Hey Look! A GOOD Garfield Movie

[wwfpooh]

Indeed. Welker is the animal genius! :lol:

 

[MelissaY1]

It's still CGI crap. Why can't they just make a regular animated Garfield movie? They were planning one in the mid 80s where the late Lou Rawls recorded the music and everything. It was supposed to be called "Garfield's Judgment Day". They discuss it briefly on the T.V. special celebrating Garfield's 10th birthday

 

[wwfpooh]

Why can't they just make a regular animated Garfield movie?

Technology has moved on and the intended audience is more interested in CGI and modern stuff nowadays rather than the classics of our childhoods.

 

[frogboy4]

This is what creator Jim Davis wants

Jim Davis' fingerprints are all over the movie and the DVD production. This is very much his baby (unlike the other live action attempts). He waited for the computer animation medium to advance enough (especially in areas of squash and stretch) so that his characters would be represented accurately. In most of the movie, in the comic world, Garfield has a small ink line.

Straight from Davis himself - this is not some fad that gobbled up Garfield like the cat would do to a plate of lasagna. He feels that his creation has already been represented in 2D and hit the limit of quality he feels that *this project's* way of handling 3D accomplishes. Unless the Disney people handled a Garfield 2D animation project (which is neither in the works or ever likely to happen) this is what we get.

Personally, I like the 3D thicker outlined toon shader effect better than this glossier style (i.e. how Mr. Peanut is represented in his Planter's ads on TV). But I like the attempt of finding a middle ground. It's far from "crap" but there is some room for growth - especially in the sculpting of new and secondary characters. I have not seen the characters really appear like themselves in such a long time until this project.

It's not a very long show. If you’re not sold on it I recommend Netflixing it if possible. That way you really aren’t out more than a bit of pocket change.

 

[MelissaY1]

Technology has moved on and the intended audience is more interested in CGI and modern stuff nowadays rather than the classics of our childhoods.

I know it's shameful.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Technology has moved on and the intended audience is more interested in CGI and modern stuff nowadays rather than the classics of our childhoods.

The companies certainly seem to think this is true. Except that I've rarely seen this way of thinking reflected in real life, heh. Audiences are not robots, they don't go around thinking "old cartoons bad, CGI good. Or vice versa." There are kids who enjoy the classics, even if they also like CGI. Sadly, what ends up on the screen doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what the intended audience actually wants.

 

[frogboy4]

3 Screen-Grabs of the Garfield Gets Real​

To me, this project reminds me of the neatly shaded Garfield posters of the 80s. Upon a second viewing the secondary characters really stand out as being sub-par. I do love that in the Comic World all the cars run on bubbles! Does Al Gore know about this technology?

 

[Drtooth]

Technology has moved on and the intended audience is more interested in CGI and modern stuff nowadays rather than the classics of our childhoods.

I have to disagree on that count there.... the "modern audiences" want to see these cartoon characters as flat CGI's against a live action back drop. That's why this was DTV, and the horrible one where Garf looked like a horrible cartoon/live action Cross breed. In fact, i'd rather have seen Underdog and Alvin and the Chipmunks look more like this than what they became.

I agree with Frgoboy here, this is far from crap looking. John looks a tad awkward to me, but everyone else (especially that guest character in that shot) looks great. And as for a DTV movie, well, we'd be getting crappy flat looking Korean 2-D if we got 2-D. I cannot stand how all the Warner Brothers cartoons look now. They clearly use an inferior studio. it looks so perfect, it's mechanical. Makes me really miss the odd Japanese outsourcing from the 1980's (especially TMS's work with DIC animation and Disney).

The companies certainly seem to think this is true. Except that I've rarely seen this way of thinking reflected in real life, heh. Audiences are not robots, they don't go around thinking "old cartoons bad, CGI good. Or vice versa." There are kids who enjoy the classics, even if they also like CGI. Sadly, what ends up on the screen doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what the intended audience actually wants.

I tend to think that's why every single animatd movie since has been CGI. Plus, come on. Pixar and Dreamworks made money. They are clearly utilizing a technology for money making purposes. As I said before, I think Pixar is the studio that gets it. They have CGI down to a fine art, but they also have beautifully designed characters, wonderful scripts, and some bizarre lovable ideas. Dreamwork's has pretty decent films, I feel, and Blue Sky has great animation, but their scripts are only so so. To me other studios just want to get on the "fad" of this type of animation.

 

[frogboy4]

This project listed no other writer than Jim Davis (and he exec-produced it too, of course). The extras show a video conference between Davis and the overseas animation team leader. He also picked the guy to help the US end of the project that reportedly created the technology for Terminator 2 so there's no slumming it on the States end.

Upon second viewing there are some issues that stand out to me. Yeah, the story could have been a bit more interesting (I absolutely adore the Garfield classically animated Christmas special from my youth). But it appears that even within the separation of worlds there are some consistency problems with animation quality that shouldn't be there - especially in the area of mouth movement.

I am glad they have Garfield's mouth move throughout the film. Today's young people would likely think a static-mouthed cat as a cop-out and those are much of the target group for this. And it works.

When viewing a character like Nermal (who is actually the best animated character in the film, better than Garfield) it makes me wonder why? Is Nermal heavily featured in films 2 and 3? Odie is done so beautifully too. Arlene and Jon could use more work. The comic director character is done so very poorly it makes me wonder if they just ran out of time. This video received very little fanfare anywhere.

That makes me think the filmmakers know the short-comings and are planning to remedy them in future projects. It is clear they weren't sure how 3D is too 3D in the film. Some shots are flatter than others. But this is a good indication of direction. I still wish they'd have a story the level of the Christmas special so dear to my heart.

 

[wwfpooh]

Maybe this could be the "Batman Begins" for Garfield, because like that film revitslized Batman's career following BTAS, this movie could be a good move to fix up Garfield's career after the first two feature film flops.