‘Strange Magic’ Trailer: George Lucas’ Crazy Animated Fairy Tale
The trailer for ‘Strange Magic’ boasts that the film comes “from the mind of George Lucas.” That great big brain has dreamed up some of the greatest movies of all time. But it’s also produced its fair share of clunkers as well. (Apologies, ‘Radioland Murders’ devotees.) It’s unfair to write off a movie based on a 150-second trailer, but so far, ‘Strange Magic’ seems a lot closer to the latter than the former. Whoa, this looks insane.
At Yahoo! Movies, director Gary Rydstrom says that Lucas “really wanted to make a beautiful fairy tale with goblins and elves, and do it in a way that only [Lucasfilm] can do.” That’s a noble goal, though I’m not entirely sure where goofy cover versions of old pop songs fits into the “beautiful” part of this fairy tale. Lucas, of course, became a major force in Hollywood with 1973’s ‘American Graffiti,’ which was a huge success in part because of its vintage rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack. This is like ‘American Graffiti’ meets ‘Shrek’ meets Jar Jar Binks, ideas that sounds about as appetizing together as peanut butter and Chilean sea bass.
But hey, the voice cast is pretty great (Alan Cumming, Evan Rachel Wood, Maya Rudolph, Kristin Chenoweth, and more). Rydstrom also told Yahoo! that Lucas wanted ‘Strange Magic’ to be about “finding beauty in strange places.” Perhaps the movie will have a weird kind of magic all its own.