“I came back for my own purposes,” said the Time Traveler, looking around my booklined study. “I chose you to talk to because it was . . . convenient. And I don’t want you to do a goddamned thing. There’s nothing you can do. But relax . . . we’re not going to be talking about personal things. Such as, say, the year, day, and hour of your death. I don’t even know that sort of trivial information, although I could look it up quickly enough. You can release that white-knuckled grip you have on the edge of your desk.” I tried to relax. “What do you want to talk about?” I said. “The Century War,” said the Time Traveler. I blinked and tried to remember some history. “You mean the Hundred Year War? Fifteenth Century? Fourteenth? Sometime around there. Between . . . France and England? Henry V? Kenneth Branagh? Or was it . . .” “I mean the Century War with Islam,” interrupted the Time Traveler. “Your future. Everyone’s.” He was no longer smiling. Without asking, or offering to pour me any, he
Uber-fantastic is quite right. It's like "Waking Life" but with an actual plot and a damned good one at that. I recommend getting it on DVD just for the fantastic visuals alone.
ReplyDeleteOh, and speaking of great new American Sci-Fi, 'Children of Men' kicks some major booty. Makes Blade Runner seem like a Disney film in parts. I was quite pleasantly surprised.
Glad to hear another confirming opinion. I will probably buy the DVD as you suggest, because I agree that the visuals are just stunning! It took 500 hours to make each minute of animation; I'm assuming they're factoring a lot of man-hours including the live-action shoot to come up with that dramatic number. I mean - golly - that's a lot of rotoscoping.
ReplyDeleteWhat would be neat to see is this animation technique, this visual style performed on the live action performers, and then cel-shaded computer-generated sets. Whoooo.