Animated epic 9 puts the familiar end-of-the-world premise through a weirdness meat grinder to produce a tribe of bug-eyed, burlap-skinned creatures who wander a wasteland infested with giant, insectlike robots.
At least that's the scenario laid out in this eye-grabbing 9 trailer from first-time feature director Shane Acker.
With Elijah Wood voicing one of nine dolls brought to life by a mad-scientist inventor, 9 could take off as a sleeper geek hit when it arrives at theaters in September. It originated as an 11-minute animated short made by Acker when he was a film student at UCLA. The piece got nominated for an Oscar and found its way to fantasy auteur Tim Burton, who lobbied Focus Features to finance a full-length version.
Talking about the inspiration for 9's eerie heroes, Acker tells Wired.com: "I don't know where those characters came from, but they've been kicking around in my head for years. Maybe it came from The Velveteen Rabbit story I read as a kid. I wanted to take these makeshift dolls made out of scraps and bits and pieces of found objects and set down into this world where humanity is dying."
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