It's working in its own unique style, which I love and hope to see in full. The deliberate retro-70s/80s sci-fi with touches of Flash G, Tron and some Japanese fantasy (which also work within their budget limits but don't let that limit their imagination) can go either way in full form, but I like your dedication. It's telling that you want to use money not to upgrade the effects but to add a stop motion character. That's the kind of indie spirit I can get behind.
Thanks, 1SO! I'm glad the style and influences seem to be working for you. I'm pretty satisfied with the balance we struck between playing within the retro style and not getting bogged down by it. It will be great to hear some outside perspective once it's been released though!
The stop-motion character has been something we've really been dying to pull off. We have the scene all filmed and the character story-boarded in, and even someone to animate the stop-motion itself, but we've tried several iterations on making a puppet ourselves and just haven't been able to make it work. IMO falling back to CG would undercut the whole scene, even though we use plenty of CG elsewhere out of necessity all of the characters have been practical and it would drastically change the feel of the project I think. We've consulted some real model-makers and have a plan ready to go, so I'm really excited to see it finally happen.
Like 1SO, that's the kind of well-intentioned serious-but-silly movie I can get behind. It seems entirely uncynical, which I like.
Thanks Junior! Uncynical is great to hear! None of us would have been interested in working this hard on something that wasn't made out of genuine enthusiasm, despite it being very silly, so I'm glad it shows.