As for old stories told again…I liked the rendition in “Beowulf & Grendel” which came out a couple of years ago. It’s not cheery, for sure, but it gives a very human perspective on Grendel – much the way “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” reflected the humanity the monsterwas given in Shelley’s novel. That the magnificent Neil is involved should give it meat it needs, though I’m still wary after Mirrormask, which somewhat disappointed me. It’ll be a must-see at any rate…

Now, when will we get that big-screen epic of Gilgamesh?

Remember that this is the second movie of its type, after Polar Express. The six or seven characters played by Tom Hanks in that movie all looked like him, as well. That movie had a creepy tendency to look “real,” though certainly nothing was as photorealistic as what we’re seeing here. Clearly Beowulf is the next generation. The next project is A Christmas Carol, starring Jim Carey. It’ll be more like Express in that Carey is to play several of the characters.

I would definitely assume we’ll see this in IMAX. As I understand it, outputting it to the larger format (or to 3D) is easier or more cost-effective with digital films. It might take tremendous computing power, but not a lot more expense.

As for the source material, if they’re scraping for titles like Robotech and Thunder Cats, why not the oldest story in English?

Really—I think it takes balls to make a movie out of a piece of literature that most people a) have never heard of or b) tried to read in high school but failed or c) did read in high school and was not that enthralled with…I mean really, who can get excited about old old English! And I can speak old English! This film looks amazingly good and I am so excited that they have finally made a animated film in which the characters LOOK like the people playing the voices….November 16th will be a Fine day in my book!