Mad God

Phil Tippett is a Visual Effects creator first, and a Director second. It's important to watch this movie with his value system in mind. The story is not cohesive because often, it is a vehicle to deliver the viewer to different setpieces. And every setpiece is beautiful and unique. There's a forlorn feeling only stop motion can deliver, watching a physical setpiece that took dozens of hours of sculpting, texturing, painting, and lighting, appear onscreen for less than half a minute. Setpieces in this movie cycle so quickly that it left the impression of a much longer film. There's little question why this film took thirty years to complete.

Then there's the huge smattering of visual techniques. The movie is filled with abstractions on the manipulation of time, which feel like Phil's salute to the medium. This movie has stop motion, shadow puppet theater, live action, real-time miniature explosives, and a refreshingly conservative use of CGI.

Every scene is so uniquely grotesque that the revulsion is replaced with a respect for the beauty of the individual pieces and a sense of wonder at his execution of the craft. It's a film I'll show to any fan of animation and sculpture, and it's popularity has nowhere to go but up.