The Worst CGI Kid Films In Recent Memory

[mr3urious]

Now here's a cartoon from China called Shen Shou Jing Gang (a.k.a. Celestial Warriors) that blatantly rips off Super Sentai/Power Rangers and blends CGI with Flash... and doesn't do a good job at either of them.

And here's The King of Tibetan Antelope, which is basically Bambi with antelope and many scenes ripped straight from The Lion King. Also, it used cel shading like that one studio from Thailand that also blatantly ripped off Disney movies.

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/WDlMk6agRUU/

 

[Drtooth]

It's almost not even trying to hide the fact that it's ripping off Kung Fu Panda, it even has the joke of overusing the word "legend". The animation is good for Flash standards, though. I was almost expecting a laugh track after that "maybe he had a stroke" line.

Sad story about that one. It's animated by Renegade animation, the same studio behind Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi Show and (especially) The Mr. Men Show.

This thing looks like a weak parody, if anything. But then again, it's leaps and bounds over The Littlest Panda or whatever it's called...

Of course, I'll give that movie a standing ovation for a Care Bear getting beat up.

 

[AquaGGR]

That is to animated films what Crazy Bus is to videogames.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm actually kinda disappointed that Mike wasn't using his Meat from Ultimate Muscle voice as the trainer.

Someone's going to henpeck me for this, but say what you will about 4Kids, the voice actors that they used (they were freelance and New York localized) were quite good. I mean, look at TMNT 2k3. It's a shame they have to dub these lousy ripoff films, but... well, I guess it's a step up from dubbing Turkish sitcoms.

I'm not kidding... they totally dub Turkish sitcoms. The guy who played Jammerhead in TMNT FF says so at conventions.

 

[AquaGGR]

Someone's going to henpeck me for this, but say what you will about 4Kids, the voice actors that they used (they were freelance and New York localized) were quite good. I mean, look at TMNT 2k3. It's a shame they have to dub these lousy ripoff films, but... well, I guess it's a step up from dubbing Turkish sitcoms.

4Kids was nowhere near as bad as everyone make it out to be. Them editing the episodes is totally justified, they're dubbing the shows so it's suitable for American audiences. Either that or they're deathly afraid of Moral Guardians.

The people who complain probably don't even watch the dubs in the first place, they probably watch the originals with subtitles, so they shouldn't be complaining.

Also, Dan Green.

 

[Drtooth]

4Kids was nowhere near as bad as everyone make it out to be. Them editing the episodes is totally justified, they're dubbing the shows so it's suitable for American audiences. Either that or they're deathly afraid of Moral Guardians.

So called anime fans that whine about 4Kids have never seen Battle of the Planets. Now, it had an impressive voice cast... Alan Young, Casey Kasem, Janet Waldo... but they destroyed it. They willfully and totally destroyed it. And those who grew up only knowing BOTP loved it. They gave a character pretty much Torrett's Syndrome, and added an annoying, clumsily animated robot to fill all the gaps cut out by violence, and people still have great memories of growing up with it. Let's not forget Voltron, Robotech, and Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years.... all of which took multiple shows and forced them together so they had to rewrite the plot to accomodate that. No one ever complained about that. And Harmony Gold. Ah yes, Harmony Gold. They would take an entire TV series and crush it into a DTV feature film, and link everything up together with tedious dialogue (much like M. Night Shamalan's The Last Airbender did). Though they did try to get Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump to us in the 80's.

Personally, I'm more annoyed by 4Kids' management and how that clumsy approach to business cost a lot of anime from being popular in this country.

 

[mr3urious]

4Kids' digital text erasing (including erasing perfectly understandable English!) and removal of Japanese cultural references annoy me way more than their questionable voice directing.

 

[Drtooth]

It's some bullcrap about making anime culturally ambiguous. We get blank signs and windows and stuff so no other country has to think about translating it, even though we got along perfectly fine with written text in cartoons before. It's a cheap ploy to make things global... like when you watch a cartoon series and someone pulls up a newspaper that has nonsensical symbols on it instead of gag writing.

That I do have a problem with, but I'm sure they're not the only ones that do it. Still, the fact they have to hide the fact a Japanese show is Japanese is bull, but no way a reflection of the voice actors.

I kinda... I actually wanna track down those Turkish Soaps they dub.

 

[Drtooth]

Back on subject.. You will not believe how many people are defending this horrible space opera thing. And it's all about how we should appreciate the work an independent studio put forth. Now, I'd like to put aside sarcasm and passive aggressiveness aside and just give it straight.

I should appreciate the work of indie artists, but just being indie does not a quality product make. There are loads of indie animators out there that turn out better stuff on their own for Youtube in a matter of weeks, months even than it took a team of animators to do in 4 years. This film is poorly animated, no matter if it was done by a scrappy young bunch of up and coming animators or a team of sweatshop workers in Brazil. Unless they're somehow animating these on computers from 1994, there is no excuse for the overall look. This doesn't even look polished enough to be an amateur project.

Secondly, the characters look terrible. Even if this was top notch, quality animation, these look like the doodles of someone who can't draw very well. One of the characters looks like a 7 year olds' drawing of Megamind. And even though the characters have that similar terrible huge eyed look, they have such an inconsistent design, and they all look like they were from different, unrelated projects. Especially the fat guy in the loud Hawaiian shirt.

And lastly, at best the movie's plot looks like a generic space thingy. There's no soul to it. Just another "we have to fight the evil Space Man guy to bring peace to something." And the acting is more wooden than anything George Lucas could have given us. At best, this is a below average film, even if it had Pixar quality animation.

So there's basically no quality in the entire film. I'm sure a lot of behind the stage people do have talent. It's just not showing.

And then, there's this comment...

Ignoring the poor quality of the movie, I should just comment how unfairly a lot of the animators who worked at Omnipulse in Houston were treated years ago. Mr. Ewing found it suitable to have all of his employees work an extra two weeks after their last paycheck and then laid them all off at once, not paying anyone for their last two weeks. It is obviously not the worst transgression in the world of animation, but says something about his honesty.

Yes folks... the CGI animation equivalent of Pat Lee.

 

[D'Snowth]

I should appreciate the work of indie artists, but just being indie does not a quality product make.

Sid & Marty Krofft.