Is dreamworkand bluesky animation finally onthe level of Pixar animation?

[tlmaclennan]

Originally Posted by LynxFX

Just trying to read this thread makes my head hurt.

Agreed.

Everyone can have opinions and like some Dreamworks movies over Pixar movies. Pixar isn't God at what they do and have slipped up from time to time. But I don't think that anyone can say when you compare all of Dreamworks' films to Pixar's films that Dreamworks has the edge. It's just not the case.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Most Dreamworks animated films are ugly, filled with grotesque character designs like in Shrek, Antz, and Shark's Tale. Only Kung Fu Panda looked pleasing to the eye. They finally got their designs and art direction right with that film. Madagascar was also a step in the right direction in terms of design, though I prefer Kung Fu Panda more myself. Aliens vs. Monsters has some decent designs of the main monsters and alien villain, but the people looked weird.

The animation has always been stiff in the Dreamworks features, especially the early ones. (I think PDI did the animation for them back then. I don't know if they still do it these days.) The character animation moved like rubber puppets and rarely used any dynamic poses. Madagascar tried to break away from this, using a snappier pose-to-pose style of animation that was only half successful. Kung Fu Panda had much better animation. At least it wasn't wooden like the other Dreamworks films.

Dreamworks also panders to their audiences, putting in pop culture references just for them, even though those references will date the movie badly. Plus there seems to be a rule that every movie has to have a joke about flatulence.


Pixar films look beautiful and slick, the exception being Cars, where the main characters are bland looking, like cheap plastic toys. Most of their films have good animation, especially Ratatouille (reminds me of 1940's cartoon animation), The Incredibles, and Toy Story 2. Cars had the dullest animation. The former pictures had great stories, told in interesting ways, and had character development and depth to them. They also took some risks in the Toy Story films, Finding Nemo and Brad Bird's efforts. The Incredibles is the most adult of Pixar's films so far.

The problems with Pixar is that sometimes they are too gentle and soft, obviously because they are trying to be family friendly. For all the risks they took in the films I listed, they played it safe with the rest -- lots of phoney moments of "heart". (I think Cars was a big step backward for them, and the worst of there features so far.) Their shorts are never really that funny, except for Presto. Dreamworks at least wants to make us really laugh.

Bluesky is somewhere in the middle. They have good art direction, their designs are more in the cartoon realm like Pixar, and less in the photorealism realm like the worst of Dreamworks (you know, like Shrek with all his pores, hairs and moles, etc.) Robots was the weakest of the Bluesky films. The first Ice Age had some great moments of silent comedy with Scrat. If only the entire film could have been like that.

[DarkDune]

Originally Posted by LynxFX

Just trying to read this thread makes my head hurt.

So does this



I will have to check out Kung-Fu Panda

[mixalotboy]

Originally Posted by DarkDune

So does this



I will have to check out Kung-Fu Panda

When you look at Kungfu Panda on bluray you will see dreamwork improvement compared to antz which was a laughing stock ,when Pixar buglife embarassed them in the past,also checkout madagascar2 and the Upcoming monster versus alien on Bluray too.You will see why I am upset with pixar Movies Up and Walle compared to those movies.

[Steelmaker]

Originally Posted by mixalotboy

When you look at Kungfu Panda on bluray you will see dreamwork improvement compared to antz which was a laughing stock ,when Pixar buglife embarassed them in the past,also checkout madagascar2 and the Upcoming monster versus alien on Bluray too.You will see why I am upset with pixar Movies Up and Walle compared to those movies.

Wha??

Dude I'll give you Kung Fu Panda. That was very good movie and looks beautiful on blu ray. However there is no freaking way you are comparing Monsters vs Aliens with Wall.E and Up! It is not even in the same league as those 2, hell it's not even in the same league with Kung Fu Panda! MvA was a step backwards for Dreamworks imo. After the beatiful and charming story of Kung Fu Panda, Dreamworks reverts back to their old ways in MvA by flooding it with pop culture references and toilet humor.

[fighthefutureofhd]

Originally Posted by fatediesel

Isn't Tim Allen still the guy from Home Improvement? He hasn't done a lot since that show ended. I agree though that Pixar doesn't go looking for the biggest stars possible. Look at Up. Absolutely no huge names, especially that kids would recognize.

ed asner is a huge television actor that most people on earth know.

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

None of which were box office powerhouses when that film recorded.



With the exception of perhaps Billy Crystal, none of these actors were like Angelina Jolie, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Will Smith, etc.



Not really though, and films like Ratatouille or WALL*E have no "A" listers whatsoever.

what? the actors mentioned are huge, huge stars, madeline kahn and james coburn are big, big stars. as is john goodman and not to mention annie potts. holly hunter is an academy award winning actress. sorry, but your idea of pixar not using any a listers is totally wrong.

[LynxFX]

Originally Posted by fighthefutureofhd

what? the actors mentioned are huge, huge stars, madeline kahn and james coburn are big, big stars. as is john goodman and not to mention annie potts. holly hunter is an academy award winning actress. sorry, but your idea of pixar not using any a listers is totally wrong.

No he is pretty much right on. It isn't that Pixar doesn't get high quality talent, they absolutely do. They just don't do flavor of the month stunt casting that most animation film studios do. Just look at their trailers, the only one I could find of their past 10 movies that mentioned any of the voice talent by name was Cars and that was just Paul Newman and Owen Wilson. Not even a mention of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen in the first Toy Story. They do get a throw away mention at the titlecard in the Toy Story 2 trailer. Every other studio though, they name every single one of their stars as often as they can.

This isn't to say that other studio's casting sucks, there is some really good casting in some of those films, Pixar just happens to be the only animation studio that truly tries to cast based on the part and not on the star power.

And seriously, Annie Potts or Madeline Kahn? Yeah slapping their names on the marquee will get people in the seats. Annie is a character actress that usually gets the "You know that woman who was in that film, played the dorky girl....what's her name." That isn't the definition of A list.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by fighthefutureofhd

ed asner is a huge television actor that most people on earth know.
what? the actors mentioned are huge, huge stars, madeline kahn and james coburn are big, big stars. as is john goodman and not to mention annie potts. holly hunter is an academy award winning actress. sorry, but your idea of pixar not using any a listers is totally wrong.

This isn't the 1970's (James Coburn, Madeline Kahn, Roddy McDowell, Ed Asner). Gen-X & Y, and certainly their children didn't grow up watching films with these stars as the headliners. They were big stars, to the boomer & greatest (WWII) generations.

I like John Goodman quite a bit, but he's a supporting/character actor, like in Raising Arizona, Arachnophobia, etc. Films he's headlined like King Ralph and The Babe didn't exactly break box office records. Annie Potts? I remember her best from either Corvette Summer or the Ghostbusters films (again, a supporting role), or on television in Designing Women. Not a headliner and not getting multimillion paydays like Jolie, Black, Meyers, etc.

[Icedburden]

I have never been disappointed by a Pixar film with the exception of Cars, but that's because it was a good movie, not the great movie everyone made it out to be. It was their weakest, and for a good movie to be your weakest that is saying something. I did enjoy Kung Fu Panda and Horton Hears A Who though, regarding other movies from competing studios.

[nbxfan]

Dreamworks has some good movies but they lack consistency. It's hard to beat Prince of Egypt IMO. One of the best animated movies ever. I also greatly enjoyed Over The Hedge and Kung Fu Panda but, Pixar is still king. Again my oppinion. Only other possible company that could come close is Studio Ghibli or Disney...

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by LynxFX

And seriously, Annie Potts or Madeline Kahn? Yeah slapping their names on the marquee will get people in the seats. Annie is a character actress that usually gets the "You know that woman who was in that film, played the dorky girl....what's her name." That isn't the definition of A list.

Ghostbusters! The secretary!

But yeah, Pixar doesn't cast big stars for star power. Owen Wilson is really the only one who is both a big star and would have a chance of drawing a kid's attention, but I challenge anyone to say that he didn't play the part well. And sure, Tom Hanks was established to a degree before Toy Story was cast, but Tom Hanks is absolutely not going to bring in the kids.

Originally Posted by nbxfan

Pixar is still king. Again my oppinion. Only other possible company that could come close is Studio Ghibli or Disney...

I'd say that Studio Ghibli's "misses" are due to cultural differences more than anything else, at least from as far as I've seen. And Disney's "duds" are a lot less apparent when you recognize that Disney has pushed out something like 4 times as many animated movies as Pixar over the years, and throughout, Disney has managed to keep duds to a relative minimum. If Pixar can keep up their pace for as long as Disney has so far, while remaining culturally relevant, then it would be appropriate to dethrone the likes of Disney in favor of little ol' Pixar.

But it's funny you would talk about Disney animation studios, Pixar, and Studio Ghibli all in one breath. All fall under the Disney umbrella in the States.

[depooter]

I'm a little bias, but I think the bottom line is that Pixar films are filled with great characters, memorable stories and lots of heart..

DreamWorks films are entertaining popcorn fare....

[nbxfan]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

But it's funny you would talk about Disney animation studios, Pixar, and Studio Ghibli all in one breath. All fall under the Disney umbrella in the States.

I'm glad Disney at least is licensing or whatever you call it so that more people are aware of Ghibli's works. I just don't really see it as falling under Disney because they have nothing to do with them and outside of theater and DVD releases their is nothing else tied with Disney about them. Pixar they have at least taken a step farther by merchandising and creating rides and soon to come lands for Pixar movies. Not that it matters but, as a huge Anime fan I had seen all of the Ghibli movies long before being released here. I have yet to see their two latest but am looking forward to Ponyo next month.

It's kind of the same as Dreamworks partnering or releasing Aardman Animations Wallace and Gromit.

[mixalotboy]

Disney owned all three studio,dreamworks,gil,and Pixar but relied on Pixar to bail them out on their movie dud project.The other company use their own resources.pixar playing safemode and dreamwork taking the all out risk with their movies ,kungfu panda did a great job and monster versus alien my wife didnot enjoy it but I like it in 3d mode because it look pretty good on screen .Up didnot struck me I don't think it was like all of pixar great one even meet the robinson was better than up which pixar help disney with that movie.

[Afrobean]

Disney doesn't own Studio Ghibli, they just distribute.

[fatediesel]

Originally Posted by mixalotboy

Disney owned all three studio,dreamworks,gil,and Pixar but relied on Pixar to bail them out on their movie dud project.The other company use their own resources.pixar playing safemode and dreamwork taking the all out risk with their movies ,kungfu panda did a great job and monster versus alien my wife didnot enjoy it but I like it in 3d mode because it look pretty good on screen .Up didnot struck me I don't think it was like all of pixar great one even meet the robinson was better than up which pixar help disney with that movie.

Disney has never had any affiliation with Dreamworks, much less ownership.

[Elandyll]

Meet the Robinsons was better than UP ?

To each their own I guess

[P@t_Mtl]

I got to agree,

Meet The Robinson is not bad but better then Up????