MTV Award… My Preciousss

Yoda and Gollum have both received MTV Movie Awards for their respective roles in Attack of the Clones and The Two Towers. Much as I enjoyed both characters, perhaps it should be a sign that something's off when the best performances in films are being delivered by the special effects.

Comments

[Robert Nabors]

Yes… especially considering the nature of today’s “talent”

[Sean]

I really don’t think anything odd of this, given who was giving the awards (a middle-aged giant trying to remain fresh, cool, and hip) and what the awards were for (best fight scene for Yoda, with Christopher Lee; and best trio for Gollum, along with the two hobbits). Will it be a shock to anyone next year if Matrix: Reloaded’s “Bully Brawl” in the schoolyard takes home the MTV award for best fight scene. Yet this scene was created in no small part by computer animation, camera tricks, and now-old-fashioned wires. Hell even Raiders of the Lost Ark used a stunt double for Harrison Ford in the truck fight scene, and that one ranks as one of the best of all-time. Movies are illusion, to only respect one manner of illusion a bit fine, but in no way admirable or pure.

[julian]

Oh, I know… I was just taking a cheap shot at the quality of some of the human acting in Hollywood.

[Morat]

It was a particular cheap shot for Gollum, as all the movements and voice work were done by one man. He managed the entire noteworthy perfomance on his lonesome.

All the FX did was change his appearance, and while they deserve kudos for the flawless and seamless way they managed it, the perfomance wasn’t theirs.

[Sven]

I suspect Keanu is really a CGI. I also suspect he’ll sweep next year’s awards.

[M.Brando]

Why do I get the feeling that all such awards are politically, rather than artistically, driven?

[James Merritt]

I have been waiting for and talking about this day since the late 80s, when it became clear that, well within my lifetime, “live action” motion pictures would be completely animated by computer. At the time, I predicted the production of entirely new, “lost episodes” of the “original” Star Trek series, for instance. From all indications, we’re very close to the point of being able to do that, now. Are there any Paramount insiders reading this who want to spill? 🙂

I find it very interesting, that someone like Steve Jobs, who once subscribed to the idea that “the best way to predict the future, is to create it,” went on to become a major player in the industry that now brings us artificial actors and scenery. He and his colleagues are thus able not only to create the future, but the present and the past as well (or at least, astonishingly convincing simulations of them).

The MTV Movie Awards fete Gollum and Yoda with cynical tongue-in-cheek and a wicked wink, much as “Network” once jeered at television with outrageous projections of the infotainment trend. Chayefsky’s extrapolations are now seen as tame and quaint, as compared with the actual “news” and reality-video programs that are currently beamed or piped into people’s real-life television sets. If history is any indicator of the future, you can be sure that the semi-satirical MTV Movie Awards categories of today will be adopted as actual, serious reasons to award Oscars and Emmies, just a few years from now. What then? Shall Shatner — or at least his youthful, digital doppelganger — finally win an Emmy?

[Joe L.]

Well Captain Kirk SHOULD win an Emmy or an Oscar! Mind you I like Picard, too…

[Geotech]

“Why do I get the feeling that all such awards are politically, rather than artistically, driven?”

Dude, it’s fucking MTV.

[jarod]

>> perhaps it should be a sign that something’s
>> off when the best performances in films are
>> being delivered by the special effects.

Easy laugh line, but why? Why shouldn’t a team of accomplished performers and animators be able to deliver a deep and memorable performance?

[J.Bruckheimer]

Sympathetically, like James Merritt, I, too, was eagerly waiting in the wings for such screen magic.

At the time, when I first entertained the idea (1979) I thought it would result in movie production and, hence, movie tickets, becoming less expensive (thanks to the big savings realized in not having to pay astronomical salaries to flesh-and-blood film stars.)

Now I know better, of course. CGG tends to be just as costly, if not more so.

Nevertheless, the technology seems very doable — even to the point of not being able to distinguish between facial expressions of the emotions of genuine humans and those of computer-generated characters. The future of film looks promising and exciting indeed.

Still, let’s do dispense with Jar-Jar Binks absurdities, though.

[Tim Stich]

“Still, let’s do dispense with Jar-Jar Binks absurdities, though.”

As long as we can dispense with more poorly acted and realized WWII flicks.

[Tim Stich]

Oh Christ, that makes me sound like I actually *liked* Jar Jar. Maybe you can CGI him to a kamakazi dive bomber’s underbelly tied with ropes all bug-eyed. I take back my cheap shot about Pearl Harbor. Just…make…Jar Jar go away…

[david f]

hey Tim Stich!

you do have a great point about the WWII era movies. we’ll gladly get rid of “passage to marseilles”… and come to think of it, why wasn’t “casablanca” boycotted, too? it has the french anthem in it…

and we could get rid of all of the elvis movies, too. the musicals. cats. this is getting good.

and we could make saddam and osama watch all of the scenes with jar jar… no. that’s too cruel. let’s give ’em to mongo!!!

cheers!!!!!!
drf

[bomb bomb]

Mr. Stich,

The mental image of Jar Jar tied to the bottom of that dive bomber just made my day.

Thank you.

[Croesus]

Casablanca rules.

Ever notice when the Germans are singing that they are in fact NOT signing “Deutschland Uber Alles” (or at least not a verse I recognize from the song).

“Vive la France!” – W

[david f]

hey Croesus!

no they’re singing “Wacht am Rhine”

and nice quote of prez dubyah there!

i guess we should get out of the us because we like that movie. *grin*.

have a great day,
drf