Roger Rabbit Sequel?

[GeorgeC]

I'd rather they didn't do sequels to films made 20 years ago...

Especially if they weren't that good to begin with!

I'd look forward to a Roger Rabbit sequel as much as watching paint dry!

Better to have something new than something regurgitated.

[Ben]

Especially if they weren't that good to begin with!

George...did you just say something to ban yourself from this board?

[GeorgeC]

Nah.

Just an opinion.

After looking at Roger Rabbit a few more times after the theatrical run, I came to the conclusion that it's good eye candy for cameos and sight gags but other than that -- Roger just irritates the heck out of me!

He's like a bad Tex Avery character (exhibits A and B: Screwball Squirrell, George and Junior) or a character that only John K thinks is funny (George Liquor).

It's not even the best-animated Disney film by a long shot. There are tons of animation mistakes if you know what to look for and it looks spastic being on a constant 1's per frame rate. (Something to be said for 12 pics per frame versus 24 pics per frame...)

I pretty much feel the same way about Fantasia and many other "acclaimed, absolute best" films like Citizen Kaine. They may be pretty to look at but they're hollow films and hard to sit through without falling asleep...

[Darkblade]

Bob must have old news about this, but I'm sure its pretty cleared up now. And besides Zemeckis even stated that it was gonna be Live-action/2D(animated)! Speaking of which, whats the story gonna be anyways? I should suggest that they should make the sequel based on that graphic novel of Roger that some people consider as the official sequel. I have it somewhere, the only thing I remember about it is that Doom returns.

[EricJ]

Roger just irritates the heck out of me!
He's like a bad Tex Avery character (exhibits A and B: Screwball Squirrell, George and Junior) or a character that only John K thinks is funny (George Liquor).

Roger in the first movie was SUPPOSED to be irritating--
We were to sympathize with frustrated toon-hating Bob Hoskins, who was now handcuffed (literally) to Every Obnoxious Cartoon Cliche' From Hell. (At least in the TIny Toons-era boomer-80's re-envisioning of classic cartoons as "Tex Avery directed them all".)

But then the new Eisner-era Disney needed their first franchise character--or, given that Ariel was still another year away, ANY independently generated franchise character--to call "their own", and all of a sudden Roger the character was their new gravy-train we were supposed to love and flock to...Somewhat Unclear On the Concept.

And besides Zemeckis even stated that it was gonna be Live-action/2D(animated)! Speaking of which, whats the story gonna be anyways? I should suggest that they should make the sequel based on that graphic novel of Roger that some people consider as the official sequel. I have it somewhere, the only thing I remember about it is that Doom returns.

But...wouldn't Christopher Lloyd be even older than Hoskins by this point?
This thing's rapidly becoming Zemeckis's own Crystal Skull: "Don't worry fans, we'll make it SOMEDAY, even if the cast turns ancient, the technology passes us by, we have to write in new characters to replace the lost ones, and we end up recycling a dozen failed script ideas into one big plotless mishmash....Because you demanded it! "

[Darkblade]

After doing a little digging around in my house for it, I found it. Basically the graphic novel is called Roger Rabbit: The resurrection of Doom. One of the parts of the story had an animation cel of Doom, and the weasels bring him back to life. So basically if they were do to the roger sequel based on this, they would just need Lylod to voice act.

[Ben]

Nah. Just an opinion..

I was, of course, just pulling your leg.

I pretty much feel the same way about Fantasia and many other "acclaimed, absolute best" films like Citizen Kaine.

Yep...you really don't like that one, do you? Can't even be bothered to spell it right in a damnation!

Again...I'm pulling your leg...so don't get tetchy!

[ShyViolet]

This is a really great review of the original RR from 1988 by Roger Ebert. It expresses what was great about Roger so well and is a good reminder of what made the film great in the first place:

Who Framed Roger Rabbit BY ROGER EBERT / June 22, 1988

I stopped off at a hot dog stand before the screening of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," and ran into a couple of the other local movie critics. They said they were going to the same screening. I asked them what they'd heard about the film. They said they were going to see it for the second time in two days. That's the kind of word of mouth money can't buy.

And "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is the kind of movie that gets made once in a blue moon, because it represents an immense challenge to the filmmakers: They have to make a good movie while inventing new technology at the same time.

Like "2001," "Close Encounters" and "E.T.," this movie is not only great entertainment but a breakthrough in craftsmanship - the first film to convincingly combine real actors and animated cartoon characters in the same space in the same time and make it look real.

I've never seen anything like it before. Roger Rabbit and his cartoon comrades cast real shadows. They shake the hands and grab the coats and rattle the teeth of real actors. They change size and dimension and perspective as they move through a scene, and the camera isn't locked down in one place to make it easy, either - the camera in this movie moves around like it's in a 1940s thriller - and the cartoon characters look three-dimensional and seem to be occupying real space.

In a way, what you feel when you see a movie like this is more than appreciation. It's gratitude. You know how easy it is to make dumb, no-brainer action movies, and how incredibly hard it is to make a movie like this, where every minute of screen time can take days or weeks of work by the animators. You're glad they went to the trouble.

The movie is a collaboration between Disney Studios and Steven Spielberg, the direction is by Robert ("Back to the Future") Zemeckis, and the animation is by Richard Williams. They made this a labor of love.

How did they do it? First, they plotted every scene, shot by shot, so that they knew where the live actors would be, and where the animated characters would be. Then they shot the live action, forcing actors such as Bob Hoskins, the star, to imagine himself in a world also inhabited by cartoons (or "Toons," as the movie calls them). Then they laboriously went through the movie frame by frame, drawing in the cartoon characters. This is not a computer job. Real, living animators did this by hand, and the effort shows in moments like the zowie zoom shots where the camera hurtles at Roger Rabbit and then careens away, with the rabbit changing size and perspective in every frame.

But I'm making the movie sound like homework for a film class.

"Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is sheer, enchanted entertainment from the first frame to the last - a joyous, giddy, goofy celebration of the kind of fun you can have with a movie camera. The film takes place in Hollywood in 1947, in a world where humans and Toons exist side by side. The Toons in the movie include not only new characters such as Roger Rabbit and his wife, the improbably pneumatic Jessica, but also established cartoon stars such as Bugs Bunny, Betty Boop, Dumbo, Mickey Mouse and both of the great ducks, Donald and Daffy (they do an act together as a piano duo).

The Toons live in Toontown, a completely animated world where the climax of the movie takes place, but most of the time, they hang out in a version of Hollywood that looks like it was borrowed from a 1940s pri vate-eye movie. The plot revolves around the murder of a gag-gift mogul, and when Roger Rabbit is framed with the murder, private eye Hoskins gets caught in the middle of the action. As plots go, this one will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a hard-boiled '40s crime movie - except, of course, for the Toons.

The movie is funny, but it's more than funny, it's exhilarating. It opens with what looks like a standard studio cartoon (Mother goes shopping and leaves Roger Rabbit to baby-sit her little brat, who immediately starts causing trouble). This cartoon itself, seen apart from the movie, is a masterpiece; I can't remember the last time I laughed as hard at an animated short. But then, when a stunt goes wrong and the cartoon "baby" stalks off the set and lights a cigar and tells the human director to go to hell, we know we're in a new and special universe.

The movie is filled with throwaway gags, inside jokes, one-liners and little pokes at the screen images of its cartoon characters. It is also oddly convincing, not only because of the craft of the filmmakers but also because Hoskins and the other live actors have found the right note for their interaction with the Toons. Instead of overreacting or playing up their emotions cartoon-style, Hoskins and the others adopt a flat, realistic, matter-of-fact posture toward the Toons. They act as if they've been talking to animated rabbits for years.

One tricky question is raised by a movie like this: Is it for kids, or adults, or both? I think it's intended as universal entertainment, like "E.T." or "The Wizard of Oz," aimed at all audiences. But I have a sneaky hunch that adults will appreciate it even more than kids, because they'll have a better appreciation of how difficult it was to make, and how effortlessly it succeeds. Kids will like it, too - but instead of being amazed at how they got the rabbits in with the humans, they'll be wondering what adults are doing walking around inside a cartoon.

I realize that the sequel cannot and will not live up to this, but I hope so, so much that at least a little of it will be recaptured. Of course without RW (and with unnecessary CGI) it won't be nearly as good but I hope at least some of the spirit of RR1 will be there.

Roger in the first movie was SUPPOSED to be irritating--
We were to sympathize with frustrated toon-hating Bob Hoskins, who was now handcuffed (literally) to Every Obnoxious Cartoon Cliche' From Hell. (At least in the TIny Toons-era boomer-80's re-envisioning of classic cartoons as "Tex Avery directed them all".)

Nah, Roger was adorable! His sweetness and good intentions were what made the movie work. Otherwise it would have been totally grating despite the great special effects. The entire film was basically a love letter to animated characters in general, even the "annoying" ones. If anything the film was trying to capture the fond memories boomers had of WB and Disney shorts/films. (which actually plenty of contemporary children knew as well.) Tiny Toons didn't start till two years later and was a zany update of WB characters; the purpose was to give them "attitude" for present day kids: RR was on a much grander scale and it's the universal goodness of the Toons which wins over Eddie's character.

But then the new Eisner-era Disney needed their first franchise character--or, given that Ariel was still another year away, ANY independently generated franchise character--to call "their own", and all of a sudden Roger the character was their new gravy-train we were supposed to love and flock to...Somewhat Unclear On the Concept.

They didn't just randomly pick him though....the Roger script was in the Disney studio since the early 80s even though it was never actually made. They saw the merit in it which is why they went ahead with making it.

[EricJ]

This is a really great review of the original RR from 1988 by Roger Ebert. It expresses what was great about Roger so well and is a good reminder of what made the film great in the first place:

And also a reminder of why people liked it back then:
The 80's animation industry had mostly been forgotten (or pushed back into a kiddy ghetto with Care Bear/Chipmunk matinees), and with the growing fascination for old pop-culture and reruns in the mid-80's, Boomers were coming forward to admit all the things they remembered from afternoon toons as a kid. (Even if they didn't remember it very well, as we later found out from Tiny Toons and Animaniacs.)
Half the reviews' amazement were that wow, look, live actors are talking to a lacquered and overly shaded 2D character, and he's picking up objects!...It's got cartoons in it, and I'm enjoying it, but I'm a grownup!

There's still a difference, though, between a Good Pop-Culture Awareness and a Good Movie:
Zemeckis style still wasn't exactly subtle (most of the gags are thrown literally screeching into our face), and I tend to sympathize with Pauline Kael who reviewed the movie as, quote, "Like having your head stuck in a pinball machine for two hours." Zemeckis, unfortunately, thought that was meant to be a compliment, and bragged about the quote in interviews.

[ShyViolet]

But RR was also a sweet and exiting story with lovable characters; it wasn't just some pop-culture nostalgia trip. Also, Boomers primarily made films like this not to ridicule their childhood heroes but to reflect on their innocence and how important they were to them, as well as their universal value to all children. (As said 80s children ALREADY knew tons about Bugs Bunny and Mickey and Dumbo.) There was nothing to ridicule; it was a tribute, maybe a bit of a riffing, but that's it. It wasn't about cynicism or cheap flashy entertainment. The core of it was HEART. (That's really what Ebert was getting at.)

Also, it wasn't like 80s Disney animation was totally dead when RR came on the scene--there was The Great Mouse Detective from 1986 as well as all the re-releases that did wonderfully (Snow White, The Fox and the Hound, Cinderella, and later that summer, Bambi.) People loved classic Disney and that's what RR was reviving: both with showcasing old characters as well as new ones.

[Ben]

Actually, Zemeckis also credited that Kael quote to 1941 (co-writer with Bob Gale), but he suggested that it would apply to Roger Rabbit better.

All those Disney films of the late 80s were riding a wave. An American Tail started it, with the producer power of Spielberg, and then Disney rode it with Mouse Detective and Roger. Roger was the big splash, because it was so adult, and Mermaid continued the momentum. It was just a lot of luck in having a lot of good films coming right on top of each other than suggested animation was worthy of more than just Care Bears (the Disney wake-up call was when that film smash Black Cauldron at the box office...not a hard feat, I grant you, but it made them realise they just had to make better films).

[Whitney]

But Disney is such a powerhouse now, why would they need to work with characters form other companies again? One of the reasons Roger Rabbit was successful was due to the inclusion of the Warner Brothers pantheon (not that any child under the age of ten knows who they are anymore). To the 1980s audience, mixing Disney, Warner Brothers, and whoever else was in there was unbelievable due to copyright law. When else have Bigs Bunny and Mickey Mouse ever shared a screen?

Disney has such a monopoly on the animation market, they probably would only include their own pantheon in a RR sequel. If that happens, there goes all the fun. Unless Jeffery Katzenberg allows Dreamworks' characters to work with Disney, but I don't see that happening.

(the Disney wake-up call was when that film smash Black Cauldron at the box office...not a hard feat, I grant you, but it made them realise they just had to make better films).

Disney animation seems to be developing a pattern here. In the 1980s, they bombed. In the 1990s, (it started in 1989 with The Little Mermaid) they were great. Then they stank again in the 2000s (with the exception of Lilo and Stitch). When they see Pixar, they realize "hmm...maybe we should pay attention to story again, not the medium." They seem to be getting back on track again, starting with Enchanted and The Princess and the Frog, but how long will it be until they stink again?

[Macaluso]

I can't imagine they'd go forward with another Roger Rabbit movie without getting right to use other studios' characters.

[Ben]

Well, like we were saying in the other 80s thread, things have cycles, including animation. Disney'll be great for at least ten years, and then we'll all get fed up with CGI films for a bit. It's bound to happen.

I doubt they'd go ahead with RR2 without licensing some major characters from other studios. And, like with Barbie from Mattel in the Toy Stories, those companies will see the mileage in not being stupid in asking for a big fee, which Disney then has no choice but to say no to. They could populate the film with their characters only - and indeed, if you actually watch the background scenes, most if not all the characters are recycled from Disney - but it wouldn't really be "ToonTown" then, it'd just be a cartoon Disneyland.

Basically, the original RR was Disney characters all over it, with only a handful of major characters licensed in. MGM was a hold out on the first one, with Droopy appearing, but not Tom & Jerry, and there was no Popeye. Now that Warners has the right connections to those, we may see them in the film as well, though it could just be that they use an entire alternate set of faces. After all, they did Mickey-meets-Bugs and Donald-vs-Daffy already...they're going to need to give us something new too...

[Dacey]

Kinda random, but Jim Henson Productions has a movie in the works that sounds a lot like Roger Rabbit:

http://screenrant.com/happytime-murders ... thc-82759/