As promised, here are the first images from Brian Lonano’s Attackzoids! sequel, Attackzoids, Deploy! — which is currently in production.
“We just completed some second unit shots before tackling the principal photography in January,” director Lonano told the Backbrain. “Piece by piece the movie is coming together. The end credit music is already complete and you’re able to take a listen at www.attackazoids.com/deploy.html.
“Costumes and props are being constructed as we speak and I just had a meeting with a composer to create an orchestrated score to enhance the newsreel approach that I hope to achieve with this film.
“All in all, the film is unlike any project I have ever done before … it’s more ambitious in its short length and so many things are being made from scratch. I know the low or no budget filmmaker has to buy certain things and modify them, but a large percentage of the effects, costumes and props you will be seeing will be hand crafted by the Robot Hand team.
“I am very excited to see how the film will turn out in the coming months. I hope to have the film completed by March 2009 and from there I will be submitting it to big genre festivals and perhaps try our luck at some Academy Qualified Festivals.”
Having seen the first film and enjoyed it, I’m keen to see where Lonano and his crew go from there.
What if you could have your own custom-designed giant robot made to order? What would it be like? What would you do with it?
A fascinating and awesomely cool project is underway that helps 20 kids answer these and other giant-robotic questions, giving them the chance to see their giant-robot dreams come to life as high-quality animations. The project is called My Giant Robot! and project creator is a dynamic filmmaker and animator from Ohio by the name of Jeff Boddy.
The ultimate aim of the project is to produce a short film that traces the process by which the giant robots were conceived, designed and brought to life. It has been underway since 2004 or so, but is still very much a going concern. Boddy commented to Kaiju Search-Robot Avery (recognising one of his own, no doubt): “I’ve been taking my time to get this right — that and getting sidetracked by other projects. I’m still working out the animation effects.”
Nevertheless the Project’s website hosts a number of excellent animated sequences, such as this one that asks the pertinent question: “How tall would your robot be?”
The site documents the process right from the start. The first result of the project was the filming and editing of 20 kids as they responded to questions about their robot. You can get a feel for this in a trailer that was premiered at 21st Annual Ohio 24 Hour Science Fiction Marathon in 2004. The beautifully filmed and very funny trailer can be viewed on Boddy’s website (click on “WORK” from the header menu and “My Giant Robot” in the right-hand sidebar).
The My Giant Robot!website illustrates how the 20 kid’s individualised robots are being conceptualised and then transformed from concept to 3D. Below is “Parker’s Spidertron”, for example, which Boddy designed by drawing on a variety of inspirations:
Another is Lovey, imagined by Avery (but not our Avery — or so he claims), which is made from bricks:
Lovey, of course, flies and has some rather spectacular powers, as you can see from this test animation:
Finally here is a longer animated sequence that features the House Robot:
Boddy has promised to keep Undead Backbrain informed about future developments as they happen. In the meantime, check out the My Giant Robot!website for lots more on the project.
Personally, I found Terminator 3 rather ordinary — a reaction to the senseless and repetitious action sequences that was exacerbated by a desire to see the future war, not another iteration of a back-from-the-future Terminator hunt down. Making the Terminator a female just wasn’t high concept enough to save the film from overkill mundanity.
Terminator 4 (more correctly titled Terminator: Salvation), however, looks like it’s going to give me what I wanted! The War.
And what a War! Blood, devastation and rampaging robots! The future has (quite logically) been changed by events in the present and now there are many more kinds of Terminator, including the Harvester, which is giant-robot size, a Mototerminator and an underwater cyber-worm thingy.
Also this guy — a T-600, predating Arnie’s T-800 and Terminator 2’s morphing T-1000.
Meanwhile, below is a featurette on the Art of designer Martin Laing, which shows some conceptual snippets, though obviously the actual clips from the film are test sequences rather than the final product.
Anyway, it’s looking pretty interesting to me. What with Transformers 2 and its assorted imitators lurking just over the horizon, the next year or so will likely be a good time for giant robots.
Source: Quiet Earth and io9, both including lots of other concept sketches. Via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery
Starved for giant robot movies, while we await the arrival of Transformers 2? Well, it seems Hong Kong director Jeffrey Lau will begin shooting a Transformers-inspired giant robot epic called Robot later this month. Fond of including scifi moments into his non-scifi movies, Lau apparently used a spaceship he designed himself in his most recent work, A Chinese Tall Story.
Zhuo Shunguo from investing company Le TV.com commented that Robot would take “a refreshing look at Chinese robots for people who are used to stereotypical Hollywood figures like Spiderman and Superman. … the Chinese robot, in comparison, would feel closer and more human to audiences, as it is the incarnation of Oriental wisdom and strength.” (Crienglish.com)
Two new releases from current exploitation leaders The Asylum (whose mandate seems to be to rush into production cheap films with titles that echo upcoming major releases or which cash in on box-office trends, even if the plots are completely different):
The Day the Earth Stopped (US-2008; dir. C. Thomas Howell)
Hundreds of massive intergalactic robots appear in all of the major world capitals with an ultimatum: Prove the value of human civilization or be destroyed.
And I mean these robots are BIG! Check out the legs…
Unlike its tacit “inspiration”, the imminent The Day the Earth Stood Still remake, this one seems to involve not a saviour but a destroyer — a sort of anti-Buffy:
Brian Lonano, the man behind the elegant short SF fascist-state robot invasion film Attackazoids, has just written to me to confirm that they are indeed planning on another installment in the ATTACKAZOIDS series. He says that it will (hopefully) be ready by mid-2009.
Here is the plot synopsis:
War is declared on the off-world settlement! Everyone from suburban homemakers to super scientists are uniting to deploy an army of the giant killer robot ATTACKAZOIDS!
They will be shooting in HD and, as Brian put it, the film “will feature all sorts of fun effects and doo-dads”.
Sounds like a hoot. As soon as there are images available, you will be able to see them here!
We just noticed that there seems to be a trailer for the short robot-invasion film Attackazoids available. It includes some cool scenes, such as this one:
Seen one Chosen One, seen ‘em all? I don’t think so. Have a look at this one!
The Chosen One (US-2008; animation; dir. Chris Lackey)
Here are two trailers:
The Story:
Lou Hanske’s having a hell of a day … he’s lost his job, totaled his car, and been attacked by a bear. Just when it seems like life can’t get any worse, Lou is informed by the eccentric Church of Frank that he’s “The Chosen One” — the savior from prophecy who must travel to Kansas, speak to God and deliver the world into a new age. Together with his elderly roommate Zeb (Chris Sarandon), his best friend Donna (Danielle Fishel) and Lucifer himself (Tim Curry), Lou (Chad Fifer) must master his budding super-powers to overcome Ninjas, Thugs, Femme Fatales (Traci Lords), Religious Zealots (Lance Henriksen), his obsession with his SciFi star ex-girlfriend (Laura Prepon), Giant Monsters and a Posse of Kung Fu Robots in order to fulfill his destiny!
Hmm, not a bad cast for an independent animated feature film that includes, among other things, zombie robots (what’s a zombie robot?) and a giant monster…
And for good luck, here is Tim Curry discussing the film and his role as Lucifer:
Oversexed Rugsuckers From Mars (US-1989; dir. Michael Paul Girard)
I don’t have a lot to say about this, except… well, it was the ’80s…
Tiny Martians use Earth as a laboratory to try out new life forms. They return after ten million years only to find that the human experiment is a complete failure. They decide to mate a human with a vacuum cleaner to create a species that will be better at cleaning up after itself. But a programming error by a drunken Martian sends the oversexed cleaner on a wild rampage of rape, murder and overall bad manners.
If you’re wondering how on earth you missed it, and are filled with dismay at the thought that you may never now get the chance to experience the goodness, fear not! It is being released on DVD by … no, not Troma, but Lionsgate in October.
I don’t know what this is, or who directed it — but in the fashion of the time it seems to have the code-like title [G], which — when applied to a giant monster movie — automatically evokes the spectre of the Big G himself, Gojira (Godzilla).
This dude doesn’t look much like the Big G though…
From the two trailers and two scene segments below — unearthed by a chap on the kaiju forums tagged “Cookson”, via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery — the independent (perhaps even fan-based) film uses a combination of traditional kaiju suitmation and CGI to create a giant monster flick that is ground-level, violent and bloody, potentially having lots of emotional intensity, while retaining all those elements of absurdity that make the genre so appealing.
It even has a Robo-like giant robot to face up to the monster in true mecha style.
Anyway, take a look at these trailers and clips and hopefully we’ll find out some concrete information on the film soon.
