The BFG (2016)

[kbehm29]

Now THIS I can get excited about, and have been for quite a while. I've been waiting for a proper version of this movie to come out for just about 20 years now. Steven Spielberg being involved makes me even more excited. My entire family will be going, and I can't wait to write what I thought of it as soon as the time comes

[D82]

New trailer:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4JBK-Rv-uc[/youtube]


And a new featurette:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isfaa4mVKVg[/youtube]

[D82]

More TV spots:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvOTvh34FNE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHKOxMpL7WY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVr4jEJwO9Y

New featurettes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQGxl3zWYbw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCjwA2ZYtE8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lInPts6tak

And first clips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvvQ9oy3pjs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HahYmZGTohc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgeWZX5pjzg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXH7PF3OKTg

[Kyle]

I was interested when I saw the first teaser, but now that we've seen a lot of the CG, I'm not even sure I want to see it anymore. It just doesn't look believable enough for me.

[Disneyphile]

Steven Spielberg talks about directing his first official Disney movie.

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/06/23/st ... bfg-disney

[D82]

Another clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrSoypM2004

Two new featurettes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdDnJRn0Mlc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhlmEWSQ_7A

Behind The Scenes B-ROLL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhKGs_LDns0

And interviews with the director and the cast:
Steven Spielberg
Mark Rylance (BFG)
Ruby Barnhill (Sophie)
Rebecca Hall (Mary)
Bill Hader (Bloodbottler)
Jemaine Clement (Fleshlumpeater)
Penelope Wilton (The Queen)
Rafe Spall (Mr. Tibbs)

I was interested when I saw the first teaser, but now that we've seen a lot of the CG, I'm not even sure I want to see it anymore. It just doesn't look believable enough for me.

The CGI in this movie doesn't look too real to me either, but I think it will be worth seeing regardless of that. I haven't read the book or seen the animated film, but the story looks interesting to me and I usually like Steven Spielberg's films, so I think I'm going to see it.

[HarryCanyon]

Looks great, i loved the book since i was a kid and even grew up with the original animated film.

This should be a nice adaptation.

[D82]

Three more clips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUCQWgpOMuc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS4tzWzvZp0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eRKbhvNbjg

And a pair of promotional videos:
Surprise Appearance
360 Dream Tree

[blackcauldron85]

We saw this in the theater yesterday- it was so good!!!! I laughed, I cried, I was transported to magical lands. It was a very magical movie-going experience. If you enjoy other magical Disney movies, you should love this! I didn't grow up with the book or 1989 animated film; I thought the trailers/clips made it look like fun, and it was even better than I expected!

As much as I loved Finding Dory, and after leaving that I thought it will be ranked right under TS3 for me, I want The BFG to not be left in Dory's shadow; I really want it to do well theatrically; it deserves it!!

I know that it hasn't opened worldwide yet, but has anyone else here seen it??!

[JTurner]

We saw this in the theater yesterday- it was so good!!!! I laughed, I cried, I was transported to magical lands. It was a very magical movie-going experience. If you enjoy other magical Disney movies, you should love this! I didn't grow up with the book or 1989 animated film; I thought the trailers/clips made it look like fun, and it was even better than I expected!

As much as I loved Finding Dory, and after leaving that I thought it will be ranked right under TS3 for me, I want The BFG to not be left in Dory's shadow; I really want it to do well theatrically; it deserves it!!

I know that it hasn't opened worldwide yet, but has anyone else here seen it??!

Sadly, it's not doing well at all, at least domestically. It got off to a VERY rocky start this week, barely making $20 million. The media is going NUTS over this, declaring the movie already as Spielberg's biggest failure. Now I don't think the movie will do that badly overseas; both the book and the author, Raold Dahl, are better known in the UK, but it's still unfortunate that The BFG didn't find the audience it deserved, at least on opening weekend.

Now having said that Spielberg movies CAN have legs, but this is a very slow film with nary an action scene. Personally, I absolutely loved the movie and would see it again. But I feel like it was badly timed in its release dates.

[Kyle]

The CGI in this movie doesn't look too real to me either, but I think it will be worth seeing regardless of that. I haven't read the book or seen the animated film, but the story looks interesting to me and I usually like Steven Spielberg's films, so I think I'm going to see it.

Yeah, I'll probably end up seeig it just for Spielberg, its been a while since he's really done something like this. But I cant help but keep thinking why they could have just shot real poeple on blue/green screen for a much more convincing effect. And they even have the tech now to adjust proportion of live action footage should they want to play with things like height, weight and such.

[blackcauldron85]

The CGI in this movie doesn't look too real to me either, but I think it will be worth seeing regardless of that. I haven't read the book or seen the animated film, but the story looks interesting to me and I usually like Steven Spielberg's films, so I think I'm going to see it.

Yeah, I'll probably end up seeig it just for Spielberg, its been a while since he's really done something like this. But I cant help but keep thinking why they could have just shot real poeple on blue/green screen for a much more convincing effect. And they even have the tech now to adjust proportion of live action footage should they want to play with things like height, weight and such.

The CGI didn't look bad at all. (We saw The Shallows with some family Friday night, and my husband complained that the CGI in that wasn't good, but he thought that the CGI in The BFG was really good!)

I read a really good article yesterday about the technology on this film; maybe I'll find the same one, but Spielberg himself said:

I knew Mark was really going to knock this out of the ballpark, but I didn’t want the ball to land at the end of a motion capture volume. I wanted the ball to land in the lap of the audience. WETA paid more careful attention to how to preserve what Mark had given us on the day. Their artists did an amazing job translating Mark accurately. About 95% of what Mark gave me and Ruby [Barnhill] is on the screen now, and that’s because technology today allowed us to do it. Five years ago, we could not have made The BFG this way. The technology wasn’t there for it.

“It’s the emotional contours of facial expressions, bodily expressions, transposing that to an animated character,” Spielberg said. “Five years ago we would have only been able to capture about 50% of that. Now I think we got 95%.”

Spielberg: We used a process called Simulcam, which combines real-world actors and sets with actors and sets that are computer-generated. We can prerecord a performance and then play it back through the camera monitor so that we could actually see the virtual performance unfolding in real time as we’re photographing the live-action scene. By combining the two, we’re able to make decisions, frame shots and even cue actions based on what’s happening in the virtual world. Five years ago, we could not have made The BFG this way -- the technology wasn’t there for it.
Mark Rylance: It made it a bit more challenging, I suppose. I have a camera on my head, with a camera in front of my face. And I’m wearing a funny suit with silver ping-pong balls or something on it, all over the place. And I’m...existing in a computer. And then Ruby would be on set so I could actually have eye contact with her. The film is about a kind of friendship between these two, so I told Steven I thought we should always be together. So from then on, Ruby and I always worked together -- very much in the same space. In the morning, we’d shoot me and then in the afternoon, we would go to her set next door, where everything was “giant-sized,” and there’d she be, standing in scale. I would be up standing on a high scissor lift tower, to get the eyesight.

Spielberg first tried on much of the technology used in “The BFG” while making 2011’s “The Adventures of Tintin,” which produced mixed results with its motion-capture performances and hyper-realistic animated sets. Here, Spielberg blends real actors and spaces with animated ones, to a mostly successful degree (only when BFG and Sophie physically touch is the disconnect disconcerting). Advances in technology have also freed the animated characters from the creepiness that defined earlier motion-capture performances; the immeasurable skill of the sad-eyed Rylance is present, even if he physically isn’t.

(I don't feel the same about the part I italicized...)

Rylance recalls Spielberg being stressed when the shoot started. “I think Steven’s so fascinating about being on the cutting edge of technology, and the fact that in Avatar there are only two moments where a motion capture character and a real character interact. And they were a little bit rough.” Looking back at James Cameron’s box office juggernaut, it’s easy to see that the technology hadn’t arrived at a place that would allow live actors to blend seamlessly with motion capture for an entire film. “But this whole film is about that, so he was really stressed on the first day, the first week.”

The BFG has been a long time in development, originally conceived by Spielberg in the nineties with the idea of having Robin Williams playing the giant. However, that version of the project was abandoned because the technology wasn’t available to make it look realistic. As Marshall put it:
“One of the most important things for Steven was to have the actors in the same space so they were relating to each other, so Mark, as the giant, was really talking to Ruby Barnhill, as Sophie. Even five, 10 years ago the two actors would have had to be in different stages to do this. That wouldn’t work very well.”

However, with today's technology Spielberg was able to include both the enormous BFG and little Sophie in the same shot by using Simulcam to create a new process that animated the actors' performances as close to live-action shooting as possible. This allowed actors Ruby Barnhill and Mark Rylance to interact with each other in the same moment. By using motion capture to track the actors' movements, the 24-feet tall BFG was even able to retain much of Mark Rylance's full-body performance.
The fictional land of Giant Country and all of its inhabitants were finally made possible due to improved CGI and special effects. Although it would have been interesting to think about what The BFG could have been back in the 90s, there is no doubt that today's BFG is strikingly more detailed and visually rich than what could have been possible two decades ago. A live action version of The BFG may have been considered a daunting and near impossible feat when it was first developing, but today we can experience the adventures of Sophie and the BFG in the land of Giant Country.

I clicked through this video yesterday: https://youtu.be/lyHa_0yJBlw It's about Avatar, but both movies used the Simulcam technology.



I have a link in my email for free shipping on DisneyStore.com; I just typed "BFG" and "Friendly" and "Giant," and nothing at all came up for this movie. Nada. So, I'm chatting with rep Tracy, and she says that there isn't any merch at this time for that movie. I asked her maybe in the future? and she said maybe. I mean, if there was Carl & Muntz merch for Up, one can't argue about the BFG being an old man, right? Even a pin or something? I think something a little outside of the box, that could be under a "BFG" banner but could be something that many people would be interested in, could be based on the dream catching part of the movie. Something like a night-time projector, casting balls of light around the room, could be a really fun, but different, type of Disney movie product. And I think it could even inspire people to check out the movie; they see it in a store, and think, "Oh, that's different; oh, it's based on "The BFG"?! This kind of magic is in the movie?!" I don't know, just a thought.

[Atlantica]

There doesn't seem to be much hype or anticipation for this over in the UK ? I l know people are banking on it doing better over here to make up the numbers, but from pre-release buzz, doesn't look to be heading that way.

[Prince Edward]

Now that The BFG have bombed it's safe to say this is another costly Disney failure at the box office. Disney sure have greenligheted quite a few very expensive movies over the last years that have all flopped (G-Force, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Prince of Persia, Mars Needs Moms, John Carter, The Lone Ranger, Tomorrowland, and I predict that Pete's Dragon will bomb as well). But yet they can't seem to find room for a sequel in a franchise that has proven to be a moneymaker and that is indeed wanted by the fans - Tron 3, that is. Also, if they can spend 140 millions + marketing on a movie like this and release it without any public interest, then they should rather spend the same amount of money on something that many Disney fans actually would be interested in. Live action versions of Hunchback, Pocahontas or Hercules for example.

[unprincess]

^or, you know, a hand drawn animated film. Really its ridiculous.

Im not surprised the movie isnt doing well. I havent seen it yet but it looks like a sweet, contemplative quiet family film, exactly the opposite of the majority of films aimed at kids these days that are successful. Even Frozen and Tangled had to have to make sure it had funny snowmen and wisecracking thieves and pop music in the trailers etc... to guarantee their success... I predict Kubo and the Two Strings will suffer the same fate. While I was blown away by the poetic visuals and dramatic story when i saw the trailer before Finding Dory a couple days ago, Im sure most of the audience was kinda meh about it, especially after the bombardment of "so funny!!! random lolz!!! noisy action!!!" indistinguishable CGI film trailers that came after. And that Kevin Spacey cat movie, goodness what the hell was that?

[DisneyJedi]

Well... At least it's not a critical failure.

[Tristy]

^or, you know, a hand drawn animated film. Really its ridiculous.

Im not surprised the movie isnt doing well. I havent seen it yet but it looks like a sweet, contemplative quiet family film, exactly the opposite of the majority of films aimed at kids these days that are successful. Even Frozen and Tangled had to have to make sure it had funny snowmen and wisecracking thieves and pop music in the trailers etc... to guarantee their success... I predict Kubo and the Two Strings will suffer the same fate. While I was blown away by the poetic visuals and dramatic story when i saw the trailer before Finding Dory a couple days ago, Im sure most of the audience was kinda meh about it, especially after the bombardment of "so funny!!! random lolz!!! noisy action!!!" indistinguishable CGI film trailers that came after. And that Kevin Spacey cat movie, goodness what the hell was that?

See? This is why I like movies like BFG, Boxtrolls, and other movies of that same level. Because they are that rare kind of family film nowadays that don't pander to the big crowd. A lot of the trailers that I saw before BFG were the typical CGI trailers with pop songs and failed attempts at being funny. There was a time when family films that were filled with quiet moments and sincerity were the norm. But that time is long gone now.

[milojthatch]

Personally, I feel that The BFG was released during the wrong time of the year. If it was up to me, the next Star Wars would have been released in May, Civil War this last weekend and The BFG would have come out this coming Christmas. I feel that release schedule would have made WAY MORE sense.

[Mickeyfan1990]

Wonder if this box office bomb will cause a(nother) dent in the relationship between Disney and Spielberg...

I certainly hope not.

[Disneyphile]

Spielberg was already feeling like Dreamworks' live action movies were the red-headed stepchildren between Marvel and Star Wars. That's why that partnership is over.