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Hearing In a Big Country -- Big Country
Dumb Moves in Animation
Disney is closing up shop on "traditional" 2-D animation, opting instead to go fully digital. I think this is a big mistake, personally. Disney's rationale for this probably has something to do with the relative slump its animated films have been in recently, especially in the wake of Treasure Planet, which cost something like $140 million to make and reeled in, um, considerably less, while digital creations like Shrek and Finding Nemo bound up to the $300 million mark and beyond.
But family and kids didn't avoid Treasure Planet because it was "traditionally" animated, they avoided it because it wasn't very good. Likewise, if Finding Nemo had been "traditionally" animated, it would have still been hugely popular because the story was really good. Digital animation is flashly, but digitally animated movies with awful stories have done really badly (Note: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), which ought to tell you something right there.
I like "traditional" animation, and I think it would be a real shame when it goes the way of the dodo because some dodo at Disney can't make the connection between good stories and good grosses. The final irony here is that Brother Bear, Disney's latest and (presumably) last 2-D film, is doing great business, dropping only 4% in terms of grosses last weekend from its opening weekend. Again, that tells you something right there.
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The Emperor's New Groove--2D masterpiece. Come on Disney, don't mess with a good thing.
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When? Right about the time where they started suing daycare centers for having mickey painted on the wall and releasing old filmsto video in a looped schedule, making nonsense claims such as "last time ever on video!! Buy it NOW!!!!" (except in 2 years when the schedule says release it again". Disney these days are a bad bunch, the more bad decisions they make the better, maybe the bastards in charge will end up losing their jobs and we'll get someone who cares about more than raw $$.
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When did the singular Vision of WALT become such a Corporate/Conglomerate?
mmmmmmm--right after 'Puters arrived in H=wood!? youbetchya. [promise 2 post
less] but i sleep 2 dreme Ms. Steele picks ME! lata, the slac -
Actually, they have another 2-D hand-drawn coming out in April. It actually looks pretty funny. The trailer is on the Finding Nemo DVD.
http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/homeontherange/main.htm l
11/11/03 3:00 PM