I’ve talked a lot of crap about 3D animation on these boards. I have had a very hard time getting into 90% of it. I’ve never been able to understand how Brad Bird could make a tear-jerking masterpiece like The Iron Giant, and then follow it up with a cold, soulless turd like The Incredibles. The medium, I figured.
Well, I’m here to eat my crow. I just found a couple 3D shorts that made me feel like a kid again. The animation is beautiful, and it actually enhances a hilarious story, rather than tries to cover up a crappy one.
That is really cool - especially as it seems really in touch with the 50 year old originals - you feel right at home, so to speak.
However, I’m going to have to take offense at your assessment of The Incredibles - one of the better works that Pixar has done (a studio whose films I always really look forward to and who, to this day, have not once let me down).
A nice adaptation of the style into 3D, though I am a little underwhelmed. (Probably because I find the Road Runner cartoons to be at the bottom end of the WB properties.)
Pretty good stuff. As usual, it’s the skill of the animator, and not the tool or the technique that makes the difference. I don’t see this piece being any better as a result of 3D rendering, but there are some people who feel that 3D is a general improvement over 2D. Animation studios once saw 3D as a time and cost saving device for animation production. In reality, the 3D aspects do no more than the use of computers for image management and coloring did for 2D in those respects. The quality still comes from the time consuming process of animators delicately manipulating images to achieve the best effect.
I enjoyed the new episodes. I think the new animation style does change the humour, because it looks even more absurd for the Coyote to survive a detailed, 3D explosion unharmed. Or maybe being a kid of the Itchy & Scratchy generation has just warped my expectations of what is supposed to happen when cartoon animals get blown up.
Thanks for linking to those, but like everyone else in this thread, you couldn’t be more wrong about The Incredibles. The same artistic sensibility was at work, but he was telling a different story.
A great animator will produce great work. Will Vinton and Nick Park both managed to translate their deeply tactile claymation style into 3D computer animation. 3D tools have gotten better, computers have gotten faster and rendering has improved drastically, but a great animator can breathe life into normally inanimate objects no matter what medium they work in - see the very first Pixar short Luxo Jr, or the stop-motion animated cigarette packs of Oskar Fischinger.
I’m at a loss what you see in this that you didn’t see in The Incredibles. It has a beautiful, stylized palette, but that is mostly translating the old WB style into modern technology. It has great squash and stretch, but Pixar pioneered the tools that permit cartoonish volumes on The Incredibles with Elastigirl.
Obviously I cannot convince you to like something you don’t like. My own loathing for Anime is fairly well known, and I despise seeing the influence of it leeching into Western animation. It is a visceral dislike, mostly due to the various animation “cheats” used.
While I liked “The Incredibles” myself, I’ll defend the OP a bit: compared to “The Iron Giant,” which is packed to the brim with emotion and humanity and goodness, “The Incredibles” is a much more polished, less personal affair. It’s got requisite CGI action, catchphrases, and characters that feel like they were intensely focus-grouped. Being a superhero pastiche, the former two are forgiveable to me.
In my mind, “The Incredibles” is one of the best overproduced CGI affairs yet made, but, if you don’t like overproduced CGI affairs, well, it is one.
