Inktober Day 29 - "The Last Halloween"

OK I'm not even sure how to introduce this one.

Did you know "Savage" Steve directed a Halloween special?  But it was really a long commercial for Mars candies, so it couldn't be as insane as "Better Off Dead", so it's... not interesting.

~*~OR~*~ 

Were you a child in the 90's with vague memories of a commercial for Mars candy with really dodgy CGI?  Did you know that was a spin-off from a Halloween special from the year before?

In either case, it's called "The Halloween That Almost Wasn't, But Then Was" "The Last Halloween" and it looks like this.  Drink for every 90's kid movie trope:



Man, those are some character designs...

"Creating the Impossible" airs tonight!

Argh, I can't believe I forgot to mention this. Encore is airing a documentary about the legendary effects studio Industrial Light and Magic tonight at 8:00 EST. It's by the same director as the wonderful "PIXAR Story", and should be pretty nifty.

If you miss the show tonight, it will air again Sunday after a marathon of films featuring ILM's animation! Timeless classics like... "Hook". Also "Jumangi". (To be fair, the marathon consists of the ILM-involving movies that the Encore channels have in their playlist, and it also includes "Starship Troopers". I usually keep politics way the heck away from my blog, but it needs to be said that "Troopers" is the kind of rare work of satire that played one way back when it was released, and a very, very different way now. If you have not seen it before, yes it is a terrible adaptation of the novel, but it is a good movie. Just be prepared to go, and I quote, 😨 at least once. Twice for Neil Patrick Harris fans.)

The Worst CGI In History

CHUD.com, a movie news website I enjoy, has been listing their choices for the worst instances of CGI animation in (usually) otherwise live-action films. They range from Wolverine's "Roger Rabbit" claws in "X-Men Origins" to the forty-two sauropod pileup in Peter Jackson's "King Kong". As a person who has blogged quite a lot about animation, I figured I should share it. Right now, they can all be found accumulating here, or you could start with part one and work your way through.
I have to say, I agree with most of the selections (Part One in particular, as it covers the Scorpion King sequence in "The Mummy Returns", which is easily one of the most downright embarrassing and Narm-tacular things ever put on a screen.) I have to nitpick, however, that many of the sequences were done with the best animation available at the time and simply have not aged well. That said, a fair number of them were... not. And I agree with their argument that we wouldn't be having this discussion at all if the sequences that could have been done practically were.
Take entry ten, the "Burly Brawl" in "Matrix Reloaded". Now, when I saw that at the theater I thought it was awesome. Then when I watched it again last summer it was still awesome... up until a point. There is a moment, and you can tell exactly where it is, when the film-makers eschewed practical effects and stuntwork for motion capture. This is about the only scene in the entire trilogy where they do so and... man, it just sticks out like you can't imagine. It looks like something out of "Happy Feet' and happens to be the only really badly animated scene in the trilogy.

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Speaking of absurdly bad-looking animation, I have a very strong feeling that this little slice of WTF that has recently made the animation fan website rounds is shaping up to be the next "Food Fight."

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DRAWGASMIC IS THIS WEEKEND!!! Actually, this may warrant it's own post later...

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Sketch of the Day!
Randimal anidoms!