OK. Show of hands. How many of you rushed into the theaters to see Finding Nemo because of the animation techniques? I mean, did you actually sit down and choose between Nemo and Rugrats Go Wild! on the fact that one was 3-D and the other 2-D? Or because you heard that one was hilarious and the other one sucked?
And just how were you able to resist the lure of those unique character voices in Sinbad? I mean, come on people! They spent big money to get Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michelle Pfeiffer for those parts. What do you mean you’d rather have Phil Harris, Sterling Holloway and Pat Carroll? Who the hell is Mary Kay Bergman?
It couldn’t be that after the first few Pixar presentations, you stopped going “Wow! That’s looks cool” and started watching them because they were good stories? Puh-leeze. Trust us. The only reason you went to see Ice Age was because it was 3-D. And that’s why Disney is laying off its traditional animators.
I can’t fathom the stupidity of corporate management sometimes.
For an even better take on the subject, go read Todd’s guest entry at Ain’t Too Proud to Blog.
Yeah, this is just dumb. Todd’s highlighting of Spirited Away shows the truth — good story and art will win out over good art, any day.
But corporations are forever beholden to Wall Street, and thus laying off animators reduces costs and increases the forecasted profit. Besides, focusing on the use of machines to turn out twice as much movies such as “Ice Age” will also allow Disney to justify its investment, and look better to possible investors.
Of course, all of this while stupidly focusing on the short term, degrading the brand and losing ground to the competition.
And I loved Sen to Chihiro!
I will go and see anything done by Pixar because they’re like the new Warner Brothers cartoons. The smallhumans find them amusing, but there are enough cutenesses in there for adults to laugh over. And the best part: as you get older, you discover new facets to the funnies. “We’ve discovered another rock layer!”
Ice Age had some funny moments, but there just weren’t enough amusing bits to hold my attention when I saw it on cable.
And, I must confess: I went to see Finding Nemo because 1) the temperature was over 100 here in the San Francisco area; 2) we have no air conditioner; and 3) I heard that the Hollywood-Whatever movie with Josh Hartnett and Harrison Ford was el-stinko. Even if my main reason for going to a movie theatre was their air conditioning, I didn’t want to have to sit through a truly hideous movie.