The Year in Animated Features

Jerry Beck muses about 2002’s slate of animated feature films.

The Powerpuff Girls was a good looking movie, but suffered from story problems. Meanwhile, The Wild Thornberrys Movie delivered more than the TV show it's based on. Powerpuff Girls: © AOL Time Warner; Wild Thornberrys Movie: Courtesy of Paramount/Nickelodeon.

Another great looking film, The Powerpuff Girls, failed at the box office, but I hope it doesn't discourage Cartoon Network from trying again. The visuals were superb, but visuals alone, as they have learned, do not a movie make. Powerpuff had some story problems, which could have been fixed, but I did like the idea that they went with an "origin story" approach. Is the lesson of this film, and Hey Arnold!, one that people won't pay for what they can get at home for free?

The Wild Thornberrys Movie tried to disprove that theory at Christmas time. I admire Klasky-Csupo's ambition with the features they've made and Thornberrys didn't disappoint. Families who saw this film were entertained with a big, bonafide theatrical feature, not a blown up TV pastiche.

Treasure Planet and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron were both strong works, but was Treasure Planet a victim of the executive changes at Disney? Treasure Planet: © Disney Enterprise, Inc. All rights reserved; Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron: Courtesy DreamWorks Pictures.

Lilo & Stitch, Treasure Planet and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron were enjoyable, strong state of the art, character animation films. But why, oh why, did Disney decide to kill Treasure Planet three days after it opened? The trouble brewing in Disney's executive ranks exploded at year's end. Let?s hope a phoenix will rise from these ashes. I believe it will.

The low budget Jonah: The Veggie Tales Movie was not the embarrassment I thought it would be. Aimed at young youngsters, it was suitable family fare and made a tidy profit at the box office. A couple of other films snuck into L.A. for Academy consideration, though nobody saw Mark Swan's The Princess And The Pea nor Italy's The Living Forest and lived to tell about it.

I sort-of admire the surrealistic Eden (from Poland). It was like one of those abstract, absurdist student films you see at short film festivals ? only it went on way too long and wasn?t very funny. India's CGI Ali Baba feature was clearly the worst animated film I'd saw last year. Stiff motion-capture is hard to achieve, but the Pentamedia studio achieved it. To the film's credit, I still can't get some of its haunting images out of my mind. The nightmares from the atrocious dubbing, poor animation and horrible character design are ones I'll likely keep forever.







Comments


i loved the pictures of animations eu amei as fotos com animações i don't understend inglish i'm sory eu não entendo inglês me desculpe i love lio & stitch eu amo lio e stitch thank you! obrigada!
dani medeiros (not verified) | Mon, 07/04/2005 - 00:00 | Permalink
I was reading your commentary for 2002 while on a friends computer this morning before work... I think you made some very good points here and were right on about quality and rehash. Two things-I think people have to understand is 3D or anime is not what makes a film great. Animne has become a bore as all characters in all films look the same and there is bareley any animation and mostly camera moves-non synced mouths are annoying and also to people who can't animate themselves. I didn't see the 3D Ali Baba but maybe that should be shown to studio execs to let them know that maybe it's not a good idea to send projects overseas. People here that have the skill can do the job and would probably do it for less with pride and honour especially now that the economy is bad. I am glad the veggie tales did allright. It is time there is something made for kids that is a G film. The last PDI film wasn't the best thing to show to kids - donky relieving themself( joke didn't work)in the fire etc and some of the Pixar stuff is not G either (Although Pixar is a story champion) and anything PG can't legally be shown in an elementary school setting-what does that tell you? I think we should save spike and mike/Tom Green humor for the college party crowd and maybe remeber these projects sell themselves, the story writers "values" and their toys to kids and we should remember this. If the quick crude unsucessful joke were taken out noone would miss them at all and the studio would be better for it. There are a lot of stories out there but using already designed characters is cheap cheap cheap and are probably helping to float studios in these hard times. We should, look at so many other children's books if money is to be spent for untapped stories-Hans Christian Anderson and maybe the original Dolittle book series(if you want sequel material) that are bareley tapped. It is sad that the only Dr. Dolittle was slaughtered by Eddie Murphy last time. I don't think the talented person who wrote that series of books would be pleased if he viewed the butchery. If you looked at the original musical film it is a pure classic and like Disney greats a pleasure to pay to see again and again and always sells to advertisers when on tv-no problem. It is too bad many of these films are made over and slaughtered and thrown in the home video trashcan where and kids can never see the quality version because the first time with Mr. Murphy set a bad tone and that was about enough. Also what is going on with voice talent? Yuck. Lets get some people/voice back on film with mirroring the talent of Mel Blanc, Sterling Holloway, Paul Frieze, and well I forget his name-the fellow who was the mad hatter in Alice in Wonderland-Disney version. Today's voice acting needs a shakedown and a little less canned TV actor quick fix-does nothing for the characters and is so stale. You should never say "Oh thats Rosie O'Donnel's voice" whenyou see the character on screen-then it kills the character. There are people out there that can do it-time to find round II. Music-Time to loose the pop music on the animation features. That Brian Adams was hard to choke down. Time to stop to sit down and listen to the bambi soundtrack. I really hope Disney pulls through because they are basically a good company with a lot of good people for the most part trying to make it work. They have been the launchpad for the development of modern day animation but maybe we need to get the people at Genentech busy at unfreezing and cloning Mr. Disney now that it seems possible because it looks like we might need his expertise once again on a few things. Lets hope Home on the Range does well so we can keep our industry and 2D churning which in turn will help keep our economy up as far as it can in these hard times.
Secret Character Animator (not verified) | Tue, 01/28/2003 - 01:00 | Permalink

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