Can Hayao Miyazaki Save Disney's Soul? 548
IronicGrin writes "Even hard-core House of Mouse apologists have to admit that Disney's Feature Animation division has lost its way. After a half decade of pathetic failures (Atlantis) and epic disasters (Treasure Planet), the company shut its fabled Orlando 2D animation studios last year and announced that it was jumping on the computer animation bandwagon. A big motivation for the move to CGI was, of course, the Magic Kingdom's tenuous relationship with Pixar--the source of all of Disney's recent animated hits. But Disney is overlooking a better example of just what its toon team has been doing wrong...right under its nose.
Howl's Moving Castle, which opened this weekend to rapturous critical acclaim, is the third masterpiece from Japan's Studio Ghibli that Disney has released theatrically. Today's New York Times has a feature by A.O. Scott [reg required, blah blah] calling Miyazaki the "world's greatest living animated-filmmaker"; meanwhile, last Thursday, I wrote a column for SFGate.com on why Disney animation, 3D rendered or not, is doomed to irrelevance if it fails to (re)learn some basic lessons from Miyazaki and his cohorts at Ghibli. What do you think? Is Disney destined to fade to black, or can a little Ghibli flavor (mmm....Ghibli) get it back on track?"
Re:Cartoons are for Children (Score:2, Insightful)
Animators won't save Disney... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Disney isn't about animation anymore, its about Parks, Hotels, T-Shirts and films signed off by the sort of people who next week will sign off the building of a 500 room "luxury" hotel.
Until Disney drives its animation division as a seperate company run by people (business people) who understand that market it will be doomed.
Saving Disney's Soul (Score:5, Insightful)
Their unconstitutional extension of copyrights in perpetuity has made them about as evil of a corporation as I can think of today.
not likely (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, come on: It's Disney; they can't do anything without the suits fucking somebody up.
Disney is dead. (Score:3, Insightful)
Solution: don't focus on blockbuster/masterpieces (Score:5, Insightful)
After something like "Toy Story" or "Finding Nemo" or "Lion King" (which was not originally planned to be such a big hit!), every subsequent animated film gets compared to it. Not just box office revenue, but also reviews, relevance, etc. And of course, none quite measure up. So they cut animation spending, lay off animators, and shut down animation divisions.
The problem isn't that the subsequent films weren't good films. (Well, some weren't. Others were.) But the problem is that the blockbusters were too good.
Disney just has to get back into the cycle where they produce a range of quality animation (allowing some "duds" as well as non-blockbusters to get made). In this business world, where a single non-blockbuster means you shut down the division, this is indeed hard.
Is there something wrong with me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Disney's soul... (Score:3, Insightful)
These days Disney is just another mega corporation run by MBAs and Financial types. The movie segment is a small part of their empire which primarily leverages old intellectual property (think "classic Disney films").
Save their soul? I think not.
3D animation isn't the future (Score:3, Insightful)
Animators already look to Miyazaki (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you can lay more of the blame for Disney's failures on Disney's management. They need to get out of the way and let the creative elements create. Maybe with Michael Eisner's departure this year we'll see some changes for the better.
Different strokes (Score:5, Insightful)
But to assume that anime would attract the same kinds of audiences as Disney's crap is ridiculous and unsupportable. No, their releases don't get especially good market support in the US from Disney, but most of the Joe Six-packs I know who've seen Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away thought they were either (a) boring as all hell, (b) pointless, or (c) impossible to understand.
Think what you want of these people, but this is the audience that is attracted to movies like Toy Story or Aladdin or any of the dozens of like films: very American, lots of "physical" humor, not especially deep. People want crap like what Disney produces; they just need to rediscover what makes good crap.
I'll content myself with being among the few Americans who enjoy anime, but I will never delude myself into thinking it might ever be mass-market fare in the US.
Miyazaki != $$ (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure that originality is Disney's biggest problem. After all, some of Disney's biggest 2D hits were based on fairy tales and fables (Beauty & The Beast, The Little Mermaid, and yes, Aladdin and The Lion King [based on Hamlet] ). No, I think the big problem is Disney can't seem to find something that audiences identify with anymore. In the 90's, that something was the production value of a cartoon with Broadway musical numbers combined with the best animation Disney had to offer, and decent story telling (Aladdin was nearly completely rewritten before it was ever released).
So far, Disney can't find that niche to milk it. Pixar has managed to find this formula without musical numbers. Can Disney do the same? So far, the answer seems to be a resounding no.
Re:Will Anime last? (Score:4, Insightful)
What Pixar and Miyazaki prove is that it's the story first. Only when you have a good, compelling story should you start looking at "implementation details".
Re:Will Anime last? (Score:5, Insightful)
The point isn't that the Studio Ghibli movies are anime. They aren't succeeding because they are made by Japan in a Japanese animation style which is currently "in". They are succeeding because they are interesting, original stories with genuine charm, rather than schmaltzy, PC-laden cheese produced by the mangling of public domain works or historical events into unrecognisability.
The most successful and enjoyable things Disney has recently produced have been Lilo & Stitch and The Emperor's New Groove. They were good because they were interesting, original stories, not because of the way they were animated. So it's hilarious that Disney has decided that 2D animation is dead, and if they switch to 3D everything will be all better. As I recall, Treasure Planet was partially done in 3D. It still sank like a lead balloon.
I know what movies I'll be getting for my hypothetical future children.
Re:rapturous critical acclaim (Score:3, Insightful)
If it weren't for my "Don't buy stuff published by MPAA members" policy, I'd own at least Kiki's Delivery Service.
Re:Will Anime last? (Score:3, Insightful)
The funny thing is, it's UNDER exposed in theaters. While I sure as hell don't want Disney to handle series, they'd have the power to get more anime into theaters. There are enough people ut there that it WOULD make money. The best part is, the risk would be much smaller, as Disney only has to make money over the cost of bringing it over (and I'd assume there'd be some royalties back to Ghibli).
Is it done?
(Note, any business stuff was pure conjecture... And I've been up for way too long)
The golden egg kept out of sight (Score:5, Insightful)
While the DVD releases have been good, I was under the impression that it was the boys at Pizar who got Disney to distribute Miyazaki's work in the U.S. in the first place. Not that I'm bitter or anything.
Disney's soul died with Walt years ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think Miyazaki can save Disney's soul either. He's a creative type who makes what he wants to. Disney don't make what they want, they make what their demographics tell them people want. Until Disney changes this, they will change nothing.
Interestingly Disney are required by contract not to cut or change any of Ghibli's films without explicit approval from Ghibli. However John Lasseter of Pixar is the main man behind getting Disney to distribute Ghibli's work in the US which explains why they have been released relatively unharmed.
Studio Ghibli? (Score:2, Insightful)
The US box office for Spirited Away was $10 million, total.
Howls Moving Castle is currently playing at maybe half a dozen screens in the entire United States, and probably didn't break a few hundred thousand dollars on its opening weekend.
In comparison, Madagascar made $18 million, just last weekend, and nearly $130 million total US box office in the last three weeks.
Hmm... yeah, I bet Disney is going to get right on that Studio Ghibli thing.
AO Scott (Score:3, Insightful)
Why the need to qualify? Why not consider the possiblity that Miyazaki could be the greatest living filmmaker, period?
Of course, the very idea that an artist or an piece of art can be "best" is simplistic, like the idea that you can rank movies by stars. But you can group artists into categories for some purpose, and that in some cases there are categories with only one artist in them. And there's no doubt that among all the animated filmmakers working, Miyazaki is unique in a number of ways. But the very supercategory of animated films is not in my opinion very useful. And in the long term it's going to be harder and harder to draw the line between animation and live action.
So let's look at other ways in which Miyazaki is unique.
He's perhaps one of a kind in the category of filmmakers whose works combine serious artistic merit and broad popular appeal. Or how about this category: makers of narrative driven films that unfold at modest to very slow pace, yet are capable of holding the attention of both adults and very young children?
Re:Saving Disney's Soul (Score:3, Insightful)
2) extending copyrights is more evil than dumping toxins into drinking water? destroying local economies? exploiting slave-like and child labor to produce tennis shoes? profiting off of warmongering in the US and around the globe? yeah, that stuff's kinda bad... but trying to stop their IP from going into the public domain? THAT'S SO TEH EVIL!!!!!!1
Re:Animators won't save Disney... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, being that I was born in '78, is there anyone that can speak to the glory days of Disney? Was it pure and good while Walt Disney was in charge? And exactly when did it lose it's way?
Re:Will Anime last? (Score:5, Insightful)
My belief is Disney fails with most movies because it tries to make a movie as appealing as possible to everyone (dialogue adults and children understand, adapting known stories rather than making it original, dumbing down) and tries so hard that it messes it all up. If it tried to be a little more "out there" with their storylines, it may have some success.
Re:Kind of Sad (Score:3, Insightful)
What is it we always argue about here on Slashdot the most? Big companies, inflexible to change. The Disney franchise is huge, and the formula for making animated shows and movies has served them so well for so long that it has blinded them to the changes happening around them. Ghibli is small (as say compared to Disney) so they are constantly reinventing their art and their storytelling, as are countless hopeful companies around the world which are all likely contenders to be the next Pixar of hand drawn animation.
Even should the unthinkable happen, and traditional hand drawn animation go the way of the western movie genre, you can take some comfort in the fact that hand drawn 2D animatiors are essential in the creation of 3D shows/series/movies. Many 2D animators become excellent 3D animators with some training, and many animators are still hired to make storyboards and animate complex scenes for the 3D animators.
Re:Will Anime last? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it, Pixar's films are great, they're extremely kid friendly but they _DO_ explore mature themes as well. The characters evolve, they learn new lessons, they're _NOT_ perfect. Some of the things in them will completely go over kids heads, but give the adults a good chuckle. Animation doesn't have to be watered down crap to be a good kid's movie. Disney used to know this (hell look at Bambi alone, can you imagine Disney of today doing a show where the main character's mother is killed shortly into it?) but they seem to have forgotten it completely. It's not just Disney doing away with their animation studio, it seems Disney has lost it's heart and soul.
It may help Disney pull through in the short term, but will it be a long term solution for the lack of good cartoons from Disney? I wonder how many years anime has left?
While some in the business (*cough*AVD*cough*) like to proclaim doom and gloom at every chance they get (in particular about fansubbers), the market isn't showing any signs of falling apart. The main issues now are ones of success. Retailers are less willing to stock titles that don't start selling well right away. I personally wonder how big an issues that is though because more of the places that actually stock a decent amount of anime are more speciality stores, and they're going to understand that some titles pick up sales slowly.
Manga in particular is growing amazingly. Viz's Shonen Jump has done so well that they're launching a sister magazine called Shojo Beat targeted at girls. Shonen Jump graphic novels sell amazingly well (the $7.95 price point can't hurt). Even Del Ray has gotten into the business, starting out with some very high profile titles (Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHolic, both by CLAMP) and slowly expanding out. Their titles cost more than the industry standard $9.99 (at $10.99), but they also come with all the extras from the Japanese release (translated to boot), translation notes and tend to be a bit thicker in my experience.
Anime in and of itself is not just a fad, it's been growing for many years. Early fans used to watch whatever they could get, even if it was some Nth generation VHS copy of a show Raw (no subs) that you could barely watch. Thanks to fans, especially ones dedicated enough to do fansubs, and those who distributed them, the market continued to grow. In the last 5-6 years it's grown dramatically
Re:Will Anime last? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, when I try to loan Miyazaki movies to my sister's kids, they never get to watching them-- because they haven't heard of them and "they're different". So a lack of marketing and a lack of a brand really make it suffer.
Too many parents rely on brand (e.g. Disney, Nickleodeon, HBO) as a filter for what they'll let their kids see. Too many kids only want to watch the branded stuff their peers mention.
It reminds me of a John Lasseter (sp?) interview about Pixar, when an executive asked (for Toy Story), "okay, what are the 8 songs?" The idea of doing a movie (to compete with Disney, no less) that didn't follow The Formula and include the marketable songs was considered folly.
So Miyazaki-type movies have an uphill battle because "they're different" and they lack the marketing bit to appeal to 'the consumer masses'.
Re:Different strokes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Animators won't save Disney... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't format, it's story. Disney built it's business on story telling and seems to have completely forgotten how to do that.
Re:I'll go for... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Different strokes (Score:5, Insightful)
More specifically, if you restrict yourself to anime, you've cut your audience--some people just won't see it or else consider it crazy, far out, and inaccessible (because, let's face it, a heck of a lot if anime is crazy, far out, and inaccessible, just in an entertaining way). And, like American animation, there is some very good anime (Cowboy Bebop, a choice I hope is non-controversial) and plenty of lame ones (I'm not going to cite any examples because that's just begging for flamewars. Think so some anime you hate and put it here). Hence, you've restricted your market by your choice of style, but anime is just that-a style. It's no guarantee of quality by any means, and Miyazaki has done some amazing work, (though let's be honest with ourselves--Mononoke and Nausicaa were more or less the same movie), but part of that may be because he hasn't whored himself out as a profit moachine, but rather as a dedicated animator, and you don't need to convert to and anime-based approach to find that, you just need a Disney willing to hire people (like those who work at, say, Pixar) who share his dedication.
And, though it's responding to flamebait, American animation isn't crap. I would go so far as to say that it's objectively better than Japanese animation. Please don't take this as an insult to anime, potential flamers, (Bebop is in fact my favoritest show ever, blah blah blah), merely an observation. The drawing in American animation tends to be less elaborate than that in anime (also somewhat less stylistically limited. It's a rare anime that doesn't include at least one of the following: drawing hair as an impossibly elaborate system of spikes sprouting of characters' heads, "expressive" eyes that take up half of people's faces, or chins likes knives). However, the animation is much better. The elaborate drawing required of anime, and in particular its frequent conversion from the still medium of manga, results in a great deal of scenes defined by minimal physical movement, or action scenes that jerk through a series of 1-second stills. Conversely, American animation, especially Disney, is always very, well, animated. Compare something like Trigun or DBZ (as examples of shows in which motion is very important) to Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast and the differences in the way motion is portrayed are just phenomenal, and there's more and smoother motion in American animation, hands down. Miyazaki's work is to some extent a partial violation of this tendency--Studio Ghibli's work at times reaches American fluidity--but the fact of the matter is that, in general, American animation is objectively better as animation. American animation tends towards the fluid and anime towards the static and elbaorate. I'm not saying either is "better," but any contention that work like Disney's represents "crap" represents the work of someone who enters a battle of wits unarmed.
Look back at Disney's history (Score:3, Insightful)
Disney is back where they were in the 70's. One bad family movie after another. One forgettable animated feature after another.
I think what is more suprising than their fall now is the fact that they stayed at the top during so much of the 90's. They had several decades of nothing prior to that.
Re:Will Anime last? (Score:3, Insightful)
Problem is, reviewers like Stephen Hunter at the Washington Post just "simply do not get it" (his own words: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic [washingtonpost.com] le/2005/06/09/AR2005060901951.html) and trash them in reviews. Seriously, he starts out by saying he's the wrong person to review it, then proceeds to give a negative review. What ever happened to "I don't get it, so I recuse myself", I'll never know.
Well, I don't know. "I thought it was kind of arbitrary" is as good an opinion as any; I don't think someone needs to either love or hate something in order to be qualified to review it.
On a tangent, though, it's sad that whenever a movie has a female protagonist, who is competent and achieves things, and who is not constantly used as a poster girl for Important Female Issues, then that makes the movie a Girl Power movie for every second Western reviewer. It's sad, because it emphasizes how few Western movies have competent female protagonists without a Female Agenda, and how alien this concept is to some people. :/
Re:Miyazaki != $$ (Score:3, Insightful)
So why do these films do so poorly in America? Americans in general have a case of xenophobia. Now imagine if they took's Miyazaki's vision for a movie but had an American write it and also have Americanized animation. I guarantee it would do tremedously well.
Also btw Howl's Moving Castle is orginally a book by a british author Diana Wynne Jones. Apparently she was very pleased with Miyazaki's adaptation.
Things everyone forgets... (Score:2, Insightful)
The not-so-old Disney 2D stuff is wildly popular (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all up to Disney. The 2D animation form is highly relevant and even the work Disney was doing just a few years ago is popular.
Does anyone really believe that the success of the Pixar films is due primarily to the technology they employed?
I'm not suggesting that Disney should go in for "South Park" style material, but the success of "South Park" shows that even the crudest "limited animation" techniques--a la UPA in the 1950s--can achieve commercial success today.
If Disney's institutional memory has forgotten how to make good 2D animations in just a few short years, OK, but that's their own failure and they shouldn't blame it on the technique itself.
Re:Solution: don't focus on blockbuster/masterpiec (Score:3, Insightful)
Another question: there have been four Pooh theatrical releases over the last four years. For the fourth one, how much promotion is required? How much is acceptable?
Pooh has been everywhere in recent years. That alone could be why Disney didn't market the movie. Maybe they didn't need to.
I don't think they're setting up 2D to fail. At this point, they're just ignoring it. Why push Pooh when you know that The Incredibles is guaranteed to do well and bring in buckets and buckets of merchandising money?
Anime and US animation (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all about the stories, stupid.
Seriously, one has only to look at cartoon network to understand that the stylistic medium is hardly the prime determinate of quality. Ranging from Futurama, Family guy, Justice league and others to ATHF, PowerPuff Girls, Ed, Edd, & Eddie back towards your Trigun and BeBop and the insurmountably great Samarai Jack. You can quickly surmise that how the characters are drawn hardly relates to the quality of the show and/or movie.
Disney has truly grown decrepit in it's stories, loosing a huge portion of the charm and power it's former greats (Bambi, snow white, pinochio, Dumbo, cinderella, lady & the tramp, sword int he stone, sleeping beuty, 101 dalmations, etc...) to the current onslaught of crap.
Pizar's astounding sucess stems NOT from it's medium of choice but through it's incredible story telling captivation.
I Personaly am saddened that one of the great artistic styles truly pioneered by disney itself will slowly fade and possibly die simply because disney is incapable of hiring talented writers. I love anime, however there's a great degree to be said about all the various styles out there including what is literally the heart of being a "cartoon". While realism in films such as Akira are astounding and well appreciated, the fluidity and artistic impressionism of films such as fantasia, Beuty and the beast and even others (south park, simpsons, etc...) shouldn't be sacraficed.
Suffice to say, no matter what form of animation Disney uses it will all go to squat if they don't change how they produce their storyboards.
Re:Animators won't save Disney... (Score:4, Insightful)
Disney has become the most obvious symbol of the mediocrity that has taken over American entertainment. I don't have any problem with them dipping into the public domain, but look at the drivel they produce; the Hunchback of Notre Dame was truly a gag-worthy production. Pocahontas had no resemblence to history other than in name. Treasure Planet took one of the greatest adventure stories ever written and turned it into a muling pile of crap.
If Disney wants to get with the times, fire the first writer that says "Now here we've got to have a singing animal."
The pain of animation in the US (Score:2, Insightful)
I totally agree that disney has to go back o its roots and to drop a whole lot of execs and most important of all. To DUMP the disney formula.
The one that has, songs every 5 minutes, and a stupid comic relief.
Walt, bless him, was a man that believed that it was the story combined with the imagry that created a picture. He put HIS company on the line many times to get a picture out.
Mind you he also had some fantastic failures as well. But in the heart of it, WALT was the business man along with Roys father, and they fought tooth and nail sometimes. But now we have people who are NOT animation people trying to control the movies with demographics and test markets and control groups.
Treasure planet and Atlantis were not bad movies. I have seen the original art and the scripts and was amazed how much was dropped and changed for fear of offending kids.
I think that a main point in this continent is that Animation is catagorized unto itself. Any movie that is CG or 2D is just animation. But if we look into it we see that there are Dramas, Comedy, Childrens, Horror, and all varieties of animation.
Example. The animated Spawn series. Faithfull to a point of the original comic, it was merely catagorized as animation. But it is hell and gone from being disney family. Its down right brutal and horrific. gives the Sopranos a run.
Family Guy, is NOT for kids. But people THINK that it can be.
If you do a comparrison to the way Miyazaki makes films and the way Walt made films, you will see nearly identical methods and approaches, and passions for what they are doing. Asking, "Will this be the best picture it can be?" instead of "Is this picture rigged well enough to maximize profit from its varied demographics?"
Animation is Art , AND animation is business. One has to come before the other, and if done correctly the money will follow it.
Re:Will Anime last? (Score:5, Insightful)
"anime" simply means Japanese animation. I have no idea why someone would have the attitude that Miyazaki (and Studio Ghibli films in general) couldn't appropriately be called anime. What does it mean to be "more than just anime"? Does that mean that anime, as a baseline definition, only refers to Japanese animation that is just mediocre to average, and that the excellent Japanese animation should be referred to using some other term? Is this some hang-up that non-Japanese have about the use of the term anime (because, of course, in Japan, ANY animation, including non-Japanese animation, is anime, but that's a different issue). Heck, it's like saying that Miyazaki's Nausicaa manga shouldn't be called manga, because it's "more than manga".
I think I understand your point, that Miyazaki's stuff shouldn't necessarily be lumped in with some of the generic TV anime out there, but I think that point can be made without taking this attitude that "anime" isn't an appropriate word to describe what Miyazaki's films are.
Costs go down... then quality goes down. (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe Disney can be saved... but it'll have to die first. I mean it'll need a big disaster for it to find its creative roots again, and shake off all the other entertainment industries it sucked its tentacles into.
BTW, they're not alone in following this venue. Shrek-makers Dreamworks SKG are following the same lead. 2 movies a year... pump, pump it out! (BTW, CEO Jeff Katzenberg is a manager from Disney) He's counting on cooped-up creators to pump out the juice. How long until they run out of breath? They already planned two more shrek derivatives...
Google never went through a Depression (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Animators won't save Disney... (Score:4, Insightful)
While I agree about the hotels, I have to say (as I presented in a Brand Planning research project I did) I think you're dead wrong on the park. You see, what made Disney what is was in its glory days was the fact that no one else had the perfect balance between quality animation, and the park that brought it to life and let you experience the magic of Disney.
That was their unique selling point. And if you take a look at profits from their park, you'll realize how vital it really was. And while I can't find the actual figures now, it is also interesting to note that in years where the park took the biggest profitability hits, they also SEVERELY cut its maintenance budget. I felt this was a big factor, since nobody really wants to hang out in a park where half the rides are down, there's spiderwebs on dumbo's ears, and the puke still hasn't been cleaned up.
Another thing that hasn't really been happening with the parks lately is crosspromotion. They have an amazing chance to advertise for the park in the theaters and on DVDs for all of their stuff, but as far as I've seen, they don't ever do that. They need more movie tie-ins with the park, and they need to keep it relevant.
Part of the problem with this is that they don't seem to want to make the investment with rides/amusements based on new titles because they don't want to spend the money unless its a big hit, and frankly with the crap they've been putting out lately, I can't really say I blame them.
But unfortunately, business is about taking risks, especially if you're in the business of creativity. People are getting tired of Cinderella's castle. They want Howl's castle instead. I just wonder if Disney has enough balls to attempt it.
Re:Miyazaki != $$ (Score:1, Insightful)
Miyazaki may be an ubelievably great artist, but his movies will not bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in movie sales,
Well, duh. Have you ever tried to cram a million people into a movie theater? You can't make big bucks with only 36 screens...
Star Blazers, Speed Racer, Astroboy (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you kidding?
I thought anime was just a fad during ROBOTECH. I thought I was the only one who worshipped at the altar of Star Blazers.
And this is back in the day when you couldn't get anime at the local Blockbuster, when the only way to see anime was to have a friend (or a friend of a friend of friend) send you copies of tapes that originated in Japan.
We sat in darkended rooms watching 10th gen copies of tapes that were so blurry by that time you could barely see the characters or hear the sound. Just look up the history of the CFO (Cartoon Fantasy Organization) for that bit of madness.
Yeah, anime is just a fad, that has lasted 30+ years so far in this country alone, with no sign of abating. Anime is now glutting the animation market, you can barely find a cartoon on TV or in the video stores that *isn't* anime or anime-based, or anime looking.
Cartoon Network, to their credit, is producing a lot of animation with a variety of styles, and much of it is quite good. But, their action-oriented stuff is generally anime-looking (teen titans, justice league, etc. etc.)
Star Blazers will have it's 25th anniversary IN THIS COUNTRY (the USA), in September. That's Star Blazers, not Space Cruiser Yamato.
And, despite the crude looking animation, it's still one of my favorite shows, one of the hallmarks of anime everywhere, and still a fairly strong seller on DVD because of the power of its storyline and characters.
Yeah it's fad. A Fad might be the current hupla surrounding the re-release of GATCHAMAN, which you might have seen as Battle of the Planets (or Eagle Riders or G-Force). I saw the DVD preview for that recently, and jumped out of my seat.
But anime appears to be here to stay. Consider the fans of Astroboy, now aging into their 50's, who are still fans of Astroboy, or who, at least, can fondly remember the opening song.
And what would your childhood have been without Speed Racer, currently enjoying a breif stint doing Geico Commercials (because everyone remembers the show!).
Yeah, anime is a fad. It's a fad that has already lasted an entire generation, and kids who've been fed a steady diet of Pokemon are now turning to Love Hina (as my nephew is), and then soon Evangelion.
I'd dropped out of the anime scene until I came across something called "Big O" on Cartoon Network. That show was so friggin amazing that I became an anime fan again, practically overnight.
I'm in my 40's. Please, tell me this is a fad. Because so far, it's outlasted my entire wardrobe.
Author is unfortunately mistaken (Score:2, Insightful)
Frankly, there is no way the movie is going to make any money in the U.S. It looks like it will actually make less money than Spirited Away. And the reviews are such that I doubt it will get an Oscar either.
You can complain that this is due to the movie's limited release, poor marketing, yada yada, but the sad truth is that this movie has just opened about 20% wider than Spirited Away, and has made about 20% less money in those theaters. Where are the legion of fans? And since people are tending to like the film less, there won't be superior word of mouth either.
Ok, bringing this back to Disney, if a movie that makes over 220 million world-wide can't command a word-of-mouth of over a few million bucks in the US, what does that say about potentially *less* popular 2D offerings in the US? It means a lot of marketing money, for less punch. Better to spend the marketing money on 3D, where people are still vaguely interested just for the pretty graphics (though this fad is indeed dwindling).
That all said I am a huge Miyazaki fan, visited his museum in Japan, watched all the movies many many times... I am however realistic. I will pimp the movie to all my friends but I roll my eyes whenever someone mentions a conspiracy to keep Miyazaki down in the US.
Try Totoro. (Score:3, Insightful)
Then tell me.
Re:Animators won't save Disney... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why ? Disney's version of Robin Hood had plenty of singing animals, and it was a great movie.
"Too late to be known as John the First
He's sure to be known as John the worst
A pox on that phony king of England!"
Then again, I haven't seen recent Disney movies, so maybe they've overdone it...
Re:Animators won't save Disney... (Score:4, Insightful)
Both "Lilo and Stitch" and "The Emperor's New Groove" are hilarious and original, not to mention beautifully animated.
Re:Animators won't save Disney... (Score:3, Insightful)
Once he had some power, he used it for all it was worth. He dominated the film channels and forced theatres not to show any competing anmation on threat of loss of rights to show Disney. He dominated his company, employees and competators. Old disney was all business, and The Mouse is sacred because it is what got him off the ground in the beginning.
However, he at least did have a good idea about what types of shows to produce, and he did make some very great advances in technology and style. The Disney company has always been a bunch of bastards, but under Walt Disney they at least had some direction and quality. Under Eisner it's just a bunch of greedy bastards with no idea how to carry the company other than "Follow the money".
Can Hayao Miyazaki Save Disney's Soul? (Score:1, Insightful)
Old Miyazaki, perhaps.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I am a little disappointed with his latest films. They all have the creativity and beautiful animation that he's known for, but the stories are kind of lacking. If he stayed on track with his older films, he could have owned Disney.
rapturous critical acclaim from fools (Score:2, Insightful)
Among people with a clue (for example Roger Ebert who is very knowledgeable about the director and very animation friendly http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti
p.s I feel Miyazaki is horribly overrated some of his stuff is ok but most of his work leaves me completely cold.
Animation, shmanimation...get some writers (Score:3, Insightful)
Disney has lately been doing quite a lot of something that they pooh-poohed in the discussion on at least one DVD: more of the same. If cute spotty dogs sell once, sell 'em again. Some days it seems that everything coming out of Disney is "a II movie". Don't give us more dwarves. Let stories end, and tell new ones.
I haven't seen _Treasure Planet_ so I can't say whether it's good or bad, but I've seen the trailer and the concept miserably fails the laugh test. The animation is darned good but what it's telling me is *stupid*.
When most of your new stuff is either ridiculous or retreaded, don't expect to do well.
Emotional connection (Score:3, Insightful)
You've hit the nail on the head for a key reason why Miyazaki's film work so well - they often manage to create an emotional response in the viewers. This is no mean feat as most live action movies cannot achive this same goal. This emotional connection delivers an experience that the audience recognizes as truth without feeling that they have been manipulated - something song and dance rarely can deliver.
yawn (Score:1, Insightful)
I live in the heart of Silicon Valley where you would expect to see a higher concentration of people interested in this stuff than the national average, and I can't find a theatre playing this unless I drive 30 minutes into SF.
GITS2:Innocence was playing for all of... 1 week? in one artsy theatre in Palo Alto, and Steamboy never made it. This is pathetic.
Re:Animators won't save Disney... (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to take into consideration that the cartoon/animation market is much larger in Japan, and there are different cartoons made for different demographics. Just because one Japanese manga/anime you've seen is "fucked up" doesn't mean that work targeted children. There are age restrictions in Japan as well on sale of creative works.
In comparison to Japan, the US cartoon/animation market seems stagnant. I can't explain completely why this is the case. Japan however is a train society, and many buy cheap weekly manga magazines at train stations for their commute. A competitive manga magazine market could have caused greater advancement there. I'm sure with more competition there's greater tendency to lean towards sex and violence as well. In the US, Nickelodeon dominated TV animation, Disney dominated the movie theaters with very little competition to the point that nickelodeon was for a long time running just decades old animation (bugs bunny, road runner, etc) instead of creating new ones.
The Kanto region of Japan had a large, cheap labor force of part-time housewives to work on drawing animation cells to help the industry in the earlier days. Nowadays animation often incorporates CG so this is a less significant factor, however.