Elephants Dream

Overall, this movie is quite impressive. One must remember that it was made entirely using free software, and for free (except for the money received from DVD pre-orders and also from donations from corporations). The story is about two characters, emo and proog, who are in a surrealistic dream world. Throughout the course of the movie (about 11 minutes) they encounter various environments, some weirder than others. The title "Elephants Dream" is supposed to be a reference to how Dutch children's stories abruptly end. Anyone expecting a plot, jokes, or some deep underlying meaning will probably be disappointed (although I found some of the choreography amusing), but those who watch it with the thought in mind that is supposed to be mainly a technology demonstration of what can be done with free software will be impressed.

Bottom line: Great looking, but no storyline, jokes or puns. *FREE*.

The best (only) free animated short out there of commercial quality

NOTE: I used the VLC player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) to view this movie, and as long as you have a decent processor and don't run it full screen you should get an excellent performance.

This film is truly a visually stunning one, with it's mechanical dreamscapes and multitude of fascinating details. Sadly, the character animation is rather primitive – especially the lip synching – making the general impression of the creatures inhibiting the world more lifeless than the world itself. The films main problem, however, is the inconsistent, underdeveloped story line. The problem is not that the story is vague, but rather that it neither asks nor answers any questions, nor does it encourage the viewer to do so. It is more of an anti-story really, a substitute for a real plot.

In the end, this is nothing more than a technology demo – and a rather failed demo too, since it clearly shows that no matter how competent the blender software is at creating scenery, it clearly cannot animate lifelike creatures.

Having been a user of Blender for a few years, I couldn't wait to see this film. Having recruited the most talented users this was to be Blenders big promotional push to the rest of the cg industry, the expectation was high for something special.

The result is a very mixed affair. Technically this is amazing, very few users have been able to squeeze this kind of performance from the best open source 3d package. Modeling, lighting, texturing, animation, rendering all are very high quality. This brings me onto the obvious and often heard criticism: the story is almost buried under it's own multi-layered highbrow pretentious Art wannabe hopes.

Sadly what should have been accessible and inviting, ironically,instead reflects Blenders UI: unappealing and awkward.

As a film it's a failure, as a HD-DVD tech demo(first in Europe*yawn*) it's great.

Have just downloaded Elephants Dream, the first open source project ever made, a year of work and a lot of talk on the net about it. So why is the story completely pointless?? forgive me if I'm missing some philosophical meaning (I doubt it) but no jokes, no insight into the characters, no explanation of where they are or what they're doing there in this big machine, no nothing except a bunch of 3D animation put together. It's visually very impressive and obviously a great deal of work has gone into this project, but without any story it fails to entertain me. If it took a year to make this piece of film, didn't the creators stop to think about the basic elements of what makes a movie? even a short? Am quite disappointed.

A movie that left me with mixed feelings. Sure, the technical performance is rather impressive, especially considering that those people didn't have the financial backup most commercial 3D animations enjoy nowadays. The various environments are beautiful, with lots of small details that really make them alive. Although in the first part of the movie, the animation of the two main characters seems to be a little off, it clearly improves at the end, with an overall feeling of good quality. Not perfect, but nice however.

But - and that's a rather serious one - such visual enjoyment isn't backed up by a good story. Sure, the base idea is quite a promising one, and could be perfectly adapted to such a short movie duration. Yet it has failed to get me on: the symbols are too abstruse and too obscure to be understandable by most. Even after having read various comments about it, I'm still scratching my head asking myself: what was their message with this ?

So if you like movies purely for their esthetical value, then you'll definitely enjoy "Elephant Dreams". But if, like me, you are expecting from a movie that it tells you a story, or convey a message, you'll probably be disappointed by a symbolism so convoluted that it becomes impossible to understand, even after a second vision.

So my final note is: 6/10 - technically great, but the scenario is lacking