Speed Racer's Visual FX Uncovered

Marco Trezzini writes "View exclusive interactive samples of the digital building blocks behind the Speed Racer movie in VRMag's in-depth interviews with award-winning Matrix visual FX guru John Gaeta, Dennis Martin, Lubo Hristov, and Jake Morrison. Including Virtual Reality panoramas of the movie locations, turn tables of the mach 5 and 6, and many making of videos unveiling the secrets of the visual effects. Link to 'Speed Racer uncovered' and to John Gaeta's interview." The first time I saw the trailer for this movie, my jaw hit the floor. Nobody makes live action "Cartoons" that look like this. I guess that makes me believe there is no way the movie can be good.

Hollywood is dead to me

[by Anonymous Coward]

All they do anymore is remake crappy tv shows i never wanted to watch in the first place into crappy movies i still dont want to watch.

Writers strike be damned, im on a viewers strike!

Re:Hollywood is dead to me

[gardyloo (512791)]

Yeah, but once there's a live-action/CG movie of The Gummybears, I'm there, man, I'm there! And I want my couch-cushion fort in the theater, too.

Re:Hollywood is dead to me

[gardyloo (512791)]

Yeah, but once there's a live-action/CG movie of The Gummybears, I'm there, man, I'm there! And I want my couch-cushion fort in the theater, too.

Here, let me fix that for you:

        "I'm there, man! In fact, I'm bouncing here and there and everywhere!"

Re:Hollywood is dead to me

[Kierthos (225954)]

Oh thank you. I thought I might be the only one. I mean, Speed Racer? Who greenlighted that piece of shit?!

I swear, it's like for every good movie out of Hollywood, there are five marginal movies, and for every marginal movies, there are ten that are complete crap, like this one: a movie based on a badly dubbed and chopped piece of crap cartoon about a guy who races in every single episode in this, okay, admittedly, tricked out car, and he's smart enough to remember which button is the jump skis (or whatever the fuck those things are) and which button is the buzzsaw in the front bumper, but he's too fucking stupid to check the trunk for the kid and the chimp, and no one picks up that Racer X is his brother.

What's next? Thundercats the movie? Blues Clues the movie?

Here's hoping it tanks like a Uwe Boll film and Hollywood gets the message.

Re:

[Kierthos (225954)]

I refuse to consider anything I say about a cartoon that is 40 years old to be a spoiler. It's like talking about how King Kong dies at the end of the movie. It's been out a while. There's a time limit on this shit.

And really? A Thundercats movie? That's just fucking sad.

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[Single GNU Theory (8597)]

...I would much rather watch the Thundercats (if only because Cheetara was fit).

That's because she was the Thunder... Thunder... Thundercats' ho.

Re:Hollywood is dead to me

[Wandering Wombat (531833)]

Why not a Blues Clues movie? Steve was in "Netherbeast Incorporated" and he's put out a f***ing awesome album with Steve Drozd of the Flaming Lips. How could any movie starring him and an animated female blue dog NOT kick ass?

I especially want to see the scene where Steve showers with Slippery Soap, and they have to have a conversation about personal space.

Re:

[sconeu (64226)]

I just think this is part of crappywoods attempt to combat movie piracy. They'll just make movies so bad that nobody wants to watch much less copy.

You're half right. \

1. Make movies so bad that nobody wants to go to them.
2. Complain to Congress that their profits are down because of the Evil Content Pirates(tm)
3. Get new Uber-DMCA laws passed
4. PROFIT!

Why the Instant Dismissal?

[eldavojohn (898314)]

The first time I saw the trailer for this movie, my jaw hit the floor. Nobody makes live action "Cartoons" that look like this. I guess that makes me believe there is no way the movie can be good.

"No way?" Why on earth do you say that? I mean, the odds are high we have the equivalent of Fantastic Four, Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow or a Matrix sequel. You know, movies that have great or novel special effects but little else. On the other hand, you could have something like Brazil, Blade Runner or 2001: A Space Odyssey. Movies that had different or strange special effects with more supporting features than just that.

I don't think that's exactly fair. There is some way the movie could be good. The original Matrix had neat (maybe not original) effects but it also had a very sound core science fiction theme along with a lot of great drama and situations. The dialog wasn't the best but I thought the story was very very strong. My 50+ year old aunt and uncle watched it when it came out and the one thing they remember from it is the story. Not the special effects or dialog or who was in it but the possibility of this Man Vs Machine universe.

I'll admit when I saw the Speed Racer trailer, my brain didn't comprehend anything that happened. I couldn't tell who was what, what I was looking at or even what kind of conflict the movie centered on. I was utterly stupefied. I'm not afraid of admitting that, it was just confusing and I've never seen or read any Speed Racer material so I have no precursor or knowledge of what the theme is.

If this movie is relying 100% on its stunning visual effects, it's going to be a summer blockbuster and nothing more. It isn't going to age well and might go down as being a standard to watch on the latest plasma screen until next summer when a better movie comes out. There is, however, still a very likely possibility that one or more elements comes through to save the movie. Whether it be the directing, the acting, the story or even the music.

Re:Why the Instant Dismissal?

[explosivejared (1186049)]

I am behind you all the way on Bladerunner and 2001, but The Matrix had a sound core science fiction theme along with a lot of great drama and situations...

The science of the Matrix was pretty laughable, I mean the machines are smart enough to build human farms, but too dumb to use satellites to capture solar power. A lot of stuff didn't add up. The films only saving grace, which more than made up for the plot holes, was it's deep philosophical questions, specifically about the nature of experience and what it truly means to be human. These are common threads alongside the other two films mentioned.

I think it is sort of obvious that Speed Racer isn't going to be tackling any sort of grandiose, fundamental question of philosophy. The whole cartoon was pretty campy, which the movie seems to have moved away from. This doesn't give make me hopeful about anything other than the visuals being worthwhile.

Sure, it will probably be an enjoyable film, but I would be very reluctant to mention 2001 or Bladerunner in the same breath.

Re:Why the Instant Dismissal?

[KlomDark (6370)]

They changed to the "humans as batteries" because they judged the average viewer coudn't comprehend the idea of "humans as co-processors" idea in the original story. So it got Hollywooded, and we are all slightly dumber for it having been changed to a "lowest common denominator" story. :(

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[cizoozic (1196001)]

I've read or heard that the "scorching of the sky" was done with some kind of nanotechnology that disabled electronics and did not allow electromagnetic waves to pass through. Supposedly when the ship pierced the clouds in one of the movies it stalled because of this. I still like this humans as coprocessors idea much better though, because thermodynamically the whole human battery thing never made any sense to me. Sure we produce chemical(/electrical) and thermal energy, but we get that from our food and t

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

"thermodynamically the whole human battery thing never made any sense to me. "

It was never supposed to. Nearly all the information fed to Zion by the machines, and subsequently relayed by Morpheus to Neo in the first film, was obvious, obvious falsehood.

The truth:

The machines 'scorched the sky' to protect themselves from Humanity. Humans are dependent on solar power, not machines -- no sane human capable of using such technology would ever willingly do it. On the other hand, making humans dependent on machi

Re:Why the Instant Dismissal?

[SanityInAnarchy (655584)]

I wonder where this "original story" lives? Now I'm curious...

It does clear up a few things, like how purely mental techniques and "training" could lead one to "bend the rules" -- and why the Machines couldn't effectively implement some basic security measures. It's impossible to fly in, say, WoW unless Blizzard lets you, but it would be downright easy if they, say, offloaded a bit of the physics computation to the clients.

Re:Why the Instant Dismissal?

[SCHecklerX (229973)]

The science of the Matrix was pretty laughable, I mean the machines are smart enough to build human farms, but too dumb to use satellites to capture solar power.

To me, it makes more sense that the humans were part of the computing power that gave the machines intelligence. That would also explain a lot of other things in the movie. The nice thing about the matrix is they didn't try to explain everything, allowing you to figure out what you would (the battery thing was a dumbed-down idea that could have been done much better, IMHO).

Re:

[dido (9125)]

My own interpretation is that the machines are actually obedient to the last drop. They are trying to create a perfect world for humans, and the entire contrivance that is the Matrix is really a massive system designed for the machines to understand what will constitute a perfect world for humanity. I think of the Oracle in the Matrix in the sense of the 'oracle Turing machine' described by Alan Turing in the paper "Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals", as a special type of state that the machine can go in

Re:

[LS (57954)]

The science of the Matrix was pretty laughable

I think you completely miss the point of The Matrix. The issue with using human batteries is not as clearcut as it may seem at first. If you recall, the world we live in is actually a simulation, so any assumptions you might have about the laws of nature are no longer valid. In the underlying layer of reality, humans have another type of of biomorphic energy that doesn't exist in the simulated layer or in the sun. This is supported by the fact that Neo is ab

Re:Why the Instant Dismissal?

[vrmlguy (120854)]

Also, the science in movies like 2001 and Bladerunner is laughable from some peoples' perspectives. You can't hold your breath and go into a vacuum without rupturing your lungs, but this is done in 2001. That may seem minor to a layman, but if you are someone in the field of space travel, it might look like space opera to you.

From http://physics.suite101.com/blog.cfm/how_to_survive_a_vacuum [suite101.com]:

If you have the misfortune of being exposed to a vacuum, for instance, if you are a character in a science fiction story, your body will not explode, but your blood and other fluids may boil, given a long enough exposure. Frost will form in your mouth as your saliva rapidly evaporates. Your ears will pop. Eventually you will die of asphyxiation, if you haven't already had a heart attack from panic.

You have about a minute and a half to get to safety. Before exposure, or immediately after initial exposure, you should exhale and remove all the air from your lungs. Otherwise, the air pressure will rupture the delicate alveoli, the air sacs, in your lungs. That is not an injury that's easy to recover from. There is not much else you can do.

The only accurate depiction of vacuum exposure in fiction can be found in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the movie the main character is exposed very briefly, and handles the situation well.

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[kannibal_klown (531544)]

While I wasn't a fan of either Fantastic Four or the Matrix sequels , I found Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow a nice movie.

It had a retro feel to it, not just the "tech" but the storyline and such. Not quite a Rocketeer but a decent movie none-the-less.

Re:Why the Instant Dismissal?

[sesshomaru (173381)]

As a fan of the original series, I can say that odds are that this movie will be deeper than Blade Runner, Brazil and 2001:A Space Odyssey combined!!!

I mean there's a twist, and I don't want to give away anything... but there's a big secret involving Racer X. And the existential angst of Spritle and Chim-Chim. Like something out of Kafka, you see, one of the twins is actually a chimpanzee.

If this movie doesn't sweep the academy awards, I'll have to believe that it must be because it was too deep for them.

Re:Why the Instant Dismissal?

[smitty_one_each (243267)]

Reverse psychology.
If they came out liking it, everyone would assert "Oh, they're a bunch of tools, the movie is teh l4m3".
I, for one, plan on going to see this flick and reverting to age 8 for an hour and a half, irrespective of whether the movie is so content-free as to qualify as a political speech.
Neener, neener, neener.

Re:

[explosivejared (1186049)]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with. There is also absolutely nothing wrong with someone desiring a movie to have a little more depth. Speed Racer was important to a lot of kids, and as such this movie is going to bring up a lot of feeling for them. It wasn't personally what I grew up with, but when Pinky and the Brain gets made into a film, I'm sure I'll feel the same.

In short, what I'm trying to say is that there is no one definitive way to view and think about a film. A film can be many things to ma

Re:

[Chineseyes (691744)]

On the other hand, you could have something like Brazil, Blade Runner or 2001: A Space Odyssey. Movies that had different or strange special effects with more supporting features than just that.


Brazil? Blade Runner? This is speed racer we are talking about.......SPEED RACER. A cartoon where one of the main characters got into trouble with his pet monkey chim chim. The main antagonist was a Mr. X a guy who was so subtle that he had a giant X on over his mask just to make him more mysterious.

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[pla (258480)]

I couldn't tell who was what, what I was looking at or even what kind of conflict the movie centered on.

I'd say you've answered your own question to the GP... Your comments on the trailer pretty much accurately reflects the original series as well, so it sounds like you understood it juuuuust fine. ;-)

Seriously... Of all the series they could have done a modern live action remake of, why choose Speed Racer? It had no plot (unless the "secret" of Racer-X as Speed's long-lost brother counts), no charact

Re:Why the Instant Dismissal?

[LMacG (118321)]

> unless the "secret" of Racer-X as Speed's long-lost brother counts

Oh, great, now the movie is ruined for everybody.

It's not "Speed Racer!"

[zippthorne (748122)]

At least, the preview wasn't. The preview was quite clearly for a movie about F-Zero.

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[Artuir (1226648)]

I thought the exact same thing after watching it. I wish I were joking, too.

Re:It's not "Speed Racer!"

[British (51765)]

Exactly. There's such thing as TOO MUCH cgi, and Speed Racer is a perfect example. It looks less like a movie, but moreso a non-interactive video game that we will see in 20 years. I'm going to skip this one.

Re:It's not "Speed Racer!"

[Junta (36770)]

Not to mention the fact that Anime tend towards trying to make animation as real as possible,

No, by and large that is not what Anime tends to do. There are examples of attempts to look realistic, but by far they attempt to show fantastical and/or exaggerated things/colors. Take one look at the chosen color palette for a work of Anime, and it's obvious they are not even aiming for realism. Other things like using eye size to roughly indicate goodness/innocence, all the various exagerrated cues, etc etc. For example, Ghost In the Shell, I could see being argued as aiming for realistic color schemes/physiology, while Armitage deviates. Those are two pieces of sci-fi drama relatively close in genre with different artistic styles.

Speed Racer definitely fell into the category of unrealistic/stylized on purpose, so it seems an appropriate fit.

But then at the end of a day, it's just supposed to be a fun movie, and we miss the fun by overanalyzing it to death.

Over done.

[PeanutButterBreath (1224570)]

The previews for this film really bug me, particularly the way that the cars are constantly fishtailing back and forth. I realize that this is Speed Racer and this is not supposed to be realistic, but I believe that you need some inkling of reality to achieve any sense of excitement and drama.

Its based on a cartoon! What they have created is a caricature of a caricature of reality. Granted that makes the previews a caricature of a caricature of caricature. Still, it gives me the overwhelming impression of trying too hard, probably to cover up for the script.

Then again, I thought the Matrix series was kind of dumb.

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[smooth wombat (796938)]

The previews for this film really bug me, particularly the way that the cars are constantly fishtailing back and forth.

Ding! That too annoys the crap out of me. It's one thing to suspend belief when watching the cartoon and have springs come out from underneath the Mach 5, but the one thing that the cartoon seemed to get somewhat correct was the way the cars (and drivers) reacted when driving. This looks, as you said, like the producers are trying too hard.

As a rule, I don't watch commercials bu

Re:

[Huntr (951770)]

I agree. I see the trailers and all I can think is "too much." Not that that I want to look at a virtually barren screen with only a few cars, but there's just too much blurring by, like they're going overboard on the dazzle. In my experience, that tends to mean there isn't a lot of steak with the sizzle.

Truthfully, I'm not really looking forward to it, anyway. I didn't watch Speed Racer as a kid, despite being in the right age group. Plus, the Wachowskis ticked me off with the last 2 Matrix movies. A

Re:

[zwei2stein (782480)]

> but I believe that you need some inkling of reality to achieve any sense of excitement and drama.

Anime shows shown us that you don't really need realistic settings to achieve either. What you need is gripping story and good characters.

Go in with no expectations at all

[Alzheimers (467217)]

Really, the only way to possibly enjoy this film will be to go in with absolutely no expectations at all.

Forget the Matrix, forget the old cartoons, don't bring any assumptions or fond childhood dreams to the party.

Just order a large popcorn, maybe get a little intoxicated, and go watch the eye-candy.

And if there's a plot that actually makes sense, it's all gravy.

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[dreamchaser (49529)]

I was incredibly dissapointed by the trailers. The juxtaposition of real people with cartoonish surrondings was jarring to me. I loved the cartoon as a child (yes I'm old), but I think I'll wait for the DVD on this movie, if I see it at all.

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[FredFredrickson (1177871)]

They said this all about Tron as well.

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[dreamchaser (49529)]

Yes, but Tron was supposed to look that way. To me the trailers look like they wanted to have it both ways; make it all cartoonish but with real people running around in it.

The race courses in the cartoon actually looked MORE REALISTIC than the ones in the movie trailers. They should have either done an all CGI cartoon OR used live action with realistic looking CGI enhancements.

This is all just my opinion of course, but I was really, really dissapointed. Judging from a lot of the comments in this discuss

Re:

[PCM2 (4486)]

Of course, the CGI in Tron was nowhere near as extensive as that in Speed Racer. The characters themselves were not CGI; that was all hand-painted animation. Many of the sets were "real life," too -- green screen technology was not that advanced back then.

But they did have SOME idea of what the audience "would or would not like" -- Dillinger's helicopter at the beginning was CGI, but you weren't supposed to know that. The CGI that you were supposed to notice was very intentionally meant to look like compute

Re:Go in with no expectations at all

[sexybomber (740588)]

Just order a large popcorn, maybe get a little intoxicated, and go watch the eye-candy.

(emphasis mine)

A little? Every time I see the trailer, I think to myself, I've got to go see that movie when I'm tripping balls. I just hope my eyeballs don't pop out of my head!

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[Fear the Clam (230933)]

A little? Every time I see the trailer, I think to myself, I've got to go see that movie when I'm tripping balls. I just hope my eyeballs don't pop out of my head!

Every time I see a commercial for that glitterfest blip by on the TiVo I wonder how many kids will be carried out of theaters convulsing.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Speed Racer = Wimp. Racer X = Truly Bad Ass

[El Torico (732160)]

You never saw Racer X going "AHHHH!" and looking like he's going to crap his pants.

For the non-US'ians... trailer response...?

[Animaether (411575)]

I'm asking because I'm thinking that Speed Racer is primarily a U.S. childhood memory keepsake.

I've seen the trailer pass by before various movies four times now (10,000 BC, Definitely Maybe, Reservation Road, The Spiderwick Chronicles - a pretty spread out mix of audiences), and all four times the audience's response ranged from "wtf is speed racer?" to "what's with the awful effects?".
Somehow I can't see any of the audience here (NL) to be immediately drawn into the movie thanks to the lack of growing up with Speed Racer, and the trailer showing a minimum of story and mostly oddly-composited (I guess it's a "visual style") live action/CG doesn't exactly help to lure people in based on the visuals.

So what has audience response been in other countries?

Not another NFS Underground clone

[by Anonymous Coward]

Gah! How can they screw up a classic!?

There aren't any Neon lights in the 1967 cartoon!

Where's the really fast talking and loud gasping!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Damn you Hollywood!

speedracer vs ninjas?

[yakumo.unr (833476)]

The CGI made me cringe.

But what made me laugh was the trailer clearly showed he did _NOTHING_ his whole life but think about racing, or practice racing.

So htf did he build the muscles and learn the skills to take out the ninjas they show later? lol

He's not even a pirate ;)

Re:speedracer vs ninjas?

[blazer1024 (72405)]

Come on, we all know all he has to do is wax his car and then he'll be ready for fighting!

Why I hate blockbusters and CGI-fests

[elrous0 (869638)]

$100 million on the special effects

$40 million for the leading man and leading woman

$100,000 for the script

Re:Why I hate blockbusters and CGI-fests

[Colonel Korn (1258968)]

The sad thing is that the expensive actors tend not to be any better than cheap actors. They make a lot of money because of silly factors like looks or previously held roles, not acting quality. This is especially horrid in animated movies, where "stars" doing voices are the focus of all the trailers, and then each celebrity essentially plays himself or herself. The talented voice actors (for instance, Billy West, who plays half of the characters in Futurama) come in to audition and get rejected, while the director will then coach the auto-hired celebrity based on the improvised performances seen by the talented but unknown actors.

Next time you see an ad for Crazy Animal Doing People Things starring Al Pacino as Every Character Al Panico Has Ever Played and Cameron Diaz as Generic Bimbo, just walk away.

Re:Why I hate blockbusters and CGI-fests

[Lord Apathy (584315)]

that good, and the script...I can only hope

You can hang that up then. The only thing that will save that script is if it shows up at the theater and offers to suck my dick.

Their next film

[Quiet_Desperation (858215)]

According to a reporter who sneaked into an air vent (using modified Mythbuster techniques) above the Wachowski's offices, if Speed Racer does well, they plan to do a live action Urotsukidji - Legend of the Overfiend.

Re:

[Thyamine (531612)]

You are right.. who doesn't want to watch a movie about a 100 story tall creature with 13 penises destroying a city.