• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

What is your opinion on current animation?

What do you think of most animated films seeming to be 3D? In my opinion, I don't like that because 3D animated films more or less look the same. I think one of the benefits of 2D animation is that you can invent an unique art style specifically to set the atmosphere of the story. But I'm not sure how much freedom you're given with art styles in 3D. (That's also my complaint with most Japanese animation, in that they almost always choose variations of the same art style, instead of experimenting with different styles. But I'm not Japanese, so...)

What do you think of Adult Swim? I don't watch much of it, I think the art styles more often than not look ugly, the animation is usually poor, the settings can be ugly, (Superjail! has good animation, but its beauty is wasted on a dingy looking prison where people fight and kill each other,) and finally, there seems to be this obsession with people getting murdered in gory ways in many of their cartoons. All of it makes it seem like what people in trailer parks would watch, (not to sterotype them, even though I'm sterotyping them.)

What do you think of Flash animation? I don't know, I miss traditional animation.
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
What is traditional animation to you? Do you mean Disney?
I grew up with Bagpuss, The Clangers, Chorlton and the Wheelies, and The Magic Roundabout. Those are all 3D but not computer generated and don't look a lot like anything else [and some of them are fairly trippy for children's TV]. Then there was Paddington, a world of 2D flats where the lead character [Paddington Bear] was a 3D model. Then there is Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit universe. I would say that is very stylised and also very [northern] English.
You can have a much style in 3D as you can in 2D.
I don't watch much TV animation now, but that is mainly because when I do I find the stories lacking... I used to love South Park which is about as basic as animation can get - because it wasn't like anything I'd seen and the [ahem] stories were great.
Cultures have different ideas of what looks right to them. Sometimes it works to a wider audience, some times it doesn't.
I'm not a fan of Studio Ghibli [ducks to avoid thrown objects]. I watched a few [because I was told by several people that they were the GREATEST THINGS EVER!] and they were okay for me. But then I saw The Wind Rises, which I loved. It is in the Studio Ghibli house style but I saw a film full of wonderful magical realism.
Initially, I think computer generated 3D films were forced to be less complex because the computing power was so expensive [Sully's fur from Monsters Inc took more computing power than the whole of Toy Story - I read somewhere].
For me Pixar established a look and style that later American films that have followed that look because it worked. No-one with the money wants to spend $150m on a revolutionary new look that may or may not work.
 
Top