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What is the worst animated film ever?

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What is the worst animated film ever?

When i say worst animated film ever i mean both "Which Animated film was a complete steamer i.e godawful" and "Which film had the worst animation"

1. Beauty and the Beast.

Although the animation in this film was jaw dropping i beleive it was at the point where Disney became more of a young girl based audience. With true love and happy endings.

2. Hunchback of Notre Dahm 2

Awful compared to the first one, Disney should hang there head in shame.

final fantasy:the spirits within

excellent animation,but yo....wtf was that about :confused: yep,that was a flop.

final fantasy:the spirits within

excellent animation,but yo....wtf was that about :confused: yep,that was a flop.

I played some of those games and the only good thing that came out of that movie was the background information. They could have used live actors and came out with a better movie.

I'm going to assume we're talking about "worst movie" and not worst "animation."

"Ferngully", "Swan Princess", "Troll in Central Park", what ever the James Bond rip-off was with the frog who was agent 006 1/2. I keep thinking it was James Pond, but that was a video game, not this movie. "Thumbelina", "Pocahontas", "Quest For Camelot" (though I like the song the hero sings. It's sung by Journey in the credits.)

However.... I have the worst animated film of all time right here...

"B.C. Rock."

"B.C. Rock" is the American version of a French film called "The Descent of Man." The dialog was re-written by Christopher Guest and "The Funny Boys." The soundtrack was re-done with 80's songs (not hits - just songs) by Genesis, Hall and Oates, Steel Breeze, Leo Sayer and a few others.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE this film. But boy, does it suck flaming hog balls.

(Negative bonus points to "The Gumby Movie" where one character says it's colder than a witches' nose, or something other than what it's supposed to be. I groaned so bad they removed my appendix, just in case.)

However.... I have the worst animated film of all time right here...

"B.C. Rock."

"B.C. Rock" is the American version of a French film called "The Descent of Man." The dialog was re-written by Christopher Guest and "The Funny Boys." The soundtrack was re-done with 80's songs (not hits - just songs) by Genesis, Hall and Oates, Steel Breeze, Leo Sayer and a few others.

YAY! Someone who knows this movie other than me.

I wouldn't call this one bad at all. Mostly because I practically grew up with this movie and it's been a favourite of our family for years. (Seriously, we could quote almost every line. :D )

My least favourite animated features are: Pocahuntas, The Black Cauldren, Jetsons: The Movie, any Land Before Time sequel, hell any Disney sequel cranked out by Eisner.

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YAY! Someone who knows this movie other than me.

I wouldn't call this one bad at all. Mostly because I practically grew up with this movie and it's been a favourite of our family for years. (Seriously, we could quote almost every line. :D )

What's your favorite line?

My wife and I have quoted it since before we were married 17 years ago. My son, now 13, has heard the whole movie but had never seen it until a couple of weeks ago. (We were holding out.) He's only seen it once and doesn't quote it yet, but here's some favorites:

"That's a bad corner."

"Kids today."

"There's good days... and there's bad days."

"Turkey? Who you callin' a turkey?"

"That's Draculina, my ex-wife!"

"Mon - Wed -Fri, by appointment only. Do you, um, HAVE an appointment, lizard?"

"I don't need you either. (non-reproducable tongue-wagging sound)"

"Aw, I stepped on Bob."

"Find end with boy!"

"Water, water everywhere... go nuts. There's your water." (Is that Bill Murray's voice?) Basically, the whole dragon scene, including all references to cork.

"No TV after eleven o'clock, except for us."

"Who f*s up the world? (We do! We do!)"

"Come here often?"

"Meaningful relationship!"

"He gets his rocks off, heh... funny joke."

"You got some hair in the right places. You're a man, now, baby!"

"Aw s*, you went and woke up the fuzz. I owe that dude money, too."

"We gonna sell advertising on your butt."

"Somethin' didn't agree?"

Sheesh, I could go on for... well, 90 minutes.

**EDIT** Still doesn't make it a good movie, lol!

*writes "texaveriesque" down on a Post-It note.*

Pay me a beer for royalties every time you use it :)

I had a sip of beer when I was four. Hated it. Haven't had any since.

You can have mine.

As for Bakshi, Being the first one to slag his LOTR, I have not seen all his films.

But I remember liking Hey Good Looking...although I can't remember a thing. I can't remember Heavy Traffic but there's this animated sequence to the Chuck Berry song Maybellene which looked like inked rough keys that made a lasting impression. Fritz is not my cup of tea BUT I cannot think of a film that best describes what was going on in the minds of the counter culture of the late 60s ealry 70s. A good film can be something that is well told even though you don't like the subject matter.

What's your favorite line?

My wife and I have quoted it since before we were married 17 years ago. My son, now 13, has heard the whole movie but had never seen it until a couple of weeks ago. (We were holding out.) He's only seen it once and doesn't quote it yet, but here's some favorites:

"That's a bad corner."

"Kids today."

"There's good days... and there's bad days."

"Turkey? Who you callin' a turkey?"

"That's Draculina, my ex-wife!"

"Mon - Wed -Fri, by appointment only. Do you, um, HAVE an appointment, lizard?"

"I don't need you either. (non-reproducable tongue-wagging sound)"

"Aw, I stepped on Bob."

"Find end with boy!"

"Water, water everywhere... go nuts. There's your water." (Is that Bill Murray's voice?) Basically, the whole dragon scene, including all references to cork.

"No TV after eleven o'clock, except for us."

"Who f*s up the world? (We do! We do!)"

"Come here often?"

"Meaningful relationship!"

"He gets his rocks off, heh... funny joke."

"You got some hair in the right places. You're a man, now, baby!"

"Aw s*, you went and woke up the fuzz. I owe that dude money, too."

"We gonna sell advertising on your butt."

"Somethin' didn't agree?"

Sheesh, I could go on for... well, 90 minutes.

**EDIT** Still doesn't make it a good movie, lol!

You left off one of the best lines.

"Aaaaawww! He shoved a cork up my ass." :D

As for Bakshi, I admire him and his talent and what he has done for animation. But, I too hate how he cheated with rotoscoping and gradually ran out of steam throughout his career. :(

Order my book Jesus Needs Help on Amazon or download on Kindle.

You can also read the first 18 pages of my next book for free at this link: The Hap Hap Happy Happenstance of Fanny Punongtiti

As for Bakshi, I admire him and his talent and what he has done for animation. But, I too hate how he cheated with rotoscoping and gradually ran out of steam throughout his career. :(

Rotoscoping is not cheating. It's simply another animation technique; although Bakshi didn't implement it very well.
When rotoscoping is unsuccessful, then it's easy to call it "cheating," but few complain of the success of the Disney Studios' virtual rotoscoping in films like Snow White or of the success of contemporary motion-capture in films like the Lord of the RIngs series.

B.C. Rock Voices
What's your favorite line?

"Water, water everywhere... go nuts. There's your water." (Is that Bill Murray's voice?) Basically, the whole dragon scene, including all references to cork.

I couldn't agree more! That is my favorite scene, no question about it. And I just found out today (before I read your question, though) that it IS Bill Murray! No WONDER I like that scene so much!! I also just realized this week that Christopher Guest does one of the voices--which one, does anyone know?

Guest doesn't do any of the main voices (Stewie, Bone or Slick). My guess is that he did Dad or Bro Caveman, or the bird Slick runs into. Or one of the No Lobes. Hard to tell.

pocahantas is the worst animated film ever.
if anyone is considering debating this statement count me out because there's nothing that can convince me otherwise.

oh, and i'd have to disagree with acetate assasin, i thought the powerpuff girls movie was absolutely brilliant.
it was what most animated movies aren't lately, fun.

I love PowerPuff Girls. I have from when I first saw the show. While the movie isn't the worse film imo, it certainly feels like a padded episode. I fell asleep during it.
It was a matinee double bill with crocodile hunter, a worse film yet I didn't fall asleep during that.

As a side note, the worse film to me is more than a film I didn't like. There are lots of films I didn't like but could find some redemption, technical or artistic in it.

Guest doesn't do any of the main voices (Stewie, Bone or Slick). My guess is that he did Dad or Bro Caveman, or the bird Slick runs into. Or one of the No Lobes. Hard to tell.

Yeah, I've been trying to figure it out--I knew it wasn't one of the main voices, but it's really hard to tell, I agree.

1) The Gumby Movie

2) Raggedy Ann and Andy

Archie; Beauty and The Beast? You must be joking. Maybe you need to see more animated features.
Then what is better than it, out of curiosity?
HunchbackII? dtvs shouldn't count.

Say what I will about Disney corp, the worse of their classic animated features are most times better than other studios' best. for e.g., Black Cauldron which is Diz's worse, IMO, is way better than Bakshi's Lord oF The Rings, genre to genre.

The worst Disney theatrical animated releases are Pete's Dragon and Pocahontas. Fun and Fancy Free is also pretty awful.

Some of the Bluth films are pretty bad, like Thumblina, and A Troll in Central Park.

I think Quest for Camelot is particularly bad; it vaguely reminded me of The Black Cauldron, but infinitely worse, just sickeningly bad. A lot of the WB features were. Space Jam and Back in Action are both stinkers.

Valiant is the worst CG film I have seen so far.

But even still, most of these films have a few things going for them that make them worth a look, even if just out of curiosity.

Beauty and the Beast IS pretty bad. It's a complete mystery to me how that film was ever considered oscar-worthy. It's far from their worst, but even the art isn't up to the standards of other films from that era. Last time I viewed the film(when the dvd came out), I was surprised at how dated it had become. It doesn't hold up as well as you expect it to. The opening title is hideous! Other films from around that era, like Aladdin and The Lion King are much more considered productions, and better in most respects.

The ending is a bit of a cop-out and defies the basic moral of the film (it's what's on the inside that counts). Many people seem to prefer the Beast to the sappy prince character he becomes... and that big Glen Keane tour-de-force, the transformation scene? It may be nice to look at and all, but the film would have worked without it, and probably better. The message to young girls in this film is not a good one: that you can change a person through the power of love, -even if he's an abusive brute!

I'll admit that the songs were decent, and it was quite a different direction to take for the time. It's a very dramatic film, especially compared to some of the seventies and eighties Disney, but it doesn't quite work on all levels. It has some good elements, but it's flawed.

My worst Animated Films

Hello.

I'd say....

Black Cauldron and Quest for Camelot...

ANYTHING BY RALPH BAKSHI (except Wizzards)

UGH!

In terms of clean-up and line quality, I found Disney's first Rescuers movie horribly grainy and downright sloppy at times. The animation as such is quite excellent, of course. (It was the last feature in which some of the Nine actively participated as animators, right?)
As far as clean-up is concerned, I've got gripes with some sequences in Beauty and the Beast - but the movie as such is about as "Disney" as it gets. Whether one likes to call that positive or negative is up to the individual. All I know is that I own it on DVD and watch it every now and again. :D (I agree with Ant-eater on the final confrontation, though - that rather lame "falling to his death" of the villain reeks of Michael Eisner.)
Yup, Quest for Camelot is rather bad, but I believe that's solely the fault of the suits at Warner. One of its layout artists, Sven Höffer, was my teacher and he told us they made them insert entire sequences which didn't do anything for the story at all just to be able to include more marketable characters for toys and other merchandise purposes. (Most of the animation of the two-headed dragon sidekick is so good, at least in my humble opinion, that it almost looks as if it was meant for an entirely different movie. Same with Creeper in Black Cauldron.)
I'm also with Mr. L. on Bakshi - what a hack! I'll never forgive him for Lord of the Rings!
Bluth's worst film, they say, is Pebble and the Penguin - he admits it himself. It isn't even listed in his filmography on his website. I heard his directing was interfered with a LOT when he did it and that Bluth himself hates it to this day.

What about the animated "Return of the King"? Not so great in my opinion. The half-arsed rotoscopping method just didn't fly for me. Not to mention the incredibly awful songs they insisted on singing (I don't care if they were in the book, I didn't want to read them there either!).

And I'm going to have to agree with Bakshi being horrible, too (haven't seen Wizzards). If Fritz the cat didn't have boobs in it, no one would have noticed it had ever existed.

Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
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i have to say jimmy newtron boy genious.

'Home on the range' was pretty awful. i couldn't even sit through the entire thing. plus i can only take so much of rosanne's voice. nice character designs though.

i didn't think the power puff girls movie was that good either. there were episodes in the cartoon that were better than that entire movie. once again, nice character designs though.

http://ben-reynolds.com
Animation and Design

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Animated LOTR
All Dogs Go To Heaven (I enjoyed watching this one for the animation)

I can't think of any more at the mo...
Although I probably will...

Spoooze!

I couldn't really agree with what some are saying about Bakshi. His Lord of the Rings film has a lot of problems, but the distracting rotocope technique makes it seem a lot worse than it actually is. There are a few scenes which were practically lifted shot by shot in the Peter Jackson movie. But I think it's still his worst by far, and you shouldn't judge an artist by their worst efforts.

Fritz the Cat is a damn good movie, though towards the end it stops working and runs into narrative problems. You can't give Bakshi all the credit here though, as much of what works in that film comes directly from the comicbook. Crumb didn't like it, but I think it really comes through as spot on to what the comicstrip was about. Heavy Traffic is great, probably his most personal film. Really innovative. Coonskin is highly regarded by critics, though one of his most inaccessible films to modern viewers. American Pop is a really good one, could have been one of his best except for the distracting rotoscope(which even still had improved a lot since LOTR). These films have so much more raw human emotion than you rarely see in animation, that you have to forgive them a lot for being so rough around the edges. They're not often very pretty to look at, but by all accounts they were put together on a shoestring budget, and without any of the luxuries we have today. And you have to give him some credit, that no-one has managed to follow in his footsteps. It would certainly be possible to make films as personal as he did, and in the same generas. With all the tools, and all the talent that's around today it would certainly be possible to tackle similar material, and even achieve a more professional polish, but it just doesn't seem to happen.

Jabberwocky mentions Pebble and the Penguin, as Bluth's worst. Having seen it, I'd have to say that it's biggest problems were put there by Bluth himself. The characterisations are sickly and hard to take, and the songs are mushy. The narrative is not all that significantly different from what Bluth wanted to do. I think what bothers Bluth about the film is that certain efx sequences were left unfinished, and scenes were left in, in an incomplete state. But really this doesn't hurt the film as much as it could have. There are cels that are not painted up to the edge, and background characters that are not animated, but generally in these scenes the eye is drawn to the action and you don't notice at first. It wants maybe a little more of an adventure before the ending. It seems like most of the journey is told in a montage, and in the scenes along the way there isn't enough drama or sense of moving along. But aside from this, and the sappiness and a cop out bit near the end, the plot more or less works.

I think Thumblina is an inferior film. The scenes and animation here are among Bluth's most complex work (in fact I have heard that in completing this film, the budgets of subsequent Bluth films were cannabalised). But unfortunately it is a wierd mish-mash of styles, from the realistic rotoscope characters to some strange looking refugees from rubber hose days. The dog is a moth-eaten version of Pluto with a droopy moustache. The plot is apparently very faithful to the original, but it's all over the place. The main problem is that Thumblina, the pretty spineless heroine of the title, just gets flung from one situation to another, feeling sorry for herself all the while. Almost all the characters are unpleasant, but there is no strong villain driving the piece.

As bad as these films are, this was a very prolific period for Bluth, and he managed to keep his studio running for longer than expected, given the problems they were having. I can understand why they are not his best work. Between court cases and financial troubles, and even an attempted liquidation they were really hanging on by their fingernails at that point, and they still managed to turn out a film a year with only one directing team.

Jabberwocky mentions Pebble and the Penguin, as Bluth's worst. Having seen it, I'd have to say that it's biggest problems were put there by Bluth himself. The characterisations are sickly and hard to take, and the songs are mushy. The narrative is not all that significantly different from what Bluth wanted to do.

Never had the chance to talk about it with Mr. Bluth so all I can say about it is what I heard from people working for him. (His head of clean-up gave us an extended introduction to in-betweening at school, that's how I know what I know.) Bluth is said to be a bit of a recluse, working from private quarters, and doesn't directly communicate with his animators and clean-up staff a whole lot.
Whether he's to blame for the mushy songs depends on whether he, as the director, allowed them in the movie. Again, I can only speculate that he may have been overruled by the moneybags. What I know for sure is that late into production they cut out entire sequences featuring a particular character, and that the gaps that character left were pretty haphazardly filled. This may also be the reason for some of the incomplete footage.

Bluth and rotoscoping is a tricky question. I mailed them a couple of times at donbluth.com asking whether they shot live-action footage as indirect key posing reference or for direct rotoscoping and timing purposes. My question was never answered but seeing how realistic some of the animation in Anastasia is compared to the cartoonier characters in it, I suspect they did the latter. In "Art of Animation Drawing", Bluth included an extensive bit on it but treats live-action footage as posing reference, even showing how to over-exaggerate the live -action for cartooning purposes.

Has anyone mentioned "Cool World" yet? Boy, what a sucker! Bakshi again.

One man's meat is another man's crap. I don't think there's a complete 'worst' animation out there...not really possible 'cause as bad as it looks/appears there's always a consolation in the form of story,animation, soundtrack,character design...just can't figure out the 'worst'.

I was turned off by Final Fantasy: The Spirits within and Polar Express...not because of the animation (they are excellent works of art) but I am still trying to figure out why theyb think it's cool to do a 100% realistic Cg feature...Final Fantasy could've been a monster hit if they used live actors...the 'wow' factor would be prominent...I loved the movie though and it is a good morale booster and reference material.

Really there can never be a 'worst animated film ever' since as you sink to the lower depths, there just becomes no point in watching them at all. I know I have never seen "The carebear movie" or "GoBots: War of the Rock Lords", or any Pokémon movie, or any of those cg barbie movies, but I'm willing to bet that I'm not missing out on anything classic here.

As weak as I think the Disney Beauty and the Beast is, I'm willing to bet, sight unseen, that the cheap video imitation version is infinitely worse. Has anyone actually watched any of those cheap Disney ripoffs? I haven't, but I would assume they are pretty bad.

One other bad film that springs to mind was the animated "The King and I". In fact pretty much the whole post-disney cinematic output of Richard Rich. Now there's a hack.

Actually I think the original Lord of Rings, may have had a lot of flaws, and be horrible technically in today's standards, but for the time, and compared to any other special effects films that had been released to that date. He openned doors to ideas. And many of the things that were done in that film were expanded on later with more expansive technology to lead to what we have today.

You can't compare yesterdays work to todays, without taking into account the technology they were working with.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

You are all probably going to jump on me, but I think one of the worst feature animations was Fantasia. Parts of it were prime, but it should have been edited more I think. I try to watch it through now and I fall asleep, before I get to the hippos dancing.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

You are all probably going to jump on me, but I think one of the worst feature animations was Fantasia. Parts of it were prime, but it should have been edited more I think. I try to watch it through now and I fall asleep, before I get to the hippos dancing.

Part of the problem with Fantasia is the reverent attitude they take towards classical music. It's fairly pretentious. If they had edited and rearanged the music in places, and maybe added a few sound effects here and there, the film would engage much better with an audience. It's also very long. Most of the segments work much better on their own.

I don't think it's a 'bad' film per se, but in my experience kids find it very boring. The 'package features' that disney did subsequently, while not as visually breath-taking, are livelier and have more fun with what they are doing. I'd rate the 'All the cats join in' segment as equal or better than anything in Fantasia.

Has anyone actually watched any of those cheap Disney ripoffs?

You mean these?



Not me, but I double-dare someone to watch them and report back

You don't have to watch a cheap knock-off of Thumbelina to see a truly bad movie - the Bluth version will do nicely...

You mean these?



Not me, but I double-dare someone to watch them and report back

I've seen pretty much all of these and I wish you'd keep in mind that, first of all, these are not Disney rip-offs, for they're based on popular tales Disney does not own the rights to and are done much differently than Disney's films by being truer to the original stories. Also, those movies are meant for kids and very often, through a child's mind they get more praise than the Disney ones.

Lastly, that version of Thumbelina is one of the finest pieces of animated entertainment for children. Far superior to the Don Bluth version with stronger characters, colorful art backgrounds and a great classical music score. The animation may not be the greatest, but the picture is sharp and colorful and the story-telling quality is top-notch.

Not to mention this Thumbelina was done two years prior to Don Bluth's in 1992, so if any film is a "knock-off" it'll be Dob Bluth's.

You're right; they're not Disney rip-offs. You'd have to admit, though, that the timing of their release is opportunistic at best. Parents take kids to see Disney version, other version is available at the same time in Wal-Mart. Children clamor for video, and another sale is made.

Nothing wrong with it, but it should at least be acknowledged for what it is.

And any version of Thumbelina, even one done with sock puppets, would be better than Bluth's version...:rolleyes:

Well, they were all released during the '90s. The original wave being in 1992 (the best one) and I don't really think the intention was to make a sale out of Disney's merit. There are other versions of these movies out there, in which the characters in the cover portray the Disney versions, even if they look nothing like the ones in the actual film, but it isn't the case here. If you demand Disney quality, you should be able to distinguish the Disney characters from other ones. The Disney logo or nothing like it is anywhere to be seen in any of these covers and I wouldn't know who would think these are Disney made.

I've seen (and own) several of these and looking beyond the rather unimpressive animation techniques in many of them, I found them to be rather charming, sometimes heartwarming new versions of the classic tales, most of them with top-notch, kid-aimed songs. The three best were, without a doubt, Thumbelina (1992) (You should give this one a go, your child might like it, I love it), The Little Mermaid (1992) and Pinocchio (1992). I loved these films so much, actually, that I even made them part of the Wikipedia not long ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Films

:) :) :)

Well, they were all released during the '90s. The original wave being in 1992 (the best one) and I don't really think the intention was to make a sale out of Disney's merit.

Really? That would mean that these companies just happened to decide to make a direct-to-video version at around the same time that Disney was making a high-profile theatrical version. Sorry; that's far too coincidental for my tastes. Again, nothing wrong with it, but let's be honest with ourselves, shall we?

The Disney logo or nothing like it is anywhere to be seen in any of these covers and I wouldn't know who would think these are Disney made.

Well, since putting Disney's logo on the video would be illegal, I'm not surprised it's not there. I'm not saying everyone would fall for this, but some do. I know people who have bought them because of the title (which is always exactly the same as the high-profile film). Once they get home they realize they got something other than what they expected, but by then the sale is made.

The three best were, without a doubt, Thumbelina (1992) (You should give this one a go, your child might like it, I love it), The Little Mermaid (1992) and Pinocchio (1992).

The only one you list that predates a major studio release of the same name is Thumbelina. Little Mermaid was an 89 release, and Pinocchio was re-released theatrically around the same time. Again, far too coincidental for my tastes.

Thanks for the recommendation, but at 18 years old, I doubt I could get my son to sit through any version of "Thumbelina" (unless it was a live-action version starring Amanda Bynes or Anne Hathaway). I could barely get him to sit through Bluth's version as a six-year-old back when it was originally released...

Hell, if it was Anne Hathaway I'd sit through it and I've got four years on 'im.

I've seen pretty much all of these and I wish you'd keep in mind that, first of all, these are not Disney rip-offs, for they're based on popular tales Disney does not own the rights to and are done much differently than Disney's films by being truer to the original stories.

There are hundreds of public domain fables and fairy tales, but the fact that these companies specifically chose those tales that were Disney successes - Cinderella, Beauty & the Beast, Little Mermaid - is a clear indication that they were attempting to leech off of Disney's success. To believe otherwise is simply delusional.

Well, they didn't chose exactly the Disney titles, for there are many of them that Disney has never touched. They also produced The Three Musketeers, Sinbad, The Count of Monte Cristo, A Little Princess, Heidi and many others. Like I said, I doubt those released around the same time as Disney were meant to be like that because all 70+ titles were produced by different companies (Though distributed by the same one) through 1992 to 1999.

I don't think age has much to do with what you'll like or won't like anymore. I'm 17 and I adore Thumbelina. Never bothered much with Don Bluth's version. This 1992 Pinocchio I don't prefer over the Disney one but like just as much because it sticks much closer to the book. The only one of these that I've seen and didn't really like was The Jungle Book, that one was pretty disappointing but I like how they made many of the others. The music in them consists on mainly a montage of recognizable classical melodies and 2 or three original songs per title (Except the 1992 wave which kept only one song per title).

The only way I could accept these being called Disney rip-offs would be if they produced titles such as "Brother Bear", "Lady and the Tramp", "The Aristocats" or those original Disney stories. 101 Dalmatians and The Rescuers are also non-Disney books and I'm not sure about their copy and film rights. Also, a rip-off would be if they attempted to steal Disney out of their money by selling these at around their same high prices with covers that confuse the costumers. But please, these animated characters look nothing, nothing like the Disney versions and if you want Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, you should know better than to just pick up the first DVD in which you see "Snow White" on the spine, you're bound to get the wrong one. Besides, how many Disney DVDs do you know that sell for a retail of $5.95?

"Oops, this wasn't the version I wanted, my mistake, I didn't even watch the movie, but I'm just going to go ahead and give it one star because it's not the one I wanted."

I'll defend the "Collectible Classics" from being called rip-offs because the way they're made and the way they're marketed makes them obviously different from Disney films and you know, you can't blame this company if the mistake, is your laziness to take a close look at the front and back of what you buy which is quite often the case. I can't stand some reviews at Amazon, come on, now.

"This movie is aimed at 3-7 year olds, but it doesn't please a 34 year-old like me. One star."

People often fail to realize one thing when they're viewing these films. They are children films, made to please kids, not adults. Adults should only worry about a G-rating and appropiate content, the reviewing and appreciation should be left for the kids.

There are hundreds of public domain fables and fairy tales, but the fact that these companies specifically chose those tales that were Disney successes - Cinderella, Beauty & the Beast, Little Mermaid - is a clear indication that they were attempting to leech off of Disney's success. To believe otherwise is simply delusional.

Well, they didn't chose exactly the Disney titles, for there are many of them that Disney has never touched.

So? There are plenty they did, as shown above. Like I said before, there's nothing wrong (or illegal) about trying to associate your product with a successful one, (example here) but let's be honest with ourselves, shall we?

I think the reviewer you quoted does actually does realize the film is for kids - he states as much in the line you posted. He's also saying that for a 34-year old it holds no interest. Those two statements aren't mutually exclusive.

If you enjoy these films, more power to you. But please don't try to tell us that there wasn't some thought given to existing Disney films when the stories were chosen.

Also don't understimate the power of lazy and/or stupid people. This is a world where there are people who think that everything done on a computer is a Pixar movie. Some people are so far removed from the realities of animation and feature companies -- I have personally witnessed people picking up those non-Disney discs and making no mention of the cover and either still thinking it was attached to Disney somehow or buying it because (and there was a conversation to support this) the Disney version wasn't bad and what they were getting couldn't be too different since, ahem, "they're both cartoons."

And not to hop on the bandwagon, but the timing is suspicious. I'd never heard of a Lion King type story (unless you're reading critical reviews and thinking Shakespeare) and then boom, 1995 comes and there's two separate non-Disney Lion Kings at my video rental place. Hell I've seen non-Disney Aladdin (and they called it just that) come cropping up for re-releases. I also don't think there's anything wrong with it, but it's either you accept that it's why they're doing it or not, regardless of when it was produced.

Since we're discussing Thumbelina (at least partly), let's also not forget the famous test-screening of the Bluth film. Story goes that they tested the film and got middling reviews with test audiences. To see what would happen, they slapped the Walt Disney Pictures opening on the head of the movie and tested it again with no changes. The result was awesome reviews by the test audience. Moral: if viewers think it's Disney, they forgive a lot...

Well, I just spent over 30 minutes typing a reply and somehow I got logged off. So, I'll just say the most important thing I said. The original 1992 Golden Films wave's profit was actually used for donations to children's hospitals, I believe when released out of the US, so the studio saw very little money from that, although some people might question that, I find that quite noble and it would have been nice to see Disney do the same thing, instead of wasting those 100+ million dollars in such atrocities and garbage with no purpose other than to take room like "Home on the Range".

Well, I just spent over 30 minutes typing a reply and somehow I got logged off. So, I'll just say the most important thing I said. The original 1992 Golden Films wave's profit was actually used for donations to children's hospitals, I believe when released out of the US, so the studio saw very little money from that, although some people might question that, I find that quite noble and it would have been nice to see Disney do the same thing, instead of wasting those 100+ million dollars in such atrocities and garbage with no purpose other than to take room like "Home on the Range".

Because Disney doesn't do any charity work: http://disney.go.com/disneyhand/

Thats besides the point. It's great that most of the profits went to charity, but we aren't talking about the motives behind making animation, we are talking about worst animated films. I haven't seen those movies, so I can't comment, but the cover art doesn't make me want to see them either.

My vote for worst animated movie is Heavy Metal.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

Yeah, well, just came in defense of those films that are being insulted and put down even though no one here has even seen them, well, I have and they're definitely not the worst animated films.

Let's see, if TV animation counts, I guess many of the newer Disney Channel animated series such as Buzz on Maggie or whatever, Dave the Barbarian and all that stuff is horribly done.

Be careful of what you're accusing people of doing. Can't speak for anyone else, but my only comments about these films has been that the subject matter and timing of release seems...opportunistic. The only film I've insulted is Bluth's Thumbelina, and it deserves it! ;)

And like Ape said, even though it's beside the point, do some research before you lash out at Disney regarding charity work. They do a ton of it.

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