DeputyDave

When I sat in the theater watching Final Fantasy I was filled with excitement. I felt like I was looking at the future of animated movies. Sure, the story wasn’t all that, but the potential wowed me. I could imagine what someone could do with it. I could see real, epic fantasy (this was before LOTR) with creatures and locals impossible to do live action. Or just imagine the sci-fi potential… the mind boggles.

Well, a few years passed, and I forgot my excitement. That is, until I saw Flight of the Osiris. Now I have to ask (or beg): When will someone do something worthwhile with this technology?

mwj

Considering how risk-averse major studios are today. I am betting it will be a while. Family animation has a much wider appeal and thus profit potential. If you follow CGI animation, do you believe technology will bring down the cost? If this were to happen more movies might be released much sooner.

Venom

if my wishes came true:

hitchikers guide to the galaxy

the dark tower books

R.A. Salvatore's "Drizzt" boooks

devilshalo

Welcome to gaming. Since SquareUSA went belly up, I'm sure SquareSoftEnix has taken the technology (tho not any of the hardware as it was auctioned not too long ago) into their next Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts game installment.

DeputyDave

Oooh! Good call!

cultshock

That would be awesome. But to do it right, it would have to be a series of epic length films, and unfortunately I can't see that happening. (and Hollywood's record of bad King adaptations wouldn't instill much confidence in me).

BTW The fifth book is mere months away and I can't wait!

lesterlong

I prefer it to be used for kids movies. Cartoons are for kids so should CGI. Sure, there's the Simpsons, South Park and Family Guy but those aren't movies.

DeputyDave

Anime is for kids only?

PixyJunket

I wouldn't even torture kids with it.

jaeufraser

Unfortunately, the financial failure of Final Fantasy doomed the more adult oriented animation to not be done. It's seen as risky, and for that very reason it won't come about right away. It'll take someone with power with a lot of guts to get something like that made, or a breakthrough success of a foreign Japanese film. The latter...I don't see that happening. The eastern aesthetic of Japanese films, plus the mere fact it's not ours, hurts its capability to reach a wide audience. And with the enormous costs associated with making a film as such, unless John Lasseter decides he wants to make a serious adult oriented film, I don't see it happening right away.

Jackskeleton

Bold statement. but to say Anime is torture is like saying "Stop motion is torture". Anime has plenty of different styles and stories to be told within it. it's just a medium. a tool to tell a story. You might not like what you have seen but in no way is anime "just for kids".

Anyways on this subject.. Sqaure was hurt pretty bad with the failure of Final Fantasy: Spirit within. I don't think there will be a fully length film all in CGI any time soon because of it. the other studio's took note, aswell as taking note of the failure of films such as Tresure planet which was geared towards both adults and kids.

Jay G.

Finding Nemo

What, you thought it was a kid's film?

Jackskeleton

I think with "Adult themed" he ment more along the lines of violence and gore, adult situations and the such.

nice_skis

I'm sorry but Final Fantasy wasn't an adult themed movie. It was totally aimed toward teenagers and failed miserably because most teenagers don't like cartoons.

To a teen, watching animation is either the stuff of morons and retards or the thing they did when they were 8 years old. That is unless the teen is a geeky kid who hangs out with a bunch of other role-playing-nerdy-geeks like him and collects anime videos or crazy expensive playing cards thinking that it makes them sound cool when they talk to girls in the school cafeteria.

Jackskeleton

Actually, those kind of kids don't talk to the girls in the school cafeteria.. they just play with those playing cards in the cafeteria..

I should know, I was one of them!!!

DonnachaOne

This is like asking when will we see another full length, adult theme cel-animated movie.

It just won't happen, barring lower-scale films made for a niche audience. (Yes, Anime fans, you're a niche audience, at least in North America. It's not a bad thing.)

CG is much more expensive and painstaking than some 15-frame-a-second-if-you're-lucky Japanese epic. They don't even bother with full-length cel-animated films for adults in this country, why would they bother with CG?

Not like they don't try. Pixar's been the best when it's come to entertaining the grown-ups while shutting the kids up. Maybe one day they'll tackle something just for our discerning, discrete minds.

And when they do, I hope it's filled with blood, cursing, and trippy CG non-sex.

Darren Garrison

Final Fantasy failed, I think, not because of the CGI but because of the third-rate hack of a rehashed generic, cut and paste story. If it had anything remotely close to barely decent writing, it wouldn't have crashed and burned, I would think. But I think that it will be a loooooong time before anyone tries it again.

Panda Phil

There might be a chance once Pixar manages to get out of it's contract with Disney. But I'm not holding my breath. I don't think US studios are capable of making a serious adult cel animation film, much less a CG one. And by adult I don't mean a film with boobs and gore. I mean with a dramatic and emotional story that adults can relate to that doesn't involve cute cartoon animals.

Final Fantasy was close. I was excited as hell when I first saw the previews. Looked like it was gonna be a serious piece of movie SF. But like everyone said, the story was awful. No to mention depressing as hell.

Probably our only hope is that in the next ten years or so CG will catch on in Japan.

Stoolie

I fully expect someone to try it again in the next five years. Probably either Pixar or Dreamworks.

C Roberts

Lucas' recent movies are just about total CGI. In fact I don't think anyone would care if he dropped live actors altogether at this point.

NCMojo

We still have not achieved the Holy Grail of CGI: a 100% digital actor that looks 100% realistic. When we get to that point, and when the cost of the technology drops down somewhat, I guarantee you'll see many all-CGI adult films.

Also, when the technology comes down to the desktop level... I imagine we'll all be making our own CGI movies.

Jay G.

Even when digital humans look 100% realistic, the question is what is the point of using them? A digital human will cost way more than a real one, plus you still need an actor, whether just an animator or stop-motion and several animators. Plus, as CGI advances, so will the ability to seemlessly intergrate CGI with real objects and actors. So the role a digital human would fill is one that a normal human could not do. So digital people will mostly be relegated to stunts, or perhaps celebrity impersonation.

isamu

Yeah, Cowboy Bebop is a kid's franchise

Oh and FYI, Evangellion is also being worked on, and it will be an all CGI flick.

CheapBastid

Yep, and we only need 8.3 characters for a fliename, oh, and folks will never need more than 640K of RAM...

Ever hear of Moore's Law? Stuff is going to get cheap enough to do a fully digital movie cheaper than getting actors, sets, props, lighting, etc. together.

Jay G.

Ok, cheaper than real sets, props, lighting, but you'll still need actors. All digital people now are 'acted' by the animators, so even if the person on the screen is fake, you'll still have a real person acting it out. Given that, it seems like it'd be easier to just shoot real people, even if those real people are subsequently intergrated into an entirely GCI setting.