I think it was interesting, but I was expecting something more groundbreaking.
As others have said, it's basically a set of interviews. They are generally interesting interviews, but more behind the scene footage on the life of the team would have been more interesting imho.
I'm also not convinced by the per-player segmentation. It just feel like 10 mini-movies put end to end. I think it would have been much more interesting to have a per-event (or something else) segmentation and have interviews about specific events.
The interviews are nice, but there is too much of "this guy would be world 1st if he trained enough". In that regard, I think the most interesting interviewee was Huk because he didn't only talked about positive things but also about the weaknesses (and did in a respectful manner).
Music is WAY too loud (or voices not enough). I had to adjust the volume every single time it switched from music to voice and vice-versa.
The graphic design is really so fucking good :-) Loved the text outlining the questions and the small drawing to illustrate some points. I also think the music choice is very good.
I am dissapoint. It starts with interviews and it ends with interviews, one player after the other. There is no overarching story or direction in the movie... no tension, no relief, no beginning and no end... It's interesting to watch if you are interested allready in the team, but for someone who isn't a fanboy and doesnt know the game very well I think this format is too boring... I saw the trailer and somehow expected a more epic documentary.
I found it a huge let down. Simply because it all felt too scripted, people tend to say less interesting things when put in front of a camera in an interview, because it's not spontaneous (even though there were a few funny quotes). In the end it would have been more interesting to see more raw footage of the players - for example - watching their team members in the finals of a major tournament or interviewing someone after a big win or loss. Or watching a TL party or bbq, only in this setting I feel we can get a true picture of what life in TeamLiquid is like.
Maybe my expectation of a true behind the scenes was a wrong one, the title in this sense does not realy fit; because there is no high and low during the film, there is no arc of tension through the movie that builds up and goes down. There is neither a conclusion or wrap up. It's all a little too polished, too much work has been put into painting a marketing picture perfect image. It leans more towards a: 'why should you join the TL team' or 'you should totally sponsor this team' movie. It doesn't have to be like this, I think nothing should be hidden, because no one is perfect. In the end, it's all good, if TL manages to learn from their first attempt.
Probably because of all the hype, it got, the delays, the everything, but this documentary series of interviews was not at all anything of quality. The production was meh, the sound levels were awful, and the few cool visual set-ups were sometimes ruined by shoddy camera-work.
The biggest problem is that everyone basically said 1 fact and mountains of praise about each player. TLO has a beard and is awesome, Hayder is funny and awesome, Jinro is dedicated and awesome, etc. It got to the point where I couldn't sit through what felt like a scripted circle-jerk.
But I think that this was somewhat unintentional, and happened because of the fact that the director felt apt to break the film into 10 10ish minute segments, focusing on players. This was a terrible choice because they simply spread too thin the material, leaving us with no new knowledge, no new ideas, and just a rehash of things everybody knows (beard, Hayder-v-Neastea). It doesn't do justice to Liquid, it doesn't do justice to the players
The one good thing about this documentary, strangely enough, is HuK. I always find HuK extremely awkward and stilted in interviews- he just seems like a rather unhappy, reserved, guy who doesn't like talking in front of a camera (just what it seems, I could be wrong). But he gave a little bit of a more measured insight into the players, at least addressing some of their (obvious) flaws. With only 10 seconds to talk, he couldn't hit on much, but I was hoping that Liquid Rising would be a behind-the-scenes expose on a team that has often struggled than 90 minutes of "aren't we all just so great?"
Liquid Rising was really disappointing. Much more flash-in-the-pan than lighting-in-a-bottle.
I got disappointed by this to be honest. It feels like whoever directed this documentary had no creativity what so ever. The entire movie was a bunch of interwievs but even that could have been made more creative, like you interview them directly after a game, togheter when they are at some party or hotellobby or what ever. Now it was like one and a half over with exactly the same style of interviews, the players sit on a chair one by one and someone reads question from a paper. Its still interesting to listen to the interviews ofcourse but it could have been so much more.. so much better...
I think one of the reasons for the letdown was simply the word "liquid documentary", so everyone had expectations on what the word documentary would entail.
Though it wasn't really a documentary so much, it was still very interesting. I would have liked to have it expand on the time line of the history of team liquid; the earlier days got passed over very quickly. It did let allow a good view of the individual players, but didn't really give too much insight on the team as a whole.
On June 25 2012 02:38 phiinix wrote: I think one of the reasons for the letdown was simply the word "liquid documentary", so everyone had expectations on what the word documentary would entail.
Not realy, the initial promotional text stated that they were following around the players for two years during their tournament visits. Unless the movie was accidently changed, I think we didnt get to see much of what was in the trailer because the movie was basically an interview:
Well done =] Very much a fan movie , wish it was a little more inviting for people who arn't really following the eSports thing but was still worth the watch. GJ guys keep it up =]
it's very impressive to me that Liquid does so much
some organizations are good teams with good sponsors, good players, good coaches. venues do a great job collaborating with MLG, NASL, GOM, etc. to produce great content. there are a lot of dedicated Starcraft 2 sites with game information, and there also other great forums out there.
however, Liquid stands out. Liquid has a great team, great management (barring he who bans me on occasion), a great General and Starcraft forum, blogs, a comprehensive database both Korean and non-Korean, liquipedia, streams, and a bunch of other stuff that is probably really high quality even though i haven't made use of it myself.
normally i'd leave a site that bans me so often, especially after i bought team liquid gear. however, because of all the great stuff team liquid does, it is not only an indispensable resource; i also have a lot of respect for the people who run this show. hopefully in future update r1ch links my team liquid purchases to my account so that i am banned less frequently (one other option is to just post in the high thread when i'm feeling volatile)
This wasn't really waht I was expecting tbh. This felt like 10 mini interviews, edited tgthr with some music and simple graphics. What we were lead to believe was that we would be following the players around for a longer period. I watched the full movie, and I have to say...I was rather dissapointed. I don't know if you can call this a documentary really, cos it feels more like a interview with the liquid team (with HuK thrown in). On the other hand I really liked seeing more behind the scene interviews, and would have enjoyed even more "behind the scene moments", which we normally don't see. Is there any more footage that we can check out?
I was expecting something more like Natgeo documental about Xellos or the one about Boxer, it has some interesting things like TLO story of his name, but i think it can´t really be called a documentary, a little big dissapointed by this, but still thanks for the work.
Well, I really loved the music and the visuals (text, graphics, comic strips). I don't understand that some people complain about the music being too loud. The increase in the volume added atmosphere without being annoying. Also the comic strips were incredibly awesome! The whole documentary was interesting. I especially liked the parts with Huk and Nazgul as they seemed most informative. Other than that I would have wished to see more behind-the-scene footage from tournaments or everyday situations. The interviews could have been somewhat shorter, too.
EPT
