they didn't have any new tool for the tree. what tool would that supposed to be?

actually there weren't any big new features at all. originally the goal was to show-off stuff like fire, smoke, fluids, crowds,... but none of that worked out in the limited time. they had enough to do with getting blender 2.5 somewhat stable. i think the fire looked nice though even if it wasn't realistically simulated but some fake turbulent texture stuff.

what's the problem with the collapsing dragon cave? you can see that the dragon destroys some of the pillars in the fight. to me you seem to see problems everywhere where they aren't any? at least not big ones. hey, dragons don't exist! that was a big flaw in the plot.

Well I don't know - I didn't really use Blender before 2.5 (maybe they tested the new sculpting, painting, multi-resolution stuff in it). Just for what other reason should they have preferred the tree over things like some actual dialogue with the old man? The way it is the tree makes no sense and adds nothing to the story despite looking cool. Still it's not just a nice setting like that ruin Sintel runs up while Scales is chasing the birds but the movie totally fails to communicate anything about that so they in my opinion should rather have done something that actually adds to the story or the atmosphere instead of this "Wow - a tree on the weapon!", "Wow - it's the actual tree!", "Wow - the dragon cave is right next to it!"...


The collapsing cave of course doesn't ruin the movie but for me it's the cherry on the cake in terms of a cheap and random story. On the one hand it's a cheap cliché and on the other hand they made it a stupid turn of events as the cave of course waits with its collapse until the dragon is dead and the "Now we reveal her true look"-scene has finished. It doesn't make any sense but just happens because the authors felt like this should happen now. It also doesn't really help the atmosphere as it pulls you out of the mood in order to be put into it again with the ending scene. From an emotional point of view (and that's what the movie in my opinion aims at) it would have been way better if she would have had a scene with the corpse. They rather chose to interrupt the entire scene setting with that "stupid" collapsing cave...


Well my complaint is that the movie throws random events together and doesn't think things to the end. I gave all the examples for it like the apple box nobody cares for, the disappearing chicken, the decision to search for Scales (the movie lacks to tell the reasons for it as it would seem Scales got picked up again by his parents - at least the movie gives no other reason for dragons flying around in order to take baby dragons with them) and all that stuff around the tree and the cave...

To me this really are major flaws as they pretty much kill any flow of the story which now consists of a collage of random scenes. Those flaws are different to the minor things you easily can ignore. Like for example that the old man tells that she's in the realm of dragons or something and the tree seems to be the symbol for it but in the end it's just a cave with one dragon the tree really relates to so why would you give this "realm" that symbol (and who was that bandit anyway that he had such a weapon)? Things like that are negligible though and you cannot expect that things are either explained or even thought through for such a simple short movie project. The scenes you present should make sense though and deliver a good story telling which is where Sintel in my opinion really is lacking...

i like the atmosphere the tree creates. i don't know what dragon trees are for in the world of the movie. dragons seem to have the need to be protected somehow and the trees in front of the caves kind of give away where dragons live so they seem to be a bit of a security problem. but to me it's fun to wonder about such stuff and i don't immediately see it as a flaw.

yes, now that you say it, the timing of the cave collapse really is a bit strange. but if you are nitpicky you can can find such things in almost any movie.

all in all i agree with you that the story is a bit too choppy and could have been told with more flow if the movie had been a few minutes longer.

I wouldn't say that it is finished in all respects, but it works for many many people, me included.
Here a quote from the replies in the Sintel blog:

Maybe, it is mainly about our expectations and our feelings, before we start viewing the movie, whether our feelings glue everything together or tear everything apart.
I'm guilty of the wish that everything fits, so for me the empathy with the main character worked, and the end didn't distract me but surprised me in a welcomed way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN6w6GnN-Ic
the sintel making of is on youtube now.

...and here is elephants dream in 3d:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-tmaMR1p3
works nicely in cross eyed mode.

I very much disagree that this video has 'odd plot parts' or random events. From a story-telling perspective it was actually pretty well done, especially because it contains quite a few scenes in which the viewer is exploring as much as the main character is. It makes things unpredictable and interesting. It doesn't feature that much lines of speech either, so what gives if the story jumps a bit?

Don't forget it's incredibly and extremely difficult to tell a good (AAA) and complete story in under 15 minutes with enough visual content to feel like a month's worth of adventuring around. I thought that they have achieved their main goal of producing a serious-quality short independent video with Blender as their main tool.

http://www.blendernation.com/2010/11/06/sintel-in-dutch-newspaper (a translation got posted in the comments)

ton roosendaal's longer term goal apparently is to do a full length movie with a budget of 20 millions. it would be great for blender if that worked out somehow.

I am very deeply impressed by this video in every way. The story is truly intense and emotional, animations are great, facial expressions are convincing, the environments are absolutely amazing. I always had to stop to look at those details. You cant catch them all when you just look the video, the huts are full of great details, there is such a great medieval street in construction, each stone is geometry, so much work. The lighting is fantastic. The music was simply great. This is a masterpiece and I can only congratulate the makers of it.

For me it worked exactly the other way around compared to Toast. I did not have high expectations for this one and I am really surprised by the quality they delivered.

http://sintelgame.org/

german article mentioned it at its end:
http://www.golem.de/1010/78374.html

The soundtrack is stunning, especially the song in the end.