New Animated Features and Shorts

[domino harvey]

Outside of the first Toy Story, which is quite a good film, I've never understood the whole Cult of Pixar that's made them bulletproof for so long with mostly adult audiences

[knives]

I agree with you (though I wouldn't even give them the first Toy Story). The only great film maker they've attracted in Bird and he seems interested in doing a Tashlin at the moment.

[mfunk9786]

I tend to just avoid seeing films that I think are clearly not intended for anyone beyond small children and their parental escorts (the Cars films, Finding Nemo, etc) and seek out those that seem to be doing something interesting for everyone - I just don't get personally offended that the company is willing to do both, and not everything will be for everyone. I'm surprised to hear you say that though, Domino, if only because Ratatouille and Wall-E are among the best American films (animated or otherwise) of the last ten years.

Then again, I'm the lone internet weirdo who thinks Toy Story 2 is the best of that series of films. So you might not want to listen to me.

[knives]

Could you explain Wall-E because I figure the second half makes any comment for greatness a little suspicious.

[domino harvey]

I was dating a cartoonist when Wall-E came out and she tried defending it to me with something along the lines of "Just look at how detailed everything is, and how much effort went into it," and I could never grasp how that was the same thing as it being good (though for someone in her field that defense makes sense, I guess). I'm not an anti-Pixar Armond White-er, I just don't see what makes them so superior to say, Ice Age et al

[mfunk9786]

The second half of the film is certainly a step down from the first just by design, since we have to be taken out of that quiet silent-film world in order for the concept to make its way toward some sort of satisfying conclusion - but the action involving the robots on the ship is a lovely exercise in wordless physical comedy, and the human portion is well-performed by Jeff Garlin, as far as I'm concerned - we're not forced to learn too much about these soft, soft human beings and instead mostly observe Garlin attempting to piece all this together. Stanton would've made a huge mistake had he decided to introduce a multitude of human characters that we need to get to know at that point, but he realized that the strength of the project was in its quiet protagonist and minimalist approach toward a very big moral. As I'm writing this, I can't really think of a smarter way to reach the film's conclusion (which just had to be the re-invigoration of humanity - it just had to be - for a big-budget animated film, enough risks were already being taken to get too nihilistic about the whole thing).

And Domino - no offense to your ex, but that's a rather weak defense of the film if it just didn't work for you on a story level. I found the whole exercise compulsively watchable, funny, touching, etc - I'm particularly recalling the sequence involving Wall-E showing Eve around his home - but I can't imagine ever liking a film because it seems like it took a lot of effort and attention to detail on the part of the filmmakers. Sounds like she was just too close to the whole situation.

My defense with regards to most of Pixar's output being superior to most other animated films of this era is the dedication to timeless and innovative storytelling - most animated films these days feature weak voice acting (getting celebrities just because they're celebrities is often not the best strategy when casting these things, as evidenced by films like the woeful Shark Tale), modern pop culture references that will not and have not aged well, easy bathroom humor, and hoary musical numbers. Pixar's best films manage a delicate balance between introducing something totally unique in terms of concept but not putting the average viewer off, and between grown-up and all-ages humor without insulting the intelligence of either group. Something like Ratatouille, under the eye of a studio like Dreamworks, would have been stuffed to the gills with celebrity voice actors (Remy may have been voiced by, say, Tom Cruise), long musical numbers about being a rat in Paris (with plenty of 'tude to spare), and fart jokes about Paris Hilton's Twitter account blah blah blah.

In other words - I think what most adults who respond to Pixar's work admire the most, if I can speak for everyone, is their restraint and protection of what they feel is the purity of their ideas and their effort to tell a good story without wasting anyone's time, or insulting anyone's intelligence.

[cdnchris]

Hopefully the silly Pixar backlash in which hipsters in their 20s and 30s decided to turn on an animation studio for making a sequel to a popular lightweight film for small children is coming to a close and I don't have to hear about Cars 2 being some sort of catastrophic misstep anymore. Brave opens wide on June 22nd.

Are kids movies immune to criticism? I think Happy Feet 2 shouldn't be at least. Even my 3-year-old thought it was stupid.

As to the fallout from Cars 2: I did not like the first so I haven't seen the second, but I think part of the appeal to most Pixar films is that they can appeal to both kids and (most) adults and by the sounds of it most adults couldn't find anything worthwhile in Cars 2, which suggests to me something just didn't work. I actually like all of Pixar's films so I was slightly shocked when I found there was nothing in Cars I found appealing. I'd say more but I honestly can't remember it and keep confusing things with Doc Hollywood.

[mfunk9786]

They're not immune to criticism, but I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep them in a reasonable perspective when they're something like Cars 2. You never heard anyone over the age of 10 walking around singing the praises of the first one to begin with, so why make such a fuss over the second allegedly not being so interesting for adults?

[knives]

Why though did we even need to go back into space and introduce humans? What about the first half makes it improbable of nihilistic to continue the story down that road? Even with the humans the film is basically just a Chaplin romance where the logical conclusion is the two robots shacking things up something which could be accomplished on earth and the end result would be better than the lamed story with its bland Hal rip-off in the second half.

Also Dom you said something that I've been talking with a few animation geek friends about for years so I'll use the opportunity now, but animation shouldn't be the reproduction of reality and detail with consistency and what not shouldn't be the virtue, but instead exploiting the infinite possibilities of the medium (which makes me extra glad that the UPA was released to help illustrate what that means). Frankly I'm less impressed by Wall-E's realism which is just a matter of having enough money and working with a material that functions well in CGI than I am the abstract doddles of say McLaren which is a true exploitation of the medium. Oddly enough of these big CGI features the only one I've seen that seems to try to use animation rather than replicate the real world is the Madagascar films which seem concerned with replicating hand drawn slapstick in the rather different CGI medium. Too bad the writing isn't better though.

[cdnchris]

My defense with regards to most of Pixar's output being superior to most other animated films of this era is the dedication to timeless and innovative storytelling - most animated films these days feature weak voice acting (getting celebrities just because they're celebrities is often not the best strategy when casting these things, as evidenced by films like the woeful Shark Tale), modern pop culture references that will not and have not aged well, easy bathroom humor, and hoary musical numbers. Pixar's best films manage a delicate balance between introducing something totally unique in terms of concept but not putting the average viewer off, and between grown-up and all-ages humor without insulting the intelligence of either group. Something like Ratatouille, under the eye of a studio like Dreamworks, would have been stuffed to the gills with celebrity voice actors (Remy may have been voiced by, say, Tom Cruise), long musical numbers about being a rat in Paris (with plenty of 'tude to spare), and fart jokes about Paris Hilton's Twitter account blah blah blah.

This is a key reason I think Pixar's stuff will stand the test of time. I watched one of the Shrek films (can't remember which one) and the pop-culture references were friggin' ridiculous. There's no way in hell my daughter will ever understand them, ever, and I doubt her children (after she gets married at the age of 40) will ever get them either. Pixar's films rely more on relatable characters and storylines and the gags don't depend on knowing who the hell Paris Hilton is, using your reference.

[knives]

That's a bit of a played out story telling mode though with even Dreamworks avoiding that since at least the first Kung-Fu Panda. Also I really don't see what's innovative about Pixar's storytelling as if Disney, Ghibli, and many other studios hadn't already been doing that for decades. Middle period Dreamworks is an anomaly rather than the norm throughout history.

[mfunk9786]

Also Dom you said something that I've been talking with a few animation geek friends about for years so I'll use the opportunity now, but animation shouldn't be the reproduction of reality and detail with consistency and what not shouldn't be the virtue, but instead exploiting the infinite possibilities of the medium (which makes me extra glad that the UPA was released to help illustrate what that means). Frankly I'm less impressed by Wall-E's realism which is just a matter of having enough money and working with a material that functions well in CGI than I am the abstract doddles of say McLaren which is a true exploitation of the medium. Oddly enough of these big CGI features the only one I've seen that seems to try to use animation rather than replicate the real world is the Madagascar films which seem concerned with replicating hand drawn slapstick in the rather different CGI medium. Too bad the writing isn't better though.

Animation doesn't work by feeding hundred dollar bills into a computer and having it do your work for you, though. If the goal of a director is to do something photorealistic, as it was in the first half of Wall-E, it takes painstaking work by incredibly talented people to ensure that attention to detail is paid to every inch of the frame. If that's not your animation style of choice, it's one thing - but it's odd to dismiss it completely for being expensive to accomplish. Incredibly talented people need to be paid, and they need costly resources to work with - whether the end goal is something that looks cartoonish or something that looks real.

It's silly to claim that Disney has always been doing what Pixar does in terms of storytelling, knives - part of the reason why Pixar is on the map today and running Disney's animation division is because there was such a dryspell on Disney's part for 20 or so years. They were releasing schticky direct-to-video sequels that (unless you're a big The Return of Jafar fan) have not stood the test of time whatsoever.

To use a quick metaphor: I'm not telling everyone that eating cheeseburgers should be for them, but I find it baffling if you can't at least acknowledge and understand why Five Guys is putting out a better product than McDonalds - even if you'd prefer a salad either way.

[knives]

Metal works extremely well in CGI and since Wall-E had realistic moving parts once the original design was finished it was easy with a powerful enough engine for them to make a photorealistic movie. In CG it is actually much more difficult to make something do unrealistic things (rubber hose) than to make it realistic. That said even if making CG metal look like real metal was difficult photorealism shouldn't be the goal of animation since that begs the question of why not film in live action then? Animation will never match live action on the qualities that make it work so why not utilize animation to further itself.

[domino harvey]

I'm in the animation should look animated, not realistic camp-- one of the most fascinating reads on the web is John K.'s blog, where he regularly rallies around the exaggerated flexibility and freedom animation gives an artist

[mfunk9786]

But if you're making a film about robots that you want to look as realistic as possible (cartoonish human characters aside as to avoid the uncanny valley), why shy away from that simply because you're making something that could theoretically be done in live action? These days, any film can be done in live action with the assistance of CG anyway, but why limit yourself to a "cartoons have to be cartoon-y" philosophy?

Whew, this conversation is moving from thread-to-thread so much that it's becoming very difficult to be involved in it without losing your post altogether.

[domino harvey]

For the record, (for me at least) none of this would have mattered if I was engaged by Wall-E on a narrative level, which I never was. Plus, like E.T., I had a hard time getting over how grating I found the allegedly adorable titular character

[mfunk9786]

Yeah, like I said - it is certainly a strange defense of a film to discuss how accomplished the animation is, but it's also a very odd way of tearing it down. Home Movies is one of the best animated series in the history of television, and it looks objectively terrible - and I think we'd all agree that anyone who dismisses or supports it based on the quality of the animation alone has some sort of mental disorder

[knives]

I'm in the animation should look animated, not realistic camp-- one of the most fascinating reads on the web is John K.'s blog, where he regularly rallies around the exaggerated flexibility and freedom animation gives an artist

I disagree with John K. as often as I agree with him, but along with Jerry Beck he's the most important animation historian and philosopher out there today. Lots of respect for him.

But if you're making a film about robots that you want to look as realistic as possible (cartoonish human characters aside as to avoid the uncanny valley), why shy away from that simply because you're not making something that could theoretically be done in live action? These days, any film can be done in live action with the assistance of CG anyway, but why limit yourself to a "cartoons have to be cartoon-y" philosophy?

Whew, this conversation is moving from thread-to-thread so much that it's becoming very difficult to be involved in it without losing your post altogether.

Then you better make your film great with a usage of the animation that is mind blowing. If Stanton had used this realism well than I wouldn't complain and the first half while filled with loads of brown does a reasonable job of it (but as I mentioned before CGI is built for realism so I'm not terribly impressed by that) but once they get to the space station the folly of the attempt becomes evident and the film's animation daring becomes a failure.

Edit: What Dom said. Though I must disagree with you that Home Movies looks terrible. That's what animation is about and I appreciate the Hungarian influence that show and Dr. Katz had.

[zedz]

Stepping back from the detail argument a bit (which I think is a big red herring: no Pixar film to date has been remotely photo-realistic. They care a lot about the verisimilitude of texture and organic movement, but they're still entirely ensconced within a Disney / Jones / Avery universe):

I think the Pixar films, as a whole, are great children's films, and great children's films are damn hard to find. When I was growing up in the 70s, most of the stuff that was targeted at me was trashy and kitsch (those lame live-action Disney movies, an occasional mediocre animated effort). The bona fide great films I saw and remember were already decades old: the re-releases of Pinocchio, Snow White and Bambi; Looney Tunes shorts bundled up on TV. I feel almost jealous of kids growing up in the age of Pixar and Ghibli.

Animation for kids was on its long, slow decline into primitive Saturday morning toy commercials, and when those first Pixar shorts appeared, the real excitement for me wasn't "Computers!" but "My God, here are some animators who have seen and understood the lessons of Tex Avery and are re-injecting personality into animation." You want to see what a 21st century Tex Avery film might look like, check out Doug Sweetland's five minute masterpiece Presto. That would be classic animation whether it were rendered in state of the art computer animation or pencilled in a flipbook.

The advances since those first shorts have been largely technical, and largely amazing, but the core of their work has remained a commitment to the movie equivalent of high-quality children's literature: strong characters, well-crafted storytelling, detailed and inviting worlds, good humour, elegant pacing, spectacle, genuine sentiment. The reason these films appeal to adults as well as children is not because they're crammed with a subtext targetted specifically at them, but because they do these basic things very well, at a time when any one of those qualities is rare to find in mainstream Hollywood entertainment targetted at adults. All of the same comments apply to Studio Ghibli: great filmmaking is great filmmaking regardless of its target audience, and all of these films reward the kind of close study you'd expect to give to the work of 'grown-up' auteurs.

If Pixar were just about technical achievement, we'd already have forgotten half of their films. It's a little unfortunate that so much emphasis is put on innovation rather than their other core values, but it's those core values that make the films special and that's what most of their adult fans are responding to.

[knives]

Honestly if we're talking about high quality children's entertainment television has Pixar beat entirely with a large variety of fascinating things such as old main stays like Arthur, new action series like the avatar shows and the Thundercats reboot (it's legit good I'm serious), and hilarious touching shows like Adventure Time. Formally and just plain kids stuff Pixar is not at the head of the team even if I wouldn't necessarily call them. Just to repeat Dom in all honesty I don't see how most of what Pixar's made is any better than your average non-Shrek Dreamworks product or Ice Age. There may have been a lack of quality product when Pixar first got into features (though even that's suspicious with the Disney renaissance and the Aardman products), but that certainly isn't the case now. If anything it's rude to them to give them a handicap just because they prefer playing in the kids' sandbox. Highly quality product should be able to go past the focus group.

[zedz]

Knives, maybe you should read my post before you respond to it. Who's handicapping them? Mfunk and I are claiming that they're better filmmakers than the ones making most grown-up Hollywood films. And that's hardly a minority view, it's the critical consensus. And just ask any parent what a godsend the Pixar and Ghibli features are. If you're going to be forced to watch and rewatch the same kids' movies dozens of times, crappy product wears thin very fast indeed.

I've explained some of the qualities that these films offer. You're not addressing those arguments, but just asserting that they're not true with no supporting evidence (apart from a meaningless "other stuff's better", again with no supporting evidence).

[domino harvey]

The reason these films appeal to adults as well as children is not because they're crammed with a subtext targetted specifically at them, but because they do these basic things very well, at a time when any one of those qualities is rare to find in mainstream Hollywood entertainment targetted at adults.

That's an interesting claim, zedz, but one I must admit I can't concede. I have no doubt that defenders of Pixar's work find them to be highly entertaining and satisfying films, but I think you're selling the adult angle short. In fact, in Toy Story, the adult appeal is so strong and so specific to adult fears and neuorsis that it's almost hard to see the appeal for a kid in a kid's movie. I don't know that I have the faith in mass audiences to connect to a childrens' film on an aesthetic or narrative level without there being some underlying adult appeal (but that may just be the English teacher in me).

I think knives' point is that saying there's a great dearth of quality mainstream entertainment, much less quality childrens' entertainment, is maybe too sweeping a negative generalization. Though his examples of television are admittedly a different form of media, several are indeed as or more intelligent and well-formed than the majority of Pixar's output (to my eyes, obviously)-- PBS' Arthur, for example, is almost the anti-Pixar in its simple visual aesthetics of line drawings and watercolors, but it contains such a deep and clever insight into humanity on a basic level that it has much wider appeal than the preschool set it's aimed at. It's always amusing to bring the series up at parties or dinners with people my age (late 20s), most of whom are subsequently shocked and delighted to realize they're not the only ones watching and loving it. Maybe Pixar is giving the same gratification to audiences on a wider scale-- there does seem to be the communal brand loyalty attached to Pixar (as it is to 007 and Harry Potter and so on-- I'm not knocking it out of hand), I think as someone on the outside looking in who doesn't buy into their value (for either audience) as highly as most, it's just a little odd. But then again, I'm notoriously to the left or the right of most popular opinion, so God knows why such things still surprise me!

[knives]

When I made my handicap remark I was referring to mostly your third paragraph where you seem to insinuate that if not for Pixar there would be no intelligently made children's films being made at the time and perhaps even now. I like Ghibli and so won't say anything bad on them (I was one of the one's puzzled by Ponyo's negative reception), but I don't see what makes Pixar special compared to any of the other children's film companies out there at the moment. Even just at Disney I don't see how Toy Story 3 is superior to Winnie the Pooh and the like. I'm tempted to say that children's product is the best in general that Hollywood is producing right now. So yes Stanton is more talented than Peter Berg, but is that really a compliment worth considering let alone heaping praise upon?

Frankly even if we ignore the animation which is what I find to be their weakest aspect the writing still does not put it ahead of its competitors as it seems to be the same film over again though this is largely endemic of children's cinema Ghibli and Aardman aside. At this point the characters of Pixar seem interchangable with grumpy lead character who has a passion which is upset but goofy secondary lead and up to two plucky sidekicks force him to change his ways to accepting the simple life he's been given. It's not even some broad thing like the hero's journey, but a rather specific set of characteristics that make Woody, Lightning, that guy from Up, and Albert Brooks more or less the same character in the same movie. This is also true of The Incredibles, but I make an exception for them since the themes and quality of the writing to make more complex the characters renders that a moot point allowing for a dramatically different experience. I'm not arguing that Pixar makes terrible films (though I could do without the Cars series), but that they make an average product that is not distinguishable by quality from similar product being presently made by the same company. For example when Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda came out the same year I thought I would prefer the Pixar film by virtue, but I preferred the Dreamworks because the characters were more compelling to me (the quality of the animation and familiarity of the storylines being about equal). That isn't me saying the Dreamworks is better than the Stanton, but that there's nothing to distinguish the quality of the two. I see no evidence that Pixar has injected personality into their characters any more than any other children's company has in Hollywood cinema (Japan is leagues ahead though) and they certainly aren't up to the quality of children's television which offers more in entertainment, depth of character, and occasionally animation than any of their cinematic counterparts.

[mfunk9786]

I find the fact that you actually know who directed the Pixar film offhand to sort of weaken the effect of your claim that you found the Dreamworks film more interesting.

[swo17]

All's I know is that there is a Kung Fu Panda spinoff TV show and my daughter won't watch it.