(Cross-posted from my LJ, which is here: [link] ...friend me, y'all.)


Robert Zemeckis made a name for himself in the 80's as a director of that rare breed of film, the critically-lauded commercial success. He made some of the great movies that young people of my generation grew up with, Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit each having firm places in my top favorite movies of all time. His success continued into the 90's, with instant-classics like Forrest Gump and Cast Away. But then the new century arrived, bringing with it new filmmaking technologies...and something awful happened to Robert Zemeckis. He fell in love with motion capture.

All of the director's post-2000 films (The Polar Express, Beowulf, and the upcoming A Christmas Carol, in addition to Monster House, which he produced) have been made using this technique that, in my humble opinion, has no place outside the realm of special effects. Motion capture can be used to great effect when you have a character which needs realistic, human-like movement but cannot possibly be played physically by a human (i.e. Gollum). However, when it's used merely for the sake of using it, you end up with awkward, soulless characters who don't look quite human, but really look like they're trying to be human. Essentially, you get all the drawbacks of both live-action and animation with none of the fine qualities of either technique. Real people don't move like cartoon characters, and vice-versa...and it just looks wrong if you try to force such a thing. I defy anyone to give me one good reason why all the characters in Beowulf needed to look and act like photo-realistic humans, but couldn't be played by actors in live-action. It was completely unnecessary, and therefore, horribly awkward to watch.

So, what drove me to finally update my long-neglected blog with this rant about my most-hated filmmaking technique? If you have to ask, you haven't read today's announcement of Zemeckis's next project: [link]

That's right...Robert Zemeckis, working under Disney, will be remaking Yellow Submarine. Yes, the Beatles' 1968 animated feature is being re-imagined as a CGI motion-capture-fest. Now, the fact that it's being made with motion-capture is just the icing on the hate-cake baked in the dismay-oven in the heat of my detest for this idea. I try not to automatically decry every one of the all-too-numerous Hollywood remakes as soon as they're announced...a remake can be justified, if the vision for the project is to take an existing story and put a valid new spin on it, or to explore familiar characters or concepts from a new angle...but really? Yellow Submarine? It's not a film known for its story (does it really have one?) or its characters (well, they're the Beatles...), but rather it's fondly remembered as 90 minutes of delectable eye candy. It's a visual expression of a spirit of groovy adventure. How does one take a movie with visual style as its primary attribute and re-do it? Are they going to re-record the music of the Beatles, or will we hear all the classic recordings coming out of the mo-capped mouths of CGI John, Paul, George, and Ringo? Most importantly, why does anyone involved think any part of this is a good idea?

At any rate, Robert Zemeckis has made my list of filmmakers with whom I'd love to have a conversation...not so much because he has such great movies under his belt (though he does), but because I would absolutely love to ask him what made him obsessed with wrapping his actors in pixels to tell half-hearted stories, when he could be giving us a Back to the Future or Roger Rabbit for the 21st century.

sigh...