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Miraculously, 'Sonic the Hedgehog' is a fine movie
Sonic fans are used to being let down. Unlike Mario, who has rarely starred in a bad video game, the famous 'blue blur' has featured in countless duds. These include Sonic the Hedgehog 4, a disappointing follow-up to Sega's Genesis classics, and Sonic the Hedgehog, a 2006 reboot that was full of bugs and featured a now-infamous kiss scene between the hyperactive hero and a human princess. Expectations for the Sonic movie were, therefore, low. The film's distributor, Paramount Pictures, had already been criticized for releasing a trailer with a horrifically unfaithful and human-like version of Sonic. The backlash was so severe that the studio was forced to delay the movie's release, redesign the character and remake every shot he featured in. A second trailer revealed a more recognizable and authentic Sonic, which earned some respect and appreciation from the Sega faithful. Still, many were understandably skeptical. Shockingly, though, the Sonic movie is okay. Amusing, even. The 99-minute feature rarely feels original, ambitious or narratively interesting, but it's also not the cinematic train wreck that so many were expecting. The bar was exceptionally low, but this simple live-action comedy might be the best video game to movie adaptation ever made.
Watch how VFX artists crafted Disney's 'The Lion King' remake
Nothing in Disney's divisive Lion King remake was real. Simba, Scar and the sprawling Pride Lands -- all of it was created digitally. To convey this gargantuan effort, visual effects studio MPC Film -- the same company behind The Jungle Book and countless other Hollywood blockbusters including Blade Runner 2049 -- has released a short breakdown on YouTube. It shows the various steps required to build young Simba, adult Nala, and some of the film's iconic scenes including The Circle of Life. If you want to know more about how the movie was made, including its VR-assisted cinematography, read our 'making of' feature from last year.
WoW movie still needs a writer, Blizzard's CGI team won't be involved
When you've just released an expansion pack that sold more copies than most major stand-alone releases, all in less than 24 hours, you know you're sitting on a goldmine of a franchise. Blizzard, of course, is aware of this, what with World of Warcraft getting a licensed miniature game and a coming feature film adaptation.And speaking of the feature film adaptation, we have some elusive news about that. MTV's Multiplayer blog had a chat with Blizzard's Frank Pearce about the project. The scoop is that the studio, Legendary Pictures, is still looking for a screenwriter and director. Obviously, that means the movie is very early in development.MTV also asked Pearce if Blizzard's own world-renowned CGI animators would be involved in producing the special effects for the movie. Pearce said that the suggestion has "come up in discussions but it's not something we've really considered because it takes so long to generate just the brief amount of footage that we create for the game."
Gettin' Siggy with it: Joystiq goes to SIGGRAPH
We headed into the wonderific CGI fray known as SIGGRAPH this year, and ultimately decided that we need to start checking this out more often. The technical conference just entered its 35th year, with the acronym being for Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques. While it's evolved into a pretty glorified job fair, they still show off new and impressive technology, have a large section focusing on papers relating to innovation in the field of computer graphics (like this year's "Simulating Knitted Cloth at the Yarn Level") and feature a fun Computer Animation Festival component filled with dozens of short CGI films in competition.The only gaming companies we noticed in attendance were Activision, LucasArts, and THQ, which mostly offered "we want to hire you!" booths, but a lot of the tech behind games was being shown as well. NVIDIA was demoing "the world's first fully interactive GPU-based ray tracer," and the Mova Contour system was showing off their futuristic looking rig. Plus, it now seems like everyone and their uncle is creating 3D printers that pump out plastic models, but that doesn't mean we don't want one. Read on after the break to find out more, explore the gallery below, and be sure to watch the video that got the biggest laughs, just ahead.%Gallery-29646%
