Western Animation - Discuss American, Canadian, and European cartoons here (or just bitch about wokeshit, I guess)

Seems there was some wacky reporting during the HBO debacle a few days ago. Thankfully, the news about them gutting animation was false.
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(Source: https://twitter.com/cartoonbrew/status/1555953892004962307)
 
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The Sea Beast was ok, but the creature design fucking sucked.

I personally loved the setting, 1700s-1800s inspired settings are my bread & butter, and I especially loved the sheer detail but into the character, prop, and background designs.

….too bad that couldn’t extend to the sea monsters though, despite that being the central focus of the film. They all look so out of place, especially Red, and look more like they came out of a Disney Jr. show instead of a high-budget animated film.

Its not even the design concepts that are bad, they’re just way too simple. They’re too shiny and squeaky clean, more like bath toys than living, breathing animals. This is especially apparent with Red’s conceptual design; it was absolutely beautiful and had just the right amount of detail and simplicity…but for some reason they didn’t go with it.

Its just like what happened with Sisu and the Light Fury - they took a solid design and stripped it down into something inoffensive but ultimately bland.

and speaking of HTTYD, one thing I did like here more than there is that the monsters actually acted like wild animals instead of overly humanized pets. Red was still a wild animal at heart and it was executed brilliantly.

But one con; she looks way too much like toothless. In the concept art she stood out more on her own, but in her final design she’s literally just “red toothless with rhino horn” - even right down to the thickness of the neck, eye/nostril placement, teeth, skull shape, and even the goddamn tongue.
 
The Sea Beast was ok, but the creature design fucking sucked.

I personally loved the setting, 1700s-1800s inspired settings are my bread & butter, and I especially loved the sheer detail but into the character, prop, and background designs.

….too bad that couldn’t extend to the sea monsters though, despite that being the central focus of the film. They all look so out of place, especially Red, and look more like they came out of a Disney Jr. show instead of a high-budget animated film.

Its not even the design concepts that are bad, they’re just way too simple. They’re too shiny and squeaky clean, more like bath toys than living, breathing animals. This is especially apparent with Red’s conceptual design; it was absolutely beautiful and had just the right amount of detail and simplicity…but for some reason they didn’t go with it.

Its just like what happened with Sisu and the Light Fury - they took a solid design and stripped it down into something inoffensive but ultimately bland.

and speaking of HTTYD, one thing I did like here more than there is that the monsters actually acted like wild animals instead of overly humanized pets. Red was still a wild animal at heart and it was executed brilliantly.

But one con; she looks way too much like toothless. In the concept art she stood out more on her own, but in her final design she’s literally just “red toothless with rhino horn” - even right down to the thickness of the neck, eye/nostril placement, teeth, skull shape, and even the goddamn tongue.
This is true, the Red Bluster in particular was also really boring (giant cat-whale, wow), but they could have been improved by adding more scars, plants like barnacles growing off their massive hides, something that gives it a "worn" sense.
 
It's okay.

Better than Turning Red and Lightyear that's for sure.
That's not what the activists - oh I'm sorry, "critics" - say.
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lightyear rt score.JPG

Notice how the Audience Score for Luck is higher than the critics'. Almost like movie critics are out-of-touch assholes that don't have a pulse on what audiences actually like.

Luck does have a better IMDB score than Lightyear, funnily enough, if only barely.
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luck imdb.JPG
 
That's not what the activists - oh I'm sorry, "critics" - say.
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Notice how the Audience Score for Luck is higher than the critics'. Almost like movie critics are out-of-touch assholes that don't have a pulse on what audiences actually like.

Luck does have a better IMDB score than Lightyear, funnily enough, if only barely.
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What does Armond White think about Lightyear? I want to know honestly.
 
What does Armond White think about Lightyear? I want to know honestly.
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Director Angus MacLane follows orders like a toy soldier, repeating Toy Story’s fatuous tone in the way Buzz (now voiced by Chris Evans) accentuates the goofy hollow heroism. If that seems cynical, recall that Evans replaced Tim Allen after Disney progressives’ political purge. It’s part of the Pixar–Disney agenda to add identity politics to the Toy Story franchise, as if the original cast of assorted Toys “R” Us, nursery-rhyme figures were not diverse enough.

Pixar robs Millennial audiences of the capacity to discern behavioral and personality details that distinguished Buzz from cowboy Woody. This challenges Buzz’s white-male-astronaut prototype, specifically with Alisha and her lesbian kiss, then the other characters — granddaughter Izzy (Keke Palmer), Darby (Dale Soules), Mo (Taika Waititi), plus robot feline SOX (Peter Sohn) in the inscrutable-Asian role.
Disney-Pixar grooms viewers toward identity politics through diversity casting, which shouldn’t be necessary, especially since Lightyear imitates the action-film genre that has always been integrated and multiracial. Overriding that tradition is the final insult, along with MacLane’s brazen visual references to past cartoons and sci-fi movies — A.I., The Iron Giant, Star Trek, Wall-E, even Guardians of the Galaxy. None of it enlightens our emotional connection to pop culture, it’s just incessant marketing and the cheapest sentimentality since Rin Tin Tin.
Holy shit, based?!
 
Armond White used to be the film critic at National Review. Does this surprise you?
 
This is true, the Red Bluster in particular was also really boring (giant cat-whale, wow), but they could have been improved by adding more scars, plants like barnacles growing off their massive hides, something that gives it a "worn" sense.
Funny you mention that…because that was exactly what the Concept design looked like. Old and worn but graceful.

What we could’ve had:
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What we got:
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Say what you want about Armond White The Black. But in a world where every film critic's opinion is a sea of zombie like group think thought, it's very refreshing to see a professional film critic stand out from the crowd as saying something unique compared t them every time. You may not always agree with him but he's the only professional film critic alive today that feels human.
 

Finally Adult Swim rewards its audience, I’m excited to see the show return with a higher budget, Just hope it can retain the spirit of the original and remember to actually be funny.
I've loved ATHF for ages and while I'm happy to see the characters again (and the animation bump) I can't say anything in there was particularly funny. Thing Carl spouting all of his famous lines was weird.

I'll check out what they put out in the future but I'm wary. Also wouldn't be surprised if Carl wasn't involved because he's white and problematic, knowing Adult Swim these days. I still hold that Aqua Teen under modern AS is impossible.
 
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