Cartoon Brew preview of 2011 animated films

[estefan]

Well, Disney now has a distribution deal with DreamWorks and with Michael Eisner out of the picture (one of the reasons, a sequel wasn't made earlier was that Spielberg was annoyed at Eisner for putting the Roger Rabbit before Disney features and not any Amblin productions), I can see Steven signing off on it.

There were a lot of well-known artists who LEFT Freakazoid after doing character designs because they saw the writing on the wall about the "Spielberg brand" of humor and felt it was an awkward fit for the show. Freakazoid was basically written and guided by the man who did the main character's voice... Spielberg buddy? I don't know. Freakazoid died after a short run because it never found a huge kids audience. 23 episodes or so were produced...

Bruce Timm, right? Despite the changes to a more wacky show, I think Freakazoid turned out fine in the end. I didn't understand it as a child, but it's hilarious to me now. And according to the Animaniacs and Tiny Toons writers, Spielberg did look at every script of the series, so he did have a bit of a creative influence.

And according to Timm on the Freakazoid DVD bonus features, the depiction of the Creeper in the Batman episode "Beware the Creeper" is fairly close to how he originally envisioned the blue guy.

[Dacey]

My mom saw "Mars Needs Moms" today and said that she was very impressed with it. The film's had its critics, sure, but I have heard a possitive response from a number of people on this, so maybe Disney really does have a good movie that folks are missing out on here after all.

In any case, it has to be better than the movie that I saw instead of it, "Battle: LA," which was terrible. Can a movie about an alien invasion actually be boring? Yes. Yes, it can.

[droosan]

Any chance that we'll finally get "Hoodwinked 2" this year? I haven't heard anything about that film for an entire year. And for the love of gosh, it's finished!

I saw Rango again, earlier today -- along with a trailer for Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs Evil.

Looks like the release date is April 29th.

Also looks like .. yet another spoof on spy movies. In 3-D!

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There was also an expanded trailer for Rio (apparently not yet available 'online') which features previously-unseen glimpses of the villainous white parrot and his monkey henchmen .. and a bit of cringe-inducing 'rap' from Will.i.am's bird character.

s'funny .. Rio was the movie to which I was most looking forward, at the start of the year. Now -- after seeing the exhilaratingly-awesome Rango twice (which I'd originally thought looked 'interesting, but ugly') -- Rio seems so-o-o .. 'been there, done that'.

Its design & art-direction does still look gorgeous, at least. And the character animation is top-notch. So, it may not matter if Rio's storytelling sounds like something I've heard a dozen times, already.

[Dacey]

Enjoy it for what it is, and I'm sure you'll have a good time.

As for "Hop," after seeing the most recent trailer, I'm thinking it's looking surprisingly good. The characters look very "animated," despite being in a live-action film. The bunnies and chicks are cute, as opposed to "real" like so many other CGI characters tend to be in these things.

And I heard about "Hoodwinked Too!" getting a release date a while back, Droo (having posted the story on the front page). One I want to see for sure, but not certain yet if it will be one I do on the big screen at this point. It comes out just before summer movie season begins, so there will be other films in at the time that I want to see.

[Lorikeet]

As for "Hop," after seeing the most recent trailer, I'm thinking it's looking surprisingly good. The characters look very "animated," despite being in a live-action film. The bunnies and chicks are cute, as opposed to "real" like so many other CGI characters tend to be in these things.

I'm still not sold on Hop; it looks like a decent blend of live-action and CGI, but I was so utterly turned off by the scene in the trailer where the rabbit poops out jelly beans. The only way I could be convinced to see the movie in theaters might be if someone could go before me and confirm that that scene is not actually in the movie (as was the case with most of the promos of Tangled).

[American_dog_2008]

[POST DELETED BY MODERATOR]

[Dacey]

Family forum, AD. Family forum.

[American_dog_2008]

Sorry, I just had a (expletive deleted) weekend for off topic.

[Randall]

Stop the bad language right now, AD. You're an inch away from being booted permanently.

[Ben]

So you apologize with MORE bad language? Bad form, AD. One more and you're outta here.

[American_dog_2008]

Screw this place!

[DELETED BY MODERATOR - Goodbye AD!]

[Randall]

... aaaand you're gone.

[GeorgeC]

How old was that guy???? 3????

All he had to do was just stay away from the 4-letter words or type "@$!#!!"

A good 3 days off would have worked, too.

Some people...

I get upset, I usually take a couple days off.

[Darkblade]

Is this list a joke? It aint good.

[EricJ]

... aaaand you're gone.

AD's usually been a fairly average poster ("He was always a quiet sort of guy..."), so even for a sudden burst of giddy rule-breaking and foreigner-fascination-with-English-cursing, my first old Usenet instinct is to think that some prankster got hold of his password--
That is to say, happened all the time on Usenet, back when little junior-high kiddies DID think such things were roaringly funny...Kinda obsolete today, though.