Customer Rating: 




Summary: It's The best
Comment: I've read both sides of this review and find that this Minds Eye video featuring Kerry Livgren is amazing. It is one thing to make music, but a whole new thing for animation to be given to you and your are asked to put music to it. Kerry Livgren did a great job! And the animation was great too.
I find that those who are the most critical of this series are usually people interested in animation(CGI) or already have some experience in animation. They always criticize another's work as though they can do better. Well then go ahead and make your own and submit it for review let's see what ya got! As for me I loved it and reccomend to all. Oh yeah, one more thing..Horray for Free Speech!
Customer Rating: 




Summary: Worst of the bunch
Comment: I've been a fan of the minds eye videos since the beginning, but this one is a huge dissapointment. There's nothing on here that is very impressive, the music is bad and the DVD production is horrible. The minds eye series used to be cutting edge computer graphics, but this one seem to be amature computer graphics produced by amatures.
Customer Rating: 




Summary: Odyssey into Tripe
Comment: The only two reasons you would consider viewing this are because you're a fan of the Mind's Eye series or interested in CGI in general. Take note: it doesn't live up to either standard. Don't purchase it, even used -- in fact, don't even rent it, or borrow it from a friend that may have been duped into owning it. If you are forced, or yet choose, to watch this, mute the television and play a deep ambient soundtrack instead. The only quote from the back cover which can be trusted is "Strap yourself in..." You'll have to if you intend on watching through the end. Both the musical score and the CGI are themselves inept -- taken together, even worse.
The "camera" motion, when not stuttering behind moving objects, is too clinical, you can almost feel the programmer's commands... "turn POV left, stop. Pan up, stop. Zoom, stop." The content suffers the same fate of poor production. For instance, the first vignette, 'Oceanic Celebration,' is simply a montage of marine settings. They've taken this collection and given it a title and not much else -- sort of like the dolphin screensaver theme you can buy from an office supply store. Some of the other segments at least have a little story, and 'Out of Step' has a little lesson, but even then you're subject to the amateur editing -- quick and redundant cuts between scenes and camera angles.
The quality of the CGI itself is underwhelming, not bad, but not good either. But let's say you're willing to watch this anyways. You will still have to deal with the soundtrack. The cover quotes "Powered by a soaring original score from KERRY LIVGREN, founder and former guitarist of legendary rock group Kansas." Right there you know you're holding a winner. I suppose some of the tracks aren't horrible, but taken in context with the content, this is just a marketing concept gone awry. The rock score not only clashes with the whole idea of CGI, but it doesn't even match the animation in each piece. (Correction: there is a single minute of synchronicity, with the festive hammer in 'Out of Step' -- but its little theme is so jarring from the rest of the piece that you shake your head anyways.) That's bad enough, and then you get to the vocal tracks with 'One Dark World' and 'Aspen Moon' -- these are perhaps the only redeeming value of this odyssey, which at its worst moments will at least finally make you laugh.
Customer Rating: 




Summary: Outstanding !!! I recomend this. 5 Stars
Comment: Graphics were great!! There were (I believe) 11 tracks, and each track was different in theme, which added spice to the DVD. The entire musical theme was done in a rock musical format, with several tracks (2 or 3) actually had singing in it by Kerry Livgren (who was a member of the group: Kansas). I felt that the music went extremely well with the graphics!! It was very upbeat, not radical or harsh in any way, and there was very little singing in it - just music that helps sweep you away with the beautiful graphics. If you dont like Rock, you may not like this DVD, but I still recomend giving it a try. Some tracks featured spacey worlds, one had dinosaurs, spaceships, underwater scene with a dolphin being chased by a sea monster, tropical islands, robots, and just far out computer animation! Highly recomended - I'd say that this is the best Computer Graphics DVD I've purchased (out of 6 so far).
Customer Rating: 




Summary: Best of the bunch
Comment: I have most all of the CG animations. Beyond and Gate are good as well but this one has the most moving graphics with the best sounds. Very, very cool. If you like this kind of thing at all, Into The Minds Eye is a definite MUST HAVE !!!!