verissimus
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I probably said this before, but I'll say it again. Seth Rogan is top tier box office poison.
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- Jan 12, 2017
I think it was going to go the way of 3D even without the Oscar win. Toy Story was such a huge fucking deal when it came out, and its success at the box office plus the rise of CGI in movies anyway thanks to the efforts of The Abyss, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park to name a few meant it was a new way to approach cinema and enhance the experience. 2001 just so happened to be a lucky year for animation.
Also Shrek wasn't the only 3D-animated movie that made waves in 2001, it just so happened to take home the prize.
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- Sep 23, 2021
It was Shrek though that cemented both other studios to go 3D with their projects going forward as before it was more of a risk not knowing that if it bombed it would bankrupt the studio but now having the Oscar win. That opened the floodgates for this then new medium. Toy story that was groundbreaking back in 95 was still considered a dangerous risk due to it not just as an effect as done in movies like Terminator 2 or Jurassic Park rather it telling a whole story using just it.
It's kind of what happened with anime around the turn of the millennium when studios abandoned the hand drawn approach in favor of the more sterile digital animation which even though it was better for quantity lacks the warmth and feel (not to mention aesthetic) of how older series were presented.
Now they're trying to go with this 3D cell shading tune look as seen in the new dragon Ball movie trailer (it's not the first to use it it's just a more contemporary example of a property using it rather than the judicial approach) problem is that the movement is more janky and with the low frame rate that comes with anime (animating on ones etc...) Makes it look like a upscaled PS1 cutscene in comparison.
The fact of the matter is though was that CGI is here to stay and any signs of going back to the old hand drawn approach are only going to be a novelty or in shorts. It's the same reason why nobody today drives around in Chevys from 1950s anymore. Only those who are efficiados and hobbyists are the ones that will keep to that lane.
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- Jun 12, 2019
Disney? Or hell companies in general? Stop... Stop trying to recapture the magic of who framed roger rabbit. It was almost 40 years ago and lightning like that never strikes twice.
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- Nov 29, 2020
Amended your message to fit the whole of Pedowood.
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- Sep 23, 2021
Well I mean companies have been doing it with 3D in live action throughout the 2000s it's pretty much just a throwaway excuse to try to win over audiences. Seth rogen even said he wanted sausage party 2 (if that ever comes out with all the controversy behind it on how the animators were treated) to be the adult version of WFRR, when the only thing going for it is that you're going to have CGI characters saying "fuck" "shit" and "cum" every few seconds. Nothing innovating there in that department.
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- Nov 29, 2020
If I wanted cartoon characters saying "fuck" "shit" and "cum" every few seconds, I'd rather turn on Hazbin Hotel. At least that has a veneer of originality behind it.
Basic Blonde Boy
kiwifarms.net
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- Dec 15, 2021
Just watch Drawn Together, it actually has some well-made jokes in between the swearing. Or you can watch that anime Drawn Together inspired, Panty & Stocking, which has a plot somehow.
Hazbin ain’t bad though. It reminds me of those edgy 2000s, early 10s animations that went far, but not as far as the cesspool Adult Swim has shat out over the years.
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- Jan 12, 2017
Right, but just imagine if Monsters, Inc. won it instead of Shrek, or even fucking Jimmy Neutron because that was nominated, too. Shrek was just lucky it took home the gold just for it to become a scapegoat decades later down the road as animation enthusiasts sigh and wistfully look back on the good ol' days to wonder "Where did we go wrong?" and then remember Shrek won what Disney couldn't win back a decade prior and go "Oh yeah, it's Shrek's fault". Fuck that shit, man, it's not Shrek's fault companies are greedy sons-of-bitches that want to cut as much cost and manpower as possible. Animation studios long before Shrek was in production were fucking awful to their animators, and it was getting more and more cost-effective to outsource to sweatshops in Korea and Japan instead of keeping animation homebound.
Animators embraced CGI before Shrek was on the table, so it was only a matter of time before it became ubiquitous. And also, just because something wins an award doesn't necessarily mean it was going to become more commonplace as a practice. Remember Disney's short Paperman? That is fucking amazing and it won an award, but no one, not even Disney themselves, have gone out of their way to do anymore CGI like that because I guess that takes too much effort and animation companies just want to cut corners to save money. I will forever always be baffled that apparently 3D animation is less expensive than 2D because everyone's budget in CGI animated-movies are always at least in the 100 mil but 2D animated films apparently cost less back in the day. The Lion King was 45 million dollars in 1994 compared to its soulless 2019 CGI remake that cost anywhere from 250-260 million to make. Just what the fuck?
(Most of that budget probably goes to the voice-actors, but until we get proper numbers separating the salary of unionized voice-actors from the animation numbers, I'm just going to assume 3D software costs so much more than just hand-drawn animation.)
Lol Who Framed Roget Rabbit wasn't a kids' movie to begin with anyway, it just so happened families took their kids to go see it simply because it has cartoon characters running around. Seth Rogan is such a fucking maroon.
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- Feb 15, 2015
Ever watched the films that were trying to be Disney in the 90s? Quest for Camelot and the like? Now you know why hand-drawn animation is dead in theaters.
Basic Blonde Boy
kiwifarms.net
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- Dec 15, 2021
Pretty much. The death of 2D animation was inevitable as only Disney was really successful with it (which they still used 3D in stuff like Beauty and The Beast and Lion King for scenes) in the later years, and they intentionally killed off those divisions once Pixar was around. Dream works had some 2D, but let’s not act like it was pulling ground breaking numbers, Shrek was truly their success story and rightfully so.
Past that, what was there? WB did some animation, but was largely tv centric in the 90s and 00s with Space Jam being the only real stand out. Don Bluth just died. Then, what? If anything CGI at least gave us new studios like Blue Sky, (kind of) Dreamworks, and Nickelodeon on occasion so it wasn’t just Disney.
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- Nov 29, 2020
Did it really though? Take the early 2000s Disney movies. Emperor's New Groove: $100 million budget (about $167 million adjusted for inflation). Atlantis: $90-120 million ($146-195 million adjusted for inflation). Even Lilo & Stitch, which was only greenlit because Eisner wanted a "cheap" movie to go in-between those big blockbusters, cost a cool $80 million (about $128 million adjusted for inflation). And Treasure Planet? Hoo daddy. $140 MILLION ($224 MILLION adjusted for inflation). Now, let's take Monsters Inc., the Pixar equivalent to Atlantis: $115 million ($187 million adjusted for inflation). Monsters Inc. made back $577.4 million (or $923 million adjusted for inflation - almost a billion.) That's a 4.02% profit. Now let's take the most profitable Disney movie of the time period, Lilo & Stitch. It made back $273.1 million ($427 million today) on a, as you'll recall, $80 million ($128 million today) budget. That's a 2.41% profit.
CGI WINS
FATALITY
Basic Blonde Boy
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- Dec 15, 2021
CGI was a new technology that made the former look dated at the time. Animated films were getting detailed and more realistic looking. CGI had this spectacle to it much like the graphics between PS1->PS2->PS3 did for gaming where people were more interested in the advancement of tech than the product. (No I am not claiming that Pixar or DreamWorks were bad or even worse, hell I appreciate them more than the 2D of that era.)
I think Nostalgia Critic was right in his Princess and The Frog review when he said that CGI brought this level of adultness to animation. 2D was seen as for kids, while 3D was more impressive as to hook adults, which again, was much like gaming at the time. I think NC was right. Most adults of that time seemed to have genuine respect for Pixar and DreamWorks, hell even Blue Sky in a way that they didn’t for anything 2D. Pixar was quality emotional stories, DreamWorks had the adult humor, and Blue Sky had Scrat which adults seem to love over 2D outings.
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- Sep 23, 2021
Yeah fast forward 10 years and you got Illumination with Despicable Me and they really set the bar low when it comes for cost-efficient animation with it becoming cheaper and cheaper to released films with less substance aim for a general audience to just distractions for little kids with barely anything for adults to pay attention to how most humans in that style have things like spaghettified limbs and cringey like faces?
Like you said DreamWorks was more geared towards the adult audience inmind take for example their bugs life rip off Antz to see how dark that was not to the point of killing Bambi's mother dark but more PG13 than anything.
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- Jan 12, 2017
Of course, but those movies also used improved computer technology compared to their '90s movies (which also used computers, but not to the same extent) that made those costs go up. Treasure Planet's shiny price tag is what may have incensed Disney to sabotage it instead of attempting to make back bank on it.
I dunno, man, compared to how much money was spent on their movies in the '90s compared to the 2000s, something was going on that made the budgets soar. CGI being profitable wasn't all that surprising, but the budgets going up within those ten years in correspondence with the rise in computer usage just makes my head tilt in confusion.
Basic Blonde Boy
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- Dec 15, 2021
Despicable Me was a good film, and so was its sequel. It sucks that the franchise went all in on Minions as Gru was actually a likeable and funny protagonist that one wanted to succeed. I hate that this franchise got beaten so hard to the point where the first and second are overlooked and categorized as shit by proxy of being part of Minions Land.
Even saying that, Despicable Me helps prove my point as I swear the main audience of these films isn’t children anymore but rather FaceBook wine moms. What the fuck is the appeal of the minions to these women?
Both Pixar and DreamWorks were for adults. People can shit on them for killing 2D animation, but the overall storytelling of these companies was way more adult than most children’s film animation beforehand. Films before had their moments, but they all seemed to mostly relegate themselves to the Disney formula and were, for the most part, musicals. Cartoon spergs can rage, but Shrek was ultimately right in saying that a lot of these films needed to grow up and get off Disney’s cock. 3D won because, even barring the technology, they wrote films very differently and included a more adult angle that propelled them above their 2D contemporaries. Pixar’s films touched on much more adult subjects and brought out much more adult attitudes than many of Disney’s films of the renaissance like Aladdin. Adults probably resonated more with the jaded and unfulfilled Mr Incredible than say Ariel from a decade prior. Hell, Toy Story seemed more like a film my parents liked than me, and why not, it is essentially about a group of ‘parents’ that raise and eventually let go of their child.
Even Shrek was more adult, hence why it caught on so well. It shat on animation of the previous decades that parents hated being dragged to, and instead gave them a character who probably has the same opinions on Disney that they do. Not to mention the honestly surprising risky humor the film had. It felt like an adult that hated animation wrote the movie, which is both the biggest blessing and curse of Shrek depending on who you ask.
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- Jan 12, 2017
The Iron Giant stands out from '90s animation for being a family film that leaned on the more heavy side than others. Still follows around a boy befriending a giant robot, but the adults in the film were actual adults. That's like something a lot of those films didn't really do was give attention to the adult cast and make them be human.
Then again, Brad Bird seems like the kind of storyteller who just wants to tell mature stories but he's in a family-friendly side of the industry so he can't go all-out in being adult, but they're still mature without being in-your-face adult.
Mostly.
Basic Blonde Boy
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- Dec 15, 2021
I think an interesting shift from 2D to 3D was really the protagonists. Most films before had children or young adults who go out and live their dreams, 3D was mid-life adults accepting their place in the world. You really see a shift away from the child to the parent in these films. Nemo could have easily been a coming of age as Nemo breaks away from the father, but instead it was about the father coping with trauma and figuring out how to raise his son alone. The films felt more real, less of the beating the odds coming of age, and more sad aged adults learning to cope with the life around them. Mr Incredible is the best example as his whole story is basically just accepting contentment, to find new meaning in his family since his glory days are over. Even when they go back to children, this shift feels more prominent. Take How To Train Your Dragon. The film had the same creators as Lilo and Stitch, even a similar premise, yet the writing was so much different between the two. HTTD had much of its focus on the father-son dynamic and really expanded on it in a way Lilo and Stitch should have done with the strained relationship between Lilo and her guardian/sister. The father was a great character in HTTD, honestly one of the best aspects of the series, which is incredible as a decade prior he probably would have been a one-note bad dad that needs to learn a lesson.
This shift really carried animation throughout the 2000s and early 2010s to the point were even more mediocre films were honestly standing higher than the giants of eras before. Ice Age is pretty middle of the road, but Manny was a great parental character so it is no surprise that series caught on with adults. Just include Scrat, and now even my dad has a little bobble-head of the franchise to place on his work desk. Despicable Me was also a big part of the switch as Gru was another Mr. Incredible type hates his life character.
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- Sep 23, 2021
Of course you can't forget Megamind which is pretty much the quintessential film that late millennials really zoomers grew up on.
Tangled & Frozen are just one of those examples where they could have worked best in 2D if Disney didn't give up with the technique after the failure of The Princess & The Frog (whoever thought it had any chance to go up against Avatar should have been fired on the spot) after all we do have concept art and promotional stills of what they could have looked like in that style.
It's also kind of weird to see a lot of Pixar properties or any IPs in 3D general have the characters as 2D for media books spin-offs etc like they just really want to go back to that style but if there's no talent or money to be found there's no point with doing it.
Basic Blonde Boy
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- Dec 15, 2021
Megamind is fantastic, it was a great addition to the early 2010s animation. I watched a video on it the other day as the 2010s sort of had a theme of redeeming villain characters for movie plots, starting with Gru, moving to Megamind, and ending with Ralph. All three are fantastic films, but I would have to say Ralph is the best as it had a really strong emotional core and message that I think is overlooked. The message about showing appreciation towards the people stuck with the shit jobs is probably a message America really needs currently.
It is honestly hard for me to picture those movies in 2D now, but agree. Really, the only movie Disney made past P&F that really benefited from CGI was Ralph given his video game concept and cameos. In saying this, I don’t believe CGI really detracted either.