Since when does asking for whiny commentary preclude whiny commentary? On Slashdot especially? And I didn't say I didn't like anime, I said most anime is crap. There are a few out there that I consider some of the best (animated or not) entertainment there is. Anime, when it's good, blows away most all American animated flicks. Anime, when it's bad, is pretty well unwatchable.
My point is, there's plenty of garbage out there, regardless of whether it's Disney or anime, made in America or Japan, or whatever else. Crap does not discriminate against race, color, nationality, or creed. It's ubiquitous. And if every American animation studio folded tomorrow, most anime would still be junk, and very little of it would be good. "Stupid American censors" notwithstanding. And that's the way it should be.
I rather suspect that this is another KTB troll, but I'm going to take the bait anyway.
If you really think that CGI, by nature, has less soul, emotion, or authenticity than "conventional" animation (in quotes because I suspect CGI will soon be the convention), then go rent or buy the Jurassic Park DVD (unless you consider DVD to have less "soul" than VHS or something) and watch the documentary. The animators of Jurassic Park use what they call a DID, Dinosaur Input Device, which is essentially a stop-motion puppet that's hooked to a computer. They use the same animation techniques that Ray Harryhausen pioneered with _Sinbad_ and _King Kong_ and the like, and took it to the next level, using computers to eradicate the "jerky" elements often associated with conventional stop-motion. One of the animators even complains that most people think that animators now just sit behind a keyboard and hit "D for Dinosaur" and "C for Creature" and pow, there it is -- when, in fact, most of the animators working on JP _hated_ their keyboards and created the DID so they wouldn't have to compromise their art. In this case, I certainly don't think "the ease brings a certain lack of attention to detail." If anything, it's the reverse: a desire to bring _more_ detail and realism to the screen has necessitated the push to computer animation.
Said documentary even has a few shots of _Sinbad_ so you can remember just how cheesy it looks. Sure, it has a lot of charm, and yes, it's still _amazing_ that Harryhausen et. al. pulled it off with the technology they had at the time -- but _Jurassic Park_ has better looking monsters, and I don't see how you could argue otherwise.
Now take the ill-fated _Godzilla_ remake with Matthew Broderick. The filmmakers basically ripped off the kinematic libraries of the Velociraptors from JP and made baby Godzillas out of them. Was Godzilla a hit? No. Does anyone really look back on those baby Godzillas as something memorable and awesome? Not likely. Is this the fault of the CGI? I don't think so. The animation was fine -- since, in fact, it was pretty much the same damn animation as the 'raptors from JP. It was the philosophy behind it -- the slipshod attitude of "let's slap some baby Godzillas together and have them, uh, slip on gumballs and stuff, hey, make them look like Velociraptors" that made it bad.
My point here is that CGI is a tool for expressing something, whether in a fully animated feature or in a more conventional motion picture setting. If the philosophy behind that expression (like, for example, the dinosaurs in _Jurassic Park_) is fresh and exciting and interesting, then the animation will express that. If the philosophy behind that expression is slipshod and dull (like the "attacking CGI Rorscharch blobs" you see in so many cut-rate sci fi movies and TV shows), then yes, the animation will also suck. But the tool, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't make any difference. I would much rather see the lively animated crowds of Disney's _Hunchback of Notre Dame_ than the same crowds rendered as the still frames or incomprehensible blobs I've seen in so many other movies.
I have a great admiration for the craft of special effects and the people who have accomplished seemingly impossible visual feats with limited tools. But I'm not going to reward that pioneering work with a sneer of derision and contempt when animators and special effects people finally get a tool that lets them _really do_ what they've always wanted to do, like computers. To condemn them for not staying in the previous generation of animation just because it seems more romantic or nostalgaic doesn't really serve anyone's purpose. I say, more power to them.
Yeah, if Disney made some anime, I bet you'd be the first in line to watch it and rant and rave about how great it is. Yeah. Sure.
No, instead, I rather suspect you'd condemn Disney (or any other American animation studio, for that matter) out of hand for trying to make an anime film, because it's just not as hip and cool as Japanese anime. And the unwashed masses might go to see it, which means that's one less exclusive little club you can feel you're a part of, right?
There's as much garbage anime out there as lousy Disney movies. Significantly more, in fact. I've watched plenty of anime and can rank the ones I'd see again on the fingers of one hand. Like everything, most anime is crap.
I remember the old days of certain swinging dicks in some online communities I frequented blathering on and on and pissing themselves talking about how 3dfx was always king and always would be. 3dfx this. 3dfx that. I guess you studs are chugging some monster crow now. Heh heh heh.
Hope you don't mind if I chuckle just a bit more over that.
Heh heh heh heh.
Peaked already, huh. Well, I guess it'll only be a year or so before "The Internet is Dead." Let's see, which brilliant revolutionary will declare it first... Bruce Sterling, John Dvorak, or Jon Katz? Anyone want to start a pool? Internet is dead everyone! Throw it away along with your obsolete PCs.
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My point is, there's plenty of garbage out there, regardless of whether it's Disney or anime, made in America or Japan, or whatever else. Crap does not discriminate against race, color, nationality, or creed. It's ubiquitous. And if every American animation studio folded tomorrow, most anime would still be junk, and very little of it would be good. "Stupid American censors" notwithstanding. And that's the way it should be.
I rather suspect that this is another KTB troll, but I'm going to take the bait anyway.
If you really think that CGI, by nature, has less soul, emotion, or authenticity than "conventional" animation (in quotes because I suspect CGI will soon be the convention), then go rent or buy the Jurassic Park DVD (unless you consider DVD to have less "soul" than VHS or something) and watch the documentary. The animators of Jurassic Park use what they call a DID, Dinosaur Input Device, which is essentially a stop-motion puppet that's hooked to a computer. They use the same animation techniques that Ray Harryhausen pioneered with _Sinbad_ and _King Kong_ and the like, and took it to the next level, using computers to eradicate the "jerky" elements often associated with conventional stop-motion. One of the animators even complains that most people think that animators now just sit behind a keyboard and hit "D for Dinosaur" and "C for Creature" and pow, there it is -- when, in fact, most of the animators working on JP _hated_ their keyboards and created the DID so they wouldn't have to compromise their art. In this case, I certainly don't think "the ease brings a certain lack of attention to detail." If anything, it's the reverse: a desire to bring _more_ detail and realism to the screen has necessitated the push to computer animation.
Said documentary even has a few shots of _Sinbad_ so you can remember just how cheesy it looks. Sure, it has a lot of charm, and yes, it's still _amazing_ that Harryhausen et. al. pulled it off with the technology they had at the time -- but _Jurassic Park_ has better looking monsters, and I don't see how you could argue otherwise.
Now take the ill-fated _Godzilla_ remake with Matthew Broderick. The filmmakers basically ripped off the kinematic libraries of the Velociraptors from JP and made baby Godzillas out of them. Was Godzilla a hit? No. Does anyone really look back on those baby Godzillas as something memorable and awesome? Not likely. Is this the fault of the CGI? I don't think so. The animation was fine -- since, in fact, it was pretty much the same damn animation as the 'raptors from JP. It was the philosophy behind it -- the slipshod attitude of "let's slap some baby Godzillas together and have them, uh, slip on gumballs and stuff, hey, make them look like Velociraptors" that made it bad.
My point here is that CGI is a tool for expressing something, whether in a fully animated feature or in a more conventional motion picture setting. If the philosophy behind that expression (like, for example, the dinosaurs in _Jurassic Park_) is fresh and exciting and interesting, then the animation will express that. If the philosophy behind that expression is slipshod and dull (like the "attacking CGI Rorscharch blobs" you see in so many cut-rate sci fi movies and TV shows), then yes, the animation will also suck. But the tool, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't make any difference. I would much rather see the lively animated crowds of Disney's _Hunchback of Notre Dame_ than the same crowds rendered as the still frames or incomprehensible blobs I've seen in so many other movies.
I have a great admiration for the craft of special effects and the people who have accomplished seemingly impossible visual feats with limited tools. But I'm not going to reward that pioneering work with a sneer of derision and contempt when animators and special effects people finally get a tool that lets them _really do_ what they've always wanted to do, like computers. To condemn them for not staying in the previous generation of animation just because it seems more romantic or nostalgaic doesn't really serve anyone's purpose. I say, more power to them.
Clear to me, yeah. Clear to legislators, evidently not.
Yeah, if Disney made some anime, I bet you'd be the first in line to watch it and rant and rave about how great it is. Yeah. Sure. No, instead, I rather suspect you'd condemn Disney (or any other American animation studio, for that matter) out of hand for trying to make an anime film, because it's just not as hip and cool as Japanese anime. And the unwashed masses might go to see it, which means that's one less exclusive little club you can feel you're a part of, right? There's as much garbage anime out there as lousy Disney movies. Significantly more, in fact. I've watched plenty of anime and can rank the ones I'd see again on the fingers of one hand. Like everything, most anime is crap.
I remember the old days of certain swinging dicks in some online communities I frequented blathering on and on and pissing themselves talking about how 3dfx was always king and always would be. 3dfx this. 3dfx that. I guess you studs are chugging some monster crow now. Heh heh heh. Hope you don't mind if I chuckle just a bit more over that. Heh heh heh heh.
The meltdown never would have happened if the Russians had used Linux!
Peaked already, huh. Well, I guess it'll only be a year or so before "The Internet is Dead." Let's see, which brilliant revolutionary will declare it first... Bruce Sterling, John Dvorak, or Jon Katz? Anyone want to start a pool? Internet is dead everyone! Throw it away along with your obsolete PCs.
are you trolling the trolls? wait, does that mean i just fed you? fuck.
more often than you've been called a pretentious, self-involved fuckhead?
Yeah, and the two scenarios are almost identical, huh.
Bumper sticker! Wow, you sound like a real bad ass.