Do you feel that drawn cartoons are out of style?

I do. People would rather see an Anime or Computer made cartoon on TV or movie these days. For example: Disney's last 4 cartoon movies that were drawn(not including L&S) barely made half of what Monsters INC, Toy Story, Toy Story 2 made. it's also evident in TV cartoons. instead of the old Looney toons loooking cartoons, we now have shows done with computer. Even stranger styles like The Powerpuff girls and BUM are more popular. Anime is another hot trend right now. Eastren styles of cartoon are more popular with people. less detail is what people want now.

 

I think it has less to do with the format of the media than it does with whether it's a good movie or not. Coincidentally or otherwise, these CGI cartoons -- Toy Story, Monsters, Shrek, etc -- tend to be really good movies, as well. However, some of Disney's recent "animated classics" haven't been too entirely memorable.

 

In my opinion, Disney quit making high-quality animated pictures after Beauty and the Beast.

I think the torch was passed to Pixar, which is technically a Disney company, but in reality was started by Lucasfilm and does its own work. If only Disney would put out pictures that were close to the quality of Toy Story.

 

Right now, "drawn" cartoons are slowly becoming irrelevant. Ever since the release of Toy Story, film makers and producers have embraced the computer-animated form mainly because they see it as "new" and "innovative". Audiences now perceive non-CG cartoons as old-fashioned and out of date and, therefore, of lower quality.

Still, I think it's just a matter of the industry and audiences changing with the times and accepting new technology.

As for anime, I think audiences have started to accept it because it's so different from what Western audiences have been accustomed to. The western style is based around realism, while anime tends to lean toward the 'fantastic'. Further, the popularity of Japanese video games and television shows among younger people seems to have helped the 'anime' style.

 

Disney quit making high-quality animated pictures after Beauty and the Beast

Ouch, that's nasty. I still think that The Lion King is their 2nd best film ever (after The Jungle Book)

 

I don't think that drawn cartoons will go completely out of style, but their audiences will definately shrink. Drawn cartoons create a certain "look" to the movie that cannot be accomplished any other way. CGI is another "look" to a film.

One cannot say that CGI "Toy Story" looks better than say the drawn "Lion King" merely on the fact that the CGI looks more "realistic". "Toy Story" has its own visual style (shown in the stylized humans) and "Lion King" has its own style.

The main reason drawn cartoons are getting out of style is that their stories just plain stink.

EDIT:... at least with the case with the more recent cartoons.

 

when CGI series like reboot and beastwars first aired on TV i was really blown away. now i am so frigging jaded by computer generated imagery that i really don't care if the animation i done good as long as the story is great. (needles to say i didn't really like Attack of the Clones)

i find traditional animated cartoons much more appealing than CGI. just thinking about the effort it took for the animators to come up with the finished product really interests me.

 

I'm with jed-eye. The CG animation looks great but without a good story, it's nothing. Look at Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, it looked great but it's story was terribly weak (no offense to those who liked it). I liked Shrek and Toy Story because of great jokes and the awesome stories, not just because they were CG.

 

I agree, the drawn cartoon will never go out of style. Much like the written word if nothing else it will always have its place.

The point has been brought up time and time again here that its about quality not something shiney and new. Ice age did good because of its constant comparison to Shrek. Lilo did well because of good word of mouth. If you think that a mere 60 mil between Ice age and Lilo is all because of CGI well thats fine but remember that Lilo is still in the top 10 making a couple of mil a weekend. I don't think you can really count out "drawn" cartoons.

Some time down the road when CG cartoons become cheaper we'll start seeing some losers there too.

You also bring up TV show where I think that traditonal cell animation will last along time. You bring up shows like Transformers and ReBoot but there the CGI fits with the story line. There are some vastly supperior cell animated shows out there. You bring up PP girls which I think has a very distict style and then there is Jack, once again a very distinct style that couldn't really be captured with computer animation.

 

I think to say story and the filmmaking itself is the bottom line is sort of a given; instead, we need to look at the appeal of the style itself and determine if that is going away become of times.

Looking at it this way, I don't think hand drawn animation will go away soon. One of the reasons why it has always stood out is because of its distinct look and world the movies can offer. When you consider that computer animated features such as Shrek often have more in common with Attack of the Clones, the hand drawn cartoons are once again differentiated from the computer animated cartoons, and that difference will continue to give life to hand drawn animation.

 

I will always prefer to watch the WWII era Bugs Bunny cartoons over anything that is made today.

 

Amen, Salty. I'll add to that, that things made by human hands will never go out of style.

 

As long as the Simposns are around there will always be a need for hand-drawn cartoons....

DarthNut,
the nuttiest guy around.

 

I agree. I think today's CGI cartoons lack that "feel" of older cartoons.

"Transformers-The Movie", the "Spawn" HBO series, "American Pop", and "Heavy Metal" kick the tar out of Toy Sory I&II

 

Well I don't know about that...

I'd be more inclined to say that the last truly great animation came from Rankin & Bass, the guys behind The Hobbit. Aside from that, has anyone else seen Fantastic Planet? It's a rather bizarre and interesting bit of French animation from 1973. If you've ever seen The Cell, it's the movie that Jennifer Lopez's character is watching at home while enjoying a big, fat ...uh... cigarette.

[image=http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6305307156.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg]

 

I've been thinking about this lately because I've been watching all the old Disney movies I used to love, and I wondered if films like Beauty and the Beast or the Lion King would ever been seen again. What I'd really love to see are films like The Aristocats and Lady and the Tramp. Sure, the animation wasn't top notch, but the stories were wonderful, in my opinion. And I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I really can't see a fairy tale like Cinderella be made into a CGI movie. Shrek was fantastic, but it was the closest to a drama I could ever imagine CGI going. Call me crazy (you wouldn't be the first), but I just can't see a computer animated movie being on the same scale as a film like Beauty and the Beast (again, this is just my opinion and I seriously doubt anyone else shares my views). Aladdin and the Lion King, yes, since those were quite comedic and the romance and drama didn't play a crucial role.

Bottom line, I don't think hand-drawn cartoons will go away any time soon if the folks at Disney and any other companies who rely on cartoons will get back to making quality films like we've seen in the past. It seems to me that CGI will probably reign supreme in the kiddie demographic for now, and probably in the future, but I personally will always cherish the cartoons I saw as a kid and still watch quite often as a teenager. Hopefully, The Lion King won't be the last Disney cartoon I'll ever want to own.

 

"Transformers-The Movie", the "Spawn" HBO series, "American Pop", and "Heavy Metal" kick the tar out of Toy Sory I&II

I disagree. Toy Story was a landmark movie in the history of film. And Toy Story 2 did something seldom achieved by sequels: it was better than its predecessor.

 

Exactly radiohead. Well said.


and in my first post I know I made it sound like I don't like animation. Well I do, it's just that I feel it's going out of style, and the majority of people want to see more CGI movies and less animated movies.

 

And again I think you are over generalizing based upon a handful of examples.

Computer Animation on its own does not make something good or bad. One of the first TV shows to utilize CGI was Captain Power.

Does anyone here but me remember Captain Power, probably, I know I'm not the only child of the Eighties.

Do you see Captain Power on TV anymore, no. Heck I don't even remeber the last time I saw re-boot, or Transformers on TV was. On the other hand I saw bugs bunny just tonight, it has survived for half a century and I bet it will make it to the full one.

I think that you'd find alot of people in the film forums that would definatly disagree with your asertion that people want to see more CGI.

TO some extent I think that the studios are thinking the same way that you are. However it will just take a few more Jimmy Neutrons or Final Fantasys before they start to see that they aren't out of style, that story is story and a bad one with all of the bells and whistles is just as bad as a bad one drawn on a paper bag.

On a closing note IMO one of the greatest cartoon features in recent years was the Iron Giant. That movie managed to use both computer animation and intracate cell anmimation and blend them into an amazing story.

Edit: I said there was only a handful of examples and I was even a little shocked at how many feature length computer animated movies there are. There are 10.

 

I think one of the advantages of cell animation is that it's still easier to do realistic movement. The animator intuitively knows how a person looks while in motion, but it's more difficult to teach that to a computer. Movies like Shrek proved it can be done, but I also know that a huge amount of computational power went into producing that movie. By contrast, Final Fantasy was gorgeous -- the textures were spot on -- but the characters' body movements weren't quite right.

 

I am sick and tired of anime. I used to like it; I liked it before anime was considered cool. But now it is way oversaturated. You can't turn on the TV on Saturday mornings without seeing some big-eyed, super-deformed kid shouting "Taste my wrath, you villain! Dragon Power activate!"

Much of it is imported from Japan and Americanized, but it is still way too much. Particularly when American studios are trying to emulate anime (because of the success of Pokemon or whatever trite crap is the fad of the moment). Films such as Akira achieve their status not because of super-deformed character drawings, but because of good animation of the characters and a good story.

In this sense, Ralph Bakshi was right in that the anime clones would ruin modern animation. Hopefully it will shift back to a medium before its soiled forever.

 

I didn't mean on a box office standpoint, Radiohead.

While the Toy Story movies drew huge crowds, I think they are lacking a certain organic feel that the examples I mentioned have. They were mostly hand drawn, which beats computer animation any day.

 

As others have said, the key difference doens't have anything to do with the format, CGI being just a tool, but rather the story. The reason Pixar films are popular while other Disney films are not has to do with Disney's current utter laziness, as evidenced by its current obsession with releasing cheap straight to video "sequels" of its classics instead of working on original ideas. Personally, I think thats because all the talent at Disney has gone to Dreamworks to join Katzenberg.

Anyway, to get back to the point: CGI is a tool which gives the cartoon a totally unique look. Hand drawn animation will not become obsolete since it allows for different films to be made. To use painting as an analogy: CGI is Acryllic, hand-drawn is gouache.

My personal preferance remains with traditional animation. I've always been a huge fan of Don Bluth, mainly becasue he was the only person churning out great cartoons in the 80s when Disney was going bust, and I consider good Animes to be pure art (but also bad animes to be pure s*it).

 

While the Toy Story movies drew huge crowds, I think they are lacking a certain organic feel that the examples I mentioned have. They were mostly hand drawn, which beats computer animation any day.

Thanks for the clarification. I didn't realize you were referring to the aesthetic appeal of the films you listed.

 

No one else has seen Fantastic Planet?