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I'm sick??!!..what about the poor garlic! Yeah nobody thinks of the poor garlic, with the constant "wouldn't you like to be a pepper to" drummed into everybodies head..yeah eeeevery body wants to be a pepper, what about wanting to be a gralic? Why not a garlic!? eh!?...I can't write right now I'm to upset!..
I had high hopes for Chicken Little, based on decent box office returns. But what I saw was more of homage to Pixar than engrossing story-telling. Disney has taken a back seat to original content creators such as Nick Park and Dreamworks, and apparently has quietly learned; the animation is superb and quite state-of-the-art...it compares to Pixar, Rhythm & Hues, et all any day?but Uncle Walt?s render farm doesn?t do enough to cover up sloppy, strained, and corny writing. The tale is a wonderful, free-for-all send-up, I love the idea that ?the falling sky? is actually falling UFO debris?but the dialog!
Okay, Pixar uses childish humor: belching, farting, and so on. So Chicken Little returns the volley with an embarrassing, drawn-out thesaurus-like exchange on peeing. Ouch #1. Pixar uses inside gags, so Chicken Little makes broad, poorly-timed references to Signs and War of the Worlds. Ouch #2. The Raiders of the Lost Ark clip seemed forced (and you don't need to spell it out for the audience by showing the movie title on the marquee), but the Close Encounters lighting in various scenes worked, because it was subtle. The Mickey Mouse watch with the 3 eyes scene was twice as long as needed?easily fixed with better editing; many of the takes were protracted?Spielberg and others cope with timing by previewing the final cut to a closed audience, then tightening where needed. I fully expected the characters to wink at the camera with all the time waiting in a scene that a lot of times is going nowhere.
The choice of pop music was embarrassing and a tad irritating, but I?m sure the soundtrack album will sell well?Pixar chooses their tunes with keen wit; Disney apparently thinks disco songs are still hip, and that REM?s music is original (guys, Independence Day used the same song years ago for the same UFO invasion irony). Chicken Little could have had tender moments between our star and his dad, but the music was predictably syrupy and the scenes were too empty.
I?m sorry I?m dissecting a ?fun movie?, but traditional animation is on the wane, and I?m not enjoying 3D animation as much as I?d like to, because ?the screenplay??the adaptation of a story to work dialog, cuts, and so on into a body or work ?is taking a back seat to special effects. Disney announced back in March that the cel animation department was closing?the torch left to Jay Ward and a few indies. Hey, these are fascinating times to live in, but without decent stories, we?re left with teenagers with a copy of Maya to entertain us, and heck, animated gifs are beginning to look better and better.
My hope is that Disney, who?s betting the farm on Chicken Little right down to a no-compete release against Harry Potter, will make a lot of money and continue to make CG feature lengths. But they should use some of that money to buy some good writers to replace their stable of plaid-suit, Borsht Belt stand-up comics.
Thanks for the review...I kind of expected it..
I don't know and its probably me but I'm not a big fan of 3d animation cartoons.
With that said let me clarify it. Given the chance to see a cell drawn bugs Bunny (1940's style) or a Bugs Bunny (Toy Story style) I'd take cell style every time. Now Beauty and the Beast or Tarzan "cell style" i find wonderful.. Toy Story style 3d seems..I can not put my finger on it..mechanical? artificial? made up?
I'm not sure.
Now 3d images / animation in non cartoon films (Think Jurassic park or Star wars) I find amazing, even breath taking..
Needless to say I really like the Old 1930-40's Bugs Bunny..in both drawing and style.
Cel animation began as the first ?special effect?, but was always subordinate to the story. The ?impossible? was explored, and I feel the exploration is today incomplete. But aside from anime, the future of cel animation is dismal?it?s expensive and there are few talented animators alive who are stupid enough to work for slave wages as they did in the 1930s and 40s.
Animation as a medium, be it cel or CG has been abused. The Flintstones?a redoux of The Honeymooners?was insulting. Why not live actors? Did animation help carry the plots in any way? Did H-B think limited cel animation would capture the fancy of Cold War audiences? A lot of dreck was created for theaters during The Depression to take folks? minds off their existence. Similarly, The Simpsons could be live action; why use animation? Final Fantasy is to a large extent a demo reel?real people would help the CG, and the film looks to be an example of how realistically artists can animate people. I think both The Incredibles and its source, The Fantastic Four missed the mark. Incredibles should have been live action (why is Pixar scared to mix live footage with CG? Shrek took great efforts to make humans look realistic, and I think it worked), whereas FF should have used CG for Ben Grimm. And a plot would?ve helped. I think Spider-Man worked because the CG of Spidey blended well with live action. And the story was engrossing.
A really good example of cel animation juxtaposed against live action was Forbidden Planet?Disney artists did the blaster strikes and the Krell Id monster. Today it looks hokey, but so does the rest of the film.
I personally use CG only when it?s absolutely needed. I didn?t have an actual turkey to post here, so I modeled it (the parsley was photographed because it?s too hard to model). The peppers are photos, but I needed to model the backdrop. So necessity is valid, but the ?story?, the speech balloons, deliberately undercut the reality of the scene?juxtaposition as well as misdirection (a magician's trick) is an important element in story-telling.
What William Shakespeare meant when he wrote, ?The play?s the thing? was that the story is the key element to story-telling, and the rest is just window-dressing. And I?d agree that CG in movies today, to mix metaphors, is putting the cart leagues in front of the horse.
Re: The November Free?For?All 
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