Richard Linklater has just announced that he’s adding a third rotoscoped animated movie to his library of films—although this latest one sounds a tad more wholesome than 2006's fugue state odyssey A Scanner Darkly. Per Deadline, Linklater is working with Netflix on Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Adventure, a moon landing story with a heavy dose of Boyhood-style nostalgia added on for that proper “coming-of-age” effect.
Starring Jack Black, Zachary Levi, Glen Powell, Josh Wiggins, Milo Coy, Lee Eddy, Bill Wise, Natalie L’Amoreaux, Jessica Brynn Cohen, Sam Chipman, and Danielle Guilbot, the film was shot in live-action back in March, and will now—per the same technique that produced Scanner and Linklater’s earlier Waking Life—be drawn over by animators to create the rotoscoped effect. The narrative reportedly follows two lines, one focused directly on the people striving to execute the Apollo 11 moon landing in summer 1969, and the other on a young boy watching from his home, swept up in the throes of moon fever. (Figurative moon fever, that is. There’s no actual fever on the moon. Do not ask questions about moon fever.) You will not be especially shocked, then, to learn that Richard Linklater himself was just shy of 9 years old when Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, which helps to explain his enthusiasm for the project.
“It struck me years ago that this was my film to make, from both a chronological and proximity level. I was there, going into 3rd grade,” Linklater said in a statement today. “Our unique animation style allows both the conjuring of a world long gone, and the flowing, playful expression of memory and imagination. It’s been a fun, creative journey to incorporate things like 3D graphics into a live action shoot to help bring this story to life.”
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Another astronomy-themed movie from Linklater, following Before Sunrise, Sunset and Midnight.
What does the dark side of the moon look like?
I don’t know, but if you happen to get there before me,
Leave a message in the dust just for me.
Whaddya mean? It’s ALL bloody dark!
There is no dark side of the moon. Matter of fact its all dark.
IT NEVER HAPPENED! LOL! The radiation would have nuked them all! Why are Australians so keen to protect themselves from the ozone layer? Why aren’t they walking around the moon today, when modern technology is vastly superior (a modern ipod has more computing power than the whole of NASA in the 60’s); couldn’t get past the Van Allen Belt!! GULLIBLES TRAVELS!! lol! – Breadmaker, Leicester, 3/6/2013 15:29
Let’s hope he knows more about breadmaking than astrophysics.
I’m always surprised by how many people fall for this kind of crap. And I tire of telling people that if they think landing on the moon was impossible, they should stop to think about how difficult faking it would have been.
Linklater = Guaranteed watch.
Burn him!…wait, “watch”? Then, um, never mind.
Vincent Price’s best film? Watchfinder General.
Tarantino originally wrote Walken’s role in “Pulp Fiction” for Price, as a reference to that movie.
I mean, he could go verite and film the moon landing where it happenedArizona
I’d be there i a heartbeat if this was live action. I’d even give it a shot if it was hand drawn animation. That rotoscope technique looks plastic, sloppy and completely heartless. I’ll be giving this one a pass.
Counterpoint: Undone is a terrific use of rotoscoping.
Same people working on this as Undone.
That’s good news.
Reckon he’ll knock this one out in less than a decade?
But, how will he fetishize Texas from the Moon?
Maybe he can work in something about, I don’t know, Houston, maybe. Not sure how that would work.
He’ll put this on the soundtrack: