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And it ended the Fox animation studio...

And fans of Titan AE are still confused on that because its a freaking awesome film

Easter Weekend in the UK! As of 4pm today, I’ve four glorious days off, and not a lot planned.

So think as I pile through my Mechanicum and Eldar backlog? I’ll watch my way through my Nightmare on Elm Street boxed set.

And I’m pretty sure I can stream the remake, too.


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The_Real_Chris wrote:
And it ended the Fox animation studio...

So you’re saying they were….In Over Their Head?

Hah! It does have a banging soundtrack

My head hurts.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Titan A.E. is another solid movie.

I saw that in the theaters. I found it a big let down to be honest. But I showed my son the trailer, so if he wants to see it we’ll see it.

Titan A.E has some absolutely gorgeous animation, and a very mid story tied to that animation.

I dunno. The central tale (I made a ship which can birth a planet) is pretty effing cool!


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So it being a while since I saw it in the cinema (don’t make me whack you with my walking stick, young’uns)

I bought Titan A.E.

I still stand by it as a most excellent aminated movie.

But.

*checks for impending Sir-Mix-Alot on account this is a substantial But*

Perhaps it was ahead of its time in Just The Wrong Way.

See, it’s a blend of classic acetate and paint aminatkon, and CGI. The two elements work perfectly well on their own, and indeed for its age are superior examples.

But the blending of the two just isn’t quite right. Not in a necessarily negative way. More a “we’re all still figuring this new thing out, and getting it right is luck as much as skill” as.

Massive, colossal, staggering plus is the facial animation. Where the characters look like they’re speaking the actual words, with recognisable expressions.

Overall, it’s really good fun. The story, voice acting and associated animation works. And it is a pretty original work.

The overall execution is nothing less than Brave. Released in 2000, it was part of that era of old and new tech.

It doesn’t quite come together - but it’s clearly not for a lack of competence and care. Just inexperience.

Give it a rent, do it a buy, definitely do it a watch.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Titan A.E has some absolutely gorgeous animation, and a very mid story tied to that animation.

That’s how I remember it. The same thing happened to a worse extent with Final Fantasy the Spirits Within.

Titan AE has what I think is a solid sci-fi adventure. I'd say its right up there with "A New Hope".
I think the issue is really the same one that the Transformers film also hit - cost. Animation at that quality is just a huge cost esp for a western team playing western wages.

I actually think one positive of AI generated content could be that we might see that kind of animation become practical with the right use of AI. Traditional artists creating key scenes and then AI filling in the animation between.

Spirits Within has a decent story but I think slipped up because it didn't really have anything linked to Final Fantasy about it. People went in expecting FF style storytelling, but there were no summons; no magic; no materia or basically any of the common hallmarks. We don't even have character "classes" outside of military and civilian scientist.

It felt like it was made by a team who had never picked up a FF game or who openly aimed to avoid any tropes or elements of FF within itself.

Fantasia

The one with the Soundtrack.

We ended up watching a couple Disney movies right off the bat. So we started with a stone cold classic.

Fantasia is an anthology of animated shorts timed to classical music. Most of them have aged very well because so much effort and talent was put into the animation. There are a couple things that are funny in retrospect, like the Hello Muddah Hello Fadda song, or the announcer’s dismissal of The Nutracker as an unpopular ballet that nobody performs anymore. The ending is a bit anticlimactic for me, with the powerful Night on Bald Mountain (featuring Chernabog) followed by the snooziest Ave Maria you’ll ever zone out on. Watch it!


Aladdin

The good one.

A great time was had by all.


Today we watched some other stuff with friends.

Opera (1987)

Dario Argento’s (better) take on the Phantom of the Opera.


Should have been titled The Crows Have Eyes.

A decent Giallo film with building tension, memorable kills, and just the worst dubbing. If you are into camera stuff, this is a can’t miss, with a few spectacular shots that will stick with you long after the dumb ending. Also, I would totally watch this movie’s Peter Griffinized version of Macbeth.


So I Married an Axe Murderer

When Mike Myers was funny.

It’s a charming romantic comedy that still holds up. Watch it!





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@Overread,

I had almost no experience with the FF games before seeing Spirits Within. I just felt it was a dull, dour movie that didn’t do enough to win me over.

I may have to go rewatch Titan AE, but I remember the protagonist being unlikeable for most of the movie and the Planet Genesis ending feeling unoriginal and unearned.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

I had almost no experience with the FF games before seeing Spirits Within. I just felt it was a dull, dour movie that didn’t do enough to win me over.

I was in a similar boat, and found it a bit of a slog but worth it for the animation. Think it might be about time to give it another go to see how it's held up.

I may have to go rewatch Titan AE, but I remember the protagonist being unlikeable for most of the movie and the Planet Genesis ending feeling unoriginal and unearned.

Cale is deliberately self-absorbed for the start of the movie, as that's a big part of his character development. For me, the fact that the rest of the characters were so awesome made up for that.

The story is definitely a bit cookie-cutter and predictable, but does the job. And I'm going to disagree with MDG on the animation... using CGI for the Drej gave them a wonderfully alien aspect against the regular animation, and the ship sequences were all pretty consistently cool. The trip through the gas cloud and the ice field at the end are both spectacular, and really cleverly animated.

Titan A.E. was fine. It came out a time when the Disney Rennaissance was winding down and a lot of excellent films felt like cheap copies. Even Disney's new directions weren't what people wanted (no matter how good Emperor's New Groove and Lilo & Stich were) in the face of Pixar's excellent films. Titan being... fine... didn't exactly move the needle at the box office and later it got mixed up with the similar feeling Treasure Planet at rental. I remember seeing it but I can't say I remember much about it. I need to rewatch a lot of stuff from that era. I do recall it not quite living up to Anastasia.


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 insaniak wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

I had almost no experience with the FF games before seeing Spirits Within. I just felt it was a dull, dour movie that didn’t do enough to win me over.

I was in a similar boat, and found it a bit of a slog but worth it for the animation. Think it might be about time to give it another go to see how it's held up.

I was wildly into the FF franchise. I'd gotten the original on the NES and spent most of a decade trying to convince people JRPGs were cool until FF7 made it big. It's really just not a good film. Even at the time the CGI was impressive, but didn't look good and the story is dull and just kind of nonsense. It's not a hidden gem, just kind of a dud, IMO.

If I remember right one of the guys behind the scenes said that the production company had no idea how to advertise Titan AE.

Its the animation ghetto problem - animation is for kids right? but this is not a kiddy film. SciFi is for adults, but it animated...

You would have thought 'Family film' like Starwars would occur but apparently not so they managed to aim all the advertising at no one or didnt bother.

Its a shame because its a good movie and I felt the trad/3d mix gave the best of both.

Yeah the whole "animation is for kids" was a huge plague that spread from the suits of Hollywood. Even when they adapted anime for adults and teens and such they kept trying to dumb it way way way down for "kids"


Heck even I - a kid with ZERO understanding of riceballs knew that something was really odd about the doughnuts that Ash and his friends were eating.

It doesn't help that voice acting wasn't a very well respected occupation at the time and generally something american animation went pretty cheap on. The legacy of Mel Blanc being able to be essentially an entire cast of iconic characters made "cartoon voices" a norm that really wouldn't start to go away until Bebop got it right.

I'm two weeks in on Lazarus (created and directed by Shinichirō Watanabe) on Adult Swim. Here's the synopsis from Wikipedia:

In the utopian year 2052, the genius neuroscientist Dr. Skinner has discovered a miracle analgesic drug known as "Hapna" that completely relieves the user of any pain, shortly before proceeding to disappear off the face of the Earth. Three years later in 2055, Skinner resurfaces to the public in an online video to announce that the drug has a three-year half-life and soon everyone who took it will die.

A task force of five agents is assembled to locate Skinner within 30 days before the first wave of Hapna users die and create a vaccine. Its name is "Lazarus"

Looks as good as Shinichirō's other works so far and even borrows from them (main protagonist Axel Gilberto shares a lot of traits with Spike Spiegel). If they keep the quality up it will definitely be one to watch.

Prince Valiant

This has someone you have never heard of as Prince Valiant and Katherine Heigl as his love interest. It also has Udo Keir as an..... wait for it...... villain role.

You know, for what it is it isn't bad. It is an action-adventure flick. However, I think it feels a bit dated even though it is not old. The plate mail is kinda cool looking too.

Ever watched a film that was bad when you first watched it years ago and upon watching it 20+ years later you realise that not only has it aged poorly in the special effects department, but the acting is a lot worse than you remember....

Except for the one person is wasn't really an actor to begin with: Mick Jagger.

Yes, I watched Anthony Hopkins, Emilio Estevez, Renee Russo and Mick Jagger in Freejack.

A time travel story with enough flashing lights to induce a migraine, but some cool future-tech.

They obviously spent some money on this flick, but everyone acts like they were handed the script right before the cameras rolled.

This is probably Mick Jagger's second best film after Ned Kelly.

I have to agree that Titan A.E. has great animation (not the CGI aliens) and a very bland story. I think Titan A.E. flopped for understandable reasons.

Road to El Dorado isn't a fantastic film by any measure, but it is a fun film and up there with the Emperor's New Groove as a movie where basically every scene is a meme format. That just fascinates me, idk.

I think Treasure Planet was a better movie than its box office, but it's still not a great movie. Again, gorgeous animation, but idk. The execution just wasn't there, especially coming at the end of a Golden Age of animated films.

Tomorrow I'm going to watch my favorite movie that features Section 31!

Star Trek Into Darkness... the blu-ray was only a dollar... such a deal!

I'm sure it'll be even better than I remember it being in the theater.

Hellraiser 1, 2, 3 and 4

A series of cautionary tales about opening strange boxes.

Been rewatching these the last few days.
While the first is considered a horror classic, I think all four are at least decent, with 2 being my favourite because it really leans into being a dark fantasy movie rather than an outright horror, which I actually feel fits the material better.
A funny thing I'd never noticed before though, the 2nd film just completely forgets it's supposed to be set in the UK.

It's a shame that they just couldn't leave the franchise alone and kept churning out sequels of rapidly diminishing quality, but I guess Pinhead was just too iconic.

Pinhead wasn't even supposed to continue. They were supposed to change the iconic hell creature each time, but he proved so insanely popular that they late-changed the story to keep him in the film and eventually he became so iconic to the franchise that they couldn't drop him.

I think the idea was originally that each film would setup a new person to be the big evil for the next film. So second film it was supposed to be "I've got no skin" lady

I’ve a soft spot for Hellraiser V and VI.

Both examples of similar stories bought by the studio and adapted to the established background.

Hellraiser V? Frank got it easy in Hell.

But IV has Pinhead’s best line. “Do I look like someone who cares what God thinks”. Just really well delivered.

 Overread wrote:
Pinhead wasn't even supposed to continue. They were supposed to change the iconic hell creature each time, but he proved so insanely popular that they late-changed the story to keep him in the film and eventually he became so iconic to the franchise that they couldn't drop him.

I think the idea was originally that each film would setup a new person to be the big evil for the next film. So second film it was supposed to be "I've got no skin" lady

That makes a lot of sense, I always did think the Doctor Cenobite was defeated surprisingly easily considering how overpowered he was.

Dungeons and Dragons

You know, the one with Jeremy Irons in it!

Every moment Jeremy Irons is not on screen is a waste of film.

 Easy E wrote:
Dungeons and Dragons

You know, the one with Jeremy Irons in it!

Every moment Jeremy Irons is not on screen is a waste of film.

Jeremy Irons is a second rate wizard compared to my favorite movie spellcaster: Ray Liotta!

But the movie does have one good part, no clerics so the unfunny Wayans brother

Kraven:- The Hunter

Who hunts the hunter?

This one surprised me, some dodgy acting and mediocre writing aside, it's actually a solidly entertaining movie (Although, I think we've established by now that I'm very easily entertained by this kinds of films) and it's kind of a shame that Kraven won't be popping up again.

Still not convinced to go back and watch Morbius or Madam Web though.

Snow White

The original animated version.

It was very slow. Even the dated stuff wasn’t rousing enough to get me to pay full attention. I forget which millennial reviewer I’m paraphrasing but: this was dynamite entertainment back when your only other option was watching your mule die. There were some interesting bits in terms of animation, but they were all overshadowed by Fantasia.

All about Context.

Snow White was the first animated Main Feature, at a time cartoons were pure filler.

And as The First, it laid the foundation of all that was to come.