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I think the New Disney Animation Renaissance might have topped the previous one

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You know what the Nu-Renaissance is missing?

Good villains.

In the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King you got Ursula, Gaston, Jafar and Scar.

Who do you have in the recent movies? You got who fucking cares.
And villain music! I even made a thread about it because it just hit me, hahaha!

Agreed. Mother Knows Best was nice but wasn't really a villain song until the reprise and that was very brief. Can't remember anything else.
 
Frozen is definitely not a good movie if you appreciate good storytelling.

Nope.


I managed to see it Thanksgiving day, and overall while it looked nice, the only part that looked really nice was
the glowing blue manta ray when she takes the boat to go past the reef after her grandma dies because of the glow and lighting. I didn't really think anything else shown really was a tier above any other CGI have seen recently. I did like the design of that one creepy monster when she fell into the demon pit though.

3v4KgCB.jpg


How did everything to do with Te Ka not blow your mind visually?! My jaw was on the floor the whole time!

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I have to say that while I have a preference for the 90s Renaissance films, the shit-talking about CGI as a proper medium for animation is played the fuck out.

For one, Disney himself was a fidelity man. He believed and invested in technological innovation and progressivism for the sake of the best image quality. He didn't use 2D because of artistic vision and nostalgia, and if anything hated the films that eschewed inking for the Xerox process because it looked cheaper to him, even though I'd argue the process preserved the animators' work the best. If he had the choice of modern CGI at the height of his career I have no doubt he would've taken it in a heartbeat.

Second, 2D animation isn't more expensive to produce than CGI films on the feature circuit. Look at the budgets for Princess and the Frog and Winnie the Pooh; they're peanuts compared to Tangled and Frozen, to say nothing of films like Zootopia and Moana. CGI is more specialized which requires bigger and more educated crews and far more R&D and tech support, while any bozo with a work ethic can technically make a traditional film with basic Toon Boom and Photoshop knowledge. It's not more expensive; they switched to CGI because it's simply the technological standard. It's like pining for black and white films because that's how it originally was.

Subsequently, it's also not a lazy process to produce these films. CGI has a naturally higher threshold for believability, which involves a deeper understanding of realism and motion. Eye darts are just one example; they're largely absent from 2D because it's just result in distracting wobbling. Without it in 3D, you get characters that stare soullessy. There's more details of human motion and behavior that have to be accounted for, and on top of that they still have to have the exaggeration and charm of old Disney animation. That's no easy feat at all.

Again, I love traditional animation. It's my go to for inspiration, and it's resulted in wonderful memories and films for me. But can we please cut back on the Luddism? It's 2016 already.

Amen.
 
You know what the Nu-Renaissance is missing?

Good villains.

In the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King you got Ursula, Gaston, Jafar and Scar.

Who do you have in the recent movies? You got who fucking cares.
On the other hand I'm very appreciative of Moana for subverting this. Not everything in the world comes down to good vs. evil and I find many Disney/Pixar films are undercut by throwing in someone evil for the sake of easy conflict.

In general I agree with you though. The recent trend towards "Surprise this seemingly innocuous character was the villainous mastermind!" that they'd done four times in a row (starting with Wreck-It Ralph and culminating in Zootopia) was an attempt to make up for the villains themselves not being very compelling. I'd say only Mother Gothel and Facilier have been decent villains from the past decade or so, and they're the only films of the new renaissance (save Pooh and Moana) that didn't rely on this trick.

Come to think of it, did Bolt have an antagonist? idk
 

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Bolt didn't have a villain too, in Bolt's case it was because the whole point of the movie is realism.
 

DOWN

Banned
I just saw Moana and absolutely don't expect that list of New Renaissance films To be held in as high regard is that original Renaissance

The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast are some of the most impactful hits ever in animation. That's only true for Frozen from the new list, and even that film seems basic to me. Even Pocahontas and Mulan seem to have more adult attention than the new ones

Moana was cute but it's music didn't splash like the tracks from the first Renaissance did in pop culture and awards either.
 
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