Fantasy Guy Ritchie Directing Disney's Aladdin

[KRYPTON INC.]

He looks as one would expect him to look if you thought they'd take cues from the animated version. Only thing missing is the little blue glow....

Just funning though... I too found Jaffar's voice WAY out of anything even approaching my expectations. But the rest? Eh... I'm gonna wait to see.

And as is usual SOP for the genre fanboy set everyone is jumping all over themselves to prove their purity with the pose of authenticity by declaring the less than 30 seconds of Smith's Genie as THE NEWEST WORSTEST CGI THING EVER... And folks... No. Stop. Please. You're all over 25. Get a ****ing grip.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Just funning though... I too found Jaffar's voice WAY out of anything even approaching my expectations. But the rest? Eh... I'm gonna wait to see.

And as is usual SOP for the genre fanboy set everyone is jumping all over themselves to prove their purity with the pose of authenticity by declaring the less than 30 seconds of Smith's Genie as THE NEWEST WORSTEST CGI THING EVER... And folks... No. Stop. Please. You're all over 25. Get a ****ing grip.

There can only be one Steppenwolf.

That being said, it still looks like ****. The super imposed face looks awful.

 

[StarLord]

The video on Disney's YouTube page is at 14k likes and 9k dislikes.

Bravo Guy Ritchie!

 

[Phoenix_Flare]

Did anyone else notice Carpet? Lol they should’ve casted someone older for the role of Jafar. His voice wasn’t deep enough or had that menacing growl. I hope Yago talks!!!

 

[Silvermoth]

Poor will. At least agrabah looks great. And rajah is in it too! Yay

 

[Micromind]

At least Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine looks great.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Looks like a fan film. Jasmine and Aladdin are alright, everything else... Genie CGI looks really bad.

 

[Asr]

Gotta agree on Jafar's voice, geez that was just weird. Personally would've preferred Oded Fehr in that role, who would've sounded way better too.

And Will Smith as Genie creeped me out.

 

[InvisibleWoman]

The CGI on the genie wasn't top notch but if they say it's not finished then fair enough. I guess they felt they had to show him because that's what the people wanted.

As far as how he looks goes... I don't think anyone can complain he's not Disney accurate. He looks like the animated version. It's a bit like "damned if you do, damned if you don't" when it comes to this sort of thing.

I'm definitely going to see it regardless because it's my favourite Disney animation.

 

[jmc]

Skyler Shuler, the editor-in-chief of TheDisInsider, has a message for all of those who are worried about the way the Genie looks.

3 months is not a long time for post production, especially for a CG character.

 

[dark_b]

they need to call Cameron and WETA. the lack of facial expression on his eyes is insulting bad. they had months working on the last shot for the tvo spot(which will be in the trailer). f... test footage from last year should look better. its 2019.

i understand the complaits about the color blue. Its 2019. after so many scifi and fantasy movies the general public should be used to weird designs and colors. but no. all scifi and fantasy movies are about humans with normal clothes and thats how they get freaked about anything out of the ordinary

 

[jmc]

It's just baffling how they could think this looks good. The like to dislike ratio on the trailer is 16K - 12K, I don't think I've ever seen a Disney film that disliked. They must be ****ting bricks right now over the reaction to this. What did they spend on this? $180-200m?

 

[Marvolo]

Hopefully the blue genie thing will just be a brief thing.

Yeah I suspect he will make himself look human when he gets to Agrabah so that he can blend in.

His blue form tho needs some serious work and tho they have 3 months until release I doubt theyll be able make it look good.

Jafar's voice is funny. He sounds like a pipsqueak.

 

[Marvolo]

It's just baffling how they could think this looks good. The like to dislike ratio on the trailer is 16K - 12K, I don't think I've ever seen a Disney film that disliked. They must be ****ting bricks right now over the reaction to this. What did they spend on this? $180-200m?

Considering what Disney spent on Beauty and the Beast ($250 million) I'm guessing the budget for Aladdin is at least $200 million. And that's probably not counting marketing.

 

[jmc]

Considering what Disney spent on Beauty and the Beast ($250 million) I'm guessing the budget for Aladdin is at least $200 million. And that's probably not counting marketing.

And clearly not enough on the CGI.

 

[dark_b]

Will Smith's paycheck is maybe not like 10 years ago but still very big. plus he is getting payed to promote the movie through social media. not enough for CGI

 

[Marvolo]

And clearly not enough on the CGI.

One of the things I've noticed with Richie is the higher his budget the worse his vfx and story seem to be. His King Arthur film was $175 million at least and compare that film to his $100 million Sherlock Holmes films. I just dont think he has a good eye for vfx or just doesnt prioritize realism in his film's vfx.

 

[Lencho01]

The only issue I have with it is that the body type doesn’t look like Smith’s. Compare the pics of his human form or just how he looks in any current pics he’s taken outside of this film. Even at his biggest during making Ali, his body wasn’t like that.

 

[jmc]

One of the things I've noticed with Richie is the higher his budget the worse his vfx and story seem to be. His King Arthur film was $175 million at least and compare that film to his $100 million Sherlock Holmes films. I just dont think he has a good eye for vfx or just doesnt prioritize realism in his film's vfx.

I can't blame it all on Richie. The art director and VFX head have responsibilities too . Somewhere along the lines though there has to been a completely breakdown in communication though, because 12 months ago the same company had Thanos looking 100 times better.

 

[-JKR-]

This movie to me looks like it's trying waaaaay too hard to be a carbon copy of the animated movie. Quite frankly, for a story such as "Aladdin," I would've cut the songs. The costumes look out of place, the blue Genie in my opinion is proof that it would've been much better if they had adapted him to look like he did in his first official pic ( in human-ish form).

Yeah, the possibilities are infinite with modern CGI effects. You can create ANYTHING. But at one point I think that you've gotta ask yourself, as a filmmaker, if it's really worth it to have your "live action movie" look like and feel like it could be an animated CGI movie. Why bother?

And in the case of these Disney live-action remakes of animated movies, Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" and Sam Raimi's "Oz" (which I liked by the way) both show how much these juggernauts tend to suck out the life out of the filmmakers.

 

[jmc]

This movie to me looks like it's trying waaaaay too hard to be a carbon copy of the animated movie. Quite frankly, for a story such as "Aladdin," I would've cut the songs. The costumes look out of place, the blue Genie in my opinion is proof that it would've been much better if they had adapted him to look like he did in his first official pic ( in human-ish form).

Yeah, the possibilities are infinite with modern CGI effects. You can create ANYTHING. But at one point I think that you've gotta ask yourself, as a filmmaker, if it's really worth it to have your "live action movie" look like and feel like it could be an animated CGI movie. Why bother?

The biggest hurdle with this film is the Genie was essentially a Looney Tunes character in a Disney movie. If they had made Genie a more grounded character like everyone else then I think it's less of a challenge. But, you've got a character that is doing all this wacky, 4th wall breaking stuff, turning himself into numerous shapes, sizes and people, that there is no way you can translate it into live action. It's impossible. The only way you overcome that is if you divorce the remake from the original, but then you can't market it to the 90's kids who have families now. Of all the remakes Disney could have done, this should have been the one they should have known would have been too difficult to translate. If ever there's a case that you cant translate everything into live action it's this.

 

[Marvolo]

I can't blame it all on Richie. The art director and VFX head have responsibilities too . Somewhere along the lines though there has to been a completely breakdown in communication though, because 12 months ago the same company had Thanos looking 100 times better.

Disney uses multiple vfx houses on every film because Weta and ILM cant do it all alone. Luma Pictures is one of the smaller ones they use and they did some of the Thanos shots in the MCU. And Aladdin's vfx are being created by ILM, DNEG, Nzviage, and Proof so who knows which Genie shots actually came from ILM and which came from one of the other three companies. And the artists that made Thanos may not even be involved in any of the Genie shots.

 

[jmc]

Disney uses multiple vfx houses on every film because Weta and ILM cant do it all alone. Luma Pictures is one of the smaller ones they use and they did some of the Thanos shots in the MCU. And Aladdin's vfx are being created by ILM, DNEG, Nzviage, and Proof so who knows which Genie shots actually came from ILM and which came from one of the other three companies. And the artists that made Thanos may not even be involved in any of the Genie shots.

I was talking more about the whole process not really just the VFX. How any of this, from the design, to the VFX, to the trailer, was approved by the people involved with this is beyond me.

 

[jmc]

The dislikes are going to over take the likes, lol.

 

[-JKR-]

The biggest hurdle with this film is the Genie was essentially a Looney Tunes character in a Disney movie. If they had made Genie a more grounded character like everyone else then I think it's less of a challenge. But, you've got a character that is doing all this wacky, 4th wall breaking stuff, turning himself into numerous shapes, sizes and people, that there is no way you can translate it into live action. It's impossible. The only way you overcome that is if you divorce the remake from the original, but then you can't market it to the 90's kids who have families now. Of all the remakes Disney could have done, this should have been the one they should have known would have been too difficult to translate. If ever there's a case that you cant translate everything into live action it's this.

You know, to me Steve Barron's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is a great example for how to adapt these things.
The characters maintain their iconic looks and trademarks, yet they've gone all the way to try to make them all believable, and created a believable world around them.

As out there as they are, it never looks as if they've just thrown cartoon characters on the screen.

Of course there are many ways to believe a tangible world. Tim Burton often manages to create believable worlds which are far distanced from our reality, but the main point is...

You gotta make me believe in what I see, one way or another. Even if it's the most absurd and unrealistic stuff. And these live-action Disney animated remakes fail to do so, because it's as if the filmmakers just tend to shrug it off with a " people know it was an animated movies once, they'll buy into it, connecting it to their childhood favorites, no worries. Just keep throwing the fanservice in there."

Which, by the way, is a problem I have with some of the Marvel Studios movies, as well. Spider-Man's barely live-action anymore, even when he's just walking around, talking. Same goes for Black Panther, and some narrative and stylistic choices. I often get the same feel as with the remakes, of the team sitting around just saying "They've gotten used to this stuff. It's comic book stuff. No need to worry about it too much."

Just my two cents.