Egoraptor 2008-11-09 23:54:42

Well, I always thought "lead by example, not by force" was a great way of putting it.

I'm under the impression that it's up to us to create the stuff that's in our soul. Mainstream will always be mainstream, but if we want to try to change it the only way we can do that is just by doing it.

Onett 2008-11-10 00:02:31

I'm probably just a bit of a nostalgia twat when i say this, but I have to agree with you. Animated films don't even bother trying to have a deeper meaning or anything dark period. Sure, dark and gritty is not a requirement for an animated film to be good. But it just seems more daring, taking a risk that'll pay off in the end.

I myself grew up watching Don Bluth films like All Dogs go to heaven, The Secret of NIMH, The land Before Time etc. I never really got into pixar 3d stuff. I found most of it to be just....kind of cold and only caring about including pop culture references and trying to get as many famous people to voice characters as they can.

But The incredibles was probably Pixars only decent film. I might be coming off as ignorant or just old fashioned to it all. but that's just the way I see it all.

Stanpai 2008-11-10 00:39:37

wow man. i made a related post on a blog of mine. Its a problem that we have to deal with. It is up to us to preserve the good of what was animation and writing. This "politically correct" society of ours blocks creativity and actually dilutes our minds. Again, only we can preserve and pass on our grand tales and favorites to the next generations to come. If we don't, they may never learn.

icebytes 2008-11-10 00:42:21

Aye, I remember the fox and the hound. That had some grit to it, a good childrens movie but with some reality.

silly-stungun-millie 2008-11-10 00:59:07

I blame political correctness and the desperation of news stations to jump on any story where some kid got killed/wounded due to the influence of vidya games or anime.

Also what's sad is that recently I saw All Dogs go to Heaven and Secret of NIMH in the $5 DVD bin at wal-mart, but I'm too poor to afford much of anything, especially DVDs right now.

But yeah, I do miss the cartoons that I grew up with.
An animation I've had heavy cravings for is "Witch's Night Out", made in 1978 with Gilda Radner as the witch. :3 I remember my mom wondering why they would have a gal wearing a bikini showing cleavage in a kid's movie...
I also enjoy the animated bits from Creepshow and Creepshow 2.
There was also Fantastic Planet, Light Years, Heavy Metal..... probably a bunch of others I'm forgetting about. My folks have like 5,000 video tapes of all sorts of things in all sorts of orders... like having "The Car" taped after "A Wish for Wings that Work". :P Still, it's a major treasure trove of my childhood.

Luis 2008-11-10 01:01:51

agreeing with you might send the world into an apocalypse. Since i already booked my airfare to London i'll wait until after that :P

JimmySavage 2008-11-10 01:25:58

"I'm not sure kids would ever watch a movie with the *intention* of it being a life lesson. That's just something that's bound to happen if they find insightful on a subconscious level."

Fair enough... We all know 'the industry' is a business and will always put forth their best efforts to appeal to the majority. We need more small animation studios that are willing to cut their losses when going up against giants like Pixar and DreamWorks - who's Madagascar 2 has already earned 63 mil over the damn weekend. Big difference compared to All Dogs at 27 mil (over 20 years) and Secret of Nimh at 15 mil. It's hard to get financial support when making a gritty and graphic children's movie.

If you're looking for a hard copy of Secret of Nimh, check Walmart for 5 bucks. And to be clear about 8mm - I was being facetious. It's a terrible movie anyway, I hate Nick Cage, I hope life vomits in his drink and kicks him down the stairs and he gets his throat ripped out by a rabbit.

Egoraptor 2008-11-10 02:37:32

Well what I'm saying is rather than put a damper on the idea of making something the way you want, just make something they way you want. Mainstream will be however it is gunna be but it can't stop us from creating what we want. If we just succumb to the idea that it's hopeless to battle the mainstream they why even exist. We have so many tools right now to help us create anything we like. The only issue is time and if it's that important to anybody they will spend the time to create.

I really don't see why people get so depressed by this mainstream thing. If anything it makes me more motivated to know that I don't have to make cookie-cutter Hollywood garbage and I won't.

Onett 2008-11-10 03:22:11

btw, I haven't seen it but Watership Down looks amazing. Real haunting too.

ReklessCreati0n 2008-11-10 04:07:03

I completely agree with this, I really enjoyed the older movies, the storylines were so much more indeph and the comedy was witty.

Now the most you get is a straight line plot with slapstick comedy for kids to watch, and parents wonder why kids are so ADHD and can't focus on one thing for a while.

Though you mentioned the incredibles, I actually believe that pixar should not be considered a "kid movie" company. Their movies are very mature, but with can reach children as well.

The Incredibles has some mature content in it. The family issues where the wife suspects her husband of cheating n' such. Kids wouldn't understand that. Wal-E on the other hand is amazing, definetly not for kids, so many social statements in there its crazy.

Anyways you've inspired me to check out my old movies and pop some in, I need to check out Watership down movie.

OzMafioso 2008-11-10 05:01:24

QFT, Egorapter. It just makes the things we create that much more enjoyable.

Shadowii2 2008-11-10 06:15:27

I grew up with movies and TV shows for kids that showed death with no more thinking, animal gets run over by a car and dies. As simple as that, that's life for you, no other tries.

BusterKeaton 2008-11-10 08:02:27

when will you return to anitude?

Kinsei 2008-11-10 09:47:08

OI!!!
Right on brother, I cant agree with you more. and to be honest I couldn't love those mutts more, I can recall the glory days of setting on the floor of my parents house watching it again and again and again.
Those old movies were one of the reasons I decide to become an animator. As a matter of fact, many of my teachers have all worked on multipule Bluth films. makes me pround be be taught by them.
cause the changing of the storys in america media, I drifter to animae almost 13 years ago, but now it's gotten to the point that it's no diffrent. I'm constantly looking for a good story in any form of animation, but rarely do I find anyhthing worth it. as for the incredibles, is that it was actually one of the better 3D films that exist, although the properties for a much darker theme is their, and admitingly they did not take it, thanks to some veteran Animation Drectors, the movie came out well.

zoed 2008-11-10 10:30:04

What worries me even more is the kids shows, which is even worse than most of the movies...One of my all time favorite kids shows were an anime called "mumin-troldene" or the "moomin-trolls" (which i highly recormend ppl should still go watch)...instead of going the easy way which i think alot of children shows does today, they went a different way and choosed to show two sides of one coin, that life can suck and its just not all a fairy tale. i remember i had nightmares of one of the creatures in the show, yet im sure it kinda made me more "grown" up and more mature by being so...the creature was called the groke and i still think its fucking scary :P, yet all the episodes carried an message and not one of those "everybody should be friends, and we should never say anything bad bla bla bla happy shit bla bla"...but a more real message about life...

<a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RxfCEYYL2A4">http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RxfCEYY L2A4</a> (its in swedish but just watch it anyways) - In this clip the groke is trying to get something back, two small "kids" stole from her, keep in mind this is a kids show, for 5-10 year olds(or older)....

tbussard 2008-11-10 11:14:45

If you want an impression of the idiot parents who are trying to solve the problem by being overly sensitive, look no further than my parents. When I was little they barred me from watching "The Simpsons" because I had a habit of repeating what I watched on television, and they were afraid I'd emulate Bart Simpson. I guarantee you, if my parents weren't the ill-informed dumbasses that they've eventually come to personify today, I'd have grown up a vastly different person. VASTLY different.

I think a lot of what parents are afraid of is their children being traumatized, and then having to deal with the time and energy of comforting them after the experience. A lot of the comforting process comes with the children asking some very hard questions that the adults have no way of knowing how to answer, because a vast majority of their lives have been just paying for the well-being of their family and not thinking about the "hard" questions of life.

And that's why movies and television have gone wrong. People have no idea how to answer these difficult questions, and since they're terrified of being usurped in intelligence by innocent questions from a curious but terrified child, they simple censor the materials that would otherwise bring those questions to the forefront. Besides, why would they want to disrupt the relative comfort of their "safe" financial situation?

Thus the children of today seem like spoiled rotten little idiots because nobody attempts to give them anything more than the most sweet depictions of life with a healthy dollop of ignorance. I wouldn't go so far as to say that not watching "Watership Down" is going to leave them lost when they suddenly take a look at "reality" at 18 years old. But the pussification of our comfortable society is just uncanny, especially when it comes to intellectual questions that go deeper down the rabbit hole than we could have expected:

"Why did they have to die, mommy?"

Gouki82 2008-11-10 11:19:49

Although I've never watched Watership down, but judging by that picture, its something I might want to see. As for All Dogs go to Heaven, I watched that so long ago I don't remember anything:(. The Lion King should have been another one of your examples.

Jimtopia 2008-11-10 12:20:44

Your post and all these peoples comments have been a very entertaining read that I wholeheartedly agree with, thank you my good sir.

Overbite 2008-11-10 12:36:10

One good example of a fairly recent yet quite violent film is 'Princess Mononoke', which you will have probably heard of if not seen. One of the final scenes did make me go tense when I saw a decapitated wolf's head (quite graphic). I watched it when I was 12.

I also think 'Finding Nemo' nicely dealt with fairly adult issues of a father being disturbed after his wife and kid's deaths while fathering his own son, being an overprotective parent and someone with short term memory loss in an animated kids film. There were also scary parts.

Kids should be allowed to watch any film they want to by the time they are teenagers and should be encouraged to do so by their parents. Take the scene from 'Saw' when the guy saws off part of his leg, the ear-cutting scene in 'Reservoir Dogs' or some of the particularly graphic violence in 'Fight Club'. They would make a 13 year old go tense at the time, but not upset or harmed after seeing it (and even if they were, it would be very temporarily after watching either of those examples). 'Kill Bill' may have litres of gore in it, but how could it possibly harm even a 9 year old.

Josh-B 2008-11-10 13:38:55

Ironically, most of the parents who complained about violent movies generally are more controlling parents whom their kids generally resent later on, usually making them worse off than the kids with parents who didn't care in the first place.