A Terra Encantada de Gaya

Well, today I've finally watched "Back To Gaya" which I was eagerly waiting for. My anticipation was damped because of the bad trailer which had a bad synchronisation and did not help to make one curious about the movie. Fortunately the movie was much better than what I had expected. Actually it is quite good but it has three major timing problems:

1. technically: the animation is not very good (not a single run cycle seems correct in this movie) 2. the pace: the movie seems to last longer than it is because of bad pacing 3. the jokes: first of all there are too few and second they have a bad timing. Either you know the joke seconds before it is spoken or you miss it because you don't have time to laugh about it

On the other hand BTG is technically very well done (except the animation) has tons of places and objects, is beautiful colored and has a nice music. Everyone that likes CG-movies should see it, it's worth the money... all the other should give Brother Bear a chance - since it is much better than most people think =) Well, give it a try - both of them.

The Computer Graphic in this movie were sometimes sooo good that I kept trying to figure out how such quality effects were used in a movie with such terribly poor pacing, story, and plot. The quality of the scenes was often on par with Shrek or even Monsters Inc. I would watch a scene thinking this could be a professional studio doing this film (that I never heard of in mainstream media), then I would see the characters do a scene that would no longer pass as adequate in a Saturday Morning Special.

Maybe it was the difficulty of working with CGI characters. Its possible that because the film was made in German and then English audio was dubbed that caused the audio track to be off throughout the film. I never realized how spoiled we've become with films like Toy Story, Shrek, Nemo, Antz, and so on. This film had several sweeping scenes that I thought could have been right out of any of those films, but then cut to action that could not have been in a storyboard for one of those films.

Beautiful scenes, but lacks the wittiness and pacing that would allow an adult to enjoy this movie.

Well, I went to see this movie at a 10 a.m. showing before it got canned, and I was the only one in the cinema. So much for the trouble I went through in order to see this flick.

Well turns that the 5 stars it received are justified. It's a movie that isn't really bad, but makes you cringe when you think what could have been considering ist potential. The Visuals are very good at times and not so good at others. The main technical problem of this movie is the rather unrefined degree of animation (crappy would be to harsh a description to use) which is displayed during the characters movement and them talking (lip sync, facial animation/expression, eye movement, etc..).

The character's movements are either motion captured and therefore very smooth or handanimated. This mixture can work quite well, but it only works when you do a good job animating and blending these two styles in with each other so that nobody notices. Walking and other (relatively) easily capturable movements are done well, yet when it comes to complicated action scenes, with characters being thrown through air, holding on to the hood of a car the animation is poor and wooden. There is no persistent, "believeable" movement going on. In Toy Story for example characters did'nt necessarily move according to reality but they behaved in a unique and in the toy setting consistent as well as beleivable manner. Some polishing would have been necessary yet it didn't happen.

The next problem are facial expressions weren't anything spectacular either. They were acceptable, which unfortunately isn't enough for an animated flick whose main medium to convey the protagonists emotion is facial expression and therefore fails. On the other hand there weren't that many emotional scenes. Actually I can think of only one: the one where one guy tells the other and vice versa what they believe sucks about their friendship. that's it - no death, no loss, nothing to choke you up or get you involved.

The worst of the technical flaws, though is the downright bad or rather the lack of lip sync.

I read some comments here on IMDB before I went to watch this film and therefore my attention was raised on this matter, maybe it biased my perception - but only for the first minutes. After that I was convinced that the head animator must have been blind. In a german movie I expect the german voice overs to be lip synced correctly. I mean you can even have a programm interpreting speech as lip movements and they do a decent job(Deus Ex 1 & 2 for example), but this was so totally off that it must have been on purpose. As it turns out well 15 minutes into the movie or so, one of the main protagonists says something in english and is perfectly in lip sync. From then on its clear that the facial animation was entirely done for english. You then could even read from the lips what they said. Well that's an answer but no excuse, as others already stated, Shrek for example has the "handicap" but does an excellent job. Though some of the voice actors aren't first rate, which leads to some poor voice acting at times (the princess for example). This is really unforgivable and really degrades the exprience.

By the way, was I the only one who thought that "Buu" was cross-eyed?

The story wasn't that great either. Not only was it uninteresting and predicatable but it just wasn't convincing at all. I mean the villains motivation was right out hilarious. Poor character development alongside with a strange pacing of events managed to keep you from getting drawn in. In Pixar movies the stories are always well thought of, structured in a logical, interesting way and you kinda know what they're trying to get at. Also the story is interesting enough to keep you going even if the visuals would suck. Here we have few to no jokes which aren't even funny and worse, no themes like love, fear or friendship are explored beyond a superficial level. Not that I'm expecting a great depth in a children's movie, yet some, at least convincing, plausible depth would is something I expect and certainly most children see it the same way.

So this movie that has a medicore story some more or less severe animational issues, nevertheless it did enjoy it,and so will the audience for which it is intended.

But if you are expecting something like Monster, Inc. keep looking for Shrek 2 or wait till this hits the shelf at your local video store.

The only sad part to this movie is that all the dedication as well as hardwork the creators put in it show a potential which can be seen in glimpses throughout the movie is destroyed by the shortcomings of this movie. With a better script , better dialogue and more time to fine tune the animation as well as a fixed lip sync this movie could have been real good.

Hopefully, the next time, the team who put this together will overcome these flaws mentioned above and once they accomplish this we're in for a real treat!

Back To Gaya, otherwise known as Boo, Zino and The Snurks, is a perfectly respectable effort at producing a computer animated movie outside the confines of Hollywood. I saw this the day after I watched Shark Tale, and found this to have far more sympathetic characters and.. dare I say it.. better animation? There is so much detail on in each scene, like paper blowing down the street or moths buzzing around a lantern, it puts previous effort's static backgrounds to shame. This is even more amazing when you consider this was probably was made on a tenth of the budget as it's aforementioned Dreamworks brother. Sadly, the script lacks humour and memorable lines.. unless you think quotes like "This place is so scary it would give a ghost goose-pimples" are ones for the ages. There is a lot of action, and a few tense moments that will have the sprogs biting their nails, but there were also some parts which went on for too long, and others which could have been cut altogether. This is what separates Pixar from the pretenders.. when they do a motion picture, they make sure the quality of the screenplay is just as good as the technology, something the producers of Back To Gaya seem to have forgot. Still, there is a refreshing lack of sentimentality usually associated with this genre, and Patrick Stewart and Emily Watson do well as the only recognisable voiceovers in the English dub. Overall, this probably not worth paying to watch in the cinema (A sentiment a lot of people agree with me on apparently.. It's flopping in the UK) but it is well worth a rental, particularly if your kids have worn out everything else you have on tape. A sound-as-a-pound 6 outta 10 from me..

Let me start by saying that the animated movie Snurks. Back to Gaya should not be watched by children. Unless you want to explain why the mean little snurk calls people a "putz". Or why the movie is dark and dreary like a new Batman movie. In order to enjoy this movie you must understand that this is a religious allegory with a some very bad ethnic references, the requisite "a female can be a hero too" story line, and a cookie cutter plot.

As far as a CG movie it is good. Not very good, but it has some terrific details. If you like to see pimples, pores, a stray nose hair, and blemishes then you will be impressed by the graphics. The bonus feature is kind of neat because you can watch how they build a skeleton, add "skin", texture, muscle movement, and facial features.

Did I already state that this is not a movie for kids? The story involves a "creator" (Patrick "Jean Luc Picard"), a mythical land where good battles evil (Eden, er, Goya), the good guys need "the light", ("dalamite"). The dalamite gets stolen by an evil genius with a limp and (don't be shocked) a big, bald head!! Lemme explain: evil will take away the light and you have to find the creator to get it back. If you don't get it back then you will be a putz (they said it, not me). Explain that to your kids.

Whose bright idea was it to give the poor little Snurks a shot glass filled with a Mickey? That's right, the Snurks get drugged by a tank-top wearing bar owner. I'm no censor but I know for a fact that cleavage does not belong in a kids movie.

Just to keep adults interested, the artists have decided to show you lot of the barmaid's cartoon cleavage and sagging you-know-whats. I know for another fact that sagging you-know-whats do not belong in a kids movie. And the barmaid's male lackey gets yelled at, scolded, called a putz, then kicked in the head. Way too much violence.

And they didn't miss a chance to make fun of fat people, short people, and anyone that looked different than heros. Sure, they had to cooperate to get back to Eden, er, Goya, but the snurk leader still had to bribe the "creator" to get equal treatment.

And why does "666" keep popping up in the background? Did I like it? Not really. I wish I didn't see it with my kids. What a putz (their words, not mine) I am.