I'm not a big animation guy, but am posting this more because of how incredible the technology/this demo is. 20th Century Fox was developing this movie with Weta Digital - it had a release date and everything - but Disney ultimately cancelled it in April in the merger because of escalating costs, apparently.

Seeing as the movie is dead (for now, though I could see this garnering some excitement) the director just released this incredible proof-of-concept demo reel they put together before Weta was to actually make the movie itself / further expand on these designs (which Weta was apparently in the middle of doing when the movie was cancelled). As is stated in the demo, this was just PREVIZ graphics, but I'm shocked at how much previz technology has evolved, as all of this looks amazing yet can be rendered in real time for motion capture on a stage (the phase that was about to begin before Disney axed the project). Just mind-blowing stuff, and I have to say, this movie actually looks like it would have been pretty damn good, with plenty of franchise potential.

I doubt the release of this causes a Deadpool-like fervor (as with the "leak" of that demo reel), but there's already a fairly loud cry for Disney to reconsider, now that this footage has been let out into the wild (which I'm sure was at least partly the director's intention)...

http://collider.com/mouse-guard-movie-concept-art/

For comparison, this is what previz technology looked like a decade or so ago, which wasn't rendered in real time...

Oh, and for the record, "previz" is short for "previsualization"; basically, for effects-heavy movies, "storyboarding" the movie with computer generated models as opposed to sketching out 2D storyboard frames by hand.

all they need to do is give one of the mice a set of red suspender shorts.

Some good kungfu action.

Unreal Engine is a video game engine. You are basically watching a video game cutscene. While it looks awesome, it isn't really anything different from what video games are doing now.

I had never heard of these previz's before, so that's a neat behind the scenes look. Makes sense now that i've seen this that they would use video game software as a story boarding tool. much cheaper to plan out scenes and camera angles before doing the heavy CGI work.

It's crazy what goes into prepping a movie like this, only to see it all thrown away (re: the video tour of the production office)...

CrottyKid said:

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Some good kungfu action.

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Right? I was legitimately impressed by the action in this.

recast the lead mouse with keanu reeves and i bet they'd release the **** out of it

Mouseguard is a bootleg version of Redwall series, and we all know it.

Honey I Shrunk the Kids meets American Tail meets Lord of the Rings

PatAg said:

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Mouseguard is a bootleg version of Redwall series, and we all know it.

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Okay, glad I am not crazy for seeing the art in the OP and doing a quadruple take. I love the Redwall series and was trying to remember that book.

TexasAggie_02 said:

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Unreal Engine is a video game engine. You are basically watching a video game cutscene. While it looks awesome, it isn't really anything different from what video games are doing now.

I had never heard of these previz's before, so that's a neat behind the scenes look. Makes sense now that i've seen this that they would use video game software as a story boarding tool. much cheaper to plan out scenes and camera angles before doing the heavy CGI work.

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Pretty much! I'm not sure if Blizzard uses it for their World of Warcraft short scenes but damn do they make impressive clips. I'd love to see a full cgi movie in their world. Not the half and half junk we got in the first go round.

The comic is pretty fun, but I never read Redwall growing up. I doubt the guy even pretends to say it's not heavily influenced by it.

Edit; that said, this is awesome and would have loved to see it on the big screen

PatAg said:

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Mouseguard is a bootleg version of Redwall series, and we all know it.

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I was about to say, does anyone know Redwall? I loved that series when I was a kid.

redwall was one of my favorite series growing up. Would love a movie or Netflix series for it.

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American Tail meets Lord of the Rings

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That was my exact thought.

heddleston said:

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The comic is pretty fun, but I never read Redwall growing up. I doubt the guy even pretends to say it's not heavily influenced by it.

Edit; that said, this is awesome and would have loved to see it on the big screen

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