Hey, your history with this movie is very similar to mine, so I am going to recycle some of your text.
I am 32 years old and grew up with Clash Of The Titans and loved that movie so much as a kid. Despite hearing about Jason and his argonauts all my life I somehow never managed to see it until today. I was a little surprised at just how, for lack of a better word, awesome this movie is. Yesterday I watched Clash Of The Titans for the first time as an adult who has really come to love movies as an art form and found it to be severely lacking in most of the aspects of movie story telling I find important. I went into Jason and the A's with more or less the same expectations as I found in Clash of the T's. But I would probably have to say that this was quite a bit higher on the scale.
I was genuinely surprised at the artistic and technical level of the stop motion, taking into account how old this movie is, and most of the time the effect blended well with the overall movie. In CotT on the other hand the stop motion seems rushed at times and has a totally different lighting than the rest of the movie, making the scenes completely and obviously unrealistic.
Now, to be fair, both movies feature bad or maybe dated acting and a very simple storyline, and though I find Perseus story more interesting, while watching it yesterday, I couldn't help but notice so many more flaws with it that with JatA. The biggest problem being Perseus himself. He is a major jerk, most people probably don't notice, because they are nostalgia zombies (no offense). I won't go into detail, it's perfectly summed up in this post: www.imdb.com/title/tt0082186/board/nest/178388669
Basically I gave JatA a 6/10 which in my book is an ok movie and CotT a 4/10 which is a disappointing movie.
Actors have certainly gotten better at interacting with things that aren't there. Or maybe it's just the animators having more resources and easier ways to blend CGI together with the real world. Ah, talking about CGI, there was one big thing that bothered me about this movie. Ancient Greek temples where in ruins or looked really old. It's in Ancient Greece, so they are not supposed to look old, they should be brand new and polished. Now here is a good use of CGI I would totally approve off, but instead because animators nowadays have no limits, they go over the top and create totally unrealistic architecture. I hope Hollywood calms soon down on the CGI craze and start using it in a fine and tasteful manner.
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Big G-2
12 years ago
Actors have certainly gotten better at interacting with things that aren't there. Or maybe it's just the animators having more resources and easier ways to blend CGI together with the real world. Ah, talking about CGI, there was one big thing that bothered me about this movie. Ancient Greek temples where in ruins or looked really old. It's in Ancient Greece, so they are not supposed to look old, they should be brand new and polished. Now here is a good use of CGI I would totally approve off, but instead because animators nowadays have no limits, they go over the top and create totally unrealistic architecture. I hope Hollywood calms soon down on the CGI craze and start using it in a fine and tasteful manner
I would rather have these temples look ruined or old. It actually gives it more authenticity as opposed to having it matte painted or today, digitally inserted. Plus not everything looked so shiny and new even back then. We have our old crumbling / abandoned buildings as well.
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MystMoonstruck
11 years ago
I agree! After all: Remember that Jason is told why ruined temples happen just before he is taken to Mount Olympus. The gods fight among themselves, and often these structures are destroyed.
Please! No CGI strocities, which many are. "Gladiator" was a horror, with its overcast skies and obviously fake buildings that had been put together on computers. CGI can be good, but the majority is very poor, with fire and explosions that apparently don't affect anyone around them (just for an example).
I just finished watching the movie again. How can people say it's SLOW?! It seems to be over far too soon. This is from a person who has watched it no less than 200 times since seeing it at the drive-in when I was 12 years old. My 60+-year-old eyes find no faults in this film, which is Ray Harryhausen's masterpiece.
I find it curious that the OP praises "Clash of the Titans" because, in spite of some brilliant moments, including Medusa, there are a number of weaknesses. The shift from live to animated is very obvious, for example. That does not mean I don't enjoy it every time I watch it! it's simply that "Jason and the Argonauts" cannot be topped, at least in the mythological category. However much time I have left, I hope I'll be watching this film at least once a month. Remember that scene in "Soylent Green" with Edward G. Robinson? Well, I'd be happy to spend my last moments with this film filling my senses and my heart and hearing Bernard Herrmann's brilliant score.
Side note: It's about time TCM does a memorial marathon! But, why is it so short?! They often dedicate a lot more time when an actor or director dies! Ray Harryhausen influenced and inspired a phenomenal number of people!
*** The trouble with reality is there is no background music. ***
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