I could almost, almost see that appearing stateside. I mean, if we can create Fly Me To The Moon, than it isn’t so bad for a South African upstart to create something like The Lion of Judah.

Why…why? Why are so many, many faith-based movies or shows so, so bad? I mean, that lamb? Half the time I was thinking it was some lion-lamb abomination against nature.

This just makes me sad to see.

That’s within limits, but they’re probably late to catch the faith-based movie wave.

Whatever… it’s unbecoming to keep sniffing about things that don’t meet our high American standards.

I think they’re in more need of typographers.

Why are the cow, the horse and the pig all screaming at me?

Overdramatic music… brief-cut scenes interspersed with sections of overdramatic tag lines (read, of course. in that generic trailer announcer voice) floating towards the viewer in white type against black background… they sure have the language of trailers down pat!

>Why…why? Why are so many, many faith-based movies or shows so, so bad?

Captive audience. If you get it to the screen, certain crowds will always come. So you can aim really low, and if you get the arrow off, you will hit the target. Also, very “long tail” audience who doesn’t care much how old something is.

And remember, getting the Word out is, if anything, more important than making art of the message.

…

“So whaddaya wanna do t’night Marty?”

“I donno J.C., whadda YOU wanna do?”

Wow…from the Wild Bunch, Marty and the Poseidon Adventure to movies like Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders and this. Why can’t Ernest Borgnine just retire before his messes up his career even more?

Um… when you’re doing the roll of celebrity “voice talents” in your trailer, should each name mentioned be followed by a clip of the character saying something in that celebrity’s voice?

I laughed hard at the “story of a lifetime” tagline.

Because, you know….your life will never be the same after watching a run of the mill animated film involving barnyard animals acting out a mythical bible tale.

This proves there is no God.

Granted that I’m from Protestant family, I don’t like faith based shows and movies for being preachy and having overtly one dimensional characters and settings. Heck Lord of hte Rings and Narnia have christian values, but at least they’re not too direct.

I wanna see those animals eating the little screaming Veggie Tales guys. Animals do that. They eat vegetables.

“faith based?” What the HECK is that? Looks to me like they’ll need faith it’s not laughed off the screen!

Oh–and this company is also distributing this gem:

http://www.amazon.com/Tugger-Jeep-4×4-Who-Wanted/dp/B001L9EXNE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1248069715&sr=1-1

ja. why is it that the faith-based groups just can’t get it together on the animation front. “Jonah, a Veggietales Movie” was actually pretty good, even though it was just an expanded VT production. Good characters, decent animation, interesting plot. If Mel Gibson can pull off a “Passion” and make it a blockbuster, that just shows that faith-based work can and does equal quality. Sad-to-say, but most denominations are just too scared to produce something edgy … we Christians have to look for “message” in the secular films, ’cause the stuff most believers produce is just dreck!

It looks like they’re re-using many of the same character models from another one of their films, Once Upon a Stable, judging from the clip in the trailer section.

There’s an animated picture coming out with the moniker The Wild Bunch. Maybe Ernest Borgnine can reprise his role.

No the LORD is lookink down and say’in WTH ????

I know it’s good to be direct and concise and all that, but really, calling your company ‘Animated Family Films’ ?

Moves like this just kick animation back into being a genre. For idiots. People who go to see this are idiots. And the people who made it and are distributing it are idiots too. Rich idiots for a time, I’m sure, but idiots all the same.

Superman comic artist Ed Mcguinness , last I heard, was preparing a Christian comic book about a character called “Lion of Judah.” I hope nobody gets the two mixed up.

Where to begin? How about with the fact that in Bible times donkeys generally DIDN’T PULL CARTS?!? They were just loaded up. And crating the lamb/lion around as if it were the Lost Ark? What’s up with that? You’ll note that there’s not even a HINT as to what the story itself is about. Is the lamb deluded? Is he going to end up as someone’s Passover main course? Help me out here! You just can’t call it “faith-based” and think “Well, we’ve marketed it.”

And for American evangelicals, Sandy Patti will be a more recognizable name than Ernest Borgnine.

Ecclesiastes 9:4 says it’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion. This thing looks way more like the former than the latter.

The HOW IT GETS DONE link on their web page was actually really good. Through and nicely put together. It just shows you it takes a lot of effort to make a bad film.

Because the new technology allows anybody(and I do mean anybody) to make a movie, this is the result.

At least the old model required people have talent. Now, all you need is financing and work stations.

So, why is anybody surprised?

And what with the pig ???? Jews had nothig to do with pigs !!! PS I’m a Chistian too !!!!!!

After the line “A story that moves the hearts of every man I expected them to say: “This, however, is not that story”

Generic trailer voiceover…blecch!

It needs the late Don LaFontaine: “In a world…” - that would make it a must-see!

I’ll refrain from criticizing the theme of the movie.

I’ll just say that the trailer is exceptionally bad. Like some others have pointed out, it completely failed to introduce us to any of the characters, not to mention the plot itself. Perhaps they thought that the title is self-explanatory enough?

Why do studios feel the need to promote every movie like is the greatest epic story of all time? Why do they feel the need to mention the studio’s past “triumphs”? “From the creators of ‘Blah’” feels like the collateral you need to request a loan in a bank!

God those animal faces are scary, that horse in particular looks like he’s about to bite my nose off!

> It needs the late Don LaFontaine: “In a world…” - that would make it a must-see!

He’s dead, how sad. :-(

This looks like a nightmarish cartoon version of “Jesus Camp.” And why is that pig yelling at me?! I don’t even eat bacon.

I’m going to stay optimistic. I’ll bet this is a great movie for Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans.

Ah come on, don’t be too hard on that studio! Entertainment for children, you know. Cheap movies for the quick buck.

And regarding the quality of animation… well, every age has its cheap-ass animation studio. Now you know the name. ;)

ZAR.

I expected something much worse…

“Why are the cow, the horse and the pig all screaming at me?”

There is something unspeakably terrifying about human-like teeth in an otherwise realistically rendered CGI animal’s mouth.

I don’t know what everyone is talking about. This is the greatest film of all time! Citizen Kane, Godfather who? Trust me on this, there’s nothing more original and innovative than Barnyard animals. I suspect this movie will break all box office weekend records.

Wasn’t there a non-so-popular Rankin-Bass animated Christmas special were the manger animals got to talk (and sing and dance), but only on the night that Jesus was born?

Nope, it isn’t going to challenge Pixar’s dominance. And I won’t be watching it.

But then I got to thinking…are there any other studios in Africa that can do better??? If not, then why are we being so hard on them? They’re just trying to do what they do, and if it takes producing several movies of this quality to improve their local industry then so be it.

I say good luck to them.

Usually the clips chosen for trailers have action, suspense, or drama. Not one shot in the trailer possessed any of those qualities. It was more like, there’s a horse, and there’s a rat, and there’s a pig, and there’s a crate.

Looks as though this film that supposed to be a Bible story will not actually have anything “bible” or “story” in it. It will be a watered down showing of clumsy barnyard animals. Is this the sequel to Barnyard?

To be fair, the studio probably had a 10th of the staff, budget and time that the bigger Animation Studios have for a feature, not to mention America has a good 70 year head start as far as producing full length feature films, so no Jeremy, they will not be challenging Pixar/Disney’s dominance as you say, but i bet that was never their intention.

Sure the trailer isn’t the best, but who is to say that the film will be that bad. If any of you were real supporters and fans of Animation you would be celebrating the fact that animation is starting to flourish in places as remote as South Africa, regardless of whether their first attempt at a full length feature is a solid gold block buster or not. It is easy to judge them from behind your monitors in comfortable 1st World American suburbia, but what does that achieve.

This is a film aimed at a young audience, made on a very low budget, over a very short space of time and with very few staff, it was never going to meet all you of you critics high expectations, but i get the feeling from your ignorant and naive comments that not many films do.

Well said, Calvin. This diatribe of comments reminds me of politicians who blast a book written by someone from the other party even though they have not and never will read the book.

Incidentally, the film was good enough for Paramount Pictures to pick up and for Ruth Graham to promote.