granted. there is that other factor: this is the first Pixar film to have next to no merchandise potential outside of the DVD, the soundtrack, and maybe a t-shirt or two.
Cars recovered a lot of lost box office (it being nowhere near as big as Toy Story 2, Monsters, or Nemo) by being the biggest selling kids merchandiser in recent Disney history since the Disney Princess brand. Incredibles, Ratatouillie and Wall-E (2 of 3 of those have Bird's name on it) didn't move nearly as much product, showing that not everything marketted past the tween audience can shove stuff off of shelves besides the dvds.
here, there's nothing that really would move except educational and game software that used the same models of the earthquake and aftermath, so any bad box office mojo might not be made up so easily elsewhere (and that too is all just like Pearl Harbor - so yes, I can see the patterns you're suggesting the studio is watching for).
Pearl did have other things going against it, of course. first the bad melodrama (and bad history) that comes from a bad script that isn't sure of what it was trying to achieve, especially as it stretched into the Doolittle raid. The better Pearl films (Tora Tora Tora) did better because they left that combination of mystery and determination around: rather than trying to cast a "human drama" (re: sappy romance), they pumped up the idealism of "we'll get through this" that reflected the feelings of the country itself in the aftermath.
second was (bad history related) conflicting too many things with known historical fact by people who remembered them (no women died in the attack, and the arizona's explosion was utterly wrong).
third was a complete and total lack of on-screen chemistry from ANYBODY. Yes there is that curse of actors being slaves to the special effects (hello Phantom Menace), but really. i don't know if that's actors fault or directors fault or what, but there really was nothing there at all.
yes, in that third, there's that concern again that Bird as someone who's not done live-action before, might fall into the same trap, and it is the one place where Lasseter doesn't have the experience either to help out. Remounts for pick-ups are expensive (as Peter Jackson demostrated with LotR), much more expensive then just sending a scene back to an animator to tighten.
A CGI film has one HUGE advantage over any other filming method: you can change the cinematography of an entire scene literally overnight - flip a few virtual dials and then send it to the rendering farm.
If the animatics and storyboards can't nail it before principal photography, he's stuck with a broken scene, and that would be bad.
Bird needs the combination of 3 things to make the story work, and the effects department isn't one of them. He needs the script and story (Lasseter is key here). He needs a great cinematographer who still understands modern special effects. And he needs good ACTORS for leads with good chemistry and to keep the "stars" to supporting and cameos.
And he also really needs to be careful with Giacchino (his fav composer it seems), but maybe I'll reconsider based on what I hear from Up and the new Star Trek film. It's not that he's not great, but his "action" themes being retro-Bond worked for Incredibles but not always as well when they popped up in moments of Ratatouillie. Giacchino isn't committed to the project yet, of course.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 07:24 pm (UTC)Cars recovered a lot of lost box office (it being nowhere near as big as Toy Story 2, Monsters, or Nemo) by being the biggest selling kids merchandiser in recent Disney history since the Disney Princess brand. Incredibles, Ratatouillie and Wall-E (2 of 3 of those have Bird's name on it) didn't move nearly as much product, showing that not everything marketted past the tween audience can shove stuff off of shelves besides the dvds.
here, there's nothing that really would move except educational and game software that used the same models of the earthquake and aftermath, so any bad box office mojo might not be made up so easily elsewhere (and that too is all just like Pearl Harbor - so yes, I can see the patterns you're suggesting the studio is watching for).
Pearl did have other things going against it, of course. first the bad melodrama (and bad history) that comes from a bad script that isn't sure of what it was trying to achieve, especially as it stretched into the Doolittle raid. The better Pearl films (Tora Tora Tora) did better because they left that combination of mystery and determination around: rather than trying to cast a "human drama" (re: sappy romance), they pumped up the idealism of "we'll get through this" that reflected the feelings of the country itself in the aftermath.
second was (bad history related) conflicting too many things with known historical fact by people who remembered them (no women died in the attack, and the arizona's explosion was utterly wrong).
third was a complete and total lack of on-screen chemistry from ANYBODY. Yes there is that curse of actors being slaves to the special effects (hello Phantom Menace), but really. i don't know if that's actors fault or directors fault or what, but there really was nothing there at all.
yes, in that third, there's that concern again that Bird as someone who's not done live-action before, might fall into the same trap, and it is the one place where Lasseter doesn't have the experience either to help out. Remounts for pick-ups are expensive (as Peter Jackson demostrated with LotR), much more expensive then just sending a scene back to an animator to tighten.
A CGI film has one HUGE advantage over any other filming method: you can change the cinematography of an entire scene literally overnight - flip a few virtual dials and then send it to the rendering farm.
If the animatics and storyboards can't nail it before principal photography, he's stuck with a broken scene, and that would be bad.
Bird needs the combination of 3 things to make the story work, and the effects department isn't one of them. He needs the script and story (Lasseter is key here). He needs a great cinematographer who still understands modern special effects. And he needs good ACTORS for leads with good chemistry and to keep the "stars" to supporting and cameos.
And he also really needs to be careful with Giacchino (his fav composer it seems), but maybe I'll reconsider based on what I hear from Up and the new Star Trek film. It's not that he's not great, but his "action" themes being retro-Bond worked for Incredibles but not always as well when they popped up in moments of Ratatouillie. Giacchino isn't committed to the project yet, of course.