The Prince of Egypt: A New Vision in Animation

Rating:
Summary: Spectacular and a definite God-send!
Review: "The Prince of Egypt" was a magnificient animated film that was is as eye-opening as it is spectacular! I do hope and pray that, Dream Works will in the future, re-create more and more Biblical stories so that this generation as well as others can learn about God. The book of Exodus literally opened up with every scene in the movie---I was astounded. God bless you all at Dream Works. A job well done!!

Rating:
Summary: Finest Animation book I have ever seen
Review: Anyone interested in animation should buy this book without hesitation (and see the movie). A must have book.

Rating:
Summary: Hardly a "new vision" in animation
Review: Disappointing movie, disappointing book. The Dreamworks animation team shouldn't quit their day jobs.

Rating:
Summary: Book is better than the cartoon.
Review: I'd have to agree with the above review from [e-mail] that this book doesn't show too much of the preliminary EARLY artwork. Unfortunately, that's because what you see in the book IS the Early artwork. And the lack of exploration shows on screen in a bland presentation of a great idea. I prefer the book to the cartoon, because I can take it in short doses.

Rating:
Summary: The focus of the book is the artwork, and not the text.
Review: The model for a "Making of ..." book must be "Toy Story" by John Lassetter & Steve Daly. It had artwork and designs from preliminary sketches through to realized shots, coupled with stories, techniques and anecdotes about the entire production start to finish.

Prince of Egypt comes close on the artwork front, but tends toward showing the final shots and some minor development work. The text is more concerned with captions for the pictures, with a section at the end of the book for some technique overviews and personal interviews.

Having said all this, for anyone (and I mean anyone!) who even remotely appreciates the artwork that animation is capable of rendering then this book is a must. The design of Prince of Egypt is the star of this book and to some degree the film too.

If you are looking for an indepth story of the films' production you will be disappointed. If you are looking for a record of the amazing work that is displayed on the theatre screen, then you can't go wrong with this title.

I recommend it as one of most visually stunning books around.

Rating:
Summary: A new vision in animation.
Review: The Prince of Egypt is the first animated film in history to SUCCESSFULLY integrate both traditional cell animation and computer generated images. A breathtaking film, with a scope rarely seen in films today, much less ANIMATED films. The Dreamworks team is a formidible new force in animation - they treat animation as an art form and as a storytelling medium. Not as a summer PRODUCT, like the Disney team. Disney could only hope to produce something this good.

Rating:
Summary: good book
Review: This book has some great images from the Prince of Egypt including stills from the movie, production work, and pre-production work. Unfortunately there's not a lot of text in the book; it's mostly just images with small blurbs in the corner of each page expaning on the image. In fact the book could be classified almost as a picture book, and less as a documentary on the production of the movie. There are a few pages at the end devoted to interviews with the animators and the rest of the production staff which are very interesting, unfortunately it isn't very long or thorough. I would have liked to hear more about the actual techniques used by the animators, layout, etc. Also, even though the images in the book are quite beautiful, I wish there was more thumbails from the animators, and more rough animation. Almost all of the animation drawings were cleaned up, which I find far less interesting than seeing the animators original lines.