Alpha and Omega

The Common Room Other Animation
#121

The script is almost as bad as the visuals. This movie is visually inferior compared to the average CGI release of the last, say… 10 years. It has even more bad jokes than all of the bad puns and pop culture refs in Dreamworks movies combined. And I even believe that the movie literally copied some characters from different movies. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m normally not the one nitpicking on a movie’s originality. Everything comes from inspiration, true originality doesn’t exist. But really, they crossed the line here. For example: the goose character (Marcel). It’s basically a 3D remodeled Boris (from the movie Balto).

But… fair is fair: this movie isn’t all that bad. It is not an animated masterpiece, but I didn’t get bored watching it. Some parts were amusing and, dare I say it, even cute! I wouldn’t watch this movie in theaters (because it’s simply not worth your money), but if you can borrow the movie from a videotheque after the DVD release and you’re bored: I think it would be worth it.

#122

Okay I realize I wasn’t very clear on that review… I’m going to try to rephrase what I said.

Although visually, Alpha and Omega is a lacking movie, with a lot of the (action) scenes seeming rushed or at some points even badly animated, the story (although lacking some depth) is touching, to say the least. I’m not going on a hate spree about this movie, because it simply doesn’t deserve it. It might not be as mind blowing as the last Toy Story, emotionally deep as How To Train Your Dragon, nor as visually stunning as Legend of the Guardians, but it is a nice movie. The bar is a bit high nowadays. A CGI film has to be a masterpiece in order to still entertain us. Smaller studios cannot perform in box office like the major ones, nor are their people as experienced with storytelling and animation in general as, say… the people we learned to love at Pixar. But you gotta start somewhere.

It is clear to me the people that worked on this were trying to make a nice movie. Though it sometimes doesn’t come out that well, this movie shows a lot emotional depth (at least, in my opinion). There are a lot of factors (cough… flaws) in this movie that distract you from the bigger picture, though.

What you see is: lacking animation, silly scripts, awkward character behavior (loony tunes humor doesn’t really fit well in a 3D ‘realistic’ environment) and some jokes that are a little bit too risqué… Okay, very risqué.

But the bigger picture is a love story between a male wolf (Humphrey) and a female wolf (Kate) who grew apart because of side factors. Kate is forced to marry someone from another pack to unite the two but doesn’t like the guy she’s matched up with. Humphrey loves Kate, but is afraid to come out for it and is also considered inferior to the rest of the pack. Shortly before the marriage, foresters take Kate and Humphrey to take them to Idaho to ‘repopulate’ (wolf population was too low there). Kate realizes she has to go back to prevent a war and urges Humphrey to go back with her, which they do. Along the way they learn a lot about eachother and when they come back, they both face a lot of hard choices…

The plot is, as mentioned above, actually decent. What I tried was: seeing past the flaws and try to see the bigger picture. I did, and what I saw was an entertaining animated feature, which was touching at the right times and contained a lot more emotional depth than most live action movies nowadays.

Don’t get me wrong: I was bothered by the ‘flaws’, but the people behind it worked with what they had and achieved what they could, and I can always respect that. I do think this movie would have worked better in traditional 2D than 3D, but that’s just my opinion.

So, after thinking about it a bit more, my rating is a big fat 6/10.

Summary of what I just said: Alpha and Omega is an obviously lacking movie which I wouldn’t pay money for to see in a theater. But if you manage to see past the flaws and look at the bigger picture, it is actually a nice feature. I am seriously considering getting the DVD when it comes out.

I hope this was somewhat helpful… shrugs

#123

Thank you!
I was a little dissapointed with people putting it dow just by the trailers. I loved it, dispite it being not from a huge company. People dissing it for that fact as well upsets me.
Yes, it had flaws BUT it’s a very nice and decent story to see.

#124

Haha, and I thought I was going to be lynched for posting this on a Pixar forum.

Thank YOU! :stuck_out_tongue:

@on a side note: Zenoah, your avie seems to be moving on the rythm of my clock. It’s amusing. :stuck_out_tongue:

#125

Thanks for the balanced review, Czarine! You summed up my impressions perfectly (and I feel, my eventual opinion once I get to see it). It’s a shame really, Pixar has spoiled us (which I would like to add, is totally deserving, since we are the paying audience after all) to the point where its competition are no match. The interesting thing about CGI animation is that it is a very small and crowded commercial medium and hence market, unlike say, the live-action medium, where no one studio can be deemed as the ‘best one’.

That’s why I like to give start-ups the benefit of the doubt. Not to say I don’t give criticism when it’s due (I’m confident right now to say that I’m not a fan of A&O’s sexy jokes, for example), but I hate it when I read a review and some critic says “It’s not Pixar-material”, or “Not quite good as Pixar”, etc. To dismiss an average film with good intentions not only smacks of snobbery, but of cultural elitism.

What I mean to say is, yes, Pixar is great and all, but it doesn’t have a monopoly on the animation industry.

#126

Rephrase: It does, but it shouldn’t have.

#127

Well… Western animation, yes. Closest artistic contender is Aardman, but unfortunately the same can’t be said for its commercial appeal.

Now if we’re talking Far East, all your bases are belong to Studio Ghibli. :stuck_out_tongue:

#128

Czarine: My icon is accually of an OC set to a song meme that my partner did
youtube.com/watch?v=QpO7y1ydIz8

Im gonna come out right now and confess that I thought that Alpha and Omega was a better movie than Guardians.
Why?
Alpha and Omega had a steay story line where I found that Guaridans jumped and rushed theirs.

Alpha and Omega gave you time to understad each charater, while Guardian’s really did’nt. If you did’nt read the books and saw Guardians then you’d know that [spoil]Mrs. P is blind. I did’nt catch them saying she was in the movie.[/spoil]

Sure the animation was far better in Guardians, but that does’nt make the movie…the story does…

#129

Try to consider that Guardians was based on a book, no, three books - so of course they had to leave out some narrative details while still keeping close to the storyline. Doesn’t make me like A&O more though, sorry :U

#130

Zenoah: I was disappointed with how they depicted Mrs P too ([spoil]she had milky eyes instead of eye-pits like in the book[/spoil]), but I suppose they did what they could within the runtime, which I had mentioned in the LOTG thread that I wished was longer. Ms Lasky acknowledged that “the book is not the movie, and the movie is not the book.” It must be confusing for newcomers, and I do feel some scenes were glossed over, but honestly, from what I’ve seen in A&O’s trailer and clips, I feel LOTG has the better plot and visuals. It just had a bad case of editing and screenplay.

Of course, I haven’t seen Alpha & Omega, so this impression counts for nought. Which is why I’m really mad that countries like Singapore and Malaysia get a theatrical release, but a huge market base like Australia doesn’t. :angry:

#131

Gotta join Zenoah here. LOTG has a better plot because… It’s based on a book. And has better visuals because they got more renderpower/more experienced animators/you name it.

@Australia a huge market? You’ve got your own entire freaking continent and only like 20 million people live there!

Hehe just kidding…

But anyway, I’m not saying either are bad movies. I like the story behind A&O better, but that’s just a personal preference. LOTG has the stunning, ‘omgIjustcame’-visuals. shrugs

But really, I don’t care what people on RottenTomatoes say, because that’s a site filled with spoiled, fat American moviebashers that only seem to praise a movie when it is ‘epic’. A&O is not an epic movie, and it is not meant to be, and it doesn’t have to be. It’s a nice movie to watch on a couch on a loney night with some popcorn and a soda/beer. Like I said before: Not something I would spend money for movie seats on. LOTG however: I would spend money on this, because the experience in the cinema is a lot more epic (yes, EPIC.) than at home. For A&O it doesn’t matter because it’s not that visually strong to begin with. :slight_smile:

EDIT: On a side note: The music for A&O is pretty nice too. Not disappointing at all. :slight_smile:

#132

Both movies had a wonderfull score to listen to.
I loved A&O’s music especially when [spoil]Humphry and Kate end up howling together on the train. I love how howling to them is like singing.[/spoil]

And Guaridan’s has that Enya-esque feel to it espeially [spoil]in the monsoon flight[/spoil]

All in all, A&O was not ment to be a bit hit. It was ment for families to go see…dispite the adult jokes and quite horrid threats from Kate’s mother.

#133

Yep… don’t wanna spoil too much but the howling in some parts in this movie is just stunning. That’s all I’m saying. :slight_smile:

#134

Haha… good point, though the figure’s closer to 22 million (Malaysia would be closer to 20 mil, and Singapore a measely 4.5 mil). The point I was trying to make was that I’m immensely ticked with the Australian movie distributors for not importing animation movies as much as live-action ones (they did the same for ‘9’ last year).

I totally agree with you. As I’ve stated from the very beginning of the first post, my stance is that I’m supportive of small-time players who have good intentions. As long as they’re not ripping off other people (like Video Briquendo) and aim above mediocrity (unlike Vanguard Animation), then it’s probably worth the time (but not the money, I’m afraid).

I’m very curious to hear the soundtrack after the praises you guys have given. :slight_smile:

#135

So I took the opportunity to get the DVD the other day and rewatched it. At first, I was bothered by the flaws. I forgot how silly some parts really are… Its graphics aren’t very spectacular (let’s say that the first Toy Story looked better in some ways) and the introduction of some of the characters is a bit wacky… Some jokes were funny, some jokes were less funny…

And again… the bears annoyed me, as in: the way they animated them. They’re all ‘raawr look at me, swiping around with my claws, see how dangerous yet extremely, unnaturally flexible I am!’ Especially when one of the bears suddenly starts acting like a Looney Tunes character; it surprised me he didn’t hold up a sign that said ‘Help!’.

The movie gets better the longer you’re watching it though. Again, for me, the turning point was the howling scene in the train. I don’t care if it’s simple… It just works, and as Boris from the movie Balto would say: “It gave me peoplebumps.”

You can obviously tell they’re not as professional when it comes to animating as Pixar or Dreamworks, but they did a great job with what they had (I saw the end credits for the first time… and the team actually working on the movie itself was surprisingly small). So aside from the flaws I just mentioned, I enjoyed watching the movie a lot. I hope they learned from the mistakes they made with this feature and grow into a great studio. I’m looking forward to their next release.