FIRST LOOK
First Look: Zack Snyder's Animated Legend of the Guardians
by Alex Billington
March 4, 2010
Source: USA Today
Zack Snyder has been a busy man. Not only has he been directing a new action movie called SuckerPunch, but he's also been directing an animated movie about owls based on a popular series of novels. The books are known as the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series, but Warner Brothers has changed the name to Legend of the Guardians for the movie. The first trailer is attached to Alice in Wonderland this weekend, but before we get to see that, USA Today has debuted an extensive first look with a few photos and our very first look at the owls in the movie. This looks surprisingly good and has kind of a Happy Feet vibe to it. Check them out!
Ah no wonder - Animal Logic out of Australia is doing the animation and they did Happy Feet, too. Seen in the first photo are most of the main characters: farthest to our left, the lil' cute one, is Eglantine (voiced by Emilie de Ravin), who is on the owls' search-and-rescue team and a friend of our hero Soren (voiced by Jim Sturgess), seen to her left. The other big guy is Soren's jealous brother Kludd (voiced by Ryan Kwanten).
"Soren is a classic hero," Snyder explains to USA Today. "He loves his sister, who is sweet, but smart beyond her years. He's a dreamer. He loves myths and stories. Kludd sees all that as weakness." In the movie, Soren is kidnapped by the owls of St. Aggie's Academy. The academy is supposed to be an orphanage, but instead it brainwashes its pupils into becoming soldiers who will ultimately clash with the peaceful owls of Ga'Hoole.
Other actors providing voices: Abbie Cornish, Geoffrey Rush, Helen Mirren, Sam Neill, David Wenham, and Hugo Weaving, who plays Noctus, Soren's father, seen in the middle photo. So why Zack Snyder for this project? He says it's about his family and doing something "not as hardcore. We wanted a beautiful, computer-generated, 3-D world the kids had never seen before." But Legend of the Guardians is still action packed - think Lord of the Rings. "There are a lot of intense themes in the books," Snyder says. "Scenes that might not seem so intense on the written page but would be too much on screen. We wanted to pull back."
Stay tuned for the trailer in the next week. Warner Brothers has Legend of the Guardians currently set for release on September 24th later this year, so I'm sure we'll see plenty more from it in the coming months.
24 Comments
1
Post/3d done by Animal Logic who made hapy feet =)
Pat on Mar 4, 2010
2
Animal Logic are based in Sydney Australia.
dUPE on Mar 4, 2010
3
I wonder if this will be as bullshit as his previous films?
DiR3cT on Mar 4, 2010
4
lol! looks like 300 with owls. TONIGHT......WE DINE....ON MICE!
movie mike on Mar 4, 2010
5
I don't know how I feel about this. Not good is what I'm leaning towards. But I'll wait for trailer
Dan W on Mar 4, 2010
6
i'd hit that.
whatwhat? on Mar 4, 2010
7
not sure if the owls look different enough. but I think its cool he's doing something for the kids now too. I'm curious to see how this turns out.
dave13 on Mar 4, 2010
8
okay... i have to say that it looks good thus far but i have a question: How in the hell did the owls make their own helmets? (And, yes, before anybody responds that it is not real - that it is a movie and an animated one at that - I am being sarcastic but it's still a funny question!)
Alejo on Mar 4, 2010
9
Alejo: The enslaved rodents did it for them. The next installment is going to be rebellion of the furries...J.K. lol
Deathtoll 2010 on Mar 4, 2010
10
While I have nothing but absolute faith in Zack Snyder, I really hope this doesn't turn into something like Shane Acker's "9" which was a luke-warm at best mess. Maybe it's just me but I have tremendous trouble getting into a story and feeling for a supposed some threatening plot affecting diminutive characters...unless they're cute which makes Toy Story (and most Pixar films) the obvious exception:P
Marc on Mar 4, 2010
11
I'll only watch this if at some point one of them regurgitates an owl pellet. And now a few puns for your enjoyment: This movie sure looks like a hoot. Whooo wants to see a movie starting a bunch of owls? I don't know feather or not I want to watch this. This movie is eggsactly what is wrong with hollywood. Thanks everyone.
Jay on Mar 4, 2010
12
The "Happy Feet" reference is just plain wrong.
Slipstream on Mar 4, 2010
13
Big fan of Snyders work so far...did research on the book series at wikipedia...could be epic, could be a mild hit, either way, I'm in....
Kamish on Mar 4, 2010
14
Owls fighting for your right to paaaaaaaarty.
Brandon on Mar 4, 2010
15
Yeah I love Snyders direction, so vivid and spot on and say what you want about Watchmen but being a fan of the novel I thought he did the best possible translation to screen. Im more looking forward to Suckerpunch though as it seems more up his ultraviolent alley.
Cody on Mar 4, 2010
16
looks ok.
Xerxex on Mar 4, 2010
17
It's interesting to see more and more directors who haven't done any animation direction suddenly start switching over to animated stuff lately. The visuals for this look great, but yet again I feel like these 'artists' are short-selling the entire medium by refusing to make a fucking grown-up animated film. They'll make something like Avatar - which is 100% CG in most of the scenes, which goes on to smash every fucking record in the box office, and yet they can't swallow the idea that you can make an animated movie unless it's a cute, happy fun-time movie for kids. Pisses me off.
Squiggly_P on Mar 4, 2010
18
Awesome! Can't Wait! Very different for Zach but he'll follow up with Sucker Punch, so all is good!
KB on Mar 4, 2010
19
Teaser trailer is out on Yahoo! Alex get on it!
Ron on Mar 4, 2010
20
Squiggly_P I agree with you, and it needs to stop. My general fear is that this will turn out like Happy Feet *shudders* that movie was awful.
Xerxex on Mar 4, 2010
21
The trailer is uploaded at youtube here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8bM9qf4keM
joe_6285 on Mar 4, 2010
22
#4 that's exactly what I thought! haha 🙂
Carfonexdo on Mar 4, 2010
23
Those owls aren't near as cool as that one in The Secret of NIMH.
Brad on Mar 4, 2010
24
Looks beautiful, as you'd expect, but talking animals (owls?) just ain't my thing at all. Pass. Guess this is for the kiddies, not the 300 crowd.
bubo on Mar 4, 2010
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