Originally Posted By narkspud >>who seems to have a delusion of grandeur<< . . .or maybe said person is an actual animator who knows a whole lot more about the subject than us civilians do. It's the presence of AFA and other knowledgable people that have kept me visiting the LP boards after time constraints have forced me to stop checking the other ones. narkspud
Originally Posted By arstogas Hey, I get plenty of delusions of grandeur... But it usually takes at least a couple of swigs of good Scotch to get there...
Originally Posted By arstogas Seriously (not a drinker here), if this writer comes off as pompous, well, feel free to pop the bubble. Otherwise, Doobie's right... we're here to discuss, and folks can shy away from the discussions, but they shouldn't diss those who choose to engage their rapiers.
Originally Posted By jdub Let's all hear it for discussion. Myself, I was nervous going in, but I agree that this is Disney's best-ever direct-to-video sequel. The only thing that got to me was how over-the-top Lars the artist was. In concept it was a great idea with Cruella, and I like it, but in animated and vocal performance--NO. It was more than a little too Mike-Myers-as-Dieter-the-Dancing-German for me.
Originally Posted By actingforanimators Gawrsh! A guy thinks he's doing the right thing by spending the day writing, and then making himslef sit down and fill out his ASIFA/Annie ballot before he rewards himself by going on line and look at what he discovers! Not that I wouldn't mind being rewarded with the dream of joining the ranks of even the lesser Disney villains, but ... yeesh! Sorry for the stir, and I admit to being both highly opinionated and sometimes posting my editorials rather than drafting them in article form. That's my style and I'm a little old to shift it. So sue me! I love to be the thorn in the side of the MBA's that are ruining the industry in which I work and live and contribute, and I want to wake people up to how great Disney can be and hope that I can keep anyone - artist or audience - for settling when there's better to be had/done. Of course I certainly don't mean to curdle other LP posters' blood....whoa! Oh well, can't please everybody. I stand by what I said, and how I said it. No appologies. If anybody can point to where I've ever been disrespectful of an opposing opinion, please show it to me, because that would be a moment in which I was truly an ass. I respect disagreement and hold it in admiration when it's stated in a similar no-holes-barred fashion. I don't want to fight, but I sure as heck want to see and hear some passion that's thought through, regardless of whether everyone is in agreement or not. Disney for me is about raising the bar, and I will not stop shouting every time they lower it. So it goes. AFA
Originally Posted By arstogas >>> If anybody can point to where I've ever been disrespectful of an opposing opinion, please show it to me, because that would be a moment in which I was truly an ass.<<< I think you know this, AFA, but that post - (#23) wasn't directed at you at all...
Originally Posted By actingforanimators Oh, I know that. Thanks Arstogas. I'll own to pomposity, but disrespectful I make a great effort to avoid.
Originally Posted By slave2moonlight *sigh* Let me see if I can put this in simple terms, to cool down the heads of everyone here whom I know are ready to light torches and come after me. (and I apologize for not responding sooner as I went out of town for a day, though I'm sure no one missed me, ha) As I've said before, I have no problems with a difference of opinion, nor do I have problems with someone who is well informed and experienced with the subject matter using it to support their reasons for not liking a film, or a way of making films, or whatever. My complaints come down to one thing, and that is presenting viewpoints in a way that insults those people with opposing viewpoints(although I support free speech, and if you wanna post that way it's fine with me, you just can't expect everyone to like it). Now, I know you all seem to insist that nothing disrespectful was ever stated in that first post by AFA. Well, perhaps it depends on your definition of disrespectful. I found much of that first post to be obnoxious(though I believe you guys prefer to call it "pompous"), which to me IS disrespectful (albeit indirectly and probably unintentionally) to anyone who liked the film. Using the phrase, "In my opinion" now and then would have gone a long way (call me a nit-picker, but it's true...). And of course, I confess that I became rather obnoxious too as the whole thing snowballed, I always do when I feel provoked, but like I said, I'm not opposed to people posting however they see fit, just don't expect everyone to like it. And I'm not against discussions either, just boring, long-running message board arguements.
Originally Posted By Santa Monica Yeah, as long as this sequel doesn't have a chicken named Spot, I'll check this out.
Originally Posted By MouseBear Salutations All, We got this DVD today. (thanks Kirby ) It was very good! The animation, voice work, and story were all a cut above most of these sequels. (I, like Doobie, liked Return to Neverland better, but I think 101 Dalmatians II was actually better done.) If all DTV's were this good Disney would get a lot less complaints. MouseBear
Originally Posted By Witches of Morva ORGOCH: Well, what I wanna' know is about that sequel ta GURGI who keeps poppin' up under the name gurgitoy2! Is ya a clone from THE BLACK CAULDRON? And, if ya IS, did the Horned King have somethin' ta do with ya? (Oooooh, this could turn out ta be bad! REAL bad! What if that lunatic decides ta clone ORWEN!! I cain't even BEGIN ta imagine the problems fer all a Doobie's ducklin's out there if, someday, ya comes onta Laughin' Place only ta find out there's TWO big blubberin' idiots around here instead a just ONE! That's just TOO many mouth's ta feed and not enough Krispy Kremes ta go around fer NOBODY!!!)
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 My niece brought it over the other day. I watched it with her, while I can't say it was the greatest thing, I did think it was cute. Besides my niece like it and for a movie like this that's all that matters.
Originally Posted By arstogas Okay. I'll weigh in... It was, like DDMan said, cute. It has an infectious joyousness to the whole thing. Regardless of what the asian animators were feeling, I do get the sense that the storypeople at Disney and the layout artists were really trying to do something fun and light and with some heart. I do feel that they were trying as well to be true to the original styling of the film, but AFA is right... they should have studied just a wee bit more. The color choices and layout come off as a bit half-baked in a number of sequences. The little boy's voicing of Patch is really great. Very sincere and appropriate. The other voicings are adequate, except for Cruella, who is just awful, and Martin Short's character, which was just tedious. The story has some genuinely fun and inspired moments, particularly the black and white THUNDERBOLT episode sequence. And there are little touches here and there where, without hitting you over the head with a referent, you find that the storypeople really did care about doing an homage to the original. I also liked the little "hidden Mickey" with Martin Short's character's head in his gallery. My biggest gripe/observation with this, is something that plagues most of the direct-to-video projects. I didn't have a big problem with the animation itself, again, except for Cruella, and Martin Short's - (why his name is escaping me, I don't know) character... I felt that Cruella was constantly going off-model, her rendering period was too... clean... too kind to her features. It's as if everytime you saw a halfway decent pose ofher, someone gives her a facelift. She was just all wrong. I DID like that the smoke from her cigarette is just as green and wafty as the original. But here's my gripe: The quality of LINE. The outlines on these characters have no distinction to them... no variance in thickness, and that really causes the characters to look more "TV" than filmic. They don't stand out as well in any given pose. I think if the software that digitizes the animation were automatically adjusted to "thicken" much of the outlines on character automatically (in some shots this would muddy detail and would look bad, so it would have to be a selective process) the animation would actually POP and look much, much better, with no additional attempts at fluidity or anything else. The other general observation, and unfortunately I've had experience with this first hand, is that the asian animators handling this project seem to be very under the bar in terms of their ability to deal with anatomy... specifically animal anatomy. Some characters clearly had more experienced artists, but when you look at the way a character's body or head moves, you realize there's no real skull beneath that head... things just kind of slide around. Slip the first 101 Dalmatians in. Here you will see REAL solidity to these puppies, the fat and muscles jiggling off of real bone underneath. The puppies in this sequel still have some appeal, but their sincerity lacks at times, and the staging lacks at times, simply because instead of having real mass, they come off as kind of flat, and their features "layered" on top of their bodies. I can't express enough how badly Cruella was rendered. What a missed opportunity there. If anywhere there should have been the appropriation of some eager talent that would have nailed this character, it was Cruella. The "Franck" character (whatever) just came off like any other TV character from saturday morning. The message is lighthearted and simple, and the sense of family belonging is welcome and unapologetic. If you had to find a DTV sequel for babysittting purposes, you could do a lot worse than this film. I'd still not rate it as high as "A GOOFY MOVIE" - that film had some truly beautiful animation in it, and great, sincere acting - but it's probably just under that. RETURN TO NEVERLAND had some nice stuff in it, but the film felt so familiar and missed some obvious opportunities... I found DALMATIANS 2 to be light fun, and rather unpretentious. So it eclipses NEVERLAND for me.
Originally Posted By arstogas Oh yeah, I liked the music. Zippy and silly and mostly appropriate. Fun.
Originally Posted By slave2moonlight arstogas: Now that was a civil, inoffensive yet opinionated, and well thought out review, negative comments and all, and I appreciate it. And I agree with you wholeheartedly on your comments about Cruella, though there were moments when I thought her voice was good, it usually wasn't over the top enough. I did like the film more than you did, but I have to say that I agree with most of the comments you made. I wouldn't say it was better than A Goofy Movie either, but that one did make it into theaters. I didn't have a problem with Martin Short's character, I actually kind of liked him....possibly there were moments when I was annoyed by him, but not many. I pretty much agree with you about Return to Neverland too. It had some nice stuff in it, but I'll add that that "Faith, Trust, and Pixie dust" theme and song throughout really annoyed me, as did the song at the end credits. My other complaints were humor that felt forced and recycled with Hook, Smee, and the Octopus, and Peter's voice bothered me too. It wasn't a total loss though.
Originally Posted By Santa Monica <<"A GOOFY MOVIE" - that film had some truly beautiful animation in it, and great, sincere acting>> I have to wholeheartedly agree with you there. A Goofy Movie is one of my favorite Disney films. I thought I would hate the movie, but the acting, heart, story, humor really surprised me. Now "An Extremely Goofy Movie..." that's depressing.
Originally Posted By arstogas Don't forget that Kevin Lima (A GOOFY MOVIE) went on to helm TARZAN. And rightly so.
