Originally Posted By actingforanimators Actually, mawnck, it's a vastly different division than it was two years ago when HOTR was released, and in fact it is a vastly different division than it was in April of this year. And while Lasseter is not a Fairy Godmother, I'm more than willing to bank on something better than the past five years, significantly better. No, it won't be that easy, but good film never is. It will, however, be much, much, much easier than it has been for well over a decade and that alone is reason to look forward with some measure of hope and enthusiasm.
Originally Posted By basil fan I like Home on the Range. Better than Cars. Disney Glitches <a href="http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/glitch/dglitch.html" target="_blank">http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/ glitch/dglitch.html</a>
Originally Posted By Labuda Great news that Disney will be returning to the traditional animation that hooked me in the first place! Don't get me wrong, I love PIxar and their CGI work, but I'm a traditional animation girl at heart. Long live Lasseter!
Originally Posted By mawnck >>I'm more than willing to bank on something better than the past five years, significantly better.<< Your words to God's ear. And you're the person who should know. I just get twitchy when I hear the reins are being handed over to the artists under the theory that "that'll fix it." I've sat through way too many Don Bluth movies to have too much faith in that argument. Plus there's already this tendency, at least among the fans, to ignore, excuse, spin, or otherwise discount "Cars" obvious shortcomings (both in filmmaking and boxoffice terms). I hope Lasseter is the sort who takes the criticisms to heart, rather than, as we saw in the case of a certain Southern California themepark, blaming the customers for "not getting it". Any insight there? I don't know the guy.
Originally Posted By basil fan >I've sat through way too many Don >Bluth... LOL Mouse History 101 <a href="http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/disney/history.html" target="_blank">http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/ disney/history.html</a>
Originally Posted By electra what was Fraidy cat about? I dont think Ive heard of it at all... is Rhett=actingforanimators ? as for the OT...awesome awesome! now I cant say Im crazy about the Frog Princess as a story set in America(why not its traditonal European setting?)...but Im sure theyll come up with something that will surprise me... ah the Snow Queen, now thats a fairytale Id love to see made...
Originally Posted By mapleservo Jim Hill wrote an article about Fraidy Cat a while back. There's some beautiful artwork on the site. <a href="http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2005/08/17/662.aspx" target="_blank">http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/ jim_hill/archive/2005/08/17/662.aspx</a>
Originally Posted By actingforanimators Electra - yes, AFA=me, Rhett. Fraidy Cat was about a housecat who is much pampered and very high-strung who is "wrongly accused" of a crime he did not commit, and who finds himself in the middle of the typical Hitchcockian plot of "the wrongly accused man" or cat, in this case. (FYI the art you'll see at Jim Hill's site and elsewhere on the web is visual development work done principally by a very gifted Disney development and story artist named Mitchell Bernal. Bernal has since left the studio to pursue a career in fine art and illustration, but you may recognize his line of plush skeleton animals - Skelanimals - that can be found at HotTopic stores all over the country...their best selling item, ever! He also does a series of Vargas-like pin-ups under the pseudonym "Senti".) Mawnk - I think there is a vast difference between Don Bluth's approach and John Lasseter's approach to production. Don is repeatedly spoken of by self-proclaimed "survivors of Bluth" as being single-minded and controlling in a way that excludes participation, collaboration and input. Dozens upon dozens of animators and story artists have related tales of how they were unable to explore the specifics of developing the characters they were "supervising" because Don usurped their authority and simply dictated the performance - in many cases almost step-by-step and beat-by-beat. John Lasseter has a keen understanding of the integral role music plays in story telling, and Disney more so than any other animation house is willing to invest in this element. Bluth, on the other hand, has an almost alarming absence of score in his films, and many otherwise good scenes and sequences play out as flat and dead for lack of the musical element to support them. Bluth also relies very heavily on rotoscoping, and I dare say Lasseter would laugh at the notion. Bluth is/was a single man operation who employed countless talented and skilled artists to execute his private vision. You could say the same of Walt Disney or even John Lasseter, but I'd argue that unlike Bluth, both Disney and Lasseter lead individuals and suppor the vision of the directors assigned to each project. In Lasseter's case I think "The Incredibles", "Finding Nemo" and "Monsters inc." are excellent examples of what comes from his approach as producer. As for artists "fixing it" ...well I think that's a bit overstated and oversimplified a view of things, but since the suits, per se, have had their say for a very long time now with relatively poor results, it may be worth giving the inmates a chance at running the asylum. I suspect they'll do no worse a job, and I'm willing to put a lot on the line that they'll do much better.
Originally Posted By actingforanimators Mawnk - re Cars and your concern that "there's already this tendency, at least among the fans, to ignore, excuse, spin, or otherwise discount "Cars" obvious shortcomings (both in filmmaking and boxoffice terms.)" I've heard this from several good critical minds, such as yourself, and I'm not in disagreement with the opinion that Cars is flawed. But I'm hard pressed to use it as evidence of anyone or anything having ominous shortcomings that point toward possible pending disaster. The film many not be as refined a story as "Toy Story" either the original or 2, but such criticism is, at most, the runner stumbling, not tripping into a full bloody skid across the track. It's evident that many, many people enjoy it, including some very astute and articulate critics of the craft. I don't think anyone slipped something into their water. It obviously has appeal. As for Box Office... well, God bless American obesession with dollar figures - not every f'ing flim is going to rake in $300Mil at the box office. In five weeks Cars has grossed over $205 Million Dollars domestically ...The Incredibles took in $261 Million domestically in five MONTHS, and nobody was hinting at how its numbers were dissapointing. Why allude to the "shortcoming" of something for which there is simply no evidence? I'm not trying to defend Cars in particular, I'm just trying to bring some balance to analysis here, and I honestly don't see how - other than in personal taste for the plotting and pacing of this film - anyone could point to it or its director as being damaged goods of any sort. Aiming solely for dollars is a huge mistake that Disney made once. They sacrificed quality in pursuit of consistent numbers. Perfectly great films were written off as failures because they failed to reach the levels of their "block buster" predecessors, and audiences took up this same mentality, nearly destroying the industry in my opinion. Ron Clements very wisely said to me in an interview a few years ago "(But)in a certain ironic way if you really look at it, and this may come out wrong, but what destroyed 2D animation is really not like ATLANTIS or TREASURE PLANET, it’s ALADDIN and THE LION KING. That’s sort of what destroyed 2D animation in that the success became so phenomenal and it was a success that could not be maintained, as you say, but yet drove every studio to want to get in to this business. It created Jeffrey leaving and DreamWorks starting. And ultimately, in its own weird, ironic way, it is the phenomenon. If it had only been sort of modestly successful, and each film had done a little better, and some not doing as well…Yeah, speculative, but there is a distant aspect of that - when something becomes something of a phenomenon and then it can’t be sustained." I then commented that you can’t keep repeating yourself and expect to grow or reach new heights – or develop new audiences. John Musker, sitting with Clements, responded by saying: "Well that’s the irony, yeah. In fact we’ve been rapped both ways. Some people say we’ve forgotten how to make them and other people rap you for being too formulaic, and yet then when you do try to stretch or do something that is taking it in a slightly new direction you’re charged with both ways…so you get it coming and going for whatever reason." It concerns me, greatly, that there is a palpable level of delight among some very smart people, here on these boards and elsewhere, in speculating on the possible failings of someone like John Lasseter at a time when animation in general, and Disney in particular, need anything but more naysayers who aren't movie-makers by trade; sitting in the wings brewing up theories based on little more than ... well, Car fumes. It makes me very sad, actually.
Originally Posted By mawnck . . . and now that I have hit refresh and read your post #29, I will take your advice to heart and shuddup about the box-office. Don't mind me, I'm just a natural-born pessimist. And as for Cars from a critical standpoint, I've tried to always say "flawed, but certainly not bad." It's still the best animated feature--by far--that's come out this year IMHO. If it is a stumble, then I'm just one of the guys yelling from the sidelines "hey . . . you're stumbling a bit there!"
Originally Posted By actingforanimators mawnck - I certainly don't intend for you to "shuddup" about anything - just to stay as informed as possible, that's all. Please keep up the watch and make as much if not more noise about the rocky path ahead of our intrepid racers. I'm just the other opinion, and very little more than that, to be perfectly honest. If I seemed scolding or lecturing (which, no doubt I did) I apologize; I had no intention of seeking the shutting of your or anyone else's howling yapper, as mine is quite wide and loud enough to make any such request embarrassingly hypocritical! r.
Originally Posted By TheRedhead "it may be worth giving the inmates a chance at running the asylum." Let's all pray that happens. Lasseter certainly seems to have that view, and Iger did say that his job was to hire great talent and then get out of their way. I always think back to how Lilo and Stitch and Treasure Planet were each allowed to come into being: Chris Sanders was alone in Florida with no one interfering. I hate to think what a suit would have done to that weird movie, but an artist was allowed all that freedom and created a cash cow. Treasure Planet was far from left alone, to the point where Glen Keane said in an interview (I think Entertainment Weekly) that he'd never seen such upper-mgmt meddling in an animated film. I think the key player in all this will really be Ed Catmull. He seems to be the one guy who is in charge and really "gets it."
Originally Posted By mawnck >>I had no intention of seeking the shutting of your or anyone else's howling yapper,<< Oh, you have done no such thing, at least to my yapper. However, when you're right, you're right, as I confirmed after checking the box-office numbers you referenced. It had been my position, stated often and vociferously here and elsewhere, that Cars was a financial disappointment for Disney, and that the lukewarm reviews plus the "lowbrow" subject matter had a lot to do with that. That argument no longer has much backing in the actual box-office returns. So I'm shutting up about it. As far as the Lasseter-as-Fairy-Godmother scenario that I see coloring much of the discussion of Disney Animation these days, no, I shan't be shutting up about that. I think he's probably the best person for the job, but . . . all together now . . . it won't be that easy. By the way, Rhett . . . at the risk of going off-topic . . . any thoughts on the effects of the plague of CGI features that is about to descend like a locust swarm on the local cineplexes? (MonsterHouseAntBullyBarnyardEveryone'sHeroOpenSeasonFlushedAwayHappyFeet)
Originally Posted By basil fan I went to the Fraidy Cat link. Wow! This looks like a great film! It's got something a lot of others lack: individual style. The Perfect Collectible <a href="http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/disney/collectible.html" target="_blank">http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/ disney/collectible.html</a>
