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Old 10-14-2012, 06:48 PM   #21
Coppermirror
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Morthoron View Post
I have purchased (ostensibly for my daughter, mind) the remastered additions of everything from Disney's classic period, and the results are a stunning artistic and technological achievement in animation. It is ridiculous to even compare such artistry to Japanese Anime, which is computer generated and every character looks like a Speed Racer clone. We are talking about artists creating thousands of hand-painted cells, not Pikachu, Dragonball Z or Ghibli drek.
I don't dispute that many of Disney's works are very beautiful, but I do disagree with you strongly about Japanese animation, of which I suspect you have little experience. Japanese animation shifted to mostly using computer animation at about the time Western animation did, and previously it was made with, yes, cell animation. You will find, for example, that Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke films (which personally I consider the most beautiful of their works) were both cell animated. If they are drek and unworthy of being called art, then the same goes for Disney's classic works.

Series such as Pokémon and Dragonball Z are neither known for their art quality nor intended to have outstanding art, and they run for many hundreds of episodes. But there are many series which are known for being beautiful, and of course, animated films almost always have higher production values per amount of time than animated series do. Lumping things like Pokémon and Dragonball Z together with Studio Ghibli films is a bit on the silly side. Some people have the impression that Japanese animation all looks the same, but I suspect that's because most of what they've seen are imported long-running kids' shows, which tend to have more homogenous and lower quality art. Chances are you have not seen the best stuff.

To name a few series/films which have excellent and/or unusual artwork: Hotarubi no Mori e, Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, Croisée in a Foreign Labyrinth, The Twelve Kingdoms, Mouryou no Hako, House of Five Leaves, Katanagatari, Mushishi, Aria the Animation, Revolutionary Girl Utena the Movie, Mononoke, Kemono no Souja Erin, Le Chevalier D'Eon, Kara no Kyoukai, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, X, Seirei no Moribito, 5 Centimeters Per Second, Michiko to Hatchin.

I certainly agree with Jallanite above that it's dubious whether Studio Ghibli could properly adapt Tolkien's work. They seem very bad at adapting books faithfully, so I really wouldn't like to see what would happen to the Hobbit or LOTR. I daresay there would be more of an outcry over that than over Peter Jackson's adaptations.

Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin View Post
Tolkien often compares Disney unfavorably to Arthur Rackham, whose somewhat Gothicized realism is a world away from "cute", even when amusing.

http://garybuckley.files.wordpress.c...9/img_0174.jpg
Could we have an Ent here? (Note: the tree is a rowan).

http://truehate.files.wordpress.com/...kham-bears.jpg
These are *not* the 3 Bears as Disney would have done them!

Snow White and her short roommates:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Snow_White.jpg
Wow, that art is beautiful! No wonder Tolkien spoke of that work favourably.
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