The Animation Revolution, Part 2

In my article, "The Animation Revolution", I took a look at the current state of the animation industry in North America and offered what I felt were reasonable suggestions to the studios, suggestions on how to help the art form by opting for better films rather than derivative moneymakers. I am well aware that these studios want to make money, because, let’s face it, who doesn’t? At the same time, however, creativity is being shunted aside. I went over the other films that are dominating the animation scene, the ones that aren’t from whom I consider the “big three”: Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks. I will be honest, I do enjoy some animated romps that don't aim to be serious. I'm not saying "fun" animated films are bad. There's a a place in this world for those kinds of films. The problem is, there are too many in this day and age.

I firmly believe that we are going through The Third Golden Age of Animation. I believe it started five years ago in early 2007, after there wasn't such a glut of animated films but still enough to make it the start of the Golden Age. Fortunately, out of all the animated films released in 2007, we saw some quality endeavors instead of mediocre films that came and went. This would continue in the next few years, and we've seen studios like Disney and DreamWorks stepping up their game while Pixar delivered critical and commercial smashes. So here we are now, in the middle of 2012. Looking at the output, it seems like a very strong year. 2013 looks good too, as does the future projects coming from Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks. The Third Golden Age will continue, as long as these films wow critics and bring in the bucks, but...

In order to really kick things into high gear, mainstream animation in the United States and around the world needs an upgrade. I am perfectly fine with Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks making great, thoughtful family films. Family films are necessary, but the other studios making kid-friendly films that are less mature than what the big three offer need to step up their game. Now I suggested that they try ambitious projects every once in a while, while also making their bread and butter through tame projects. The problem is, if all of the big animated films are family films, some people are still going to perceive animated films as baby-sitters, children's films or films that aren't to be taken seriously.

More and more people are beginning to realize that animation is an art form, and animated family films are also for adults. Some people, however, say things like "These movies are for the kid in you" and "I love Disney and Pixar films because I feel like a kid again". Nostalgia isn't the reason why I admire great animated family films, and it should not be the reason why people enjoy animated family films. I admire them because they are great films. No "little kid in me" gets excited, I admire these films as a mature nineteen-year-old. I admire the storytelling, the heart, the writing, the craftsmanship, everything. What's also annoying is when someone says "These animated films are getting more and more adult these days..." No, they aren't getting "more adult". Are you trying to say they were only for children in the past and not for adults? The Disney animated classics were never only for kids, Walt Disney himself said so. I don't care how Disney themselves markets their films, the filmmakers and artists didn't make these things for kids first and foremost. Pixar's films from the beginning were not just for kids, and so on. These films have no target audience, they are made for anyone.

Also what makes them "adult"? One shouldn't use that term, because a G or PG rated film that's suitable for children (well, not all children of course) can be mature, meaningful and complex. Just look at Pixar's recent films like WALL-E and Up. What kid is going to watch WALL-E and say "Wow, what a great film about the evils of mass consumerism and reliance on technology"? Probably none, unless you spell the message out for them. They'll probably just like the colors, the characters and the funny parts. Also, will children immediately understand some of the deeper themes in the early Disney films? Probably not. Noticing these things as an adult, it's quite mind-blowing. Yes, Bambi's mother's death made children cry, but did kids understand the other themes of the film? Probably not. It makes it all the more frustrating when people write off family films as films that are not "adult". Well you might as well say the same about G and PG-rated live action films that are family film staples like The Wizard of Oz, The Sounds of Music, Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and several others.

Unfortunately, people tend to equate specific film content with the terms "adult" and "mature". Anyone with common sense knows that gratuitous violence, sex and language doesn't make a film "adult" or "mature". Pixar's films have none of these, though they do tend to have violence, frightening scenes and humor that might not be suitable for everyone. Same with Disney and DreamWorks' recent films. However, they are still perceived by some as "kiddie" because they aren't rated PG-13 or R. Does a Pixar film need to be gory or loaded with sex and swearing in order to qualify as an "adult" or "mature" animated film? No. You might as well say something like Star Wars isn't adult because of this, but that film seems to get a pass along with every other G and PG-rated live action film because... They are "real" movies. That's another thing, why is live action the only supreme form of moviemaking? Animation is not an inferior way of moviemaking.

I guess if you are making an animated film, it has to be PG-13 or R-rated in order to be called an "adult" animated film. Funny, isn't it? In fact, family friendly live-action films are called "kids movies" as well. So if it's family friendly, that means it's kids' stuff? Lovely logic... As for family friendly animated features being perceived as kids' stuff, what can one do to shake that belief? Here's one way the studios could do it, by marketing a G or PG-rated animated film as something adults would have the desire to see.

One gigantic problem has persisted for a while, what is it? It's the way Disney markets their animated output. Whenever the classics come to home video, they are advertised as fluffy, kiddie stuff. There are exceptions, like The Lion King, where most of the advertising focuses on the more "epic" side of the film. Something like Bambi, a very mature and artistic film, comes off like a cutesy funny bunny romp in the advertising. It doesn't help when the covers from the home video releases always show Bambi as a fawn, smiling and happy with Thumper and Flower. Previews for Disney classics when they hit home video throughout the years usually showed kids enjoying them, implying that these films are nothing but mere baby-sitters. Even worse, some of their animated classics are shown on Disney's preschooler channel, Disney Junior. An animated classic that took years to make, intended for general audiences, being degraded by being shown on a channel for preschoolers... Sickening, isn't it? Disney, being one of the first things you might think about whenever "animation" or "cartoon" is brought up, wrote itself into a corner because of this, especially during the Eisner regime. Disney soiled their image and made themselves look like a shameless money machine that was making "kiddie stuff", rather than a studio that specialized in good quality family entertainment and the occasional adult-oriented films (notice I didn't say "adult" films).

Under Eisner, Disney "had" to be "for kids" some way or another. The films made during the Renaissance were usually watered down to satisfy children. Read up on all the horror stories. Certain films were altered because children got antsy during test screenings. Remember how Jeffrey Katzenberg almost cut "Part of Your World" out of The Little Mermaid? "If I Never Knew You" from Pocahontas got cut (though it was finished and put back into the film for its 2005 DVD release), ambitious ideas were ruined (see Atlantis: The Lost Empire) and unnecessary cuts were made to make certain films more kid-friendly (The Black Cauldron, Lilo & Stitch). Everything had to be for kids. Just look what happened to Dinosaur. Kid-friendly "sidekicks" were inserted into the films, not for comic relief, but to lighten the load for children. Pixar doesn't do that. Walt didn't do that. Even worse, merchandise was everywhere. Must I bring up the "Disney Princesses" brand?

Big difference!

Disney's blatant push to make themselves appear as an overtly kid-friendly brand ruined their image and hurt animation in many ways. Blame the corporate side, because the artists and storytellers at Disney want to make good films, not cheap cash grabs. Not toy commercials. The direct-to-video sequels and the Disney Channel's transition from a good channel into a teenybopper channel made matters worse. This "it has to be for kids" problem also affects other studios, who market their films as "kiddie stuff". Trailers usually focus on comic relief and the more cutesy elements of the films. Look at how Paramount has marketed some of DreamWorks' more recent films. Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots are fine examples, with trailers and commercials that focused more on the comic relief than the story. This is probably why DreamWorks' hasn't really scored an opening weekend of over $50 million recently. Even some of the trailers for Pixar's films were pretty bad, such as WALL-E, Toy Story 3 and the Brave trailer from last autumn. Other animated films? Marketed as kiddie fluff. Laika's upcoming ParaNorman focuses more on the comedy, and less on the creepy ghouls. As for films that are fun comedies, there's no need to make something like Despicable Me look like something epic, since it's a comedy, but why is that formula (trailers with comic relief, less story) used to market animated films that aren't necessarily funny comedies? What if these films were marketed correctly? Sometimes Disney's marketing department gets it right. Brave's recent trailer is more in line with the Japanese trailers for Pixar films, which effectively start by introducing the characters and then showing the more dramatic side of the film, while using comic relief wisely. The trailer for DreamWorks' Rise of the Guardians is beautiful, not throwing unnecessary humor at you. The trailer for Frankenweenie is a nice trailer where the humor works. That's about it, though...

Now that I got that out of the way, here's another suggestion I have. Independent animated films... Think about it. They don't cost way too much to make. If a studio like Columbia or Universal were to acquire an animated film like that and give it some pretty good marketing, they could score a profitable success. Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox comes to mind, a $40 million film that was marketed poorly and released at the wrong time. Now what if 20th Century Fox gave it a better release date and marketed it with confidence? I'm not saying they have to go all out and shell out $100 million, but still, make the film look good from the trailers and TV spots. Make sure people know it's coming out. What if that little film took in around $70 million domestically and over $150 million worldwide? It would be a success for them. Instead, they got rewarded with a flop. Did they learn a lesson? Apparently not...

I understand that some independent animated films might not be embraced by mainstream audiences with enthusiasm, but you never know what audiences will accept. Rango scored a decent multiplier, and that wasn't like your usual animated film. Coraline, despite being deemed too scary for kids, had longevity at the box office. Something like Fantastic Mr. Fox or The Illusionist could've been profitable. They didn't have to be big blockbusters, but them being successful would give studios confidence if they don't want to do a big budget risk, like Rango or something like a Pixar film. Why can't that they try that? If that was being done right now, there would be a sort of demand for independent animated films and more foreign animated films. With all of those performing well alongside the big three and the kid-friendly romps, we'll get ahead. These animated films won't be hard to find. They'll get the attention they really deserve. With that, animation will get more and more accolades, and more people will realize that the art form has endless possibilities. Right now, animated films do very well and will continue to do well, and it's the perfect time to be ambitious, to start taking some risks. The medium is not a novelty, and people need to understand this sooner or later.

It can happen. If it does, new heights will be reached. Audiences will appreciate animation in ways they never did before. Animated classics will be sought after by those who once deemed animation as inane "kiddie stuff". Foreign animated films and more experimental endeavors will be the norm. Animation will dominate... It can happen...

The Animation Revolution

The following is all strictly opinion-based and is essentially what I believe is the right direction to go to expand the art of animation into new territories. Any of my criticisms against certain films and animation studios isn't meant to be taken personally, these are only my personal thoughts.

Animation is an art form... Always has been, and always will be...

It’s been nearly seventy-five years since Walt Disney and his crew of highly talented people tried the impossible and produced the ambitious project that was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and premiered it to the public. This film changed the world’s view of the animation medium, which they thought was an outlet for funny six-minute cartoons. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs not only made audiences laugh, it made them cry, a first for anything animated. It also frightened younger audiences, proving that Walt didn’t want these films to be seen as children’s fare.

Critics and audiences loved it. It became the highest grossing film at the time of its release, but the Academy Awards snubbed it despite the fact that it was a great film that signaled a new frontier for cinema. It wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, but Walt Disney ultimately got a “Special Achievement” award as an apology. No Disney animated feature made during Walt’s lifetime would ever be nominated for Best Picture, but Walt did take home the most Oscars than anyone else for not only his animated films, but his live action films and short films. However, the critical reception for most of the Disney animated features was sky high and to this day, they constantly do extremely well on home video formats.

With that, how come animation still isn’t recognized as an art form by the public? Today, animated films usually dent the Top 10 at the domestic and worldwide box office, and sometimes top it completely. The Academy Awards nominated Pixar’s Up and Toy Story 3 for Best Picture for both 2009 and 2010 respectively (the second and third they did this, which they did first was Beauty and the Beast), but yet the category for Best Animated Feature still exists and those two films ended up taking home that award. Aside from Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks, most of the mainstream animated films out there are very kid-oriented and while some of them are entertaining, they don’t try anything new with the medium. Disney also doesn’t help by marketing their films as kid’s stuff, and the classics are surrounded by a merchandising empire that further rams that point home.

Over the last few years, we got such unnecessary films that did nothing for the medium. The heavy-hitters (Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks) delivered the goods, and so did the independent filmmakers, but then we also got a fair share of kid-friendly films that over-saturated the market: Alpha and Omega, Mars Needs Moms, Hop, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, The Smurfs, Happy Feet Two alongside average, sometimes near-mediocre films like Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax and Gnomeo and Juliet.

We’re at a point now where animated films are doing better than ever before at the box office. Toy Story 3 is a fine example, but most of the other big animation outlets are resorting to releasing kiddie films like The Smurfs and Hop, rather than trying to compete with the big guns artistically and expand the art form. Instead, they just want to make films that kids will drag their parents to see, rather than trying something new.

There are exceptions. Films like Rango, The Adventures of Tintin, A Cat in Paris, Chico & Rita, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Coraline, Mary & Max, The Secret of Kells and other artistically interesting animated films have surfaced in the last few years. The problem is, only a couple of them saw some kind of success at the box office. Most of these films are only released in select theaters and only get some form of recognition when they appear during the Academy Awards. As good as Pixar is, no independent films have ever taken home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. They just come and go, people miss out on them. Rango won for 2011, and that might open people up to alternatives in the animation world, but not likely.

Meanwhile, subpar films do well. The heavy-hitters usually top the box office because their films are the best of the bunch. We’re lucky to have a studio like Pixar consistently making critically acclaimed films, and DreamWorks and Disney have gotten better as well and have churned out solid gold winners. Blue Sky, Sony Pictures Animation and Illumination however, have their ups and downs and they aren’t trying anything new with the medium. Newcomer Laika, after the moderate success of Coraline, seems like a candidate for one of the big animation houses, but we don’t know how their new film ParaNorman will do.

Pixar has revolutionized computer animation and made excellent films with such unusual plots and casts of characters such as Monsters, Inc., Ratatouille and Up. They also gave audiences a film that was virtually dialogue-less for the first thirty minutes. They have moved audiences to tears with Up and Toy Story 3, while also making them laugh. The best thing is, they aren’t even making these films for children. They, like Walt Disney, are aiming for the entire family so they can entertain and inspire adults, children and everyone else. They’re also not afraid of trying something new, and their upcoming films Dia De Los Muertos and Pete Docter’s currently untitled “Inside the Mind” project prove this.

Since Michael Eisner stepped down as CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney Animation Studios has been making films that are true to the great Disney tradition while also trying some new things. The Princess and the Frog and Winnie the Pooh are the studio’s first traditional animated films since 2004 and they’re both wonderful films. While poor management lead to them disappointing at the box office, it’s great that they were produced in the first place. The CGI films Bolt and Tangled also showed that Disney could tell good stories again no matter what medium. We should see the same for their two upcoming films, Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen.

DreamWorks’ has worked with better stories for films such as How to Train Your Dragon, and experimenting with different visual styles for films like Kung Fu Panda and its critically acclaimed sequel. While they’ve had a few near-duds like Shrek Forever After and Megamind (spillover from the pre-2008 era), their upcoming slate consists of projects that have a lot of potential such as Rise of the Guardians, Me and My Shadow, Rumblewick and Alma. That’s not even half of what they have in the works.

As for Sony, Illumination and Blue Sky? Sony delivered a critically acclaimed success with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, but also delivered the travesty that was The Smurfs. Illumination had the cute and entertaining Despicable Me, but they also had Hop and Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. Blue Sky delivered the goods with the first Ice Age, Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! and Rio, but also did pointless sequels to Ice Age that did nothing but bring in the bucks, and “Rio 2” is on the way.

What we need is for the big studios to challenge Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks with equally artistic efforts since independent films aren’t going to be given successful wide releases anytime soon. Rango was from a number of production houses, which was lucky enough to get a wide release from a big studio. It was a success, too, but it wasn’t big enough. Why can’t Blue Sky try this? With three non-sequel films in production, now is the time to try something new and risky, especially with the extra billion dollars they’ll most likely make off of Ice Age: Continental Drift this summer. Sony does have some interesting projects in the works, but their slate seems to lack ambition. Illumination’s upcoming slate consists of kid stuff, with a few eye-catchers in-between.

It makes me wonder though, with films like the Ice Age sequels, Despicable Me and it’s upcoming sequel and The Smurfs franchise, how come the studios can’t use this money for a risk every now and then? Think about it this way, Sony (for example) reels in $1 billion worldwide from both Smurfs films combined, and then comes up with something ambitious while making their bread and butter through safer stuff. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Same with Blue Sky and Illumination. Ice Age: Continental Drift reels in another insane amount of money, and some of that goes into something risky. You get where I am going with this?

So if these other studios do what Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks are doing, then we can make a giant leap forward. The medium needs it, because one half is about art and storytelling. The other half is just about entertaining kids and making a profit without caring for quality. If those all do well, people will see animation as an art form and the Academy Awards might also eliminate the Best Animated Feature category and put the best animated films of the year alongside the year’s best live action films. While I personally don't support award ceremonies, it would be lovely to see animation get that respect.

Pipe dream... But it CAN happen. Before the Second Golden Age of Animation fired up in the mid 1980s after the success of Don Bluth’s An American Tail and the Disney classics on home video, the idea of animation doing remotely well alongside blockbusters was unheard of. While films like Disney’s The Fox and the Hound were successful, they didn’t dent the Top 5 or sat alongside blockbusters like Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Grease, Superman, Kramer vs. Kramer and several others. Several other films flat out failed, but toy commercials were beginning to dominate animation in the form of Saturday morning cartoons and cheaply made films based on them.

Flash forward to the early 1990s, the Disney films are now rounding out the Top 5. Aladdin is the #1 film of 1992 both domestically and worldwide, defeating films like Batman Returns and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. The Lion King was #1 at the worldwide box office in 1994 and became the best-selling home video release of all time. In 1995, Pixar’s Toy Story and Disney’s Pocahontas were both in the Top 5, Toy Story being at #1. That was a pipe dream back in 1985, but ten years later, it happened! It’s still happening. Animated films being in the Top 10 is nothing new now. With that, the market can be filled with artistic efforts instead of mediocre cash grabs. With all of the big budgets the other studios have, they need to take more risks.

Suppose in 2020, the other big studios begin offering works that are on par with Pixar, DreamWorks and Disney’s films. Then we’ll see independent animated films getting picked up for distribution, because that will be a hot property by that time. Instead of seizing money-making opportunities through making kiddie flicks, studios will now give audiences works of art. That way, it won’t be like the early 1990s, when all the studios thought that they could compete with Disney by making derivative films. These studios wonder why they are usually defeated critically and commercially by the likes of the big three, well, they need to make better films. Then we can start seeing more adult-oriented animation catch on, to go alongside marvelous family films. More foreign endeavors could make it big over here. This can all happen... Right now is the perfect time to do it.

All it’s going to take is vision, guts and no cynicism...