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Hi everyone, although I don't really post much on Tumblr anymore, I thank everybody for their fantastic additions and continued interest in this onceler post.

You may notice the orignal link in some reblogs leads to a restricted file. That's because there was some personal information somewhere, so I updated the link to someplace that has less personal information. I've updated the original post a long time ago to reflect the link change, but reblogs don't update if the original post is edited. If anyone in the future is still interested in reading the long pdf, the link is

Or just click on the date of the original post, and it will lead to the updated edited post.

Once-ler’s guitar hop + other aesthetics considered in Earth’s context, giant ramble

ages ago, i wondered where Once-ler’s guitar hop came from, I was certain I saw it, but I couldn’t remember where.

Then I saw the hop again.

And we know Marty Mcfly probably pulled his moves from somewhere.

Chuck Berry!

It says Duck-walk up there, but Chuck Berry also did that one-legged hop, (and some consider the hop as a type of duckwalk).

And the Once-ler’s hip-moving moves could be influence from Elvis. Elvis was nicknamed Elvis the Pelvis because of how much he moved, well, his pelvis.

The pelvis moving of Elvis among his performances was mildly scandalous.

From Wikipedia:

“Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music “has reached its lowest depths in the ‘grunt and groin’ antics of one Elvis Presley. … Elvis, who rotates his pelvis … gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos”.[109] Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation’s most popular, declared him “unfit for family viewing”.[110] To Presley’s displeasure, he soon found himself being referred to as “Elvis the Pelvis”, which he called “one of the most childish expressions I ever heard, comin’ from an adult.”[111]”

So there’s possibly some 50′s influence on his movements.

WARNING: EXTREMELY EXTREMELY LONG AND IMAGE HEAVY POST. Including copy-pasted sections of text (but not including screenshots of text), this entire post clocks in at over 13,000 words long.

To read the rest, click the link to my google drive. I tried putting it on tumblr, but the length of it means Tumblr crumbles under the attempt to save it, so I had to save it as a PDF.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nh019Yxi_31Y5lhNXigjedQ4xJbmpP8w/view?usp=sharing

(or, attempting to use the HTML side of tumblr’s post editor, not sure if it works)

Press this post’s own permalink

https://floooopafloooopa.tumblr.com/post/624818335533727744/once-lers-guitar-hop-other-aesthetics

and hopefully a preview for the document might show up between the stars below if the HTML thing works.

*****

*****

It’s a really long document so i hope I didn’t have blatant errors like accidentally deleting half a paragraph.

Also, remember this gif of Paul shaking his hair. You’ll need it, since PDFs don’t have animated gifs and I refer to this at one point.

(And if you have read my entire ramble, thank you!)

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oh no, i've been so busy, that i've managed to miss out on seeing the Lorax Stage Musical being streamed worldwide by an entire few months!

I hope one of you was lucky enough to see it though!

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dear tumblr, blue site with unknown depths,

this shall be the third and last time i attempt posting this,

and this time the floor is blue, in your (dis)honour.

if your mysterious algorithms still deem this post a blemish upon our eyes,

and worthy of yeeting from the tags and search,

i shall accept this fate.

And so the post shall rest in the crevasses of Tumblr’s database,

among whatever yeetworthy posts have made their home there.

btw, if you’re a lucky onceler fan who hasn’t yet encountered my numerous attempts to post this, the music and dance is from George Harrison's version 2 of the music video for I’ve Got My Mind Set On You

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knit fabric vs woven

while i was making a small pillow, i had to decide the fabric, and that’s when i found out there’s knit fabrics and woven fabrics. and an image on threadden dot com shows the difference between the two as:

and what i found interesting is that dr seuss has chosen to make the thneed a a knit-fabric. because a lot of properties of knit-fabric are suitable for thneeds.

after some rather light research on the internet (so not everything below may be accurate), some properties of knit fabrics are apparently:

- stretchier than woven fabrics, and the thneed is stretched into all kinds of shapes. but more likely to "lose shape"/change shape (e.g. you put it in the washer, and it could shrink a little, or slowly over the years you'll find the garment is droopy or has gone slack). but the thneed is a shape-shifting thing anyway

- more porous, and are more air permeable (so not good as a cat-parachute as seen in a deleted scene in 2012 lorax, unless the truffula fabric has some method of becoming denser and shrinking away those holes. well the cat was seen pressing on the fabric beforehand...)

-  tend to absorb moisture better, and we’ve seen the thneed used to absorb liquid

- makes less creases than woven fabrics, and thneeds aren’t exactly shown to be wrinkly

- more difficult to tear down a line, edges doesn’t fray when cut. so perhaps you can cut your thneed up into mini thneeds easily without having to worry about it all unravelling. (but knit fabrics can have runs, when some threads are pulled at by a snag, and then some unravelling might happen? or maybe there’s just a hole, idk)

- require less yarn per square metre, and so a lower production cost. saving money seems like something the once-ler would like

- probably easier to make by hand with those knitting needles, you don’t have to bring this machine with a shuttle and stuff out into the truffula valley

whether dr seuss was a fabric fan, or just randomly chose the once-ler to be a knitter, i think the choice of making  the thneed being made from a knitted fabric is interesting

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(test post plz ignore. i’ve been told that sometimes tumblr stops your posts from showing up in the search results if you post in the same tag too often, and since one of my posts isn’t showing up, i’m seeing if a random post does something. picture is just a random person i drew months ago)

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dance moves and music from George Harrison’s I’ve Got My Mind Set On You music video, version 2: https://youtu.be/_71w4UA2Oxo?t=119

onceler model and details available here: https://floooopafloooopa.tumblr.com/post/625613304109449216/knockoff-once-ler-is-now-available-for-everyone-to

Youtube version of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBm5KJUI5TU

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brb

while this blog appears to have a pattern of posting once a week, that just happens to be the frequency in which thoughts to post pop into my head. for now, i must decrease these thoughts and focus my attention elsewhere.

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Once-ler’s guitar hop + other aesthetics considered in Earth’s context, giant ramble

ages ago, i wondered where Once-ler’s guitar hop came from, I was certain I saw it, but I couldn’t remember where.

Then I saw the hop again.

And we know Marty Mcfly probably pulled his moves from somewhere.

Chuck Berry!

It says Duck-walk up there, but Chuck Berry also did that one-legged hop, (and some consider the hop as a type of duckwalk).

And the Once-ler’s hip-moving moves could be influence from Elvis. Elvis was nicknamed Elvis the Pelvis because of how much he moved, well, his pelvis.

The pelvis moving of Elvis among his performances was mildly scandalous.

From Wikipedia:

“Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music “has reached its lowest depths in the ‘grunt and groin’ antics of one Elvis Presley. … Elvis, who rotates his pelvis … gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos”.[109] Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation’s most popular, declared him “unfit for family viewing”.[110] To Presley’s displeasure, he soon found himself being referred to as “Elvis the Pelvis”, which he called “one of the most childish expressions I ever heard, comin’ from an adult.”[111]”

So there’s possibly some 50′s influence on his movements.

WARNING: EXTREMELY EXTREMELY LONG AND IMAGE HEAVY POST. Including copy-pasted sections of text (but not including screenshots of text), this entire post clocks in at over 13,000 words long.

To read the rest, click the link to my google drive. I tried putting it on tumblr, but the length of it means Tumblr crumbles under the attempt to save it, so I had to save it as a PDF.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nh019Yxi_31Y5lhNXigjedQ4xJbmpP8w/view?usp=sharing

(or, attempting to use the HTML side of tumblr’s post editor, not sure if it works)

Press this post’s own permalink

https://floooopafloooopa.tumblr.com/post/624818335533727744/once-lers-guitar-hop-other-aesthetics

and hopefully a preview for the document might show up between the stars below if the HTML thing works.

*****

*****

It’s a really long document so i hope I didn’t have blatant errors like accidentally deleting half a paragraph.

Also, remember this gif of Paul shaking his hair. You’ll need it, since PDFs don’t have animated gifs and I refer to this at one point.

(And if you have read my entire ramble, thank you!)

[floooopafloooopa]

illumination sure keeps its things secure...

Sometimes I’m fascinated by an old movie whose only fandoms are either non-existent or just very tiny. With these old movies, you don’t get many DVD extras. So what you do, if you know there are deleted scenes and you want those deleted scenes, is go onto a script-buying website, and buy old drafts.

I was going to do that with the Lorax, since with the short snippets of deleted scenes and animations that people have found, there must be draft scripts.

But here’s the problem. Illumination seems watertight. I’ve looked at the two script-buying websites I used, and they only offer the final draft.

it’s just, arrrrrrrrghhhhhhh! Illumination, let me throw money at you! Give me those behind the scenes stuff! I’m glad Illumination is finally letting up in some form with Eric Guillon releasing an artbook of his work.

I wonder if it’s different for live action vs animation. As in, if old drafts of live action scripts are more easier to find, especially for movies over two decades old, compared to a more recent animated movie...

Normally I occasionally check Vimeo for demo reels, but past 2020, I don’t think people are going to be putting many or any new Lorax bits in their reels when they’ve moved onto newer projects.

Also, there’s the idea that things sometimes things disappear from the internet, making digging for Lorax material harder.

And language. Illumination-Mac guff has a lot of french staff, so we could have missed french material that could have eventually vamoosed from the internet throughout the years.

Here’s something I found from:

(It doesn’t really give much new information tbh! But I like seeing the scene and CGI being built up, and we may or may not have seen that storyboard)

The text (thankfully the site has transcribed it, and machine translation is generally accurate between French and English. It’s mainly an overview about scene evolution from storyboard to CGI, you can see it below the cut).

~~~

Non Illumination:

If you want the drafts for the 1971 version, they’re stuck in the archives.

As for the Lorax musical, I haven’t been able to find any bootlegs or scripts of it yet. aaaaaa Hopefully someday in the future it could come to where I live...

LE LORAX Au cœur d’un film d’animation… Avant de faire la rencontre du Lorax, la vedette poilue et craquante de ce film d’animation en 3D, nous vous proposons de pénétrer les coulisses du studio dans lequel il a été fabriqué. Robin Robles Universal JUILLET PASSION CINEMA 3D Installé à Paris, le studio Mac Guff n’a rien à envier à ses homologues américains. On doit notamment à la talentueuse équipe d’animateurs les images magnifiques du film de Michel Ocelot, Azur et Asmar, ou encore celles de Chasseurs de dragons et de Moi, moche et méchant. C’est également là qu’a été réalisé le nouveau long métrage de Chris Renaud, Le Lorax, adaptation du livre pour enfants de Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr Seuss), illustrateur américain. Dans ce conte charmant, un jeune garçon brave tous les dangers pour retrouver le dernier arbre, dans un monde où la nature a perdu sa place et où règne la technologie. Il découvre ainsi la légende du Lorax, une drôle de créature à moustache, renfrognée mais craquante, qui lutte pour la protection de la nature. La visite du studio où travaillent plus d’une centaine d’animateurs et d’artistes, français et anglo-saxons, est l’occasion de percer les secrets de fabrication d’un film d’animation, qui n’ont rien à voir avec ceux d’un film en prises de vue réelles. Pour en savoir plus sur l’histoire du film, rendez-vous p30. 10 Les CinEmas Gaumont ET PathE/LE MAG cinemaSgaumontpathe.com rejoignez-nous sur En prises de vue réelles, les équipes techniques de films comptent le plus souvent une cinquantaine de personnes. En animation, au moins cent cinquante, dont le travail permet d’animer trois secondes de film par semaine. Description de ce processus d’une incroyable précision… 01/La direction artistique Si, comme dans un film de cinéma classique, tout commence au scénario, ce sont ensuite les directeurs artistiques et les animateurs qui prennent en mains la fabrication du film. Les premiers définissent les traits des personnages et les particularités du décor dans lequel ils évoluent. Ils fournissent ainsi des illustrations qui constituent une référence pour les animateurs du film. 02/Le story-board L’étape suivante est le story-board, élaboré par les story-boarders sous la direction du réalisateur. Il n’est pas question, pour le moment, d’avoir un dessin très précis, mais de définir comment fonctionnent les scènes, de mettre au point des plans, des cadres, un rythme, etc. C’est une étape décisive en animation, car elle détermine le reste de la fabrication. Au story-board, il est encore temps de changer des choses tandis que, plus tard, la moindre modification risque de générer un coût supplémentaire. 03/L’animation Comme si les personnages étaient des comédiens, l’animation consiste à les faire jouer. Mais là, ce sont des logiciels extrêmement évolués qui permettent de mettre les corps en mouvement, d’appliquer des expressions sur les visages. Puis il faut ajouter les détails : des équipes de cinq à dix personnes travaillent sur les décors, les costumes, la lumière, les matières (obtenir la fourrure d’un personnage comme le Lorax est un processus long et minutieux), pour donner au film son caractère. « Un peu comme si toutes les fleurs du décor étaient plantées à la main », s’amuse ainsi un des animateurs. 04/Le compositing Les différents départements travaillant chacun de façon indépendante, une étape majeure consiste à assembler toutes ces couches, et à y intégrer les mouvements de caméra. C’est le compositing auquel il faut, bien sûr, ajouter l’élaboration de la 3D. rejoignez-nous sur cinemaSgaumontpathe.com 05/L’enregistrement du son et des voix Enfin, il y a la création de l’ambiance sonore et les doublages des voix qui, pour la version française, ont notamment été interprétées par François Berléand (le Lorax), Kev Adams (Ted) et Alexandra Lamy (la maman de Ted). Deux images de story-board pour deux scènes : dans la rivière, les poissons chantent un hymne à la nature (à gauche), tandis que le Lorax reste sceptique face aux explications du Gash-pilleur (à droite), l’entrepreneur responsable de la disparition des arbres. Ces trois images montrent l’évolution du travail du studio. Les animateurs commencent par dessiner le plan, positionner les personnages dans le décor et définir grossièrement les couleurs (en haut), puis ils travaillent sur les matières, les poils du Lorax, le feuillage des arbres, le gazon (en bas à gauche), avant d’ajouter la couleur et la lumière (en bas à droite). Universal Kev Adams Universal Alexandra Lamy Les CinEmas Gaumont ET PathE/LE MAG 11

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Eric Guillon will be releasing an artbook of his works for Illumination

He was a concept artist on the Lorax, though I think the book will probably be focused largely on other Illumination properties since they have sequels/more films. It will be called The Art of Eric Guillon

Below is text and images copied and pasted from various sites.

From Amazon:

The Art of Eric Guillon: From the Making of Despicable Me to Minions, the Secret Life of Pets, and More Hardcover – 25 May 2021 by Ben Croll (Author), Eric Guillon (Contributor), Chris Meledandri (Foreword)

“ Delve behind the scenes of artist Eric Guillon's artwork for Illumination's popular films, including Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets, and the upcoming Minions: The Rise of Gru. From Despicable Me to Minions: The Rise of Gru, Illumination's hit films have benefited from the playful and visionary designs of French artist Eric Guillon. This exclusive volume collects over twelve hundred pieces of the artist's work across eight films, showcasing concept art for beloved characters ranging from Gru and the Minions to Dr. Seuss' Once-ler, Sing's Buster Moon, and Max from The Secret Life of Pets. Each chapter gives insight into the artist's creative process and presents striking outtakes and brainstorms for what could have been--such as alternative designs for the lovable Minions. Featuring in-depth interviews with Guillon and a foreword by Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri, The Art of Eric Guillon is a must-read for film fans and artists alike.“

From Booktopia:

Delve behind the scenes of Eric Guillon's artwork for Illumination Entertainment's popular films, including Despicable Me, Sing, and upcoming The Secret Life of Pets 2. Guillon helped design many of the most iconic characters for these films, such as Gru and the Minions from Despicable Me, the animals in The Secret Life of Pets, and more. About the Author Ben Croll is a film journalist and critic whose work has been published in IndieWire, The Wrap, Screen International, and Frace 24. He has written about animation for Vanity Fair and Variety, covering the intersection of the French and US film industries. He is based in Paris, France.

ISBN: 9781789092547            ISBN-10: 178909254X                                        Audience: General                                                                            Format: Hardcover                    Language: English                                                                            Number Of Pages: 304        Published:   1st  June 2020 (note Booktopia reports a published date, but I don’t think it’s avaiable anywhere yet. Perhaps the book’s release got pushed back because it contained the Rise of Gru spoilers, and that film’s release had been pushed back)                                            Publisher: Titan Books Ltd                                            Country of Publication: GB                                                            Dimensions (cm): 23.5 x 32.5 

From Bookdepository:

Delve behind the scenes of artist Eric Guillon's artwork for Illumination and Entertainment's popular films, including Despicable Me, Sing, and upcoming The Secret Life of Pets 2. Illumination Entertainment has produced some of this century's most popular and successful animated films all over the world. Artist Eric Guillon helped design many of the most beloved and iconic characters for these films, such as Gru and the Mininons from Despicable Me, the adorable animals in The Secret Life of Pets, and more. Explore behind the scenes of Eric Guillon's artwork with this comprehensive coffee table book, which delves into Guillon's creative process and Illumination Entertainment's hit films. The Illumination Art of Eric Guillon features never-before-seen concept art, sketches, film stills, and other unique graphics, tracing the animation process from start to finish, and examines Guillon's many different roles, ranging from art director, character designer, and production designer to co-director.

Sample of what a page looks like from conceptartworld:

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Rambling about Walt Disney and Thneedville

Some days ago on TV, a 2-part (totalling to four hours) documentary on Walt Disney, directed by Sarah Colt, was airing, showing the man at both bad and good. The information below is based on that.

Some parts of Walt Disney reminded me of the Onceler. They both start as working class people (though Walt seems to be a city boy, while the Onceler is a rural boy) and become rich people, they come across as imaginative and driven people whose success originated from that, but at the same time, they both love capitalism and that's how they continued their success, and they both built very large locations.

The main thing that captured my interest, was right at the end of Walt's life, was his plan for a city called EPCOT, Experimental Prototype City/Community of Tomorrow, but he died before it could come to fruition as he wanted. It reminded me of Thneedville. But before we get to that, i'm gonna pull an old-man-onceler on you, and start the story sometime before Walt started planning EPCOT, because I have some thoughts about the preceding events and years as well.

I'm going to start at the point in life, where he was building his new bigger studio in Burbank. It wasn't just a studio, (while Walt Disney wanted apartments, so the employees don't have to leave the workplace, they weren't built) it was this whole insular community with its own restuarants, theatres, gyms, gas stations, landscaped areas and soda fountains, and stuff. Walt wanted to make this "perfect" area where all the people here were united for a common mission (of movie making). The location was rather clean and organised. I find the Burbank studio community interesting because it’s one of those communities centered on a company/industry. I wonder what kind of towns greenville and thneedville were. did the towns and community become industry towns/absorbed into the thneed company? How much influence did the Onceler have over the day-to-day lives of the surrounding community?

The next part I want to talk about is the strikes at Burbank (because Disney was being a greedy dirtybag). The company heiarachy was apparently really rigid and obvious, with some people outearning others by an incredibly unfair margin, and having access to the more nicer and exclusive areas of Burbank, like restaurants and steam rooms, and having nicer and more comfortable furniture. The lower ranking people couldn't afford to use Burbank's restuarants, because they only made $12 a week, and other people made $300 a week. (Random trivia: If you want more examples of douchiness, top staff, like writers and animators, were all male, and bottom hierarchy staff, like colorists, were mainly female, making a massive wage gap. And if a top-staffer, like key animator Don Lusk, decided to help out the low rankers, by doing inbetweens and cleanup duty, his nice furniture for his workspace got taken away and replaced with low-rank furniture.)

The most extreme inequality is that Walt Disney would earn over a 100 times more than a woman working in ink and paint. Art Babbitt (one of the Disney empoyees) had a  story about a woman whose husband was gone, who kept skipping lunches and fainted once, because her salary sucked, and she wanted to keep the money for her children.

And of course people striked, even the best animators, like Art Babbitt. Because the situation was so unfair. (Babbit got fired for union activities).

Walt's reaction to the strikes? Tonedeaf. Labelled the strikers as communists trying to ruin stuff. He was shocked and oblivious and felt betrayed, because he thought they were all in this together. Why would people want a union when he was being kind and giving the people everything they wanted, sort of attitude that he had. So it was time to blame the communists.

The Onceler talks about the lawyers denying. They're probably denying the environmental stuff, but I wonder how the Onceler treats his employees. Does he share the same paternalistic attitude of, "Look, I'm the one giving people all these great things, they should be grateful and loving to me"? Or does he approach his image a different way, like maybe a rockstar with his fans, and he just wins everyone over with ease by appearing charming and cool. Does the Onceler share the same obvliviousness, but to the degradation of his surroundings, or does the Onceler know about the surrounding degradation and just pushed on with business anyway? Does 2012 Onceler even have that many employees like the 1972 version has, or is the 2012 Onceler mostly a machine whiz, with a few employees here and there? And the way that Disney was pissed because he believed that the Screen Cartoonists Guild was trying to organise and run Disney's company, reminded me about how the Onceler was pissed when the Lorax was trying to criticise the Onceler about how the Onceler ran his company. Neither took criticism that well.

I think the strikes are also interesting, because it's also the moment Walt Disney's optimism mildly dies, and leads onto the behaviour seen later (being more distant from making animated films, the building of even more areas). He didn't see his studio as family anymore, and his social life kind of turned a little more inwards, more towards his own family, and became more distrustful of people. Trivia: Walt did not handle the strikes, and resisted them. Roy Disney, his brother, eventually gave the strikers nearly everything they wanted while Walt was away on holiday.

Another interesting thing was how the documentary talked about the "big five" Disney films, which were the first five, Snow White, Pinnochio, Fantasia, Bambi and Dumbo, and how there was no Disney Style back then, because each of those big five films were so different from each other because Disney used to be more experimental. But after the strikes, WW2, and box-office-flops, the experimentalness in the animated films was dialled down somewhat (e.g. Cinderella, while a box-office success and a beautiful looking film, wouldn't exactly be considered standout in terms of advancements/differences in style or tech from the older disney films). I find this interesting because despite the thneed being very experimental at the start, later in the Once-ler's life, we don't see (onscreen) the Onceler making many more experimental inventions for everyone else to enjoy. (The super-axe hacker is an invention, but not an everyday sort of thing)

Going a few years ahead, after WW2 and after Disney had some more successes and bungles (e.g. blaming communists for bad critical reception for Song of the South, which was racist for its cheery depiction of plantation life/slavery for black people) with his films, and union busting activities,  we come to Walt's new hobby of making model trains, and then making small (ridable) railways. Apparently he was more focussed on these trains, than the Cinderella film. Something Walt liked about making model trains and railways was how much he could control them. Companies and people are hard to control, but with models and stuff, you can control every detail, it's all happy and safe.

This would eventually lead to his next new big experiment, not in films, but in amusement parks. His enjoyment of trains, and a want of a clean fun place to take his daughters to (amusement parks/carnivals back then were sometimes dirty places, and filled with questionable people. Sometimes there was stuff like freak-shows as "entertainment", which displayed disabled people as something to gawk as, and half-naked-lady-dancers, and you can think about the audience for that. There's probably other rides and stuff as well, but  they’re not necessarily Walt’s ideal for a really clean place for his daughters), and the idea of putting people into the adventure instead of people merely watching adventures onscreen, biggered and biggered, and so he made the very successful Disneyland. A squeaky clean fun entertainment place for the family, an artificial world that could be controlled and manufactured down to the very last detail.

I wonder what lead the Once-ler into town-planning of Thneedville. I find Thneedville interesting, because outwardly, it also looks like it's a squeaky clean place for fun and amusement. Walt's attitudes to Disneyland stemmed from his love for films and storytelling and fun things and trains and control, I wonder what vision the Once-ler had for Thneedville, where it stemmed from. A vision of fun and peace? A vision of control? A vision of futurism and modernity? A vision of perfection? A place where he can be idolised and made eternal? Another interesting thing about Disneyland was how often foreign world leaders would visit it to get a sense of the US, as if the place was a cultural touchstone. Did the Onceler want Thneedville to be that sort of important place as well?

Also, a place made out of plastic (In Disneyland's tommorowland section). Remind you of anything?

"As you enter this experimental model home, perhaps you noticed the house itself is constructed entirely of plastics".

LORAX: We open in Thneedville, a city, they say, That was plastic and fake, and they liked it that way.

Some contemporary critics of Disneyland said that it was: "The whole world, the universe, and all man's striving for dominion over self and nature, had been reduced to a sickening blend of cheap formulas packaged to sell". "Life is bright-coloured, clean, safe, mediocre, inoffensive", which reminds me a lot of Thneedville. Capitalist, bright, and clean looking (outwardly). Another amusing quote is that someone once said Walt Disney was popular enough to become president, but then Walt said "Why would I want to become President of the United States? I'm the king of Disneyland." Sometimes I wonder if the Once-ler's ambitions and biggering had a stopping point for him, or if he was the type of person that could eventually go, "Yeah, what if I did become the president of USA?"

While Thneedville resembles Disneyland in some aspects, Thneedville doesn't come across as an amusement park with multiple themes, with Disneyland having sections like Fantasy-land with a fantasy setting, Frontiere-land (which in Disneyland, showed a washed and sanitised version of U.S.America's history), among others. Thneedville seems all futuristic, more uniform. And then we finally come to EPCOT. Bigger than Burbank studios, bigger than a Disneyland trip you stay in for a few hours, Experimental Prototype City/Community Of Tomorrow, as it was originally envisioned, was a way of life. Somewhere you lived. And Walt Disney, at around 1965, had bought and owned 27,000 acres of land in Florida in preparation for the Disney Florida Project. Disney didn't just want to be making pop-culture that'd be popular one day, and not improtant some years down the line. He wanted to make a city that would be a model for the United States.

EPCOT'S features would have included:

- A circular layout, based on a wheel. (The “spokes” of the city “wheel” would be where much of the transportation can occur).

I don't have any overhead concept art of the exact layout of Thneedville but the walls do make it look like a circle-shaped community. Someone also had a screenshot that displays Thneedville's supposed layout here:

https://someone-cared.tumblr.com/post/28929067166/travelingmadness-thneedville-map

And it is circular.

- Different sections of the circle being designated for different things. As the documentary says, "A high density town centre with hotels and corporate offices, a greenbelt for recreation and entertainment, and a low density area with schools and parks and playgrounds. And it would be all knit together by the most efficient and convenient public transportation". (While watching the video about EPCOT in a link mentioned later, the schools seem to be in the green belt actually) .

Though, Thneedville looks a lot wonkier with it's Seussian roads, and most people seem to have personal transport and it's a lot more car-based. I wonder what kind of layout it has. Where Ted lives, it looks exactly like a residential section. Is Thneedville neatly sectioned like EPCOT?

- Many companies doing their research and development in EPCOT all together, right next to each other. EPCOT promised employment for all 25,000 people it was supposed to house. I wonder what other companies in the area the Once-ler was in contact with. The O’hare business seems to be one of them.

- A section of EPCOT would be enclosed in a climate controlled environment, so people would always have ideal weather conditions. Thneedville has weather control. (While the air isn't as clean), it sure as heck doesn't look as smoggy as it does on the outside. People can lie on the beach and surf in snow, in the very same location, within the same hour.

- Convenient and corporate controlled. EPCOT, being a Disney thing, is probably going to have Disney's influence heavily, and Disney also wanted other corporations and industries to move into EPCOT to help out the city. Thneedville, is named after an invention/company, and is currently under O'hare's rule. In the opening song, people call it got-all-that-we-needville, satisfaction-guaranteed-ville, destined-to-succeed-ville, we-are-all-agreed-ville. With the way EPCOT and maybe Thneedville, is laid out, where everyone has access to the business center, employment, schools, parks, and public transport, unlike Burbank, EPCOT seems to be a place where everything is easy for everyone to access. If Thneedville is anything like EPCOT, it's no wonder why people love it.

Here is Walt's original 26 minute film that he broadcasted, explaining Disney World, EPCOT, and the entire Disney Florida project to all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLCHg9mUBag

It aims to be modern, continuously updating, to show the rest of the world "American ingenuity". A living showcase.

Eventually Walt succumbed to illness, at around 65 years old. While in hospital, on some his last days alive, he was still looking ahead, explaining to Roy Disney about his vision of what EPCOT and Disney World would be like. I think the Florida project continued on, but in a different direction.

While the Once-ler didn't die, and it's possible the current Thneedville matched a lot of the Once-ler's vision, someone other than the Onceler possibly finishing the city after the Thneed-company collapse, and the influence of O'Hare being the dude that rules over Thneedville, could be noticeable enough to take it in a different direction. I wonder what Thneedville would be like if the Once-ler ruled over it continuously.

[floooopafloooopa]

trying to think up of an in-universe reason for why someone might name their kid “Once-ler”

Assuming:

- Bret and Chet are older.

With Bret and Chet, they have a mildly thematic name, as in the names appear rather similar, suiting for (identical) twins. maybe when the Once-ler’s mom was first pregnant/acquired them, it was noteworthy that they were twins.

So the next time she was pregnant/acquired the Onceler (we don’t know if the kids are adopted or not), and it was just one kid instead of twins or triplets or more, it was noteworthy that the kid is a once-ler. Bret and Chet are thematic names for twins, and the Once-ler is a thematic name for a single child.

[floooopafloooopa]

(I used Audacity’s vocal silencing tool on the Lorax, so now you hear these weird whispers whenever he speaks)

[floooopafloooopa]

Knockoff Once-ler is now available for everyone to use! (in Blender)

I was practicing 3D modelling, so I made the Once-ler in Blender (free 3d modelling software). The Knockoff Onceler isn’t particularly charming since I’m a beginner-modeller and I find him a little creepy, but hey, now he’s here. (but with no hat. The semester for university just recently began again, and I’ve no time to make the hat O_o). People make fun of the Five Nights of Freddy’s fandom, but I see a lot of them make and share really cool 3d replicas of the characters, both beginners and advanced modellers, and I can’t see why the Once-ler + Lorax fandom shouldn’t try the same!

(There’s some oddities of the buttons and vest-split being straight down the middle instead of being slightly to one slide, because I’m using a thing in the software that makes the model and textures symmetrical. The seam-texture down the middle of the pants also stops midway because I tried to make him do the splits, and the texture stretched in a really weird way, so I removed it.)’

and a view with the rig visible.

More pictures below: 

Features:

- Poor topology

- Rigging. Rigging includes inverse kinematics for the limbs, very basic face rigging (can move the eyes, lips, has a mouthbag + tongue), can move the hair as well. Unfortunately the bones aren’t exactly  organised, so you might move some around and forget which bone is for what.

I mentioned poor topology before, because unfortunately you might find some weird deformations, unintended creases, or parts clipping through in various areas while posing the character due to the poor/beginner-level topology, rigging, and weightpainting (such as the shoulder bending weirdly).

Below are some demonstrations of the rig (note, bones have been hidden since sometimes they’re obscuring or distracting):

And a demonstration of the face and head area:

MA LOOK, I CAN LICK MY OWN EYE!

He is available in this Google Drive Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gxR--jQV98LZbjCWp3tEGo2lhRU8qi-3/view?usp=sharing

(note: i don’t know if the texture files will randomly unlink themselves from the model when you download it. If he shows up bright pink when you choose lookdev or rendered mode, the 3 texture files have been included so you can link them up to the model again). The download zipfile size is around 1 MB, and when you extract it, it is 2.5 MB.

Note, I’ve not written a manual on how to use it (cuz I’m going to be busy now!). I’m not at the skill where I can create a rig where anyone can pick up the rig and play, so you’ll have to know Blender and how to pose rigs (including ones with inverse kinematics that still have the pole and control bones hanging around outside the body), and figure out how the rig was set up, to be able use it.

If u want, share it for free (i don’t mind reuploads of the files, but make sure to include the credits somewhere), or modify it and share your modified versions.

If you do modify it, append your name to the credits text file with your modifications!

(if you know blender) Have fun with the model! shitpost with him to your heart’s content!

[floooopafloooopa]

your pal (or however it is the meme goes): The knockoff-Onceler isn’t real, he can’t hurt you.

Knockoff-Onceler:

[floooopafloooopa]

POST TESTING, PLZ IGNORE [or not, it’s your decision. i have to put it in public to test the permalink]

https://floooopafloooopa.tumblr.com/post/624858896640720896/

THE HTML OF THIS POST,

test pressing the permalink to see if the preview for the document shows up.

Yarrr harrr harrrr! It appears to work on my end! I don't think I'm ever going to attempt another post that long again, but it's nice thinking that I've found a workaround for tumblr's post limit! I've tried it for my other post, so hopefully it works there

The other post

[floooopafloooopa]

Once-ler’s guitar hop + other aesthetics considered in Earth’s context, giant ramble

ages ago, i wondered where Once-ler’s guitar hop came from, I was certain I saw it, but I couldn’t remember where.

Then I saw the hop again.

And we know Marty Mcfly probably pulled his moves from somewhere.

Chuck Berry!

It says Duck-walk up there, but Chuck Berry also did that one-legged hop, (and some consider the hop as a type of duckwalk).

And the Once-ler’s hip-moving moves could be influence from Elvis. Elvis was nicknamed Elvis the Pelvis because of how much he moved, well, his pelvis.

The pelvis moving of Elvis among his performances was mildly scandalous.

From Wikipedia:

“Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis Presley. ... Elvis, who rotates his pelvis ... gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos".[109] Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation's most popular, declared him "unfit for family viewing".[110] To Presley's displeasure, he soon found himself being referred to as "Elvis the Pelvis", which he called "one of the most childish expressions I ever heard, comin' from an adult."[111]”

So there’s possibly some 50′s influence on his movements.

WARNING: EXTREMELY EXTREMELY LONG AND IMAGE HEAVY POST. Including copy-pasted sections of text (but not including screenshots of text), this entire post clocks in at over 13,000 words long.

To read the rest, click the link to my google drive. I tried putting it on tumblr, but the length of it means Tumblr crumbles under the attempt to save it, so I had to save it as a PDF.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nh019Yxi_31Y5lhNXigjedQ4xJbmpP8w/view?usp=sharing

(or, attempting to use the HTML side of tumblr’s post editor, not sure if it works)

Press this post’s own permalink

https://floooopafloooopa.tumblr.com/post/624818335533727744/once-lers-guitar-hop-other-aesthetics

and hopefully a preview for the document might show up between the stars below if the HTML thing works.

*****

*****

It’s a really long document so i hope I didn’t have blatant errors like accidentally deleting half a paragraph.

Also, remember this gif of Paul shaking his hair. You’ll need it, since PDFs don’t have animated gifs and I refer to this at one point.

(And if you have read my entire ramble, thank you!)