XENOPHONZ opened this issue on Dec 11, 2007 · 68 posts
XENOPHONZ posted Tue, 11 December 2007 at 12:24 PM
The storyline of The Lord of the Rings translated well to the movie screen. So did The Chronicles of Narnia.
Just how disappointing Beowulf has or has not been depends upon who you want to listen to......but there's no question that its overall box office performance didn't come up to what the producers were looking/hoping for. It certainly didn't come anywhere near being a blockbuster.
Meanwhile, The Golden Compass might be sailing towards genuine box office flop status before it's over with. The producers will end up looking to DVD sales in the hopes of turning a profit. And many professional film critics are already expressing serious doubts that there will ever be a sequel, as was originally planned. Some are starting to derisively refer to it as "The Brass Compass"........
Personally, I am far more inclined to blame the story itself than I am to blame the CG effects of the film. Frankly, The Golden Compass just isn't a tale that a lot of movie-goers who are looking for nothing but pure entertainment can relate to. While others seriously object to the core thrust of the story -- which translates into losing a giant percentage of any potential audience before you've even started. And as far as the books themselves selling well is concerned -- success in the publishing industry is adjudged by a very different standard than success in the film industry.
As for the CGI aspect, I think that the thing which a lot of people object to is simply that it "isn't real". Current CGI exists in a twilight zone that's situated somewhere halfway between reality and a Satruday morning cartoon.
My guess is that CGI will be a lot more effective when the technology reaches the point where the average person can't readily tell the difference between CGI and reality.