol - Robert Zemeckis to direct

I keep reading so many reviews saying this is too scary and depressing for children to watch. Kind of more interested in seeing it now :p

Have never seen a film in IMAX 3D, so this will be my first (and then onto Avatar).
 
This movie was hella boring. Great acting all around, but maybe if Zemeckis would have gone with a simpler script then this would have been easier to watch. But it was just slowwww.
 
So is this another example of Zemeckis concentrating more on the technology than the story? He needs to go back to the stuff that made him such a good director...LIVE ACTION.
 
This looks interesting but dammit Zemeckis, what happened to the man who brought us BTTF, Forrest Gump, Roger Rabbit, and Cast Away?
 
I keep reading so many reviews saying this is too scary and depressing for children to watch. Kind of more interested in seeing it now :p

I remember people said that about The Polar Express too, and I loved that movie. I can't wait to see this one, since I love A Christmas Carol and it looks like a really good adaptation...but it feels like it's too early for a Christmas movie, so I'll probably check it out closer to December (obviously before Avatar takes over the IMAX).

ACC was always dark - he gets shown all kinds of tragedies that happen in his life that made him the way he is, and the ones that will happen if he doesn't change his ways. Hell, even the version with Mickey Mouse was sad until the end.
 
Hate Polar Express, hate Beowulf, so i'm sure i'll hate this too. Zemeckis sucks now. He's become a hack.....:(
 
Hate Polar Express, hate Beowulf, so i'm sure i'll hate this too. Zemeckis sucks now. He's become a hack.....:(

I thought Polar Express was pretty good. The third act was a little meh to me, but the beginning, and all the stuff on the train was great.

The only plot point I had issue with was when they brought up the fact that "Santa" doesn't bring presents to poor kids. They touched upon that, but they never resolved it...because you really can't, not if you're trying to say that Santa is real. Either he's not real and that's why poor kids don't get presents, or he is real and he doesn't bring presents to poor kids because he's a jerk.

Besides that though, I thought the characters were great, Hanks did a good job with all his roles, and the train and the world it traveled through was done very well.
 
It's also ****ing boring as hell. I cant think of a more lifeless movie. I wanted to sleep. Beowulf is the same way. Sure, I wont lie, the fights were fun...aside from Beowulf playing hide the sausage...but once again. Boring, with no soul.
 
It's also ****ing boring as hell. I cant think of a more lifeless movie. I wanted to sleep. Beowulf is the same way. Sure, I wont lie, the fights were fun...aside from Beowulf playing hide the sausage...but once again. Boring, with no soul.

I thought the first two thirds of Polar Express were very engaging. The mysterious magic hobo, the hot chocolate bit (I loved that song), the overall magic and mystery of the train, and the look of the train as the kids explored it.

I thought that was all very well done. It was when they got to the North Pole and they had Santa and the Elves all tech-ed out that kind of lost my interest. That, and when they failed to follow up on the idea about the poor kid and Santa.

However, I thought the beginning and middle was done very well.

Beowulf...I was more or less "Meh" on. It was interesting, and the action was good, and I've certainly seen worse action movies, but I've definitely seen better as well.
 
Beowulf would have been better as a live action movie by Zemeckis. I'm not gonna bash the motion capture in the film, but it was only good for these stupid rotationg camera shots that zoomed in and out of the action. That was it. Other than that, everything else could have been live action and it probably would have been a better film.
 
this is what i wrotte at thinkmcflythink

Phil so the 3D in Christmas Carol was blurry? bravo Zemeckis bravo.
you want to know a secret? you can turn up and turn down the 3D if you want. you didnt think about that Zemeckis? you f.... i....
its called stereospace. you have 100% control how much 3D you want. lets say that you can have 3D from 1 - 10. 10 is 100% 3D and 0 is 0% of 3D stereospace. so what do you do? when you have a dialoge scene with almost no movement you can use 100% of 3D. maybe if something moves in the background you use 70% of 3D. what do you do when you have some fast and long movement? you turn down the 3D to 25%. what does this mean? it means that people's eyes wont hurt and the blurry effect will be gone.
a quote from James Cameron about 3D
'' The point here is that just because you're making a stereo movie doesn't mean that stereo is the most important thing in every shot or sequence. If you choose to do rapid cutting, then the motion of the subject from shot to shot to shot is more important than the perception of stereospace at that moment in the film. So sacrifice the stereospace''
'' The real issue here is that when you're shooting action photographically (as opposed to CG animation) you can't predict at the moment of shooting exactly how you're going to cut, so it pays to be conservative on the stereospace.''
you see? i am f... reading about 3D for some 6 months now and i know more how to use 3D then Zemeckis who is using 3D for 5 years now. 3 movies in 3D and he still doesnt get it? i mean just what the f.... is this guy thinking? is someone forcing him to use it? Zemeckis should have done more research on 3D.
the problem is that hes movies are not promoting 3D in a good way. but in a negative. i dont know how will the 3D look in Avatar. but from Camerons interviews he made it clear that 3D is used as a whole experience but never to dominate the screen. so he turned the 3D down to not confuse people and so that he eyes wont hurt.
when you use live action photography your 3D is baked in. this mean that 6 months later you can not change the 3D. you can not turn it up and down.i am not angry for the Coraline director because it was live action and the guy didnt have enough practice. when you are using CGI you can change it because it all in the computer. newsflash, Zemeckis 3D movies are 100% CGI movies. you know what this means ? that he can test every shot in 3D and he change if it works. and then he and the CGI company can cahnge the stereospace. and what does he do? he rushes the movie out in the theater. and now?
its like saying CGI always sucks.....look at GI joe and Van Helsing. its like saying motion capturing sucks look at Polar Express,Beowulf . no. you say CGI works .....look at T2,transformers,LOTR,spiderman. you say motion capturing works .....look at Gollum and look at King Kong. Zemeckis movies are bad examples when it comes to motion capturing and 3D.
 
I liked Polar Express....a lot...Christmas Carol is probably my favorite holiday movie....my favorite versions being Scrooged and A Muppet Christmas Carol
 
i hate when directors use technology that they dont understand. Zemeckis is making motion capturing and 3D look bad

:cmad:

I do not agree with that assumption that he does not "understand" the technology when he was one of the first directors to really get behind it
 
Hopefully he'll blend his motion capture addiction with live action. A lot of people said "Christmas Carol" would have been better blending live action with CGI. That's the direction he'll go for with the "Roger Rabbit" sequel though, right?
 
I do not agree with that assumption that he does not "understand" the technology when he was one of the first directors to really get behind it

It might be better saying that Zemeckis hasn't utilised the technology available correctly.
 
with all due respect. he is using some complex technology but he is not using the full potential.

its an insult what he is doing with motion capturing. noone noticed that humans dont blink in hes movies? look at the Avatar theatrical trailer. more blinking then the whole Beowulf trailer.
fact is that people blink. even if you dont understand how CGI works. there is still not excuse that he ignroes blinking on hes CGI humans.
 
Saw this today. I thought the cgi was good, and the characters were more realistic than previous films by Zemeckis. Many of the characters blinked in scenes. Overall, I can see the growth in making them more lifelike.

Jim Carrey and cast did excellent.

With that said, I fell in and out of sleep midway in. Candle guy made me sleepy with his voice. The ghost of the future act caught my attenion more. The 3D was great in spots, and blurry in others. I didn't know if it was just eyes/glasses, or the screen. Sadly, the best 3D effect I saw was during the trailer for "Alice in Wonderland". That cat's head was coming straight at me, and it was freaky.
 
Hate Polar Express, hate Beowulf, so i'm sure i'll hate this too. Zemeckis sucks now. He's become a hack.....:(

A hack is a director who just takes jobs for a paycheck. That ain't Zemeckis. The man has a specific vision and puts all his energy into realizing it. His vision may be misguided or unsuccessful, but that doesn't make him a hack.

For the record: I hated Polar Express, thought Beowulf was okay, and quite liked Christmas Carol. Progress?
 
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He said in the last interview he's trying to perfect the mocap technology, so all these movies are basically him experimenting.
 
He should just go back to live action dammit.
 
Hated it. Soooo much. Carrey and the cast did a stupendous job, but the film was a tonal disaster. A relatively faithful Dickens adaptation that includes moments of ridiculous slapstick and a 3-inch-tall Scrooge being chased by an evil horse-and-buggy. The kids are bored by the story, the adults turned off by the out-of-place silliness, and the 3D was old after the opening "crane" shot through town.

Awful.
 

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