Friday 9 December 2011

Deus Ex - Human revolution trailer II. (Director Cut)

"These people Adam, they are like ghosts..." says the oracle, expressing our own feelings about today's social life. Of course we want to hear that these guys are the past and they cannot stop us, the future.
I think most of us are in when he says that. And of course even more enthusiasm comes when he says that to Adam who is the first man created by God, and the hero we would very like to identify ourselves.
continued from Deus Ex - Human revolution trailer I.  (Director Cut)





Deus ex 2011
Terminator 2 1991
Here the render is just great. The reflection of the face on the window with the beautiful sight of the city and the sides of the great neo-neo-gothic window pillars. And for the word "future" a plane from Terminator 2 flies away from the window. And most of us do not care because the moment is just great despite of the unnoticeable window frames (which looked so great from the side). These frame is alike a UI frame which is pretty bad if you re-start the video from that point as I just did :). But in the flow of the trailer you just do not notice it for there are so many things happening there.

Then we change to the view where Adam is recreated by the machines. This is again a great metaphor. Since originally God created Adam, now Adam is created (or at least re-formed) by machines. Only one doctor is there with the machines not the bunch of people as they used to be in the renaissance scene. And meanwhile the doctor says that the body may heal after recreation but the mind... Well the mind is not simply weaker but "not always so resilient". This leads us to the social aspect of the metaphor: society may find new ways of existence but the mind of the people remains the same so humanity falls back again and again to the same historical states as we see from the scope of the trailer. And after this a short reference to psychology as Adam is shown in two short shots. The first when he faces the camera the looks into it. The other is when the camera shows us the side view and he turns to us, and suddenly shots his shades and his face becomes aggressive. This shows exactly the former statement of the doctor on a personal level and makes reference to the historical heritage of humanity of aggression and war (well I am not sure whether on this point I go too far about this).
And that old way of living is of course the Darwinian struggle for survival. As Adam attacks the wall and breaks a hole into it the next picture suggests that he breaks through the web of secrets of this world and again he breaks through ourselves.
This claim is supported by the next event with the hacker. Adam cannot save him for the web is stronger and faster than him. Before going further let us have a look at the view for a second.

After the beautiful city view we see the landing air plane and I just cannot decide whether it is made of painted steel or plastic. And I am tempted to the latter one. Its not even chromed which is a shame. Even the 20 years older terminator plane looks more realistic at least on this picture above. It does not take a long time so it can be considered as a minor problem, but still it is not a real big deal to chrome a surface with maya 3d either...
The robots re-framing Adam have the same little bit of strange materials on them but well they are hi-tech  medical tools so they can be built from any UFO metals. However I still think that the arms are beautiful but I think the their chrome-rubbery material is a little bit too original. Its seems to be just strange and it is not introduced well enough to make sense in the context. I only mean here that I had to think what they look like for the first time. The x-ray see is nice and the movement of the soldier is dynamic enough. And now the break through. Well I think it is really hard to sneak-break-through a wall. I think most of you agree with me :). I would have used faster and stronger moves and rapid-cut for this. If one blows the bricks off the walls just behind you, you would be thrown away by the bricks only unless he is fast enough to grab the soldier before he is knocked down by the bricks. The hole and the lights are nice afterwards and the little pace is again a good catch. But the way the bricks fall down from nothing is... well believable but it would have been nicer if they extend the hole I think. The sparks are on the other side not realistic and while I understand that they are the wires in the wall or some security system, they are really unnecessary. So I think if there are any major ones, this is a major mistake in the trailer. However for this far you are way behind the line when you are already bought by the authors so you just don't listen to such details. The disappearance is again a very nice thing after this. And if I'm at my charity-side of understanding I think the sparks emphasize that phenomena. But well they are again unnecessary.
The 2d footage is nice again while the music elevates to a next level of intensity. I think the sparks of electricity at the hackers head are much nicer than the ones from the wall (that is again a puzzle in understanding the former ones). However again I think those are unnecessary, almost stupid. Since Adam shouts "No!" we know that he is not the killer. But such sparks should burn the hacker so much we should see some smoke and way more pain on his face.

The transition to the fight is beautiful, first everybody thinks that these two are the same scene. The animation is a nice combination of rapid-cutting and motion capture. Fast camera movements emphasize the heroic pictures of the scene and I am soo glad that we do not see some ugly animation of the smashed head of one of the soldiers.
Then again the riot view. I just cannot identify the mats of the people's clothes. I admit that I don't care about the mats on Adam and the soldiers for those may be of special tissue. Again nice sparks on the disappearing girl but her face is expressing too much pleasure (like a child) and less concentration. Of course she must be mad, but this madness is not analysed deeply. She could have a personality as well. She is now simply an idiot. But still a professional. It has the Mad Max atmosphere. I doubt that in such a world of "ghosts" such mad people gain high-tech equipment. The feeling of the "enemy" is way more professional during the whole intro than her face in the crowd.

The riot-scene and Adam's struggle merges into one big chaotic battle which clears away at into the clean picture of the sun.I again don't really understand this "sun against the black sky" thing. This could be a reference to Blade Runner again where in the night-rain-scene a pigeon flies towards the blue sky but that mistake has been corrected since that time.

So as an overview I really liked this clip. The details are much better at the beginning than in the end, but I think this is not from a lack of attention but maybe some open-air render mistake which is responsible for some constant minor mistakes. But it is a hard task to render night-scenes in artificial futuristic lights. I think less light would make a great deal of improvement on those scenes. If the authors had some night-riot footage from youtube as reference they would have added fewer lights maybe.

So my final evaluation:

Story: 10/10 (epic!)
Director: 10/10 (great job!)
Modelling: 10/10 (great job while simplified surfaces) 
Animation: 9/10 (Minor mistakes in details)
Render and lights: (7/10) (Could not reach some almost impossible goals. One major mistake. Some mistakes in details)
Material/textures: 8/10 (constant but minor ambivalences)
Photography: 10/10 (nice sets and pictures)
Editing/effects: 10/10 (Despite that one cutting mistake great)
Music: 10/10 (I have the soundtrack on my playlist now on youtube, check the piano version as well)
Visual concept: 9/10 (minor mistakes, some non-contextual reference)
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Overall: 9.3

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