Ask Movie Slate - Fury

Ask Movie Slate - Episode 164

Featuring (from left to Right):

You know what sucks of war movies like "Fury"? That you can't make them too colorful or else they look out of place. The one thing that got me of that movie is that, while it does have some scenes full of color, the big majority of the film has this very washed out, bleak, colorless filter to it. I guess it's fine for the movie, but by the time I was done drawing this one my eyes could only register things in (sad) shades of blue and green. Also, sky. I'm not sure about you but I've been getting sick of drawing skies cluttered with clouds. This one does have some clouds but less than other pics I've done. Clear skies are nice.

"Fury" is a very atypical war movie. It still has the classic tropes with the hardass leader, the rookie, the Bible-thumping believer (a rather impressive Shia LaBeouf), the cameos from British actors to play the British soldiers, the Germans being super bad guys, and all the messages about war being bad, people dying so much is also bad, there's more casualties in war being the human spirit one of them, so and so on. But despite all that, it manages to go around many of them and even play around with many of these cliches. It manages to deliver a good message and good characters without it being preachy, and it shows the horrors of war without being exploitative. It's not as good as "Thin Red Line" but it's not as extreme as "Saving Private Ryan" either. It's a good middle ground, and I'd recommend any war movie enthusiast to give it a watch if you haven't already.

There is a story behind this drawing. I'm not so much into videogames, but a few years ago I was introduced to World of Tanks, and I became a regular player around the time "Fury" was in theaters. They even played a commercial for the videogame before the movie even started. I wasn't alone in this tanking trend, of course, because a bunch of my friends were also into the game. So quite a few months ago (just so you get an idea, this sketch was done way before I went to BronyScot) I put together this drawing, featuring all of my friends' OCs as the crew of the tank Fury. I bet you'd be wondering why not making Movie Slate the commander of the tank. Well, not only do I think she'd be a terrible commander, but how often will I have the chance to have Movie Slate straddling the cannon of an armored vehicle like that? The one running joke my friends and I have is that we are all 12 years old. I think that's why I went with such a juvenile joke ^_^

Please, let me know what you think of it in the comments. I appreciate and every single one I receive.

Thank you!

You can check the update on Movie Slate's blog right here.

Art by James Corck