Hacker News Reader

Comment by Eric_WVGG | Hacker News Reader

> Of course, if Max had been made using actual CGI he would have ended up as a creaky old relic, rather like the “Money for Nothing” video which came out the year after his debut. Instead, Jankel, Morton and Frewer came up with a genuinely iconic creation that has aged surprisingly well.

Ouch! Just last night, I couldn't sleep and wound up watching a deep dive on youtube regarding the video, one of the original animators even commented on the thread (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHJj25PBIhg)… calling "Money for Nothing" creaky and old is like criticizing 8 bit pixel art for being blocky. Yeesh.

View on HN

I think the music video actually holds up today, especially compared to some CG even in the 2000s (i.e. The Rock in the Mummy Returns). The 3D world is clean, bright and colorful. Yeah, it's blocky, but that can be seen as a style choice. These characters, microwave ovens, etc. could easily fit into the world of Katamari Damashii [0], for example.

I think Max Headroom was going for a different mood, and that style wouldn't have fit, but the style is perfectly fine in a vacuum.

0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHsFcSNFUMc

Old CG has a vibe all its own. Look at the Mind's Eye stuff for good examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35rjDpBHBxw

> calling "Money for Nothing" creaky and old is like criticizing 8 bit pixel art for being blocky. Yeesh.

Just tell the kids it's a tribute to Minecraft.

no Minecraft is a tribute to "Money for Nothing"

There are actually some scenes with a proper CGI Max (at least in the British/Channel 4 feature) where Bryce is working on an early demo, which show how this would have looked!

Underrated video. Underrated song.

Underrated video? It got a dozen Video Music Award nominations and won two, including "Video of the Year."

Piling on a bit, but it was also the first video they played when they launched MTV Europe.

https://direstraitsblog.com/blog/30-years-ago-money-nothing-...

It was the first CGI music video done by the folks that would do the first CGI TV show. I still have a soft spot for Reboot from my childhood

Reboot has been posted to youtube[1] and twitch according to the notes on that YT page.

In a reddit post on the above[2], I came across information that there is an 8-part documentary[3] on Reboot coming out from September 24th, along with a remaster of the series soon.[4]

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyKRWU_Bdvk [country restricted]

2. https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1fcew8l/reboot_the_...

3. https://www.youtube.com/@ReBootRewindDoc/videos

4. https://www.reddit.com/r/ReBoot/comments/1f2ltql/the_d1_deck...

That documentary sounds great, thanks! I hope they cover the remastering process, as I expect the challenges of using 90s 3D data formats on modern computers are nothing to sneeze at.

Money for Nothing is underrated now? I thought MTV even uses it when they splash their logo. Everyone knows it's great, video as well. I think it's neither underrated nor overrated. It's just rated.

Agree. I associate this song with wandering the halls of home depot, it is Poe's law in a song, indistinguishable from that which it satirizes

(I can't find what podcast it was that tells the story of the band absolutely not wanting to do this video, they hated MTV, "I want my MTV" at the head of the song is sung mockingly, but it's so iconic that MTV co-opted it as their brand - an amazing example of "what you resist persists")

Knopfler is a magician on the guitar.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com