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This is the most gorgeous looking movie I've ever seen. The few reviews so far seem to be pretty split, but the "bad" reviews mostly rant about how a kids movie glorifies violence, or how there is nothing "tongue in cheek" about the silliness of owls donning helmets and fighting.

Basically, if you like owls, and you like violent WWII metaphor movies, and you see no reason that these two shouldn't be combined, this is probably the movie for you. Otherwise... I have no idea. I'm looking forward to seeing it. Even if the plot turns out to be crap, I have a hard time imagining it being a waste of $8.

It looks both incredibly beautiful and incredibly boring to me.

I took one look at this trailer and thought to myself "Huh... it's kinda like if Silverwing and Redwall were in the same universe." I might check it out, but I may wait till it's out on DVD.

I never heard of this before and the trailer didn't get me interested, sorry. Looks good and all (what doesn't these days) but I didn't get a spark of 'must see'.

Now, here's my birdy guilty pleasure along with some Tim Curry goodness:

I just remember going to see a lot of movies this spring and saying to myself "If I have to see that Goddamned owl movie trailer one more time..."

I was already leaning towards not seeing this, then I saw it was by the same people who made Happy Feet, so I'm definitely not going to watch it.

The trailer for the movie honestly seems less awesome without "Kings and Queens" as the soundtrack music.

Gah. I am trying to fathom how something that looks so utterly amazing to me can look so meh to other people. I understand the plot looks a little meh. Basically I'm assuming it'll be in a similar category as 300 - gigantic montage of awesome fight scenes strung together by just enough story to be interesting, and with the gratuitous blood replaced by stuff that is even more beautiful.

I'll be seeing it tomorrow. I'll let you know if the plot was really that bad.

Beauty alone does not make a movie good. So far in the trailers all I've seen are Barn Owls in gilt gimp-masks flying very slowly over waterfalls...

and a chick-owl in awe of the gimp owls, flying very slowly.

It's like how I fall asleep now when I watch the part of 2001 where they play Blue Danube and spaceships and people pass by.... slowly...

This is based off a book meant for tweens ish age I would say, so you could always pick the book up before the movie, but that always tends to backfire on me.

Beauty doesn't make a movie "good" per se, but by definition, beauty is worth looking at for its own sake. I think if you removed the amazingness of the CGI, you'd be left with a pretty average (probably forgettable) movie. But if a movie is at least average and has one quality that it does better than anything I've ever seen before, I consider that worth watching.

Take Scott Pilgrim. The actual plot and emotional development was really not that great. The movie was very funny, but not in a way that I couldn't have gotten elsewhere. But the way it was edited together was something I haven't seen before and was absolutely worth watching at least once for the novelty of it. I don't necessarily want a million Scott Pilgrim clones, but I do want Hollywood to take more risks.

It's worth noting that the notion of owls in helmets fighting each other does not have me rolling my eyes, it has me going "OMG, why has this not been done before? Owl's are awesome!" Apparently it's not everyone's cup of tea. That's fine. But since I want to see more similarly (albeit not identically) offbeat movie ideas, it's also in my best interest to support that.

But.... they're owls!?

>>But.... they're owls!?

Good thing or bad thing?

The first time I saw the trailer I remember remarking, "This movie implies that owls can be blacksmiths."

I consider that less silly than movies that imply that legions of trained imperial soldiers will miss the rebel hero every single time, or that you can zoom in indefinitely with a gas station security camera and resolve an image of a man's face from four pixels.

Looks boring. Looks stupid. I don't really care about pretty CGI; that's easy to produce and reproduce and it's everywhere.

Raemon777 said:

>>But.... they're owls!?

Good thing or bad thing?

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More of a meh thing. Just don't find owls that interesting.

I didn't read much of the book (it's pretty clearly for 14 year olds, and while it looked good I'd rather just see the version with gorgeous CGI). But one cool thing the book goes into which turns out to true: certain species of owls keep pet snakes. They literally go find snake, pick it up and bring it back to their nest and keep it. The snake eats the owl pellets, which keeps the nest clean, and pretty much gets to just chill there otherwise.

Gusto said:

The first time I saw the trailer I remember remarking, "This movie implies that owls can be blacksmiths."

Click to expand...

they can be. secret life of owls you know.

The "batman with huge beard" avatar for some reason really sells it.

Whelp, finally saw this. It's pretty much exactly what it looks like, so let whatever your opinion of the trailer was determine whether you go.

One thing I will note: the first half of the movie makes it pretty clear that they are aware the premise is so silly. The second half is played dead serious. I see this as good design - it lets you get over the campiness and then enjoy awesome owl fight scenes if that's what you're into. The only problem is that, while the writing in the first half is genuinely funny, the writing in the second half is NOT genuinely cool in the way it's trying to be (or maybe it's not even trying, it's a little unclear). Basically there's a lot of lame, clichéd lines. ("Trust your gizzard" was quirkily funny at first, and then became increasingly silly by the 50th time they said it).

As long as you don't take it seriously it can be pretty fun, both in a "CGI owls are awesome" kinda way and a "hilarious with MST3K soundtrack" way.

I thought most of it was pretty forgettable. However, if you are like me and wished that there was more ice bear fighting in The Golden Compass, then the owl battle may be just what you want.

Gusto said:

The first time I saw the trailer I remember remarking, "This movie implies that owls can be blacksmiths."

Click to expand...

Oh, it's definitely not just implied in the movie. They specifically tell the younger owls "MAYBE YOU'RE MEANT TO BE A BLACKSMITH, HMM??"

What is that about.

I mean, they must have some sort of buddy-system to put those helmets on, right??

I have no interest in seeing this film, but it makes me think that you could make a HARDCORE Watership Down CG film that's even more hardcore than the cartoon one before.

I dunno... you wanna make it more hardcore... than this?



The film already gives kids nightmares. Bring it to 3D and I expect the rate of depression/anxiety would multiply OVER NIGHT.

AshburnerX said:

I dunno... you wanna make it more hardcore... than this?

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Of course! It's not 3D yet, after all.

I have no interest in seeing this film, but it makes me think that you could make a HARDCORE Watership Down CG film that's even more hardcore than the cartoon one before.

Click to expand...

OMG this. I've wanted to see exactly that for so long (ever since the notion of it being animated by Blizzard popped into my head randomly). Watership Down animated by Animal Logic would be amazing.

I mean, they must have some sort of buddy-system to put those helmets on, right??

Click to expand...

I think one of the central premises of the movie is that not only are the owls smarter, but they're stronger. Which, as far as central premises that a fantasy movie asks you to swallow goes, is not that bad.

If it was Blizzard, the bunnies would be made of painted cubes, and they would slowly release the story over 6 years, giving just enough information to keep you waiting for the next sequel. That, and all the movie fans would keep insisting that the movie has a great ending, but you have to slowly grind through the first 20 boring sequels by yourself.

Yeah. It'd have a bitchin' trailer though.