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Sci-Fi Books Media

Doug Chiang's Robota 66

Posted by michael from the floyd-not-looking-where-he-was-going dept.
inherent writes "Doug Chiang's studio has released a trailer for his upcoming book. The book is a collaboration with Sci-Fi author Orson Scott Card of Ender's Game fame, and will include 75 pieces of Chiang's artwork. Chiang is the Concept Art Director at Industrial Light and Magic (and thus the concept art guy for the Star Wars prequels). Here is a previous slashdot story on him with a link to an interview."
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Doug Chiang's Robota More

Doug Chiang's Robota

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  • Huh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by CGP314 ( 672613 ) <CGP@NOSpAM.ColinGregoryPalmer.net> on Sunday August 17, 2003 @07:17AM (#6716245) Homepage
    Since when do books have trailers?

    • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Tirel ( 692085 )
      RTFA, it's a book *and* an animated movie.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MOtisBeard ( 693145 )
      I just hope against hope that none of the 75 pieces of artwork mentioned in the article are a depiction of that oozing multipenised beast that appeared in one of Orson Scott Card's novels. Is it just me, or do a lot of his books feature adolescents and young teens being sexually assaulted by monsters?
      • A simple google for "Orson, Scott, Card, mormon" and here's what I found, (albeit at the bottom of the first page) - Rants - OSC. [rdrop.com] Nothing wrong with Card writing these kinds of fantasy books with young boys being sexually assaulted by multi-penised monsters and countless, (some would say it's an obsession, not I!), tales of adolescent males coming of age, after all he's a good Saint, (that's Mormon to you and me). Heck give his writings from beliefnet.com a read if you have any doubts. I especially like "
      • Um...I think it's just you. Are we even talking about the same Orson Scott Card here? Most of his books don't even have monsters in them, so I'm not sure what you mean. Exceptions I can think of are Wyrms and the Ender's Game series. In the former, there is indeed some rape/interbreeding between human and monster (although it's not explicit, and I hardly recall any references to "oozing, multipenised beasts"). In the latter, the alien races keep to themselves.

    • since it's a "film book"... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @07:22AM (#6716255)
      Is Robota a film or a book or what? What exactly is a "film book"?

      A "film book" is simply an art book story told in a film-like manner. Books allow the viewer to delve into the thoughts and motives of the main characters in ways film canOt. And films present drama in a linear time specific format that allows for a very controlled storytelling. I want to combine these two mediums, plus a third, the internet, to produce something different.

      Eventually, this web site will compliment the book and any other mediums that are developed for Robota. Each will be used to tell a different part of the Robota world. For example, the web site will tell more of the backstory and character development using animation, text, etc. while the book will be the actual story of conflicts and how they are resolved.

      This is one of the great things about telling the story in a variety of mediums. I can take advantage of the unique strengths of each medium to build a compelling world that couldn't otherwise be built in one medium.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)

      by segment ( 695309 ) <sil AT politrix DOT org> on Sunday August 17, 2003 @07:50AM (#6716306) Homepage Journal

      Thats what i'm saying however I wouldnt mind reading 20 interviews with the publisher, the printer of the book, the person who did the film separations before the book went to press, plus 30 different angles of the word 'Read', followed by additional commentary by the delivery person. It's nice to see that sometimes overkill is just too much... DVD's 3 discs full of junk... Now books ... How sad
    • Since when do books have trailers?

      Nothing personal here, just practical ;)

      Isn't it about time a new "-1000 : read the article" moderation "comment" be added to the mod system ?

      It takes longer time everyday just to skip questions & remarks written by hordes of people who did not even bother to read the article but stay at score 1 because they have an account.

      This is quite different from comments from people who badly understood the article or do not agree with the content : it's just about respecti

  • Sounds familiar (Score:2, Funny)

    by grug0 ( 696014 )
    It is a time of conflict

    Of persecution

    Under robot rule

    A hero without memory

    A ragtag group of warriors

    Defy the robots to save humanity

    And discover the terrible secret of the robots

    Hold on a second, shouldn't that be the terrible secret of space?

  • I feel cheated! (Score:4, Funny)

    by rehabdoll ( 221029 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @07:36AM (#6716279) Homepage
    Bender is supposed to be the only smoking robot!

  • Trailer (Score:5, Funny)

    by Heartz ( 562803 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @08:05AM (#6716331) Homepage
    In other news, Slashdot will now be posting trailers for all their articles. Comment trailers will be introduced by 2005 where every comment will be preceded with a trailer first.
    The next trailer will be coming soon but subscribers get to beat the rush!

  • Slashdot "news" (Score:2, Informative)

    by marvin2k ( 685952 )
    For those who have followed this Robota thing:
    This is *not* a new trailer. It's the same one that has been up there for six months now.

    And no I don't mean to complain about this story since we all know already that the definition of "news" on Slashdot is pretty wide :P
  • Is the printed word no longer a form of media?

  • this is they guy responsible for the look of jar jar Binks,

    and you want me to consider his book?

    • Even though that was meant to be a joke (man, when will it get old) Doug Chiang was not the main designer of Jar Jar. Ian McCaig and Terryl Whitlatch were probably the main contributors. And before the complaining expands, Ian McCaig wqas also the designer for Darth Maul, the Natalie Portman costumes, and the Sith witch that was not done in Ep. 2.

      Doug Chiang's specialty was more the hardware like robots and spaceships.
  • Is it just me, or does everything sound like a rehash of the Matrix/Terminator concept? Humans build robots, robots take over, humans form a rebel team to fight the robots they created...

    • Re:Matrix Reloaded Reloaded (Score:5, Informative)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @09:41AM (#6716621) Homepage Journal
      Is it just me, or does everything sound like a rehash of the Matrix/Terminator concept? Humans build robots, robots take over...

      Isaac Asimov (the guy who coined the term "robotics") gave that theme a name dozens of years ago, he called it the Frankenstein complex. That is why he wrote the 3 laws of robotics, to move away from that theme.

      BTW, the polish play in wich the name "robot" was coined (to mean mechanical anthropomorphic labourers) was also about "men make robots, men abuse robots, robots go awry and take over".
      Way, WAY before matrix/terminator (in the 20's IIRC).

      ...humans form a rebel team to fight the robots

      Battlestar Galactica! Again, before terminator/matrix.

      • I, for one, am not a big fan of the delusional camp in transhumanism that believes the humans should try and revolt against any future robotic life that surpassses humanity on the evolutionary scale.

        Science fiction writers, and philosophical futurists alike, tend to portray the transhuman robots as lifeless, cultureless, and without morals.

        A robotic species that may one day surpass humanity will be orders of magnitude more intelligent than humans. Consider that art, culture, and morality have developed on
        • You have more faith in the robots than I. They will undoubtdedly have *some* capacities that exceed humans, but upon which criteria do you judge a species to be greater than another? Since robots will be born of humans, they can in turn inherit some of our failings, no?

          My point is, humans do and will have *every* right to fight for supremacy, if for no other reason, than to allow the competing species to prove theirs.

      • Battlestar Galactica! Again, before terminator/matrix.

        There really should be a moratorium on using "ragtag" in a science fiction context, lest the reader instantly assume there's Cylons involved.

      • "BTW, the polish play in wich the name "robot" was coined..."

        I believe you are referring to the Czech play "R.U.R." (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Capek.

        A brief summary (Note the use of a slashdot post in the biblio links!) [setonhill.edu]
  • The man is a fucking lunatic. [rdrop.com] His stuff isn't that good (sorta like Anne Rice, he wrote one good book and now he's intent on pushing out crap that follows the same formula), and more than that he's intolerant of homosexuality (I suppose that would put him in the majority on slashdot) and seems fairly intent on proselytizing the Church of Latter-Day Saints to everyone who reads, oh, anything he writes.

    From the article referenced in my link:
    "Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, n
    • His stuff isn't that good [...] and more than that he's intolerant of homosexuality

      Er, mind telling me why the fuck that would be relevant?

      I guess the part about the quality of his work is, but the tangeant with mormon-like homophobia...not really.

      PS I do agree, he's overrated. Ender's game and Ender's Shadow were good reads, and that's the end of that. The rest of his stuff (that I have read) was rather lame.

      PPS Yeah, his mormon views kinda bug me too...
      • For some reason Slashdoters go into full geek-on mode when someone brings up Orson Scott Card. Hero-worship etc. In my opinion, this is not a man worthy of admiration or a public forum to spread his opinions.

        It's really the slashdot editors' fault for bringing whatever the hell they're advertising to the attention of the wider audience that is slashdot. This pissed me off enough that I felt the need to remind people that the man is a nutjob.
        • "The children of the Mind" was a bit weak (one of the Ender sequels), but I have enjoyed all his other books that I read. I particularly enjoyed the "Alvin Maker" series.

          I wasn't aware of OSC's views on gay people. If that quote is actually his there are two problems:

          Government should not be regulating any behavior between consenting adults.
          Singling out gay people is no more defensible than singling out people by race or religion.

        • this is not a man worthy of admiration or a public forum to spread his opinions

          Good thing you're not in charge then. That's the beauty of this country - everyone is allowed to have an asshole and opinion.

          And opinions about assholes.

          Well, I suppose as long as you can afford it.

          And if you've not had a colostomy, in which case you have two assholes, but maybe only one opinion.

          Oh, well.

  • Similarity... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Psychic Burrito ( 611532 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @10:34AM (#6716850)
    If you like independent 3d animated movies that look great and feature robots, you might also take a look at Rustboy [rustboy.com].

    Cheers!

  • Out of date info (Score:3, Informative)

    by malducin ( 114457 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @12:53PM (#6717616) Homepage

    Also as a reference, Doug Chiang is no longer at ILM. He worked on the 2 prequels but left last year. He is the Art Director for Robert Zemeckis' Polar Express. VFX by Imageworks under the supervision of Ken Ralston:

    Doug Chiang update [dchiang.com]

    Also in his place Feng Zhu has joined the art team for Episode 3. He is this incredible artist that worked at Blur Studios. You can see more here:

    Meet the Episode III Art Department [starwars.com]
    Feng Zhu - Concept Artist [artbyfeng.com]

  • The terrible secret of the robots! From space!

    Will this book reveal the terrible secret of space!?
  • Like has been mentioned above, this is not new. It actually dates from October 2002. The original, high quality (720x390 DivX5, 93MB, uncompressed!!! sound) version has been available at Sparx* website [sparx.com] for some time now, and still appears to be available. If you have problems with their very Flash-heavy site, here [sparx.com]is the direct download link.

    Sparx* is the animation studio that did this trailer, and they are also the studio behind the very slick looking Molly Star Racer.

    • The Orphanage actually did at least one scene from one of the trailers. I haven't seen which one this is (there are two that I have so far along with the robot walking demo), they did the scene where you are flying over some small rolling hills and you see the giant pod-cities off in the distance.

      I know this because there is a movie of them talking about how great Maya is on Alias' site and they blend from an animated Maya scene to the final product. It's quite impressive.

      Both trailers and the demo are

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