Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Snowglobe of Doom
Mar 30, 2012

sucks to be right

ImpAtom posted:

Zootopia was pretty much the tops of animated this year but it was overall a strong year with a lot of great films.

... but let's not forget it also gave us Norm of the North, Ratchet & Clank, The Angry Birds Movie, Batman: The Killing Joke, Sausage Party and The Wild Life.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend
I don't think Zootopia was an especially inspired story or concept, but it was the best possible realization of that story and concept, if that makes sense. It was exquisitely made within the confines of modest ambitions.

Samuel Clemens
Oct 4, 2013

I think we should call the Avengers.

Snowglobe of Doom posted:

... but let's not forget it also gave us Norm of the North, Ratchet & Clank, The Angry Birds Movie, Batman: The Killing Joke, Sausage Party and The Wild Life.

Yeah, I already feel confident in predicting that no 2017 release will be as bad as Ratchet & Clank.

Diabetes Forecast
Aug 13, 2008

Droopy Only

FirstAidKite posted:

Hi, let's talk about the Elm-Chanted Forest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fkr8v9ltxY

There aren't any good quality uploads of the mushroom song, but pretend I posted the mushroom song where a minstrel-show-looking afro-sporting mushroom named michael starts rapping and breakdancing menacingly

I saw this film as a kid and thought it was rad, but almost entirely because the villian characters were fun to watch. It's been a LOOOOOOONG time since i saw it, but if I remember right, they had better animation than basically everything else in the film. I remember really liking that rediculous knight with a guillotine for an eye slot, but i don't remember alot from it. I wonder if there's any place that has it up to watch now?

I can definitely say it wasn't terribly good looking at just that video, though.

FirstAidKite
Nov 8, 2009

Diabetes Forecast posted:

I saw this film as a kid and thought it was rad, but almost entirely because the villian characters were fun to watch. It's been a LOOOOOOONG time since i saw it, but if I remember right, they had better animation than basically everything else in the film. I remember really liking that rediculous knight with a guillotine for an eye slot, but i don't remember alot from it. I wonder if there's any place that has it up to watch now?

I can definitely say it wasn't terribly good looking at just that video, though.

It's an ugly as gently caress film but the antagonist's evil machinery was very good to look at because of the dirty look the film had in general.

The only other thing I'd say the animators put any effort into was the fox. Someone on the animation team really liked the fox lady and made sure to make her as well animated as possible. And then just reuse that animation through most of the movie.

Jonas Albrecht
Jun 7, 2012


Lego Batman Movie please be good. I would love to start the year off with some good cartoon.

FirstAidKite
Nov 8, 2009
Is it true that the lego batman movie is going to attempt to be serious


I forget where I'd heard that the lego batman movie was attempting to be serious. Well, maybe serious isn't the right way to go, but I mean like, just telling a typical sorta batman story but everything happens to be lego instead of going bonkers with everything like the lego movie did

SatansBestBuddy
Sep 26, 2010

by FactsAreUseless

General Dog posted:

I don't think Zootopia was an especially inspired story or concept, but it was the best possible realization of that story and concept, if that makes sense. It was exquisitely made within the confines of modest ambitions.

Modest ambitions from a story telling standpoint, sure, but from a worldbuiliding standpoint Disney went all-in on the concept. Like, how many zones of Zootopia does the story use, compared to how many we saw during the first train ride into the city? How many unique and interesting buildings were just glanced over? How complex and interconnected did they actually make Zootopia's society structure vs how much was actually used to frame the story?

The only thing "modest" about their ambitions was being able to change them and restructure their entire world concept when people rightfully pointed out that the original movie with the collared predators was kinda racist, and instead of scraping the entire idea Disney went and made it a lot more subtle and nuanced which helped the film out a lot I think.

Hedrigall
Mar 27, 2008

by vyelkin

FirstAidKite posted:

Is it true that the lego batman movie is going to attempt to be serious


I forget where I'd heard that the lego batman movie was attempting to be serious. Well, maybe serious isn't the right way to go, but I mean like, just telling a typical sorta batman story but everything happens to be lego instead of going bonkers with everything like the lego movie did

Have you seen the trailer?

Looks kinda bonkers

Drifter
Oct 22, 2000

Belated Bear Witness
Soiled Meat

FirstAidKite posted:

Is it true that the lego batman movie is going to attempt to be serious


I forget where I'd heard that the lego batman movie was attempting to be serious. Well, maybe serious isn't the right way to go, but I mean like, just telling a typical sorta batman story but everything happens to be lego instead of going bonkers with everything like the lego movie did

Hedrigall posted:

Have you seen the trailer?

Looks kinda bonkers
Looks so bonkers it actually looks pretty comedy-tryhard terrible.

Jonas Albrecht
Jun 7, 2012


FirstAidKite posted:

Is it true that the lego batman movie is going to attempt to be serious


I forget where I'd heard that the lego batman movie was attempting to be serious. Well, maybe serious isn't the right way to go, but I mean like, just telling a typical sorta batman story but everything happens to be lego instead of going bonkers with everything like the lego movie did

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djlsDykmZ_c

Watch the villain roster the Joker reads off at the end there and then get back to me.

DC Murderverse
Nov 10, 2016

"Tell that to Zod's snapped neck!"

Jonas Albrecht posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djlsDykmZ_c

Watch the villain roster the Joker reads off at the end there and then get back to me.

the nice thing about the lego animation is that it makes the garish neon nightmare that Batman should constantly live in both reasonable and awesome.

I am in favor of garish neon things.

Magic Hate Ball
May 6, 2007

ha ha ha!
you've already paid for this
It's still 2016 and it's still the holidays so I can still post Santa Clawhauser and you can't tell me I can't.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

General Dog posted:

I don't think Zootopia was an especially inspired story or concept, but it was the best possible realization of that story and concept, if that makes sense. It was exquisitely made within the confines of modest ambitions.

I don't really agree entirely on this.

I think a Zootopia that wasn't ambitious would have resolved itself where the second act ends up, with Judy and Nick becoming friends and everything pretty hunky dory after they get over their odd couple shenanigans and resolves the issues pretty pat. The fact that it's actually willing to basically go "Hey, y'know, prejudice isn't just overt racism and it's entirely possible for someone who is otherwise good to hold kind of crappy beliefs without thinking about it" is something I consider ambitious in an era where a lot of films that aren't aimed at families of all ages wouldn't bother to go that extra step, let alone something like Zootopia's basic concept. It's not a mind-blowing film that will change the universe or anything but I think that extra element helps it at least feel more meaningful.

It still has an overall happy ending that probably wraps things up a little too neatly but I don't think that's an inherent flaw really. I'm not expecting a kid's film to end with someone dying to show the futility of love or something.

ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Dec 28, 2016

Space Cadet Omoly
Jan 15, 2014

~Groovy~


Pick posted:

I think 2016 was a pretty good year for animation, I mean what was that insanely lovely one? 2014 maybe?

What year was Shrek 3 released?

CeallaSo
May 3, 2013

Wisdom from a Fool

FirstAidKite posted:

It's an ugly as gently caress film but the antagonist's evil machinery was very good to look at because of the dirty look the film had in general.

The only other thing I'd say the animators put any effort into was the fox. Someone on the animation team really liked the fox lady and made sure to make her as well animated as possible. And then just reuse that animation through most of the movie.

All I remember about this movie is the beaver and how upset the king gets about his lackey mentioning it.

Koramei
Nov 11, 2011

I have three regrets
The first is to be born in Joseon.
My biggest takeaway from Zootopia a year later is that it feels like a kid's movie. Which it is, to be fair, and it's a really great kids movie. It explores racism and prejudice with nuance in a way that's digestible to kids, it pushes new ground there in a way that's lovely to see a mainstream studio do. But then the rest is a fairly generic plot and villain and a menagerie of one-scene joke animals. The humor in general just feels immature relative to most Disney stuff, just reliant on quick pop culture gags and stuff.

The message is spectacularly done but it's really the only part of the movie that I think deserves the "wow!!" people keep giving it here. Detach that from it and it's... alright.

A Wizard of Goatse
Dec 14, 2014

Magic Hate Ball posted:

It's still 2016 and it's still the holidays so I can still post Santa Clawhauser and you can't tell me I can't.



it's a little weird that Disney spent enough money to put a man on the Moon building these CGI puppets to mimic realistic physics in great detail so that posing and rendering them from that point on would be click-and-drag simple, and then just photoshop the same half-dozen prerendered cutouts of them over and over for all their promotional material.

Magic Hate Ball
May 6, 2007

ha ha ha!
you've already paid for this
I like the humor in Zootopia, it feels consistent and appropriate.

Pixeltendo
Mar 2, 2012


A Wizard of Goatse posted:

it's a little weird that Disney spent enough money to put a man on the Moon building these CGI puppets to mimic realistic physics in great detail so that posing and rendering them from that point on would be click-and-drag simple, and then just photoshop the same half-dozen prerendered cutouts of them over and over for all their promotional material.

It's probably a different production that gets these renders and have to work from there, probably the same type of department that does those group shot posters where the actors clearly weren't in the same room

Koramei
Nov 11, 2011

I have three regrets
The first is to be born in Joseon.
Yeah I doubt the people making random Christmas promo images to stick on websites and stuff have access to the multi-million dollar computer setup it takes to render the characters properly.

SatansBestBuddy
Sep 26, 2010

by FactsAreUseless

A Wizard of Goatse posted:

it's a little weird that Disney spent enough money to put a man on the Moon building these CGI puppets to mimic realistic physics in great detail so that posing and rendering them from that point on would be click-and-drag simple, and then just photoshop the same half-dozen prerendered cutouts of them over and over for all their promotional material.

Yeah, that is kinda weird, isn't it?

Hasbro and other toy makers would make unique art for every individual Bumblebee toy released this year, along with different art for all the comics, backpacks, calenders, bedsheets, coffee mugs or whatever else they plaster Transformers onto.

While Disney has exactly one picture of Anna from Frozen that is on literally every piece of Frozen merchandise.

Koramei posted:

Yeah I doubt the people making random Christmas promo images to stick on websites and stuff have access to the multi-million dollar computer setup it takes to render the characters properly.

True, but they could at least be given more than one or two pictures, right? Considering how many artists Disney employs it shouldn't be a huge deal to have one take a week to make a variety of poses for merchandise.

It's understandable when the movie is in production, time is limited and everybody is busy, but after the movie's done there should be at least one or two guys with enough time to handle making more poses, right?

SatansBestBuddy fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Dec 28, 2016

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Koramei posted:

My biggest takeaway from Zootopia a year later is that it feels like a kid's movie. Which it is, to be fair, and it's a really great kids movie. It explores racism and prejudice with nuance in a way that's digestible to kids, it pushes new ground there in a way that's lovely to see a mainstream studio do. But then the rest is a fairly generic plot and villain and a menagerie of one-scene joke animals. The humor in general just feels immature relative to most Disney stuff, just reliant on quick pop culture gags and stuff.

The message is spectacularly done but it's really the only part of the movie that I think deserves the "wow!!" people keep giving it here. Detach that from it and it's... alright.

I don't really see Zootopia's jokes as any more immature than any recent Disney movies to be honest. I certainly wouldn't say it's any less mature than Moana or Dory which came out the same year. Moana has less pop culture jokes but I think that's largely due to a change in setting. It's certainly not any less mature than the pretty blatant jokes in Wreck It Ralph (which is Pop Culture Jokes Aplenty being a video game film) or stuff like the Trolls in Frozen. There are jokes I found weak (I wasn't big on the nudist animal segment) but no moreso than in any recent Disney animated feature. YMMV naturally but it certainly didn't feel out of place with Disney's recent output to me.

ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Dec 28, 2016

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink
This thread's title is cool, and good, and I will graciously overlook the missing comma.

Shadow Hog
Feb 23, 2014

Avatar by Jon Davies
I dunno, while Zootopia'd only be merely good without the message (as opposed to excellent), the world-building is still pretty spectacular compared to pretty much any other talking animal film out there. Like, I haven't seen the full film (and am not exactly falling over myself to do so), but the trailer for Sing just had me constantly thinking "man, Disney realized this world concept so much better earlier this year".

A Wizard of Goatse
Dec 14, 2014

Koramei posted:

Yeah I doubt the people making random Christmas promo images to stick on websites and stuff have access to the multi-million dollar computer setup it takes to render the characters properly.

Any desktop with the software installed would be able to crank out a still no problem but yeah the merch team probably ain't trained in whatever weird proprietary animation suite the film crews use that gets redeveloped for each movie

A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Dec 28, 2016

FirstAidKite
Nov 8, 2009

CeallaSo posted:

All I remember about this movie is the beaver and how upset the king gets about his lackey mentioning it.

Beaver?



Beaver....?!



BEAVER??!!!

Snowglobe of Doom
Mar 30, 2012

sucks to be right

Shadow Hog posted:

the trailer for Sing just had me constantly thinking "man, Disney realized this world concept so much better earlier this year".

But perhaps not quite as blatantly as Secret Life of Pets and Sausage Party were treading on Pixar's toes

Macaluso
Sep 23, 2005

I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG, BROTHER!
Lego Batman looks good ya jerks. Also the song they use in the trailer is perfect

21 Muns
Dec 10, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

Drifter posted:

Looks so bonkers it actually looks pretty comedy-tryhard terrible.

Man, did you see the original Lego Movie? I don't consider myself a Batman fan, but I'm going to see this, and I find it difficult to imagine someone who loved The Lego Movie not looking forward to the Lego Batman Movie from the trailer. I also find it difficult to imagine someone who watched The Lego Movie not loving it.

Jonas Albrecht
Jun 7, 2012


Was anyone moved by the trailers for Zootopia? Hell nay.

But even taking that into account, I do laugh at "You're darn right 'Whoa!'"

Haledjian
May 29, 2008

YOU CAN'T MOVE WITH ME IN THIS DIGITAL SPACE

A Wizard of Goatse posted:

it's a little weird that Disney spent enough money to put a man on the Moon building these CGI puppets to mimic realistic physics in great detail so that posing and rendering them from that point on would be click-and-drag simple, and then just photoshop the same half-dozen prerendered cutouts of them over and over for all their promotional material.

Speaking as a maker of CGI puppets, I'd just as soon not be involved every time someone in marketing wants to tweet a character in a Santa hat, haha

A Wizard of Goatse
Dec 14, 2014

Haledjian posted:

Speaking as a maker of CGI puppets, I'd just as soon not be involved every time someone in marketing wants to tweet a character in a Santa hat, haha

yeah but there's that and then there's working on Sausage Party or Emoji, modelers and riggers can't all be on Disney's A-team

A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Dec 28, 2016

Haledjian
May 29, 2008

YOU CAN'T MOVE WITH ME IN THIS DIGITAL SPACE
The other thing is, it's not so much the software being a barrier for entry (they use Maya), but the Twitter team isn't really trained in posing characters correctly so you'd probably end up getting stuff like this released as Official Canon Disney Art.

e - I think they did have some B-team work when the movie came out, but I'd assume they still got paid more than whoever photoshopped the beard on Clawhauser.

Haledjian fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Dec 28, 2016

Drifter
Oct 22, 2000

Belated Bear Witness
Soiled Meat

21 Muns posted:

Man, did you see the original Lego Movie? I don't consider myself a Batman fan, but I'm going to see this, and I find it difficult to imagine someone who loved The Lego Movie not looking forward to the Lego Batman Movie from the trailer. I also find it difficult to imagine someone who watched The Lego Movie not loving it.

Yeah, I saw it. Its humor didn't really resonate with me, which is weird because silly poo poo is usually my yardhouse. Sure looked fantastic, though. Lego Batman just, to me, looks like more of the same dialed up past eleven.

Snowglobe of Doom
Mar 30, 2012

sucks to be right

Haledjian posted:

e - I think they did have some B-team work when the movie came out, but I'd assume they still got paid more than whoever photoshopped the beard on Clawhauser.

Sing managed to pump out 30 seconds of new animation for a Happy Meals ad which was probably commissioned months before the film came out but I'm also guessing that McDonalds fronted a bunch of the cash for it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-GGGzHed64

But it's still bizarre that a movie like Zootopia which made a billion dollars at the box office and is pretty much as toyetic as it's possible to be just didn't seem to have anything extra put towards the advertising budget.

Hedrigall
Mar 27, 2008

by vyelkin
Here's a couple of recent Cartoon Brew articles that people itt might find interesting:

Complete list of songs featured in Sing (someone was asking for this in the last thread)

A list of 60+ animated films in theatres in 2017

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Shadow Hog posted:

the trailer for Sing just had me constantly thinking "man, Disney realized this world concept so much better earlier this year".

It had me thinking "'Sing For the Moment' is really not a appropriate song for this trailer. Especially when it uses the line "They say music can alter moods and talk to you" but cuts the next line which is 'Well can it load a gun up for you and cock it too?'"

Snowglobe of Doom posted:

But perhaps not quite as blatantly as Secret Life of Pets and Sausage Party were treading on Pixar's toes

Secret Life of Pets also didn't have the most appropriate song for a trailer for a kid's movie.

Snowglobe of Doom
Mar 30, 2012

sucks to be right

Samuel Clemens posted:

Yeah, I already feel confident in predicting that no 2017 release will be as bad as Ratchet & Clank.

There's a few here that look like real stinkers:


Bunyan and Babe looks particularly woeful. I found a teaser and it doesn't look any better:
https://vimeo.com/160872860

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

resurgam40
Jul 22, 2007

Battler, the literal stupidest man on earth. Why are you even here, Battler, why did you come back to this place so you could fuck literally everything up?

Shadow Hog posted:

I dunno, while Zootopia'd only be merely good without the message (as opposed to excellent), the world-building is still pretty spectacular compared to pretty much any other talking animal film out there. Like, I haven't seen the full film (and am not exactly falling over myself to do so), but the trailer for Sing just had me constantly thinking "man, Disney realized this world concept so much better earlier this year".

You'd think so from the trailers, but I saw Sing last weekend (the only other films I was interested in were really deep dark dramas which I wasn't really in the mood for), and... well, would you believe it's all right?

I mean, I don't want to oversell it or anything, Zootopia is unquestionably better in terms of worldbuilding, narrative, and social commentary, but while the creation process for Sing does feel completely cynical in that it shamelessly combines two things- cute talking animals and reality shows- that are proven to make obscene amounts of cash, the end result surprisingly doesn't fall into the easy trap I thought it was going to, ie. use the concept to make mean-spirited humor of untalented people being yelled at and shamed by judges and the audience. Instead, it is completely sincere about not only the star-for-a-day mystique about shows like American Idol or The Voice, as well as the "let's all get together and sing a song" exuberance of James Corden and his Carpool Karaoke, but the potential for art and beauty to inspire others and that anyone who loves music can enjoy and participate as well. If anyone is mocked, it's the ones that think music is only for the talented and learned and that anyone not willing to devote their lives to music and be paid for their efforts should get out of the way of those who do, a viewpoint embodied by Mike, and even by Buster Moon himself, and it's something they're both punished for by the end. And I dig that, it scratched the feel-good itch I needed.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply