By Digilyfe Founder & Lead Editor Steve Brown @Stevebtech
Sadly, many of us are still grieving over the recent loss of artist and visionary Stan Lee. Stan’s comic book and cinematic creations are so inter-woven into our pop-culture, that its hard to escape some reference to what he created in our daily lives. Iron Man, X-Men, The Avengers, Thor, Black Panther, and of course Spider-Man, were all part of his genius. Fans and creatives alike must carry on appreciating the brilliance of what Lee created and enjoy what he left behind. Now, a new type of character adaption is hitting the masses on Dec. 14th and it looks poised to carry on Lee’s creative legacy well.
Spider-Man Into the Spider Verse is a new Animated film by Sony pictures with an all star cast and epic Animation that could redefine industry standards. The film stars the voice talents of Shameik Moore (as Spider-Man/Miles Morales), Jake Johnson (as Peter Parker), Hailee Steinfeld (as Gwen Stacy), Mahershala Ali (as Miles’ uncle Aaron), Brian Tyree Henry (as Miles’ father Jefferson), Luna Lauren Velez (as Miles’ mother Rio), Lily Tomlin (as Aunt May), and Liev Schreiber (as The Kingpin).
The movie goes deep into the Spider-Man back story, using a plot where Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) opens a rift between dimensions, causing all these Spider-People to crash into Miles Morales’ (Shameik Moore) neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Incredible Animation & Visual Design
With little stylistic evolution in the past decade, it feels as though the industry needed a ground breaking visual project to move things into the next realm. Enter Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which shakes things up. It’s a film that doesn’t look like a 3D film, but it is, in fact, fully CG. Producer Christopher Miller (who co-directed Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and The LEGO Movie) said the film is a new process treats CGI with “line work and painting and dots and all sorts of comic book techniques” in order to create what they call a living painting, looking as if it’s all done by hand. The end result finally gives 3D animation a wake-up call and a jolt of energy.
It could be argued that Miller and frequent collaborator Phil Lord (who also wrote Into the Spider-Verse) have always been some of animation’s new renegades, since Cloudy and The Lego Movie film series have given shocks to the 3D animation system. But this time, Lord and Miller have definitively raised the bar as to what 3D animation can do. By combining the style of 2D and injecting the art style of Miles Morales’ co-creator Sara Pichelli, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has created a 3D film that can stand on its own. It redefines what audiences might think of as a 3D animated film, and I think, it’ll have people asking for more from future films.
The way this film looks thus far should certainly give the animation studios a reason to pause and make them ask themselves how they can raise their game going forward.
Watch The Epic Trailer Below
