Wow! check this out.

I was a kid when computers started being used in making animated films. In those days, though, it was a much more limited thing and the animation was still done by artists using cells. Nelvana was a great innovator in the field, and started making films that were of interest to adults as well as children.

Now, of course, they are simply astonishing, and they are producing films ostensibly for children that adults can really love. Some of my happiest movie experiences lately have been Up, Despicable Me and The Incredibles. I also quite enjoyed Ice Age (though less so the sequels) and that Hedge movie with Shatner. Looking on YouTube under "short animated films" will reveal some absolutely astounding and wondrous work. These movies are probably some of the best film making, including in the script writing, character and stories, going on right now. So much that it seems a whole new genre of high-quality movies has been created.

This thing, Epic, looks to be following that trend. I have one reservation though. A story made by modern people about fairies and their interactions with the human world seems wide open to be a vehicle for some very evil ideas. I don't know anything about it other than the trailer above, but I've got a suspicious feeling about it. I fear it could be what a friend of mine calls an "ambush movie" where the beauty of the work is concealing and slyly selling some terrifyingly evil political or philosophical message. Like that Avatar thing, that made everyone so depressed. I wanted to see the Philip Pullman movies for that reason, they looked so visually amazing. But the reviews were rather bad.



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