Keanu Reeves NEW movie. A Scanner Darkly.

[UN Spacy]

If you've never heard of rotoscoping (live action traced over with CGI) it was featured in the begining of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. Not to mention two other movies directed by Linklater (Waking Life, Dazed and Confused). Check it out.....it looks rather interesting.

Trailer HERE.

[zeo-mare]

yea rotoscoping has been around for awhile there was some Conan animation i recall seeing that was done the same way during the 1980's i believe, but instead of cgi they used conventional hand drawn art. this looks kinda neat as well.

chris

Edited February 23, 2005 by zeo-mare

[EXO]

doesn't make sense why they would do that. Linklater hasn't done anything good since Dazed and Confused. He started out at the same time as John Sayles and Steven Soderbergh and has since bitten their dust.

Edited February 23, 2005 by >EXO<

[Graham]

Didn't Ralph Bakshi's animated Lord Of The Rings also use Rotoscoping? Must be more than 20 years since I watched it, so my memory is a little hazy.

Graham

[EXO]

yeah he did... he mainly used rotoscoping for all his movies.

[Radd]

Most animation fans really aren't fans of rotoscoping, for reasons that should be obvious. I'm even less impressed by what I see in this trailer. I mean, it could be interesting for a short while, but a whole movie? Not to mention, A Scanner Darkly is a dark and gritty sort of story, much like all of Dick's works, and this comes off as looking bright, shiney, and plastic looking.

[yellowlightman]

Nifty little effect, but i found it distracting and annoying watching the trailer... Don't think I could stand it for a full length movie.

Not to mention... Keanu Reeves.

I wish he would just stop.

[Duke Togo]

Generally, I would eat my own feces before actually paying to see a Keanu Reeves movie (outside of Bill & Ted), but this looks rather interesting. Doesn't mean I'd pay to see it, but it has my interest.

[NERV]

Didn't Ralph Bakshi's animated Lord Of The Rings also use Rotoscoping? Must be more than 20 years since I watched it, so my memory is a little hazy.

Graham

i dont know about the animation of the caracters but there were a lot of scenes that werent exactly rotoscoping, they were just live footage broken down to 2 or 3 colors, usually black for the people and another color for backgorund and lighting, done to look like animation but it was terrible, i hated that movie mostly because of the animation

[Mislovrit]

yea rotoscoping has been around for awhile there was some Conan animation i recall seeing that was done the same way during the 1980's i believe, but instead of cgi they used conventional hand drawn art. this looks kinda neat as well.

chris

Most it is Ralph Baksh and Frank Frazetta's Fire and Ice.

[Wes]

Is this trick really supposed to add something to the movie which otherwise couldn't be done? Doesn't look like it.

[Duke Togo]

Its covering up the shitty acting.

[Southpaw Samurai]

Rotoscoping goes back to nearly the origins of animation. Disney used it (sometimes obviously like in Snow White). It almost always looks odd when meshed in with freehand animation. Still, when used as a tool to help get a certain motion down right, it's not too bad. When it's the main tool (like Bashki's LOTR) things start to go downhill a bit (LOTR is especially a good case, as it was done in a manner similar to how these days people might film two actors in front of a bare bluescreen stage and add everything else via CGI later...and it's telling because when they went to animate it and fill in everything, the animators just weren't creative enough to provide much more than you would've gotten had it just been the two actors and a chair...and that's before you discuss the orcs and such where it looks like no attempt was made to improve the quick, crappy 'costumed' filmed actors).

I have to agree with those who said they're unsure how this will stand as a full length movie. I actually sort of dig the way it looks (and in some way, it works with the flavor of the book), but I'm not sure I could stand looking at it for 90+ minutes.

[HWR MKII]

Rotoscoping + Early motion capture efforts = todays CG heavy movies IE final fantasy, SW episode1,2 .

Animation is truely a viewers choice market you watch what you like. i am willing to give almost any form of animation a try. Also this film was written by the writer of Blade runner so i will definitely be there.

Edited February 23, 2005 by HWR MKII

[JELEINEN]

What's funny about Bakshi's LotR film is that it was hyped at the time as some new break-through in animation. People were really disapointed when it was found out to be rotoscoping, which, as has been pointed out, had been around for fifty years already. Another film guilty of using it was Heavy Metal; easily one of the most over-rated films ever. I wasn't aware of the opening to Knockin' On Heaven's Door being rotoscoped, though.

As for this movie, I'm still in shock that it's being filmed at all. This is one of Philip K. Dick's more f'd up novels. Everything of his that's been filmed before was based on one of his short stories. His short works conform more to standard SF, especially of the Twilight Zone/Outer Limits type (always some sort of twist at the end). Much of this gets lost in translation to the screen, but that's to be expected).

It appears to me that the rotoscoping in this movie is to make it look sureal, and really not to animate it. I'll definitely be curious to see how the treat PKD's work. It's been rumored that this will be first time anyone's ever tried to do an actual adaptation of his stuff (Blade Runner, Screamers, Total Recall, etc. all change the stories signifigantly).

[MSW]

Rotoscopeing has never been exclusive to animated films...its also used a lot in the field of special effects.

For example the costume glow effect in Tron was rotoscoped. Heck all the live action scenes takeing place in the computer world were essentualy shot on an animation stand with rotoscoped animation cells.

Watch the Star Wars original trilogy...see those funky wierd boxes/shapes moveing around the spacecraft? that is from rotoscopeing an isolation matte allowing ILM to get larger, more dynamic motion control shots without haveing to turn the entire model filming stage into a giant bluescreen...not to mention all the lasers flying around and such.

and technicaly...modern "didgital wire removal" is basicly rotoscopeing...

Even the backlight effects you see in anime (commonly used for glowing effects like in Tron) are often considered rotoscope effects...

anyway...

Most animation fans really aren't fans of rotoscoping, for reasons that should be obvious.

Quite true, I'm a huge fan of animation (all forms...but I much prefer good old stopmotion to CGI )...but while rotoscoped effects work is cool in my book...the whole Baski LoTR rotoscoped type thing isn't however...

But I did like Linklers Wakeing Life film...some of it worked very well...while some of it didn't, but it will be interesting seeing how Scanner Darkly turns out (Linkler is a big P.Dick fan, so it should be interesting to say the least)

[bsu legato]

Hmm....pretty surreal. We'll never know for certain, but I'm betting that weird "look" is what PKD experienced in his day to day life. Let's face it, the man was a bit of a nutbar.

[Gui]

I'm not enthusiastic at all concerning this movie: all these photoshop-like 'filters' effects are far too much omnipresent to be convincing IMO. Too much effect kills the effect...

I'll wait fan feedback to make my choice

[Max Jenius]

Looks interesting. I'll have to check it out sometime.

[Dangaioh]

My opinion... should have stuck with standard filming than rotoscoping.

This suspense/sci-fi movie would have been better w/out it... almost "better".

I also don't like Ralph Bakshi's animation.

[HWR MKII]

Keep in mind that this may not be the finished film either . In soms scenes it looks like there was still a little clean up to do .

[UN Spacy]

Alright folks!

A Scanner Darkly opens in limited release TODAY! I've gotta say I'm impressed with all the commercials. Who's gonna try and catch it this weekend?

Edited July 7, 2006 by UN Spacy

[Mr March]

From what I've heard by the few critics I really respect, the film is visually arresting, but a mess in every other category. As a sci-fi fan I adore Philip K. Dick's work, but Linklater is really hit and miss with me. Waking Life was just one long philosophical wank and if "Scanner" is done in such a similar way, it will miss the meat of Dick's book. Still, like one of the few critics I respect said;

"I'm tempted to still recommend it (A Scanner Darkly), since I'd rather see an intriguing failure than a generically adequate movie... The question is, what do YOU prefer?"

I may put that question to the test. But I've got other priorities for now.

Edited July 7, 2006 by Mr March

[Jolly Rogers]

I read a review by someone who really, really hated Waking Life due to its Philosophy 101 approach. Apparently the reviewer loved this one because it is more catered to those already have some background in philosophy.

As for PKD experiencing 'weird' looks daily... he's actually anti-drugs and that also happens to be one of the main themes of this book/movie.

[Hurin]

There are a bunch of Charles Schwab commercials out right now that look exactly like the technique used in this movie.

I found the commercial annoying. . . but I saw the preview for Scanner Darkly before Superman and it looked very interesting (and less neon) on the big screen.

Here's a bit on the technique used in the commercials that touches on a lot of things already said here:

I noticed right away that the new animated Charles Schwab ads used the same "rotoscoping" technique Richard Linkletter used in his meandering yet captivating film Waking Life. The technique involves animating over the top of live action. It's new to some people, although it has been used in the past, including Ralph Bakshi's production of Lord of the Rings in 1978. The problem is, the animation is pretty much the only thing that stayed with me from the commercial. Slate writer Seth Stevenson claims the animation in the Charles Schwab ads held his interest as much as Waking Life did, but I have to say my experience wasn't the same. In Waking Life it felt necessary to present the philosophical ideas in a visually exciting way, but when talking about money and investment, the approach just seems superfluous.

Couldn't agree more (regarding its use for investment advice).

H

[chrono]

...the approach just seems superfluous.

I kinda agree. Just the commericals for it make me feel like I'm watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I just don't think I could sit through a movie like this unless it had a great plot and storyline. The whole splochie paint-by-numbers look is headache inducing.

Jolly Rogers, I do believe that PKD was a fairly drugged up person for quite a few years, but this sounds like the book was made after that era.

[Mr March]

I read a review by someone who really, really hated Waking Life due to its Philosophy 101 approach.  Apparently the reviewer loved this one because it is more catered to those already have some background in philosophy.

As for PKD experiencing 'weird' looks daily... he's actually anti-drugs and that also happens to be one of the main themes of this book/movie.

414355[/snapback]

I'll eventually give the film a shot, though it may go on my spreadsheet for DVD rental rather than a theatrical veiwing.

Dick himself did deal with drugs in his books, but it's a hard arguement to make that he was decidedly "anti-drugs." Most often the drugs angle in his work was simply a means to an end; the end most often being character self-realization that reality was false or an illusion. Dick was the literary precursor to reality-bending fiction, cyberpunk, and films like The Matrix. Like all of us, Dick was a contradiction. At various points in his life he used drugs, like amphetamines. He also experienced visions, both sober and under the influence of drugs many times in his life. He suffered from paranoia and was sometimes under the impression government agencies were out to get him. He was also convinced that he was in contact with a divine consciousness which he named VALIS. To say Dick was disturbed and unadjusted is probably glossing over his state of mind, but his mental state did create some of the most engaging science fiction literature of this past century.

[Ginrai]

Regarding rotoscoping:

The effect was invented in the early days of animation (in the teens) at the Max Fleischer studio, who basically bankrupted themselves with their incredibly expensive (at the time) rotoscoped 1941 Superman cartoon. You know, "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane!" Fighting transforming robots and mad scientists and all. Thank the Flesichers for that, back in the day.

Regarding Philip K. Dick: The man was quite probably manic-depressive and definitely made it worse by abusing meth amphetamines. Some of his later work can be interpreted as anti-drug... made AFTER he quit. Check out the interviews with people who knew him in the Future Noir, the exhaustive book about the making of Blade Runner.

There were essentially two Philip K. Dicks. There was the intelligent, friendly, lucid Dick that you usually saw, and then the combatative paranoid who would treat every offhand comment you made as a personal attack.

Regarding Linklater: He has made some interesting and challenging movies and some totally harmless commercial pap. School of Rock is a pretty feel good family-friendly commercial endeavour, and Waking Life is a meandering, surreal, pretentious little art film with a fascinating visual style. Dazed and Confused is 100 times better than similar coming of age stories like American Graffiti. The man has a lot of different styles. I'm hoping A Scanner Darkly is something a bit new. A bit of the pretentious art film with an interesting visual style, and hopefully a thoughtful and entertaining sci-fi film.

Past screen adaptations of Dick's works tend to ignore the obvious drug connotations and swirling, twisting ever-in-flux reality and focus on the technological moral questions he poses. The films sometimes do a decent job of displaying the pervasive paranoia in his writing (Blade Runner, Minority Report, and Impostor are all pretty good at that), but mostly they do not understand the malleability of reality that Dick was obsessed with.

He has a short story where an android discovers he's an android and then starts disassembling himself until he finds a spool of tape that controls his perception of of reality. He starts experimenting with it, drastically altering how he sees the world. This is interesting to me on three levels: 1) It's an overt reference to hallucinogenic drugs 2) It's incredibly paranoid -- what if you were a robot and you didn't even know it? And if your sense of reality is artificial, how accurate is it? 3) If you can modify your own perception of reality, was your perception of reality -ever- accurate? Does such a thing as an accurate perception of reality even -exist-?

It's hard to portray this kind of personal crisis in a visual, cinematic fashion, but I bet this surrealistic CG rotoscoping technique is an excellent tool for trying it out.

For anyone who thinks Dick never did drugs, he has a story where people live on the incredibly dull planet of Mars and their main source of entertainment is to do hallucinogenic drugs and play with what are essentially Barbie and Ken dolls. The drugs make them think they -are- Barbie and Ken, and they live out elaborate fantasy lives. Come on. Do you want a signed letter from him saying, "Hi. I'm Philip K. Dick. Drugs are really interesting."?

Edited July 7, 2006 by Ginrai

[ComicKaze]

This isn't rotoscoping. This is just some cheap filter put across the digital film. Anybody can do it in photoshop with a click of the mouse.

Stupid gimmick.

[gerwalk25]

Since I've seen the trailer it looks alot like a certian game where you steal cars, hmmmm, lol !

[Sundown]

This isn't rotoscoping. This is just some cheap filter put across the digital film. Anybody can do it in photoshop with a click of the mouse.

Stupid gimmick.

414448[/snapback]

Except it is rotoscoping. I've seen a "how this was done" page by the film's makers and the scenes are actually painted, in layers, by hand, in photoshop or something like it. It's not just an automated filter that makes everything look cel shaded.

[Macross73]

regardless of the "rotoscoping" i'm not much interested in this movie.

as mentioned earlier their use of this gimick seems to just make the whole movie look like one of those Schwab commercials.

Rather than employing this why not have the movie stand on its own 2 feet becasue of it story and actors than this cartoon overlay.

I understand the need to add a selling point/ gimick to sell tickets but even still i dont know that my eyes could take wathcing this for more than 10 minutes.

if there were a substantial need where this format were essential to the telling of the story than perhaps thats justified.

Well i've gone on long enough.

by the way I thought the rotoscoping was great in the old 1940s Superman. its seems appropriate in that situation.

Edited July 11, 2006 by Macross73

[Jolly Rogers]

Here's a soundless clip of the opening credits:

http://www.picturemill.com/

Click on the far right of the 4 images.

[Dobber]

For those who care, I heard that Winnona Ryder is topless in this movie....of course it's "animated" though.

Chris

Edited July 12, 2006 by Dobber

[Poonman]

with all the complaining going on around here about the rotoscoping you guys obviously know nothing about the original story. its written in the distorted, drug saturated POV's of people hooked on the most addictive narcotic known to man. its also "pseudo sci-fi" because while it was written in 1977 it takes place in 1994 los angeles so I think the roto-scoping thing is perfect because it looks weird and you can add animation to it in scenes that might look kind of cheesy or out of place on film (or out of budget for this niche film about drugs).

while I do agree that it is just a gimmick I think its cool. PKD's stories never really dealt with anything all that mainstream so I think its interesting that they took this alternative approach to his latest movie adaption.

and whoever said PKD is "anti-drug" obviously didn't do their homework.. this story gives the impression of being anti-drug because the life style of a drug addict is pretty horrible and if you write a story about say, war, well that story isn't going to be very pleasent. but PKD the man wasn't anti-drug. he was quite the speed addict and kept himself going for days writing books on the stuff because nobody ever paid him that much for his novels so he had to write a lot at a fast pace to make any kind of a living.

but now according to Wiki films based on his books have grossed over 700 million world wide (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck).