Animation not by Pendragon Imageforge but By Bibofilms.

This is not a trailer but a pilot produced in 2004 for an aborted feature project.

So the author, Alex Alice, turned the project into a comic book last year.

More informations :
http://www.catsuka.com/news_detail.php?id=1189122427

Looks like they took Richard Wagner’s Der Ring Des Nibelungen and streamlined the story by accordioning a couple of generations (merging the characters of father and son, Siegmund and Siegfried into a single character). They also turned Wotan/The Wanderer into Gandalf and appear to have jettisoned the whole last third of the story. Knowing the opera this is based on, it’s going to be very difficult for any of the motivations behind the actions to make any sense with these trims, and the whole point of the ending is going to be lost. I suppose it may make a halfway decent action movie that way. But I think I’ll stick with Rackham’s and Pogany’s versions.

Pretty and insanely boring. The story -looks- very generic (haven’t read the source material) and, at least in this preview, almost nothing happens. Despite the great visuals, I can see why this probably didn’t move forward as I could barely sit through a minute of it. Again, very pretty though.

Stephen just beat me to it, but yeah…
It looks gorgeous matched with the Wagner, but tackling the Ring cycle is probably left best to the next Peter Jackson and done as a long live-action trilogy.

Am I philistine for wanting to say “By the power of Grey Skull” at about 3:03 in?

The music is the best part. Does anybody know where it is from?

Id love to see 2D animated feature films make a come back.

It looked beautiful, and I would see it in the theater. Of course you can’t go wrong with that Danny Elfman score. ;)

Alec: I believe the music is the prelude to Das Rheingold, the first of the 4 Wagner operas. Only Wagner could stretch an E flat major chord out to several minutes.
There’s a brief glimpse in the trailer of the gold lying at the bottom of the Rhine.

If classic music is going to get an animated feature treatment, I’d love to see a 2D feature of Midsummer Night’s Dream, with the Mendelssohn score. The music is so fluffy, it’s just made for animation.

Now THIS is what US animation is missing…beautifully told 2D films. I’d love to more of these types make it out to print. Sadly it’s unfortunately not the case with so many of the good ideas.

god damn, and every one was so ready to defend bolt.

i think this would have been cool.

Looks very, very nice. Too bad every single image, character and even the music have been raped and misinterpreted by the nazis. No wonder, because it’s a story about the doom of strong and pitiless warriors through ill fate and treason, turning them into heros posthumesly. Tolkien used the same imagery and put it on its head, making the weak and compassonate charactes the heros of his twist. Anyway, the look at life that he original promotes is definatly outdated and can’t be arrpoached without humor or a twist, and I do miss both here.As beautiful as it looks, this already comes across as kinda boring, don’t you think?
No wonder this story hasn’t been touched for ages.Just like Don Quixote…

I have been kind of a lurker on this site for a long time. Seems I have read alot of comments and stories here.
I guess I am out of the cartoony, fart joke, funny animation, 3d and 2d bad character design, making a movie just to make toys demographic because I would actually pay good money to see this, probably more than once, and probably buy the dvd — and I can’t remember the last time I said that.
Now I will crawl back into my cave.

everybody can see pencil tests from this project and some other stuff by the amazing artist Antoine Antin posted in his own website: http://www.aantin.com/. Enjoy!! And hope 2d will find its place in this new 3d future…

Alec just gave me hope that the world may not actually be spiralling down into dumbness with no hope of ever getting better.

Oops. I got to Harald and it started spiralling down again.

the graphic novel is actually pretty awesome. there’s a six page preview of the french edition here: http://www.dargaud.com/front/albums/planches.aspx?id=3480

Here’s to what it could’ve been. (raises goblet)

I’m against animation abortions. KILLERS! THEY WERE ANIMATED MOVIES! What gives you the right?

Aborting an animated film: Who’s choice is it? Share with friends and family and discuss…

Looks like Tarzan meets Pathfinder sprinkled with some Conan…Stylistically a bore to watch, but I’m intrigued by what the story could possibly be about.

Makes me wish there was still a large market for 2d animation now that we’ve made so many strides in lighting, particle effects, and melding with 3d that we can create imagery even more breathtaking than was practically feasible back before computers.

I’m not sure why so many see this as a bore. To each his/her own I guess. When I saw the video I was excited about how it looked, and what the story could be. I would pay good money to see or buy this film too had they finished it.

WOW! What an amazing work… of all the recent FAILS… This one was very disappointing. It sure had some magic in it. It would have been a great film. How sad.

I want to see this movie :(

I loved the atmosphere and emotion this trailer evokes. I think this has awoken the crushed dreams buried in me, but then seeing that this film will never be made those dreams have just got crushed yet again…

btw the trailer in a better resolution can be found here:
http://www.dargaud.com/siegfried-teaser/

Guessing this is based on the Nibelungenlied as Amy stated about the music being from Das Rheingold, which is inturn inspired from the Nibelungenlied.

I would have loved to see this. The animation looked nice, and it seems to be hard to find anything good these days to watch to satisfy my animation craving.

Don Bluth meets the Dark Crystal. Stunning.

Someday soon, animation software will be cheap and good enough that some young, talented animator with real storytelling ability will convince a bored millionare to pay him $5 million to sit in his apartment for 5 years and crank out a feature length film of this quality.

Hey, I can dream.

Alec - Wagner is epic. I’ve never been able to sit through Verdi without falling asleep, but to see the Ride of the Valkyries performed live is outstanding. L.A. Opera is putting on its first Ring Cycle next year. If you’re around SoCal, it should be worth checking out.

Amy - I’ve actually been doing some designs for ‘Salome’ just for shits and giggles. My vote’s in for that, ‘Tosca’, or ‘The Magic Flute’ for an animated opera.

Stephen - Woohhoo! Yay Wagner!

*continues being delighted there are other opera fans in animation*

i don’t know the music but it was epic! the best thing about the pilot. thanks to stephen for the edification. this may have been a pretty but confusing barbarian movie.

regardless, is there not some way the boobs who threw money at delgo been introduced to these people??? even if it turned out to be a confusing barbarian movie…it’s still better than the-hate-for-all-living-things that is delgo. right?