Pixar to Disney: Drop Dead

Clickhole is fast these days: http://www.clickhole.com/article/toy-story-coming-back-and-time-andy-toy-1374

"Mr. Potato Head is now a real-life 4-foot-tall potato man who’s constantly ripping off parts of his face and moving them around"

apparently rashida jones is writing

Just saw Tomorowland teaser! Looked good, for kids.

Big Hero 6 was beautifully designed and executed boilerplate. Given the amount of work that goes into these things, it's a wonder the scripts are not tighter and less lazy before they hit go. It felt a bit like an ambitious movie that had gone through several destabilizing reshoots, which is ironic.

Lasseter started an animation test—hand-drawn characters in computer-generated backgrounds—and began developing an idea for a computer-animated feature about forgotten appliances at a summer cabin waiting for their owner to return.

This is actually Thomas Disch's story The Brave Little Toaster. Disch later sold it to Disney.

Big Hero 6 was good stuff! I think I still have low expectations for Disney features, because I thought it was pretty great - some wonderful animation showpieces and generally solid character development and story for the main two characters (less so for the rest of the team, but they were amusing enough sidekicks).

I wish they had cast Sam Waterston for the professor though because COME ON, he looks and sounds JUST LIKE HIM! I guess James Cromwell is good enough.

The thing that I guess really bugged me was how easily they did basically ... everything. Quick montage: tada, cybernetic microbots by the millions! Another montage: tada, super battle suits! Another montage: Wall-e gets a kung fu upgrade! When things come that easy, there's really no drama, and it makes you ask things like: why doesn't he just make more microbots to battle the bad guy? Or a headband that negates the other headband? Or a robot designed to fight microbot man? And so on. These are minor compared to the glorious animation, but there was just so much of it it all added up.

And speaking of which, lots of just showing off the animation flash at the expense of story. Hey, we've finally got battle suits, let's get the bad guy who killed my brother, but first ... let's fly around and have fun! The fun aspect of it over-dominated the stuff about grief and mourning, imo. Sort of the way "Up" begins with such real heartbreak but ends with flying talking dogs.

Also can't figure out why they had to make the surfer dude a secret billionaire. Hero was financing himself just fine, so it's not like the revelation did anything but give them a location to do another training montage.

Liked the update of the ET gets drunk sequence a lot. And the "Feast" short was beautiful to watch.

Did anyone else know that "Tangled" is apparently (at least) the second most expensive movie ever made?

That's weird. What the hell is up with that?

cgi catering costs

CGI hair costs, more like. Still, that's nuts.

the animation style was supposed to be novel (cgi + traditional), and the film was in development for six years. the development thing in and of itself isn't noteworthy (the concept for wreck-it ralph first came in the 80s), but in this case it might have included some false starts in production as they worked out the animation style.

I saw snippets of the unfinished movie at Disney World maybe a year or so before it was released and it looked completely wretched. Like sub-direct-to-video animation. So I'd say that's a fair guess.

some anecdotal info here

http://wagthemovie.net/2012/04/21/tangled-the-most-expensive-animated-film-ever-made-part-2/

i'm not super informed about how they do accounting in animation, but it seems possible that if there was some experimental tech they were never going to use on another film, it could have been expensed entirely on the budget for this, rather than amortized over several

admittedly i have no idea how CGI animation actually works, but i've wondered if rapunzel being so expensive explains why nearly every female character since then vaguely resembles her. like they're just tweaking a preexisting model or something.

i think that's more just brand consistency than expense cutting. disney characters have historically shared features.

though it'd be awesome to learn Dreamworks saves money by putting the same smirk on different animals

They have an algorithm for attitude.

croup otm i think

Didn't know all the hubbub about Tangled, I should get around to that one.

Big Hero 6 was excellent. I get the gripes up above but it was really entertaining. And yeah, Feast was wonderful, one of the best shorts before an animated film I've seen in years.

big hero was some tedious shit basically a really advanced scooby doo ep Imo.

I have a low bar for animated entertainment.

a really advanced scooby doo ep

not a bad thing

We got that already, though. http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38125000/jpg/_38125568_scooby_doo_300b.jpg

princess and the frog was as good as any disney 90s

music was snazzy in that one, big step above frozen

princess frog animation and story also step up for disney. visually my favoutire disney movie.

Wow, I really didn't like that one. I especially hated that they made a big deal about finally having an African-American princess, then they immediately turn her into a frog for the duration. Then at the end, the rich white girl/family swoops in and saves the day. "Here's some money, follow your dream!" Iirc.

nah you've got wrong end of stick with the ending, the morals were great, about working hard against entitlement, character writing was great, to look at the best disney film for decades.

But isn't that how it ends? The rich white family just gives her a pile of money?

Something else I agree w rt about wtf.

I dont recall white girl giving her a bunch of money at the end and that isnt mentioned in the wiki synopsis

She marries the prince, they buy the restaurant

"But isn't that how it ends? The rich white family just gives her a pile of money?

― Josh in Chicago"

No, it's not.

Isn't there something with money from the rich white family?

Yeah, her childhood friend Charlotte gives her the money.

her friend hires her to cater a party at the start of the movie, and that's the last chunk of money she needs after years of saving. then the realtors tell her someone else is offering more money, so she can't have the place after all, but at the end of the movie she goes back with a talking jazz alligator and frightens them into accepting the original price.

Deus ex talking jazz alligator.

Anyway, point stands that the first African-American princess is reduced to a frog for most of the movie. Tiana might be the only of the recent princesses, save perhaps Pocahontas, whose presence at Disney World last month was limited exclusively to a cameo on the parade. And I'm not even sure I saw her there.

I didn't think this one was bad, actually, just sort of a missed opportunity. Save for Keith David, who should voice every villain.

I don't know what you're talking about with the white money thing, I think that' in your head. She worked hard for all the money - that was the entire point of the movie. The frog point is just stupid, sorry mate. It's a cartoon about animals and turning into a frog, if you didn't know she was black still, then, sorry about that.

i cannot tell if this frog is black

I just meant that after making a point of finally having a princess (or even a lead) who was visibly black, they waste no time turning her into a frog.

Tiana has a white childhood best friend who is filthy rich, with a rich dad (I believe actually named Big Daddy). Charlotte, her friend, the rich southern belle, is the one who hires her to bake or cater. At the end, I think, the frog prince makes her promise to give money to Tiana. That's what was confusing me (having not seen it for a while).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MC3XuMvsDI

ugh!

yeah they're done

i hope everybody likes thinkpieces about gender stereotyping because come july we are IN FOR IT.

this doesn't look good at all. maybe they'll surprise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gn6IfWXPbk

exactly

Ffffuuuuuck that looks terrible