Slashdot Mirror
End Of Fox Animation
RobM writes: "I've found on the New York Times (registration required) that Fox Animation has been shut down after Titan A.E. flopped. What do you think of this film and the reasoning in the article '2D sucks, 3DCGI is the way to go'?"
Not really. I wouldn't say animation is cold. But animation done the way anastasia (Disney wannabe with even lame musical scenes) and Titan AE sure is soulless and cold. I guess you guys should have a look of what is being done in japan. Just that most of that stuff wouldn't be politically correct to be shown on TV in the US (Heck, they have gays, blurred sense of good and evil and the bad guys are often americans). Problem is, I think you guys are overprotective to kids and just ruin stories and artwork to be sure not to move them or make them think too much. Sadly the end result is that it sucks. I'm going to see Blood: The last vampire next week. I don't expect it to be anything like Titan AE. But it's not pitched as a kids movie.
I could have pulled a better cartoon out of my a. . whoa ha hey, kids!
People just don't believe me when I tell them it's a good movie. I think the marketing on this one really killed it - I don't think the studio spent enough on advertising (I know, just what we need, more annoying ads) and I don't think they were able to figure out a target audience.
That's the problem - the movie really could have appeallead to a wide audience but I don't think the previews and ad campaign made that clear. I went to see it because of all the good reviews, and was VERY impressed. Any studio thinking of making another (non-Disney type singing and dancing) animated film should watch Iron Giant and take notes.
Just to add to your points - besides the great writing, the movie just looked beautiful! It's kind of like Futurama in that I don't really think about "oh, here's the 3d part, and here's the 2d part". The integration (as you mentioned) is seamless enough to allow you to ignore it and just enjoy the visuals.
I think I'll pop on down and rent the DVD to see it again!
-------
-------
"It was people! People soiled our green!"
I _did_ go to see the movie. I think it sucked. Really sucked. I didn't even have really high expectations. I only expected the backdrops and animation to be any good. And while I wasn't disappointed there everything else was really bad.
The story. While the premise was alright (the exploding earth was really cool and realistic looking with all sorts of ejecta flying around) , the story just wasn't glued thogether. Too many little side plots, nothing really went anywhere.
The music: huh? Whoever came up with the soundtrack (_especially_ for the trailer, eek!) deserves to be shot. The music just didn't fit in. It was pasted in, just like the characters. Someone mentioned it actually worked for one of the final scenes. OK, maybe.
Everything was slow moving, uninteresting, despite the nice graphics (but very Quake-like, dark and brown and green) I was nearly asleep the whole show, and it wasn't even the late show.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Wrong title: I believe he meant The King And I.
I was disappointed, because this was supposed to be the movie where Don Bluth finally gives up on the cute talking animals. Unfortunately, all the aliens were rather unimaginative cute talking animals.
.
There were a couple of good lines tho-
"Great move, noone will ever think of looking for us in the air-shaft!"
and
"who would have thought, an intelligent guard!"
My final comment is - planets blowing up have been done to death. If anyone out there is thinking of ever making a sci-fi movie at ANY point in your future, please consult a REAL astrophysicist on what a planet exploding would take, and what it would look like. PLEASE!
Also, there was this guy named Newton. .
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I think South Park stole from Wizards:
"They shot Fritz! Those dirty stinkin commie fairy bastards!"
On the technical side, what you are talking about is "rotoscoping", and it's almost universally reviled in the animation world. It's just not well liked, even though the technique dates back to IIRC Disney's Snow White.
Other decent Ralph Bakshi movies; Heavy Traffic (semi-porn, like Fritz the Cat) and duh- Lord of the Rings.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
listen; they're not that stupid. They know that good entertainment sells, but they also know that bad entertainment sells enough, and with enough hype, it sells great, and even eclipses good entertainment, even the great.
So like the stock-trader who goes around looking for a $5 sure-bet stock to invest in, these guys go around looking for projects that are "good-enough" that they won't have to invest too terribly much into the production, and still get a decent return at the box office. It's not really all that complicated; but it's a game that's not really playable until you get a good chokehold on distribution (like the MPAA has), then you pretty much make sure that the consumers don't have a choice, and start churnin out the garbage. Do you decide to spend tons more to make truly great stuff to snuff out your competition? Hell no, that would eat your profit margin, and eventually put you into a position that makes you an inviting antitrust target.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
That's what I don't understand about MI:2. Wasn't it directed by John Woo? His other movies have been great? But I'm having a hard time characterizing why that movie sucked so bad - but I was really squirming in my seat through that one. Some of the conflict-scenes (gunfights, chase scenes) were signature John Woo-beautiful, but gawd, the dialog, that plot, the continuity, were just fuggin awful! I don't want to blame the direction, but there definately are other culprits at work there. . .
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I do believe that CGI has a place, and currently, it's being abused to give traditional hand-drawn animation a little more pizazz and flash. Personally, I think it's more appropriate to use CGI to substitute for visual effects in live-action, but in animation, you're establishing a visual style, and CGI almost invariably breaks it in an ugly, ugly, way. I don't think I can find one good example of the tasteful blending of CGI and hand-drawn animation, (except for MAYBE Akira, because it was used VERY minimally).
If it were used, say, as a shortcut to overcome the prohibitively expensive hand-calculation of proper visual perpective, I could see a use for that, give the artist a wire-frame to rotoscope off of. But you hadn't ought to use computer rendering in the final product.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Oh yeah, I forgot. Iron Giant actually WAS pretty cool. And I would have to cite this as an excellent example of a good way to blend CGI and hand-drawn animation.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
3D animation is not going away any time soon.
And I disagree about it being cold and soulless...
Watch a veggie video if you disagree.
It is full of warmth and fun.
Also, many other videos benifit from the 3D for f/x, such as Stuart Little. 3D is a strong and growing industry.
But as mant have said, you must have a strong story. If the story is weak, people will grow tired of the neato graphics.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
You know, I have Wings of H., and I can lend it to you.
:-P
I wanted to see it. The only nearby theatre showing the friggin' thing was the Union Square theatre... and it was only playing at 11am. Well, i work, so that was out of the question. I live in NYC, and the only reason i didn't see the movie is that no nearby theatre was showing it at a reasonable hour.
So, it flopped? Gee, i wonder why....
Live action Gundam? Think power rangers...
Wasn't stellar stuff, but I'm actually surprised that it "flopped". What was the losses on that one? (BTW- I am not surprised that Bartok the Magnificent flopped; it was a cheesy attempt at making a for-video market movie akin to the Lion King sequel... It looked to be a piece of crap from the ads...)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The animation for Atlantis looks to be exceptionally good. It's reported that it's not a musical, which is good. (I like musicals, but not as much as Disney has for the past decade) The trailer looks great. The setting looks great, though I keep thinking of Gainax's excellent series Nadia.
Unfortunately, it sounds as if the story is even worse than Titan AE. Bastards.
If they hurry up and _fix_ the storyline, it could turn out to be really very good. Very, very good. But right now, don't worry too much about it. Hopefully Dreamworks can come up with something good. Pixar's upcoming Monsters, Inc. ought to be very good but that's not going to influence Disney all that much just yet.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
My biggest "complaint" is that the bad guys seemed to mirror the Beast aliens from Mainframe Entertainment's Shadow Wars (I believe you Americans know it as War Planets). I would sure like to see the list of colaborators on both projects and see where the intersection is!
--
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
I'm not sure what the hell the other reply to this message is talking about 'Perfect Blue' is something entirely different. The movie "Blue Planet" is under works by Rainbow Studios, I'm not sure where they currently have the video you mentioned stored on the site, but their are a couple of images from the film in their Gallery (the space/underwater shots).
The movie hasn't been finished yet because they are still in story negotiations with the studio contracting the project. But it is still under works.
Yes, 2D totally sucks ass!
(Screw you guys, I'm going to eat.)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
This happens everywhere; when DooM was released, everyone started working on FPS. Little did they realize that, although 3D environments were pretty neat, it was the design and thought behind the game that really sold. If the first FPS game had been crappy, someone good would have seen it and said, "That's a great idea; now what can I do to make it better?"
At any rate, it was a big disappointment. From now on I'll stick to Japanese animation for my sci-fi, because american movie houses just have no clue. (that is, until another 2001 comes along)
--Bob (hey, at least they named the planet after me!)
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Fox is a formula. Dash of famous actor. Smidgen of fancy 3d effects. Dollup of song by famous band. Stir. Presto, more money for Fox's pockets.
Once upon a time movies were still considered art. Now they're a formula to line someone's pocketbook. Good riddance to this studio. Perhaps they should start hiring people to write plots that don't suck and characters that aren't shallow. The problem is not their animators. It's trying to turn a story into a formula. A good story would still be good in animation, 3d rendering, live action, or stop motion.
These days there is maybe one movie a year I don't find terrible. Their formulas have gone to such an extreme. The movie exec's don't even realize that "good story" isn't in their formula, and they have no clue how to put it into their formula. It's not a formula thing.
--Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
it's not so much that 2D outright sucks, as it is that they put FLAT low quality 2D characters on top of beautifly rich 3D sets. The juxtaposition looked awful.
I concur in spades, Titan sucked because the characters and plot sucked, there was absolutely nothing to like about the movie except for the animation.
They could have at least given the evil aliens some personality so there was a reason to hate them, not giving them a voice made them more likeable than the hero IMO.
Does nobody judge a film based on its content??!! Granted, part of the composition of a movie -- story, dialogue, visuals, music (soundtrack & songs) -- is affected by the technology used to create it, but what it boils down to are the creative elements that have been employed (along with judicious editting).
People talk about the "success" of Disney in the late-80s/early-90s as a business artifact, as though Michael Eisner was responsible for crafting the gems that "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast" are. Come on! "Mermaid" and "B&tB" are the products of the genius of Alan Menken & Howard Ashman (largely Ashman story-wise, the team musically). Disney didn't magically go from "The Black Cauldron" and "The Great Mouse Detective" to "Mermaid" without a concerted creative effort.
Pixar's films (I refuse to call them Disney, other than Disney-distributed) are eye-popping treats thanks not only to their talented computer animation team, but also to their story and design teams. Face it, no matter how visually gorgeous "A Bug's Life" was, if it had had a banal storyline or flat dialogue, it would not be the masterpiece that it is.
Sadly, sometimes the bottom line does not correspond to artistic merit. "The Iron Giant" is one of the best movie's I have seen in the last decade; unfortunately, WB didn't have the guts to market it appropriately, and it was a box office failure.
Ask yourself: how many of these films have you seen, and why is watching one a more fulfulling experience than the other? Examine the elements carefully.
- Richie
The sad thing is that, from a marketing point of view, saying that *does* make sense: I'm sure many people will be interested in spending some bucks in a film that's "buzzword compliant", than in some more standard animation.
Also, from the p.o.v. of the "failed animators" putting the thing that way is very handy: "look, it's not our fault, it's the 2D! Give us bucks to work with 3D!".
For what it's worth, I like *STORY* and *GOOD CHARACHTERS*: seeing them in 3D, 2D or even 1D (as "the line" guy by Osvaldo Cavandoli) doesn't matter.
Ciao,
Rob!
AniToolBox! An Open Source animation program!
Something to consider - Macromedia Shockwave and Flash uses the 2D format. Granted, the application borrows 3D techniques (interpolation, keyframes), but fundamentally, (IMHO) its still 2D... and very popular.
CGI=Computer Generated Imagery Graf
South Park is done using Softimage in order to recreate the cardboard cutout look. It has the advantage of being able to change the script at the last minute and just let the 'puter chug through the animation rather than having a team in korea rework it. That's part of the reason that SP manages to be so topical (the Elian episode was hilarious). There was a great interview with the SP tech guys a while ago, maybe it made it to /. I think they're just over in Marina Del Rey, I should go stalk them sometime...
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
- Well, at least my model isn't on the cover of "Crack VRML Magazine".
It wasn't that the plot was horrible, or that our dialogue was borderline ridiculous, it's those finicky moviegoers wanting all that flashbang 3D animation stuff! Yeah! That's it! We couldn't possibly be producing garbage here.
I think 'El Dorado' was successful, and not a bad movie. I think DreamWorks in general does good animation. In fact, I see them on purpose largely because they're not Disney and don't try to be.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
South park , is the worst animation ever, a 3 year old child can do better and it is one of the most sucessful animated series on the planet. If your storyline/plot sucks big potatoes, no amount of technology/flashy tricks will save it (Judge Dredd anyone?) I just cant believe that a studio would sink that much money into a project wit a crappy/non-existant script.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
... and then give us your impression. But don't judge a movie by a trailer !
I'm assuming you're not poor, since you have a computer and internet access. So just go to the local cineplex and spend $8, or even better, go to the mattine and save lots of money.
Seriously, I'm all for looking around at reviews as to not waste money on stinkers, but if you're into sci-fi and animation, I don't see why you wouldn't want to give this movie a try. It got a 54% rating on rottentomatoes.com, and that's much better than "non-flops" like the Perfect Storm (38%). Now Battle Field Earth a 7% ratings (93% negative), well, that I can understand not even wanting to rent it.
- sigs are for wimps.
2D sucks, 3DCGI is not the reason Fox Animation is going/has gone down.
As far as the "2D vs 3D" debate. Who cares ? 2D Animation is not dead yet, and it's easy to see that by the success of the Disney films, Japanese Anime and other forms.
We continue to see 2D art being mixed with 3D where it fits, and the results are great. Example of this are Tarzan, Hunchback , Lion King, and yes Titan A.E.
For goodness sake, Chicken Run was clay animation !!! Look how succesfull that movie was, and they're going to make more movies !
- sigs are for wimps.
The computer F/X industry in the 1980s came to
nearly a standsill in the late 80s after cheese
and failures in the mid 80s such as Tron and the
Last Star Fighter. One F/X house even bought a
top end super computer (Cray XMP) of the time
and went bankrupt.
1990s saw a renaisance in the Abyss creature
(which was hard to tell it was a computer) and
digital editing in Back to the Future II.
Animation will come too.
Of course! This is the real reason why Toy Story and its sequel had such great success: they have excellent characters and a great storyline (not to mention a point! not to mention showing us something about our own humanity!). Meanwhile Titan A.E. with its carbon-copy cookie-cutter (I like that alliteration!) characters will go to the trash heap where it belongs.
"... I declare our city to be a free and independent state to be named Tri-Insula!" --Fernando Wood, Mayor of NYC 1861
This isn't about individual films being serious, but about the medium itself being taken seriously. The Japanese treat animation as another medium capable of doing anything that live action can do, and more -- Hollywood treats it as a vehicle for children's films only.
-- Meet the Residents -- http://www.residents.com/
Hate to break this to you, but Disney's teaser trailers never look like their typical fare. I remember seeing the Mulan teaser, thinking, wow that looks good, then being sorely disappointed. Don't get your hopes up.
Q.
I find his style to be too clean-cut, as though he's trying to go for a Disney look (missing his old haunts?) but not quite succeeding. The human characters look as though they've all just been thoroughly scrubbed behind the ears and given a good polish, and brushed their teeth with SparkleFresh(tm). It might work for Beauty and the Beast, but was wrong for Titan A.E., IMO. "Bite" is exactly what it didn't have.
Reading the article, I get the feeling Bluth has his head up his you-know-what. Perhaps he thinks that the same old animating style should continue to sell regardless of originality of style or story, but he's wrong. It's not out of fashion, it's out of steam - perhaps it was once original, but not any more, not by a long shot.
And 3D as a reason for the demise of 2D is a red herring. I didn't see any 3D in the South Park movie, and that didn't hurt it any. Real success in movies, animated or otherwise, even to some extent in mainstream blockbusters, is about creativity and imagination, none of which were evident in Titan A.E.
If plot is the be all end all (which, I agree, it should be) then why was "Starship Troopers" so successful?
It was 90210 in space, with bad acting, stupid plotline, horrid dialogue (the best dialogue in the movie was the redhead coughing up blood!), and actors with absolutely no talent.
I felt more of an attachment and interest in the welfare of the Arachnids than the humans,and the Arachnids were nothing more than computer-generated special effects! (And I hate spiders!) They *did* have gripping dialogue: "Screech! Screechschree! Eeee! EEEEEeee!" Yep, stirred my soul.
So please explain to me how such a hideous movie could be so successful, when your argument is that plot is absolutely necessary for a movie to succeed.
In fact, on that note, why did Independence Day, Twister, Deep Impact, Armageddon (sp?), etc. succeed? Again, no plot, just great FX with big things blowing up.
"The dead do not shoo-bop-aloo-bah." -- Kai, 'Lexx'
not only is the universe stranger than you imagine,
it's stranger than you are capable of imagining
Still, a pretty cheesy movie. Fun eye candy, though.
--
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
You must've seen a different Sailor Moon than the one I'm thinking of.
--
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
I don't remember any nipples in Evangelion, or Lain, or Kimagure Orange Road, to pick three at random. Sure, Ranma 1/2 was full of 'em, but that's just Rumiko Takahashi for you. She likes nipples, I guess.
--
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
I'll grant you most of those, but if by nge you mean Neon Genesis Evangelion, you really need to watch that one again, this time with your brain turned on.
--
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
If all you've seen so far is Akira and Ghost in the Shell, I can't blame you. They're okay, but definitely not the best anime has to offer. On the other hand, I agree with you about the insane fans...
--
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Titan AE did not feel like a coherent two-hour story. It felt like an entire season or two of animation compressed (lossily) into a movie.
Don Bluth does incredible work, but he obviously wanted to do a lot more with this material than he had space and time for. I'm sure there was a lot of trimming to make it slightly more coherent, but the direction still keeps changing on a per-minute basis.
Actually, I know there have been a lot of scenes in futurama that were 3d rendered and made it obvious. It's just done such that it looks like classical animation. (the black hole/titanic episode had some as i recall)
I've been told that the entire show is 3d rendered.
I wonder how that stacks up to classical animation in terms of sheer production costs...
#define F(x) int main(){printf(#x,10,#x);}
F(#define F(x) int main(){printf(#x,10,#x);}%cF(%s))
Like I read in one post, the FOX animation studio in Phoenix (actually Scottsdale) closed months before the release of the film Titan A.E. It was this studio that was reponsible for the film... I knew people who worked there as animators... An unfortunate thing, since it was a dream of mine to work there since moving to AZ.
Bummer.
"Perhaps most amazingly, votaries of 'diversity' insist on absolute conformity." -- Tony Snow
That's right, kill of the 2D Fox Animation and give us more of the bi-dimensional animation from Fox like: The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Futurama and Family Guy.
--
Give us our karma back! Punish Karma Whores through meta-mod!
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
I agree with this whole-heartedly, unfortunetly.
It seems that animated films don't do well here in the US if it 1) doesn't have a funny lighthearted sidekick that is probably an animal. 2) Couldn't be somehow packaged with a toy in a happymeal at McDonalds or 3) Have a theme song that is performed by whatever pop sensation / flavor of the month.
argent
Disney hasn't set the bar too high, they've just associated "animation" with "cute, huggable, characters." Personally, I think Titan A.E. (which I liked) would have been much better is they had gone with a bit more hard-core style. Bluth has always played second fiddle to Disney, when he should have been playing a guitar.
Gimme some feature length animation with a Spawn (HBO) style animation and adult themes done with quality and you'll have a winner.
--
+&x
It looked like they were going to make a movie with real actors, but then they ran out of money and had to make a cartoon.
sup
This situation here is somewhat similar to other cases where the corporate suits got the wrong idea. A good example of this is the recent changes at taco bell. They fired the president and got rid of the dog commercials and the chalupas. I think I speak for most people (at least those that I know) in saying that those were my favorite things about taco bell. The reason why taco bell's sales have dropped have nothing to do with the dog or the chalupa, they have to do with the fact that taco bell's employees deliver slow and inept service. These suits should try eating at their own restaurants once in a while. The same thing goes for Titan A.E., true standard 2d animation is an aging medium, however paint has been around for millenia and I don't see all the painters saying, well, I guess it times to start doing CGI art on computers. It's true the some people have moved to more hi-tec mediums, but many still prefer paint and canvas. It all has to do with what message you are trying to get across. If you want to make a truly film noir movie you make it in black & white, even today. I think everyone should note that Clerks, while filmed in Black & White because Kevin Smith couldn't afford anything better (it lacks acting for the same reason) is a really cool movie. Dr Strangelove is better than almost any film in color I can think of. I think people in hollywood need to get their acts together and realize that we don't care about how much it cost to make the movie, we care about plot, acting and directorship (regardless of the medium it is produced in.)
It came out a few weeks ago, and a Phoenix radio station held a screening at a local theater. Other than that, it is (for now anyway) only on Starz.
Disney knock off? Nah, it was just standard Don Bluth style. The story was a little too cliched. I thought the animation itself was pretty good. I liked the soundtrack too.
:P
The biggest problem is that outside of anime and a few small other venues [ie Simpsons, South Park, etc.] most folks still consider animation to be for kids. Of course, Disney will keep putting out kid oriented flicks. They try to stick some stuff in there for the adults. the worst part about Disney is the effort to try to market everything and every character into the ground.
Truthfully, some of the Disney films I have liked best are some of the ones that did not do very well. I enjoy most animation, although I prefer the ones with some bite. Titan AE is a title I intend to buy on DVD.
As fars as the 2D vs 3DCGI battle. I have to admit to being a bit of a purists. Although, I have been relaxing my stance. Dinosaur, yet another Disney flick, was a well done blend of 3D with RL backgrounds. I think that is the kind of stage that 3D will flourish in. 2D/3D mix still annoys me at times. Even though I liked Titan AE, some of the blending, or lack thereof, caused me to lose my focus from the events and focus on the differences. The dance scene in Beauty and the Beast caused the same effect for me.
Simply put; there are plenty of places for both 2D and 3D animation. I just don't know if blending of the two will ever be totally pleasing to the eye.
And creating a planet? Come on. Watch me pull a planet's worth of mass out of my ass. At least in Star Trek II they used an existing planet and transformed it.
Opps. Point of fact. The planet in Star Trek II was made from a nebula also.
Considering it was released in 1981 on a shoestring budget I think its simply incredible. And funny as hell. You want to see a real crying shame of a movie and proof positive that the public wants more T-N-A in movies go see "Scary Movie". The movie sucks but at least gives the audience a little of what they want.
What could save this movie before it hits DVD? Do a director's cut with a few extra (rated "R") scenes and a completely new soundrack remix. Heck maybe a RAP soundtrack since rap is today where heavy metal music was back then.
'Blair Witch Project 2' is being bandied around Hollywood. With a huge budget and big-name producer.
"Drawing on the success of last year's 'Mona Lisa', we've decided to capitalize on this momentum, and create a sequel: a painting that is also taller than it is wide!" (applause, thrown money.)
(My apologies to Leonardo.)
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
This happens with so many movies... I hear about it, my hopes get inflated. Then cold, hard reality steps in and the movie turns out to be another suck-ass cookie-cutter pile. The number of movies I've been pleasantly surprised at, I can count on my fingers. (Usual Suspects, Pi, Fight Club.) Probably a few others. I'd say that no one can make a truly visionary movie in Hollywood, but two of those three were big-budget mainstream films. The problem is, creative vision is too often subsumed in 'we gotta sell this' or 'we gotta sell to this bunch'. Example: the *stupid fscking love subplot* in The Matrix. That was stapled on. No damned doubt about it. I can't stand being pandered to. The Matrix was *not* a love story! Ahem. And that's why they'll never make and animated 'Watchmen' with John Malkovich as Doctor Manhattan. It's too edgy, long (that's another thing -- movies should be up to eight hours long, with a possible intermission somewhere in there (I'm dead serious)) and even if it did become a movie, they'd tone it down and defang it. I would certainly never be able to redefine the genre. Fsck that. -grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Every read 'Understanding Comics'? Scott McCloud show us a glass representing comics, empties the glass to symbolize the separation of form and content...
Just because the last dozen animated movies have sucked, does *not* mean that animation sucks.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Koreans. Forget the name of the studio, though.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Computer Generated Image(s).
Happy?
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Actually overheard:
"Schindler's List sucked in black and white! It should have been in color!"
I talked to him. He was dead serious.
Scary.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Dear Mr Kickasso.
Your statement is about as valid as "Console Sucks, GUI is the way to go".
Yes, I agree that 3D has a lot of potential that 2D animation simply doesn't, but ruling out 2D based on an (and I say this as a person who's taken part in the animation business) unfounded statement like that? Well, not for me. =)
Just because something is more technically advanced doesn't make it better. =)
-Fel-
Not having seen the movie in question, I can't speak for 2D vs 3D in the case of that movie never being a success, but I think what the article in question is missing is that there are a LOT more factors to what makes a good animation than just 2D or 3D.
My points can be expressed most easily in "Just because something is technically more advanced doesn't make it better".
Take Independence Day (a movie that I loved) for instance and compare it to the original Star Wars. Yes, Independence day has a lot more eye-candy. It got more action, and it's got more famous actors. Still, how many here can argue against Independence Day (relying on 3D CGI) ever coming close to the fame of Star Wars (using actual real-life models)? Not many I think.
Now take this into consideration when you look at 2D vs 3D animation. Yes, 3D animation has a LOT to offer. The characters can be alive, movements more fluid... Voicesync? Never a problem. Still, 3D animation has some serious restrictions. What you can do in 3D animation is limited to what the program allows you to do.
As an example? 3D animators out there, I challenge you to create a realistic or non-realistic 3D explosion that can rival those seen in the so-popular Anime movies. I'm not talking about lots of flashes and eye-candy, I'm talking about an explosion where you can see the clouds of smoke and flames burst out from the buildings, just moments before the shockwave rips the city apart, sending huge chunks of concrete hundreds of meters into the sky, only to fall down and impact among huge crowds of people with incredible force.
Well, anyone who's seen Anime knows what I'm talking about. When 3D animation is able to create something that radiates power so utterly like that, I'll concede my case. Until then, I hold that 3D animation has its severe limits.
And that's just one example.
Now, I'm not ruling out 3D animation. It definitely has a big space in the animation industry. AntZ is just one example of that. However, there's nothing to say that 2D and 3D animation can't coexist. Take Futurama for instance. It's a TV show with a very simplistic style that despite that uses a lot of 3D animations (how many of you knew that? =)).
Prince of Egypt used a large amount of 3D animation, as does almost Disney's recent movies. And in my opinion, those movies are masterpieces that hold a class that 3D animation has yet to reach.
In my opinion, 3D animation is better for most action. 3D animation also allows for things that aren't possible in traditional 2D animation. Still, 2D animation is the better medium for storytelling, where the plot is more important than the eyecandy.
I believe that's why traditional animation is still in such a high demand.
-Fel-
It doesn't surprise me to hear that the best 3D animators come from a 2D background.
The end product (regardless of technique - pen and ink, CGI, clay, live action, whatever) is a 2D moving image that (one would hope) tells a story.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I remember seeing a preview a few years ago for a movie called "Blue Planet". The action sequence in the trailer was set to white zombie's more human than human. It looked tres cool. But, i never heard if the movie was canned. Now im thinking it might have been Titan A.E., but i never saw a action scene quite as cool as the one from that trailer. And if i remember right, Blue Planet was completely CGI...
I don't know. I took my little sister (she's 12) to Fantasia 2000, and she enjoyed it just fine. I'll admit, _I_ enjoyed it more than she did, but she was glad we went.
Intolerant people should be shot.
I thought the characters and plot were just as good as any other Hollywood movie. Predictable enough, but absolutely bloody gorgeous.
Intolerant people should be shot.
The only two opinions I heard about Titan before I saw (and enjoyed) it were: I thought the visuals were incredible; and: I don't go in for this mixing of cg and drawn animation.
Intolerant people should be shot.
You know, I hadn't realized that the slow motion in every single action scene was why I was _bored_ halfway through MI:2! (I caught myself wondering when it would be over already before they got to Australia...) Everything was very artistic and nice to watch, but I really didn't care much about what was going on...
Intolerant people should be shot.
This sucks. It looks much better than 5-10 years ago, but it still sucks. And when combined with traditional 2D animation it really sticks out.
I prefer hand drawn 2D but there are other ways to use 3D stuff much more seamlessly. A few years ago some 3D app (Lightwave?) made a plugin to simulate hand drawn looks. Much better than the usual Rotoscope.
It also wouldn't hurt if we could get rid of all the music in these movies that are usually targeted for kids and more merchandising (especially Disney stuff). And dont forget some story with conflict!
In this context, I've always thought it was "Computer Generated Imagery".
Where have you been the last 20 years? Don Bluth has done everything from Secret of Nimh, Dragon's Lair and Space Ace through Fivel (sp) and Land Before Time. (Not to mention a slew of others.)
I'm kind of surprised why people thought Titan A.E. was going to be a Heavy Metal style movie... just look at his list of films... nearly all children's movies.
Personally, I liked it. Probably because I went into it for fun and not to think I was getting the best movie of the century. Thats a big problem now days. Everyone expects the next Ben Hur, the next Godfather, or the next Star Wars. Give it up, and enjoy the movies for what they are... and when an occasional gem comes around, see it a few more times.
Sheesh, people in this country feel like they have to be entertained 100% of the time and complain loudly when the next drop of lithium isn't as potent as the last drop. Just ride the ride folks.
I sig, therefore I am.
Well, color me naive, but I don't think that most anime houses hire many science advisors.. And I tell you, I probably wouldn't enjoy it as much if they did. I think Titan A.E., being essentially a kid's movie, would probably lose more from the introduction of hard science than it would gain. Though, I will agree with you on one thing; my one gripe about the movie is the fact we don't get to learn more about the enemy and Earth is blown up within the first 15 minutes or so.. I wish the movie had been a half-hour longer, ideally pre-invasion, setting the stage and introducing the enemy. They're PURE ENERGY, man.
It's strange. I agree with you on every point, on the fact that I see one movie a year that I don't find terrible, that almost every movie is a yawn-inducing, formulatic, braindead piece of crap. The only thing I see differently is that Titan A.E. *wasn't* formulatic. It was one of the only pure sparks of ingenuity and imagination I've seen in a long time. It didn't fufill the bottom line, in my opinion, particularly because it *wasn't* formulatic. It was a big risk, and its failure pretty much ensures that another such big risk won't be taken again for a long, long time. For those who complain about the talking animals, or the fact it's not gory enough, or the "mixing of visual mediums," maybe you're too old and jaded for the movie. Most of my favorite movies are children's movies (Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Star Wars and Don Bluth's masterpiece The Secret of NIMH to name a few) particularly *because* they don't pander to the older, jaded, sneering 20somethings and aren't afraid to have a sense of imagination and adventure. The magic of Titan A.E. will be sorely missed, and it's tragic because it's something Hollywood needs a lot more of.
I liked the animations of the movie, and I think the background story was okay. But there was no depth to it.
:(
I didn't really care if the human race wins or looses (they would win, that was clear), but I simply didn't care about the characters.
The only good thing I can really say is: They at least didn't make it a musical!!!!
"The Road to El Dorado" was okay, but only as a musical. Animation wise... OH well. The story was also pretty shallow....
Can maybe somebody out there create an Animation movie like "Strange Days", one of the best SF I saw, interresting story, but probably too complicated for Joe Sixpack as it also failed on the box office
Michael
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Agreed re: the physics of it all. The plot was pretty piss-poor too, though, and honestly I didn't think the animation was all that hot. It looked....dim, somehow.
+++ATH0
As others have pointed out, you're probably remembering Roger Ebert's comments WRT Titan A.E. and Battlefield Earth.
As much as I miss Gene Siskel's film commentary, I can at least console myself with the fact that he passed on before he could be subjected to the wretchedness that was Battlefield Earth.
Why do so many people think CGI has something to do with computer graphics? You can't combine the acronyms SGI (Silicon Graphics International, a company that makes powerful graphics computers) with CG (Computer Generated/Graphics). It doesn't work.
:v) .
CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface, and it's the way web pages can be made dynamic by altering the URLs sent to the server. It has absolutely nothing to do with computer graphics. What would the "I" stand for?
Sorry to rant... I'm not usually this angry
Fsck this hard drive! Although it probably won't work...
foo = bar/*myPtr;
Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
I saw Titan AE second day it was out up here, and the theatre was empty, just a handful of people. It was scary, but my friend and i thought it was because Shaft just came out the same weekend. But apparently not.
I'd like to say my two-bits (25 cents) and be gone.
Animation mixing: I enjoyed it, it gave the ships a surreal sort of look that i expect out of sci-fi. the animation wasn't bad, and the mixing, though noticable, wasn't a sin or anything.
Music: enjoyable, thats why i have the CD, I thought the key was is the timing, the songs were well placed, and the good songs on the CD, well most weren't big names, unless i'm in a closet (i know Lit is on there, and a few others, but still)
Plot, story and everything else: Ok, a planet in 15 minutes, cheesy true, but why not? it's science-FICTION. Come-on don't expect explinations to be handed to you on a silver platter, anyone wonder about the FTL? The story and plot, not that bad as sci-fi goes, it was pretty classic of sorts, but it wasn't bad by any means, pick up a 70s-80s sci-fi novel and flip through, it's about the same, the good stuff is at least. It was a good blend brought to the screen, and hey, its fun to watch spaceships fly around.
I thought it was a good movie, and flopped because of a bad opening time, very enjoyable and did a good job with it all. And not just i, but most of my friends loved it. Maybe everyone's just thinking too much about it? oh well, those are my thoughts.
Excuse my spelling, the internet doesn't build in my spell check.
whoops. anyways, thanks for pointing it out.
I still remember when a batch of saturday morning cartoons switched to rendered 3d. reboot, Beastwars, warplanets, MechWarrior... there was another one too that went weird 3d that you needed glasses for but it still looked different with out them. I was not really impressed with any of them. I found it hard to watch and would quickly switch over to standard 2d animation with more attention to artwork like the super mario world cartoon (with yoshi!)
since then as I have become an anime fan, i look more for more detailed artwork than new technology in the animation process.
I also thought titan AE was really good. mainly as it only used the rendered stuff where it was needed.
but then again what do I know, I'm crazy...
Deep, ain't it?
Rami
--
rJames.org - illustration
I went to it: It sucked.
A pale shadow compared to the first one. This is something that I really was expecting. Disney has been more interested in making quick, mainstream, sellable things lately and I really didn't expect Fantasia 2000 to be much different.
It was still an order of magnitude (or more) better than that POS Dinosaur movie.
Rami
--
rJames.org - illustration
2D/3D, it doesn't matter. The driving force behind a good movie is a good story. Titan A.E. didn't have it. Instead it relied on what most movies do these days: well-known actors, lots of effects (in this case, animation) and a so-called killer soundtrack.
I love technology when it is used well: The Matrix, Jurassic Park. However, I loathe the movie more if it is driven by effects such as Independence Day. There needs to be a balance.
However, there is some hope. Hollywood hates big flops such as Godzilla. Give it time and the market will correct the problem.
The TV ads for Titan AE over here in the UK actually say OUT LOUD, THROUGH THE SPEAKER "Titan AE is Star Wars". With this kind of misrepresentation, they're doomed to failure.
So the 3D "look" is in, and that killed Bluth et al, eh? Titan WAS essentially 3D! As a matter of fact many of my nerd friends thought it had some of the best over-use of 3D in a movie so far! (-: Remember the ice fields with all those reflections? Or the bad guy city of semi-transparent aqua blue walls?
I guess they mean the character animation though.
I think what killed it was the crappy trailers and more importantly, the crappy plot. Or maybe it was the crappy solutions to the problems in the heros way. Did you know you can break a force field by sticking two fingers in it instead of just one? Maybe it was ALL those cliches in the place of a fresh sci-fi movie? Nah, it's the 2D.
The reason Fox Animation, and many good American Animation studios, have died, is due to the simple fact that most animation is falling into a very simple, and boring, cliche. Most of America would refer to animation as "something for kids" and not give it a second thought. It's something they'd take little Jimmy to go see for his birthday, but if given the opportunity to see it on their own, it's not bloody likely, unless it's made by Disney.
Oddly enough, it was Disney that started the boring childrens storybook form that pervades through American Animation (herein known as AA). AA tends to have a plot operating around kids or teenagers (child's role model) that does something truly epic against all odds, and the hero gets the girl. Stereotypical of our society.
Now, Japanese Animation (herein known as anime) has mastered the art of producing these things as well, but they have significantly more far reaching affects. Ask your local random-Joe-skippy what he thinks about anime, and chances are he'll think the same thing that he'd say about AA. Something along the lines of "oh, that stuff with the electric mouse?" Ask the same person if they've ever heard of Hentai (animated pornography), and they'll look at you funny.
Japan has managed to turn animation into the art form that we failed to turn it into during the 80s. During the 80s the anime we saw kids watching on Saturday wasn't a *mon or other similar ripoff, no, we had Transformers and Voltron. Those, while admittedly made for children, show a kind of sophistication not matched in most AA.
So, what animation studios need to learn from is the model put forth not by Disney, but by TVTokyo. Watch something produced by Gainax, such as Neon Genesis: Evangelion. Watch a comedy like The Slayers. Enjoy serious, thoughtful, animation, like Serial Experiments: Lain. Do not, on the other hand, explore the finer points of making the next Mulan. It's been done, it's no longer interesting. It still sells because it's the institution.
--
If there is a God, you are an authorized representative. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
If there is a God, you are an authorized representative. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
There was a panel on the Tick at Comic-con... I didn't actually hear very much of it, 'cuz I was waiting for Episode 1.5 to start next door, but the impression I got was that they're bringing the Tick back in some form, perhaps movie.
KdL
I agree completely.
My sister used to think that cartoons were only for little kids untill the day I showed her Ninja Scroll. I have been a fan of anime for many years and have been trying to convince other less enlightened people that is was worth checking out for a while.
The sad thing is that it was the nudity in the movie that made her think differently, not the story or the great battles.
I am still trying to get her to sit down and watch akira with me because that is still my favorite movie.
-- Any comments seen here are not mine, but a mixture of alchohol and lack of sleep.
Once and I while I catch a cartoon on television which is supposed to go along with the Starship Troopers storyline (I think the show is actually called Starship Troopers in fact).
Essentially, it's 3d animation which looks very lifelike, but you can still tell it's computer generated.
I don't know what you expect to see in a movie like this. I personally loved the movie, and I had a great time watching/listening to it. The soundtrack is great, the animation was great (both 2D and 3D), and the script was good (maybe it's not a literature masterpiece, but what the hell.. it was fun anyway).
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
Should've listened to my instincts. Terrible film, made worse because I knew just how hard so many people had worked on it.
ZPE, I know Akira, Akira is a friend of mine, and ZPE, Titan is no Akira. Go see Iron Giant.
Titan AE was an insulting film that pandered to the lowest common denominator. Laughable, saccharine storyline, entirely forgettable music, OK animation (but really terrible physics effects... e.g., large ice crystals colliding all the time. Where are the small ice crystals?), dumb characters, phoned-in voice talent... I could go on, but you get the picture.
It's a dilemma for me, because movie reviews so often give away large chunks of plot, and trailers always do. But these days the studios churn out so much garbage that you almost have to read reviews before seeing the movies.
And I'm really glad it _did_ go out of theaters, because the fewer people who see it, the less money it makes and the less likely Hollywood is to try and "milk" the same picture for a few hundred million more bucks.
I _really_ wanted to like Titan. I really did. I would love to be able to say that Hollywood managed to nail a good animated sci-fi, because then I could hope for more.
IT SUCKED.
The plot was lame. In fact, it was more than lame: it built massive towers of lameness upon the lame foundations it stole wholesale from other lame films. The music was awful. It's the same disposable popcrap that currently litters American radio airwaves. The animation was acceptable, but not spectacular, and the blend of CGI with hand-drawn characters just had the effect of making the hand-drawn characters look cheap and poorly done. The characters themselves (with the single exception of the little toad scientist guy) were poorly conceived, poorly scripted, and poorly voiced. The dialog was wooden.
Another comment on the animation: Watch a movie like Iron Giant, where the 2D animation looks and behaves like it's 3D. You get a sense that the giant is very large, that the earth shakes when he moves, and that he is, in fact, a three-dimensional character. Now look at the "3d" scenes in Titan AE. They look like a video game, where physics doesn't matter (check out the ice-crystal space battle scene for a prime example of this). This makes the movie feel cheap, rushed, and (subliminally) undermines the willing suspension of disbelief.
As far as the trailers go, I almost didn't bother seeing the film because the trailers were so bad. I remember the first one I saw was very short, just showed the Titan lifting off from the exploding earth. The Titan looked _really_ dumb, and got a big laugh from everyone in the theater. Then they came out with the supremely annoying "Higher"-by-Creed trailer, and I figured that any film that would use such stupid music in its trailer was bound to suck, and to suck hard. But I figured, hey, I'll give it a chance. I wish I hadn't.
Fox: Good riddance.
I dragged my girlfriend to opening night. The only other people in the audience were a theatre employee, a middle-aged person, and a couple of high school kids.
I found it to be an interesting mix.
--
Max V.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Absolutely.
I got the impression that the filmmakers wanted to make something much more sophisticated (and dark) but were "exec"ed into making a hybrid kiddie/interesting movie.
--
Max V.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
I don't know, but I thought the plot was interesting enough, with a few twists I didn't expect. In fact, I saw the movie twice. But then again, I don't like Bruce Willis movies.
It's interesting to note that my actual experience varies quite a lot with your assumptions.
When the original Fantasia was re-released to theatres a couple of years back, I took the chance to go see it. With me in the theatre were Ghod knows how many children of varying ages right down to toddlers. As you would expect, in the time leading up to the movie and during the previews, most of them were fussy and chatty, and the occasional baby cried. Nothing unusual there, I expected like you to have to deal with it throughout.
But I didn't. Once the movie started every single one of those children shut up and stayed that way, enraptured apparently, through the entire> movie. I even heard a couple on the way out saying how much they liked it. I was astounded, not to mention vastly pleased.
The lesson I took away from my experience (rather than conjecture, like yours) is that people want a spectacle they can become immersed in. Even children.
The reasoning behind this is because children (and the vast majority of all adults and adolesents) today are media slobbering brain-washed babboons that not only don't want something better, they don't even realise that there COULD BE.
Sounds like you're making the same assumptions the studios are, which is why we get so much crap. Self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps?
There are only about a half dozen different basic love story plots. This one was not any worse than most of the others that hit the big screen. As far as that goes, Shakespeare's plots weren't original when he wrote them. Not to say that Titanic was anywhere close to Shakespeare, of course, but there really ain't nothing new under the sun when it comes to plots. You just mix and match the pieces and adjust the settings a bit.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Not exactly. Paintings and sculpture actually ARE 2D and 3D mediums, respectively. They're quite distinct. 2D and 3D as applied to video are misnomers. Both 2D and 3D are actually a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional scene. Both try to look 3D on a flat screen. A better analogy might be the difference between oils and watercolors. Even this (like all analogies) is inexact, since neither the purpose nor the method of judging success is the same for an artistic expression and a commercial movie.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Yes and no. If Casablanca had never been seen and you released it today as a commercial movie, it would be a dismal flop. It might get rave reviews from the critics but it would stink at the box office. Casablanca isn't a masterpiece because it is black and white. It was filmed using pretty much state of the art techniques at the time and remains an incredible movie today because it transcends its technical limitations. You're absolutely correct that the story is much more important than the medium, but that doesn't mean that the choice of medium becomes irrelevant.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
There are some, like in Shinji's dream when he was dissolved by Eva. For more psychoanalysis see FAQ.
just about the same thing happened for me. Basicially from preview to movie this is what happened.
1st Commericial: Put Titan AE Rating at 10. Must see second only to X Men.
2nd Commercial. Little More detail on movie graphics but no storyline giveaways. Still not rated. Still looked awesome.
3rd Commericial. Started introducing Primary characters. Hints on some of the storyline. Still looks awesome.
4th Commercial. Introduces some more sotryline. starting to get the basic layout of the film. Introduces you to a few of the secondary characters. This is where it goes downhill. I swear I saw A Jar-Jar Clone in there somewhere.
5th Commercial. PG Rating. lost a ton of points right there. I mean. if your going to have a brutal war going on, at least have some Brutality in it that can constitute a PG13 rating at least.
6th Commerical to release: Every time I see these, I think yeah it looks great, but I keep thinking that their trying to attract Mouseketters instead of trying to attract an Anime Crowd.
Movie Released. Did not go see. mainly because it was gone in 6 days. they replaced it with another movie destined for the crapper, "Rocky and Bullwinkle". then they replaced that with "Space Jam" (!!).
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
ok, you got me. I guess for a movie to be successful it merely has to have nifty special effects. I guess it's only required for animated movies to have a plot to succeed. (Hence any Disney animated movie seems to do well.)
Well ok then, I give up, you win. vw_bob
All I have to say is that if the plot hadn't sucked the movie would have rocked.
Lets face it, what matters in a movie is plot, not all the special effects, or in this case the nifty, and quite excellent, animation. The animation and special effects should really be a secondary, but still very important consideration.
vw_bob
(get your local coupons at www.couponfeast.com) -- (why? why not?)
Michelangelo thought much the same...
-- Cisk for the Cisk God
As an artist who may want to work in 2d animation sometime, I am restraining the urge to mail nastybad letters. This is something that is going to put a lot of people out of jobs if it becomes a widespread idea...Devaluing hand-drawn art in favor of CG is pretty damn stupid. They're different art forms. One is not better or worse except in personal opinions, simply different.
Fox just had bad luck with their tries at it, and is throwing in the towel, seemingly placing the blame of the whole thing not on the quality of their stuff, but on what they feel will attract viewers.
-You're wearing...A bag? I have misplaced my pants.
On the other hand I just caught "The Iron Giant" the other day on HBO, and I must say it was one of the best animated films I've ever seen! It had everything Titan:AE lacked...
What first made me want to see TIG was an interview with Brad Bird, director and screenwriter for the film. He had a passing familiarity with the book by British author Ted Hughes (which had a somewhat different plotline, as well as location and theme), but had a different take on it: in his words, what if a gun had a soul, and chose not to be a gun? In the course of writing the script, he chose early Cold War America for its blend of nationalist paranoia and seeming innocence.
The movie was excellent. Few films have pushed my buttons quite like that - and I certainly didn't expect it from a piece of American animation.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
Does anyone remember Ralph Bakshi's animation from the 70's? Some of them were "Fritz The Cat", "American Pop", and "Wizards". One of his techniques (used to great effect in "American Pop") was to shoot live actors, then trace over their images for his animation. It was sort of a low-tech motion-capture, but it gave the movies a very warm, mature feel.
This technique was also used in many, many scenes in Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings," with fairly dramatic effect. The Orcs in the Rankin/Bass production might have been a little more true to Tolkeinn's images, but those in Bakshi's film were much darker, grittier, and more memorable.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
Is closing the studio really punishing the medium? I mean, if your analysis of the thinking (or lack thereof) that went into making Titan A.E. is anything like correct, the medium is probably better off without this particular studio....
3D animation, to me, has always lacked a certain emotional appeal that anime has always been able to fill. Also, it's a lot cheaper to produce 2D animation than 3D. 3D animation, especially that which produces realistic facial expressions and movements (Final Fantasy) requires a lot of time and money. Sorry if this has been mentioned -- I didn't feel like reading through 164 comments to get into the right thread.
I've got these pictures of Dirk the Daring having to sort out Singe's treasure using quicksort, or finding the shortest path through the castle to Daphnie (sp?).
-- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
This has gotta be jon katz, but where is the post-columbine reference?
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
I get the impression that its more that the cost of 3D rendering is considerably lower than the cost of 2D.
Of course, this means that what they should be doing is putting a lot of money into computer generated cel animation, and create systems that can do a very good job of inbetweening, and speculatively calculating what a character would look like from a different angle automatically.
Based on each preview seen, the 2D in this movie appeared shoddy & poorly relaized next to its "dazzling" 3D effects (which were good, but diminished by the poorly realized 2D).
Besides that, I didn't see it for political reasons. The A.E. moniker reminded me too much of the "politically correct" transformation of A.D. time to A.C.E. (after common era)/B.C.E (before common era crap, hallmark of an unthinking Sociology department at your favorite university. Yes, you can call Java C#, but it's not. Use what the people use, don't change it (just in name), and you might deserve some respect.
--
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Weird, I thought Titan A.E. was a really good movie and the blend with 2d and 3d animation was done quite well. Definately a lot better than most of the movies that have been released in the past while.
I enjoyed Titan A.E. a lot more than I thought I would.
The first reason I thought I wouldn't enjoy it was because I had been
seeing promos for well over a year telling me how it was the next
great step in animation... actually, from the first promos I saw I
didn't even get the impression that it was animated, that's how
far the hype was ahead of the substance.
Another reason is because Hollywood, and western animation to a
large degree, is still in that phase where presentation takes a
higher priority than the need to establish a solid plot, consistent
storyline, and good character development. TAE actually made
an attempt at this, but I don't think they allowed enough time
in the film to carry these factors thru.
That is an inherent problem with Summer Blockbuster films in general,
with the X-Men being a good example of how to work around such
issues to still bring a good story thru.
The third reason is becuase I (and a significant portion of the
target market) have gotten used to the idea that animation can
be more than strange characters and creatures in the background,
with the clueless humans saving the day thru a combination of
dogged determination and sheer luck. As an anime fan,
I consider myself biased in this regard; but even if I wasn't,
I would have to hold TAE up in comparison to the Toy Storys,
Bugs life's, and even Pokemon, to see if it was worth the
full price of admission.
All in all, I went in expecting mind-candy, and I got great mind-candy
as a result. I think Fox was aiming for a higher audience expectation
overall, and that may have been a failing in hyping the movie. But,
I'll still take Gune over Jar-Jar anyday.
I saw it and thought the animation was awesome. In fact, I'd like to see more beautiful 2d like it.
Problem? Story was so canned. It was a mix of the worst sci-fi cliches from the last 3 decades.
And it's frightening to think of a new world sprouted from the neo Adam and Eve of Matt Damon and Drew Barrymore. Shudder.
Obviously 2D is a thing of the past and the public will except it no longer.
Only the finest of 3D animated graphics will ever be popular, from this time forth.
For evidence I put forth for your consideration the brilliant computer animations on that smash hit South Park.
No, that doesn't standout anywhere near as much as a hand-drawn character does against a computer generated background.
The watercolor backgrounds of most cartoons actually fit, because it gives the background a out-of-focus look. Not the same with 3D CGI backgrounds.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
I didn't go see Titan A.E. because it mixes mediums. I don't want to go see a movie where everything is rendered by a computer except the characters. That is so lame! They should have stuck with either 3D or 2D animation. They just don't go well together, unless you're using 2D shaders on your 3D animation as they did on the Iron Giant.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
'actly.. Titan AE didn't suck because of the animation- it was the story. Chicken Run, as a timely comparison, is much more engaging and not intellectually insulting to watch (as an adult viewer). Titan AE is just dumb is all...
Here is the problem as "I" see it:
People now dont want to be impressed with a story, plot or other such petty concerns, they want big, neat looking, and something that will keep their 2 year old busy long eough for them to get some peace and quiet.
Dont get me wrong, I like CG movies, cartoons, etc (ReBoot kicks a**!) but when I want to see a real classic with good, REAL GOOD animation, I wont watch some crappy anime POS (flame me now), I will watch some original Disney movies, or some old bugs bunny.
People want to be so impressed by the MOVIE itself, that in order to make a buck, Movie producers and writers have to leave the story behind, or else you watch their hard work and animation go down the tubes because some moron thinks the Pokemon movie is a decent way to spend a saturday afternoon.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
The 2d animation was decent, although I suspect rotoscoped, but the 3d was uneven in quality. Some of the 3d looked good (the 3d spacesuits with 2d characters, the opening of the film...) and then there were shots that wouldn't even make it in low budget TV. In terms of story, Titan A.E. was middle of the road. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't memorable either. Sad, because the opening minutes of the film were really good. The beginning set a nice tension and had some nice emotional resonance without being over the top. Then it would seem everybody quit their jobs and another group made the rest of the movie. This movie is structured like and looks like Dragon's Lair or Space Ace. I kept hearing little "beep" sounds in my head where I could imagine the player making joystick moves. The scene with the hydrogen air bags, the joyride where Matt Damon's character flies the spaceship, and many other scenes have the "camera" fly around just like Bluth's videogames. I think one of the reasons I find this movie so disapointing is because there was so much potential. An American animated movie done ala Anime. If only Don Bluth had the courage to follow through. Go watch Iron Giant, Don. Story counts.
Its called Roughnecks (referring to the name of the company that the heros are in). While the animations nice, theres something wierd with the renderer. It feels a little blurry, and gives me eyestrain (and I don't get eyestrain from much).
Personally I didn't think titan A.E. was all that bad. To me, it felt like supervisory restrictions chopped the end short, and edited beyond recognition of the original concept. Also, I think 2d is not bad at all and a lot of people would miss it if it was gone. Unless 3d is done with mind bogeling attention to detail (for example ReBoot) it usually lacks a lot of the personality of hand done 2d (even though it is computer inbetweened). Of course there is always lifeless 2d too (Tom and Jerry kids? yuck!) Hopefully there will always be a place for both.
- learn mathematics - shoot dope -
How's ICE AGE coming Danimal? Are the fur TD's crapping their pants after seeing Dinosaur or are they keeping up? ;) More importantly, how is the story? Are the characters interesting and three dimentional (no pun intended)? I'd hate to see FOX's adventures into 3D CGI movie-making fall as flat as Bluth's drawings. As a huge fan of any type of animation I am always looking for "alternatives" to the Disney feces we are constantly exposed to. Is the story an in-house production or did FOX bring in some outsiders to tweak the script and character development? I know you probably can't say much about the production, but I'm curious to see if you think it's headed in the right direction! -na
^nA! Creatures in my Head
Actually, The movie looks 3d the same way that "The Iron Giant" was 3D... I've seen parts of it and it seems good, Although it hasn't reached Sweden yet... Having a movie with all 3D (3d looking) caracters is harder since you have higher expectations on skin color etc etc.
All I know is that transformers is one of the best shows for "kids" like me that I like. I absolutly hate things like south park, and all anime, well, there may be some(they have anime porn I think) but still it would suck. I think 3d if used right, can be a lot better than 2d, and 2d can be better than 3d. It all depends on what its for.
So what, they don't have enough sound samples to make his voice?? Have your comp talk like phil hartman. Cool.
What 3 films did the Phoenix studio do?
Yes I can not spell...Wait....for a second there I almost cared.
Oh no, I just fed a troll... D'oh!
it has nothing to do with 2d vs 3d, as others have already said...and 2D is not dead, heck I'm a 3D modeler/animator and you'll never take my 10 year old anime away from me! Celshader (thats the LW plugin that makes it look like a cartoon) does help a lot when your combining 2D and 3D, like in Futurama, but 3D is much more realistic then some people seem to think, especially when done properly...Foundation Imaging anyone?
I feel sorry for you, because the first trailer I saw was awesome. It used Creed's "Higher" to perfection with no voice over until the last few seconds. In my house we watch Akira and Vampire Hunter D and what not and we all enjoyed Titan A.E. more than any other movie maybe in years.
Interestingly enough, Walt Disney had intended Fantasia to be a framework. Every so often, there was going to be another Fanstasia movie, in which another group of animators were allowed to express themselves within the format. The fact that only two have been made, while Disney had been churning out crap like The Lion King and Mulan on a regular yearly basis, tells you everything you need to know about that company.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The whole color vs. black&white debate kind of reminds me of the joke from a few years ago, about how Ted Turner was probably going to colorize the beginning and ending segments of The Wizzard of Oz.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Here in Australia it has only been out for a week or so, but no one has been raving about it. I suppose when you have to compete against X-Men being at the cinema at the same time, what are the kids going to watch? I haven't seen it yet, and probably wont, as the shorts did not really interest me that much.
Titan A.E. was even less entertaining than one of those Sci-fi channel original productions that flop regularly, and this is by no means surprising.
The problems of Titan A.E. stem from the confusion that is built into the studio system's means of production. Studios are driven to make money from artistic work but art takes risks that terrify bean-counters. Instead of creating genuine art in entertainment, studios reduce their risk of failure by producing things that they think of as sure winners and they do that by trying to improve on things they've seen before.
Titan A.E. is just an eggregious example of what studios do that happened to be an animated feature and the greatest animation in the world wouldn't have helped it, because the movie's writing delved so deep into the sewers that it was nothing but a rehash of unoriginal ideas from sources that were easily recognized.
For whatever reason, it seems easy to find a greater willingness to accept and produce more originality in Japanese Manga/Anime than from its western counterparts. As animated works from Japan__from "Urotsudojidoki," to "Akira," to "crying freeman," "Tenchi Muyo," and many others__demonstrate, there is some component in the Japanese way of doing things that can face up to someone's having an orginal vision and letting that vision shine through different media.
What we are treated to in Titan A.E. by contrast is yet another can't-miss money-maker from a corporate boardroom that was so weak that it fell through the ice and ended up being too bad to attract even brain-dead novelty-seekers.
The truth is that intelligent animation is alive and well in places other than America's movie-making mainstream and Titan AE was a dog that only happened to involve animators.
The worst part of it is that the closure of the offices is a potent sign that the powers that be are already doing the expected and punishing the medium for the mistakes it can't stop itself from making.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The passenger situation (a la third class) was exagerated and the manner of sinking was based on one (particularly spectacular) version which contradicted all other eye-witness accounts. The captain's character is dubious at best (I think that's more important than his position) and owes more to the White Star's pass-the-buck account than to accounts by people who actually knew him.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The fact that Titanic (for example) succeeded dispite having no plot or historical accuracy or a lead actor (they made do with Leo) leads some studio sheep to assume that these things have nothing to do with the ability of a film to do well. So, when such a film fails they tend to look for other reasons. Such as the style of animation.
On a separate note, I wonder if Casablanca would be a flop in Europe. Briefly counting the UK as Europe, I think it could actually do quite well here and I'm sure it would do well in France.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
It was, in fact, pushed as the most historically accurate account by Cameron in interviews. He got quite angry in one interview when the issure of the stern breaking off came up. Also, if I made a film called "Bill Clinton" I think there would be an expectation that I was a least attempting to portray a version of reality.
As for the love story: that was a failure too. Unless you're 10 years old and haven't seen the same story line 100 times.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I agree, the animation was good and the rest was lacking. I hope that it's poor performance does't scare off anyone who might have been going to make a simliar, but more complete film. There is something about the potential that animation has for story telling that makes me sad to see it wasted.
The problem is not 2D versus 3D. The problem is when studios pick 3D just to be trendy. The writer needs to bring his/her vision to life with whichever format is most condusive to the story, perhaps even mixing formats if needed. In Aladdin, it made sense to use 3D rendering to simulate a carpet ride, where the viewer flew right into the city. Doing this with traditional media would have been much more difficult with possibly less satisfying results. Same thing with Beauty and the Beast...everyone remembers the gorgeous ballroom and chandelier. Both very good use of 3D where appropriate. Anime is 2D art, but the attention the artists pay to detail is no less visually stunning. Is it any wonder American studios hired Japanese artists to make American cartoons? Watch the credits for many of the "classic" cartoons during the 80s and you'll find a large number of Japanese names among the credits.
Everything is marketing oriented now. The best big-budget 'hollywood' mega-buck hype-tastic marketing cross-licensed toy/soudtrack/macdonalds-meal production I've ever seen is in every way inferior to my twentieth favourite 'arty' movie. And in the world of marketing is very fickle. Don't read anything into the success or failure of a single film, it's simply a die-roll now. Phil
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
They were talking about John Travolta's movie career being over 10 years ago, honest. By heck what a come-back!
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
If Titan AE was all 2D it might have been better.. The 3D in this movie reminded me when I played around with 3D Studio Max for the first time making big mirrored balls and shards everywhere.. Weee... 2D was excellent, however.
I eat the flesh off the living, and I vote!
As for the fate of A.E., it was yet-another-attempt to have special effects carry the weight of the film in the great tradition of Phantom Menace. I watched Run Silent, Run Deep last weekend which has some of the cheesiest FX ever, but what a hell of a movie. The audience will happily forgive bad FX for a good story, but not vice-versa.
Animation as an art form can be great with either 2d or 3dcgi, it all depends on whose weilding the brush/mouse.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
They really need to sell the tick episodes to someone else. I remember seeing them on Comedy Central after Fox took them off the air, but since then I have seen nothing. It was one of the best cartoons ever made and it's a shame that I can't watch it anymore.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
Currently, the majority of US movie goers still consider animation to be for kids. Unfortunately, most Americans think that animation = cartoon, and thus expect animated movies and tv shows to be cartoonish productions all the way from the quality of the animation to the content of the story. In many places however, animation is seen as simply another way to tell a story. In Japan, animated movies and television or "anime" are very popular and most people understand that just because something is anime does not mean that it is meant for children. There are many adult oriented anime movies and TV shows.
Anime currently has something of a cult following in the US but the support is currently not big enough to make a major motion profitable when released in theaters. Add to this the fact that Titan A.E. (despite its attempts) was not significantly more apealing to a grown up audience even though it was target to them, and you have a recipe for disaster. Basically, what you end up with is a movie that is not really appealing to kids but which is not substantive enought to interest grown up audiences and which additionally doesn't do a particularly good job of interesting the "anime cult" followers.
I guess we will see in 2001 if the US adult audience is prepared for adult animation on the big screen when the Final Fantasy movie comes out.
I state as my two examples, both from the realm of anime: Cowboy Bebop and Blue Subamrine No. 6.
Any true anime fans, if you haven't seen either of these, should. Cowboy Bebop is by far one of the best animated series I have ever seen, and the CGI is tastefully placed throughout the series. You don't see it often, but when you do, sometimes you don't even notice.
Blue Submarine No. 6 is a new one, the plot isn't the best I've ever seen (although it got better in episode 3 of 4, haven't seen 4 yet... those bastards) but the animation is incredible. Almost every scene is a combination of CGI and 2D, and it's flawless. Completely flawless.
Anime fans (and even non-anime fans, Bebop rocks) should hunt these down with a passion. Bebop is slowly being released on DVD. Haven't seen Sub 6 much anywhere yet though.
"Free beer tends to lead to free speech"
First and foremost, I'd like to say that "Titan AE" was a good movie with bad marketing. One of the problems with the film was it was an attempt to merge serious Science Fiction with "Disney" style touchy feely characters, this kept it from being a great movie, but the animation was great, and the story worked. What the filmed lacked was a target audience, and the mega hype necessary to create the first weekend block busters the film industry appears to push these days. Coupled with the current trend to pull films from the theaters while the lion share of the ticket price goes to the studios in an attempt to maximize profits, the film never had a chance to build up a word of mouth following. I think this film will do really well in video sales when it is released.
Unfortunately, the big studios, like other large corporations, only think in short term profits. If something is not an immediate success, it's a failure. Several of these "failures" means time to cut back. I really don't think this really signifies anything. If the film does really well on video, they'll gear back up to make more, if not, they'll move to more profitable formulas, but in the long run animation will continue both 2d and 3d.
What does it matter if it's 2D or 3D, as long as it is entertaining? Traditional anime isn't 3D, but a hell of a lot of people still like it. I thought the animation in Titan A.E. was great, although the characters were a bit over-done. And yes, the general story line could have used some work, too. Hey, at least it wasn't Battlefield Earth!
After reading this article a couple times through, it really upsets me that major studio execs are feeling that 3-d animation needs to replace 2-d animation.
While I am a big fan of CGI films, I have yet to see one that evokes in me the same emotional response as a really good 2-d animated piece. If a 2-d animation team really has their stuff together, tells a good story, develops some real sound characters, and understands how to animate action properly, it can give you goosebumps. It's a fantastic medium for making things feel the way we wish they felt.
3-d CGI has yet to really achieve that, I feel. It's getting there, don't get me wrong, but there's still something missing. (You ever see The Fly with Jeff Goldblum? The steak doesn't quite taste like steak yet.)
There's a lot of anime that serves as a great example of tour-de-force animation. Evangelion, Macross Plus, Escaflowne, all of these are really intense on the big screen. They have these moments where the imagery, the voices, the music all line up perfectly and you can't help but smile and nod your head. Titan A.E. didn't have that. The music was poorly chosen, seemingly more for recognition of the artists than for the theme of the scene. Dialogue was hackneyed and weak. And scenes that really could have popped didn't, due to poor visuals or horribly implemented 3-d. (what was the framerate on those inserted 3-d objects...2fps??)
I'm not convinced that FOX animation shouldn't be dismembered...I'm just concerned that the industry is thinking of punishing 2-d animation as a whole for their sins. Titan A.E. sucked. Flat animation doesn't.
In my oppinion, Titan A.E. was an excelent movie, however, the market to which it was aimed towards, made it compleatly mis-understood. This movie was full of satire, and complex ironys, that stupid adults (bible thumpers), and most younger children would not pick up on, and/or appreciate. Titan AE was actually, IMHO, a masterpiece. It was an excelent blending of CGI with 2D traditional animation. The problem was, was the viewing audiance. This was not ment for children, and in a society that believes all 'cartoons' are for children. Sure, cartoons are simple storylines, with no satire, ironys, or other hidden meanings. This was animation, which is compleately the oppisite. If we look at anime, we see these things principles, are a normal part of the storyline. They are not ment for children, because they simply won't understand them. Hell, if people knew what they were watching, in it's orgiginal context, they would think twice. (Look at the Hentai series "Sailor Moon", you think if parents knew that 2 were dykes, and the rest were bisexual, that they would let their parents watch it? ). In north america, we have a serious problem with intrepreting content. Wether it be animation, a moview where people have acted out parts, or a story. They can all hold the same amount of meaning. All our society ever sees is the surface of things, and doesn't look beyond. This shows the close mindedness of north american society. Thanks for reading this. -TubaMan / ThE_DoOmSmItH
-TubaMan / ThE_DoOmSmItH
wtf, are you people stupid? I think 3d sucks, and 2d rocks. 3d is way too fake, even if they try to MAKE it look fake, its even lamer. My favorite is anime which uses real architectural-type drawing where it looks 3d without actualy being 3d. The color/b&w arguement is absolutely stupid, how does that relate to 2d/3d?? Youre all crackheads, just think of it as 2d/3d and THATS IT, pick one, dont go into metaphors and nonsense. The problem with people today is they all try to act too smart, then make a gigantic ass of themself..
"I wanna fuck the system.... AHHHHHHH#@%%#@" ATR
Just a side note, re: "Titanic...succeeded dispite [sic] having no...historical accuracy." While the basic story was fictional, the movie was dead-on accurate in the details (design/look of the ship; passengers; manner in which it sank; location of captain at the end; the string quartet play on the deck as it sank; etc.)
:)
You may now return to your regularly scheduled flame war
ShoutingMan.com
Personally, I thought Titan AE ruled. Now most of you might think I'm some 10 year old with a room temperature IQ but actually I'm 16 and have seen a ton of animation. Including Anime and most Disney flicks (Don't ask, about the Disney flicks... I think it was because nothing else was on.) I was intrigued with the story line. I mean, it has been done before... In fact its been done so many times that I am sick of it. The characters I found intresting though, and the animation was wonderful. Sure, it can't compete with X-Men. Hell, I can't say much can, but considering all the other movies I've seen this summer, on the animation side, it beats out Chicken Run in story. That's just my opinon though. -Arthur William Drahnaus
The Tweak Files: Sanity is for t
In this "instant, -gotta-have-it-yesterday" world, it seems like people have lost the art of storytelling (or perhaps the audience has lost the skill of patience and listening?). Modern culture is focused on buzzwords, and that's all that matters. MHz, RAM, Internet, Protected memory. While all these concepts are indeed good, they can't make up an entire computer.
Likewise, any entertainment experience cannot be judged only by a piece of it (you can't judge a book by its' cover). Do people say that the original Fantasia sucked because it wasn't 3D CGI animation? No, they say it was a fantastic movie. It blended beautiful music with enchanting visuals to create an experience that the world has up to that point never seen before.
I guess the point of this is that a movie (or anything else for that matter) cannot, and should not, be evaluated and judged by a single aspect! I happen to prefer ink-and-paint on cell animation to CGI, simply because (generally) hand-drawn animation is more detailed and art-like to me than CGI animation. Ditto for hand-built models compared to a structure or ship built inside a computer.
-johan
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
Fox really let lose a stinker when they released this film. The plot was horrid, the dialogue was insulting to even the 5 year olds in the crowd, and the "Space-Ace" 2D character animation was anything but beautiful. I went as a member of a group of 8 Philosophy Ph D canadates. Some were high, some were drunk, some (myself included) were sadly sober for driving purposes. The Sober people left feeling insulted robbed and pissed. The Drunk People had to be woken at the credits. The High people were outraged. If a fully stoned man yells at the end of a film, "FUCK! That was the worst dialogue ever!" you know that the writing process fell somewhere below random monkey typing and govenment manual production. The 3D backgrounds were pretty but there was all this crap on top of it. Namely, ALL the sound (words and shitty soundtrack) and the poorly realised flat characters. Give me Grave of the Fireflies, Ghost in the Shell, hell even Pokemon...just never ever make me watch this film again!
Computers are tools. Thats it, tools. Course I'm probably a tool as well.
I've always been a fan of full length animated movies that haven't been churned out by the evil Disney machine. The Seceret of Nyhm, Iron Giant, Heavy Metal, and Titan AE are all excellent movies. Personally I prefer traditional animation to CG animation. CG animation in my view should be a different genre than traditional animation. In my mind hand drawn always has a more personal feel than computer drawn.
Mebbe so, but this was not that story. I was looking forward to this movie with great anticipation. The pre-release material was great (though the QT preview was very low-quality), and the small bits of story they leaked were intriguing. Implementation was, IMO, horrible. I am pretty easy to please when it comes to sci-fi; I can appreciate the good, and find humor in the bad (I'm a fan of old, 'B' sci-fi flicks). The only thing I found to like in this movie was the occasional beautifully rendered 3D background. I was embarrassed for the animators whenever Garafalo's character was on-screen. My 4-year-old nephew draws better than that. The rest of the supporting characters were little better, and the principal characters were only believable if you ignored the fact that their voices didn't line up any better than the English overdub of old Godizilla movies. This sounds harsh, but Anastasia, done by the same people, was much better, arguably better than many recent Disney animated features. The final product of Titan just didn't look like a feature-quality movie - more like something you'd see on Atom Mr. Sharumpe OT: did you see that they're doing another Highlander flop... er, movie? The original was great, they should've left it at that, IMO. This new one looks like it will be similar to (and about as good as) ST:Generations.
-- The above comments are just my opinion. If you are going to flame me, save your time. I am fireproof.
Remember hearing Fox had film rights to the Book. With decent effects for the mundane(heh)world that Hiro lived in, and top quality 3DCGI for slipping into the the Metaverse, Damn Man - could had made a ton of money. Slip in a Brittany Spears look alike as YT, do a running directors cut ver for DVD, dont butcher the book, decent acting... Sigh... frigging idiots.
I saw Titan:AE on opening night and I too was dissappointed. They really were attempting to market it to both kids and older teens/sci-fi fans but I think it failed on both counts. The characters were mostly one-sided and the plot was too simplistic. The movie focused more on "non-stop action" at the expense of actually becoming interested in the characters or the plot.
Some of the CGI was pretty impressive - like the ice crystal shots at the end. Most of the rest just didn't work. Heck Reboot kicked the S*&@ of the Draj-thingies CGI-wise!
On the other hand I just caught "The Iron Giant" the other day on HBO, and I must say it was one of the best animated films I've ever seen! It had everything Titan:AE lacked:
-Good plot
-Interesting, realistic(for the most part) characters
-Good CGI/2D integration
and most importantly,
-IT DIDN'T TALK DOWN TO KIDS OR ADULTS!!!
TIG, had some really great 50's cold war nuclear culture references that kids would really not get, I mean, they had an absurd animated "Duck and Cover" film, in an animated movie! The movie was done well on almost all aspects, and it too was mostly ignored by the public, although it did get EXCELLENT reviews by the critics.
I honestly don't think that American studios will produce the kind of animated movies that older folks will really like. They will usually be mass-market drivel (Disney) or uninspired fluff like Titan:AE. That's why I'll stick with Anime (Escaflowne and Key ROCK!) or perhaps some Canadian animation (Reboot).
Sincerely,
Kevin Christie
kwchri@wm.edu
Let's face it, traditional "pen and ink" animation has been stale for many years, and the foul stench of its rotting corpse is beginning to upset cinema goers. I also believe that computer generated animation will prove to be a short-lived fad, since this animation has a cold, soulless quality which doesn't endear it to the public. Ironically, the future for animation doesn't lie with animation itself - live action "animation", in the style of the "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers", which combines traditional cartoon humour and slapstick action together with real actors and heightened realism represents the future of animation. The spirit and values of traditional animation will survive in this form of "animation", but the tired old methods of traditional animation will finally be laid to (a well deserved) rest.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
The problem with the perception that 2D sucks is that the only 2D stuff these people know of is 70s quality animation (like Titan AE). I was constantly amazed when people both on Slashdot and in the real world raved about the quality of the animation in Titan AE, despite the fact the characers were drawn in a 30 year old style and the 3D rendering was only average. Still, the quality of the animation didn't kill Titan AE, the quality (or lack thereof) of the story did.
I don't think the moviegoing public is as dumb as most people seem to think. I think people really do prefer a movie where the plot stays together and doesn't feel the need to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator. I fully believe that if Fox animation wants to pull out of its slump, it needs to smarten up and convince its animators to update their style.
I read the internet for the articles.
Anastasia (1997)
Bartok the Magnificent (1999) [direct-to-video Anastasia prequel]
Titan A.E. (2000)
-danimal
this could be equally described as creativity vs. non-creativity.
anyway, the comment made by one of the artists - "i'm never going to sign away the rights of a character." that's very telling. if one looks at free software as an attempt by individual programmers to maintain control of their work, one wonders what other creative people will want to do with their work when they realise the power of the net for distribution.
mp3 and other compressed music formats actually enable musicians to distribute their work without record companies. it's not perfect yet, something needs to be done to encourage people to pay for the music, the quality needs to be better and we need more bandwidth. however the seeds are there.
online comics also have similar potential. recently chris baldwin, author of bruno decided not to try for syndication of bruno and is trying to earn his keep from bruno directly.
this could be said for a host of artists in a variety of media - even tangible media can be sold over the net.
so what if these guys start drawing up animated shorts, mixing in some sort of slashdot style discussion boards on animation in general and maybe their work in particular. perhaps a forum for other animators to discuss their work, not just a place for consumers of it. i think they'd do rather well. their work would stay theirs, they would decide what to publish. they could sell better quality copies of the animation (or tapes/dvd's of it), shirts, merchandise, etc, as well as banner ads on the site itself.
essentially the web allows for the *possibility* for creative people to build their careers directly with their audience. programmers have been first because we're most familiar with it. but we're not alone.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Titan A.E. (hackneyed story), while not being a masterpiece, was much more enjoyable than MI:2 (garbage directon). Chicken Run (well written/acted, funny) outshines both of them by leaps and bounds. It's a shame Titan A.E. didn't do better - it was the better film that weekend and I would like to see the animation evolve instead of be stymied by lack of dollars. I don't enjoy anime all that much (maybe I should watch more), so I like to see what non-Disney Hollywood pumps out in animation. Disney animation, while very well done, usually doesn't grab my attention story-wise.
Hollywood has this stigma about the genre or catch of the film being reason to make another one of the same type (i.e., imitate). However, I doubt they fail to understand the elements that make the film good. They do know, however, that if you make another one, "they will come". People seem to fall for this all the time. The movies make money, so they keep making them. Some cast and crews put some real effort into them, so you get some gems. It's the way it goes.
Woz
I did watch (and liked) Akira and Ghost in the Shell. I've seen a couple other ones, but I can't recall what they were. I also thought they were good. I guess I just can't get rabid about it, but I certainly have no serious complaints about it (like I do about MI:2). I'm probably turned off from it by the insane fans I hear that debunk anything that comes from Hollywood (animated or not) as pure crap and anything anime as an entertainment zenith. I guess typing that up makes my position seem kind of stupid.
It's probably time to give it another shot. I will check out your suggestion. Thanks.
Woz
The problem was Woo managed to cliche himself.
He played up all the stylistic elements that made him an original director and made them looked hackneyed and stale. The fight scenes did look good, but when you slow them down, there is no action - and every "action" scene was slowed down, making for a slow movie. Essentially, nothing happened. By the time you got to the end (where something resembling action took place), you just didn't care.
Movies like MI:2 are not known for their riveting storyline and in-depth character studies. They are simplistic and shallow. They require adrenaline to be made interesting. MI:2 did not have it. For that matter, neither did Titan A.E., but at least it looked a helluva lot better (visuals do matter in film, you know).
Woz
The movie flooped because the story was bad. The plot did not bother me at all, but the dialogue and the fact that it went by quickly like a childrens movie did bug me. Things like a singular enemy in "a" ship, bad guy "pal" that flip-flopped on being good/bad and forming a planet in 15 seconds were very unrewarding intellectually (yeah, cartoon, but should have been made for adults).
Visually the movie was stunning. I loved the 2D characters in a 3D environment.
"That's just my opinion... I could be wrong." -Dennis Miller
As for the rest of your pedantic rant, get a clue. Radio didn't kill the printed page, TV didn't kill radio, photography didn't kill painting, and traditional animation isn't dying either.
Jon
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
In 20 years of working with hundreds of 3D animators I've found that an absurd percentage of the best ones started out as 2D animators. I believe that nothing can teach motion, layout, action, and representation of emotion like painstaking 2D work -- when you draw every frame, or review every frame of other people's work you really see it in a way that you just can't see in CG.
It will be interesting to see where we get our 3D animators twenty years from now if 2D is really dead. I guess Japan is the most likely place.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I'm really curious: at the Annecy International Animation Festival during the 'premiere' of Titan A.E. Bluth/Fox was giving away an 'animation magazine': the opening article was written by Bluth himself, and detailed quite well how he became involved with the Titan A.E. project (was asked to 'take over' the work of two other directors, that worked on the film for more than a year) and why he accepted even if he never worked for a sci-fi film ('Hollywood requires you to do these kind of thing", and thus it was a good thing for he to accept).
;-)
By chance, isn't it that these two "Anonymous Directors" are/were working for Blue Skies studios?
I'd be really glad if this turn out to be true.
Ciao,
Rob!
AniToolBox! An Open Source animation program!
You can simply avoid movies, television and other forms of packaged entertainment. Surely if it's truly excrement, it's not worth watching or listening to.
I haven't gone to a movie or watched TV in years. Can't say I miss it.
D
----
You're right. I meant, The King and I.
But the American market for adult animation is also almost non-existent. Since Bakshi disappeared, no one has made any real effort in this direction. We get movies targeted at teens or children, never any higher.
And if Fox makes four flops and one success, then eventually they'll have to declare animation as dead. The problem is not now, and never will be, animation itself. The problem is in the movies, not in the genre.
it has nothing to do with the form of animation. it's the quality of the story IMHO. Disney has been doing this for years and made a killing with it. I have never liked three dimensional animations. It doesn't feel right if you know what I mean. a good example is the new transformers vs. the old ones. 3D work is not expressive enough.
and Japanese animation is proving it.
The creation of an Anime is usually very traditional. CG is usually used very little, and often it's hidden as much as possible (at least, most good shows do that). This doesn't make shows any worse, or any less successful (at least in Japan, here it's sadly another story).
The problem is that animation fims are most of all stories. If the story sucks, the movie sucks. Plain and simple. Nobody is going to watch it, even if it has all the eye-candy in the world. Disney learnt the story. The Little Mermaid and the Beauty and the Beast are both reductions of hits centuries old, and The Lion King is a cheap Rip-off from Tezuka's "Jungle TaiTei" (I hope I got the title right). You just can't miss with titles like these. What does Fox retaliate with? Anastasia (which I still haven't had the change to watch, despite wanting to), and Titan, which I haven't seen and I'll pride myself not to see since I've gotten so bad reviews that it's not funny.
The bottom line is: if you don't have a certain hit (and Disney sort of snagged all those), you have to be sure you have a damn good story, or it won't matter how much money you pump into a movie, it won't sell.
Take Princess Mononoke for instance. When I went to see it, I was utterly moved by the beatiful backgrounds, the great animation, the wonderful story. There is no way that CG art can give me those kind of backgrounds, that essential yet immensely expressive way to draw characters, and the story has nothing to do with how you draw it.
Photorealistic drawing is not what I want either: if I wanted that, I'd go watch a live movie. Aardman studios' works are great, or take the Muppets, or Barney (*heh, just kidding. There's not a chance in hell*). There is no CG in them, yet they're both good and they sell. CG in and by itself is irrelevant, if there is no story to tell, and I'm not surprised that many geeks (myself included) turn to Anime as a preferred form of entertainment.
IMHO the reason Titan didn't do so well is because they couldn't decide on their target audience. Was it designed for the young child/Disney group, a more intellectual teen group, or the scifi/animation/cgi fan? Some things were definately geared toward a more sophisticated set, and yet many elements remained for the kiddies. "It is a cartoon after all," I can hear Don Bluth saying. I personaly found it fun. I say bonus points to Fox for taking a step like that. I loved being able to see something a little edgier from a US animated movie. Titan and Anastatia were some of the best looking films I've seen. It would have been much better if they would cut the talking animal convention. I can't wait until the industry will stop thinking of animation as a lower art form and approach it the same way as a live action feature.
"Make an OS that even a fool can use and only a fool will use it."
If Fox execs looked at Toy Story 2 and saw that it was 3D animation that was selling in the theater, then they're just a bunch of dumb yutzes. What made Toy Story and Toy Story 2 such wonderful movies was that they were really well-written and well-acted. If I had to condense this down to the simplest possible statement, of why Pixar's films are so good and other people's wannabe things are not, that would be:
John Lasseter is a genius.
If the Fox execs didn't realize that the problem was that Pixar has John Lasseter, and they have no answer to that, then they won't have learned anything.
Babar
Anna and the King was not an animated movie. Are you thinking of Anastasia? Anastasia was not that bad, or should I say no worse than anything Disney puts out.
I disagree with your assertion that Disney has set the bar too high. I think that with animation in America, it has been successfully cast into niche status by Disney. Disney has successfully convinced everyone that they are the source of animation innovation in the world. They don't make bad movies, they're fine (if a little simple).
Movies like Iron Giant and Princess Mononoke are truly excellent films, animation or not, but are still considered fringe, despite their excellent production.
guyver series, nge, macross II, ninja scroll and akira are SERIOUS?
Come on, they are shoot-em-up action flicks. They are good, shoot-em-up action flicks, but they are NOT SERIOUS film
If you want serious film look at films by noted directors, look at films which don't center around a giant special effects spectacular, ninjas, or giant robots.
I love anime, but I wouldn't call it "serious".
Who am I? Subscribe and find out
Don Knuth is the CS guy.
Don Bluth is the guy who did Dragon's Lair.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
While I would take my kids to a viewing of The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, or Aladdin, I know that if I took them to the original Fantasia, they would be both bored and annoyed (or annoying..). The reasoning behind this is because children (and the vast majority of all adults and adolesents) today are media slobbering brain-washed babboons that not only don't want something better, they don't even realise that there COULD BE.
Your kids are media slobbering brain-washed babboons? It's too bad that the vast intelligence required to know what the correct taste in media is isn't even genetic. How does this sound: could you write down a list of what you watch/read/listen to during the day, so us brain-washed babboons can understand what's "better"?
Have you tried out japanese animation (anime), though? Imho, it is overall of much greater quality than the garbage that passes for TV around here. The good anime has deep, realistic characters, and a kind of overall creativity and artfulness that is really refreshing. I feel it's on par with what you get at (real) theaters.
There was an Ask Slashdot a while ago asking for recommendations of good series. I recommend Neon Genesis Evangelion, a series which everyone likes and a lot of people are crazy about. The series is really intense, and once you're finished you still have hours of fun analyzing the psychology of the characters and finding all sorts of hidden meanings and interpretations to all the events (if you're into that sort of thing :). I'd like to see an american film where you can do that!
...Long live the King.
2D animation will die about the same day newspapers, libraries, brick-and-mortar businesses, peer-reviewed journals, and all the rest of the currently-fashionable-predicting-their-death ways of providing services and content goes the way of the dodo.
I mean, hell, Katz has been predicting the death of everything not connected to the internet for how many years now? And when is he wrong...
Anyways, for a glimpse of the future of 2D animation, check out the newly released teaser trailer for Atlantis, Disney's newest and quite possibly best effort since the Little Mermaid.
For those who want something with an extra dimension, check out the also-newly released teaser for Final Fantasy the Movie.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Having grown up on Don Bluth films, as well as having played hours of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace on my Amiga and SegaCD, I was at TitanAE opening weekend. Visually, the movie has some beautiful CG work, but then again, what doesn't nowadays? Some of the most stupid commercials on television are utlising the same technology Titan used and yielding better results. So, what set this film apart from anything else?
Absolutely nothing.
The characters were typical Don Bluth-style characters, with generic features and shallow personalities. The premise was interesting, but hardly original, and in the end you can't help but ask yourself "where was the climax?" The voice actors weren't particularly great (I mean, c'mon, Bill Pullman?) and when they create an entire planet in the same time it takes for Slashdot to load, you're just like "yeah...sure".
Being a huge fan of anime across the board, whether it be Japanese, Disney, or what not, I tend to give shows and movies a little slack. TitanAE was acceptable in that respect, but no less disappointing. At least a mediocre Manga-style anime is generally geared toward adults. They tried to play to both audiences with this movie, and they didn't succeed. They should've picked one or the other.
The problem isn't that the majority of people are slobbering idiots. The problem is that we are all idiots outside of the areas we know. The world is too big for a single mind to hold all of it. If you are going to make a movie (record, TV show, etc.) and are going to put a lot of money into it, you need to get a large audience to make back that investment. To do that, you can't aim at small niche markets. You aim for mainstream tastes. You eliminate elements that will alienate the larger audiences.
One of the benefits of the networking of the world is that it reduces the cost of marketting and distributing to niche audiences. Geography is becoming much less relevant. Could copyleft.net have survived as a business before the Internet took off? Probably not. Not because there were fewer geeks, but because we were harder to reach. The Net helps us form virtual communities.
As more people with a greater variety of interests get online we are seeing two trends. The first has already happened. The content of the Net shifted from being primarily geek-oriented to more mainstream a couple of years ago. The second is that communities with a variety of interests are growing. At one time they centered around Usenet groups and maybe a few BBS's and ftp sites. Now any niche group can have a web site and usually does.
The big productions will always aim at large "least common denominator" markets. That is where they can recoup large production and marketting costs. But as entertainment moves online, it makes sense that there will be niche cultural products. There always have been. They are likely to become more diverse and easier to find.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
as a disclaimer, what I heard was that Titan AE was a very good movie. It's kind of depressing that the studio was shut down because the movie didn't perform as well as the bigwigs up top wanted. You know that if it had done well those same bigwigs would have been fighting over who would have gotten credit for the idea.
Gene Siskel said that Titan AE was the movie that Battlefield: Earth wanted to be. And yet no one has (seriously) talked about John Travolta's career being finished. yet.
Moller
What Cartoon Network shows is not good anime, because they mangle it through censoring and by showing dubs. The shows themselves are good, but by the time they're done with censoring them and by adding insult to injury by showing dubbed versions, they just suck.
:/
I'm not trying to be negative here, but there's nothing worse than a censored dub.
2D animation sucks? I think you'd find quite a few otaku (anime fans) who would disagree with you. :)
Yes, I realize that a million others have posted this before I did, but I still think it's worth a post.
PS: Otaku, literally translated, is a derogatory term describing someone so obsessed with something that they shut themselves off from the outside world; however in America the term is usually used to describe a person that likes anime and/or manga a lot, and it doesn't have negative connotations as it does in Japan.
I'm not flaming here, but is 3D animation really the way to go? Look at what happened to Reboot. :/
This is NOT an assumption. My littler brother, who is now 13, used to watch AT LEAST 5 hours of TV a day. His grades suffered and so my mom took the TV away. His grades shot up, and all of a sudden, he could talk sensibly about a subject other than some show or commercial he saw. He reads more and understands now more that there are such things are developed characters and PLOT.
My point is this: TV and cinema serve their purpose when utilized by people that want to say something.. not by people that are solely interested in making a quick buck.
Interestinly enough, it is the movies that say something that usually stand out most in our minds.
Rami James
Guy with a crick in his neck.
--
rJames.org - illustration
anonymity is garbage. come on, dude. you have to grow up. no real adult posts anomymous trolls. that shit is for pre-teens. as a teen, you should be busy getting a brain.
--
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
The animation is done in the U.S., and then is sent to Taiwan to be colored in. The animation requires skilled work, while the coloring-in can be done by unskilled laborers who get Kathie Lee sweatshop wages. Ain't globalization grand? :-)
Also, the guy above has it right. Much of Futurama is rendered in a combination of 2D and 3D computer graphics; when the show first came out, it got a lengthy spread in TV Guide complete with interviews, and in the interview Groening was talking about how hard they worked to get the right look for the show--they wanted to use new technologies and give the show a unique feel that couldn't be done with traditional animation, but they didn't want it to be visually jarring. Personally, I think they hit the nail on the head; the show definitely feels unique thanks to the fast-motion, 3D backgrounds, and other aspects of the CG animation, but the effects are subtle enough that it doesn't distract and make you start thinking about how computers did this or that or that this or that looks "fake."
Now, the one wish I have for Futurama is that they find a guy who does a good Phil Hartman impersonation, and have him play Phil Hartman's Head in an episode. After all, if the heads of Pamela Anderson and Richard Nixon can make guest appearances, Phil's head would be a great tribute. Fry could recognize him as Troy McClure from The Simpsons or something. Cool...
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
Sounds to me like the real problem is that it did exactly the opposite: it assumed that kids could deal with some mature themes and adults could deal with some whimsical humor and fantasy. I don't see many other films in the US doing this. Did Titan succeed at it? I don't know, but I think Titan AE's failure is more about the average American being unable to mix genres and use their imagination than about Titan's own flaws. It's why foriegn films rarely succeed here.
Was Titan perfect? No. Was it a masterpiece? Probably not. (Did I enjoy it? Immensely.) Was it the same old thing everyone else is doing? No.
Is it sad that Fox is pulling the plug on this type of thing? Very much so. I would have liked to see where it would lead.
This story seems all the more ironic, considering that Disney has just started up the hype-machine on their next animated movie, Atlantis. Heavy Flash warning. Also, there's a trailer, but it of course is QT only. Trust me when I say that this movie looks pretty good: definitely doesn't look like a typical "So much sugar it hurts your teeth" Disney fare.
Still, it sucks that Fox won't be around to at least give them a run for thier money. Are there any other studio's doing studio-release quality, feature length animated movies?
They did. It was called Fantasia 2000. Hardly anybody went to it, though. Those who wanted to see a Disney picture went to Dinosaur instead.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
They never claimed that it was fox. They simply stated that after Toystory 2 did so well in the theater, fox cut back it's staff. In other words: Fox exec's saw the writing on the wall that 3D animation was what is selling in the theater and they couldn't compete with it. Not to knock 2D or anything, because I'm a huge fan of classical animation, just not the crap that fox put out.
I'm rather glad Titan A.E. did as poorly as it did. Gave me a chance to experience something i've never experienced at the movies. Empty theatre... girl... well you fill in the blanks. From what I could tell the movie had a few good one liners here and there, but other than that I didn't catch much. And as for that post about a single episode of Gundam Wing having a better story? Wow, you really hit the nail on the head. I've seen the japanese versions (subtitled) and the American versions of both GW and DB/DBZ/DBGT and that sort of 2D, action filled animation certainly fills a void on your TV, but I don't know how well it'd come out if they were to transfer that to the big screen. God forbid we have another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fiasco... of course, that was live action and rubber suits. Can't really imagine live action DBZ or Gundam :)
Entertainement is based on these three cornerstones and, of the three, technology tends to be the least important. Just see "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". Its technology is several centuries old, but its marketing is fenomenal.
I haven't seen "Titan" to judge the story, but I can't tell you its marketing is bad. Kids won't want to watch a violent sci-fi movie, and teenagers won't risk being seen going to the movies to see an animated cartoon if they can spend all their money watching "X-Men" over and over again.
Technology is only important when the field is still in its early ages and it is so bad that it hinders the suspension of disbelief.(black and white films, sprite-based games, monoaural radios)
This Wasn't a completely CGI flick to those of you out there that have threaded such information. All characters were still done by hand, but thats irrelevent.
The movie itself was visually stunning.... at least for the first half of the movie. Pulling into the later second half (namely on New Earth and the inside Titan shots), we were showed both a lack of quality and time taken towards the development of this film. Did anyone not notice how our new earth looked like something out of Bryce? And that they were panning hand painted backgrounds in the Titan shots?
All that shows is that the studio was running out of both time and money for this movie... hell- I remember seeing a very short trailer for it in theaters two years before its release. How much production time is behind this film is unknown to me.
But even so- this movie's lack of plot, quick movement, undeveloped characters, and storybook attitude made up for a very dissapointing movie. Especially when it was intended for the teen, not 5-10 year old market. I have also come to conclusion that FOX studio's noticed this recently because it was just yesterday I saw the first cheap children's toy add on T.V. Instead of the next morning after the debut of the movie.
But all in all.. I just like to bitch about this movie... I had got my hopes up to see it (I have plans to go into 3d and or just animation as a career)... and they were crushed by the simple feeling and execution of what could have been an awesome flick. (With about 45 minutes more movie... alot of things could have been rectified).
-f0rge
He who rules the penguins, rules the world...
When they showed the trailers I felt robbed. It looked more akin to Lion King than what I was expecting. I was half expecting the characters to break out in song. To my eye they geared this thing at the same people who religiously watch Disney cartoons (not that there's anything wrong with that, but its not what I'm interested in) who may not really be into science fiction.
I didn't see it, but I had every intention of seeing it prior to seeing the trailer. Good marketing that, changing somebodies mind 180 degrees in the wrong direction.
I don't know where the fault lies, but it just didn't seem like a very compelling movie to win 8 bucks and a couple hours of my time. Maybe the studio forced there hand in the animation and story department. I don't think animation is dead, nor do I think two dimensional animation is dead. It just looked like a single episode of Gundam Wing could involve me more than a full movie of Titan A.E. would.
I don't even know if what cartoon network shows is supposed to be good anime, but I do know I like it more than what I've seen coming out of the U.S.
And what about The Simpsons?
Southpark anyone?
Remember folks, this ain't Japan where animation is considered a highly respectable, serious artform that all ages appreciate.
Too true. What's worse is that generally, when good anime does make it to the American market, its American distributors dumb it down and strip out all of the "naughty bits" so that American parents won't be scandalized by boobs when they take their kids to see a film in a genre that is defined for them by Disney. (The peculiar American delusion that nipples are somehow a threat to civilization is a rant for another occasion.)
I didn't see Titan A.E. It wasn't on account of the trailers, as some have said, since I stopped watching TV more than a decade ago and it's hard to get me to go spend money for two hours of passive low-brow entertainment. It was because everyone I know who is an avid animation fan said it sucked. I have no idea how the animation was -- most of my acquaintances' venom was reserved for the purportedly awful plot and characterization. I was actually planning to see it up until then.
There's plenty of room for 2D animation, especially for parents like me who are tired of seeing Disney recycle the same three plots twice a year. (Anyone ever notice how all Disney films since Walt died revolve around orphans and dead or absent parents? What's up with that?) I'm actually less likely to go see a 3D CGI film, because -- excepting Pixar -- computer animation has only started to outgrow its gimmicky gee-whiz phase.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
How wrong can one person be? CGI is no more the flavor of the month, than sound or color. It has changed the movie industry as a whole and revolutionized animation.
That said. There's no reason that traditional animation studios can't succeed. Disney does it. I didn't see Titan A.E., so I can't comment, but Quest for Camelot and Anna and the King were awful. QfC had a mid-grade Saturday morning quality to it. My daughter, who can sit through just about any movie, walked out on this one after 30 minutes.
No one in the industry really knows why some movies do great and others fail. The secret starts with a good script, and add quality on top of that. With animation, though, it has to look expensive, and most of the time that means it has to be expensive. There isn't much room for dog crap cartoons. Disney has set the bar too high.
Toy Story 2 is Pixar, not Fox...
My journal has hot
I don't think Casablanca was anything like state of the art in terms of production values for its day. Look at Gone with the Wind or some other contemporary blockbuster.
Under the old studio system, they used to churn out films like this like Hormel puts out spam. They didn't have much budget to do spectacular scenes, so they were a bit claustrophobic. To make up for the workman like but mediocre production values they had to have a cracking good yarn. By in large the studios aimed for steady small successes with these movies, but every so often they'd hit the jackpot.
I don't think Casablanca was viewed in its day with the kind of reverence it is today. It came roaring back in the 60s though, because it solved a very big cultural dilemma. To be cool, you have to be jaded, experienced, detached. On the other hand, in the sixties it was cool to stand for or to be against something. So, are you going to be a tough sophisticate or a sensitive idealist? Will it be James Bond or Dr. King today?
Bogie showed us the way: you act cynical but hurt like hell inside.
Nobody could do it like Bogie - to be one thing on the outside and another inside. He could laugh and make it cut like a scream of pain. My favorite Bogie movie was Key Largo. Bogie was low key in that one, but the question was who was going to be tougher in the end, Edward G's sadistic, treacherous gangster or Bogie's soft spoken WW II vetran? What makes it exciting is that there's no way Bogie should win -- the gangster has all the advantages and will stoop to anything to get his way. In the climactic scene, I always get the urge to jump up and shout "Don't trust him, Bogie! He's a goddamn lying snake!"
You can't buy a sincere reaction like that. It takes genius.
The Fox animation stuff I've seen is very well crafted, as good as anything that Disney puts out on a technical level and in some cases visually interesting and original. However, none of it has the creative spark that makes you want to get up and shout at the characters on the screen.
The idea that there is a technical fix -- going to 3D or some such thing -- for creative deficiency is ridiculous.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
But look at the new players. Centropolis. Pixar. Aardman. Mainframe. Plus all the effects houses that don't do entire features.
One of the most interesting efforts from an industry perspective is the Starship Troopers TV series. Flat Earth Productions cranked out weekly half-hour episodes of this near-photorealistic animation with a budget and team comparable to that for a typical sitcom. This project is about two orders of magnitude cheaper per minute of content than most CG feature animation.
We're going to see more work at that price point, and it will get better. This is where the action is. The high-end CG films with the $100 million and up costs can kill a studio if they aren't huge successes. That's what happened to Fox.
If a movie sucks, it doesn't matter if it's animated with cardboard paper, claymation, computers, or live action. It still sucks. Titan AE had no real clear market, no "core constituency" of people who'd see it, like it, and spread the word. It also had to go up against MI:2, which was essentially a cartoon done with live actors (a John Woo trademark), and that further sealed it's doom.
One of the many problems in Hollywood is that a studio will release something original, thoughtful, and creative, and that triggers a huge wave of "me too" copies. Disney has success with animation? Let's all get into animation!
Since "Chicken Run" was a hit, there'll probably be a huge wave of Claymation films coming up. Nobody understands why Chicken Run was a hit - they just understand that it made a lot of money. Duh.
Remember this mentality when we complain about the utter lack of clues that groups like the RIAA show. This is how they think. They can't see any farther than the first dollar signs, and reflexively avoid doing anything different. As soon as someone stumbles across a way to make money using digital technology (like MP3), every studio will jump on board. And if they come up with a way to make money selling unencumbered DVD's, they'll all shift within days.
In Hollywood, it's all about two things: not risking your job if possible, and, of course, the Benjamins!
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I'm sure many studios said 'Black and white sucks, colour is the way to go' but Highlander II is still a pile of crap and Casablanca is still a masterpiece.
A good story well done will (normally) do well regardless of technical issues/methods.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The reason the Phoenix facility was closed was that after 3 films the returns were just dissappointing. Fox is a business and this was a business decision, plain and simple.
-danimal
*disclaimer* these comments neither represent Fox or Blue Sky Studios, they are mine alone.
All animation is still just that: animation.
The vast majority of all animated films that have come out in the last ten years have been a flop; with the glaring exceptions of some monumental Disney flicks.
The newest cgi movie from Disney, Dinosaur, was technologically astounding but was an utter disgrace when it came to the acting and the story. I was almost crying it was so bad (no, not really).
Now, had Disney decided to make the entire movie a classical music feast with cgi visuals, it would have been both innovative and amazing. The reason that they did this is very, very simple: you can't market class and good taste. A talking Dinosaur sells, a Classical music epic does not. While I would take my kids to a viewing of The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, or Aladdin, I know that if I took them to the original Fantasia, they would be both bored and annoyed (or annoying..). The reasoning behind this is because children (and the vast majority of all adults and adolesents) today are media slobbering brain-washed babboons that not only don't want something better, they don't even realise that there COULD BE.
So, this isn't about the animation (plenty of good animation from toystory to wallace and grommit and back again) but about making bad pop-culture movies that have no story/plot and no intrigue to pull an audience in.
Fox Studios doesn't seem to be able to make those kind of movies, I will not miss them.
Rami James
Guy who like cartoons.
--
rJames.org - illustration
We've been raised for generations to believe that animation is for little kids and that live action somehow is for adults. Most of the kids at my high school (I'll be a senior this year) don't even for the most part respect anime thanks to the marketting bastards that have made many americans think "sailor moon/pokemon==anime".
Most of americans won't even watch serious anime like the guyver series, nge, macross II, ninja scroll and akira. So I say that there isn't much hope for serious animation in general here in the US if most americans won't even willingly give some serious anime like the series listed above.
Remember folks, this ain't Japan where animation is considered a highly respectable, serious artform that all ages appreciate. You can find R rated anime in theatres in Japan and it can do quite well if it is well done, but here in the US it will be lucky if it is successful in ANY form at all.
"2D sucks, 3DCGI is the way to go" == "painting sucks, sculpture is the way to go"
--