Unconventional or unpopular opinions you have (re: animation)

[Stumpos]

Looney Tunes: Back in Action is worse than Space Jam. I've just seen that movie and GOD was it WAY worse than I remembered. I'm even contemplating if it's on par with Space Jam 2 in some places.

So what made Back in Action so bad and Space Jam better in comparison?

 

[SweetShop209]

"The Tidal Zone" is worse than "Truth Or Square". At least with "Truth Or Square", it had a plot, and had some unironic enjoyment from it. I at least felt something from it. "The Tidal Zone" is basically 45 minutes of unfunny, sci fi running gags with no plot to speak of, anthology format or not.

 

[AngusTinMan16]

Considering my last few unpopular opinions weren’t much, I’d like to give a pretty good unpopular opinion.

Just because a character is a Karma Houdini doesn’t automatically mean that they’re a bad character outright.

I feel like during the mid-to-late 2010s, a lot of animation critics really felt apprehensive when a character does something morally ambiguous at best, but I feel like one of the reason why animation works better than live-action is that characters can get away with stuff most people in real life can’t.

 

[Vuxovich]

I still don't understand why all the Mega Man cartoons and anime flopped in the United States. Maybe the Mega Man franchise as a whole is a subject to ''The Production Curse'' trope?

 

[SpecialColorfull]

I still don't understand why all the Mega Man cartoons and anime flopped in the United States. Maybe the Mega Man franchise as a whole is a subject to ''The Production Curse'' trope?

Wow it didnt ocurr to me but every single Megaman cartoon has indeed flopped. The closest one that didnt flop is Megaman NT Warrior which lasted several seasons (Despite the fact it did flop outside the USA, Latin America only dubbed the first season.) but didnt dub the last one.

Another unpopular opinion is that people think commercials have "bad animation", but no, this isnt true. Most commercials are 30 seconds long and have the backing of major companies behind them. Heck a French commercial was a cute little mini movie that lasted 5 minutes and went viral everywhere with its Pixar worthy animation. The one with the vegetarian wolf.

 

[Surreal Kangaroo]

Am I the only person who thinks the upcoming Animal Farm movie looks okay? It doesn’t look outstanding but it didn’t look like a train wreck either. I’m honestly interested in seeing it (probably not in theaters but who knows). I understand some of the criticism about being unfaithful to the source material but at the same time I am aware that they are updating the story to be more about corruption within a company instead of an allegory for the Russian revolution.

 

[SweetShop209]

Am I the only person who thinks the upcoming Animal Farm movie looks okay? It doesn’t look outstanding but it didn’t look like a train wreck either. I’m honestly interested in seeing it (probably not in theaters but who knows). I understand some of the criticism about being unfaithful to the source material but at the same time I am aware that they are updating the story to be more about corruption within a company instead of an allegory for the Russian revolution.

It looks fine to me.

 

[Pooky]

I'm afraid it does look and sound terrible to me. I can understand on one level the purpose of updating the allegorical elements, but any other metaphor is going to be an awkward fit. In general I just don't think it looks appealing on its own merits, and pretty generic to boot.

Also, Seth Rogan, yet again. Enough, thanks.

 

[Vuxovich]

I just heard that the edit of the animated classic that is The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! that airs on MeTV Toons uses the AI. Why? I really don't like when an animated classic is damaged like that. But I wonder if the potential rerun of the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon will also use the AI.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Also, Seth Rogan, yet again. Enough, thanks.

Viva la revolution! Eheheheheheeee

 

[harry580]

since angel studios is doing the new animal farm, I bet it will be a sleeper hit and YouTube grifters are going to have a field day of how this awful remake of animal farm beat out hoppers & Toy Story 5

 

[Surreal Kangaroo]

since angel studios is doing the new animal farm, I bet it will be a sleeper hit and YouTube grifters are going to have a field day of how this awful remake of animal farm beat out hoppers & Toy Story 5

I seriously doubt it. The only Angel studios movies that really make money are the religious ones, and even then it’s nothing compared to what Pixar makes, even on a bad day.

 

[John Pannozzi]

I just heard that the edit of the animated classic that is The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! that airs on MeTV Toons uses the AI. Why? I really don't like when an animated classic is damaged like that. But I wonder if the potential rerun of the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon will also use the AI.

Its apparently WildBrain that made the AI upscale to the Super Show, not MeTV Toons. So the Mega Man series likely won't be upscaled in the same manner.

 

[AngusTinMan16]

Am I the only one who feels that because of all the bad news, more and more people have given up on being animation fans, not just JMTV?


I feel like people should start taking what new American animated show they get, and not brush it off because of some art style alone.

My unpopular opinion is that more animated shows need to come from the heart and passion, rather than an art style.

 

[Pooky]

Looney Tunes: Back in Action is worse than Space Jam. I've just seen that movie and GOD was it WAY worse than I remembered. I'm even contemplating if it's on par with Space Jam 2 in some places.

I probably still prefer it to either Space Jam movie, so I don’t entirely agree with you, but I do think it’s become somewhat overrated in some quarters. For any somewhat interesting movie that flopped in the 2000s I think “the internet” (the Letterboxd crowd in particular) has a habit of jumping straight from “deserved a bit better than it got” to “an overlooked masterpiece! People just weren’t ready!”. (There’s also a lot of sealed on nostalgia googles out there for much of Brendan Fraser’s filmography, but that’s perhaps a discussion for another day (and thread)) I thought it was a very funny movie when I first saw it in 2004, but it’s palled quite a bit with every viewing since. It’s got some great sequences and I think the characterisation of the LTs is largely on point, but some of the humour is pretty stale (a Psycho shower scene parody, really?) and the narrative is pretty unengaging and a little too slow to get away with it. It was a nightmarish production (and that’s just from the relatively little that’s been disclosed) and it does show in the finished product, which is pretty messy.

 

[Sparklefan1234]

I don't think I ever liked Cartoon Network to the point of being excited

for new episodes etc. compared to the shows on Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.

Cartoon Network always felt like something I would watch but I had no connection to anything.

 

[Darklordavaitor]

So I tend to rewatch the first Space Jam and Back in Action every few years or so, and I’ll concede that as the years go by, I find myself disliking Space Jam a little less. I still have problems with it, most notably I do agree with the take that Bugs Bunny shouldn’t need to enlist the help of the other Looney Tunes, let alone Michael Jordan, to win. Yes, Bugs loses occasionally, but that’s usually done to teach him a lesson or (more accurately) to add a little freshness to the formula, he could easily hold his own against the Monstars.

But it otherwise does have an understanding of who Bugs and most of the other Looney Tunes are and it also has nice animation. I don’t love how for people of a certain age, this is where their knowledge and appreciation of the characters starts and ends, but there are worse family movies from then and after, most notably the sequel. And I can’t deny the importance of the soundtrack.

Meanwhile, I don’t love Back in Action, and I never really did, to the point that I still don’t think it would be a masterpiece if Joe Dante got to make it 100% his way, but it’s clearly a product of executive meddling. Still, there’s something good in there with Daffy’s story and how the world perceives him vs Bugs. I prefer when the characters are treated like coworkers who occasionally interact outside of work but aren’t exactly found family (I feel similarly towards The Muppets, although to a not-as-strong extent), but this is something I do find genuine and well-developed. The rest of the movie is fine, albeit mostly forgettable kids flick comedy shtick. I have a higher tolerance for that kind of thing than a lot of people, but if this was about literally any other cast of characters (aside from maybe, again, the Muppets), I’d never go back to it.

If anything, I think I’m due for a rewatch of both films, I believe the last time I did was for A New Legacy. I should probably factor that in as well, even if I have much less to say about it.

 

[Freddy]

We'll see how Coyote vs. Acme fairs (and I have not seen The Day the Earth Blew Up, but to my understanding it is pretty much straight-up comedy), but I feel that so far it has always been bit more than awkward trying to fit Looney Tunes into a traditional feature-length three-act narrative, with dramatic stakes. If nothing else, in my eyes all of them have struggled with the fact that it is next to impossible for a story to have both slapstick violence played for laughs, where the consequences of said violence are just shrugged off the next frame, and serious/dramatic violence, where we the audience are meant to be worried about its consequences.

Say, even putting aside the societal-side of "men hurting women is inherently not funny" some people have, in the first Space Jam it is just really weird that after a whole movie of the bad guys physically bashing and hurting the good guys, with all the injuries played for laughs, suddenly one of them trying to hurt Lola and Bugs shoving her away, getting injured in her place, is played as a serious moment. Or, another example, in Space Jam: A New Legacy it is weird to see Bugs falling into a pool of lava being treated as something he needs to be rescued from, when in a typical Looney Tones cartoon the worst that could happen would be the heat of the lava launching him out of the pit, with his bum only slightly singed (although, I guess this could be handwaved with him trying to manipulate Lola).

I think another inherent problem with Looney Tunes/live-action hybrid movies is the fact that it is really hard to mix the tone and energy of the two sides. Charlie Chaplin famously said "How can we compete? These guys don't have to stop to take a breath" in regards to Looney Tunes, so when you shackle the Looney Tunes to a live-action human co-lead, you are limiting their potential. Again, we'll see how the cast of Coyote vs. Acme measure up, but just looking at the movies we have gotten so far, in my eyes you shouldn't go for sport stars, who have limited acting range, or actors like Brendan Fraser (who I know people love, but you gotta admit isn't known for big over-the-top performances), but instead look at someone like Bruce Campbell, Nicolas Cage or Christopher Lloyd.

To give my two cents on the "Space Jam vs. Back in Action" debate, I have to give edge to Back in Action. However, I do not think it is a great movie, more of a "yeah, this is fine when feeling lazy and just wanting to have something on, while having limited options" and I am a fan of Joe Dante. Even then, you can really tell which parts he was actually passionate about and was allowed to make more or less in his way (the scenes featuring only Looney Tunes, without the human cast, some of the "biting-the-hand" meta humor and all the references to old B-movies) and which parts he directed on autopilot, while holding all the studio notes.

And while Brendan Fraser and Jenna Elfman are better actors than Michael Jordan, at least the premise of Space Jam (even though, yes, I do agree with the criticism that the classic Bugs would never need help to take out the Monstars) plays up to his strengths as a performer/athlete, while Fraser and Elfman are just kinda lost in Back in Action. Although, to be fair to them, I imagine that part of the problem was probably with the direction, since Dante is clearly more comfortable with quirky character-actors than traditional Hollywood stars and you know that a version of the movie where he had full creative control wouldn't have cast them.

 

[Stumpos]

We'll see how Coyote vs. Acme fairs (and I have not seen The Day the Earth Blew Up, but to my understanding it is pretty much straight-up comedy), but I feel that so far it has always been bit more than awkward trying to fit Looney Tunes into a traditional feature-length three-act narrative, with dramatic stakes. If nothing else, in my eyes all of them have struggled with the fact that it is next to impossible for a story to have both slapstick violence played for laughs, where the consequences of said violence are just shrugged off the next frame, and serious/dramatic violence, where we the audience are meant to be worried about its consequences.

So how did the package films from 1979-88 fare with The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Movie, The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, Bugs Bunny's 1001 Rabbit Tales, Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island, and Daffy Duck Quackbusters fare as Looney Tunes theatrical movies? Notably aside from the last one, they did even involve the crew of the original shorts such as directors Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng, writers John Dunn and Dave Detiege, and various animators from the golden era/

 

[AllenJ]

So how did the package films from 1979-88 fare with The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Movie, The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, Bugs Bunny's 1001 Rabbit Tales, Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island, and Daffy Duck Quackbusters fare as Looney Tunes theatrical movies? Notably aside from the last one, they did even involve the crew of the original shorts such as directors Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng, writers John Dunn and Dave Detiege, and various animators from the golden era/

IMO, Quackbusters was the best at combining the various cartoon excerpts into a single story, as it gives the impression that the producers decided what cartoons they wanted to use first and then wrote the story around that, as opposed to the other films where the cartoon clips feel more like an afterthought in terms of which specific ones they decided to use (and it helps that the linking material is actually funny). The BB/RR Movie and Friz Freleng's Looney(x3) Bugs Bunny Movie are decent "best of" compilations that might make a good introduction for a newcomer to the LT franchise. The other two films (Rabbit Tales and Fantastic Island) are entirely disposable.