# Anyone else miss traditional animation and non-fractured fairy tales? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 25, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-miss-traditional-animation-and-non-fractured-fairy-tales/457793 "2008-07-25T22:52:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-miss-traditional-animation-and-non-fractured-fairy-tales/457793/61 "2008-07-29T16:47:18Z")
[QUOTE=Labrador Deceiver] Is that style no more? [/QUOTE] Rocked by the success of the Dreamworks and Pixar CG movies, Disney terminated production of cell-shaded features about 5 years ago. Most people who love animation thought this was a stupid move. Pixar and Dreamworks were beating Disney at the box office because they were making better movies, not because of the animation technology they were using. In 2006 John Lasseter, the head of Pixar, was brought in to run Disney animation. He promptly revived work on 2-D animation and the first new 2-D feature – _The Princess and the Frog_ – will be released Christmas 2009. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-miss-traditional-animation-and-non-fractured-fairy-tales/457793/62 "2008-07-29T17:11:51Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] Shrek is fine in the 3D style and Miyazaki’s fims wouldn’t work in anything other than the traditional 2D style. What I can’t stand is the sort of hybrid style of movies like Appleseed or Titan AE. They are really 3D animation but they use a special paint & ink filter to make the characters look like flat hand drawn cell animation. But then objects in the background might be more 3D so it ends up looking like you are watching a diorama or something. [/QUOTE] Toon shading (like the recent _Appleseed_ used) can be done well, but I find more often than not it isn’t, outside of video games–and those are usually based on cartoons anyways. _Kakurenbo_ did a fantastic job (it helped that the faces were all hidden by masks), and it wasn’t until the second time through that I noticed that it was full 3D. _Appleseed_, on the other hand, went for a lot of realism in the backgrounds, and it clashed badly with the characters. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-miss-traditional-animation-and-non-fractured-fairy-tales/457793/63 "2008-07-29T19:56:06Z")
[QUOTE=Pochacco] Rocked by the success of the Dreamworks and Pixar CG movies, Disney terminated production of cell-shaded features about 5 years ago. Most people who love animation thought this was a stupid move. Pixar and Dreamworks were beating Disney at the box office because they were making better movies, not because of the animation technology they were using. In 2006 John Lasseter, the head of Pixar, was brought in to run Disney animation. He promptly revived work on 2-D animation and the first new 2-D feature – _The Princess and the Frog_ – will be released Christmas 2009. [/QUOTE] Thank you for the clarification. I was under the impression that _The Princess and the Frog_ was the last 2-D feature, rather than a comeback. I appreciate it. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-miss-traditional-animation-and-non-fractured-fairy-tales/457793/64 "2008-07-29T20:06:01Z")
I was very disappointed with what I read about The Princess and the Frog on Wikipedia. I have _never_ heard or thought of Maddy as a “black” name. The only Maddy I’ve ever known was white. I love the name and my wife and I have discussed naming our first daughter Madeline - Maddy for short. And why the hell can’t she be a chambermaid? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-miss-traditional-animation-and-non-fractured-fairy-tales/457793/65 "2008-07-29T22:10:05Z")
[QUOTE=Labrador Deceiver] Thank you for the clarification. I was under the impression that _The Princess and the Frog_ was the last 2-D feature, rather than a comeback. I appreciate it. [/QUOTE] There’s no knowing at this point. If The Princess and the Frog brings in the cash like gangbusters, it’s fairly certain that more will be made. If it loses money hand over fist, well…who knows. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-miss-traditional-animation-and-non-fractured-fairy-tales/457793/66 "2008-07-30T02:20:05Z")
[QUOTE=Cisco] I was very disappointed with what I read about The Princess and the Frog on Wikipedia. I have _never_ heard or thought of Maddy as a “black” name. The only Maddy I’ve ever known was white. I love the name and my wife and I have discussed naming our first daughter Madeline - Maddy for short. And why the hell can’t she be a chambermaid? [/QUOTE] You wouldn’t be alone there. That was, by far, the most popular girl name around about 6 or 7 years ago. Either Madison, Madeline, Matilda, etc. We know, literally, 14 Maddys under the age of 8. It isn’t a name particularly associated with African Americans these days, but I believe it was a long time ago. I can’t say for sure. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-miss-traditional-animation-and-non-fractured-fairy-tales/457793/67 "2008-07-30T02:20:43Z")
It’s almost funny that those who adore the Disney animated films of the Thirties and Forties regard those films as true fairy tales, as opposed to the “fractured” ones (in the mold of “Shrek”). In case they’re not aware, many aficionados of traditional folklore and children’s literature LOATHED Walt Disney for many of the same reasons Cisco hates Dreamworks and Pixar. After all, Grimm fairy tales were genuinely grim. Lovers of true fairy tales, like J.R.R. Tolkien, despised Walt Disney for watering them down, for “fracturing” them, if you will. Germanic dwarves were grim, even menacing- they weren’t cute, cuddly guys who sang kiddy songs. “Cinderella” was a pretty gruesome story, with ladies cutting off their toes to get their feet into the magic slipper- but Disney turned it into a cutesie-poo movie with singing, dancing mice. And you don’t want to know what P.L. Travers, creator of Mary Poppins, thought of Walt. There was a lot to love and admire in the Disney classics, from an artistic standpoint. The undersea segments of “Pinocchio,” for instance, were breathtaking, and something we’re never likely to see again. But don’t kid yourself- in his own way, Walt Disney homogenized, prettified and bastardized fairy tales to a degree that the makers of “Shrek” couldn’t begin to approach. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-miss-traditional-animation-and-non-fractured-fairy-tales/457793.md?page=3)