Well, not surprised to see some people casting judgment on the VFX based on seeing it on fucking YouTube, embarrassing.
Go watch the trailer on Netflix itself, which is much less compressed OBVIOUSLY and then come back here. Drives me nuts to see that shitty compressed still used as a thumbnail and being the first thing you see when clicking on many of the links to the trailer.
ONCE AGAIN, you CANNOT judge VFX work off a YouTube video, the quality is horrendous. And what compression does, for the newbies, is that it destroys the texture of the image, it wipes it out. Ever watched trailers of films shot on film on YouTube? The compression struggles with the grain for example and all you see is a chunky, macroblocky mess. If you want to properly judge a film's visuals, at least seek the trailer out on Apple Trailers, much higher bitrate, lesser compression, the texture is restored, but it's still massively compressed.
The best quality online is Pro Res, but that's like 2 to 3 gb per trailer, YouTube is like 20-30 mb in comparison. Apple Trailers 160-180 mb. That gives you an idea of how IMPORTANT video quality is. Obviously, Netflix doesn't put their trailers on Apple Trailers or things like that.
Anyway, deaged De Niro looks a bit waxy on YouTube. He does not on Netflix itself. I watched it on the big screen and it's a revelation, the VFX work is jaw dropping, the texture is there, the grain pops (for the half shot on film (ie when they're playing their own age), it looks gorgeous. Not to mention half of it is shot on 35mm. (everything involving deaging is digital)
About the ages, it's odd because Netflix had a thumbnail of clearly a work in progress version of the trailer, and we see the info about the ages of De Niro and Pesci in those restaurant scenes. And De Niro says: 39, and he obviously looks older than he does in King Of The Comedy. Pesci says: 56. So maybe it's not done completely (although it looks complete) OR perhaps, they decided to not go back too much in terms of deaging and make subtle incremental changes from 50 something to 70 year old?!
LelekPL wrote: ↑July 31st, 2019, 12:54 pm
Ummm, kind of underwhelming, especially the CGI.
The trailer makes the film look like a cliched Scorsese mobster movie. I'm sure when the film actually comes out, it will have 100x more class, much better pace and character development than all the Scorsese-wannabe films, and it will have a fascinating mystery story and a potential for a great political/JFK conspiracy, but this trailer didn't really focus on that enough.
Maybe I expected a much bolder de-aging (e.g. a Godfather 2 De Niro), maybe I expected more life in De Niro's performance when working with Scorsese again but it just felt off.
Cinematography looks solid, though, I'll give them that.
Look at my post that I just wrote. Also, some insiders said on Twitter that De Niro's performance is said to be unlike what he's done before, very internal. I see zero issue on that point in the trailer. And Schoonmaker and others close to the film do say this is not Goodfellas or Casino, it's a very different animal. I don't think the trailer is generic, or cliché at all, it's just that on the surface, it feels similar to those.