• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Real Steel

At Wal-Mart the other night, I saw there's a new line of action figures based on the movie. Not too surprisin'. Kinda bummed wave one doesn't include Hugh Jackman, though.

Instead, its Atom, Zeus, Noisy Boy, Twin Cities & Midos.
 
There's something about these computer animated robots lately that feels totally off. There seriously is no sense of mass or friction. Every tiny part moves like it was totally frictionless, it's too smooth.

I found that off putting in Transformers. And even in Iron Man where the CG suit just didn't feel real to me.

In this movie it seems less of an issue, but it's still there. Call it the uncanny valley of machinery, if you want. Motion is just way too smooth and, well, animated, to feel remotely realistic.
 
There's something about these computer animated robots lately that feels totally off. There seriously is no sense of mass or friction. Every tiny part moves like it was totally frictionless, it's too smooth.

Right, because they're all supposed to be better engineered than the robots of our contemporary experience. A boxing robot that moved like a car-building robot would be pointless. (And boring to watch.) That goes double for spacefaring alien robots that transform into tractor trailers and F-22s.
 
I think the issue in Real Steel is that the robots have no sense of mass when they move. Huge things just look... different when they move fast.
 
I think the issue in Real Steel is that the robots have no sense of mass when they move. Huge things just look... different when they move fast.


Yeah, but, how many huge things shaped like human beings have you seen move fast? We're not talking about Ferraris or Concordes. 12-foot-tall Humanoid boxing robots don't exist, and they would be worthless if they did exist but moved in the sluggish, mechanistic way some of us expect.
 
I think the issue in Real Steel is that the robots have no sense of mass when they move. Huge things just look... different when they move fast.

This isn't simply an issue with recent CG robots in movies, but with large animated creatures in general. Godzilla, to take an extreme example, is so enormous that it would not move remotely as fluidly as it does in any of the film's many versions. The same is true, to a lesser extent (since they're so much smaller), for dinosaurs as in Jurassic Park and the latest King Kong remake. Actually, the issue is more profound with organisms than it is with automatons because living things made of muscle and tissue have more constraints than technologies we can wave away as unimaginably advanced.

Here's an excerpt from a wonderful blog post by paleontologist Darren Naish about the impossibility of Godzilla (including a comparison of the 1998 version compared to the "real" monster from the other films):

"Godzilla is meant to be something like 100 m tall and between 20,000 and 60,000 tons in weight (his size fluctuates in the various films). Of course lots of people who like doing sums and talking about cubes and so on have used the mathematics of scaling to show why - duh - Godzilla couldn't really walk, stand, or even exist. Michael Dexter presents the argument here, and also brings in thoughts on blood pressure, circulation and physiology to show that a living Godzilla would variously fall to pieces, tear itself apart, have its organs turn to jelly, explode due to a build-up of internal heat... you get the picture."

The Science of Godzilla
 
Let's face it, this movie should have gotten a marketing tie-in with "Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots" and it would've been even more epic. QUOTE]
:lol: thats exactly what i thought it was when i seen the teaser trailor at the movies. I pretty much sat there thinking "Hollywood has gotten so fucking desperate that instead of a bunch of remakes, they're going to start doing entire plots and shit based on old toys?!":vulcan:
 
Didn't realize we had this thread from back in July ...

I saw it on Saturday and thought it was actually pretty good, though I have to agree with the critics that certain aspects of the movie are too cliche. Overall, the cinematography was done nicely. I gave it a solid A.
 
There's something about these computer animated robots lately that feels totally off. There seriously is no sense of mass or friction. Every tiny part moves like it was totally frictionless, it's too smooth.

I found that off putting in Transformers. And even in Iron Man where the CG suit just didn't feel real to me.

In this movie it seems less of an issue, but it's still there. Call it the uncanny valley of machinery, if you want. Motion is just way too smooth and, well, animated, to feel remotely realistic.

Did you find this for solely the boxing scenes (which were mostly cgi), or did the 24 robots they really built for the movie give you the feeling of no mass as well?
 
I didn't have any problem with the robots... I was just shocked that people were willing to sit so close when they were fighting!
 
I didn't have any problem with the robots...
Neither did I. You could really feel the power behind those punches. This is where sound FX make all the difference. The movie looked and sounded superb.

BTW, that score... Did Danny Elfman had a stroke or something? He hasn't sounded like himself for quite a while now. I'm not saying that the music was bad (in fact, it was more than good) but that just wasn't Danny Elfman.

I was just shocked that people were willing to sit so close when they were fighting!
Same here. When you have two mechanical giants beating the crap out of each other like that, accidents are bound to happen sooner or later.
 
People sit close to NASCAR races knowing that if there's an accident there's a good chance flaming debris or cars will coming flying at them.

Never under-estimate people's willingness to sit close to possible carnage and destruction.
 
There's something about these computer animated robots lately that feels totally off. There seriously is no sense of mass or friction. Every tiny part moves like it was totally frictionless, it's too smooth.

I found that off putting in Transformers. And even in Iron Man where the CG suit just didn't feel real to me.

In this movie it seems less of an issue, but it's still there. Call it the uncanny valley of machinery, if you want. Motion is just way too smooth and, well, animated, to feel remotely realistic.

Did you find this for solely the boxing scenes (which were mostly cgi), or did the 24 robots they really built for the movie give you the feeling of no mass as well?

You can still tell when they use the robots/puppets, and when they switch to CGI. And yes, I mean the CGI scenes, because in the scenes where they used real props the robots move... properly.
 
Saw it today. Yeah I guess like a lot of people I thought the trailer looked pretty lame, but have to say I really enjoyed the movie

Hugh Jackman is brilliant in anything, and can't deny I was rooting for Atom at the end :D

Great film
 
I saw this yesterday and thought it was awesome. Just had two problems really.

1) It felt like it was inspired by Rocky a little too much, when it was getting towards the end of the fight you could tell that it was going to end up like Rocky.

2) It started off a bit dark, what with him basically selling his kid. I mean, wow. Anyway, so at the end the climax is them being the people's champion but then what, so the kid just goes and lives with his aunt?
 
^

That'd be my guess, yeah...she did tell Jackman's character that it was only for one more night, and he had signed over custody to the aunt.

Best. Summer. EVER!!!
 
2) It started off a bit dark, what with him basically selling his kid. I mean, wow. Anyway, so at the end the climax is them being the people's champion but then what, so the kid just goes and lives with his aunt?

Dude!

river_spoilers.gif


SPOILERS!

:lol:

Took the boys to see it last weekend and we all really enjoyed it. It was a lot better than the previews made it out to be.

They left room for the sequel, where Zeus thinks the last fight was a fluke and starts agitating for and gets a rematch. The fight ends with Zeus knocking Atom down in the last round and Atom gets up before the end of the fight, winning in a knockout.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top