Animated Creatures: ILX's top 100 animated films (results thread)

"An American Tail" was my #1!
[it was '86 tho, and don bluth directed :) the 2 dudes listed here did "fievel goes west" which was an ok movie]
it gets me happy whenever even 1 more placement gets posted here.

my #1 too iirc!

is that 50 points each? looks like we were the only 2. haha

I automated the lookup for movie info, so we might get some wacky directors, years, etc. Will try to post a few later today!

#72: I Love to Singa
dir. Tex Avery
1936, USA
104 points, 3 votes
http://i.imgur.com/IBZDG.jpg
film

Haven't seen An American Tail since it came out - when I was, like, five. MAYbe on video once after that but I doubt it. Does it hold up?

#71: Laputa: Castle in the Sky
dir. Hayao Miyazaki
1986, USA
107 points, 3 votes
http://i.imgur.com/fWefg.gif
trailer

#70: Emperor's New Groove, The
dir. Mark Dindal
2000, USA
110 points, 4 votes
http://i.imgur.com/hhqda.jpg
trailer

People like that film? Never seen it, always dismissed it as lackluster late-period Disney, unfairly it would seem.

Also big up Laputa, my favourite Miyazaki film some days.

TBH, I nearly fell asleep watching Laputa -- non-air-conditioned school auditorium during the summer, granted...

It's a straight-up thrilling adventure yarn, blame the heat.

Emperor's New Groove is a lot of fun. Glad it made it.

emperor over laputa is nuts

emperor's new groove is awesome. Leagues better than every other Disney movie from that era.

I doubt it reaches the heights of Atlantis: The Lost Empire! (Am I the only one stanning that one?)

FYI, next batch will go up tomorrow, seeing as we're getting some discussion the last few entries!

Thanks Leee, definite interest from me at least.

Caught Emperor's New Groove once on TV and ended up sitting straight through it. Don't remember a thing about it, and wouldn't watch it again I think but it was definitely a "Hey, wow, this is genuinely entertaining!" That was this period where there were really really clear lines between their "A" team mega-musical blockbusters and their "B" team screwball slice-of-life movies and the latter were pretty great IIRC - Lilo and Stitch is the other main one.

Laputa is great but definitely not my top Miyazaki. Great adventure yarn is right. The story elements are all exactly where you'd expect to find them and the characters are heartwarming in the right places and so on, but the design work, animation, and atmosphere put it over the top. Couple of spectacular set pieces. It also really convincingly sells the majesty, mystery and dreaminess of the mysterious lost civilization from the past; the robots are super-cool, all-powerful, but also fundamentally un-knowable, and that goes for Laputa itself. He doesn't rush you past it. Interesting to consider all that in light of the way he ended up playing the end of the Nausicaa manga, which takes a much dimmer view of the ancient, lost civilization, and the robot-equivalents that it left behind.

Couple of spectacular set pieces.

The robot casually eviscerating the Government fortress is THE Miyazaki setpiece as far as I'm concerned. Chills just thinking about it.

i'll be rewatching laputa this week i think and it's been years since my last viewing, but it's fondly remembered
emperor is just sorta meh

My fault for watching the Disney dub perhaps, but the kids in laputa were seriously annoying, the boy especially. Wasn't mad keen on the pirates either. Agree about the set pieces, and the wonderful design and mystery of the castle, but overall it was a bit too childish for me (as distinct from childlike, e.g. Totoro).

That was this period where there were really really clear lines between their "A" team mega-musical blockbusters and their "B" team screwball slice-of-life movies and the latter were pretty great IIRC

funnily enough Emperor's New Groove started out as the former before being redeveloped

Yeah, never watch the disney miyazaki dubs, they are always inferior

The robot casually eviscerating the Government fortress is THE Miyazaki setpiece as far as I'm concerned. Chills just thinking about it.

Yeah, exactly! Also the big chase at the beginning. I'm always wowed by the idea of people sitting there animating every shattered piece of wood flying up from the railway, etc.

I have only seen Laputa in subs so I dunno about the Disney voices, but the kids are slightly annoying in the original, again just for being sort of stock types more than for any other reason. OTOH I kind of lose interest when Miyazaki gets more and more into weirdness for weirdness's sake; Howl, for example, seemed to me to be trying to hard to throw lots of different concepts together in order to create a dreamlike melange, but coming out feeling forced and awkward. Just recently re-read the Nausicaa manga for the billionth time and I feel it pulls off a really nice balance between archetypes and a consistent unfamiliar weirdness and originality. I'm convinced that's his most compelling and unified work... a shame it'll never be half as well-known as any of the films.

Oh I might have to read the manga in that case. The film of Nausicaa is a wee bit dull IMO.

I would agree with that totally - it's probably the one of his that I have the least interest in re-watching actually. But it only covers maybe the first fifth of the manga, and that with a lot of the subtlety stripped out. The manga was a long, long-term project and had a lot of room to develop nuances, minor characters, people changing allegiances, all that, and the nature-loving theme sustains more and more challenges to its core. It's definitely a conversation-starter IMO.

just saw laputa in theaters - amazing, much more action packed than I had remembered! (for some reason I thought it was a more chill movie showing two kids chilling on a giant fortress]

Yeah, that and Cagliostro are the like, blockbuster Ghibli action pictures.

They're the only two with unambiguously villainous villains.

iirc The Emperor's New Groove is the one with the documentary that "disney doesn't want you to see" or something...
.. "The Sweatbox" is its title. I've never seen it though. Disney wins again.

Just in time:

#69: How the Grinch Stole Christmas
dir. Chuck Jones, Ben Washam
1966, USA
110 points, 6 votes
http://i.imgur.com/v6XY7.jpg
film
Chuck Jones interview

Now I just have to wait till the next holiday so that I can resume with the upcoming seasonally themed entries.

Oh I might have to read the manga in that case. The film of Nausicaa is a wee bit dull IMO.

I made the mistake of reading the manga first, then watching the film -- the manga's scope is absolutely jawdropping, it's on a par with Kirby's New Gods stuff, except Miyazaki had the chance to fully realize it. And for something done in a super-deformed style, IIRC it gets into some heady, nuanced realpolitik material. Or, what Doctor Casino sez.

Am I wrong in remembering that Miyazaki he only started the manga as a way to develop the film, sort of like Arthur C. Clarke and Kubrick re: 2001?

Huh, I'd never heard that! I know he took several long hiatuses from it - would be interesting to go back and track the manga against those gaps, see if there's major shifts in tone or anything. Certainly there are some characters in whom he seems to gain interest later on, and certain settings/large chunks of plot that are contained in the last sections...but they're also foreshadowed early. (Sorry if this is taking us afield from the thread topic - I just don't have much to say about the Grinch, sadly!)

I know the manga only from the old "Perfect Collection" trade paperbacks in four volumes...I believe it's been rereleased since then, maybe in correct/non-flipped order and possibly with a new translation? There are one or two places that I recall the old one being sort of stilted or just confusing (with regard to the two "emperor-brother" characters).

No need to apologize to me on not discussing the Grinch -- I just remember when I watched it that I sided whole-heartedly and unironically with him because I thought that the Whos were so ugly that they deserved privation.

Aha, my memory serves! Well, sorta:

According to the "Birth of Studio Ghibli" featurette, Miyazaki only wrote the manga because Studio Ghibli film producer Toshio Suzuki was unable to get funding for a film that was not based on a manga.[2] However, other sources tell a different story: Miyazaki started the manga on the condition that it would never be made into a film. He later agreed to do a fifteen-minute OVA, but Animage editors eventually convinced him to make an entire feature-length film.[3]

Yeah, there's a new 2-volume HC box set with non-inverted pages now -- don't know why I haven't even thought about getting it, considering how much I like it. Ah well, Xmas present to myself!

Anyway, I'll stow the Nausicaa talk, you know, in case the film version or any other Miyazaki ranks... ¬_¬

Though of course if you have more to say, don't let me stop you! Who knows if/when Nausicaa might reappear...

The Nausicaa manga is SO cluttered and storyboardy, not surprised that it was meant to be a stepping stone to the film.
glad to own it tho'. would like to buy that slipcover box.

"The making of how the grinch stole christmas" hosted by Phil Hartman is nowhere to be found online. Wouldn't mind watching that right now.

re: Nausicaa - "cluttered" i'll give you - there is a definite filling-in of every frame with detail, and some of the action sequences end up sort of hard to follow for that reason. Storyboardy...huh. I'll have to think about that next time I read. Not saying I'd disagree, just that it hasn't ever distracted from my reading experience.

well i have the smaller tpb ones, the 8x5 1/2 inch versions. Very cramped in that format.

Same here. For sure. Would love to see them at some huge folio size. I had one issue or so of the singles that Viz put out in the 90s, at standard US comic size - looked pretty good IIRC.

wow, i thought i would just watch a couple minutes of that mel blanc video upthread, and i sat there riveted and watched the whole thing. so good. i even teared up a couple times toward the end.

Merry holidays, yall.

#68: Ninja Scroll
dir. Yoshiaki Kawajiri
1993, Japan
116 points, 3 votes
http://i.imgur.com/jqLBY.jpg
trailer (NSFW)

i'm watching sweatbox right now (from bittorrent). pretty good! sting is such a wanker.

Woah, Ninja Scroll? Really? I admit I've never seen it the whole way through but I associate with, for lack of a better word, ''Manga Man Says...'' anime...stuff that was in a lot of rental places before anime had its bigger breakthrough later in the 90s, and which found an audience mainly on ultraviolence and titillation, like, woah, these Japanese cartoons have gore and swearing!!! But now I'm thinking maybe I misjudged it?

You're basically right in your judgement, plus it has a very straightforward and rather cliched story, but it's still entertaining, with great action scenes.

Yeah, there's a new 2-volume HC box set with non-inverted pages now -- don't know why I haven't even thought about getting it, considering how much I like it. Ah well, Xmas present to myself!

I gave up on reading it when it switched from hand-lettering (Orzechowski iirc?) to an early, insensitive, off-the-shelf computer font - does this "restored" version have improved lettering?

If memory serves, Ninja Scroll didn't make the official nominations list for the poll, so that's an impressive showing for a write-in! Haven't seen it in 15 years, but the borrowed VHS copy from a coworker functioned as a terrific gateway to further anime discoveries, as well as pulpy shit like OTT wire-fu and Riki-Oh. Good times.

Lots of animals coming up in the next batch...

#67: Princess Mononoke
dir. Hayao Miyazaki
1997, USA
116 points, 4 votes
http://i.imgur.com/dqY1W.gif
trailer

i love the gif; trippy.