Delgo

Wow. It's like Lord of the Rings never happened at the start of the decade.

Even the opening credits sequence with those bloated flying things just made me cringe.

It appears to have been written and animated by middle-schoolers, and yes they were probably high too. They had to bring in all that big-name talent to do the voices, or the handful of people who did go see this film wouldn't have even gone.

However, I do credit the animators with at least making a handful of nice images in the film. But really, a film like this should be beautiful to look at from start to finish, not just a few brief instants.

There are not-so-subtly racist overtones, and the use of the slur "pansies" renders it even unfit for viewing by children, although infants are probably the only age group likely to be able to enjoy it.

Watching this, I feel insulted as a viewer. It's geared towards infants, as far as I can tell. Of course, so was Toy Story, but the difference is that Toy Story is a masterpiece, and this is ... not.

And the thing was about 30 minutes too long.

If I had been associated with this project, I would have wanted it to disappear quickly and be permanently "lost". I would not be alleging that a more competent team "stole" it. But, these days, it seems the courts are the refuge of the incompetent, when it comes to content creation. Avatar is such a superior work that obviously required far more effort, that there is just no way that the Delgo team could ever hope to claim to have contributed to it. Rather, it seems more likely to me as a viewer that Delgo was ripped off from Avatar, and rushed out the door to beat it to market. An inside job.

I'll begin head-on with the frequent question: "why have I never heard of this movie?" Because of extraordinarily bad luck and timing. First, it got caught in a corporate reshuffle so it had a wide opening (planned before the reshuffle) but with no marketing publicity. Because of the wide opening it wasn't thought necessary to show it on the festival circuit or at conventions or in a limited release to specialty theaters, and when there was no advertising either the wide opening bombed. The second blow was its story didn't mesh with the zeitgeist, so it never garnered enough interest to build post-release buzz. It's best classified as an "action fairy tale", but when it came out, the fashion in animations was a more psychological and unusual story line (for example Ratatouille or Wall-E), and the "action" space was fully occupied by live action flicks (for example Star Trek). Then the third blow hit with Delgo being overshadowed by Avatar (which presented so many similarities that a lawsuit ensued).

The previous movies it brought to my mind are "Gandahar", "Battle for Terra", and "MirrorMask". The fully imagined, completely separate, alternate world with plants that look like animals and vice versa, the notably pacifistic society, the use of animals rather than machines for air transportation and for war, the psychic remote control of material objects, the conflation of mystical and political power, and the contrast of different technologies are all reminiscent of Rene Laloux's quarter century old "Gandahar" (unfortunately not readily available in North America). The very detailed alternate environment (especially the sky-whales), looming environmental collapse, and flying people are reminiscent of "Battle for Terra". And the incredibly detailed, imaginative, and overblown animations are reminiscent of "MirrorMask". (Delgo doesn't though use MirrorMask's green-screen technique to combine live actors with animation.) Similar to MirrorMask, Delgo does plenty of things right and has lots of flashes of brilliance, but in the end doesn't sufficiently "come together". It will be of interest to specialty audiences, and it will be a favorite of isolated groups of people, but it will probably never have as much mass market appeal as it hoped for. A couple things are common to the animation in all of "Delgo", "Gandahar", "Battle for Terra", and "MirrorMask": most of the animation was done with publicly available tools, and budget was the primary constraint on the animation.

As is common with most animated features, there's a lot of comic relief. Although it's pretty broad (very loud belches, eating flowers, holding the wrong door shut, a dog like creature piddling on the rug, fractured vocabulary that shames Mrs. Malaprop, and so forth) it mostly fits pretty well. The comic relief centering on the character Filo though is so over the top some will find it irritating.

As one would expect from a "fairy tale", morals are fairly obvious. There are a couple skewers directed at the Bush administration ("we must go to war to prevent a war" and "it's much easier to start a war than to stop one"), but they're sufficiently subtle many viewers won't even notice them. The "can't we all just get along" moral though is more pervasive (after all it's the central motif of the whole movie).

The animation is incredibly detailed and imaginative. Techniques like scores of light sources in a scene, moving "cameras", lots and lots of pieces moving simultaneously, clouds of dust, and shimmering foggy auras that produce their own light, are used often. The animators solve particular problems in resourceful and imaginative ways (for example a spider web modeled as a piece of cloth, or a belt that seems to ripple freely yet whose far end can be controlled). This is the first time I've seen a caustic light pattern reflected from an unseen pool of water throw its moving wavy patterns over another object. Yet the overall impression of the animation is "klunky". Why? I think because all the characters are clearly recognizable humanoids, even to the extent that characters are overlaid with the facial features of the corresponding voice actor. Even though the 3D representations are very good (one running scene is so realistic the common reaction is it couldn't have possibly been done just with regular animation tools), they're not good enough to satisfy us viewers who see humanoid forms all the time and so have extremely high standards for them. This isn't an "uncanny valley" problem; the characters aren't quite that realistic. One wishes Delgo had either gone even further (motion capture?) or had backed away a bit to more animalistic and less realistic forms (more like Spig, Spog, and the dog like creature, all of which are very successful).

In summary-- the story: closely adheres to the "action fairy tale" categorization, formulaic; but every so often will entrance someone - the animation: uneven, insufficiently restrained, and sometimes seemingly primitive when it really isn't; but worthy of close scrutiny by aficionados.

I admit the animation was wonderful. The initial use of alien creatures was right on the mark -- special -- creative -- enticing... the voices were amazing throughout, but then there's the pesky need for a good story.

As an author of 11 scripts I noticed the scripted flaws immediately and continuously. The introduction narrative was completely unnecessary and should have been incorporated (if at all) into the movie as it unfolded.

The logic and progression of plot points were very flawed: so much so that I was annoyed that the film turned away from its initial strength 'originality' and fell on the sword of blandness. The reason so many people keep saying this film in plagiarism is simply because it follows such common event sequences you can't help but compare it to many other movies: Camelot (guards attacking the helpful hero), Star Wars (comic relief was the mirror image of a famous Gungan), Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty (hero finds a lost item, evil dragon lady,) and even the Lion King (when you see it you'll understand), etc.

The script was quite frankly pathetic in parts, but also (to be fair) had some moments of honesty. Those moments were presented but then lost when the script failed to follow-up on the logic thread.

So much of the movie is filled with clichés, and the comic relief was really annoying -- not funny -- that I was totally outside the movie and making remarks to myself (OMG, please not that, YGTBKM) instead of flowing along with the action. By the way, I was the only person in the theater. When I asked the ticket person if the movie was worth the price he said, "Opening day sold only 2 tickets." What this story has in beautiful animation and initial originality (the first few minutes) was completely lost to illogic. The amazing creatures were pushed to the background for the most part and the main characters were developed by narrative not action. We were usually told, not shown (or allowed) to feel with the characters. There was no character growth as such, just a jarring thump from one sequence to another as if the characters were puppets on a string.

How sad that what could have been a great adventure turned into trivialities. I would just like to say the burning bush had such possibilities.

the references are the basic support for transform Delgo in an acceptable animation. the fight between good and bad, the bitter memories from past, the characters who seems be from The Dark Crystal. all ordinaries ingredients are present. all the glamour from fairy tales, love story, the good king against cruel relative, different people with so common links, the revenge, the ordinary guy who becomes hero, the goodness in all the nuances and the drops of humor. and that does the film acceptable, predictable and almost boring. because the same story, with better adaptations, is not exactly a virtue. but, like many simple animations , the references, the nice scenes, maybe Filo more than Delgo are reasonable solutions for entertain. but a film saved only by memories of the public about another films with the same subject is far to be the most inspired option.

I LOVE movies. I LOVE computer animation. I LOVE sci-fi / fantasy. That is why I hated this film. It gives them all a bad name. Hate is a strong word I suppose. More like overwhelmed to suicidal levels with disappointment. The sarcastic term "REALLY?" popped in my mind constantly as scenes artificially set up to predictably (and very poorly) spoof classic moments from various hit movies. At no time did I connect with the characters. When they went to war I just didn't care. In fact, the only thing I found myself hoping for is that someone would kill (slowly and painfully) Delgo's mentally retarded and epileptic sidekick. That would have gotten cheers from the entire audience (which comprised of just me.) As a hobby I have been making a movie for years. writing and editing a script, creating music, and I'll soon start the CGI work on my home PC. I was really worried that my hobby movie would be worthless because the graphics and animation won't be Pixar quality but DELGO has proved to me that graphics don't make a film. The music was also dismal. My first impression of the art was positive. It looked original and unique but soon decided that nothing was particularly attractive to look at and many of the creatures had extra eyes or appendages just because... like a Jr. High school kid on crack spent too many hours in the SPORE creature creator. Overall the biggest downfall was just direction and delivery. Imagine going to see a stand up comedy show where two comedians had to deliver the same material and one is hilarious while the other is awkward, flat and has no sense of dramatic effect and timing. Delgo is the latter. If anyone from Fathom studios reads this and says, "Hey Mr. Negative Insult Guy, think you could do better?" The answer is YES. I really do. and I would jump at the chance to try.