beowulf

[ghini]

I saw Beowulf in 3D last night.  All in all it was good. 

In the big fight between Beowulf and Grendel, Beowulf is naked.  Since this is a PG-13 movie, there are conveniently placed elbows, candles, swords, smoke, shadows and more to keep us from seeing full frontal Beowulf.  It got to be like an Austin Powers movie.

Just for the record:

Using CGI to make a virtual, naked Angelina Jolie:  good!
Using CGI to make a virtual, naked Anthony Hopkins:  bad!

They had a CGI preview for Coraline too.  In 3D.  Neil Gaiman and Henry Selick in 3D!

Comments

[poodleface.livejournal.com]

Are you serious? The fat naked Anthony Hopkins was brilliant! :o

I thought he made the best translation to the rendered world... him and Brendan Gleeson (Beowulf's right hand man).

Did you watch the 1010pm show? I thought I saw you walking out of the building as I was going in to watch "No Country For Old Men". Which no amount of spoilers could ruin, by the way... just give all the Oscars to that film and call it a day.

[uglor.livejournal.com]

Yup. That was me, juju and Rutledge leaving the 10:10.

[poodleface.livejournal.com]

Also, I hated putting that Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D trailer last in the trailer pack. It will undo any of the progress that Beowulf has made in getting people interested in 3D. It looks hideous.

I think I'm going to put in 2nd and Coraline first and just have the 2D trailers in between, because Sweeney Todd is so much better right before you start Beowulf than crappy Brenden Frasier.

These are some of the things I think about at my job.

[ninsun.livejournal.com]

but i want to see the naughty bits!!!!

[uglor.livejournal.com]

There was talk of releasing an R or NC-17 version at the same time, with more blood and naughty bits. They decided that having multiple rated versions of a movie which already has 3 different versions out (regular, Imax and 3D) would just be too confusing.

Pray for naughty bits on DVD.

[violin.livejournal.com]

I'm almost sure they'll do a naught bits version on dvd-- just re-render from a slightly different angle, or delete those strategicly placed elements...

I just finished reading Coraline the other day. Very very good. About 10 pages in, I start to realize "Man, Gaiman writes this story a lot. Neverwhere, Mirror Mask, and now this." 5 pages later I forgot all about that.

[ewin.livejournal.com]

They had a CGI preview for Coraline too.

AAAAAACK! Really?

[happyfunnorm.livejournal.com]

To me, the most distracting part of the movie (besides all the "Look! It's 3D!" moments was my constant querry "When is he going to dive to the bottom of the ocean and kill Grendel's Mother? Did I misread it, or am I remembering it wrong?"

Besides those 2 issues, I thought it was great fun.

[uglor.livejournal.com]

I don't follow. Why would Beowulf kill Grendels mother? Their deal was, he gives her a son and the horn, and she leaves his kingdom alone.

[happyfunnorm.livejournal.com]

They had no such deal, from Wikipedia
Hroðgar, Beowulf, and their men track Grendel's mother to her lair under an eerie lake. Beowulf prepares himself for battle; he is presented with a sword, Hrunting, by a warrior called Unferð. After stipulating a number of conditions (upon his death) to Hroðgar (including the taking in of his kinsmen, and the inheritance by Unferð of Beowulf's estate), Beowulf dives into the lake. There, he is swiftly detected and attacked by Grendel's mother. Unable to harm Beowulf through his armor, Grendel's mother drags him to the bottom of the lake. There, in a cavern containing Grendel's body and the remains of many men that the two have killed, Grendel's mother and Beowulf engage in fierce combat.

Grendel's mother at first prevails, after Beowulf, finding that the sword (Hrunting) given him by Unferð cannot harm his foe, discards it in fury. Again, Beowulf is saved from the effects of his opponent's attack by his armor and, grasping a mighty sword from Grendel's mother's armory (which, the poem tells us, no other man could have hefted in battle), Beowulf beheads her. Travelling further into the lair, Beowulf discovers Grendel's corpse; he severs the head. Beowulf then returns to the surface and to his men at the "ninth hour" (l. 1600, "nōn", about 3pm).[24] He returns to Heorot, where Hroðgar gives Beowulf many gifts, including Nægling, his family's heirloom.

So I was right in remebering the battle (except that it was at the bottom a lake and not a sea). The movie just totally changed the story, but, like I said, it was still a pretty good movie. I just have no idea why anyone would rewrite it like that...

[uglor.livejournal.com]

Ok, I was referring to the deal in the movie. Never read the poem.