here we (let it) go again. Frozen II has broken box-office records with
presales before it has even been released, and will doubtless cap off a
triumphant year for Disney Animation and its subsidiary Pixar. The
revamped Lion King is the biggest animation of all time; Toy Story 4 has
also taken more than a billion dollars. Cue more fist-shaking at the
unassailable hugeness of Disney. But if any rival is hoping to overturn
this, they will have to try a damned sight harder.To get more news about
animation companies, you can visit shine news official website.
At the beginning of the century, we considered ourselves in a “golden
age” of animation, brought on by now-classic early Pixar titles Toy
Story, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo, and the non-Pixar Shrek and
Happy Feet. But looking around this year, you would have to acknowledge
this era is over. Apart from Disney offerings, what have we had? Mostly
underwhelming sequels and derivative new stuff. In the latter category
you would put the recent, utterly extraneous The Addams Family,
human-creature buddy movie Abominable, and forgettable stuff such as
Ugly Dolls and Playmobil: The Movie. The rest are sequels: The Secret
Life of Pets 2, Angry Birds 2, How to Train Your Dragon 3, The Lego
Movie 2 – none of which made much of an impression.
It is not just that the stories are getting repetitive and the comedy
more juvenile. Once we marvelled at the giant leaps computer animation
was making: the fur in Monsters Inc, the food textures in Ratatouille,
the balloon physics in Up. Now it feels as though everything is set in
the same candy-coloured, hygienically stylised universe, like a bad trip
in M&M’s World. Yes, I know they’re children’s movies. But so were
those golden-age animations, except they were classy and appealed to a
broad demographic.
Animated features now treat everyone like kids. And if you are the
grownup watching, all you are getting is a few fart gags and a hackneyed
“be yourself” message. Perhaps we have been buttered up by the era of
creature-related internet cuteness, but right now it feels as if we are
all in the high chair, being spoon-fed processed slop.
Of course, there are exceptions, such as the vibrant Spider-Man: Into
the Spiderverse, and there is some great animation for grownups
(Cannes-winner I Lost My Body). But having piled into the game, Disney’s
rivals are realising that animation is hugely expensive and risky.
Meanwhile, Pixar is still giving us deep, ambitious stories such as
Inside Out and the forthcoming Soul, and Disney has taken on criticism
about representation, resulting in the smart, inclusive likes of
Zootropolis, Big Hero 6 and Moana. True, Disney-Pixar has also succumbed
to sequelitis – none of its three 2019 releases were original stories –
but it is still setting a benchmark few others can match. It is almost
like it has had some experience in this business.
The Wall