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JERRY BECK
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Sultan The Warrior
by jerry
February 18, 2009 5:45 pm


Four scary words: Motion Capture from Bollywood.

Submitted for your approval: Sultan The Warrior. This new Tamil-language animated feature opens in India in May through Big Pictures, a Reliance Group company (Dreamworks recently partnered with them). It will then be distributed throughout the rest of the world by Warner Bros. Consider yourself warned.

(Thanks, Liam Scanlan)

02/18/09  7:23pm
Bugsmer says:

This looks terrible. The hero doesn’t move right at all.

02/18/09  7:26pm
Nick says:

why does he wear the exact same expression in every scene?

02/18/09  7:44pm
Kit Silva says:

… Isn’t that the same guy from the Indian Thriller video?

02/18/09  8:15pm
chris B says:

WOW are you sure this isn’t Weekend at Bernie’s 3. He sure does look like Bernie with that same expression throughout the trailer. :) I also love that horrible rap song in the middle of it. Can’t wait!!!

02/18/09  8:20pm
mim says:

I think most trouble is in his face expressions, there is nothing change in his face at all;

02/18/09  8:47pm
Iain says:

“Motion Capture from Bollywood”… featuring music from Academy Award-nominee A.R. Rahman.

Deadly combination.

02/18/09  8:58pm
Jeffer says:

This looks utterly awful in every way. It’s not really a concern considering it really only serves as a billboard of the fact that the animation coming out of India continues to be of extremely poor quality.

Best of luck getting an international audience to part with any money to view this steaming turd!

02/18/09  9:03pm

Very subtle on the facial expressions.

Also, medieval sideburns. Why not?

02/18/09  9:29pm
greg says:

It looks like bad machinima (animation made using video game engines). BTW, if it in Tamil than technically it is not Bollywood. Bollywood = Hindi films.

02/18/09  9:39pm
fluffy says:

Well at least they’re not trying to make him realistic, so he doesn’t end up in the uncanny valley.

02/18/09  10:12pm

AWESOME

02/18/09  10:13pm
Geaffusunuman says:

This looks an awful lot like the video game Assassins Creed!

02/18/09  10:28pm
Steve Gattuso says:

Nah, Assassin’s Creed had FAR better facial animation.

02/18/09  10:34pm
FP says:

This isn’t the first “Motion Capture from Bollywood”. We must not forget Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists. Leonard Nimoy and Brendan Fraser provided two of the voices for the US TV presentation. The animation and rendering was not that great.

There’s one scene, if memory serves, in which a character picks up a treasure chest. The chest is two feet to the character’s right. It moves like it’s supposed to, but it’s offset, visually, two feet from where it’s suppposed to be, hanging in the air. That’s in the version I actually saw on television. Renders were similar to 1996-era TOMB RAIDER.

02/19/09  1:18am

what frightens me, is that he looks like my uncle!…
… and that horrible slow motion…
… and the rap…
… and the lack of expression…
etc, etc…
Well, it frightens me so much that I cannot even bear to see all of it.

02/19/09  1:45am
mikey says:

where are the cows??!!! i demand cows on that set… would so up the realism :)

02/19/09  2:09am
Albert says:

Cant wait to see the ‘making off’ on how they used a new fur algorithm for the mustache.

02/19/09  3:36am
Vishnu says:

Ok..i dont know wat to say, but i shud, sumthin, coz am an Indian!

Speakin abt Indian animated movies, our Animation Industry is fairly behind compared to a few other countries. Its not because we lack creativity.. Its technology and quality learning institutions we lack. We are certainly developing! And as far as I know, this is Indias 3rd 3D animated movie. Give us time to grow world! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-EezcpFzVI

Abt the hero and his expression, ITS RAJNIKANTH! One of Indias (or mayb South Indias) biggest actor! The rumour is that, the producers were uncertain if the movie would run well in the Indian Movie Industry (and ours is the biggest movie industry in the world! Even bigger than hollywood!) dominated by live action movies. So wat they did was, they starred one of the most famous actors in it - Rajnikant-who is also the father of the director of the movie, so u see, cheap and famous!!. And tats the reason behind the NOT-SO-HANDSOME-ACTOR.

@Kit Silva: Yep, he is..
@chris B n Iain: Ok, this soundtrack was made for just the trailer. Not the movie. And tis ones not made by A R Rahman!
@Jeffer: Give us time Jeffer.. We r just learnin.
@Brandon Waltman: Yeah right! Nice joke!

And sumthin for the Indians who plan to comment.. Am not anti patriotic or nething! Its just tat Indian animation Industry should keep their mouth shut from International arena until they can develop a decent flick!

02/19/09  6:20am
danno says:

Where’s the big musical numbers?

02/19/09  6:39am
Tim Rauch says:

why are bollywood superstars allowed to have facial hair??? why can’t that be socially acceptable in hollywood? poor, misunderstood joaquin phoenix…

02/19/09  7:09am
JWLane says:

As an animator and someone who’s spent time in a dojo, I have 2 additional observations. 1: our hero doesn’t have it very tough because his attackers have late stage arthritis (slow motion accounted for). 2: the toughest thing to believe is that a supposed hardened warrior can have so much baby fat. Apart from other production aspects, there’s really no identification with real action. This is more like 18th century French aristocracy dressing protestants up in feathers, the pretending to be bird hunting.

02/19/09  9:18am
Moro says:

Haha…The REAL Rajni is weird enough…

02/19/09  9:20am
TM says:

Was it just me, or did anyone else expect an epic explosion to happen behind him at the very end?

02/19/09  9:27am
JMatte says:

TM- Ha ha, I WAS expecting a big explosion!

I also had this big Assassin’s creed video game vibe, at least for the overall feel and the look of the environment.

02/19/09  9:49am
Grant says:

MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MY EYES ARE BLEEDING!!!

Seriously, this looks awful, but that is from a western point of view. We were raised on Looney Tunes, Tex Avery, and Chuck Jones, they weren’t.

02/19/09  11:29am

looks like a video game not a movie.

02/19/09  11:41am
Luke says:

It looks like “Assassin’s Creed: The Mustachioed Musical Comedy.” Presented entirely in Achingly Slow Motion!TM

02/19/09  12:36pm
Stone says:

India’s still learning.

…and biting off a tad more than they can chew.

But their industry is still pretty much in it’s infancy. I assume they are more so “afraid” to change the facial expression of the main character because it IS their biggest celebrity and they probably have a difficult time of doing expressions and keeping him on model. If they messed up they’d catch hell. Or maybe he’s just so “cool” that that IS his only expression.

but yeah, it’s really poorly done.

02/19/09  1:17pm
Sebhary says:

That was awesomely creepy (for an animator point of view)… XD
Yes, that’s true: it is the new Assassin’s creed: The Mustachioed Musical Comedy!

02/19/09  2:24pm
El says:

Is it possible that those lyrics are actually saying what I think they are?

“It’s like animation with real life, that’s right”?

02/19/09  3:32pm

I hope there is enough time inbetween him jumping of the roof and hitting the ground to stick a story. Sort of creepy the way his expression never changes.

02/19/09  3:49pm
chris B says:

don’t forget the “Uh Huh” after that :) I wonder if they were American rappers or Indian rappers blowin it up yo uh huh uh huh

02/19/09  3:54pm
Paul K. says:

To echo above comments like Vishnu’s and Stone’s,
Someday, animation from India will be consistently great (though works like Sultan The Warrior misrepresents the region as catastrophically deficient in competency) — perhaps the first step is to stop artlessly copying popular entertainment and instead study what makes successful animation a hit. Or perhaps art in general.
Anyway, the worst part of this trailer was the camera motion… I couldn’t see past the stuttering splines of wonky-ramped keyframes.
Yet,
this is STILL better than Roadside Romeo.

02/19/09  6:09pm

Why is everything in sllloooooowwwwwwwwww moooootttttiiiiooooooonnnnnnnnn?

02/19/09  6:33pm
T says:

It may look like moving garbage but if DreamWorks releases it in this country, it’ll take every category in next year’s Annie Awards.

02/20/09  7:35am

Oh lawd Final Fantasy…look what you’ve started!!

02/20/09  2:43pm

number one comedy in India

02/20/09  6:45pm
Liam Scanlan says:

Oh my gosh! What have I done? I emailed about this to Jerry because I thought this would be a great foreign animated feature with a US distributor only for him to make a laughing stock out of it. But I still think the whole “number one comedy in India” joke was very fitting. LOL!!!!!!!! And T, it’s still Annie worthy for it’s dramatic tone.

02/20/09  8:30pm
Adam Van Meter says:

I will not be happy until I own this DVD.

It looks like the biggest comedy event of the year.

I can NOT wait.

02/21/09  6:47am
Setebos says:

Just what the world’s been wanting: a Sri Lankan Conan!

02/23/09  10:11am
Nikhil says:

awesome trailor….waiting for the movie

02/23/09  10:29am
Unik says:

this aint right to critisize whole indian animation industry jst bcoz a couple of movie couldn’t do well… it happens with everyone some or the other time…Indian animation industry is still growing and hence it is not at all justified to comment like this on whole industry……

03/21/09  8:34am
Sandeep Singh says:

i think that will be all………………….amazing stuff.actually I like Sultan The Warrior character…….it is rajnikant one of the south indian actor and also producer……….well round figure the tralior is nice and awesume movie………..GUD LUCK

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