Re: OT: Re: Titan A.E.

On Thu, 6 Jul 2000 GBailey@aol.com wrote:

> > From: Brian Burger <yh728@victoria.tc.ca>
> >  Subject: Movie Review: Titan A.E.
> >  
> >  Just saw this last night (Tuesday). It's an animated space opera,
> >  basically. Most of the scenery is computer graphics, and it's
pretty great
> >  visually; the characters are all hand-drawn animation and are
pretty...
> >  annoying, actually.
> 
> What was annoying?  The graphics or the personalities?

The personalities, mostly. The 'hero' spent most of his time whining,
and
almost all of the aliens were played for laughs. The graphics were good,
although there were scenes where the cel-drawn characters looked a bit
strange against the CG backgrounds. Mostly that was all well done,
though.

> >  Some very cool space stations & ships. The various asteroid
stations and
> >  'Drifter colonies' are very cool.
> 
> It reminded me of Heavy Metal the Movie.  They were functional and not
> fancy with "warp nacelles" out on wings.

Yes - I've been thinking of FT asteroid bases for ages, and that salvage
base has provided further inspiration.
   
> >  Storywise & for characters, it's a weak movie... Most of the
characters
> >  are pretty one-dimensional, the 'hero' whines way too much, most of
the
> >  aliens are there for laughs... This is Hollywood's take on anime,
> >  basically. See it for inspiration for your FT modelling - I want to
find
> >  some screenshots on the web - and not for the characters & plot...
(plot:
> >  simple; ending: silly...)
> 
> They didn't spend too much time in character development, but they
only
> had 90 minutes (if that) for a movie.  The hero is a teenager or maybe
a bit 
> older,
> of course he whines.	I'm surprised he hadn't been tossed out an
airlock a 
> long
> time ago, though.
> I hated the ending.  See spoiler below.
>   
> >  It does have nasty alien badguys (who blow Earth up) who are
probably the
> >  coolest-looking things in the movie.
> 
> They reminded me of Phantom Warriors from the computer game Master of
Magic.
>   
> >  Verdict: Worth getting to if you can get in cheap (Tuesday is
cheap-movie
> >  night in town) or wait and see it on video for the visuals...
> >  
> >  Anyone else seen it?
>   
> I'm glad I saw it since these type of movies are rare (space opera)
but
> not glad I paid the price to see it (even at matinee price).
> 
> Glen
> (spoilers alert)
** Further Spoilers ** 
>
> 
> 
> 
> Let's make a solar system in 15 minutes with planets
> cool enough to walk on.  *yuck*
> And what was to keep other alien races from just taking
> this brand-spanking new planet?  The humans had no
> warships to defend it.
> 
> The enemy: What a "nice" way to get rid of the enemy,
> no bloody/oozy bodies to clean up.  Although I hated
> them for blowing up the Earth so good riddance.

Hey, using the 'energy beings' as a source for your new planet had a
certain elegance... One thing I think the producers got right: The
constant heavy rain on the surface of the new planet - that should last
a
couple of thousand years, though, so all those new colonists might get a
wee bit tired of it... Of course, any ship/system that can create a
whole
planet can probably speed the process along a bit.

The ending was schmaltzy, no question. Lots of great-looking drifter
ships
in that very final scene, though. Too bad about the characters clogging
up
the screen!

Brian - yh728@victoria.tc.ca -
- http://warbard.iwarp.com/games.html -