Update: Opinions on Animation

Yesterday, I was given a copy of The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole by my aunt. I was never adamant about seeing it. The trailers made it look so corny, and for some reason the faces of those owls made me want to cry. Even when they looked happy, they were so depressing. Also, sound tracking the trailer to Arcade Fire just made me think more of Where the Wild Things Are.

To say the least, when I sat down to watch it, I was already leery by the tag line reading: From the studio that brought you Happy Feet. Now, I love penguins and Robin Williams is pretty funny, but I couldn't stand that movie on the sole basis that it was penguins predating Glee by years running on a gimmick of adapting popular songs due to lack of interesting content. Now, I didn't get too many singing owls. The ones I did were somewhat entertaining.
However, like Happy Feet, I was just not digging the story. While I am someone who can admit to liking bizarre, surrealistic concepts, I just cannot find myself rooting for emotional owls fighting for something I didn't quite believe in. I also felt the voice work was overacted.

However, I did find something I liked about it... the animation.

Now yes, I do believe the owls were drawn too sympathetically, but as they flew around in this world that seemed to lack everything but owls, I was totally engulfed in the scenery. It almost felt like a Bob Ross painting with so much attention to detail that at times I felt it could be photoshopped from some random forest. There were numerous aerial shots that made even the clouds seem realistic. I was in love with the look.
However, I still cannot defend the movie on subject alone. I'm not big on owls, and the plot was dull. It did get me thinking about my current stance on animation and how prominent it has become in our culture.

For the sake of argument, we are going to strictly stick to entirely animated productions. I feel that CGI with live action is still in need of some retooling and with work like Yogi Bear and Alvin and the Chipmunks, I doubt we're getting better any time soon (the one standout is Avatar, a technical accomplishment, though also victim to poor writing).

My love for animation probably roots to my childhood, where I would spend hours watching the WB line-up with all of the Steven Spielberg produced cartoons: Animaniacs, the Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid!,Histeria, Tiny Toons, Detention, Pokemon, Static Shock, Batman Beyond, and numerous others. I was an avid lover of the Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and even FOX cartoons as well. I can remember watching King of the Hill premiere the day before I started first grade.

So, it seemed obvious that my love would transfer to cinema. My first theater experience was Aladdin. I don't remember much, but as the years went on, I was captivated by the ability for animation to perform unrealistic tasks while entertaining and telling a story. I don't remember live action really taking as much an effect on me when I would leave those theaters and be lost in those worlds for hours.
However, as time went on, the animation changed. We all could blame Pixar for making the first CGI film, Toy Story such a success. Even then, we could blame Antz (or more likely, Shrek) for making Dreamworks a competitive force in CGI family films. However, as much as I enjoyed these movies, I have become a little nostalgic for the old style.

Yesterday was the premiere of Bob's Burgers on FOX. It wasn't a great cartoon and the animation seemed primitive. However, it took me back to Beavis and Butt-Head days. I feel that the hand drawn style is way more honest and moves more fluidly. The characters in movies like Tangled may appear cartoony, but to me, they feel a little too computer based.
I don't like how peach their skin is or how huge their eyes are, or how skinny their necks are. It feels a little like pretentious attempts at being perfect. I can understand financial reasons why CGI is more effective, but to say the least if my favorite Disney film, Mulan, was CGI, it would feel more processed and I could never get behind Mushu on the fact it's another wise-talking CGI version of Eddie Murphy.
There's not much I can do, but I still believe that hand drawn animation is way better. It could be that it was rooted in me so young. It could be that it feels possible to get tracing paper and have a go at them. It could be the coloring, which feels more artistic for even the most mundane cartoon. It could be that I grew up buying newspapers only to read the funny pages.

Whatever it is, CGI doesn't do the same thing for me. True, Pixar and Dreamworks has produced a lot of good movies in the last five years, but at times, it's indistinguishable by looks, relying heavily on writing (a factor I'm kind of proud of). I can say that I loved How to Train Your Dragon and the epic finale may not transfer the same in hand drawn, but then I remember that stuff to that caliber has been done before.
A few years ago, the Simpsons and an episode "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind" that featured numerous time traveling scenes. As they went through the memories, several would quickly flash, all running successfully at normal pace. To say the least, I felt this was an achievement in where hand drawn animation is simply because of it's complexity. True, it only works completely because of computer assistance, but it starts off hand drawn and finishes blended rather well.

I cannot say that hand drawn animation is dead. Half of my favorite shows currently airing are hand drawn. Also, Disney released the Princess and the Frog, a movie that had potential to re-surge it's popularity. I cannot detest to it's quality as I have yet to see it, but if Disney princesses is the only thing that can get green lit, then I feel we are kind of doomed.
I'm sure we'll see more hand drawn in due time, but for this year, we have plenty of bogus CGI like Cars 2 or Kung-Fu Panda 2.

However, what impresses me more about The Legend of the Guardians is that the animation actually looks like effort was put in. Even in Toy Story 3, there were moments when the loony aspect overpowered the quality animation. I could imagine if Pixar were to make a film with as much detail as the Legend of the Guardians, it would freak so many people out before you get to Pixar's inevitable adult themes.
However, I suppose this is why the Legend of the Guardians is not considered one of the best. There was just so much detail to marvel that it limited the character's ability to be almost inhuman and free thinking like the other major studios.

While I have bitched about CGI for most of this blog, I must get around to noting that yes, I do know that there are still foreign hand drawn works, most notably the Illusionist, Ponyo, and the Secret of Kells. All of them look appetizing and more mind enhancing entertainment than Pixar. It's not their stories, but just the simple fact that there's personality in even the shading.
I discovered Miyazaki's work after recommendation from my friend Jimena and even my favorite hand drawn films were put to shame by the likes of Howl's Moving Castle. Now THERE was detail and story mixed perfectly together. While there were themes that kept me thinking, there was enough abstract concepts to keep it fun.
So, why can't we have a quality studio anymore that produces some good animation. Miyazaki and the Simpsons both prove the realms to which it could work. However, as of now, like 3D, I find myself not as entertained by CGI, longing to go back to animation's roots and make an honest and pure film, even if it takes over a year to make.
I'm tired of leaving the hand drawn animation to foreign markets, only leaving ours to TV shows geared at children and will never reach the audience Pixar will. I'm not saying to just adapt every cartoon into a movie, but still... isn't cinema supposed to feature unique personalities? CGI may have been that way in the 90's, but now, it's the norm, and I miss the old days.

I guess for now, I will continue to scribble in my notebook and dream of a world only comic books and TV will give me. I shall revisit those movies and know that for one promising period of time, there was heart and effort into what I saw.