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The movie reviewer for The San Francisco Chronicle recently reviewed Monster House and Through a Scanner Darkly. He praised the performance capture CGI and rotoscoping techniques in both films, claiming that these are the first feature length cartoons in the 100+ years of animation to display genuine emotion, real expression.
He specifically named the Disney films from the "Golden Age" of feature animation, claiming that they were expressionless, bland, stiff, and utterly lacking in comparison to Monster House's close-ups of kids in a CGI skin screaming.
The Evil Queen's sneer? Figaro looking annoyed? Bambi getting 'twitterpated'? You only imagined you saw any emotion there.
Marc Antony the bulldog going into fits of agony when he thinks the kitten Pussyfoot has been baked into a cookie? Stiff doll faces compared to the Funny Fat Kid smirking.
And even Monster House falls short of the utter glory of watching REAL actors wearing a dab of digital makeup in Scanner. Even the most inept, austere live action human actor is light years beyond the best work of the Nine Old Men!
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I agree with you Puffy, not that I don't like CGI but I still watch Miyazaki anime movies because they just look so amazing, and to think its all hand drawn.
I want my CGI but Ill still pay 6 bucks to go see a well drawn feature length movie.
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quote:Marc Antony the bulldog going into fits of agony when he thinks the kitten Pussyfoot has been baked into a cookie?
Haven't seen that in 20 years, probably, but I almost tear up again thinking of it. Bawled like a baby, I did. Emotion? Yeah. Some.
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posted
Not trying to get back to the issue but thought I would post. Whoever wrote that article isn't the smartest guy on the block. There is much more to emotion than just how a character looks when he give a performance, even in animation. It is the story as well ( common sense I know) but still. I am a huge Linklater fan and love "Waking LIfe" but would never put his stuff up there with the like of Disney and the 'old school' masters of animation. They founded the movement and we only have CGI now becuase of those "retro" cartoons from back in the day. But then again I also really admire CGI work that bends the look closer to reality, like the "Final Fantasy" movies and the "Animatrix - Final Flight of the Osiris".
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