A Veritable Herd of Animated Dinosaurs!

As you may have guessed, I like dinosaurs a lot.  I like animation a lot.  And I love animated dinosaurs.  So the past couple of weeks have been awesome in that respect.  Firstly, the first episode of David James Armsby's "Dinosauria" is out and it is beautiful!

Armsby also posted this incredible making-of video and I don't know what impresses me more: the cancelled "All Days" series, the sculpture, or the "Dinosauria" series scrapbook.

And there's a teaser for the upcoming second episode.  Baby Troodons!  Fuzzy Pachyrhinosaurs!

And on top of all this, Dr. Mark Witton joined the "Fantasy/Animation Podcast" for an episode about "The Land Before Time", where they discuss the strangely intertwined history of dinosaurs and animation and the film's place in the Dinosaur Renaissance.

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Art of the Day!

I can't believe it's already the penultimate day of Sci-Art September.  What a great time!  I shared a lot of mostly paleoart and hopped on the "Dinosauria" fanart train:

On the Deleted Scenes from "The Land Before Time"

 I promised you animation and dinosaurs, didn't I?

That nearly a million dollars worth of content was deleted from the original "Land Before Time" is one of the greatest legends of that small but significant border town between paleoart and animation where I live.  Exactly what that content would have looked like was a big mystery, but this nice brief documentary from the channel Scribbles to Screens clears quite a lot up.  And while it does end on a sad note of we're probably never going to see the actual footage for ourselves, there's a lot of excellent rare animation art that has been found, and it is wonderful to see.  (A highlight is the concept art of the Oasis scene, where the Crown-Heads turn out to be victims of a Great Nomenclature Mixup.  A very long time ago, for some reason, Troodon was first described as a Pachycephalosaur.  And so the Crown-Heads are Pachycephalosaurs... with distinctive large talons.)  We also get a nice overview of the history of Don Bluth and his studio, which is always fun to see.

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Draw Dinovember Day 11 - So, Don Bluth Has a Kickstarter...

It's to fund a pitch for a hand-drawn "Dragon's Lair" movie.  I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this, but at least you're getting more for your donation now than you would have about a week ago.

Anyhow, here are some "Land Before Time" characters from memory.

I've Been Extremely Busy Lately So Here Come Links Of Interest!

Without further ado...

* - First of all, Flying Trilobite has a new website!

* - Ethan Kocak of "The Black Mudpuppy" has been drawing an outstanding "Tetrapod Zoology" comic.

* - Meredith Woerner of io9 pretty much confirmed my worst fears about "Maleficent".

* - Try not to cry during this Blank on Blank animation of one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last interviews.

* - Between the latest entry in the Laser Age series and the Movie of the Week features about "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", the Dissolve has been knocking it out of the park.

* - The bizarre psychology of false beliefs.

* - Tough Pigs is working their way through "The Jim Henson Hour" in it's entirety and reviewing every episode.

* - Michael Crawford of Progress City did a nice overview of the history of the Disney Afternoon.

* - We know a few more plot details for "Jurassic Park 4ever After" and... they're *a little* reassuring.  A *little*.

* - Passport to Dreams' "The Age of Not Believing" explores a very odd period in the history of (mostly live-action) Disney feature films.

* - Why scary stories are good for kids, via Muddy Colors.

* - The new podcast KnightRaptor is quite good.

* - It's no news that Cartoon Network has a weird (to put it kindly) attitude towards toys, but man, they screwed up big by not producing this astounding thing.

* - And finally, here's a circa 1988 promotional video of Sullivan/Bluth studios in Ireland.  It's fascinating, yet sad in a way that's hard to put into words.

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Sketch of the Day! A Unicorn for Sketch Dailies:

Some Last-Minute Christmas Eve Thoughts on "The Small One"

It has only just occurred to me that (A) there's almost no holiday-themed content on the ol' Obligatory Art Blog this year and (B) I do not believe that I have yet shared one of my vaguest, strangest, and yet possibly most significant childhood memories that involves Christmas and animation.  Well, it's finally time to resolve that.

Every year for the five years I attended my elementary school, just before they let us out for winter break, us students were all herded down into the auditorium/cafeteria.  We all sat down cross-legged and watched an animated short film entitled "The Small One".  I don't even remember if it was shown on two television sets and VCRs working simultaneously or if they managed to have an actual film copy (if it was the latter case, then at least this yearly tradition would be easier to explain... kinda).  Every single student in the school had to participate in this odd, unexplained little ritual, so I grew up watching this odd relic of 70's-era Disney animation every single year for five years in a row.

My only concrete memories involve sitting uncomfortably in the cafetorium, going home with the "Clink Clink / Clank Clank / Get the money to the bank" song wedged in my head, and that one year (fifth grade I think) when the secretary who came on the loudspeaker accidentally identified the film as "The Little One" and every student in the room muttered the correct title immediately after her gaffe.

But I mostly remember being a "Land Before Time"-obsessed kid and noticing Bluth's credit in the opening titles for the first time.  Which blew my mind and then filled it with lots of questions I wouldn't learn the answers to for years and years.

As an adult, now I know that this strange little short that runs just under a half-hour was made in that very strange and tumultuous time period for Don Bluth, Walt Disney Animation, and Richard Rich (who was also involved in this short) during the late 70's and early 80's.  It was released around Christmas in 1978 (oh, holy night, it's just months younger than I am!) to accompany a theatrical re-release of "Pinocchio".  And it was basically a demonstration of what the current animation team at Disney could do.  Compared to, you know, freaking "Pinocchio".  No pressure.

It turns out that this would be the final film that Don Bluth would work on as a Disney animator.  I'm unsure if the same is true of Richard Rich (John Pomeroy was also involved and shares some tantalizing stories here.)  At any rate, watching the short now, it feels an awful lot more like one of their films than the films Disney was making at the time, even the ones that had the greatest influence from the two future directors.  Honestly, it's a showcase of both Bluth and Rich's worst and best impulses.  It's not as oppressively sad as Rich's "The Fox and the Hound" or "The Rescuers", but there is a noticeable pathos throughout.  The characters have a distinctly Bluthian look to them.  For me, the weirdest thing is that because I watched this movie over and over and over throughout my young life, it may have had the biggest influence on me back then; I was a Don Bluth fan before I understood who he was.   And I am very very happy to say that it holds up.

For more -err- Bluthiness, check out my Don Bluth Month series.

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Sketch of the Day!  Happy Holidays to all!

Links Of Interest - What Am I Even Doing Anymore Edition!

Right. 

* - First off, the Savannah College of Art and Design has a stunning collection of Don Bluth animation art, including art from never-made films, some of which they have recently posted online.

* - Jim Hill wrote this touching article about Boston.

* - Tom Bancroft wrote an evenhanded reaction to the Disney animation studio layoffs.

* - Filmspotting SVU watched Don Hertzfeldt's "It's Such a Beautiful Day" and discussed it and other unusual animated features.

* - "Futurama" has been re-cancelled.  I'm surprisingly not too upset about this.  They had a good run.

* - Everything is Terrible just wrapped up Puppet Week and it is incredible.

* - Tim Brayton of Antagony and Ecstasy wrote a guest post for The Film Experience reflecting on "Jurassic Park".

* - Mark Witton basically wondered if the word "reptile" even means anything anymore.

* - Mark also wrote the blog post I've always wanted to.

* - If any one movie begged for a muckraking, nobody involved in the making of the damned thing is spared, everyone is called-out on their WTFery, "How the hell did this even happen" Final Cut/Devil's Candy/Monster-style "Behind the Scenes" book, it's..... Well, it's "Radio Flyer" (1992). If we're talking about any ONE movie, I mean.  But until that happens, here's a long article that helps explain why the "Super Mario Bros" movie is the way it is.

* - We're getting a movie based on the Bone Wars!

* - Start using these obsolete words!  The owls demand it!

Links of Interest - Disney Cruise Recovery Edition!

Well, I just got back from my family's very first Disney Cruise Line experience.  It'll take a while to sort through everything and get the trip report accomplished.  So until then, have a good old Links of Interest post!

* - First off, new "Hobbit" trailer!  New "Hobbit" trailer!  New "Hobbit" trailer!!!

* - Oh dear lord, this XKCD strip...  Don't miss the zoomable version.

* - My Year of Flops takes on the biggest flop of the year and attempts to parse the thinking behind the truly insane "Oogieloves' Big Balloon Adventure".

* - Speaking of insane ideas for movies, Warner Bros. (*sigh*) is going to make yet another attempt (*sigh*) at a Looney Tunes movie (*sigh*...  Believe me, I'd like to be optimistic for this. But after years of "Space Jam", "Baby Looney Tunes", "Loonatics Unleashed", "Back in Action", those recent weird Flash and CGI cartoons, and other, worse things, I'm pretty much conditioned to anticipate any officially sanctioned new thing involving these characters with dread.)

* - If you happen to be at Walt Disney World on the week of October 1, don't miss the special events being held to celebrate Epcot's 30'th anniversary.

* - Passport to Dreams Old and New shares the strange history of the segment of WDW's Magic Kingdom now known as Storybook Circus, observations on it's current incarnation, as well as where the look of Toontown in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" might have come from.

* - Holy crap, "Saving Mr. Banks" is actually happening!  With Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, yet!

* - Geek Dad reviews the "Chuck Jones' Mouse Chronicles" DVD collection.

* - TetZoo informs us that iguanas may have a far more complicated social life than you'd think.  (Yes, I squeed at the fraternal behaviors.)

* - Emily Willoughby met a Green Heron and pondered the implications of heron necks.

* - Comics Alliance brought attention to concept artist Ashley Stoddard, who in turn came up with an alternate version of "Willow" that would have been fascinating.

* - Tor.com shared another inspirational seasonal art gallery, this one, naturally, themed to autumn (some NSFW images).

* - I'm starting to put together my four-part(!?!) Disney Cruise trip report.  Here's the beginning of a much more cynical (but hilarious) take on one of the newer boats by TeevTee at Parkeology.

* - I finally got to see "Brave" recently.  I was going to write a full review but Lili Loofbourow's essay, "Just Another Princess Movie" expresses my feelings more eloquently than I ever could (my review would have just been, "Y'all are high!  'Brave' is great!" over and over.)  It is by far the most intelligent reaction to the film I've seen.  (Spoilers galore!)

* - Tim Brayton of Antagony and Ecstasy has just launched into his own Disney sequel marathon.  Given his hilarious take on "Belle's Magical World" (oh my God, the whole bit about Crane the writing paper), we are in for a hell of a ride.  I wish him Godspeed, and good luck!

* - If you're a "Brave Little Toaster" fan, you're going to want to see the film's director Jerry Rees' extensive website, filled with memorabilia and information.   Rees also recently hosted an open Q+A with fans.  (LOL at the people who thought Toaster was male...)

* -  And finally, The Rotoscopers/Animation Addicts posted their incredible interview with Don Bluth, in which he talks about his work on "Sleeping Beauty", his surprising new career as a teacher and theater director, and gets downright philosophical about art.  Definitely a must-listen!

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Sketch of the day!

Random 90's Animation - "The Swan Princess" (1994)

Unlike the previous three films I've watched for my Strange Animated Films from the 1990's Made By Random Studios Marathon, I remember actually liking "The Swan Princess" quite a bit when I saw it back in the day.  Watching it again for this project, it is by no means a bad movie, but the Nostalgia Filter sure was strong with it.

This is the first animated feature from what would eventually be known as Crest Animation (formerly Rich Animation and RichCrest Animation; interesting evolution, that), a studio created and headed by Richard Rich.  You may remember that name from the Disney Animated Canon project.  Rich started at Disney in the late 70's, co-directed "The Rescuers" and directed "The Fox and the Hound" and "The Black Cauldron", and went on to found his own studio.  The film generally agreed to be his best independent film was also his very first independent film.  For some reason, this sounds familiar - but you may notice that far fewer people discuss Richard Rich's post-Disney career than do Don Bluth's; probably due to the fact that all but three or four of Rich's features have gone straight to DVD.

"The Swan Princess" is -if you will forgive me- an odd duck indeed.  For all the world, it looks like what people who dismiss all Disney animated features as cutesy Fairy tales and girly pink Princess B.S. assume every Disney feature is like.  (By the way, yes, such people exist, and this saddens me.)  About a third of the ways into "The Swan Princess", I was thinking, "Oh, so this is basically 'Sleeping Beauty'.  Now it's kind of like 'The Little Mermaid'.  This scene reminds me an awful lot of something in 'Aladdin'.  And suddenly, we're in 'Cinderella'."  I suppose this is, in a way, admirable.  Most low-budget animated fairy tale movies would only rip off one or two very popular Disney Animated Canon features.  This one has the brass balls to swipe from damn near all of them!

Now don't get me wrong, as I said, "The Swan Princess" isn't necessarily a bad movie.  As it happens, there are some very clever and creative moments in it.  Some of the supporting characters are a lot of fun and the background paintings are gorgeous.

In general, the problems stem from the fact that while this movie is a distillation of what people who haven't sat down and watched a Disney movie in years remember from Disney movies, it's hampered from having a very small fraction of the budget.  As a result, the animation is very inconsistent, and occasionally downright sloppy.  In particular, the less caricatured characters like Human!Odette and especially Derek look very strange after a while (oh my good God, Derek's giant mouth).  The songs range from slightly dull to utterly tedious, and some of the gags (especially the header image) run at very sharp angles to the rest of the film's overall tone.  And, so help me, the villain's final boss form really does look like a fruitbat.  Speaking of, if you avoid saying the word "Beast" this often, it eventually becomes really obvious and distracting.

Finally, since things like this have to be pointed out in a review written by me (heh): What we have here is a story about a human princess who is forced to be separated from a weird-looking unlikeable doormat of a prince who openly stated that he was only interested in her because she is pretty by being transformed into a big scary dinosaur that can fly, kill a child easily, and seriously maim an adult.  Remind me again how this is a curse?  (I know, but we're ignoring Rothbart being a total creeper for now, especially since the movie itself doesn't seem to know what to do with that plot point either.)

Overall, "The Swan Princess" is worth a look, and is certainly a better choice for children than, say, any of the DTV Disney sequels.  Next up, something that isn't on my official Queue list but I would be a total bockhead to ignore.

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Sketch of the Day!

Went to the good old Maine Wildlife Park and drew some birds that -and you have to trust the birder here- are far less vicious and scary than swans.

Random 90's Animation - "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West!" (1991)

Today we begin what I shall be referring to in full as the Strange Animated Films from the 1990's Made By Random Studios Marathon.  I needed to watch some good -or at least decent- animation after My Summer of Sequels, so I filled my Netflix queue with all the 90's animation I can find.  It seems as though shortly after the Bronze Age of Disney animation got into full swing, every studio suddenly wanted their own animated features to release, and the situation got even crazier when "The Lion King" owned the box office like no other animated feature before it.

The films I'll be reviewing will be kind of, duh, random.  And yes, we will creep into the early 2000's for a couple of them.  But they are all interesting and strange in some way or other and worth revisiting and discussing... I hope...  Sadly, a number of intriguing films were not available through Netflix, but then again, I am a little pressed for time (I am doing this for-fun project concurrently with -and I might as well spill the beans- a sudden influx of commissions I need to finish).  Finally, before you cry, "But what about 'Ferngully'/'Pagemaster'/etc.?!?", try searching Nessie's. 

It looks like we're getting the most tedious and aggravating films out of the way quickly.  (You may notice a lack of "Space Jam" in the above list.  This is due to the fact that I have nerd-raged enough about it as both a Looney Tunes fan and basketball enthusiast in the past.  And, more importantly, I can already tell without even having seen it that "We're Back" will provide me with more than enough nerd rage-worthiness for one movie marathon.) On that note, with our first film, I will be washing off the stink of all those terrible ill-conceived shameless cash-grabs of sequels with... a terrible ill-conceived shameless cash-grab of a sequel!  It's "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West".  Oh joy.

For those of you who were mad at me for not doing any Don Bluth sequels during My Summer of Sequels, (a) chill the eff out, I said I was only doing Disney sequels right from the beginning; (b) I really hope you're happy now, since this is the only one I'll be even acknowledging.  Now, to be fair, it was not surprising that Universal's newly-formed Amblimation unit would wish to make a sequel to "An American Tail" for it's very first foray into animated features.  After all, it was up until a certain point the highest-grossing animated film of all time.  What is surprising is everything else about "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West", starting with the fact that it's title is so inane, I just have to refer to it in full through the whole review.

A bit of poking around the Internet reveals that there are a surprising number of otherwise reasonable adults who have nostalgia for "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West", and there are a few who even prefer it over the original "An American Tail".  These people are objectively wrong and they should feel bad.  (I strongly suggest you watch it again as an adult before you argue with me here.)  As I said during Don Bluth Month, I was never a big fan of "An American Tail", but I have since grown to appreciate it's darkness and it's willingness to stick with that weird, dark tone and frankly strange overall premise.  And of course it also has that lovely James Horner music and gorgeous Don Bluth character and effects animation.

"An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" has got none of this.  Well, that's not entirely accurate.  James Horner is still around to contribute his themes from the first movie and to resurrect a song deleted from the first film.  Speaking of the songs, all you really need to know about "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" is that yes, we do get to hear a character sing "Somewhere Out There" again.

And the song is quickly interrupted by people jeering and complaining and throwing fruit until the character gives up singing it.  This is immediately followed by Poppa making a long and astonishing speech that completely undermines the whole conceit of the original film.  And this happens:



After seeing this gag, I started to imagine that everything happening in the film had to be the result of Fievel innocently stumbling onto a cache of the 19'th Century equivalent of powerful hallucinogenics.  Oh, and as for the hopeful-signature song from this film, the aforementioned "new" song, it... well, it deserves better than the slightly creeptastic scene it's sung in here.

Don Bluth (I could only imagine him drinking heavily during the entirety of "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West") and Steven Spielberg parted ways some time after "The Land Before Time".  So Bluth is not at all involved in this film.  And although he was supposedly the head of Amblimation, Spielberg apparently was only involved to personally direct James Stewart.  (Oh yeah, Jimmy Stewart's very last IMDB film credit ever = "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West".  God's honest truth.  *Sigh...*)  I say this because the thing that struck me about "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" is that what you see onscreen constantly throughout the film are all the very worst impulses of the people behind the original "An American Tail".  Not only that, but it's louder, sillier, and throws the characters in a new situation that does not really suit them at all ("Fievel in Space" would have only been a little more ridiculous, given that this is already a movie where a character living in 1890's New York City idolizes Western icons that weren't popular on the east coast until well into the 1920's).

"An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" also feels an awful lot like a television cartoon.  It has a TV series plot and TV series pacing; hell, it's only about 75 minutes long but you feel every second of it.  "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" in fact was followed by a Saturday morning series that, from the looks of it, is now largely forgotten and perhaps deservedly so. 

One thing I'm not entirely sure I've gotten across effectively is just how deeply bizarre "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" is, especially as a sequel, but really just as a thing that exists and that was released on -again, honest truth- the very same weekend as "Beauty and the Beast".  There's a spider character who *pukes* webs at people.  There's a highly uncomfortable scene where Tiger the cat is worshiped as a god by old-timey "Injun" stereotype desert critters.  There's another highly uncomfortable scene where the lead antagonist is squished against the gigantic breasts of a woman who constantly screeches "Oh, pussy!  My PUSSY!!!"  This last gag was apparently so funny and edgy and mature to the filmmakers that they had to repeat it near the end.

Like I said, the whole thing has to have been a hallucination.  Along with the aforementioned terrible Saturday morning series, Universal also produced two direct-to-video sequels long after the fact which both sport headache-inducing subtitles and a total disregard for the fact that these characters were ever out West at all, so my theory is as good as confirmed as far as I care.

Next up, another early 90's film that is weird as f***, but for very different reasons.

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Sketch of the Day!

Apropos of nothing, here are some live studies of a female Mallard.

Yeah, Links of Interest.

I may have big news for the end of the month and therefore I am quite busy.  This, of course, means you get some Links of Interest.  And since it has been a while since I last did this, you are going to get a lot of them:

* - You have to admire Don Bluth for never giving up on the "Dragon's Lair" movie he's been trying to get off the ground for years and years.  He recently talked to Cartoon Brew about it and other projects.

* - Just recently launched is the wonderful website A Mighty Girl, a huge list of fiction recommendations for mothers and daughters to share.

* - You may file "Ask A Velociraptor" under Ideas I Wish I Had Thought Of First.

* - Brian Switek recently pleaded with the mainstream media to, you know, maybe chill out about dinosaurs for a while.

* - Brian also watched an episode of "Ancient Aliens" so that the rest of us wouldn't have to.  (And oh, has he gotten some interesting comments on that one...)

* - Brian also recently appeared as a special guest on "Science Sort Of"!  Dude's been busy!

* - Kate Beaton shared this lovely autobiographical comic that I think a lot of us will sadly relate to. 

* - The Onion AV Club created a Primer to the works of Studio Ghibli.

* - In sad local news, one of Boston's most beloved radio stations (and IMO, the last one left that's worth a damn) was sold to the dreaded Clear Channel.  I got to listen to WFNX in it's death throes on Friday.  Fun times.

* - In happy local news, Franklin Park Zoo is celebrating it's 100'th year anniversary!  This article has several intriguing vintage photographs.

* - The Urban Pantheist is participating in a very interesting citizen science project that... OK, seriously, half of me wants to do this too and the other half does not know what my OCD would do with the resulting data.

* - Niroot recently finished his so-gorgeous-you-will-cry illustration of Thecodontosaurus.

* - People have been buzzing about Toniko Pantogia's short "Crayon Dragon" recently and for good reason; it will make a rainbow in your heart.

* - Although it has since become bittersweet, Adam Yauch's Criterion Collection recommendation list is a hilarious read.

* - Best Week Ever dug up this very strange commercial that reminds us all what life was like before you could buy your favorite songs a la carte for about a buck or two.

* - Deep Sea News shared some insight into the amazing footage of the "Abyss"-like Deepstaria jellyfish that's been making the rounds lately.

* - TetZoo reported on a fossil nesting colony of Enantiornithines.

* - Scott C.'c well-loved "Great Showdowns" illustrations will be collected into a book sometime this October.

* - And Life Before the Dinosaurs just celebrated it's one year anniversary!

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Sketch of the Day!

Rockerel Out With Your Cockerel Out - Thoughts on "Rock-A-Doodle" (finally)

A new month dawns and as it does, a loose end rears it's ugly head.
With any luck, I will have resolved several loose ends in September. To wit, "Rock-A-Doodle". It is now available via Netflix instant, where it was not available through Netflix at all during Don Bluth Month last year. My hideous dark twisted sense of completion and the private little hell that is my obsessive-compulsive disorder both demanded that I watch it and give a full review. I hope they are happy.

Where to start with "Rock-A-Doodle"? I don't know, but I feel that it's definitely worth noting that the story upon which the film is (very, very, very loosely) based had a long, very strange trip to the screen. Jim Hill tells the tale in excruciating detail here. It isn't hard to imagine Don Bluth hearing about the rejected project while working on "Robin Hood" and getting it hopelessly stuck in his head.

I should also note that personally, I was pretty messed up by the film. See, this is back when "The Land Before Time" was still my favorite movie and "All Dogs Go To Heaven" stung badly. The "All Dogs" video included a preview for a singularly strange looking upcoming animated film with a bunch of animals on an adventure down a river (promising) and a rooster Elvis impersonator (what?) I was hoping for a movie that would be on the level of Bluth's earlier films. Maybe -just maybe- we'd get something as good as "The Secret of N.I.M.H." Instead, we got "Rock-A-Doodle".

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, here's the plot of "Rock-A-Doodle". I don't do plot summaries often but it's worth recounting the plot as it is probably the one thing critics of the film agree is the film's greatest problem. We start in space, where a bored-sounding Phil Harris (Baloo the Bear in "The Jungle Book", shameless Baloo clones in two subsequent Disney films) informs us that there is a singing rooster whose crowing raises the sun. Which would be an easier concept to take if we hadn't started in space. Anyway Chanticleer the rooster, king of the barnyard, is disgraced when the sun raises without his singing, and he runs away to The City to seek his fortune with folks who appreciate his golden syrinx (or whatever roosters crow with). This, naturally, causes the rains to come and flood the farm. Never you mind how the crops survive if Chanticleer banishes the rain with his singing, but a pretty straightforward animated folky tale so far, no?

"Rock-A-Doodle" takes precisely five minutes to run completely off the rails. That's when we suddenly shift to a live-action family struggling through a hurricane on their own farm.* The story of Chanticleer we just heard was actually a story read to the little boy of the family, because kids just love the Canterbury Tales. The child is played by the same kid who voiced the titular character of what was arguably the single most uncomfortable "Ren and Stimpy" episode ever. At least, I would have assumed the kid was being read a story if the narrator wasn't still hanging around and acting as if the tale of Chanticleer AND the story of the live-action family were both the God's honest truth. After some business that's way too pointlessly convoluted to get into here, the film switches back to animation, Chanticleer's friends set out to find him and bring him back to the farm and save the day, and we're introduced to the villain of the piece (I'll get to him later).

This transition back to animation is all prompted by the live-action kid transforming into an animated kitten. You can basically ignore all of this because it has no bearing whatsoever on the plot. None. I'm not kidding; everything introduced in the live-action sequence, including the very presence of humans in the world of this movie, is brought up in the very beginning and ending of the main story and in a few lines that appear to have been edited in during post-production and that is literally it. The whole rest of the movie completely ignores it.

So why even bother with the live-action sequences? It would appear as though either Don Bluth or his supervisors wanted to cash in on the popularity of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Which seems like an absurd excuse, given that the few scenes that combine mediums aren't even as good as those in Walt Disney's old "Alice" shorts. Mind you, the source I found this out was TV Tropes, but it and other trivia out there about "Rock-A-Doodle" is believable in terms of animation behind-the-scenes stuff. They're unbelievable enough to be true.

So... Chanticleer's friends go to the city and take way, way too long to realize Chanticleer is now the biggest rock star in the country. Come to think of it, every action that should move the story along takes way, way, WAY longer than it reasonably should. They try to bring him back to the farm, but the rooster is distracted by... Goldie.

Goldie is another element of the film worth her own paragraph. Okay. She is a Golden Pheasant, apparently, and female even though there is not the vaguest attempt to make her resemble a female pheasant. What the character designer DID take pains to make her look like is a female human. I have often said that certain tetrapods just can't be made into appealing anthropomorphic animal-people. Goldie demonstrates this fact beautifully nightmare fuel-illy. The result of mixing poultry and beautiful girl results in what can comfortably be described as A Thing That Should Not Be.

According to TV Tropes, Goldie was meant to be as sexy as Jessica Rabbit. Yeah.

The script has a cavalcade of other brain farts. For an example, there's a scene where our heroes are banned from Chanticleer's concerts by the rooster's boss. Said boss may or may not be under the employ of the main villain depending on what particular scene in the movie we're talking about, but never mind that now. See, specifically, there is a sign at the concert hall barring "Cats, Dogs, Mice, and Birds". Yeah. The heroes disguise themselves as penguins to get in, but it turns out that everyone at the concert -not just the heroes- must disguise themselves as penguins. Because... ??? (It seems unnecessarily pedantic at this point to note the searing logical flaw in having avian performers and patrons in penguin costumes at a concert that bans birds. Ye Gods, this movie.)

The songs, aside from maybe the opening number, are annoying and the animation is frequently terrible. Things to note in a film that arrived in theaters in-between "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Lion King". Actually, this is one of the few cases where Bluth and company farmed some of the animation out to make the release date deadline, and a lot of the same problems seen in "The Pebble and the Penguin" can be spotted here too. Characters "shimmer" and shift around in the picture plane, and they casually change size and perspective while standing still. (I have heard, since doing Don Bluth Month last year, that certain of his films were released out of production order, which may help explain why "Rock-A-Doodle" showcases the worst elements of both "All Dogs" and "Penguin".)

With all of this in mind, all of it, watching "Rock-A-Doodle" for the first time in all these years was... not as painful an experience as I anticipated.

I think I know why. Most Don Bluth fans haven't sat down and watched "The Pebble and the Penguin", and that one movie puts everything else in perspective.

Also, as it happened, I experienced a bunch of weird things during the day before I watched this movie in the evening. It was back when I was still entertaining my little cousin. We went to the Wildlife Park and encountered two field trip groups, with all the attendant chaos that implies. I got into what can only be described as a "Who's On First" routine with a person who saw my Sketchbook. We tie-dyed, which turned out to be way more involved than I remembered. We found parasite-infested caterpillars in the veggie garden. We watched a Barbie direct-to-video movie and...

You know what? It's Tangent Time. That last thing might have made the biggest difference. You want to appreciate a lesser movie from a quality animation studio, you go watch one of the "Barbie" movies. Because once you have seen "Barbie and the Secret of the Fairy of the Princess of the Pegasus of the Planet of the Apes", any subsequent animated feature you see -and I mean any one- is going to look like Disney's "Pinocchio" in comparison. (Also, you cannot imagine how much more you will appreciate what they do with Barbie and Ken in "Toy Story 3".) It's not just that it's as bad as you'd imagine it would be from the title. It's actually worse. In the parlance of a recent Temple of the Seven Golden Camels post, it's "all frosting, no cake." And that frosting is the gross cream cheese kind. It's absurdly cheap, the animation is downright crappy, the visuals are unimaginative, and the whole thing shows open contempt for it's young audience. I mean it. We're talking about a film made in 2011 where a character bends over backwards in slow motion to dodge some sh*t, just like in that awesome twelve-year-old sci-fi kung-fu movie that THE TARGET AUDIENCE IS TOO YOUNG TO WATCH OR HAVE EVEN HEARD OF WTF MATTEL?!?** Also, the term "Bling" is used unironically. And fashion designers are Fairies. Yup.

Auntie Tricia got to watch "Barbie and the Gooey Kablooey" with six-year-old cousin twice.

Auntie Tricia would have watched "My Neighbor Totoro" or "Fraggle Rock" or "Dinosaur Train" or -honestly- "Rock-A-Doodle"*** with adorable six-year-old cousin instead, but adorable six-year-old cousin refused to watch anything besides "Barbie and the Who Gives a Crap". Callback to a few weeks ago: Adorablausting.

So with all of this in mind, I found myself even enjoying the sheer open madness of "Rock-A-Doodle". There is some evidence in the film to suggest that events in it are, after all, supposed to be a fever dream that the kid is having and it (unintentionally) fits that tone perfectly.

So, about that villain. He's the Grand Duke and he is voiced by Christopher Plummer. It seems that Plummer doesn't get a lot of truly hammy bad guy roles, so he has way, way too much fun with the Duke, chewing up whatever scenery he is in. "Rock-A-Doodle" is, sadly, very definitely made for children (though lord knows what they'd get out of it), so the Grand Duke isn't allowed to do anything truly evil or even interesting (aside from the deleted scene above and the bit where he turns the kid into a kitten -- and remember the movie barely acknowledges that). But he is used frequently as an outlet for the few flashes of trademark Bluthy weirdness. This may be due to his being the last vestige of a proposed film called "Satyrday", one of Bluth's most deeply fascinating lost projects.

Honestly, the only real sadness I experienced while watching "Rock-A-Doodle" is the fact that there are no more Don Bluth features to be seen (though I remain optimistic that we haven't heard the last from him). It's a real bummer to end on such a weak note, and it was hard to watch portions of "Rock-A-Doodle" and wonder what happened to the Don Bluth who gave the world "The Secret of N.I.M.H.". Ah well, more loose ends await.

* - Ah, how timely! See, I'm posting this the day after we *just* got our electricity and phone/internet/cable back after Hurricane Irene came and kicked our asses a little harder than we though she would. And left us without power for three and a half days. Fun times.

** - Yeah, I know "Animaniacs" had an episode that was a direct parody of "Apocalypse Now". That's totally different. Because it just is, shut up.

*** - Don't worry, this wouldn't have been her first Bluth. We watched "Banjo the Woodpile Cat" together. D'awww...

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(Pre-Hurricane) Garden Update!





I am going to go ahead and declare this garden to be a successful experiment.

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Sketch of the Day!

I don't even know...

Holiday Hangover - Happy 2011!

Happy New Year! And I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season as well! Now it's time for Seasonal Affective Depression until mid-April, yaaaay!!!
 
I'm proud to say that I've kept last year's New Years Resolution to share the smudgy, unpretty, brain-farty part of the creative process by sharing full scans of Sketchbook pages. I'm going to keep this up, which means I get to start up a Sketch of the Day 2011 Flickr set. I am way too excited about this.

You may have noticed an influx of "Super Mario Bros." related doodles in the last few entries in the "Sketch of the Day 2010" set. This is because my family is g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y working our way through "New Super Mario Bros. Wii" in an attempt to stave off cabin fever. This is a bad, bad idea; if you are playing this game with people who are familiar with the Mario series and who are totally into it, then the game is so much fun it shouldn't be legal. But, if not, then you want to try and complete this game during a time of year with nicer weather, so you can go outside and be not in the same room with the other players for a while. I don't want to ruin what makes this game different from other Mario games in case you don't know, but the "Simpsons" quote (there is one for every occasion) that has been haunting me since we've begun is, "Ooh, a Rubik's Cube! Let's all try and solve it together!"

Wishing everyone a safe, happy, healthy New Year! Regular posting schedule will resume... next week sometime. Until then, here's DJ Earworm's semi-annual mashup of the past year's most popular songs. "Hey Soul Sister" is actually not annoying now:



(And it must be pointed out that I started last year with Don Bluth and ended with him. Totally unintentional, but awesome.)

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Feederwatch Wednesday!

This is the data from the week of the big storm. Snow brings the biodiversity:

Mourning Dove 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Black-capped Chickadee 4
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
European Starling 1
Song Sparrow 1
Dark-eyed Junco 1
Northern Cardinal 4
American Goldfinch 7
House Sparrow 35

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First Sketch of the Day of the Year!

Oh, hai loose end! - Thoughts on "Banjo the Woodpile Cat"

I have to say, watching "Banjo the Woodpile Cat" after having watched each and every Don Bluth film in order (hit the "Don Bluth Month" tab below if you missed that series) is quite the experience. Originally conceived as a feature film, and later as a Christmas Special, "Banjo" is an approximately twenty minute long short animated film made by the independent Don Bluth studio in it's larval stage. Many of the animators still worked at Disney while making "Banjo" on the side. And -according to animation mythology and, if true, then it gives this cute little special a punk rock touch- "Banjo" was produced entirely in a garage.

As for the film itself, "Banjo" is sweet and cute and charming. It's also interesting to see all the similarities it has with later, better-known Bluth productions. We've got a cute little character who is separated from his family, gets into adventures in a big city, and makes some new friends who help him find his way home -- just like in "An American Tail". The overall look of the film, however, is more similar to "All Dogs Go To Heaven". The characters sometimes look very odd, and there is a similar montage of characters getting into mischief in the city. The film is also visually consistent with the Disney films Bluth and company had worked on.

Overall, "Banjo" is a fun little short with terrific animation and a simple, sweet story.

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Happy Holidays to everyone! I will likely start posting again the second week in January (I may be going on an adventure for New Year's). Have a great Solstice Holiday of Choice and a very happy New Year!

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Feederwatch Friday!

Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Downy Woodpecker 2
Black-capped Chickadee 3
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Northern Cardinal 1
House Sparrow 30

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Festive Thing of the Day!

First off, I found this on Best Week Ever, and they could only describe it as "A Kazaam wish come true!"



I will also share with you the traditional Christmas music of my people.



And finally, Comics Alliance has an annotated preview of the comic "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" in it's entirety. It is much, much better than it sounds.

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Art of the Day!

Here's a Christmas commission I had recently. I was simply told, "Make us an album cover with cats on it". This is what they got. Fortunately, they got it right away and loved it. (Plus you can't have enough Christmas Cats.)

_How to Create Animation_, by Cawley and Korkis

Well first off, Guess who's exhibiting this weekend at ArtsFest? Sadly, I will not be able to attend in person, but if you're in the area and you want to own the original painting, "Support the Gulf", go check it out.

Second off (?), I really ought to wait until we get better art than this crappy little screenshot, but after five generations we finally have an honest-to-Arceus "Raptor Pokemon".

On to the topic. You may, if you like, consider this to be an addendum to Don Bluth Month.

When I was but a lass, I had read a few books about animation, it's history, and how it is produced. I had read Leonard Maltin and Jerry Beck's standard-bearing Of Mice and Magic, Charles Solomon's lavishly illustrated (and enormous) Enchanted Drawings, and the dueling studio histories, Disney's Art of Animation and That's All Folks! These are all wonderful books, but none of them really take you into the trenches -- or drafting tables rather. None of them really tell you the history of animation from the animators' point of view.

I was in my undergrad college library when this weird little book caught my eye:



That's really not the best cover art in the world, is it? But look at that list of contributors! How to Create Animation is a one-of-a-kind book, because it it made up almost entirely of interviews with animation artists.

Co-author John Cawley has been kind enough to post these interviews on his website, which is excellent of him, as some of the history revealed in this book is indispensable. (Note that not every interview from the book is posted online. You will have to dig up a hard copy for Bob Clampett, Jack Hannah, Chuck Jones, and Bill Scott. Also, the online version has no illustrations.) Some of the advice is very good too -- but the world of animation is very different from the way it was in 1990, when the book was published.

So that means, in this book, Glen Keane is JUST starting to design the character of Beast from "Beauty and the Beast" and is just starting to kick around ideas for "Aladdin". Most of the animators from Disney are JUST getting over the hangover they woke up with after "Roger Rabbit" and "Little Mermaid". The future couldn't be brighter for Sullivan/Bluth Studio, and television animation, especially on Saturday mornings, is unstoppable.

Suffice it to say, there are a few Funny Aneurysms in this book. The very worst might be Chris Buck talking enthusiastically about the new series he is working on based off Brad Bird's "Amazing Stories" short, "Family Dog". (For those not in the know, "Family Dog" was, prior to "Father of the Pride", the single most epic failure in the world of prime-time television animation.  Hardly remember either of these?  Exactly.)

It's always fun to read the history of a medium right from the mouths of the people who lived it. Some highlights from the book, including revelations that surprised me:

* I've never met anyone who didn't like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Yet almost all of the artists who worked on it cannot stand the movie! It's either because they thought Roger himself was annoying or because the movie was so hard to work on -- the book reveals that the film was in development limbo since 1983 at least. But what's also strange is the fact that a few artists who did not work on "Roger Rabbit" dislike it too, either because of Roger himself being annoying or because it "doesn't respect animation history" (what?) Especially odd, because this is probably THE movie that kick-started the new appreciation of classic animated shorts.

* On that note, if animators who started work in the 70's have a Purgatory, Filmation is it. EVERYONE seems to have started out there. I guess you have to start somewhere, but yikes!

* It's often the unsung heroes and artists I never heard of who have the best stories in this book. Consider freelance animator Mark Kausler, who has probably got the most interesting resume imaginable, having worked at almost every studio. Or, Bob Givens, who started out working on "Snow White" and, by the time this book was written, wound up on... "Garfield and Friends"...

* If nothing else, this book proves that NOBODY saw the CGI revolution coming. Pixar gets one offhand mention in the introduction as a small studio that makes interesting little shorts and commercials and such.

But even with this last reveal in mind, the animators still have one indisputable piece of advice that they all agree upon: You need to learn how to draw. There's no getting around that. Take some life drawing classes, go outside and sketch, train your eyes to see.

All in all, this is a fascinating book and I wish the authors would consider creating an updated version. My only real complaint: boy do I wish one woman, at all, had been interviewed.

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So I just caught up on some podcasts and guess who got a mention towards the end of this episode of the lovely "Science... Sort-Of"?

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Art of the Day! Speaking of Sketchbooks...

Don Bluth Month: I suppose I ought to have some kind of wrap-up here.

It sucks beyond all manner of sucking that Don Bluth Month had to end on such a low note, because this overview began on such an emotional high. When you go back and watch Bluth's early films, they are absolutely beautiful. Hell, I even appreciate the animation [if not the story content] of "All Dogs Go to Heaven" now. When you watch "Anastasia" or "Titan A.E.", they have moments of absolute beauty as well. So that brings us to the unspoken, awkward question that I'm sure is on the mind of a lot of Don Bluth fans including myself:

What happened?

What went wrong in-between "The Land Before Time" and "Thumbelina"? (The answer is probably "Rock-A-Doodle", but I have a hard time picking on a film I didn't get to watch. Yes, "GET to"; at least it would have been a hell of a lot more interesting than "The Pebble and the Penguin".) How could the man who so hated "baby talk" and sh**ty animation possibly go on to make "The Pebble and the Penguin"? How could a person sound so excited in the commentary track about the new technology he got to play with in "Titan A.E." go on to make... *nothing*? How does the director who made the movies that shaped the childhood of every person around my age, even more so than Disney, seemingly vanish without a trace? Where the hell is he know that we need him?

We do. We need Don Bluth to come back, and we need more people to pick up his "animation is an art form and should be treated as such" mantle. Because right now, the world of animated films is a grim place indeed. My heart goes heavy when I wonder if there's even a place for a hand-drawn, totally analogue animated feature film in today's "Eh, let's make another 3D live-action/CGI movie based on a beloved -or not- vintage cartoon" environment.

(Addressing another sauropod in the room: Yes, I know the next Toon to get this treatment will be Bugs Bunny. And as a fan of classic Looney Tunes, after years and years of things like "Space Jam" and "Loonatics" and other monstrosities of that ilk, I'm just too exhausted to muster as much outrage as I should about this. I can only heave a sigh that sounds suspiciously like this: "Goddammitsomuchwarnerbrothers...")

I don't want this to end on a total bummer. So I should note that "Bartok the Magnificent" isn't the last we ever saw of Don Bluth, thankfully. He has a very nice website, and he has made several books and CDs about art and animation principles. And there is this little oddity called "The Gift of the Hoopoe", which was apparently directed by Don Bluth. Sadly, there is hardly any information outside of IMDB and those storyboards about this short film.

I also need to finally share what I was working on during the month:

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Painting of the Month! Click for huge:



It's called "There Had Never Been Such a Herd Before". It is my humble tribute to "The Land Before Time" and my entry in Art Evolved's "Pop Culture" gallery. I figure that when I ever feel the need to do fanart, I better go big.

I'd like to take the time to thank the /Filmcast, Sci-Fi Saturday Night, and Science Sort Of for helping me not go insane while painting this.

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EDIT: Got some love from the lovely "Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs" blog. Thanks, David!

Don Bluth Month: Out with a whimper - Thoughts on "Bartok the Magnificent!"

So here's the last feature-length Don Bluth movie ever released (in some markets [I have been informed that others got it before "Titan A.E."] and last feature to date; let's be optimistic here). Let's pause for a minute or two and let that sink in.

Depressed? Yeah, so am I. It's hard to imagine a quieter whimper to go out on. But that's not the only reason why "Bartok" is a very strange animal.

Records disagree as to whether it's the last feature Don Bluth ever made. It certainly is the last most of us ever heard of him. Whenever it was made, Fox shoved it onto DVD after "Titan" imploded at the box office. (Currently, it can only be found as a special feature on the two-disk edition of "Anastasia", a fact I learned just in time by chance.) You might not be a Don Bluth fan, but you do have to agree that it is very sad to see someone like him go out like a fart in the wind.

This is supposedly a sequel to "Anastasia". As such, it barely qualifies. The only things connecting this film and it's predecessor are one character and the country it is set in.

And that leads to the sauropod in the room I mentioned a long while back: All those gorram sequels. It must suck in ways none of us can imagine to make all these beloved movies and then not be able to say what the studios who own the rights to said movies can and cannot do with them. And so we live in a world where there are, at last count, fourteen "Land Before Time" movies. (For the record, there are about ten "Halloween" movies. I mention them because that is possibly the only other movie whose reputation has been so badly ruined by it's own not-original-director-involving sequels. It took years for the original "Halloween" to be appreciated.)

So this is why "Bartok" is one of the strangest movies I've watched during this project: Of all the Bluth-derived sequels, this is the ONE movie sequel he directed.

"Better" is a subjective word. I can't rightly say if this is indeed "better" than any of the sequels Bluth was not involved with. But I can pretty much guarantee that if it isn't better, it is at least *stranger* than any other sequel to a Don Bluth film.

It feels more like one of the Dark Age Disney movies than any Don Bluth film. There were a lot of scenes and characters that gave me bad "Sword in the Stone" flashbacks. There were other scenes that felt like something out of "Dragon's Lair: Time Warp". In all, the whole movie is very confusing and, at times, damn creepy in a way that's hard to explain (ie, the big, perverted-looking dragon who shows up at the end.)

Thus ends Don Bluth Month.

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Art of the Day?



.......

Don Bluth Month: "And you can't take the sky from me..." Thoughts on "Titan A.E."

First, Nerd Joy from the closing credits. These all prompted me to shout, "YES! I EFFING KNEW IT!!!"







So, hypothetically, a movie involving Joss Whedon, Ben Edlund, Wayne Barlowe, the Blue Sky crew, and Don Bluth should make me go



And "Titan" was perfectly okay, and even great at times. But there's something off about it and I can't really say what it is.

2000 was a weird year if you were a science fiction fan. "Titan A.E." could not have been released to theaters at a worse time. Let's just say that people were... a *little* disillusioned with big damn galaxy-spanning space operas with gorgeous CGI and crazy alien designs after a certain hotly anticipated movie came out the summer before. "Titan" ultimately flopped and is, to date, Don Bluth's last theatrical film.

And that's very sad, because one of the awesome things about this film, upon rewatch, is the fact that you get to see what Bluth could do with a big sandbox of state-of-the-art animation and a hefty budget. The movie is one of the best-looking sci-fi films of the past decade. Look at the gorgeous and tense chase through the ice rings.

There are also some wonderful little subversive moments with a distinctly Whedonesque feel to them (the cook character who looks like he's going to stick around as a JarJar-esque annoyance -- then gets blasted to smithereens, that wonderful "An intelligent guard?!" scene.) There are times when the movie feels like a test run for ideas that Joss would eventually get to play with further in "Firefly". And there are a few really neat characters. In the commentary, Bluth wishes that Gune could have had his own movie and I, too, almost wish that this had been his story. He's a great, whimsical, and very Bluthy little character with a very funny anxious John Leguizamo voice. He gives the movie some much-needed levity.

And I think that might be what strikes me as off about "Titan": get rid of Gune and there is almost no humor in the movie. Bluth's movies have always been a little dark, certainly more so than Disney's, but it's always undercut with something funny or sweet. This is a movie that starts off with the end of the world (which is very dark even by Bluth standards) and never lightens up after that. Bluth appears to have been unfettered for the most part, so where is his trademark weirdness? (Well, OK, there is some weirdness. But it's the kind of weirdness that was clearly the executives' fault, and we'll get to it at the end.)

Also, before I started this project, I used to think that music wasn't as big a deal to Don Bluth films as they were to Disney films. But let's try an experiment here: Hum the score from "N.I.M.H." Now sing something from "American Tail". Now hum the opening credits music from "Land Before Time". Sing something from "All Dogs", "Rock-A-Doodle" (I can and I didn't even rewatch it!), "Thumbelina", "Penguin", "Troll", "Anastasia". OK.

Now name a song from "Titan A.E." Yeah. What we get is a weird mix of modern (for 2000) hard rock with bludgeon-obvious lyrics. So in other words, you get those aforementioned amazing animated sequences set to the lilting tunes of... Lit. (Next challenge: remind me what Lit's one popular single was.)

Basically, what we're left with here is a movie that has an amazing combination of CGI and hand-rendered animation -- that also casts Janeane Garofolo as a Knees Akimbo kangaroo/velociraptor weapons expert. In the previous sentence, the executive-mandated weirdness is in italics.

So that brings us to the end of Don Bluth month... or does it?

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Art of the Day?

Man, how can I tease the painting any further? I won't.  Have these instead:

Don Bluth Month: "Hell with it, here's a Princess movie." Thoughts on "Anastasia"

As I said before, fans of Don Bluth who were captivated, as children, by "The Secret of N.I.M.H." and "The Land Before Time" were on their knees by 1997, hoping our hero would come through with the kind of movie we knew, deep down, that he was capable of. And then we saw the trailers for "Anastasia". After trolls and penguins and Thumbelina, maybe -just maybe- this would be Don Bluth's big comeback. The world at large would finally appreciate him.

It was a comeback, however mild, but it's hard to imagine it coming at a better/worse time.

Let me explain by taking a minute and setting the stage. In the wake of "The Lion King", every big Hollywood studio wanted their own animation department, whether they'd had one in the past or not. Which means that this was a damn fun time period to be a fan of hand-drawn animation. Some well-loved cult favorite features come from this time, and while they are all of varying quality, all of them appeared to have taken their influence more from Don Bluth than from Disney: "Ferngully", "Pagemaster", "Once Upon a Forest", "Little Nemo", and of course the beloved "Iron Giant". The Dreamworks animation studio came barreling out of the gate with "The Prince of Egypt" -- they had the guy who MADE "The Lion King" on their side so they should have been unstoppable! ("Prince" and the other all-but-forgotten hand-drawn and "tradigital" [ugh] Dreamworks films are certainly worth a re-watch. Turns out there are only *five* of them, so t'is a story for another day.)

Meanwhile, a little studio in Emeryville, California was quietly working on some movies of their own that would, unwittingly, and for better or for worse, change the playing field forever.

So in other words, the market for animated films was actually overcrowded. Into this environment, around the same time I just entered college, entered "Anastasia". And I have to say I liked the movie when I first saw it but didn't think that much of it. It was okay; certainly a damn site better than "Hercules" or (shudder) "Space Jam".

Thing is, had I known at the time that this was going to be the third-to-last Don Bluth feature film for more than a decade... I probably would have treated it differently.

Upon rewatch, and with all this in mind, "Anastasia" is a strange ride. It's as if Fox asked Bluth to make them a movie that would directly compete with Disney and that was also, by the way, an adaptation of the previous film and play "Anastasia". Aside from these prerequisites, he could go to town.

And so now we have a movie that tells the fictionalized story of the lost princess Anastasia with big bombastic Broadway (read: Disney)-style musical numbers, cute little animals, Meg Ryan, and a happy ending that rides off giving double swear-fingers to your high school history teacher. And that also suggests to it's young primary demographic that the Russian Revolution happened because everyone just suddenly dropped everything and started attacking the Romanov family. Because some glowy green demons told them to. Because said shiny demons were sent by Rasputin. Who was apparently an evil Satan-worshiping zombie wizard thing. Because why the hell not? Screw you, historical accuracy and sane storytelling decisions, I do what I want! I'm Don Bluth b**ch!!!

(Something tells me Don Bluth and Quentin Tarantino would get along very nicely. Anyway...)

In print, this all looks ridiculous. It's that good old Bluthy weirdness applied to actual historical persons. And if you let that kind of thing bother you, this movie's going to be hard going. No offense to any and all actual people involved in these incidents in real life, I'm just here for the pretty animation.

And dear sweet lord, it is gorgeous. So this is what Bluth can do when handed a big, big budget. It's absolutely fantastic. The DVD I got was in anamorphic widescreen and so, so pretty.

But aside from the pretty visuals, there's not much that stays with me. The songs are pretty good, and the best ones are hideous earworms as usual. The songs suffer, however, from the annoying and distracting post-"Lion King" trend of "oh let's hire a name-voice for the speaking part and let the professional voice actor do the songs. Nobody will be able to tell!" Well, you really can tell. Additionally, the story is a little bland with no real good character or action moments and a whole lot of weird references to "Titanic" and, err, "Speed". This is also the first film where Don Bluth uses extensive CGI sequences and - yikes. WTF giant stone Pegasus?

But overall, "Anastasia" is pretty good and worth a rewatch. We'll see if the same can be said for Don Bluth's very last theatrical feature to date.

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Art of the Day!

Almost finished!