All kinds of stuff..

Wow. I still have this? Cool.

Nothing special. Just got The Art of Bolt book. Pretty good but there wasn't so much character sketches as I hoped and the lack of American Dog  consept art bothered me too.

Hopefully the movie is good.

 

Well well well.. What do we have here?

The Animator's Survival Kit
The Art of Kung Fu Panda
Animals in Motion
Human Figure in Motion
The Dark Knight: Featuring Production Art and Full Shooting Script 

All coming from Amazon.com. Hell YEAH!

And now the review of Kung Fu Panda.

I got the worst seats that I could get so it took a while before I started to enjoy the movie. I was too close the screen and my back hurt very much. I had this urge to get away from the screen as much as I could but I couldn't jump from my seat and go somewhere else to sit. But after 10 minutes I got used to it and focused in the movie.

Most of the humor was pretty cheap or how should I say this.. too "easy"? Maybe it's just me but I didn't laugh for many jokes like the audience did. People have their own sense of humor and I respect that but I wanted more intelligent humor. But when we are talking about summer hit movie and it's Dream Works.. nope, you can't have those. Only few jokes were unexpected and really good.

Characters were very appealing but I was disappointed that they didn't use Furious Five's characters so much. None of them were supporting characters (well, maybe the Tigress) so it felt strange that the film makers hired huge celebrities for voice acting but they didn't have much lines to say in the end. What a waste for the studio and the story. There could had been some problems with the movie's length if they had decided to make deeper personalities for the Furious Five's characters. But if you ask me, it could have been more interesting and fun to watch. And the bad guy, Tai Ling.. he was boring. Such a typical bad guy who is just evil and that's it.

My personal favorite was Master Shifu, even though I had problems to get used to his voice. I like Dustin Hoffman as an actor (and his voice) but it sounded so strange to hear his old and low voice coming from so small creature. But in the end it was a perfect choice. The character and the voice matched like they should in animated movies. Perfect.

I absolutely loved the colours. I've always thought that CG movies are great making different colours and shadings. Everything is fresh and bright. I personally don't know so much about colours and I find them hard to use, so maybe that's why I find them so fascinating if they are made right and in interesting way.

I was disappointed in the Kung Fu fighting. Everything was too fast and impossible to follow. If the film makers had made the movie for older audience and had serious story, the fights could have been more accurate. I enjoy watching animated movies where movements are believable and based on real life. Here I got a feeling that they studied Kung Fu but decided to make it look so cool as possible. Which means "Let's shoot this scene very close and move the camera so fast that the audience feels like they are in the middle of the fight!!". Yes, that thing works if you do it right. In this movie they used it too much.

There was too much jumping too. It gave a feeling like the characters didn't have any mass in them and that they were full of air. Especially Tai Lung was missing all the weight and mass. I didn't find him threatening at all because of that.

It seemed that there was an error in the scene where Shifu and Po were laying on the floor in the end of the movie. Po's shadow didn't cover Shifu's face like it should in that kind of lightning. It looked like they erased some shadow so that audience can see both of them clearly.

The animation in the ending credits was beautiful. I had seen it before on internet but seeing it on the huge screen was wonderful.

Overall, the movie was entertaining but I missed deep character personalities. This could have been excellent movie if it had darker, serious and original story. Of course a giant fat Panda learning Kung Fu is original but you can always think more stuff than that.

Yeah.

Tein eilen yöllä hölmön "oppaan" aloitteville GNG-fanitaiteilijoille (jota ei kuulu ottaa tosissaan tai luokitella oppaaksi). Tai no.. tämä on enemmänkin tiivistelmän siitä, miten erilaisiin fanitaiteisiin suhtaudutaan. En tiedä, ovatko ihmiset samaa mieltä "opuksen" kanssa, mutta näin minä näen asiat.

Sinä siis haluat tehdä GNG-fanitaidetta?

It seems that I'm a fan of the Avatar series. I occasionally watch some episodes those interest me and read all the random discussion about the characters / plot but that's all. What really appeals me is that this show has strong female characters and good humor. And Sokka.. now that's a great character! One of the best things that the series has. Now if Sokka only had huge eyebrows he would be the best character ever made in history.

It's pretty funny to notice that when I find new series I instantly start to like the dark skinned characters. Kovu from The Lion King 2, Hattori Heiji from Detective Conan, Sokka.. Probably because they have great personalities and sense of humor. I don't know.

Oh, yeah. I was in London for a week and came back few days ago. It was an interesting trip. We (me and the Joutseno institute where I'm studying this year) went to the zoo, Madame Tussaud's place and walked a lot. It wasn't the best trip but at least I bought "The illusion of life" book which I've been drooling over for a while. It cost about 37 pounds but it was worth it! 

It would be good practice to speak more English out loud. I have noticed that I'm not pronouncing some words correctly and most of the time I end up repeating the same word many times. Well, that's what you get when you don't speak English so often. Time to change that.

"The new series, titled Stitch!, which will be produced by Japanese animation studio Madhouse (Ninja Scroll, Cardcaptor Sakura), replaces the orphan Lilo with a Japanese girl named Hanako, and transplants the setting from Hawaii to a tropical island in Okinawa, Japan."

Disney. What have you done? 

Read more here.

Does anyone know/remember this? If someone knows where I can get it (DVD or download), please note me. I want to see it again.