I know you’re all waiting for my thoughts, but that’s not what this is about. Rather, seeing it reconfirmed my concern about theatrically-animated movies. Because we’re riding a wave of visually-inventive animation from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It wasn’t immediate, but the ripple effects are starting to reverberate, and now every movie’s copying it. And while that inventiveness is good, I’m worried it might overstay its welcome.
Playing around with visual styles isn’t necessarily bad. That’s how innovation and adaptation happen. However, this could have unfortunate consequences for more traditional styles of animation, crowding them out and forcing them to die off. That, and I’m positive this new style will reach an over-saturation point. But to explain why, let’s go back to Pixar’s heyday. Let’s dive into what happened post-Toy Story.
Toy Story practically changed the animation industry overnight. It wasn’t Pixar’s first project, as they had small successes in short films and TV commercials prior. It also wasn’t the first use of CGI, as small bits of the technology had been used all through the 80’s and early-90’s. But Toy Story was definitely the first, fully-CGI animated film, really pushing the limits of the medium. It was also a critical and financial hit. For the first time ever, it was possible to tell a story with this technology, even if only for 81-minutes.
So how did Pixar respond to this? Simple: they followed it with another hit 3 years later. And another the following year. And then one 2 years after. By the mid-2000’s, Pixar’s influence was being felt in the industry, with other animation studios trying their hands at CGI. Unfortunately, the success of these movies also caused traditionally-animated movies to feel antiquated. Said movies stopped being financially-viable, started dropping in quality and fell out of favour. Even with Disney’s attempted revival, it simply wasn’t a big draw anymore.
Complicating matters was over-saturation. CGI was making huge jumps yearly, and animation was no exception, but the quality of some of the films was slipping. For every hit like The Incredibles, you had something like Shark Tale. People were exploiting it like no tomorrow, and it showed. And even once the quality control began to pick up, a new problem emerged: how realistic is too realistic?
This is something I first noticed with Rango. I happen to love Rango. It’s my favourite animated movie of 2011, and it has one of my favourite chase scenes on film. It also looks beautiful, capturing the majesty of the desert town. But its sole human character looks really ugly. I don’t mean that in a “he looks like an old man” way, but rather a “he looks like an Uncanny Valley monstrosity” way. He’s the limitations of photorealistic CGI animation actualized.
Complicating matters was over-saturation. CGI was making huge jumps yearly, and animation was no exception, but the quality of some of the films was slipping. For every hit like The Incredibles, you had something like Shark Tale. People were exploiting it like no tomorrow, and it showed. And even once the quality control began to pick up, a new problem emerged: how realistic is too realistic?
This is something I first noticed with Rango. I happen to love Rango. It’s my favourite animated movie of 2011, and it has one of my favourite chase scenes on film. It also looks beautiful, capturing the majesty of the desert town. But its sole human character looks really ugly. I don’t mean that in a “he looks like an old man” way, but rather a “he looks like an Uncanny Valley monstrosity” way. He’s the limitations of photorealistic CGI animation actualized.
That’s the problem that CGI animation started running into. As environments and background details began looking more lifelike, to the point of being difficult to tell apart from reality, the character models kept falling into The Uncanny Valley. Alternatively, the cartoony character models looked out of place in the environments. And sometimes, as with Beowulf, you had both issues simultaneously.
This is something that, thankfully, has been rectified with movies like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Those kinds of experiences aren’t striving for photorealism. Rather, they’re focusing on simulated reality through stylization. If the “Pixar look” is about pushing the envelope of reality, these movies are about challenging that. They’re arguing that there’s only so far to push the envelope before you turn people off, something Pixar has begun recognizing and scaling back.
Which brings me to my original concern. On one hand, these movies are taking a unique approach, showing that realism isn’t the only answer. On the other hand, they’re crowding out more conventional forms of CGI animation, making them feel obsolete. They’re essentially, drowning out variety. Sound familiar?
This is something that, thankfully, has been rectified with movies like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Those kinds of experiences aren’t striving for photorealism. Rather, they’re focusing on simulated reality through stylization. If the “Pixar look” is about pushing the envelope of reality, these movies are about challenging that. They’re arguing that there’s only so far to push the envelope before you turn people off, something Pixar has begun recognizing and scaling back.
Which brings me to my original concern. On one hand, these movies are taking a unique approach, showing that realism isn’t the only answer. On the other hand, they’re crowding out more conventional forms of CGI animation, making them feel obsolete. They’re essentially, drowning out variety. Sound familiar?
Another issue is quality. When is “enough” enough? When does the new format become the norm, such that the quality drops? And when does this new style reach its version of The Uncanny Valley?
Honestly, I want variety. Pixar’s gotten flak recently for “not keeping up”, but that misses what they bring to the table. Ignoring films like Luca and Turning Red, both of which are excellent, Pixar’s strength lies in making photorealistic animation work. They not only get its limitations, mostly, they also keep pushing and innovating them. That’s crucial in the conversation of animation and isn’t valued or acknowledged enough, and I’m afraid it’ll get lost in this new trend.
I’m not disparaging this new crop of movies. This is an exciting time for animation, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and Wish both look amazing! But I don’t want the new to crowd out and replace the old. I don’t want a repeat of traditional animation in the 2000’s. That’s not good for the medium.
Honestly, I want variety. Pixar’s gotten flak recently for “not keeping up”, but that misses what they bring to the table. Ignoring films like Luca and Turning Red, both of which are excellent, Pixar’s strength lies in making photorealistic animation work. They not only get its limitations, mostly, they also keep pushing and innovating them. That’s crucial in the conversation of animation and isn’t valued or acknowledged enough, and I’m afraid it’ll get lost in this new trend.
I’m not disparaging this new crop of movies. This is an exciting time for animation, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and Wish both look amazing! But I don’t want the new to crowd out and replace the old. I don’t want a repeat of traditional animation in the 2000’s. That’s not good for the medium.
I’m also not romanticizing traditional animation. Not only was plenty of it garbage, but even the good stuff often had racist and sexist coding. Every format of storytelling has its trash, animation included! But there’s a charm to traditional animation that, while not “better”, isn’t present in CGI animation, photorealistic or stylized. And it deserves acknowledgment in the greater conversation, much like photorealism.
Movies, irrespective of style, are hard to make. Pixar films, in particular, take roughly 6 years on average to complete, largely because of what goes into them on all levels. That’s not “laziness”, even if it’s not always appealing. It’s not always “exciting”, but insisting that Pixar “hasn’t kept up” is dishonest criticism. Especially since Lord and Miller, the visionaries behind this new trend, are human and, therefore, prone to eventually “getting it wrong”. I only hope that doesn’t happen too late in the game.
And Elemental? Please see it. It’s not Pixar’s best movie, but it’s enjoyable. It also doesn’t deserve to become a box-office bomb, as that’ll put another nail in the coffin for original stories. That, and it’ll send the wrong message to the higher ups. It’s bad enough that Pixar’s last 3 years were difficult without that.
Movies, irrespective of style, are hard to make. Pixar films, in particular, take roughly 6 years on average to complete, largely because of what goes into them on all levels. That’s not “laziness”, even if it’s not always appealing. It’s not always “exciting”, but insisting that Pixar “hasn’t kept up” is dishonest criticism. Especially since Lord and Miller, the visionaries behind this new trend, are human and, therefore, prone to eventually “getting it wrong”. I only hope that doesn’t happen too late in the game.
And Elemental? Please see it. It’s not Pixar’s best movie, but it’s enjoyable. It also doesn’t deserve to become a box-office bomb, as that’ll put another nail in the coffin for original stories. That, and it’ll send the wrong message to the higher ups. It’s bad enough that Pixar’s last 3 years were difficult without that.
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