In Defence of Computer Animation

Stop me if you’ve heard this before:

“Traditional animation is dead! It’s all computers these days! Computer-generated animation will never top that of the 90’s and early-2000’s! I’m a wiener dog with three heads and five butts! Woof!”

I may have fabricated those last two points. But the general sentiment is one I’ve heard routinely: traditional animation was amazing, and CGI animation can never top it. I won’t discredit the former, as, in many ways, I agree. But I think saying, “traditional = good, CGI = bad” is dishonest and unfair.

Let’s back up a bit: despite being ubiquitous now, there was a time when computer animation, let-alone computer-anything, was non-existent. For decades, filmmakers made due with no computers. They had to work with the tools they had, and they did; in fact, some of the most-memorable scenes in film were done with miniatures, fake props, trick photography and stop-motion animation. Even with traditional animation, which evolved alongside the medium, crafters had to use techniques like rotoscoping and layering to make their work feel lived-in and real. The results speak for themselves.

It wasn’t until the late-70’s and early-80’s that CGI was regularly used in filmmaking, thanks to the rise of computer technology. And while this’d remain on the sidelines at first, it was with Toy Story that everyone saw what CGI animation could do. It looks fake now, true, but the attention to detail in Toy Story won John Lasseter an Honorary Oscar at the 1996 Academy Awards. Toy Story revolutionized animation almost single-handedly.

And filmmakers took note. Beginning in 1998, following the Antz/A Bug’s Life war, it became obvious that CGI animation wasn’t a one-trick pony. It was here to stay, demonstrated by the increasing number of CGI ventures and their returns at the box-office. Audiences were eating up the possibilities of CGI animation! Yet with that came the downside of traditional animation falling to the wayside, to the point where it almost seemed to vanish.

There was a period where Disney tried reviving traditional animation. Between 2009 and 2011, Disney released The Princess and the Frog and Winnie-the-Pooh in-between computer-generated films every alternating year. But that was short-lived, with Disney shutting down their traditional animation division in 2013. It’s a shame because, despite loving Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, I enjoyed Winnie-the-Pooh and think it could’ve been a hit had it not been released when it was. But it flopped financially, and we haven’t seen another mainstream, traditionally animated venture from Hollywood in 8 years.

Why do I mention this? For two reasons. First, to give context to people’s frustrations. And second, to help explain how everything progressed. But outside of that, I think people are overreacting when they say that traditional animation’s better than CGI animation. They’re different, and one’s not inherently better.

Besides, like Sage Hyden mentioned in one of his Just Write videos, there’s a certain restrictiveness that comes with traditional animation. For all its brilliance, traditional animation limits its camera. Most of its shots are drawn on a flat plane, with curvature and depth of field relegated to trick photography. Even with 90’s animation being helped by computer rendering, there’s still an element of straining that goes on for more complex moments. All you need to do is look at a 90’s Disney pan or swerve-shot.

CGI animation doesn’t have that limitation. Whereas traditional animation’s restricted, CGI animation embraces the horizons. There are so many camera techniques that are only possible with it, and the storytelling possibilities are more diverse. And even within CGI, there’s a spectrum: you can go the Pixar “photorealism” route, or the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse route of super-stylization. Traditional animation doesn’t quite have that range.

Also, and this needs stressing, CGI’s much cheaper than traditional animation. In days of yore, animators would spend hours drawing single frames, and the budgets would swell. With CGI, however, most of that work’s done with computers, freeing up time to do more with the movie. It might look “cleaner” than traditional animation, but it’s a trade-off. It also saves money to use, by the way.

I’m not saying traditional animation should disappear forever. I wish it’d make a comeback in some form in The West. I’m also not denying that a lot of CGI movies are badly-written messes, because many are. But claiming there wasn’t a lot of garbage back in the day is being selective with nostalgia. Because there was a lot of bad, traditional animation!

I’d like both forms to be respected for what they are. Traditional animation, being the older format, should be respected for its long list of innovations, and even how it continues to push the envelope now. And CGI animation, being younger, should have room to innovate and break boundaries, which it’s definitely been doing. And yeah, they can even intersect! Why not?

But to write-off CGI animation as “inferior” is dishonest. It’s not, it’s different. It serves different goals, and it charts different waters. To claim otherwise is ignorance, and no one wants that!