Terminator Salvation - Machina Series on dvd

[terrasj]

Anyone have it or watch it yet?

I don't have Xbox or PS3 so I didn't have a chance to see it through original direct-to-hd download on the consoles.

The news was already out on Sept 24th, and dvd released on Nov.3rd and I guess I missed it and totally caught off guard when I saw it in the Walmart center isle dvd new-release racks.

dvd review link: IGN: DVD

IGN - Movies - Trailer

Machinima.com
- Series Trailer
- Episode 1 Preview
- Episode 2 Preview

Youtube (Hi-Def)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbF76xE8Q0Y&feature=player_embedded#

For those who were caught unaware like me, its a set of CG Prequels featuring Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood reprising her role for the voice acting). The CG is done via Video Game style engines. Maybe the same or similar engine that runs the T4 game. Produced by McG, and the Halcyon Company.

No I havn't bought it yet, plan to when I have some spare cash.

[rain]

Got this about a week ago and it surprised me. The CGI is ropey in places, but considering it has come from a videogame, not too bad. It is worth watching the Making Of to see the origins of this series, which points to a trend in cooperation between videogame producers and filmmakers. The series does add to the background of the TS world to a certain extent, and definately expands on Blair Williams' character. Good to see they got Moon Bloodgood back to do the voice again. Overall, despite the lack of lip-synching for the characters, I think the DVD is worth getting, even if it is only just over the hour in total.

[terrasj]

I just picked it up and watched it the other night.

Looks like the episodes were done via custom scripting from the actual game engine. Pretty cool.

I seen this done once before, done with the Halo game, a hilarious series called Red Vs Blue. If you can still find the episodes to watch online.

But getting back to Machinima , rain has pretty much got it spot on - the story focuses around Blair Williams, before the events of T4, even before the prequel book "From the Ashes" . It does expand on the TS setting, without any mention or knowledge of John Connor. Blair finds herself winding up in her own adventure for survival, trying to track down a "ghost signal" that has been interfering with Resistance communications. Throughout the episodes, Blair has to combat and evade SkyNet's early Terminators - miniature floaters, the motoTerminators, a crab-like quadlegged pre HK-Tank, and the T-600's actually making their first appearance. She goes into abandoned towering office buildings and subway tunnels. It really captures the feel of the TS setting, and in a way visually brings to life the setting found in the prequel book "From the Ashes". Reading the book and using one's imagination to visualize, its nice to actually see the cityscape on a more personal level than the brief walk through we had following Marcus as he met up with Kyle Reese and Star in the T4 movie.

It was a nice treat see'ing Moon Bloodgood reprise her role for the voice overs. In every episode she also narrates a good portion of her story. I think a substitute voice-over would've cheapened the whole experience considerably.

In the dvd extras, we get to see Moon Bloodgood, talking candidly about how and why she likes her role in TS, having grown up loving watching sci-fi. That alone was pretty cool to hear and know.

Minor quirks are mostly the lip sync animation for matching the voice overs, but you have to understand and realize, these character models are fairly low in polygon mesh resolution, and the game engine itself isn't that strong in the voice / lip sync department. Perhaps if more time and better programing was allowed to the developers of the game engine, or in the future, a team of programers revising the game engine's code could improve this feature a bit.

I also like the prospect that a director / producer like McG (or anyone else) would / could be able to produce a TS video series using a game engine like the one for the game movie adaptation. This method does allow for the possibility of making more TS movies in this medium, in more regular and shorter intervals than it would to make a full length box office live action movie. Quality-wise, its not so bad if you already like CG type series and movies. If your an avid video or pc gamer, you're well versed and used to seeing and watching video-game cutscene movies.

And much agreed with rain, IMHO think its worth the price for the one hour length series of 6 episodes. Its only too bad there arn't more episodes, or known scheduled dvd releases to continue the TS Machinima series further.