'Let us leave!' '... lettuce leaf?' by Kara
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 at 8:19 AM

So I went and saw Shrek 3 on Monday, on my own. I can stand, on occasion, to go to movies alone, provided it's a slow day and it's something I'd like to see. (I missed both Hot Fuzz and Grindhouse in theatres because I was waiting for people to want to go with me.)

One thing I've been talking about with a few people lately is how soulless 3D animation has become. It wasn't always this way, when Pixar was a little baby and we had the novelty of Toy Story and all the work that went into it. Pixar has managed to keep their style, which is the important thing to me -- a style. I don't care about how slick the animation is, how quickly it's turned around, or whether or not they can fool me with realism. I want to see some spirit in it. I want to see that there were creators behind it.

(Unfortunately, we're starting to get that manufactured look with a fair share of anime coming out now ... I do like being able to tell, or at least, guess, who the character designer was. We all know that there are a few you can spot a mile away.)

Fortunately, as far as I'm concerned, Shrek 3 manages to keep that. Even though the movie's plot didn't bring anything terribly new or exciting as far as I was concerned, it was nice to look at. The Shrek movies have a very particular style of character design, even for the humans, and yet are so detailed with their textures and whatnot that I could see Prince Charming's stubble on more than one occasion. It's wonderful to have both ... but if I could only have one, I'd take personality over realism any day.

I've been seeing previews for things like Surf's Up, Bee Movie, and honestly I don't know what others because they all sort of run together. Those don't try for realism or style, unfortunately. Everything looks so slick and plastic that I keep expecting to see manufacturer information stamped on the characters' butts. And given that 2D animation has been almost completely phased out, I'm lamenting the state of American film animation.

This is why I watch so much Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon. Once in a long while, you hit a gem of a show where people still draw and still care. That's most likely why I latched on to older anime as quickly as I did. It's not slick, and (in a lot of cases) far from perfect, but there's a person there. I had a peek at the work of a freelance animator I used to know, for example ... what he does now is very professional, shows hard work and discipline ... but I can see that it's 2D filters over 3D animation. That in itself is not a sin, not at all, but it's lost some of the, I dunno, spirit it used to have. You can still see the style, and it's still at least somewhat distinctive (at least to me), but a big part of the style for me was the characters' movements, even if they weren't 'perfect' (by modern animation's standards).

I've been seeing some real spirit in 3D, of course. Like I said, Pixar. The previews I've seen for Ratatouille, for example. Pixar isn't afraid to have a Look to them, where before I remember them saying that's exactly why they didn't like having real people as prominent characters in their films back in the day. But now, possibly because of The Incredibles, they're proud, as they damn well should be.

I'm so glad I give a damn about the Dragonlance movie(s) coming out. But even if I didn't, I'd still be interested. Someone designed these characters. Hell, Simpsons move has me all sorts of hyper.

If you have been, show me!