Is It Normal For A Diz Film To Have No Hype?

[Drtooth]

I believe that CG is being incorrectly used as a genre. For example, I liked "Despicable Me", from Universal, but why was it computer animated? What about it made that necessary? I can see the story just as easily told with stylish traditional animation and it's not the only picture out there that can be made traditionally. The answer is a cynical one. Most producers believe that's the way to get the kids to see their film. That somehow 2D animation isn't cool anymore. It's all wrong. A movie is a movie no matter what the format. I just miss seeing good traditionally animated films with good stories. It's an endangered species in the United States, but certainly not elsewhere.

When something's popular, someone's going to run it into the ground... either the company that introduced it or a wannabe. That's why there's a hundred million "different" Judge programs on during the day time (okay, I'm exaggerating... they only have ten million).

Here's something fundamental we all forget. When Disney started the grand rebirth of animated movies since The Little Mermaid, everyone and their mother made 2-D animated films... there were some in the 1980's from Don Bluth, sure... but there was an explosion of third and fourth party 2-D films from start up companies, some were actually good... some were... well, The Tom and Jerry movie. Ever see that? It's like they watched the Rescuers and Oliver and Company and said "Hey! We can shove Tom and Jerry into an unlicensed knockoff easily." Then Dreamworks started in with their 2-D films, long before they did Shrek and "Finding Nemo, only with Bad Gangaster Film Parodies and a character from Da Hood".

You know how now we have garbage knockoffs like "Ratataoing," "The Littlest Cars," "The Littlest Robot," and "The Littlest Up?" How come we forgot the "Enchanted Tales" movies that oh so just happened to come out when Disney released something? I don't see anything different from then and now. People just want to ride the successful coattails of others.

Now, as far as story goes, who are we kidding? Some PRETTY weak films do manage to do undeservedly well, and some well done films fall into the cracks. Quality doesn't always have to equal big Box Office. I still have yet to see Princess and the Frog, but it wasn't so much the story that kept it down... it was the bad release date. Now, I don't know the Bo Office, but Tangled seemed to do okay... I saw it stay at theaters just before the DVD release, and there was problems with trying to market the thing to boys.... but Princess and the Frog was up against some pretty hard competition... The Second Chipmunks film and Avatar (who would have thought that would have been a hit?) Meanwhile, it lost the cushy Thanksgiving spot (think how miraculous the Muppets getting this slot is) to that HORRID Robert Zermeckis motion capture 3-D Christmas Carol that one one wanted to see. I'm sure it would have at least done much better had it been released a month BEFORE the Chipmunks movie (again, there was little quality in that one, but it did real well).

As for Cars, well, I'll say this. It had an audience and it spoke to kids. Kids love toy Cars, the toy cars sold like hotcakes when the movie first came out (I remember looking when I finally saw the film). It made money. It still continues to make money only with CGI shorts between the first and the second. And I'm sure the second will be a smash. I'm still a little iffy about the plot, but I'm still excited enough to see it.