What is Digg?93 Comments
- shaun944, on 10/12/2007, -16/+66was a cool effect, too bad they didn't have a plugin to replace Brett Ratner with Bryan Singer....or write an even halfway decent script.
- jkostantos, on 10/12/2007, -2/+28 http://www.duggmirror.com/movies/Side-by-side_comparison_of_X-Men_3_anti-aging_effects/
- shaun944, on 10/12/2007, -5/+26@ Biff
First let me couch this by saying I work in town as a writer and I have a BFA in CG and Film (a very broad program/major at my college), so I have a different perspective of film than most moviegoers and I'm probably one of the harshest critics ever...
second, ***** spoiler alert. I'm going to break down a couple things in the film and while I don't suggest you see X-men 3, if you still want too and don't want to read spoilers, then please skip this post. :)
Ok, I'm not sure what "better" acting there was - #3 was filled with melodrama, over the top "crying-out-your-love's-name in-a-rainstorm" kind of badness. good examples in the film would be, Scott at the Lake, Wolverine kills Phoenix death sequence (all of it, from the she can't kill him because he regens, to stabbing her and then crying out NOOOO!!!!)....
And the dialogue throughout the whole movie was BAD. The scene where "Angel" comes into the mansion for ex:
(paraphrasing a bit)
Angel "I heard this was a place mutants could come to be safe"
Beast "It was such a place"
Storm (after a dramatic pause) "It still is!"
oh my god I thought I was going to vomit. the film was rife with those moments.
Second, characters were already established, but suddenly in the 3rd film they act in complete opposite mannerisms (Xavier being the most glaring in his justification of suppressing Jean's powers, which of course felt forced because the plot point itself was forced...I'll get to this shortly).
Third, the technical quality of this film was horrid. I saw stuff that I haven't seen outside of low-budget indies or student films. From the staging, cinematography, overuse of master shots, but most glaringly, the fact that it goes day to night at the Alcatraz battle - darkness is a nice trick to hide scant action and bad CG but to crossfade to it like they did was like, "holy crap what just happened???" kind of hard to maintain suspension of disbelief.
ok, last is the plot: if the third was so good or at least on par with 1 & 2, then please tell what the point was for the Phoenix? She does nothing in the movie except stand and stare into space, and then blow some stuff up at the end.
Singer clearly set up the evolution of the Phoenix in a smart manner through the first 2 films. Ratner and his script completely ignore the legwork that was done for them and pull a rabbit out of a hat to explain the Phoenix (that would be "oh she just had split personalities..."). The only reason she's in #3 is because Singer had already set up expectations and they (Fox/Ratner) HAD to include her or risk alienating the fanbase. As a result, she has absolutely nothing to do with the A-plot of the film, and her b-plots all required dramatic changes to characters and canon (Xavier's personality and Scott's death, her death at Wolverine's hand).
So how did Singer set her up differently? Well the Phoenix in the comics is possessed by an alien, and that isn't going to fly with a movie audience, so he created a machine in movie #1 that turns men into mutants...but mutants appear to be unaffected. And we learn that mutation usually manifests in people during times of intense stress or emotional extremes (so puberty for most) End of first movie, they blow up Magneto's machine and there is a cut-away closeup of Famke, and you can see there's something awry - she feels odd. No dialogue, only a look, and the shot is completely out of context if you're only looking at that film.
Movie #2 opens with a discussion in the museum where we learn that her powers have been off-kilter since....Liberty Island. End of #2 involves a major physical and emotional situation, lots of stress, the kind of thing where mutations manifest in 'normal' people carrying the gene. An earlier scene in the film, also stressful is the missile lock sequence, where we see a glimpse of phoenix fire in her eyes...
So #2 ends and the Phoenix has been created for #3. She is simply another evolution of mutation, sped up by Magneto's machine. This is how good movies, and good sequels work b-plots into a-plots. Its completely organic within the story, its not far-fetched beyond the story's premise and it's not some arbitrary deus-ex-machina bs pulled from left field like say "oh she just had a split personality I never told anyone about, but now its baaack...."
I could write much more, but you get my point. I hope. After I saw #3, I heard a six year old a few seats away tell his dad, he "didn't want to see this movie again because it wasn't a good movie" - direct quote, so maybe my movie taste isn't so far off the mainstream :) - Firemeboy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+25I thought it was just Oil of Olay.
- BlackNute, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Even the duggmirror got dugg to death... amazing
- invisiblesun, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Indiana Jones 4, made possible by this technology.
I mean, with a cast that's practically dead, it's the only way. - vitriolix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14two words... mirrors hosed
- antisthenex, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15I remember when I first saw this I was really impressed by the fact they actually looked younger. I thought they must've hired one hell of a make-up artist.
- Hades32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Here comes a small example from the homepage:
http://img28.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc234&image=24870_x_005_both_orig.jpg
http://img27.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc192&image=24878_x_005_both_after.jpg - Hades32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11These are the two (far too big ex-tiff) images from the website
http://img108.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc204&image=26945_sideby2_16bit.jpg
http://img143.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc41&image=26952_sideby_16bit.jpg - VipeNess, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12this website is not going to be able to handle all the traffic
- lrm21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9The effect is not as noticable on Stewart I think because.
He's bald to begin with and bald men always look way older.
So that limits the impact of the changes to adjusting laugh lines and wrinkles.
But in the closeup of him in the room. the changes are pretty astonishing. - mobber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8i think peter jackson just figured out how to make bilbo look younger for The Hobbit...
- sych0, on 10/12/2007, -9/+17was
- Lacero, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9*sigh*
I guess I'll just digg this as a bookmark and get back to it later in the week. One of the drawbacks to Digg being so popular. I wish it weren't so. - breakneckridge, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Seeing these side by side pictures makes the age regression effect look greater than it seems when you see the movie regularly. When I was watching the movie I chuckled when I saw how the decades younger version of the characters looked just about the same as today.
- WackyT, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Duggmirror page is even down.
- elpayo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Ptarick Stewart has looked the same since 'Excalibur.'
- toby34a, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Yeah... Duggmirror has been flaky recently... Digg is becoming too big for its britches...
- lrm21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Darn Digg effect.
Anyways supposedly this is the technique they are using for the film of Magneto. Where they are going to have the story of Magneto and Xavier when they were young. But it will be played by Ian Mckellan and Patrick Stewart. I imagine its mentioned in the article.
This must give new life to a lot of great actors who have seen better days.
Clint Eastwood
Paul Newman
Marlon Brando - Hey he's In Superman Returns, except he's dead! - spectre_25gt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It's worth it to submit a bug report if you haven't already. I talked to digg tech support for a while on this and they finally forwarded it on to the devs from what the email said.
- hobbla, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Wow, McKellen got a huge face lift in the after pic.
- VipeNess, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8i love inferno :) if you used it you will know
- letaalio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4McKellen is actually one year younger.. weird.
- Avogadro65, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5something like that does happen, because every time I try to login after opening multiple tabs, it redirects me back to the most recently clicked link, not the referring page. That's the main thing I'd like to see fixed on digg.
- shinynew, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3nice review shaun944. I think this movie is worth watching for maybe 3$ but not normal movie prices, It really does make you cringe some of the time just due to lack of style or good story telling. Comicbooks made movies almost always suffer from a degrading story because comic book readers and movie goes differ in what they like alot of the time.
But i dont see why you thought the CG was so bad, yes I noticed some werid stuff, lightings werent right on some mutants, and the day night thing was werid as hell, also all the cars magicly turned on their headlights...... at the end they had some really werid looking trees ect. but over all i think the CG wasnt to bad. - neonmarg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Jeff here from fxguide... sorry we had to remove the high rez files temporarily. You can still see higher rez jpegs on the site by clicking red boxes under images, we just removed the larger 2k 16bit files for now (until the Digg effect slows)
- Eugenia, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5You can download the shots here:
http://www.fxguide.com/modules/NewsUpload/files/xmen/fxg-sidebyside.tar - affanjam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Too many connections
- Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3k3ymaster
The odd thing though is that the young Patrick Stewart really did look rather strange. Rather like that, indeed. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4When Digg users have Digg'd the Digg mirror then you know it is getting bad. I know the effects were damned good, I thought they looked nice in the movie but can't wait to view a side-by-side comparison.
- SirSid, on 05/27/2009, -2/+4Coral is
http://www.fxguide.com.nyud.net:8090/article357.html
I dunno if corral was able to take a snap shot before It went down or not - ThisIsJames, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4wow Duggmirror is suffering from the digg effect too. This is a sad day.
- liquidcoooled, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3TheBrink,
I've noticed replying without being logged in is dangerous.
I think the cookie for your most recent page (in firefox tabs) is restored instead of going back to the original referer.
(or something like that)
I've seen lots of reply mistakes. - o0nac0o, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Digg is too awesome for its own good
- ywwg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sorry for killing your server guys. I'm an fxphd student this semester so hopefully that makes up for the headache :).
- warfang, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5down already
- RobotCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't think they look that bad at all. And I'm sure the CGI guys used old photos as a template.
- DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I liked the movie but it didn't seem to have the depth of the other two. Not sure if it was the director or the shorter run time. I expect the series to continue for quite a while though. There is so much material and interest. I just with Singer would come back. Superman is old. X-Men just seems more new and exciting.
- WackyT, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Coral cache down also.
- mseymour7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Mike here from fxguide
How cool - thanks guys - I think I need to send some RedBack Beer to the boys for the next podcast. :-)
On the normal story page there are 1200 pixel wide jpegs of the before and afters... the downloads were just 16 bit 2,000 pixel wide versions for the hard core VFX individual who wanted to really study the work.
Again thanks guys...
Mike
that's REDBACK beer from WA - the world's second greatest beer - biffsputnik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@shaun944
Good points, all. That's what I was looking for, thank you. I admit, I did notice most of that myself- didn't put together the Jean/Liberty Island thing, though. I agree with your deus ex-machina assessment also. The Jean/Phoenix thing was definitely obvious as a path of convenience, but that's always going to happen when adapting books/comics to a 90 minute, beat-every-10 summer action movie. I wasn't aware that these directors were involved in the script writing, though now I see Singer was credited in the first 2.
Though I am a huge Marvel/X-men/Stan Lee fan, I guess I just don't hold summer action movies to high standards. It definitely had weak points, but I thought it was enjoyable. A good criticism on your part though, all valid points, and all noted for my next viewing of the movie.
edit- also thought the CG was good; certainly not the horror show of the first installment (wolvie/Statue of liberty - yuck), although I know they had budget constraints on the first one. Thought this one was quite impressive though. - eN1X, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Man, that is so freakin' cool. These guys did some great work!
- Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the answer google cache
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:7ReSWslGVAUJ:www.fxguide.com/article357.html &hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a - happyfundave, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Hell Yeah shaun
"Also, I think if you are going to play the "I'm a writer card," you should at least post something you've done so we can put it into perspective"
I don't believe shaun ever really made himself out to be a writer. He simply pointed out a plot line from the first 2 movies and state just how #3 F-ed that all up.
Also do I have to submit series of short stories to be able to state the the movie 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martians' has some plot holes. - dustedbunny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@rickcarson
Wakka Wakka. - gandubhalla, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They look so much better with the wrinkles!
- neonmarg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No apology needed... we are all Digg fans at fxguide and thrilled to be mentioned here. And thanks for being an fxphd.com student.
Jeff - rickcarson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@shaun944
You are a muppet.
I saw the movie. Then I read the negative things people said last time (including the thing about the headlights suddenly turning on at the end of that sequence). Then I went back and watched the movie again.
You are wrong.
The headlights are *on* when all the normal people are driving around just before magneto shows up to do his thing.
The sun is very low in the western sky and there are long shadows. I take this to indicate that it was supposed to be 'twilight'.
Fairly shortly afterwards (perhaps too shortly?) it is dark. Now maybe they accelerated that part for more dramatic effect I don't know. I do know that in some parts of the world (e.g. Brisbane) you can go from 'late in the day' to 'hey it is dark' in about 15 minutes.
Maybe San Fran isn't like that. Maybe the Sun was in the wrong part of the sky or whatever. Maybe you could criticise those things, but you didn't, and you know what, you got it wrong.
Thirdly, if you were such a great movie writer, you would understand the concept of bookends. XMen 1-3, seen as a whole, is the story of Wolverine and Phoenix's relationship.
I do like your theory on how they were setting up Phoenix in #1 and the first half of #2. But having watched both movies about half a dozen times each, I must be really thick because I'd never seen it the way you describe. I think you are reading too much into it; American movies (warning: gross generalization) are not that subtle.
I admit I was a little disappointed when I saw the third movie. I think a lot of people are.
On the one hand you have the people whining about incredibly minor technical details, which they are often wrong about (such as yourself).
On the other hand you have whiny fanboys complaining about how it doesn't follow the cannon set out in the comic books (such as yourself).
Well, guess what, most of the time even the comic books don't follow their own cannon when they do a new version of the old stuff. I know that twists the fanboys nipple-nuts, but surely you should be used to it by now?
If they introduced the 'power cosmic' they'd also have to introduce Galactus. And frankly, I think he'd deserve his own movie. But I kind of wish/hope they don't. I never really liked that you have this nigh all powerful entity who eats whole worlds for breakfast... and who gets defeated by a bunch of superheroes. What is up with that?
So what is it about the third movie that disappoints? It probably has more action than the other two put together. That should be a good thing, surely?
One of the things I didn't like is how they push the big red reset button at the end of the movie. I know it is a very comic bookish thing, and I struggle with not liking that, but also at the same time being ok with the whole bringing back the Phoenix thing.
Actually, it is probably the parts where they depart from the comic book which I like the most. I *like* that Magneto is this frail old grandpa type, whereas in the comic books he looks like his muscles have muscles. I like pro wrestling as much as the next trailer park redneck, but I vastly prefer Magneto to not be like that.
Magneto has this incredible style. Ian McKellan does an amazing job with him, conveying the use of immense powers effectively through mime, it is great. The prison break out scene from #2 was so amazing, watching him going from this defeated wretch to superhuman (/supervillain) is an awesome transition. Magneto is also by far the most complex character. He is doing the wrong thing, but you understand his reasons, why he does it. He is 'the villain' and yet at the same time he and Xavier have this old bond of friendship, and yet at the same time he carries around his helmet whenever he thinks he might run into Charles or someone like him...
... because he knows that Xavier cannot resist fiddling around in other people's minds ...
(Actually, now that I think back on it he doesn't have the helmet at the start of #1, but he does feel Charles looking through his mind, and *then* he starts showing up with it)
The faceoff between him and Charles at the railway station in #1 is great. The bit where he tells Pyro that the helmet is to protect him from the 'real' bad men is great. Why is he so cautious? Because he has seen Charles abuse his power before, *he has been on the receiving end of it*, and it is exactly the sort of power he would be most afraid of (given his history of experience with 'great orators' swaying the minds of a whole population). In #3 where he shows his 'mutant mark' to the young bloods and tells them that no needle will ever touch him again - brilliant. His mind and his body are his own and noone else's...
... and yet he is friends with the thing he fears the most ... amazing contrasts.
To a lesser extent the other characters have their own style. Wolverine is a kind of mini-hulk ("don't kick him in the balls, he'll take it personally"). The quips and one liners in #3 mostly fit within those styles. You could argue that to a certain extent the styles of the characters had changed, but you said
"but suddenly in the 3rd film they act in complete opposite mannerisms "
I disagree. You point out Xavier specifically. I think you must have had a much more lily white impression of the professor than I did. He was quite happy to mind control other people to get his way. In #2 the major theme was Wolverine rediscovering his identity, and a pretty hefty sub-plot of that was that although Xavier had promised in #1 to help Wolverine discover his past, in number #2 it turns out that he knows a lot more than he is letting on and has chosen not to share that info with Wolverine, and the conflict that this causes between them.
Interestingly, there is yet more conflict between them in #3 - I am not sure what Xavier's comment about 'Wolverine of all people' not judging him for his actions. Maybe that was a nod to the fanboys, I didn't understand the reference. Maybe it indicates that Xavier actually had a part to play in creating Wolverine? Maybe he had a part in *taming* Wolverine, dialing 'the beast' down to the point where he can interact with humans without (or mostly without) ripping them to shreds.
I'm not sure if you could say that relationship was resolved in #3, but it looks like Wolverine finally accepts the goals that Xavier has, and makes them his own, finally really committing to the team. So he's gone from rebel loner to leader. He's also gone from always getting his whiny hairy butt kicked by Magneto to finally getting one up over him.
Another story arc that bookended was with Rogue, she goes from calling herself Marie at the start of #1 back to calling herself Marie at the end of #3.
About the only character that didn't change much during the three movies was Storm. She did have this platonic/romance thing going on with Nightcrawler in #2, but since Allan Cummings (I think it was) couldn't face the hours in makeup again that has to sort of get ignored. There are hints she is attracted to Wolverine, but nothing you would call solid (ie if they made a sequel they could easily ignore that, or they could make a bigger deal out of it).
Yes, there were some small changes. Storm doing her whirlwind-fu thing was new, I wouldn't call it a completely different mannerism.
It is *style* which I think is the thing which has changed. Sometimes he gets it right (Magneto standing on the road in the path of the oncoming cars, Magneto doing his thing with the bridge). I think he got Pyro right (or rather, Pyro in #3 is just like he was in #2). Wolverine was right. Phoenix? Meh. The thing that happened with Magneto and Mystique? Plausible I guess. Kind of necessary for the story line (you only have one queen in chess kind of thing, except of course you can turn a pawn into a queen...).
Magneto getting caught with his pants down at the end of the movie? Not his style. Previously in true comic book villain style he was always a move or two ahead of everyone else. And despite him being my favourite character in the three movies (could you tell? :D ) I don't think they should have pulled his pants back up at the end with their big red reset button.
Even in his reduced state he would have made a great defense against the dark (mutant) arts teacher at the academy (/hogwarts). -
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