Indie Movie: We are the Strange

Posted by Derek Yu Mon, 10 Sep 2007 06:00:00 GMT

Wow, I’ve watched the trailer for “We are the Strange” a few times now, and it’s more bizarre with each new viewing. A blend of claymation and 3d and 2d computer graphics, We are the Strange is heavily inspired by retro gaming and probably a good amount of psychotropic substances. It also features the voice of Korean American artist David Choe and a soundtrack by a number of notable chiptunes artists.

Reminds me of The Desolate Room and the whole “B-Gaming” phenomenon! Buy the DVD, if you wish! I might!

(Source: Insert Credit)

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Comments

  1. haowan said about 2 hours later:

    Wow. MEGA HELLA AWESOME

    Yeah, that’s pretty great.

  2. Zetetic Elench said about 2 hours later:

    BEWARE, I LIVE.

    <3 Sinistar.

  3. BenH said about 2 hours later:

    I recognised the Sinistar sample, and it made me realise I still haven’t actually played it, so thats what I just did! 8)

  4. fish said about 3 hours later:

    i saw this at the fantasia festival this summer.

    visualy, its a masterpiece. the way all these animation techniques are fused and defused together all over the movie is just amazing. there’s really something special there. the look, the ambiance, the music, its incredible.

    everything else is garbage. the editing is all over the place, what little dialog there is is so horribly mixed with the rest of the soundtrack you can barely ever hear whats being said. the story makes no sense at all and is mostly just a string of hyperactive fight sequences or long parts with happening.

    THAT being said, the movie is still worth seeing if only for the visual, and for the fact that almost everything was made by ONE GUY. its really quite impresive.

    im getting the feeling this M.Dot Strange person is going to get lots of offers to work on other people stuff. stuff with story, character and decent editing.

  5. Jason Rohrer said about 3 hours later:

    When I was in Park City for Slamdance ‘06, I wandered into the free, one-day TromaDance festival (Troma is the 100-percent-pure-indie studio that made the Toxic Avenger). There was a panel at TromaDance about… getting your indie film made… or something like that.

    Anyway, M dot Strange (as he calls himself) was on the panel (We Are the Strange premiered at Sundance that week).

    He wasn’t all that strange in person… not like Tim Burton or Perry Farrell.

    Oh, and here are some bits lifted from the Sundance program:

    We Are the Strange is its own imaginative and immersive universe. M dot Strange spent three years painstakingly creating this film, using a range of animation techniques—traditional, stop-motion, computer, and his own unique blend of 8-bit graphics and anime, dubbed “Str8nime.” The stunning visuals are complemented by a soundtrack that is both beautiful and harrowing. The end result is a freaky technocarnival ride that climaxes with a momentous battle between innocence and darkness.

    M dot Strange calls himself a legally insane professional weirdo and one-man evil animation studio. He likes ramen and udon noodles, the Oakland A’s, coffee, and wearing mismatched socks. He created a live-action feature and more than 70 short films, both live action and animated, before We are the Strange, which he made because gray aliens from the future programmed him to do so. Strange has a bike and lives with a green screen and a bunch of rattling computers.

    Granted, the trailer looks pretty freakin’ strange… I guess it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

  6. fish said about 3 hours later:

    man, i cant stand people who self-declare themselves to be weird, strange or interesting in any way.

  7. GP Lackey said about 3 hours later:

    “M dot Strange calls himself a legally insane professional weirdo and one-man evil animation studio. He likes ramen and udon noodles, the Oakland A’s, coffee, and wearing mismatched socks.”

    I really hope this is written with irony!

  8. Xander said about 4 hours later:

    As far as editing and non-sensical plot is concerned, I think I can look past it. There’s basically a point where if you’ve seen enough Seijun Suzuki films (That number for pretty much everyone would be: One) then you can sort of snap out of that mindset, or not.

    Narrative and cohesiveness (Probably not a word) are technically just conventions. To be even further technical calling it a ‘film’ doesn’t really make sense because with all the visual elements it’s more filled with components that can’t be simply captured on celluloid. In other words, as a film in the sense of anything else being it film chances are it simply wont entertain. But then how many games here are like that? SexyHiking a lot of people would just consider madness blown out of the eyeballs of an insaniac. But it’s also because it features bugger-all of what’s expected of a 2D-Platformer that it’s also so memorable, so special… so hikingly sexy!

    This is definitely one I’ll be picking up if possible. Great find!

  9. Paulie Mindless said about 7 hours later:

    Not the best place to tell this, but the World Of Goo gameplay trailer has been realesed! (http://2dboy.com/trailer.php)

  10. gnome said about 7 hours later:

    Shockingly impressive!

  11. DrDerekDoctors said about 7 hours later:

    Ordered! :)

  12. OrR said about 8 hours later:

    Thanks for reminding me that this exists! I’ll order a copy right away. B)

  13. Advenith said about 13 hours later:

    Now to find out if Netflix has it…

  14. failrate said about 14 hours later:

    Blockbuster online returns it as the result of an advanced search, but apparently doesn’t stock it. Added it my favorites, hoping they’ll get the hint and actually get a copy in.

  15. Josh said about 17 hours later:

    I agree with you fish, Living in Boulder, CO you deal with a lot of ironic artist types and they get on my nerves too. Still, Troma’s all about being over the top, so I’ll cut him a little slack, even though my heart tells me to hate this guy for his antics. If I met him I’d still probably punch him in the balls, though.

  16. Isador21 said about 23 hours later:

    World of F*ing Goo!!!!!

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