From: AICN: Remember us reporting on the George Miller animated film HAPPY FEET? The one with the penguin voiced by Elijah Wood? No? Then you should concentrate more. Because Miller wanted to make the film a photorealistic and rather mind-blowing thing, and if his plans pan out, we may be in for something awesome. *If* they pan out. This is what Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Max had to say:
“Animal Logic [the SFX house commissioned to bring the project to life] has never done this kind of film before. The company’s basically expanded by a factor of ten to do it. It’s spent the last 18 months building digital models, sets, pipelines etc. An enormous technical effort. All of this to bring George’s vision of completely photo-real CG penguins to life. But in all this activity, all this work, there’s been one thing that everyone’s overlooked… photo-realistic penguins CAN’T ACT!!!
Yes, after all these millions of dollars spent, Animal Logic have discovered that penguins are completely inexpressive creatures. What about all the wonderful character animation that the artists are creating, I hear you ask? Well, dear reader, the entire production is MOTION-CAPTURED! There is no character animation. So what’s only now been discovered is that the entire cast of the film are as emotive as garbage cans.
The blamestorming has begun, with Animal Logic desperately trying to keep a lid on what is fast becoming a spiralling disaster. Even the studio has no idea how much of a mess this has become.” Max goes on to give away the ending, so I’ll cut him off there. But this could be a big disaster… HAPPY’S GATE, perhaps? We’ll let you know.
