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The Gate to the Mind's Eye

The Gate to the Mind's Eye

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Masterpiece of 3D Animation set to Music
Review: I first saw this animation when it first came out in 1994 and was blown away. I wanted to share it so I gave the video away and regretted it ever since. I was pleasantly surprised to learn they had a DVD version I could now view on a 43 inch television system with surround sound.

This Gate to the Mind's Eye is a classic and part of computer animation history. I have never witnessed such a "flowing" of visual images done tastefully, capturing the human spirit, along with the music by Thomas Dolby that matches it. Particularly pleasing, pleasurable and extremely well done. One segment is superior to all others -- and that is the one to the song "In a Corner of Your Mind's Eye". It is unbelievable! A masterpirce of 3D animation that makes me wish they had a 3D computer animation MTV station.

How they bring you back through time making you feel as if you're experiencing ancient rooms of the Egyptians, Mayans, then looking into a city of few hundreds of years ago, and then bringing you into the future with "Quantum Mechanic" shows they are trying to encapsulate experiences throughout human history and into the future.

This DVD is so well done that in 2002 I cannot tell it was created in 1994 at the beginning of the computer revolution. All of these 3D segments are done with music. I was in awe of the mastery of the creativity behind these creations. It is the human spirit free to express itself in a flowing, visual form with music, never before as in this kind of medium.

Watch this DVD and see the human spirit soar with a sense of freedom, spontaneity and creativity you have rarely witnessed before. Until now humanity has only had static art forms and images, except for movies, -- only music could match the "flowing" of creativity and lift the human spirit to new heights. This kind of computer animation has changed that. It is the merging of music and visual imagery with intelligence that is truly unique and awe inspiring.

Thanks to Miramar and its artists and musicians for this wonderful experience into virtual reality it gave me!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Example of 3D Animation and Effects
Review: I like this DVD... The 3D effects like waterfall, explosions, fire, water are top notch. The Quantum Mechanic "chapter" is my favorite... There is one scene showing "Hollow Man"-like figures and hands coming out of a surface. Spectacular! I wish I can learn to do all that. The music was clear and goes well with the motion (good synchronization), transitions, morphing and great beat. Good computer animated art with great music.

However, there are SOME scenes which aren't sharp as they should be... like viewing a VCD full screen. These could have been better, improved to more DVD-quality. Hence I give this DVD four stars and not five.

After viewing this DVD, I would certainly like to view the other DVDs in the Mind's Eye collection.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Example of 3D Animation and Effects
Review: I like this DVD... The 3D effects like waterfall, explosions, fire, water are top notch. The Quantum Mechanic "chapter" is my favorite... There is one scene showing "Hollow Man"-like figures and hands coming out of a surface. Spectacular! I wish I can learn to do all that. The music was clear and goes well with the motion (good synchronization), transitions, morphing and great beat. Good computer animated art with great music.

However, there are SOME scenes which aren't sharp as they should be... like viewing a VCD full screen. These could have been better, improved to more DVD-quality. Hence I give this DVD four stars and not five.

After viewing this DVD, I would certainly like to view the other DVDs in the Mind's Eye collection.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Boooring!
Review: I've seen this piece of work on the laserdisc, and although the graphics are better than "Beyond the Mind's Eye," which is the only other one that I've seen, overall, it was quite a letdown. I expected better music from Thomas Dolby. This could work well as a background piece, but it's definitely not as entertaining as "Beyond."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best of the 3 'Mind's Eye' vids
Review: Let me start by saying Thomas Dolby's original soudtrack is superb and sets this compilation apart from the first two. The somewhat coherent 'plot' to call it such adds to the viewing pleasure. Definate two thumbs up!!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Another fine computer animation journey from Odyssey
Review: Like the others in the Mind's Eye series, this work tries to tackle all of the frontiers of computer animation set to great music of the day. I bought all three Mind's eye DVD's and I find this one the most ho-hum. That's not to say it isn't excellent package relative to its genre. The hundreds of short animated clips are crudely strung together into something resembling a weak storyline. Dolby's soundtrack is uninspiring compared to the work of Ian Hammer and Kerry Livgren on the other Odyssey works. The animation lacks any kind of unified theme. There is no art quality like was present in "Beyond the Mind's Eye", or thrill-ride quality that was present in "Odyssey into the Mind's Eye". To someone who is new to this genre I recommend looking at the other "Mind's Eye" works first.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An enjoyable cyber-journey
Review: Of the four main "Mind's Eye" titles, this is my favorite, so much so I upgraded from VHS to DVD.

Other reviewers have said "don't expect a plot," but the videos do revolve around a loosely connected storyline of destruction and resurrection in the history of mankind. (Except perhaps for "Nu Vogue," but it's such a cool segment, you won't mind not knowing where it fits in.) It's enough of a plot so that you feel a sense of resolution at the soaring conclusion of the disc.

Thomas Dolby's soundtrack is enjoyable, varied enough to be interesting but cohesive enough to give the disc a definite theme. We see here that he's definitely more diverse than just "She Blinded Me with Science."

The graphics, while now a few years out of date and not necessarily cutting-edge, are well-timed with the music and beautifully rendered.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Better at the end
Review: The animation is technically of good quality but some of it is there just to show off how nearly realistic computer animation can be. This is all well and good but has the flavor of the early days of the Moog synethesizer, which tried to imitate real instruments and eventually only mocked them. There is a waterfall in particular which is stunning, except that it really isn't a waterfall, and so what is the point? A picture is better. When the synthesizer started being an instrument in and of itself, things improved, and this DVD improves dramatically at #6, a 20s jazz rehash featuring a chorus line of silver, mechanical parrots. Very definitely worth seeing. There is some message to it, I fear, but it seems to be about the level of a midnight conversation with a barkeep in a faded and empty hotel bar. The music is good. The music in #7 is good too, the sort of thing that urban music ought to be. Mr. Dolby doesn't present a theme and then repeat it 7 or 15 or 31 times; he does us the favor of considering that we might be sensate. Like all of Mr. Dolby's music, nothing grates, one is fantastic, and the rest is electronic noodling. But my congratulations to him: after "She Blinded Me with Science" and our Fred Astaire parrots, he is now a two-trick pony.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Well
Review: There isn't really anything wrong with this DVD, it just isn't what I thought it would be. I don't know why, but after reading some reviews I thought it was a film of real-time events and locations (like Baraka), but it was all computer animated. The animation is cool, but not really my style. Maybe I'm not the right person to be typing up a review. Just ignore everything I said.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Well
Review: There isn't really anything wrong with this DVD, it just isn't what I thought it would be. I don't know why, but after reading some reviews I thought it was a film of real-time events and locations (like Baraka), but it was all computer animated. The animation is cool, but not really my style. Maybe I'm not the right person to be typing up a review. Just ignore everything I said.


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