Comic-Con: Immortals Panel and Footage Reaction

I have written about Tarsem’s “Immortals” before several times, included my first write-up from the films panel at this years Wonder-Con in San Francisco.  I have been eagerly awaiting the visionary’s next film since being introduced to “The Fall”, a masterpiece in my opinion.  The footage at Wonder-Con was good but the panel was much better. Tarsem is an extremely energetic person both behind and in front of the camera. He’s a director that knows what he wants and goes and gets it.  In fact, he has a style that I know a lot of people don’t really mesh well with.  He actually makes his films with the visuals in mind firsts and trusts that a story will fall into place eventually.  “The Fall” is the perfect example of visuals being the top priority.

At Saturdays panel, he talked about how he was very much looking forward to making a film in a much more controlled environment and seeing the result of that.  “The Fall” took two years to film and spread out over 18 different countries.  Also, the visuals effect shots in the fall can be counted on one hand.  “Immortals” is quite a different movie.  While similar in scope, there is no denying the film is chalk-full of visual effects shots and trades plane rides to locations for studio time.   The few trailers we have seen have showed you brief glimpses at the world he has created and the action that would take place.  While I love both so far, I felt like there was something missing.  The film has yet to be rated so I was curios if we were going to see a film along the lines of “300”, as both films share a producer, or more child safe fare like “Clash of the Titans.”  Saturday, we got our answers.

Besides being shown a beautiful extended trailer for the film, we were also treated to an exclusive fight sequence between gods and titans.  In my earlier “Immortals” piece I assumed that Tarsem might be looking to widen his fan base by shooting for a PG-13 rating. I was wrong. The film is not shying away from that “R” rating at all.  I liken the footage we saw to that fast/slow action that Zach Snyder is famous forr, but on a snort of crack.  It’s faster but the camera is still.  The gods move from victim to victim in almost bullet-time motion.   The gods use every weapon at their disposal to dispatch limb after limb.  Bodies are split, heads roll and blood is sent in all different directions.  The blood is slightly more realistic then that of the Spartan warriors lead by King Leonidas.  In the scene we see the titans let out of their prison while five gods descend from the heavens.  Leading the way is Zeus (Luke Evans) with Poseidon (Kellan Lutz) and three other gods in tow.  Lutz quipped during the panel that he watched “The Little Mermaid” to prepare for his role.  However, you won’t see Ariel’s dad use his trident the way Tarsems’ god of the sea does.  The gods move with am Achilles like grace and appear to be twice as fast as their titan counterparts.

I feel that “Immortals” looks better and better every time something new presents itself to me.  I think I’m being overly optimistic about the film, but nothing up to this point has led me astray from the director and his vision of this film.  11-11-11 can’t come soon enough.