Well the wonderful thing about Tiggers, is that Tiggers are wonderful things. Their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs. They’re bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy, fun fun fun fun fun. But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is that they’re in 2D and in the hands of Disney/Pixar.
Call me a conservative fogey, but I’m super excited for this film. Not only because it recaptures te imagaination of my childhood days that I love so much, but because they didn’t rape said childhood by turning this into a 3D clusterfuck and giving Pooh a NY Yankees cap or Eyore a hip looking tattoo or some such nonsense. Nope. They seem to have kept it just as it should be: in glorious 2D, hand drawn animation with water color backdrops and all the characters just as they were printed on my crib’s mobile.
So it seems the world isn’t going straight to hell in a hand basket afterall. And the best part? Jim Cummings will return to voice Pooh and John Cleese will provide the narration. I think this is possibly more exciting than the prospect of a new Muppet Movie.
It’s refreshing to see traditional animation.
Uh, watch more Miyazaki and Satoshi-Kon movies!!
It’s refreshing to see traditional animation in the United States.
That’s better!
I watched Porco Rosso last night — throughout the film, all that I was thinking about was how gorgeous it looks. As good as CGI is (I still have a problem with the CGI, character design of humans, I still prefer the hand drawn animation.
@Antho42 – agreed on the CGI of humans. Perhaps this is part of the reason I’m not such a big fan of Pixar films that mostly involve humans – a big reason I remember being so disappointed with the latter half of Wall-e.
@Jonathan, also agree that seeing some good ol’ fashioned 2D animation in the States is a great thing. Something that doesn’t look like stop motion, herky jerky shit.
@Kurt Dragon has no heart or imagination or inspiration or solid, basic storytelling? Okay. The look and character design alone gives it a leg up over anything I’ve seen from the typical Japanime style that has looked the same since forever.
CGI sort of ‘tells/shows-off’ and hand-drawn ‘evokes’ (I’m not sure were stop motion fits in, but it is probably closer to hand-drawn. I don’t mind what they are doing with CGI, but I’ll always have a bigger place in my heart of 2D (some ‘invisible’ CGI augmentation/process enhancements are not deal breakers for me). Even with the refreshing and interesting contemporary messages of The Incredibles and Ratatouille (OK, I’m a sucker for Brad Bird), I’ll still hearken back to Nausicaa or Fantastic Planet as stretching my pure imagination a little more……..
I know a lot of people really, really like HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, but it is not all that inspiring in terms of stretching your imagination, as to actually being a solid example of basic story telling and heart….Weird that this gets such as pass, perhaps there is just too much damn product out there, or that DW sets the bar so low so often that Dragon may be a tad overvalued…That being said I liked the film, quite a bit, but i’d hardly call it a classic, where as a goodly portion (Porco, Mononoke, Spirited Away, Totoro, Nauiscaa, etc.) of Miyazaki’s works are bonafide.
I live with an animator who favors 2D animation and I’ve hung in animation circles while out in Chicago. They pretty much cheer whenever something new gets the 2D non CG treatment as it’s more work for their kind. Personally, I favor 2D animation and wish more stories would be told in it, or that the format was able to turn a sizable profit in this era of animation.
Andrew, DRAGON has huge heart, and some imagination, but the visuals are slick polished CGI (they’ve got the lighting and the fog down to a T, but the character designs and even dragon designs are too damn polished and clean, for my tastes. I’ll agree that the Japanese faces are not always ‘up to snuff’ (although you’d be wise to check out when they do older folks like the old age home ladies in Ponyo or the main character in Howl’s Moving Castle, or the Bathhouse overlord in Spirited Away.)
Really, it the the HEART that makes DRAGON worth watching, it is the main reason to watch that one!
While I like the idea of Disney doing upscale solid 2D animation, and I’ll certainly bring my kids to this film. Hasn’t winnie the Pooh sort of become the FAMILY CIRCUS of the Disney catalog. Exactly what you expect, predictable and locked down the same damn thing over and over again?
Thoughts?
I can see where you’re coming from on that one. But I think it’s only because there have been a bunch of straight to DVD and Cartoon Network (etc.) bullshit movies based on Pooh and especially Tigger. I’m no expert, haven’t followed it for the past 20 years, but I believe what is special about this is the very fact that it hasn’t become stale and old like Family Circus (how dare you, btw).
On top of that, though this is in traditional 2D ( which looks fucking gorgeous – that scene as they walk across the bridge = wow), there seem to be some very slight upgrades with the look and tactics. The world of honey for instance or Piglet getting stuck in the letters of the text for example. This trailer makes me laugh on top of it. This look SO MUCH better than the Curious George movie of a few years back.
Emma mentions it will be interesting to see what the marketing one sheets look like.