Next Gen (Tangent Animation, Netflix)

[esteban²]

Why Did Netflix Pay $30 Million At Cannes For The Chinese Animated Film ‘Next Gen’?

If you’re keeping up with news out of Cannes, one of the biggest deals so far at the festival this year is for a computer animated feature.

Netflix has paid a whopping $30 million for Next Gen, which marks the feature directorial debut of animation and vfx veterans Kevin R. Adams (art director, Free Birds, 9) and Joe Ksander (animation director, Yogi Bear, 9).

The deal definitely caught our attention. It’s an obscenely large sum to pay for streaming rights to a foreign animated feature that appears to be already completed, doesn’t have ‘name’ directors, comes from a Chinese company that has no track record of animated features, and doesn’t offer any A-listers in its voice cast (the English voices include Charlyne Yi, Jason Sudeikis, David Cross, Michael Pena, and Constance Wu).

Industry site Deadline, which first reported the sale, noted that there was “competitive bidding” for the project. They didn’t report though why the project is attracting so much attention from distributors, and none of the other media sources that subsequently republished the news added any new details, beyond the initial report that the robot-filled film is based on the original online comic 7723 (pictured below) by Wang Nima.

After a bit of digging, Cartoon Brew learned that Nima is the founder and editor of China’s leading ‘rage comics’ website Baozou Manhua.
Rage comics, and their offshoot biaoqing (“facial expressions”) are hugely popular in China — this Vice piece is a primer on the subject.

The film looks nothing like the comics, and uses standardized cg aesthetics. The only image from it released so far is the one below, which appears on the film’s barely-updated presence on Twitter and Facebook.

Baozou financed and produced the film, which Chinese majors Alibaba and Wanda will release in China this summer.

Netflix won global rights to Next Gen, except for China, where the streamer doesn’t operate. There’s no word yet on when Netflix will launch the film on its service.

The animation for Next Gen was produced in Canada at Tangent Animation, which also made the animated feature Ozzy.

[esteban²]

Next Gen | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix - YouTube

Netflix has released a trailer for the Chinese cg animated feature Next Gen, previously announced in May. In competitive bidding, the streaming service paid a hefty $30 million for rights to the film, which marks the feature directorial debut of animation and vfx veterans Kevin R. Adams (art director, Free Birds, 9) and Joe Ksander (animation director, Yogi Bear, 9).

The film launches on Netflix September 7. The English cast includes John Krasinski, Charlyne Yi, Jason Sudeikis, David Cross, Michael Pena, and Constance Wu.

Based on the online comic 7723 by ‘Wang Nima,’ Next Gen was financed and produced by his company Baozou Manhua, which popularized “rage comics” in China. A few months ago, Nima’s online media empire was targeted by Chinese authorities and he was accused of “insulting” and “slandering” the names of Chinese heroes and martyrs. According to this in-depth report on the situation, Nima has offered “profound apologies” for bringing an “unhealthy influence” on Chinese society.

The animation for Next Gen was made using Blender software at Canada’s Tangent Animation, which also made the animated feature Ozzy.

Here is the Chinese poster...

[Wildcat2000]

Looks pretty good. Reminds me of Big Hero 6.

[esteban²]

Indeed. It's made with Blender Software, which is open source. And for a relatively small budget. Considering that, I'm actually amazed by how good this looks.

[esteban²]

[kylor]

This is a decent movie. I was never bored with it at any point.

I do have a gripe with this film though, which stops it from being amazing, at least for me personally.

[Show spoiler]The robot has to delete memories through the movie, which is fine by me -- but there was a huge plot hole. The "first" memory of the robot meeting the girl, shouldn't exist. After the girl meets the robot for the first time, the robot winds up losing his "memory chip" from a fall from the highway. The chip that would hold the "memories" the robot has recorded up until that point of falling. Yet, losing that chip had no effect at all on the robot somehow keeping the memory recordings.

Then, near the end of the movie, the robot gets a replacement memory chip. Well we already know that the chip doesn't affect the storage of memory recordings, right? Wrong. Once the new memory chip is installed, it starts to delete the memory recordings (so NOW it affects it? Come on! ). But fair enough, it was dramatic and emotional so I rolled with it, thinking that "maybe the professor who built the robot will transfer the memories on the new memory chip to help". Nope. The professor dies super anti-climatically. Super underwhelming, IMO.

then I thought "oh well, it's gonna happen so the robot may as well go balls to the wall and end it all with a bang". Granted, the film does deliver this. I got to thinking "hey, once he resets and has no more memories, some supernatural thing happens like the robot grows a human soul or something and his memories return, or it glitches and the memories somehow reappear". Nope. The memories stay gone and the robot and the girl have to start completely over.

It wasn't what I expected. And while I do admire things going unexpectedly (The Last Jedi for example, I love it), this just fell flat for me.

Still, there was some nice easter eggs I noticed. There was a large circular building, which looked like it came straight out of Star Wars: Rebels. I think there must have been some animator(s) working on this film who worked on Rebels, and was subtly letting you know about it. Then there was the unicorn origami easter egg, straight from Blade Runner. The "villain" loses an eye, looks like a reference to the first Terminator movie. Pretty cool.

4/5. Could have been better, but still a decent movie regardless.