Mass Effect Take Earth Back - extended trailer

This trailer from Bioware and DigicPictures appears to be very intense both intellectually and emotionally. The story is somewhat simple: aliens attack the earth and destroy everything. Even an innocent little girl. Now its humanities turn to strike back and it is apparently going well or at least has good odds.

On a second thought the trailer is somehow playing around games and reality, humanity and inhuman aggression. I think it suggests that the conflict is about regaining our innocence in gaming.

Let see how far this reading can go. The initial twist from the patrolling fighters and the toy plane connects games with war. There is a trick of illusion as well when we listen to the patrol's radio while we see the toy plane. Some may notice that the illusion is cheated since the toy plane has automatic pads. But I think this level of automation for toys is perfectly conceivable in the near future. Therefore according to the first few seconds it is hard to distinguish between game and reality. But reality is cruel and aggressive while games are peaceful and quite. For the next few seconds we see what does reality do with people. Since it is an aggressive struggle for survival like in a war, it transforms humans to aggressive aliens. Sometimes we do not recognize the people around us when they meet the job market or found their own company, they just become merciless predators.

The emphasis on the transition is clear at 0.54 where a human being transforms to the alien life form. Until this point we have the following narrative. There is an innocent human girl in her natural environment. This scene is bound to playing, suggesting that playing is the natural human behavior. The game is flying a fighter jet. To fly is the archetype of freedom (even in the standard interpretation of dreams). This freedom is bound to playing by following the same type of jets from the game to reality. And there they come, the aliens who destroy this freedom, our toys. And when the transition at 0.54 happens we realize that these aliens are former human beings. 

And now we arrive to the classical crisis of growing up. But these grown-ups who come to destroy our playground (basically our innocence and freedom) are savage predators. This is supported by the next picture (1.03) when the sniper kills one of them who is chasing a child who is defended by her mother. Note that here we have a small family picture: the child and her mother running and the man who is defending them (the father-like person in this picture). Then we see some war scenes before we get a full view on the destroyed city first then the whole globe.

The second part starts very slowly giving us time to think about the scene. For now it should be clear that children are very important in this piece of video. Actually if you watch closely we have four occasions when aliens attack humans (1.03, 1.14, 1.23, 2.00) and two of them (the first and the last) are moments when they attack children (not counting the one when they shoot the jet). I think this ratio speaks loudly for children and innocence. In this part we see that this monstrous alien machine enters to the most natural environment for humans, the natural playground of a child. This moment has a very sensitive sense of violence. This machine breaks into this very intimate dreamy place which represents (according to our initial interpretation) the beauty of the innocent human nature. 

At 2.11 we see a very strong picture a man and a woman in arms find the little toy jet in the dust. Behind them there is a real working jet and the little girl is missing, the whole environment is ruined.

This conclusion can be understood as another family picture but without a child. In this interpretation daddy and mommy arrives to look for their daughter and they are prepared to save her. The jet behind them means that they still can fly, they are still free. However they are armed which means that they are strong and they fight. This together suggests that our heroes are those adults who preserved their freedom and fought for their survival without becoming similar to those alien predators.

Considering the look of the video primarily note the mimic of the girl. I am not sure whether it is captured with motion/face cap or made manually. I think it is more likely to be made manually and it works really well. You see on her face that she feels enthusiastic for playing with the little ladybird. I like the animation of the ladybird as it lands onto the sunflower then flies away. And that sunflower, that is really realistic. I freeze it after the ladybird left and it could be on a postcard anytime. The changing focus between the girl and the bug gives a great deal of dynamism to the scene. This correlates nicely with the music. 

The human-alien transition is not that smooth, but it is really fast. This flashlight method for transition is risky since it can look very odd, however here you only notice it when you watch closely. We see some very beautiful collapses and explosions in the devastation view. However I don't understand how with so much explosion can some soldiers just wonder around with no fire in the background. Of course one could say that this is just "anywhere" but from the wide perspective shots you see that literally everything is on fire in that city. Another thing: the street lights are on. But this is still daytime. And they are on while the whole city is in fire, so I suppose there is no electricity in the city. 

But the particle systems are great there. They elevate smoothly and they are very logically follow the environment. Flying blood, emerging dust, smoke of various kinds they are all in their proper place. Really nice variation of such things. 

On the next scene the switch from sunshine to shade is a nice example of lighting. The change is so sensitive you cannot really name the shadows or the colors. But they together do the job. You almost feel how much colder the air became. And the best thing it it I think that it does not follow the camera conventions. I am not sure one could make such pictures with a real camera but it illustrates how do we feel ourselves in such sun-shade transitions. You cannot do them because light measurement cannot let you do them. For such effects you would have some highlights or deep shades for sure. At least for the transition time while the light-measure system adapts to the new environment. 

I was thinking a lot on the images when we see the little girl's eye reflecting the space ship. Somehow I feel that her skin is too sterile at that moment. I know nowadays I arrived to this but here as well I see it unnaturally clean. She is playing on the ground at a farmland maybe, there should be some dirt on her face and clothes as well. But nothing. I think some dust could fly off the ground for the beginning as well. The anatomy is very nice, but somehow the skin does not fit well. It still has some rubbery feeling. 

The eye on the other hand is beautiful. I think the reflection in it is great as well, maybe a little bit too strong but I think it is hard to decide. Look at the corner of her eye, it even has some redness from maybe the dust which drys it out. 

Now again something which is beautiful but totally unrealistic. We see the stars on blue sky. Now from the sunflowers it should be late summer and the sun is setting down, but still is very high. I think it is very hard to see the stars on the sky in such a sunshine. No matter how big the shadow of the spaceship is. Assume it is a very big spaceship. Still even when you see a total eclipse you only start to see the stars when the moon shades the full circle of the sun. And with so much clouds on the sky humidity should be very high. So visual range is decreased as well. 

But anyway if it could happen it would look like this I am sure. And it looks nice.
For the next scene we have great motion capture for the soldiers. Somehow the faces are too dry they have no shine on them at all. I think this could have been avoided with some dust on them, or at least on the hair of the characters. I like that the guy has some stubble on his jaw.
Look when the vehicles launch their offence how they create a mist of ash by the turbulence. This is a great detail.
A nice little detail when one sunflower falls in the turbulence. Its nicely done, and strongly supports our general psychology to create what happens.
For the action part at the end we have a lot of blurs, actually we have more blurred pictures then normal ones. But since they are too fast for human eye we only notice the the sharp ones. This makes the whole action very intense and very realistic.

Story: 10/10 (The background idea of the whole is very nice. It fits well with the invasion concept of the whole project.)
Director: 9/10 (Great transition of the scenes and great dynamism for the whole. The ratio of motion and rest or action and stills is a very delicate matter and it is handled well in this video. However there are some major mistakes but they are not that important like wet ash - dry ash at the end scene, working street lights in an invasion, clean clothes on a playing girl in the countryside. These mistakes are somewhat shared with other members of the team)

Modelling: 10/10 (Perfect details of anatomy and nice overall modelling.)

Animation: 10/10 (Some minor strangeness in very uncommon scenes, but great sensitive details elsewhere)
Render and lights: 9/10 (Beautiful and brave lighting I miss some reflection on the skyscrapers though when the laser beams cut the buildings into pieces. This buildings should affect as giant mirrors.)
Material/textures: 9/10 (Skin is still a hard issue to handle. I really miss some dirt from the faces, hairs and clothes somewhere)
Photography: 10/10 (Very good compositions. I love the UV effect in the transition from the sunflower scene to the city scene. The change of focus is brilliant as well.)
Editing/effects: 10/10 (Really properly done. A great repertoire of different types of switches from slow transition to fast chopping.)
Music: 10/10 (It is a really nice track. The great thing about this trailer is that it uses the track and classic movie soundtrack as well. In such a short video I think it is very hard to include all this. And they all fit together and with the images well)
Visual concept: 9/10 (It is really hard to judge here. Some of the mistakes however minor they are, are shared with the mistakes of the direction, like wet ash - dry ash, working street lights in an invasion, clean clothes on a playing girl in the countryside.)

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Still very great job with an

Overall: 9.6

Copyright Notice: The video is made available by http://www.youtube.com/user/biowaremasseffect youtube channel by leaving the embed option open for everyone. All intellectual rights for the video are reserved for Bioware and DigicPictures. I only claim the copyright for its interpretation and evaluation.