Disney has released live action versions of their animated films over the years, most recently with Aladdin. And they making live action versions of The Lion King and The Little Mermaid.
So what if Disney and the other major studios decided to do the opposite? What animated version of a live action film would you like to see made?
My first thought would be Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Or maybe a Star Trek movie(I am actually disappointed they haven’t done more animated Star Trek projectst.)
So far as Star Wars, Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures has been doing little snippets from all of the movies in animated form. Link goes to that collection.
Speaking of rings, I’d like to see an animated version of the Silmarillion, at least the parts with epic battles and godlike beings. I don’t think live action could do it justice (but would be able to for the parts that mainly concern humans.)
The lines between “animated” and “live action” are getting rather blurred, nowadays. Like, that “live action” Lion King is still going to be almost entirely animated, just using a different style of animation. Something like the Silmarillion wouldn’t work any better as Pixar-style animation (or, even more, Avatar-style animation) than it would in true live action, but would require a very abstract “painted” style. If Miyazaki said that he was doing it, I’d trust him to get it right (though I don’t think even any of his films are quite the style that would be needed), but I think he’s the only modern animation-maker I’d trust with it.
What would be the point of an animated film, considering how good CGI is getting?
The main reason I would see would be to give a particular style of “feel” to the film. Along those lines, I could see a good animated version of the Thief of Baghdad or some other “Arabian Nights” story.
Or someone could animate Alice in Wonderland completely in the style of John Tenniel’s illustrations. I’ve seen snippets of this sort of thing, but not the whole story (Richard Williams, who animated Who Framed Roger Rabbit, did something similar, animating a Christmas Carol entirely in the style of the original illustrations, in a TV movie produced by Chuck Jones.)
I think you could do Jules Verne’s stories in distinctive animation styles. The Czech film Vynález zkázy, released in English as The Fabulous World of Jules Verne was done entirely in the style of the original engravings for Verne, but I don’t think you need to limit yourself to black-and-white engravings. I could see colorful yet stylized interpretations of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and other Verne books.
How about Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight? That’s a good story that hasn’t been adapted very well yet. I wouldn’t even mind if they did hyper-realistic CGI, a la Zemeckis’ Beowulf, although it might be fun to see it done in the style of medieval illuminated manuscripts, or even the Bayeux Tapestry.
I think an animated One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest would be worthy. Show it from Bromden’s perspective, like the book, with lively and colorful paranoid hallucinations.
Do it in the style of Marvel Comics’ “Tales of Asgard” stories. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Macbeth. Live-action films have difficulty with the scene where the witches summon the three apparitions. 47 Ronin, done in the style of Edo Period paintings.