The state and future of animation

[EricJ]

Paprika wasn’t nominated either.

But Persepolis was.
And so were
- Triplets of Belleville
- Howl's Moving Castle
- The Illusionist
- A Cat in Paris
- My Life as a Zucchini
- Mirai
(You'll notice most nominated foreign animation tends to be French and Japanese. At least, I hope you'll notice.)

In fact, in the traditional five-nom year, it's usually Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks other big Third-Party Commercial Hit, festival Indie championed by the core animator voters, and one Foreign indie, if applicable. In a three-nom year, one D/P and one Indie.
No one's ever SEEN the last two, but the nominations get all the art fans down to the college-town theaters.

[Ben]

Fixed the were for ya.

I’ve seen Zucchini. Although over here we obviously call them by their proper name of courgette.

And The Secret Of Kells, Chico And Rita, Song Of The Sea, Flee and a couple of others weren't French or Japanese. I know, you said "most", but it’s a bit of a lame argument. They’re either American, or not.

[Bill1978]

I've seen Mirai and it deserved its nomination,

And I will forever argue that Flee deserved to win the Oscar over Encanto. It should at least have won one of the awards it was nominated for.

The problem is that while the Animation Branch chooses nominations based on the merits of the artform (and usually box office appeal), the Academy voters tend to lean towards voting for the bright, colourful film that entertained their children/grandchildren and vote often on name recognition and not on quality.

It's a cliche, but for the non-Hollywood films it's just an honour to be nominated for the free press and recognition the nomination gives the film.

[GeffreyDrogon]

Why did Shrek even get put into the Library of Congress's list of films? Why couldn't something like The Prince of Egypt or The Iron Giant get recognized instead of some overrated garbage as good as the typical superhero film is nowadays?

[Randall]

Well.... that is a good question.

[EricJ]

Yes it is. Let's move on, and leave Geoffrey to Google how movies are selected by the LoC.

[Ben]

Funny, I wasn’t going to suggest he Google it, but I was going to post a quick reason why…

So…great question, easy answers:

Basically, the Library asks everyone for nominations each year, so automatically there will be a leaning toward many successful films, because that’s what people remember. Then those films need to be over ten years old, so that cancels out a lot of kneejerk reactions to current stuff.

Once they narrow down those noms, there is an emphasis on films that were "culturally significant", indicating titles that captured the zeitgeist of the time, also usually being critically praised and/commercially successful. A board of scholarly historians and filmmakers advise on the titles that warrant inclusion, again based on a variety of factors.

In fairness, Shrek meets all of those, also being the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It was a huge success, it changed the movie landscape, it won awards. Quite a natural for inclusion given the criteria.

Unfortunately, Prince Of Egypt and Iron Giant were not the huge hits Shrek was. While sizeable in POE's case, both films underperformed, so there’s slightly less visibility to get those all-important first votes. Of course, "being a hit" isn’t a natural reason or necessitation for being included: many films are included years after their release because they remain remembered and eventually outlast the more "popular" ones.

POE and TIG *do* have this longevity, and some films that continually get even low numbers of votes each year have been eventually recognised, kind of just for keeping on turning up, which means they remain relevant and may even gain more recognition over time, which these clearly have. I could totally see both these films still enter the registry in time to come.

[GeffreyDrogon]

Has Disney ever made a bad animated film? I've heard people complain about Cars 2 and Ralph Breaks the Internet, but I feel like most people have no problem with those films. From what I've heard, most people even enjoyed Lightyear and Strange World, despite those films being box office bombs. Why does everyone give Disney so much flak despite all the bad animated films being non-Disney films?

[Ben]

Maybe because they are held in a higher esteem than the other studios…?

[Bill1978]

I think Disney gets a lot of flak because in the past they were seen as the only studio making animated films so every animated film was from Disney. The amount of people who will list films like Anastasia, Shrek, FernGully, Iron Giant etc as Disney is incredible. So maybe people giving Disney flak are mistaking the bad movies as Disney ones.

Having said that, I am one of those people who get annoyed at Lists of Great Disney Films that include Pixar stuff. They are two completely different studios and approach to the medium.

[Randall]

"Bad" is subjective, but they have had their share of weak films and stinkers. Chicken Little comes to mind, and one doesn't hear many folks defending it. And does anyone ever recollect Home on the Range?

And Cars 2, of course, was a Pixar film.

[Ben]

(I really enjoyed Chicken Little in the cinema during the time I was watching it…)



But, no, it’s not a great film. I only watched it again to review the disc for the site way back when, and then again for the 3D reissue, and it’s just too frenetic to be a classic. However, it’s certainly a product of its time, and I’ll bet, as with anything, that it has its fans. Good call on Home On The Range, though…the probable nadir of modern Disney Animation, mostly because it didn’t know what it was or who it was for. Even then there are some fun bits and pieces in there, but it’s a mess to get through.

Even then, it is all subjective. A kid of today is arguably going to want to see, react to and enjoy Home On The Range more than any of the 1940s Package Features. Heck, even when I was growing up some of those ballads were tough to sit through, though now we can of course admire and even enjoy them and we see them through the prism of history as important for what they were, but even Walt knew he was (admittedly having to) treading water with those.

Even the "bad" ones have good moments, or trying to do interesting or different things, so those too must be looked at in context. Most of what is classed as bad-bad are usually, as Bill says, the hand-drawn films that aren’t Disney titles at all, and then it’s usually the obvious Disney knock-offs.

I’ll always remember having my hair cut some years back and the chatty girl got right into "Disney" when it was mentioned as a mutual topic of conversation. Of course, she then rattled off a whole line of titles and TV series, barely which was anything Disney. Turned out she just liked animation, and I don’t think quite got that "Walt Disney" wasn’t an alive and kicking old man still churning this stuff out. On both counts, I didn’t have the heart to tell her…

[EricJ]

Oh, but if she used the wrong comma, you'd have come out swinging...

[GeffreyDrogon]

Even then, it is all subjective. A kid of today is arguably going to want to see, react to and enjoy Home On The Range more than any of the 1940s Package Features. Heck, even when I was growing up some of those ballads were tough to sit through, though now we can of course admire and even enjoy them and we see them through the prism of history as important for what they were, but even Walt knew he was (admittedly having to) treading water with those.

What are "package features"?

[EricJ]

Assembled shorts, eg. "Adv. of Ichabod & Mr. Toad", "Saludos Amigos", "Fun & Fancy Free". Try one sometime.