Super Bowl Commercials

[Rob Zeigler]

Joe,

Thought you might be interested in this, then:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/van_helsing/superbowl/

That's the spot in Quicktime. Definitely a cool character, one that I think was mentioned in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I believe his "wife" was one of that league.


I'm also interested in seeing Hidalgo.

[Rob Belics]

I saw that trailer at the movies. I'm not into that genre but it made me want to go see it. Yeah, looked pretty cool!

[Ted Springer]

Van Helsing looks every bit as spectacular as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And that was crap. In fact, it almost seems like the exact same movie to me. Just another movie not to give my money to. Special effects do NOT make a movie! And that one looks way overblown in the SFX department. I'm sure Vin Deisel is in it somewhere as well.

I wish Cadallac (or however it's spelled.... never been interested in one) would stop using Led Zepplin in their commercials. I can't listen to LZ anymore without thinking that I am listening to a TV commercial. Same goes for many older classic tunes. You hear that, advertisers? Quit raping!

[Rob Zeigler]

Gee Ted...

You said everything that came up as conversations at work today. We were all remarking about:

a) How the LOEG trailer looked good but the movie wasn't so great.

b) Van Helsing looked way too effects heavy

and

c) How all these old tunes appear in new commercials


Were you listening in again? ; )

[Haasim Mahanaim]

Here's a link for the Apple Itunes/Pespsi Commercial

http://www.apple.com/itunes/pepsi/ads/


And I'm not too impressed by the footage I've seen for Van Helsing. I think Hugh Jackman is an awesome actor (has anyone seen Kate and Leopold?) but director Stephen Sommers has only made one good movie in his career The Mummy. (one of my favorite popcorn films)

But his previous films include, Deep Rising, and The Mummy Returns; a vastly inferior, soulless sequel. And now that I've seen the commericlas for his latest big budget spectacle, I'm starting to really despise this guy. He's yet another filmmaker with an adolescent mentality fueled by the bags of money studios keep handing him.

[Rob Zeigler]

Yeah the Pepsi/iTunes add was cute...heh...

Van Helsing is not a bad story, it's a hell of a character in fact. It's just that some things will always 'look' better if they're in a book. In our imaginations, the CG is PERFECT. That's why imagery like what appears in Van Helsing is hard to pull off on the screen.

Sure, we know it's all CG monsters and effects, but that's the problem. It's too reliant on CG and as such, that ruins the story for me, because I'm sitting there picking apart what's real and what's not instead of watching the movie.

Ridley Scott's got it together with Black Hawk Down and Gladiator - take a good story, good actors, and instead of splashing CG all over the place, composite it so that it's virtually unseen and unrecognizable and doesn't take the viewer out of the movie.

[Rob Belics]

Agree. I forgot that the trailer I saw on TV showed more than what was in the movies and the characters were almost cartoonish. CG is best when you don't know it's CG. It might still turn out good but it would be hard to get past that.

[Robert Mann Z.]

is that 'Eddie' Van Helsing a distant european cousin?

[Stephen Schleicher]

Van Helsing isn't a new character, he has always been in the Dracula story as Dr. Abraham Van Helsing who helped fight the vampir. In regards to LXG, the female vampire was the wife of Van Helsing's assistant.

It is suprising (or maybe not) that Van Helsing is mentioned in LXG, and then this movie comes out, and yes, the two look very similar, wouldn't surprise me at all if it was the same SFX company doing the work in both films.

While I will probably go see this movie, I am very disappointed that they are remaking so many 80s films again - Walking Tall... gimme a break, why remake that movie?

Cheers

[Rob Zeigler]

Hey Stephen,

ILM shared effects work with Illusion Arts on Van Helsing. ILM also had their hand in LXG, but LXG had over 20 SFX studios working on it. Asylum, Double Negative, Tippett, Riot, Cinesite, etc.


ILM probably did most of the character animation.


As far as Walking Tall...the reason they probably "remade" it is for those people who didn't know there was a movie called Walking Tall made in the 80s. : )

[Brian Huey]

For those that didn't see the game (like myself) you can check out all the commercials at iFilm.

Cheers,
Brian

[Stephen Schleicher]

Rob,

Yeah, I figured that, but why remake THAT movie? Or for that matter, why did they remake "Can't Buy Me Love"? Or for that matter, why did they remake Planet of the Apes, and Psycho?

Sad sad sad when we have to resort to remaking the classics when we could go see them in an art house theatre or on DVD.

On the other hand, the remake of Dawn of the Dead looks pretty cool :)

Cheers :)

[Rob Zeigler]

Ocean's 11 remake was good. : )

Ocean's 12 should be interesting.

Uh-oh...I feel a new thread coming along. "Your FAVORITE Hollywood Remakes".