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Movies Made by The Movies
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cool site
game: The Movies
posted by: Aaron Stanton
publisher: Activision
developer: Lionhead Studios
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platform:
date posted: 09:00 PM Tue Dec 13th, 2005
last revision: 03:19 AM Wed Dec 14th, 2005


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Click to read.When famed game designer Peter Molyneux first discussed the concept behind The Movies, the gaming community bought into the possibilities.

This would be a machinima dream come true, a tool that could be used to design and make your own movies. People imagined a game that would allow them to set camera angles, script dialog, and build scenery without limit.

Yet when The Movies finally made it to the shelves, many people were disappointed. Not only were the camera and audio controls no-where near what people had hoped for, many of the features had to be unlocked to be usable. The dream of a system that would put gamers in control of a movie dimmed.

Even though The Movies has received solid reviews as a simulation game, its validity as a useful machinima tool has been called into question, and that\'s something Activision and Lionhead Studios would like to change.

As a consequence, they\'ve decided to highlight one specific example of fan created artwork made with The Movies.

And they chose to highlight a good one.

A quick glance at Lionhead\'s community website demonstrates two things very quickly: there are a lot of people using The Movies to create their videos, and most of them are not very good. Whether or not it is a fault of the tools, or the failure of design on the part of the fans, most of the movies available for download are poorly scripted, poorly timed, and generally inferior storytelling devices to those using more traditional machinima tools.

With 19,000 videos (according to the Activision press release) on The Movies\' community website, even the top rated seem to often fall somewhat short.

However, the fan created movie called The French Democracy is something else entirely. The movie is based on the riots that took place in October, 2005 in France. The riots went on for 20 nights, and ultimately resulted in the destruction of nearly 9,000 cars and 3,000 arrests.

While the primary participants in the riots were students, many have speculated that the true reason for the unrest was growing resentment of racial inequality. France does not recognize ethnic minorities and provide them special protections in the same way that the United States does; France only recognizes citizenship.

The French Democracy shows a version of the events leading up to and during the riots, using The Movies as a method for outlining the story. How accurate the facts are I can\'t say, but at the same time it\'s valuable as a perspective on the whole event. It conveys a meaningful story, and though the text can go buy rather quickly, it does justice to The Movies\' abilities and proves Activision\'s point.

Activision chose well in highlighting this particular video in their press releases.

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