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Quick Review of 'Rise of the Guardians'

Last night, I watched the Blu-ray 3D disc of DreamWorks' Rise of the Guardians at my house. Like Disney's Frozen, this was the perfect time to see it during the holidays. I remember the one time that I watched it with my dad in Florida last year during Thanksgiving. It was the most beautiful animated film I've ever seen! Definitely in line with Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon! The visuals are amazing, especially in 3-D! The part that almost made me cry a little was when there were some breathtaking sand-like objects coming to life which represents what children are dreaming of. I love the moral theme of believing, that involves children having hopes and dreams that the Guardians like Jack Frost, Santa Claus (North), the Easter Bunny (Bunnymund), the Tooth Fairy (Tooth), and the Sandman (Sandy) are more than just "figments of imaginations." But the funniest part ever was the "tooth competition" that has the Guardians competing over to get the most teeth to help regain the children's belief in the Tooth Fairy. As well as the running gag that has the yeti trying to start over by repainting the large number of toys or eggs with the alternative color suggested by Santa or Bunny! "I don't like it. Paint it red!" ;"Too Christmas-y, mate. Paint em blue." LOL Plus, Bunnymund looked SOOOOO CUTE when he was reduced to a tiny, little bunny due to losing the children's belief in him.
I think Jamie Bennett, the kid who still believes in the Guardians, reminds me so much of me because I also think that some of my favorite heroes are more than just fictional characters. Say, like when Optimus Prime and the Autobots in the Transformers movies are considered to be just CGI-animated characters and/or visual props, I still see them as real-life, actual characters who really deserves a large amount of screentime to dominate the unnecessary human scenes. I like the part when Jamie finally sees Jack for the first time after being convinced that the Easter Bunny is truly real. The most beautiful thing I ever saw is the soundtrack, provided by Alexandre Desplat, and the song "Still Dream" sung by Renee Fleming that was played during the ending credits. Sad, yet emotionally well-done. (; But I never knew that this movie is based on a series of children's books by William Joyce (Rolie Polie Olie, Meet the Robinsons). May her daughter Mary Katherine Joyce rest in peace. I even saw the memoriam of her name that calls M.K. a "Guardian Fierce and True." T_T Overall, Rise of the Guardians is a DreamWorks animated movie worth seeing again and again for kids to enjoy!
I think Rise of the Guardians deserves better than just ending up a "box office disappointment" (only $103 million domestically on a $145 million budget) like most other financial duds (such as John Carter ($73.1 million), Battleship ($65.4 million), and Cloud Atlas ($27.1 million)). Most people, even the little kids, love it! Perhaps it only didn't do well except in other international countries was because it had difficulty competing against other Thanksgiving films like Life of Pi, Breaking Dawn - Part 2, Skyfall, and Lincoln. Or maybe because of the target audience, in which children of either, preschool, kindergarten or elementary schools is what ROTG is best viewed by. *gasps* Unless this was Pitch Black the Boogeyman's doing to prevent the majority of children from watching the movie, thus causing their belief in the Guardians to decline. LOL I hope that over $300 million worldwide is worth it. Also, it should've been nominated an Academy Award for Best Animated Film (now won by Disney/Pixar's Brave) instead of The Pirates! Band of Misfits.

NOVA Fall Semester of 2013 is Finished!

I did it! This year's fall semester is finally over! I got an all A's in Biology 102 (Lab: 94; Lecture: 90-100), Art History II (93), Swimming (96), and Computer Graphics II (90)!

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #16

First of all, I would like to give my thanks to my beloved Computer Graphics II teacher for all of the things she has offered me this semester. I think that it was a good idea for me to do my own work while the other students are doing the assigned work only for the CG I section (which I have already completed last year). Writing up my blog entries and posting them to Blackboard daily was the most fun time for me outside of class. Ms. Sowa has allowed me to come up with my proposals about the type of artwork that I would like to create for the entire semester. She was kind enough to provide me some helpful assistance in one of my assignments. Especially when she agreed to choose one of my 3 horror movie DVDs for viewing on post-Halloween day. The best thing that has happened to me towards the end of this semester is that I was able to get my video project done without any difficult data storage problems like I have before. I would believe that the final project is my favorite CG II assignment. Because despite not having a proper Adobe After Effects program at home, I used my experienced video editing skills to assemble my iPhone-shot video clips in the correct order and successfully compress it into a 2-minute video. But I am proud to have completed all 8 assignments in the entire class, despite that I already created my own blog in my previous CG class. It has been a real pleasure for having me around in computer graphics as I will be moving on to the other art classes next semester.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #15

My update on my final project: I have put like over 37 scenes to match with the expected 2-minute time length! I think that it will be an amazing video project this week. Now I will have enough time tomorrow to compress it into a full-length video without having to wait for at least an hour each time before being dismissed from class. But I can only hope that it will not have a lot of data before converting it into a movie file like mine has last year.
Above this paragraph is a brief clip of my video that I was planning to make. Just a reminder that this is a work in progress as it does not have a background music.