Animated Views is 20!

[Randall]

Choosing a "best year" in animation is a tricky thing! But I went with 2014 - a good Disney flick, a decent Laika film, the sublime Book of Life, a good Dragon sequel, The Lego Movie, and also good efforts from Ghibli and Cartoon Saloon. Just about every major studio had a pretty good effort that year. Overall, I don't see a stronger year in the past decade. Each year had its plusses, but also a lot of films that were mediocre to lousy.

[Ben]

It does seem that we either get really good films nowadays, or really, really, really bad films in a single year, so trying to work out a decade which has a better than average balance is tricky!

2014 wasn’t bad, but there are no real standouts in there. Big Hero and Book Of Life aside, nothing else there ever really rose above being "good" and "decent", as you said, and that doesn’t sound like a decade winner to me — but then we could rip apart any of these years! 2015? A great and a lame Pixar, some interesting indies but mostly terrible studio franchise pics.

2016 looks more like a contender for me: yes, we get the awful (Angry Birds, Dory, Norm, Clank, Sausages), but there’s a better than average level of indies (Little Prince, Zucchini, Turtle, Your Name) and some fair to surprisingly good quality studio films (a fun Ice Age, better than expected Panda 3, Pets, Storks, Trolls) and a handful of great ones in Kubo, Moana, Sing and Zootopia). Yeah, 2016 is looking pretty good!

2017 has Coco and Ferdinand, both fair films but nothing sublime, the rest being more franchises and poor indies; 2018 has maybe three big films, but I’m not sure if they were more anticipated at the time rather than lasting even these short years later; and 2019 sure has volume, but maybe only one true great (Klaus), a couple of almost greats and a lot of sludge. 2020…again one or two big hitters but a lot of "meh", and nothing that’s lasted or potential classics.

20s one, two and three are pretty much the same: lots of volume but nothing past "good" in '21, certainly no real "brilliance" in '22, and only a couple of interestings for '23 amongst a pretty wishy-washy year in which all the potential possibilities have yet to come out. Spider-Man already has the feature Oscar in the bag by default, unless being a sequel knocks it back a bit and Wish is really, really, really good, so that gets it like a Disney100 "career achievement".

So, yeah, for me, it looks like 2016 has the better than average score. Sure, some really lame films (and bad ones at that), but too much good and decent to ignore along with some greatness sprinkled on top. Yep, I think that’s my year, for what it’s worth. Sadly, though, I donut think there’s really anything in that whole decade that’s going to be remembered that well in the decades to come, unless we get another sequel in a franchise series. It’ll be interesting to see which have the Comic-Con cosplay longevity in another five to ten years!

[Ben]

Ha! The one time I use italics instead of leaning in *like this*…and they don’t show up!

[James]

I'm with Randall.

For me, 2016's Moana, Sing, and Zootopia are just pretty good, bad, and middling respectively. That leaves only Trolls and Storks as good and Kubo as great.

2014 had the good Big Hero 6, the great Book of Life, and the amazing (and criminally robbed at the Oscars) Lego Movie.

On top of that, Norm of the North just drags the rest of 2016 down by association!

[Ben]

This is true.

But then that’s only if you like the Lego Movie. I’ve never quite understood how you didn’t like Happy Feet and yet liked that one.

Any word on why the italics aren’t working?

[Daniel]

I'm guessing you have something checked that shouldn't be. (possible BBCode) When I'm on the full edit page the only box I have ticked under options is "Attach a signature (signatures can be altered via the UCP)". When I quote your above message it displays the way it should.

[James]

Nice catch Daniel, I bet you're right about that! Edit your post ben and make sure "disable bbcode" isn't checked.

Screenshot 2023-10-25 at 6.29.17 PM.png (37.22 KiB) Viewed 21265 times

[Ben]

That’s a bingo! Thanks guys!

[James]

As our anniversary month comes to a close, we have one last piece of business -- the poll results!

https://animatedviews.com/anniversary/b ... r-poll-20/

Thanks to all those who entered! In a tight race, the winner was the year 2016, with 31% of the vote. That year featured films including Kubo and the Two Strings, Moana, Zootopia, Norm of the North, My Life as a Zucchini, and The Red Turtle. The year 2014 came in a close second place with 22% of the vote. And in third place was the current year, 2023, with 17%.

Again, thanks for sticking with us for two decades and for celebrating this milestone with us!

[Ben]

Called it!