The Year in Animated Features


When all is said and done, 2002 will be considered an excellent year for theatrical animated feature films. By my unofficial count, a total of 19 fully animated films were released in Los Angeles county in the previous calendar year, and I saw ?em all.
Yes, I even saw Hey Arnold! The Movie ? but despite that, any year that can boast the charming Lilo & Stitch, the emergence of a new CGI powerhouse (Blue Sky) and a brand new Miyazaki masterpiece can't be all bad. Though my personal checklist of released titles (see http://www.cartoonresearch.com/movies2002.html) doesn't quite jibe with the Academy's official tally, the level of artistic quality I saw this year was quite impressive. And on the financial end, the total estimated U.S. box office gross for animated features last year was well over half a billion dollars ($569,695,919 to be exact) ? and that doesn't include revenues from home video sales and merchandising.
The year began with the national release of Disney Television's Return To Neverland, starring Peter Pan. This is one of the many "cheapquels" (thank animator Brian Mitchell for coining that term) churned out by the studio, ostensibly for home video, but one or two are given a bigger budget (and fuller animation) for a theatrical "window."
Return To Neverland is capably made, but it begs the question: Why? Why was this made? Do we really need a sequel to Peter Pan? Or Cinderella? Or 101 Dalmatians? Or Lady & The Tramp?
No, we don't. But they make money.
When we were kids, Disney re-released a classic film every seven years, for a new generation of kids to see with their parents in a theatre. With cable TV, DVD, VHS and the Disney Channel there is no longer any theatrical life left in the original classics (oh, but wouldn't I like to see The Three Caballeros or even Sleeping Beauty on the big screen again).
Disney knows that there are enough young parents who'd still want to experience the tradition of taking their child to a Disney classic cartoon ? just as they had. Thus, Jungle Book 2: Electric Bugaloo. These safe sequels do have a audience ? but as soon as Mom gets wise to the Disney marketing patterns, she'll opt to wait home for the DVD ? and take the kids out to see DreamWorks/PDI's latest piece of new wave high-tech eye candy instead.
Speaking of high tech eye-candy, Ice Age opened in the early spring and introduced us to a new creative force ? Chris Wedge and his Blue Sky Studio. What a delight this film turned out to be. The script, the music, the animation and art direction, superb. I particularly liked how they designed and animated the human characters ? stylized, yet real.

























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