Friday, March 21, 2008

Golden Compass beat Transformers at the Oscars

Iorek Byrnison vs Optimus Prime

Iorek Byrnison vs Optimus Prime...

I usually check out the Oscar's winners list every year to look for good movies and guess what?
The 80th Annual Academy Award's Best Visual Effects went to THE GOLDEN COMPASS. Beating Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean 3!!!

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?

Seriously I dig Iorek Byrnison(the bear) for his masculinity! But better visual effects than TRANSFORMERS? What happened to Optimus Prime?

I admit that in the movie Transformers, during the action part, the robots were all over the screen at high speed, hence we can't really focus too detail on the rendering but in The Golden Compass, I don't think it deserves to be the BEST.

I tried to do some research on the way they judge in the Oscars and found this article saying that they usually go for the politically correct ones but since The Golden Compass raised a lot of issues among the Christian community, why did they get the awards?

Is it a way of telling the world that they're in DECEIVING since the effects is good? Or is it to show the world they don't only let the politically correct win?

Discuss and tell me in the comments section? Do you guys feel the same or you beg to differ?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yo, maybe it was harder to 'visual effect-kan' animals like polar bears compared to robots, hence the win? Haha. But OP still rocks my socks! =)

Anonymous said...

Yea it's indeed hardly believable, and if you would ever let me choose, I'll still let Transformers get the award. I read about this somewhere that the animators and CGI team of Transformers make each machine have at least more than 1000 moving parts when they transform, and imagine doing that for a couple of machines. Besides that, the rendering job must be horrible as well!

But for Golden Compass there's also a great deal of CGI in it. From the polar bear to that cold prison that holds the little kids, and from the fake township view from the flying ship and the fake snowy fields, they're all computer generated as well.

Now that's tough call.

LogicYuan said...

nigel>yup,because animals are Organic,hence harder to beat nature to fool our eyes! Robots are man-made and has limited movement but Pirates of the Caribbean was good as well...

teddY> 300 wasn't nominated! One of my all time favourite movies behind Forrest Gump and Jurassic Park. Bringing in the surroundings,I have to say 300 did very well as the whole movie was shot in 60 days and it was 100% green screening! I actually like Golden Compass a lot but the rendering of the palace wasn't too good i shall say..

Anonymous said...

Before anything, i wanna proclaim my tak suka-ness towards Transformers. BOO!

"harder to 'visual effect-kan' animals like polar bears compared to robots" - Quite true, especially things like fur on the polar bear but other than that, i can't really remember (not that there aren't) any other CGI effects.

"make each machine have at least more than 1000 moving parts when they transform" - That sounds complicated, but then again.. it could be as easy as sliding one piece up and folding some other part. It happened so fast that you couldn't notice these kinds of details. Hence, kalah to slow moving movies that showcase their visual effects.

BYE!

Anonymous said...

Both Golden Compass and Transformers leverage heavily on dazzling CGI effects, but remember, EACH machine has 1000 moving parts (and considering that rendering EACH moving part is very hard enough, what about pieceing them together in a whole machine, and tailoring a unique transformation sequence for each machine for each scene? Now that's the real kick). Golden Compass did have a lot of CGI, I appluad their fur rendering which is exceptionally lifelike, but other than that, the township and etc, the CGIs are relatively easier made than those found in Transfomers.

And for the scenes playing too fast for the transformations to be exactly scene, there are actually quite a handufl of slow-mo scenes in the movie - a whole load of them in the city battle scene :)

And plus, coordinating so many actors in a fake city set and clearing the streets for on-site shooting, it's way harder than asking a few kids having a conversation in Golden Compass. I'm not bad-mouthing Golden Compass, but when it comes to complexity and details, Transformer beats it hands down.

In short, Transfomers get my vote :)

LogicYuan said...

usws>you tak suka transformers so you memang bias?lol

Golden Compass ada banyak visual effects la,its quite good that u didn't realise they are visual effects.

"Transformers could be as easy as sliding one piece up and folding some other part?" You're kidding me. Do you know just a slight movement of a part,u have to render the lighting effects?as it is a metal so the reflection is harder to render...

LOL

teddy>the city battle scene was very difficult,i agree with you...

Anonymous said...

Thanks Jiyuan I complete agree with what you've said. The rendering part is really tedious. It'll take days to render just a few seconds of the transforming sequence! They'll need to render the shadows, reflections, gloss, movement (plus some degree of motion blur), lightning... that's a lot to handle.

P.S. I just realised I've made a handful of typos in my previous comment! Whoopsy and sorry!