It's the Not-Even-Remotely-Annual Summer Animated Trailer Post!

A lot, an awful lot, of trailers for upcoming animated, kind-of-animated, and "how the blazes are we even defining what an animated film is anyway"-ted feature films have premiered lately, so let's all take a look at them!  Boy I hope you like sequels, franchise movies, remakes...



And here's a damn good example of how long it's been since I did one of these blogs: "Incredibles 2" comes out TONIGHT!?  Like, that's soon!  Really soon!  Oh my God, please don't suck, please don't suck, please don't suck...!!!

Weirdly, I feel like I haven't seen any excitement for this.  It's almost as if we can't even believe an "Incredibles" sequel is actually happening after Brad Bird denied he wanted to make one for all these years.



Boy I hope "Ralph Breaks the Internet" ends up being better than this teaser suggests.  I'm not the first to point this out but the Internet looks like a hellscape of Brands (I mean, it IS, but it'd be nice if they depicted it as anything else), and I'm having a hard time defending the "We are Disney, look upon our I.P.s and despair" scene.  Still, I can't wait to see that Princess scene in context and at least they're acknowledging that the Muppets exist.

Anyway, speaking of Disney, Brands, and Hell:



It's "Hook".  But, like, a Winnie the Pooh version.  Just what the world needed.  Though I like how most of Disney Twitter (TM) is using this as a teaching moment:

For those of you riding the nostalgia wave on the CHRISTOPHER ROBIN trailer, here’s a friendly reminder that Disney did a terrific new animated Winnie the Pooh movie in 2011 that made exactly $12 because they released it the same day as DEATHLY HALLOWS 2. pic.twitter.com/51waBnx6PZ

— David Daut (@DavidMDaut) March 6, 2018

Note: prepare yourself for a lot of people not understanding what hyperbole is in that thread.



I know a sequel to "Mary Poppins" is a thing that is happening, but why?  I can’t shake the feeling that "Sequel to Mary Poppins" is something that either would’ve been a Disney Sunday movie in the 80’s or would’ve happened somewhere between "102 Dalmatians" and "Chicken Little".

But good on them for remembering those crazy neighbors with the ship house.



Guys.  I am so God-damn tired.

Honestly.  I really can't wait until Disney gets this "Remake everything in live-action (for a given definition of live-action)" thing out of their system.  Hell, this might be more annoying than the era of DTV sequels...

Okay, enough bleakness:



Okay, maybe a little bleakness.  I'm conditioned to immediately dislike any new take on "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", doubly so if it gives Grinch a sad backstory to explain why he hates Christmas.  It's a damn sight cuter than the 2000 version at least, though that's a heck of a low bar to clear.



I like "How to Train Your Dragon 2" more than most but it really does feel like a part two and part three crammed together.  That doesn't leave much for part three to resolve, but I feel optimistic.  At least we're going to get more and hopefully even weirder monster designs.



I've been waiting for an official, actual "LEGO Movie 2" for a long time it feels.  All the theatrical LEGO movies have been very good, IMO, and I can't wait to be unexpectedly weepy by the end of this one too.



And here we have the one upcoming (like, not premiering in a few hours) animated film I'm most excited about.  Look at this; look how cool and creative this looks!  More unabashedly trippy CGI please!

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Art of the Day!

Hey, you know what very conspicuously did NOT get a trailer recently?

It's the Hardly-Annual Summer Animated Trailer Post - Pre-D23 Expo Edition!

Yes, I will have to do an updated edition of this post after the D23 Expo happens and brings us more trailers.  Most significantly, it's anticipated that the trailer for "The Good Dinosaur" will premier there and... yeah, being that it is a "we research our butts off" PIXAR film about dinosaurs, I may already be a little too emotionally invested in that one (please don't suck, please don't suck, please don't suck...)

Addendum: And that isn't going to be for a while, it appears.  It's been weeks since D23 and the only "Good Dinosaur" tidbits we have been given since are some concept art and some not-terribly-encouraging news.

Anyway, here are the current animated trailers:



Well, first off, New Miyazaki Film! New Miyazaki Film! New Miyazaki Film!



For those of you who think there aren't any good animated films centering on feathered theropods lately (except, you know, that one), behold "Leafy: a Hen Into the Wild". Sadly, there's no news of an American release but I'm holding out hope.



There's a sizable "Legend of Korra"-shaped hole in my life right now, but this incredibly evocative teaser for season two promises to finally fill it in September.



One of the best surprises among recent animated features was "How to Train Your Dragon".  Fans of the film went rightfully nuts over the friendship between Toothless and Hiccup and their acrobatic (if somewhat familiar) flights together.  The teaser for the sequel very wisely promises more of exactly that.



Blue Sky is sparing us "Ice Age 5: Why Are These Even Set During The Ice Age Anymore" for the moment, but giving us a sequel to the underwhelming "Rio" instead. The teasers throw yet more characters into the overloaded cast, so hooray for that? This particular teaser starts by briefly giving us 80's kids bad flashbacks to the "Somewhere Out There" scene in "American Tail"...

...but then...😨

...but THEN...😱

Then you get to the part where they reveal the title and... yeah, these are all interesting visuals for an animated teaser.



A lot of people loved the hell out of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs". Enough to make me wonder what I missed, since I kind of hated it. The inevitable sequel at least promises some very cool plant-animal designs, along with more awesome food/scenery, more puns, and more insufferable little sidekick characters who scream a whole lot. I'm such a big fan of that last thing, you have no idea.



And speaking of things that are insufferable, behold the trailer for "Turkeys". I mean "Free Birds". I mean, I don't even give a s**t, because look at this thing. It's like they had five or six plot ideas centered around the general pitch, "Blargh, somethin' about turkeys, I guess, whatever."  And instead of picking just one of them like a sane person would have -- and not even a sane person!  Because "South Park" already did "angry turkeys attack humans on Thanksgiving" way-ass back in 1997!?!  Anyway, instead of picking one plot to focus on and develop properly, they mashed together all of them.  Every last God-damn one of them, because that approach always ends well for animated holiday feature films with goofy animals.  In other news, "From the producer/director/studio/whatever of 'Shrek'!" doesn't even look like a real phrase made up of real words anymore.



One of the more unusual features coming soon is "Walking With Dinosaurs 3D".  Which will hopefully not end up being "Spirit: Ceratopsian of the Cimmaron," even though this bored-narrator-heavy trailer is discouraging.



"Box Trolls" is the new Laika joint.  Based on the high concept, gorgeous animation, and "Hey, people who walked out after that one offhand line of dialogue during the finale of 'Paranorman'? Deal with it." attitude, they're obviously remaining as awesome as ever.



The announcement of the "LEGO Movie" a while back made me skeptical, but this trailer got me looking forward to it.  And then there's the awkward moment when I realized this is what it took to finally get Wonder Woman into a theatrical movie...



Here' is what I am assured is an impressively misleading teaser for "Frozen" and... actually, forget this. Have the Japanese teaser instead:



So... pretty...

BONUS: "The Muppets: Most Wanted" trailer just dropped this morning!



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Sketch of the Day!