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This has been a great decade for animated features. Mainstream acceptance of animation has greatly expanded, with a majority of films that would have been ignored in the 70s and 80s getting wide theatrical releases and heavy commercial and critical attention. A lot of this attention we owe to the 90s; the animation boom that took place during that decade brought the format back to the public eye. But it was during this decade that the trend came to a head, via a (soon to be expanded) category in the Oscars being set aside for animated features and a greater general recognition of animation as an art form. The following article discusses the five best films to be released in the past ten years. Each one, through no design of ours, was made with a different animation style by directors with very different approaches to film making. This shows, more than anything else, the variety and diversity that has dominated this decade. More to the point, they're all terrific movies which I urge you to seek out.
First, here are forty-five animated features that, while nominated for a position on the top-five, failed to make the cut. Honorable Mention goes to:
- The Emperor's New Groove (Mark Dindal, 2000): The selfish Emperor Kuzco is turned into a llama by his former adviser, Yzma. Through a series of lucky coincidences, Kuzco finds himself transported to the peasant Pacha's house; the same peasant whose house he recently planned to tear down in order to build a summer home, "Kuzcotopia". Pacha agrees to help him return to his palace if he promises to build his summer home somewhere else.
- Atlantis: The Lost Empire (Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise, 2001): Young linguist Milo Thatch finds his grandfather's journal, which he believes will lead him to the lost city of Atlantis. He lends himself and his discovery to a team of explorers also searching for the mythical utopia.
- Lilo & Stitch (Chris Sanders, Dean Deblois, 2002): Alien Experiment 626 escapes termination at the hands of an alien government and crash-lands on Hawaii, where his fate becomes intertwined with that of a lonely little girl named Lilo.
- Treasure Planet (Ron Clements, John Musker, 2002): After a crew of pirates burns down Jim Hawkins' home while searching for a mysterious map, the young man sets out on an expedition to discover the legendary Treasure Planet, on which is said to be hidden "the loot of a thousand worlds".
- Brother Bear (Aaron Blaise, Robert Walker, 2003): A young Inuit boy named Kenai is transformed into a bear while trying to kill the bear that attacked and killed his older brother, Sitka.
- Meet the Robinsons (Steve Anderson, 2007): A young genius orphan named Lewis is pulled into a time-traveling adventure, chased by the sinister "Bowler Hat Guy". During his adventure, he reunites with his long-lost family line.
- Bolt (Chris Williams, Byron Howard, 2008): A dog who stars in an action television series believes the show's plot is real. When the director engineers to have his owner, Penny, kidnapped as part of a two-parter, Bolt sets off to find her and winds up stranded in New York City.
- Monsters, Inc. (Peter Docter, Lee Unkrich, David Silverman, 2001): In the city of Monstropolis, monsters make daily ventures into the human world in order to harvest the screams of human children, a powerful source of energy; they do this even though it is believed that the touch of a child is poison to a monster. One night, champion scarer Sully is followed back into the monster world by an energetic little girl, sending the entire city into a panic.
- Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich, 2003): Marlin the clown-fish's only son Nemo is kidnapped by a diver and taken away in a boat. The distraught Marlin sets out to look for him with the help of a scatter-brained fish named Dory.
- The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004): All superheroes are forced to give up crime-fighting and must live normal lives. Married former heroes Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl have three children. Their suburban lives are disrupted when Mr. Incredible is offered a job in a high-ranking government facility that is not all that it seems.
- Cars (John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, 2006): The famous race car Lightning McQueen accidentally destroys the main road of the podunk town Radiator Flats. He is arrested and forced to repair the damage, despite the danger of missing the upcoming race.
- Ratatouille (Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava, 2007): After being chased out of the house he was living in and separated from his family, Remy the rat finds his true calling as a chef in a once high-end restaurant in Paris.
- Up (Peter Docter, Bob Peterson, 2009): Elderly Carl Fredricksen attempts to fulfill his dead wife's wish of visiting the legendary Paradise Falls in South America. He rigs his house with a multitude of balloons and flies there, unaware that he has picked up a stowaway: the young Junior Wilderness Explorer Russell.
- Happy Feet (George Miller, Warren Coleman, Judy Morris, 2006): A young penguin with an affinity for tap-dancing must find out what's causing the fish his family feeds on to disappear while struggling with his own quest for acceptance.
- Surf's Up (Ash Brannon, Chris Buck, 2003): A surfing mockumentary; Antarctic penguin surfer Cody, inspired by his late hero, the legendary surfer Big Z, enters the Big Z Memorial surfing competition. There he competes against Tank Evans, the surfer Z was competing against when he died.
- Ice Age (Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha, 2002): A grumpy mammoth, a foolish sloth, and a vengeful saber-tooth tiger join forces in order to return a human infant to its family.
- The Road to El Dorado (Eric "Bibo" Bergeron, Don C. Paul, 2000): Con-men Miguel and Tulio find a map that supposedly leads to the mythical city of El Dorado.
- Chicken Run (Peter Lord, Nick Park, 2000): A group of chickens, led by the resourceful Ginger, attempt to escape from their imprisonment on Tweedy Farm. All seems lost until the arrival of Rocky, and an American Rooster who claims to be able to teach the chickens how to fly.
- Shrek (Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson, 2001): An antisocial ogre is forced to team up with a talking donkey and rescue the beautiful Princess Fiona from a ferocious dragon, in order to clear his land of a group of unwanted fairy-tale characters.
- Madagascar (Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, 2005): A motley group of zoo animals - Marty the zebra, Alex the lion, Gloria the hippo, and Melman the giraffe - are accidentally ship-wrecked on Madagascar, where they have to learn how to live in the wild.
- Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Nick Park, Steve Box, 2005): Wallace & Gromit's pesticide company, Anti-Pesto, enters into a competition with the villainous Lord Victor to find the "Were-Rabbit" that has been ravaging the town's vegetables.
- Kung Fu Panda (Mark Osborne, John Stevenson, 2008): Po, a noodle-selling panda, is chosen over five trained fighters to be the next Dragon Warrior, a title under which he will train with the kung fu master Shifu and eventually face off against the legendary criminal Tai Lung.
- Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest (Michel Ocelot, 2006): After being separated from his Indian nanny and her son Asmar at a very young age, the young noble Azur sets out to India in order to rescue and marry the Djinn Fairy.
- Renaissance (Christian Volckman, 2006): The year is 2054. Illona Tasuiev, a talented young scientist working with the mega-corporation Avalon, is mysteriously kidnapped. Police officer Barthélémy Karas and the missing woman's sister, Bislane Tasuiev, are drawn into an international plot of death and corruption.
- Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud, 2007): The story of a young Iranian girl, Marjane Satrapi, as she grows up during the horrors of the Iranian Revolution.
- Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (Curt Geda, 2000): The new Batman, Terry McGinnis, faces off with Bruce Wayne's greatest foe, The Joker, who reappears after nearly forty years.
- Hellboy: Blood & Iron (Victor Cook, Tad Stones, 2007): The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense investigates a haunting in the Hamptons.
- Mutant Aliens (Bill Plympton, 2001): After being intentionally abandoned in space by the head of Earths' Space Department, astronaut Earl Jensen returns to his home planet in order to take his revenge.
- Corpse Bride (Mike Johnson, Tim Burton, 2005): Victor, the son of two pompous fish merchants, is arranged to marry the aristocratic Victoria, in hopes that the marriage will help his parents climb the social ladder and her parents recover from their financial difficulties. Victor flubs his vows during the wedding rehearsal. While practicing them to himself in the woods, he unwittingly marries Emily, The Corpse Bride, who has been waiting in a shallow grave for her true love to come to her.
- Coraline (Henry Selick, 2009): A young girl named Coraline Jones discovers a gateway to a parallel universe inhabited completely by button-eyed versions of "real" people.
- Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001): A young man in a dream-like state observes and partakes in a philosophical discourse about life.
- A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006): In a future where America has lost the "war on drugs", undercover agent Bob Arctor is assigned to infiltrate the drug world.
- The Cat Returns (Hiroyuki Morita, 2002): After unknowingly saving the life of "The Prince of Cats", schoolgirl Haru is whisked away to the Kingdom of Cats to be his bride. Helping her escape from this unwanted engagement is the swashbuckling Baron and his allies, the fat cat Muta and Toto the crow.
- Howl's Moving Castle (Hayao Miyazaki, 2004): After a chance encounter with the famous wizard Howl, a young girl named Sophie is transformed into an old woman by the villainous Witch of the Waste. Scared to face her family (and, as a side-effect of the witch's spell, unable to explain anyway) she runs away from home and winds up as a guest in Howl's castle.
- Millennium Actress (Satoshi Kon, 2001): Film director Genya Tachibana makes a documentary based on the life of actress Chiyoko Fujiwara.
- Tokyo Godfathers (Satoshi Kon, 2003): Three homeless street-dwellers - Gin, a saki-loving bum; Hana, a sickly transvestite; and Miyuki, a young runaway - find a baby in a dumpster and set out to find the child's mother.
- Paprika (Satoshi Kon, 2006): The powerful DC Mini, a device which allows the user to see into a person's dreams, is stolen and used to wreak havoc.
- Tekkonkinkreet (Michael Arias, 2006): Two orphans, Black and White, protect the decaying Treasure Town from the schemes of a group of Yakuza.
- Metropolis (Rintaro, 2001): Private Detective Sunsaku Ban and his nephew Kenichi travel to Metropolis seeking a renegade organ-trafficker and become wrapped up in a political conspiracy centering on the female robot Tima.
- Steamboy (Katsuhiro Otomo, 2004): Ten year old James Steam is pulled into a conflict between his father and grandfather, both intelligent scientists with different goals.
- Sword of the Stranger (Masahiro Ando, 2007): A young Japanese boy named Kotaro is on the run (with his dog, Tobimaru) from a group of Chinese super-warriors. He meets up with the ronin Nanashi (No Name), who agrees to be the boy's bodyguard in return for a jewel that Kotaro claims is worth ten gold coins.
- Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Shinichiro Watanabe, 2000): The crew of the Bebop attempts to find the source of a mysterious virus plaguing Mars.
- The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (Stephen Hillenburg, 2004): Spongebob's boss, Mr. Krabs, is accused of stealing the crown of King Neptune. Spongebob and his friend Patrick volunteer to travel to the feared Shell City in order to find and return the crown, thus clearing Mr. Krabs of all guilt.
- Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie - The Conqueror of Shamballa (Seiji Mizushima, 2005): Edward Elric, after being trapped in London at the end of the television series, has now became a partner of the inventor Alfons Heiderich (his brother Alphonse's parallel). While searching for a way to get back to his own dimension, he runs afoul of the Thule Society. Meanwhile, in Amestris, Alphonse Elric is desperately trying to find a way to bring his brother back.
- The Simpsons Movie (David Silverman, 2007): Springfield's pollution reaches crisis level. The entire town is enclosed within a giant dome on government orders when Homer Simpson dumps a silo of pig feces into the Springfield lake. After escaping a vengeful mob, The Simpsons decide to move to Alaska and start over.
And now, the Top Five films of the past decade:
5.Idiots & Angels: (Bill Plympton, 2008)
Plot: A mean-spirited, bad-tempered, unethical drunk named Angel wakes up one morning and discovers he has grown a pair of wings, which force him to do good deeds.
Why It's Here: Idiots and Angels is one of Bill Plympton's most fascinating films yet; it's still full of the good-natured bawdiness, violence, and surrealism that have so long been his trademarks, but they have a surprisingly sincere undercurrent of pathos and humanity accompanying them. The film tells the story of Angel, a mean-spirited drunk who spends the better part of his life in a bar, groping the pretty barmaid and illegally selling guns out of his omnipresent suitcase. One day, Angel wakes up and finds he has sprouted a pair of wings, which force him to do good deeds that get in the way of his bad ones. Angel's shame of these appendages is apparent as his attempts to get rid of them attract the attention of a villainous bartender and a greedy doctor, who plan to steal the wings for their own purposes.
Plympton's irreverent style keeps the symbol-heavy plot from becoming obnoxious. Angel himself never becomes a particularly likable protagonist - otherwise a good deal of his misdeeds would not make sense - but there's still something remarkably endearing about the fuss he makes while being unwillingly shoved towards salvation. His character development is magnificently handled; there are subtle hints, towards the end of the film, that the wings are no longer acting just of their own accord.
Like most of Bill Plympton's work the animation style in the film is very distinct; it offers a lot of ingenuity in such scenes where Angel reluctantly pursues a burglar or where the activities in his morning routine shift into each other. There is no speech in the movie, which ultimately works to its advantage. Angel's stylized expressions and grunts say a lot more about his character than any voice actor ever could, and the lack of dialogue allows George Sextro's fantastic score to push to the forefront. Between the character acting and the music, the movie has no problems communicating with the audience.
Idiots and Angels has yet to be released on DVD; at the moment, the only way to see it is to find out when it's playing at an animation festival. Many thanks to Bill Plympton and Kerri Allegretta for providing toonzone with a copy for review. If it's within your means, I urge you to go see it. It's one of Mr. Plympton's strongest films yet.
4.Waltz With Bashir: (Ari Folman, 2008)
Plot: Ari Folman, a former infantry soldier in the Israel Defense Force, is surprised to find that he remembers nothing from his time of service. When he has a nightmare of the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, he begins to seek out others who were in the same place at the same time to try to make sense of his dream.
Why It's Here: The greatness of Waltz With Bashir simply cannot be overstated. It takes risks, breaks boundaries, and uses the medium of animation in unexpected, inventive ways. It is an intensely personal, heartfelt work that stands with the best films of 2008. But great films are not necessarily enjoyable films. Waltz With Bashir is not intended to be a very pleasant film to watch. It easily contains some of the heaviest and most unsettling content to appear in animation, and it will unnerve even loyal viewers of South Park. While it is worth seeking out, this film is not suitable for everyone.
Waltz With Bashir transports the viewer to hell. Not the hell of fire and brimstone characterized in most cartoons, but the hell of war and its lasting psychological effects. It's a movie chiefly about memories and director Ari Folman's search for his own memories of the bitter Israel/Lebanon war. It's about how the mind adjusts to deal with the innate inhumanity of armed conflict. The protagonists in this movie commit utterly inhuman acts; the climax centers on Israeli soldiers executing innocents.
The film's structure is unusual for animation; the best description for it is an “animated documentary”. There is no linear storytelling; the film is essentially a series of interviews conducted between Folman and several people connected to the war. It frequently digresses to other perspectives and stories. A photographer's safety comes from viewing the conflict through the lens of his camera. A soldier envisions himself in the arms of a giantess. Folman weaves between reality and hallucination in a way that seems almost effortless.
It is those hallucinations that justify Folman's decision to animate this documentary. The flashbacks and hallucinations are colored chiefly in sickening yellow tones. Deep, heavy lines and dark shading are utilized to give the film a graphic novel style. While the story is absolutely drawn from real life, the visuals evoke that of a nightmare. It may surprise you that the film was animated using more traditional means, and did not utilize motion capture or rotoscoping. Rather, it is a composite of several different animation styles, predominantly in Adobe Flash.
More than any other film, Waltz With Bashir reveals the medium of animation as a powerful way to express a point. It is not a film that everyone should view, but for the viewer with an open mind and heart, it is essential viewing.
3.Wall·E: (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
Plot: WALL·E is the last of the robots left on Earth to clean up the over-polluted planet after all the humans flee into space aboard the Starship Axiom. His repetitive existence is broken by the discovery of small plant, which he stores in a boot, signifying that Earth is once again habitable for humans. The plant is found by EVE, a search probe from the Axiom whom WALL·E falls in love with. The two of them return to the Axiom in order to give the plant to the captain of the ship.
Why It's Here: Pixar films always get a healthy dose of acclaim. WALL·E in particular has been greeted with a whole lot of love (Well, except from people who took it as thinly-veiled propaganda for the Scottish nationalist movement or something). And you know what? That praise was well-earned, folks.
WALL·E tells the story of a rubbish-shifting robot (a sort of cross between R2-D2 and Johnny Five) who falls in love with a floating probe robot named EVE (a kind of foetal Sony AIBO). He follows her into space, leaving a barren, trash-strewn Earth for the starship Axiom - humanity's new home. Only it turns out that humans have devolved into giant babies during their centuries in space, with the ship's mod-cons catering to their every need. The arrival of WALL·E and EVE triggers a series of events that forces mankind's bloated descendants to stand up for themselves, both literally and figuratively.
The film's genius is that it manages to tell a satisfying story with a cast that consists mainly of virtual metal chunks that are incapable of uttering a full sentence. The crew studied silent films starring the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton before channeling everything that they'd learned from those masters into a pair of binoculars on caterpillar treads and a levitating egg with LEDs for eyes.
It doesn't always run smoothly - the opening act plods somewhat - but for the most part, Pixar pulled it off. The filmmakers keep the mechanical characters thoroughly endearing while avoiding the ever-present pitfall of mawkishness. Also of note, although perhaps on a more academic level, is the film's blending of live action and animation. Footage of human characters from before their infantilizing experience in space are filmed using live actors, and so the film's animation tries its best to be realistic to match. The ultimate special effects film? Maybe.
WALL·E is a true tour de force of character animation destined to be remembered as a classic. Pixar remains a powerhouse with this film.
2.Spirited Away: (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
Plot: While moving to a new town, ten year old Chihiro becomes trapped in a spiritual bathhouse, forced to work there in order to free her parents from a curse.
Why It's Here: With the possible exception of My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away is Hayao Miyazaki's best film yet. It is also his “purest” film; years from now, when animation historians are discussing Miyazaki's style, this will be the movie they bring up. Spirited Away's plot is a familiar one. The ten year-old girl Chihiro finds herself trapped in a fantasy world, surrounded by a variety of both well and ill-meaning figures, until she eventually returns to the real world as a stronger person for her experiences.
Spirited Away is a surreal film in spots; while everything fits together on screen, a written plot synopsis ends up sounding a bit silly. Chihiro enters the movie as a surly, almost bratty girl, who is upset with her parents (and with life in general) because they are moving to a new town. The family takes a wrong turn and winds up finding an old building with a green field and a set of restaurants on the other side of it. Finding one of the restaurants to be piled high with food, Chihiro's parents set down to eat heartily, an action that ends up trapping them in the spirit world. Though she didn't eat anything, Chihiro is trapped as well; she ends up working in a bathhouse for the wicked owner Yubaba, who agrees to let her have her parents back if she works hard.
Chihiro is very endearing as a protagonist because of (and despite) her character flaws. Her character development, as she has to fend for herself for the first time in her life, is brilliantly handled, and her gentle grasp of maturity is mirrored by the experiences Yubaba's baby goes through near the end of the film. The other characters are equally thought-out and interesting but the real show-stopper is Yubaba, who's so scary she's almost funny. The bathhouse, as Miyazaki himself mentioned, is a place where good and evil frequently mingle, and these shifting moods make the place almost a character in its own right.
As is the norm with Studio Ghibli, the animation is quite astounding, and the film loses no chances to show off its prowess (Chihiro's expressions are especially fun). I generally watch anime dubbed but could watch the subbed version just as easily; however, with Spirited Away, I can actually say that the dub is superior to the original. Daveigh Chase and Suzanne Pleshette give the most memorable performances as Chihiro and Yubaba respectively, with the rest of the English cast doing at least as well. The only actor I have even the slightest nitpick with is Susan Egan as Lin, who comes across as just a bit too caustic.
If you haven't seen Spirited Away by now, eight years after it's been made, I urge you to at least rent it in light of the New Year. I was skeptical when I started watching - I'm skeptical of any film that gets as much praise as this one has - but it turns out it deserved every bit. It is an amazing piece of animation and an amazing film.
1.Sita Sings the Blues: (Nina Paley, 2008)
Plot: The movie's story is told through a combination of shadow-puppetry, flash animation, and jazz music. The hero Rama and his wife Sita are exiled and forced to live in the forest, where Sita is kidnapped by the demon Ravana. Rama rescues her, but his worries about her conduct while imprisoned lead to a strain on their relationship. Paralleled with it is the story of a female animator named Nina, whose boyfriend moves to India and dumps her via E-mail.
Why It's Here: It's hard to describe Sita Sings the Blues in actual sentences, so for a while I'll just be using exclamations. Amazing. Astounding. Incredible. A fantastic achievement in the Animation Industry. The Pinocchio of Flash. These are all review tag-lines, but in Sitas' case they're also quite accurate. Sita Sings the Blues is something special. There's not a moment in the movie where I was not glued to the screen, and this continued even during repeat viewings. The movie is, in theory, an adaptation of the Ramayana, the ancient Sanskrit epic detailing the adventures of the hero Rama - based on “as true events as the Bible is based on”, as one of the narrators puts it - but calling it an “adaptation” of anything is doing Sita an injustice, as it is a wholly original work. Still, one cannot deny that the movie borrowed its plot from this ancient text.
The movie's story is actually told in four different ways: there are a series of scenes which resemble Indian Rajput paintings, which are more art than animation thanks to their detailed character designs and beautiful, diverse backgrounds. These segments are used for the more serious and dialogue-heavy bits of the story. Then there are also segments featuring three shadow-puppets (completely ad-libbed by Aseem Chabra, Bhavana Nagulapally, and Manish Acharya) who elaborate some of the more confusing bits of the Ramayana and often debate certain points or call attention to inconsistencies. Their commentary is actually hilarious, and the humor is heightened by the ever-changing backgrounds during these scenes, which shift to portray whatever the trio are currently talking about. There are also a few segments - animated in heavily stylized “squiggle-vision” - which show the events leading up to the making of the movie itself (these are included due to their peculiar parallel with the Ramayana's story). These segments are all delightful and entertaining, but they really just serve as backdrops for the main part of the movie - Annette Hanshaw's music.
These segments - animated in a flatter style of flash that allows for more “cartoony” character designs - are the real headliners here. They are brilliant. From the very first musical number, depicting Sita and Rama's exile (to the tune of “Here We Are”), I realized why Ms. Paley used these songs despite the troubles they caused her. You see, the songs used in this movie were all protected under copyright laws - it was only after heavy negotiations and payment a fifty-thousand dollar fee that the movie was able to be released at all. One might wonder why Nina Paley would go through all of that, instead of simply using different, public-domain songs. But Annette Hanshaw's songs are part of the movie, and taking them out or replacing them is an absurd notion. The segments these songs accompany are wonderfully choreographed to the music, to the point where it's astounding to think that the songs were written before the movie, not for it. Each one is a flight of fantasy worthy of Fantasia; charming, vibrantly colored, and slightly surreal. It is these scenes that make the movie what it is, showing Paleys' genius as an animator and a director. Everything else feels almost like padding in comparison. They're not, though - the others are also necessary and interesting components of the movie. Just don’t be surprised when Hanshaw steals the show.
Like a lot of great art, Sita Sings the Blues was made during a rough patch in its creator's life. Nina Paley crafted this film while going through a divorce. It is this hardship that made the movie what it is. Sita can be downloaded for free - for free, I repeat - at sitasingstheblues.com, or it can be bought for about twenty dollars via Amazon. If you haven't seen this movie, you have no more excuses. Go watch it now.
There you have them; the top five movies of the past decade. Here's to good times ahead!
Posted by Radical Raven at
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We wanted to name the biggest news stories for animation as part of our look back at the past decade. We arbitrarily limited candidates to single news stories which, in our opinion, had a significant impact on the art or business of animation, if not the entertainment business in general. For instance, while the rise of anime over the decade from an obscure niche hobby to real substantial mainstream acceptance is a pretty significant long-term trend, it's also not one that lends itself to any one single moment where you can say, "This is where Things Changed."
We also freely admit that these selections reflect our own biases, as well as the generally US-centric view of our News coverage and the site in general. This is not meant to suggest that there weren't any significant news stories or trends overseas. In fact, I believe that globalization is one of the biggest long-term trends in animation today: in addition to the growth of anime as an export product of Japan, the rising importance of the global box office, the excellent (and often far more adult-oriented) animated work of other nations, and the rapid development of high-quality animation studios in India and China are all fundamentally changing the art and business of animation, but again, there is almost no single incident one can identify as a tipping point for change.
After much deliberation, the top 5 news stories we've selected are, in chronological order:
1. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Announces the Best Animated Feature Oscar
June 19, 2001
On June 19, 2001, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences approved the final rules for the Best Animated Feature Academy Award, intended to recognize the best animated feature film released in the previous year. In the years since, there have been dubious nominees and/or winners, just as there have been for any of the Oscar categories, but the reality is that this award is a recognition, however small, that animation has genuine artistic merit all on its own.
We're fully aware of how controversial the Best Animated Feature Oscar is among animation fans and the industry. Many consider it a compliment delivered by the back of the hand – a poor consolation prize that really just ghettoizes animated movies away from the "real" ones. There are others who think that it's just more Hollywood glitz and glamour, that the Academy is dominated by timid old fogies with inherent biases against animated movies, and that the Oscars don't matter much anyway. The points are well-taken, but it's also true that the Best Animated Feature doesn't ghettoize animation any more than the Best Documentary category segregates that specific branch of film from winning other awards. It's another berth for foreign animated movies to get some much-needed publicity, bringing work like The Triplets of Belleville, Persepolis, or Spirited Away to the attention of animation fans and the public in general. The creation of the category hasn't stopped Pixar from racking up four nominations for Best Original Screenplay or DreamWorks for earning one for Best Adapted Screenplay. It seems that every year, Oscar buzz gets louder and louder that another animated film (almost always from Pixar) might finally be the one to land a Best Picture nomination, if not a statuette on Oscar night, even if this says as much about the abysmal quality of Hollywood movies every year as it does about the superlative quality of Pixar's movies.
Besides, it's nice to know that an animated film will walk home with at least one statuette on Oscar night that isn't for Best Song.
2. Adult Swim Begins Broadcasting
September 2, 2001
Even among animation fans, there is little recognition that Adult Swim is not just a programming block but its own network, with an entirely independent management structure from that of Cartoon Network. Confusion over its leadership aside, the creation of Adult Swim and its subsequent success is still one of the most powerful statements in the business that animation is not just a medium for kids. Adult Swim is still the only substantial chunk of animated television aimed at adults, with Fox's recent "Animation Domination" being the only other serious competitor.
Admittedly, a lot of the network's early successes were largely borrowing and mercilessly mocking the Hanna-Barbera library that was the backbone of Cartoon Network's programming at the time, and lots of the shows can be called "adult" only for subject matter than for any genuinely mature sensibilities. However, Adult Swim has been home to some truly oustanding original programming over the years, such as Harvey Birdman, The Venture Bros., and The Boondocks. It's also worth pointing out that Adult Swim was how countless numbers of American animation fans discovered Cowboy Bebop (one of the best television series ever made, animated or not), as well as countless other anime series like The Big O, InuYasha, Paranoia Agent, or Death Note, making it a major contributor to anime's increasing mainstream acceptance throughout the 00's.
One alternate candidate for this spot was the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Terrorism Scare in 2007, since it was a major headline-grabbing story of the time and did lead to the resignation of Cartoon Network head Jim Samples. However, the creation and success of the network was what allowed that news story to happen, and the contributions of the network itself far outweigh any short-term publicity stunt.
3. Family Guy Returns to Fox
May 1, 2005
TV shows in the past have occasionally managed to dodge cancellation by changing networks, but cancellation is generally a one-way street. History was made in 2005 when Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy returned to the airwaves on Fox two years after being cancelled. The move was largely due to its success in syndication and on the series' success on the explosive new medium of DVD. Indeed, the renewal of Family Guy was one of the earliest testament to the growing market power of DVD in general, as it rapidly moved from a new and better way of doing home video and into a genuine phenomenon in its own right that fundamentally changed the way the TV industry did business. The successful return of the series probably had more to do with the approval of the Futurama direct-to-DVD movies than the proposals submitted by the Futurama staff that proved how Fox could not possibly lose money on them (with the Maths and everything), while also leading to more raised hopes and dashed expectations as no series since has managed the same return from the dead.
The return of Family Guy was also the start of Seth MacFarlane's ascent in Hollywood, leading up to his anchoring Fox's "Animation Domination" block with three different TV series and his becoming the highest paid television writer and producer in the history of the medium in a deal reportedly worth $100 million. Say what you will about Family Guy (and, based on comments on our forums, you guys have a LOT to say about Family Guy), but its return to the air made television history and its runaway success since then is nothing to be sneezed at.
4. Disney Buys Pixar
January 24, 2006
The animation industry simply wouldn't be the same (if it would exist at all) without Walt Disney and the company that bears his name. However, at the start of the decade, the company's animation studios were stumbling badly after their remarkable revival in the early 1990's. A corporate policy that seemed to put more emphasis on building marketable franchises over telling good stories had led to a string of box-office disappointments and a rightfully scorned series of direct-to-video "cheapquels" that served only to tarnish the Disney brand name with sub-standard work. The company even went as far as to shut down production of hand-drawn animated movies at the end of July 2005, in the entirely mistaken belief that audiences only wanted CGI animated movies. It seemed that the only successful animation associated with the company at all was coming from those upstarts from the Bay Area: Pixar Animation Studios, whose streak of critical and commercial successes weren't enough (or, perhaps, were causing) greater stresses between the two companies.
In hindsight, it was a fait accompli. Pixar Animation Studios could have cut a deal with any studio they wanted, but in the end they wanted Disney and they got it when Disney purchased Pixar at the start of 2006 and installed John Lasseter as the studio's Chief Creative Officer. Echoing the history of "Apple Buys NeXT," the purchased company ultimately led a takeover from within to supplant the DNA of the purchasing company. Lasseter seems to have triggered a renewed sense of purpose in the hallowed halls of Walt Disney Feature Animation. Animated feature films that had long been in development hell were pushed back on track, resulting in the watchable Meet the Robinsons, the excellent (if highly underrated) Bolt, and the exceptionally good Tinker Bell franchise of direct-to-video movies. The studio also announced its return to hand-drawn animated features with The Princess and the Frog, along with a muted commitment to more hand-drawn feature films in the future. The good news even seems to be spreading to the TV division, which has finally scored a bona fide hit with Phineas & Ferb and is commissioning more animated programming as we speak.
None of this has occurred without cost, with the most prominent being Lilo & Stitch's Chris Sanders leaving Disney over the changes that ultimately turned his long-suffering American Dog project into Bolt. Still, with his combination of business acumen and understanding of story, John Lasseter is a most worthy inheritor of the heavy mantle of Uncle Walt. His return after his ignominious firing all those years ago has turned the ship around and promises to return the studio to its past glories.
The recent Disney Buys Marvel deal was proposed for this spot, but the deal is still not finalized and it's impossible to know whether it will have the same kind of impact as the purchase of Pixar. However, the structure of the deal is specifically intended to minimize the creative and business impact on Marvel, meaning it is ultimately of far more interest to Wall Street and Hollywood insiders rather than the consumers of the entertainment. If it succeeds, there should be no difference other than that Mickey Mouse may join or replace Spider-Man on the checks.
5. Geneon Shutters US Operations
September 26, 2007
As mentioned earlier, the rise of anime in American mainstream entertainment in the early part of the decade was one of the major long-term trends that changed the way the industry worked. However, there really is no single moment that one could point to as the moment when anime "made it." Rather, there are a pile of contributing stories that accumulated over time, from the runaway success of Pokémon leading into the decade to the debut of Cowboy Bebop on Adult Swim to the birth of the Toonami block on Cartoon Network to the growing amount of anime blocks on cable networks like IFC and the Sci Fi Channel (now idiotically named "SyFy").
However, the sudden shuttering of Geneon USA's operations in late September 2007 was the first big domino to fall in the serious contraction in the American anime industry. The industry was already showing signs of weakness, as was the larger home video market and the economy in general. A glut of incoming product forcing consumers to be far more selective in their purchases and the lingering malaise afflicting the home video retail industry affected a niche like anime earlier than the industry as a whole. Geneon shutting down triggered shock waves throughout anime fandom, considering its solid market share position at the time and its long history bringing anime to America (first as Pioneer Entertainment, way back in the days when fans had to choose between subs and dubs on VHS or shell out for laserdisc players). It's impossible to know fully how related the events were, but it's hard to believe that the collapse of Geneon's deal with ADV for distributing titles was completely unrelated to Geneon's exit and ADV's eventual fall from grace as well. The void left behind by Geneon's hasty exit was also ultimately exploited by FUNimation to further bolster its dominating presence in the US anime market.
We hope you've enjoyed our picks for the top 5 news stories of the 00's, even though we're quite sure that there's a lot of room for valid disagreement with our choices. Feel free to hit the search box for our News ticker and let us know what you think the top stories were in the comment thread and in the forums!
Posted by Ed Liu at
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You are reading Part 3 of The Fall and Rise (?) of 2D Animation.
Pixar
For better or worse, Pixar changed the animation landscape with its initial foray into feature film production. Toy Story (1995) proved conclusively that a character driven story could be told effectively using 3D CG. Prior to this, CG had been relegated to special effects, background elements, props, and other non-living constructs within traditionally animated films. Pixar had made a conscious decision to avoid using humans as any of their lead characters largely because the CG technology was incapable of capturing or emulating what the mind would accept as human motion at the time.
Pixar has been at the fore with solving the medium's challenges. With Monsters Inc. (2001), they created the most convincing fur-covered creature yet seen in James P. “Sully” Sullivan. In Finding Nemo (2003), Pixar created a believable and gorgeous ocean environment. The Incredibles (2004) was the first Pixar film that saw stylized humans as lead characters. Bird called the film, “everything that computer-generated animation had trouble doing”. At that year's San Diego Comic-con panel for the movie, Bird touched on the technical hurdles of the medium in mentioning how easy it was to create an explosion and how complicated it was to animate the folds in a person's shirt as he's being lifted by it. In Cars (2006), their first production after having been purchased by Disney, we were exposed to jaw-dropping vistas as the cars drove across the country. In their latest films, they've begun finessing their work with delicate touches such as the shadows of balloons or the stubble on Carl Fredrickson's chin in Up (2009). This is all eye candy, of course. Whenever prodded for their focus, they inevitably mention good stories and characterization being what anchors a film.
The studio has had an amazing track record. Every single one of the 10 films they've released [Toy Story, A Bugs's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille (2007), Wall-E (2008), Up] has seen domestic grosses larger than their production budget. Even their weakest film in terms of characterization and story scored a 75% fresh rating over at Rotten Tomatoes. All of their other releases range between 91% to 100% fresh. Prior to their purchase by Disney, Pixar had supplanted them as the world's dominant animation studio. Like it or not, every other studio's success is measured against theirs. It's an almost unnatural level of success, and it has fans and critics of Pixar alike waiting and watching for their first true misstep.
Walt Disney has been quoted many times as having said, “I don't make movies to make money -- I make money to make movies.” Pixar seems to have carried on in that tradition. In fact, we'll close out this section with some quotes from current Chief Creative Officer of Disney, John Lasseter, because they're heartening and give hope for the future of 2D animation.
“Quality is the best business plan.”
“From the beginning, I kept saying it's not the technology that's going to entertain audiences, it's the story. When you go and see a really great live-action film, you don't walk out and say 'that new Panavision camera was staggering, it made the film so good'. The computer is a tool, and it's in the service of the story.”
“Andrew Stanton always said that 2-D animation became the scapegoat for bad storytelling, but you can make just as bad of a movie in 3-D.”
“The whole notion that the audience didn’t want to watch hand-drawn animation any more was ridiculous. It would be like saying the audience didn't want to watch something made with a particular camera. Give me a break!”
“It's storytelling. No one goes to a movie to see a particular technology. They go to see story and characters. They go to be entertained. What it was is that 2D became the scapegoat for bad storytelling.”
Wrap-up
Now that we've taken a look at the past decade, what does the future hold for 2D Feature Animation? Craig Grasso, a former employee of Disney's Florida studio, said in one interview, “People didn't stop painting when they invented the camera.”
It's not uncommon for an advancement in technology to capture the attention of audiences. It happened in live-action film with the addition of sound and then color. The novelty of the technological advancement does attract more attention and put more people in the seats. For awhile. Eventually people grow accustomed to the additional stimulation and, once again, begin to notice flaws in other areas of the film. The exact same storytelling flaws exist in CG that did in 2D. It will probably take a hit in popularity sometime down the road and likely for the same reasons. Though, if you're holding out for CG to disappear entirely, you're in for a long wait. Like sound and color, it's here to stay. It has cemented itself as a viable storytelling medium and produced some exceptional films.
Even if it could, do we want 2D to return to its place of prominence? 2D was certainly poorly serviced as an art form in the 90's and 00's because of it. Why not allow it to exist in a more niche role? Why not allow the more commercial vehicles to be what they will be and allow 2D to exist as a choice of artists? The best reviewed CG films are as such because their artistic style complimented an already solid story. It's also important to remember that the number of animated films released annually has, on average, doubled from the prior decade. More animation is always good, even if it's not all 2D.
The 2D medium is not dead. It never fully left us. We have only touched on the big studios and the films they had a direct hand in producing. Disney still had traditionally animated 2D output into 2005 with films that were originally intended as DTV releases. While we saw no traditionally animated releases from the major studios in 2008, we did have Waltz with Bashir, a 2D CG movie created in Adobe Flash. Throughout the decade we've had limited and wide releases of anime. Later this month, we'll see The Princess and the Frog from Disney. Whether we'll see Lasseter continue to deliver on his 2D commitment remains to be seen, but things are not nearly so bleak as they may have seemed mid-decade.
2D will likely maintain a minimized role in the next decade, but it will be around. It is more likely in the decades to come that the other major studios will, once again, take chances on visual styles beyond CG. So we go into the new decade with a cautious hope that 2D, while unlikely to ever return to its former prominence, will become more oft used. And, hopefully, we'll end up with a choice of stories that better suit it and that it better suits.
Posted by Harley at
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