Customer Reviews

Gate to the Mind's Eye

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I like this DVD... The 3D effects like waterfall, explosions, fire, water are top notch. The Quantum Mechanic "chapter" is my favorite... There is one scene showing "Hollow Man"-like figures and hands coming out of a surface. Spectacular! I wish I can learn to do all that. The music was clear and goes well with the motion (good synchronization), transitions, morphing and great beat. Good computer animated art with great music.

However, there are SOME scenes which aren't sharp as they should be... like viewing a VCD full screen. These could have been better, improved to more DVD-quality. Hence I give this DVD four stars and not five.

After viewing this DVD, I would certainly like to view the other DVDs in the Mind's Eye collection.

Based on the other reviews I thought I'd give this a chance - and
I'm glad I did. The music is fantastic - I would enjoy owning this DVD for the audio alone. It's not recorded in 5.1 or DTS -
however it you have a Prologic II receiver - the sounds are seperated nicely, and the affect is almost as good as 5.1 audio.
The animation flows extremely well with the music, and like most individuals who enjoy this kind of entertainment - it sends your mind in flight to the heights of imagination. Strongly recommended!!

I first saw this animation when it first came out in 1994 and was blown away. I wanted to share it so I gave the video away and regretted it ever since. I was pleasantly surprised to learn they had a DVD version I could now view on a 43 inch television system with surround sound.

This Gate to the Mind's Eye is a classic and part of computer animation history. I have never witnessed such a "flowing" of visual images done tastefully, capturing the human spirit, along with the music by Thomas Dolby that matches it. Particularly pleasing, pleasurable and extremely well done. One segment is superior to all others -- and that is the one to the song "In a Corner of Your Mind's Eye". It is unbelievable! A masterpirce of 3D animation that makes me wish they had a 3D computer animation MTV station.

How they bring you back through time making you feel as if you're experiencing ancient rooms of the Egyptians, Mayans, then looking into a city of few hundreds of years ago, and then bringing you into the future with "Quantum Mechanic" shows they are trying to encapsulate experiences throughout human history and into the future.

This DVD is so well done that in 2002 I cannot tell it was created in 1994 at the beginning of the computer revolution. All of these 3D segments are done with music. I was in awe of the mastery of the creativity behind these creations. It is the human spirit free to express itself in a flowing, visual form with music, never before as in this kind of medium.

Watch this DVD and see the human spirit soar with a sense of freedom, spontaneity and creativity you have rarely witnessed before. Until now humanity has only had static art forms and images, except for movies, -- only music could match the "flowing" of creativity and lift the human spirit to new heights. This kind of computer animation has changed that. It is the merging of music and visual imagery with intelligence that is truly unique and awe inspiring.

Thanks to Miramar and its artists and musicians for this wonderful experience into virtual reality it gave me!

Of the four main "Mind's Eye" titles, this is my favorite, so much so I upgraded from VHS to DVD.

Other reviewers have said "don't expect a plot," but the videos do revolve around a loosely connected storyline of destruction and resurrection in the history of mankind. (Except perhaps for "Nu Vogue," but it's such a cool segment, you won't mind not knowing where it fits in.) It's enough of a plot so that you feel a sense of resolution at the soaring conclusion of the disc.

Thomas Dolby's soundtrack is enjoyable, varied enough to be interesting but cohesive enough to give the disc a definite theme. We see here that he's definitely more diverse than just "She Blinded Me with Science."

The graphics, while now a few years out of date and not necessarily cutting-edge, are well-timed with the music and beautifully rendered.

The Gate to the Mind's Eye was put together from various computer generated animations. However, the glue that holds these pieces together is Thomas Dolby Robertson's incredible score. Some of his best works can be found here, from the haunting "Voyage of the Mind's Eye" and "N.E.O.," to the techno-ish "Big Bang Backwards" and "Quantum Mechanic," to the wild ride of "Nuvogue." One wonders if the music was matched to the animation or vice-versa: it's that good of a fit. Worth getting for the soundtrack alone.

I was just in high school when a new local video store started carrying animated films including this one and some of the others in the minds eye series. Out of the 4 or 5 different minds eye films I have seen, none comes close to the brilliance envoked in this feature. So much is the fact true that I have obtained it three times subsequently after losing the previous copy. It starts off with an apocolyptic war leading to the eventual demise of a planet. It then goes on into the thoughts and memories of one of its inhabitants making for a nice short story encompassed with the first 10 minutes or so. The rest of the film resembles things ranging from renaissance, cave paintings come to life, ancient civilizations, to the more modern and futuristic visuals of animals in their environments, robots, outer space and the unforgettable comedic performance of a parrot singing about money and eyes. Pair all of this up with Thomas Dolby's spaced out and soothing sounds, and you have yourself a contemporary classic that in my opinion can stand strong artistically 100 years from now when animations have excelled beyond our comprehension.

Together with 'Odyssey Into the Minds Eye', two of my favorite DVDs in my collection. They may be watched forever because the constant change of images and inventions cannot be retained by memory. Enormous visual pleasure with appropriate soothing sound track. There is something healing in this flow of beautiful worlds and mind conceptions.

This is a masterpiece of computer animation! A real crowd pleaser! It also has a fantastic soundtrack written and performed by the famous rock performer/composer "Mr. Thomas Dolby". You will be consumed by the picture and sound of this video. This title looks terriffic on a large screen. A MUST for your collection!

I didn't know what to expect. To be completely honest, I didn't know what it was when I bought it by accident. It literally blew me away when I watched the 1st time, the 2nd time, the 3rd time, and every time since. I would recommend however that you pause the screen after each segment to give the details a chance to set in. It starts great and ends even better!!!!

(The Gate To The Minds Eye) I've been watching the "original" version of The Gate To The Mind's Eye on CDV for a few years and it still is on my personal top ten movie list. However the quality of this DVD is strangely divided into good and bad. Some of the content is perfect and some is really bad. Lower quality than vhs. One thing that this DVD atually have improved is the sound. It is encoded in 5.1 and I found a lot of new sounds not found on the CDV version, but sometimes the music performed by Thomas Dolby suffers when the effects sounds has a greater volume that the music has. Still The Gate... is what it is and I give it a ten. ------------------- (Televoid) This movie is much darker in the compilation of it. The Gate is by me seen as a film explaining one way of destroing the earth and the nature's rebirth of it again. Televoid is more about the dark side of life. Death, skeletons and strange psychadelic artcompositions together with true rock'n'roll makes televoid more an experimental movie than a beautifull one. Quite interresting to look at, but in some places just a copy of The Gate.