K E L O I D II

October 8, 2013 10:53 PM

In a not too distant future, societies of all countries come to rely on an intricate network of artificial intelligence devices designed to bring efficacy to man's life. Yet, man continues to devour himself in useless wars. A strong political hierarchy now divides all powers into three factions, and A.I. devices rapidly gain ground as efficiency becomes a priority. As social revolts grow worse everyday, authorities seek ways to control their citizens. They decide to carry out a series of tests that will determine not only whether some crucial powers can be transferred to non human entities, but also whether man is ready to yield those powers. The world has become a cell for all man and women, who withstand and endure their lives, rather than living them. Machines might have found a solution. From now on, you are set free.

Director J.J. Palomo and his visual special effects studio Big Lazy Robot have finally released their three minute "spec film." The Verge describes it as a "trailer for a movie that doesn't exist." The Hollywood Reporter states that there are already talks of a feature-length film. The concept artwork was done by Aaron Beck, who also worked on Avatar and District 9.

Big Lazy Robot previously.

posted by gucci mane (25 comments total)

Oh what I would pay to see a feature length version of The Gift.
posted by benzenedream at 11:28 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I have no idea what that was about, but I would go see it to figure out!
posted by Samizdata at 11:29 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

benzenedream: "Oh what I would pay to see a feature length version of The Gift."

Oh, hell yes!

(I had forgotten about that. Thanks for the reminder.)
posted by Samizdata at 11:35 PM on October 8, 2013

Can I have my 3 minutes back? Nice effects work, but couldn't they have hired a real sound engineer, instead of someone's horny teenage son? Blasting music on top of dialog is so totally amateur.
posted by Goofyy at 11:55 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

In a not too distant future...

...next Sunday A.D.?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:37 AM on October 9, 2013 [8 favorites]

This is the Caprica of my dreams, except with the Transformers noises and lens flare.
posted by Mezentian at 1:28 AM on October 9, 2013

I've sat through a number of these things now, and they're usually made by people who are deeply in love with the contemporary trends in movies that are... Michael Bay-like. People running? Explosions? Threatening "OOOOOOMMM" soundtrack? Check, check, and check.

All I'm saying is, if they do actually make a film out of this, don't expect a deep insight into the idea of self and autonomy in relationship to the ethics of leadership. Maybe there'll be a female character whose main distinctive feature is that she is really attractive.
posted by The River Ivel at 2:10 AM on October 9, 2013 [6 favorites]

Can I have my 3 minutes back? Nice effects work, but couldn't they have hired a real sound engineer, instead of someone's horny teenage son? Blasting music on top of dialog is so totally amateur.

I am a real sound engineer, and I still had a great time watching this. Far from the worst I've heard, but I'm sorry your day was ruined all the same. I have a soft spot for trailers for nonexistent films, soundtracks for nonexistent games, etc. The whole concept is kind of rad, and really good practice for creative people of all types, including horny sound dweebs.
posted by jake at 2:31 AM on October 9, 2013 [5 favorites]

It never fails to surprise me that pBWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAeople who are engaged in creaBWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAtive work so readily and needlessly adopt cliches--sometimes really obBWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAvious cliches--seemingly without any awareness that thBWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAey've done so.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 3:52 AM on October 9, 2013 [8 favorites]

In a not too distant future, societies...From now on, you are set free.

Good fx. But, frankly, the setup paragraph was far more interesting, and promised something a bit more thought-provoking. The film itself seemed only tangentially related to the setup, looking/sounding/etc. more like every other videogame ad I see. Mechanized mayhem is the future (with a touch of iRobot tossed in for a veil of "meaning"). And, yeah, that sound mix was atrocious.

Looked cool, though. And, in the end, that's what it's selling, so...job well done.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:00 AM on October 9, 2013

The film doesn't seem to match the narrative. The narrative made me watch the film. The film made me not care.
posted by 3.2.3 at 4:27 AM on October 9, 2013 [3 favorites]

If the idea is to create a qausi-compelling setup for a world/plot in three minutes that is ALSO used to sell that world/plot to movie execs, then mission-accomplished.
I definitely don't want it to be humansversusrobotsandhumansShouldwinbecauseHUMANS. I'm hopeful because there are clips of robots and humans fighting together but realistic because movie executives.
posted by mfu at 4:49 AM on October 9, 2013

This is what Appleseed fuckin' shoulda been.

Is it just me, or is the Russian "moment" in sci-fi filmography something that needs to happen soon? Because a lot of the interesting, independent content I run into on the web appears to be Russian/Eastern European in origin.
posted by AdamCSnider at 5:00 AM on October 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

You need to read the comics, friend. The Appleseed manga is a serious, humane discussion of what surrender to benevolent AI would actually entail, and I cannot recommend it enough.

I've read the lot cover to cover, thanks - the comment was aimed at the rather disappointing anime film (and sequel). I felt that part of the power of the manga was the conjunction of the high political and philosophical themes with the brutal realities of the intelligence and military apparatus (human, cyborg and machine) required to keep the utopia intact. That didn't exist in the anime, and I think that given the premise as laid out in the introduction, it could exist in a longer production.

Also the designs of the combat suits and AI felt rather similar to Shirow's work in Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed, which brought the idea to mind.
posted by AdamCSnider at 5:10 AM on October 9, 2013

Can I have my 3 minutes back? Nice effects work, but

Well it is a tech demo for a VFX house after all
posted by ook at 8:11 AM on October 9, 2013

Reminds me of some of the work I've seen over at concept robots lately, particularly the Elysium stuff.
posted by Artw at 8:19 AM on October 9, 2013

You need to read the comics, friend. The Appleseed manga is a serious, humane discussion of what surrender to benevolent AI would actually entail

...and random upskirts.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:11 AM on October 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is a giant level of bullshit - it's flashy vfx and exactly nothing more, and some studio's going to spend some coin on optioning the property and then hire a writer to spin some kind of narrative out of it, and it'll suck because the studio and producers and the VFX guys will never be able to agree on anything and the writer will be stuck trying to please eight masters, and then for the next three years, every time I go into a meeting at that studio, the exec will bring it up as a potential project and I'll politely decline because I have been down that road, and it is not a village I would like to visit again.

Well it is a tech demo for a VFX house after all (It's not. Read the articles. It's supposed to be a 'trailer' to a feature film. Vertigo and IAM have already jumped on board to produce. Roy Lee makes a ton of largely decent movies, but he's gotta be attached to produce fifty projects in development right now. Add this to the list, I guess.)

My favorite part is where the creators say, "Keloid is not about robots, it is about men." So tell me, creators, who the fuck is the main character? What is going on in the world? What are their relationships? What side is what? ROBOT GO BOOM gets you exactly five seconds of my attention. Oh, you got nothing else? THEN GO BACK TO YOUR COMMERCIALS.
posted by incessant at 9:12 AM on October 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

The Verge link is the one that says it's a "trailer" to a film that doesn't exist, and in the next sentence they state that it's expected for there to not be much of a story.

Hopefully something a bit more substantial comes from it. I've been on a big sci-fi/robots/cyberpunk kick lately and am really craving something to entice me that isn't a reboot.
posted by gucci mane at 9:53 AM on October 9, 2013

It's not. Read the articles. It's supposed to be a 'trailer' to a feature film

Huh. I stand corrected. I guess I remain unsurprised that a trailer produced by a VFX house should turn out to be overly focused on the VFX, but yeah I totally agree it'd be nice if more movies these days started with the script instead of treating it as an afterthought.

Todd Alcott had an insightful post today which touched on this:

Once upon a time, when I was a wee lad, Hollywood turned the reins of power over to talented directors... Before the director-driven wave, there was a producer-driven wave. Big-time producers put their stamps on gigantic projects. Before the producer-driven movies, there were studio-driven movies.

Now, we are in the midst of what I’ll call a marketing-driven wave.
posted by ook at 10:17 AM on October 9, 2013

and in the next sentence they state that it's expected for there to not be much of a story.

Of course they don't expect there to be much of a story because why oh why would you ever need a story to make a movie? This is worthless for building out into a full feature film, and yet AND YET studios are still dumb enough to pay money for properties like these because "Oh look! Pretty pictures!"

Can you guys tell I'm getting sick of sitting in meetings grinning like an idiot when execs show me shorts like these?
posted by incessant at 10:49 AM on October 9, 2013

You do sound a bit like someone from a VFX studio ran over your dog, yes.
posted by Artw at 10:56 AM on October 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Sorry, didn't mean to come off as condescending! I completely agree, of course.

You didn't really, I just get a bit snippy when I've just woken up. Apologies!
posted by AdamCSnider at 11:49 AM on October 9, 2013

I rather liked it. I would go see this as a feature film. I like robots fighting. I prefer them to be gigantic robots fighting, but close-to-human-sized robots fighting humans in robot-like robot-suits is acceptable. I liked the creepy mannequin robots, too. I am really easy to please though. Robots robots robots robots
posted by Cookiebastard at 6:52 PM on October 9, 2013

Sometimes pretty robots are just pretty robots. Nice job Beck, Broadmore, BLR.
posted by vrogy at 9:42 AM on October 18, 2013