Promo Video for Animated The Ten Commandments

Speaking of Peter Chattaway, he has also dug out a featurette for the new animated version of The Ten Commandments due for release later this year as part of the Epic Stories of the Bible series.

As featurettes go, particularly for animated films, it's well done. There's footage of all four of the main actors (Ben Kingsley, Elliot Gould, Christian Slater and Alfred Molina) in recording, and few soundbites from them - Slater in particular, presumably because he'll play Moses. There are also some shots from the film (including the one captured above).

A few interesting points raised by the video. It's interesting that they opted to record the voices in the same way as The Miracle Maker, i.e. by trying to get the actors all together when they did the recording. They seem to be well versed on recent animated Bible films, there's also mention of The Prince of Egypt (Slater noting that this film goes beyond the parting of the sea). Also mentioned is DeMille's film. One of the talking heads mentions how you can't ignore The Ten Commandments (1956 version presumably) when filming this story.

Curiously though, they seem to have ignored the existence of some of the other live action versions of the Moses story. Several of those interviewed mention how this film will be different because it will portray a more human Moses. Whilst it's not surprising that they miss the fact that 1975's Moses the Lawgiver did just this, it's a strange thing to say when one of the film's stars, Ben Kingsley, also gave us a very human portrayal in the 1996 Moses. ABC's The Ten Commandments (2006) also attempted this, although it's likely that recording for this project was completed before this aired.