My copy of Elephants Dream arrived yesterday. It is a movie created by five guys in a period of eight months using entirely open source software. The movie lasts 11 minutes. The DVD also includes all production files freely available under a Creative Commons license. It looks beautiful. The animations are a bit jerky, but can be forgiven. That said, the crew started the project without a script. It shows. The movie is weird. By weird, I mean nonsensical. Here is a blurb from the back of the box:

Proog is tenacious, guiding curious Emo through the depths of a surreal mechanical landscape that forms his world. The pair are heading to the safest place in the machine, hidden behind uncanny traps so deadly that nothing else could ever reach them.

Huh? A movie does not need boobs, babes and bad guys to be good. But this story fails to impress me. At least the open source community benefited from the new technology the team developed for the project. The team also showed that open source tools are adequate for professional level projects.