#This is specifically about Pixar's cars and all its movies and shows

[aliensthegreat]

Tell me about ur hyperfixation I guess? Idk, I've never actually done this before, tell me about your interests!

You like cartoons? Specific characters? The Adventures of Tintin? (Same bro) Spongebob? Disney/Pixar films? Frollo? Aladdin? Cinderella? Cars? Merida? Wall-e? Ursula? Dreamworks?

Video games? Sci fi?

TV shows? Comedy? Romance?

Movies? Movie genre? Action? Fantasy?

Animals? Snails? Sharks? Puffins?

Horror games? Bendy and the Ink Machine? Five Nights at Freddys?

Volcanos? Space? The ocean?

Art? Do you draw? What do you draw? Do you like modern or historical art?

You like history? What time period interests you?

Horror films? Midsommar? Saw?

Your ocs? Do you draw them? Tell me all about them! What's there story?

Music? What is your taste?

Tell me everything about anything, evin if its not on my wee list thing! I'd love to hear about random stuff that strangers like! Literally just dump information about your favourite thing here. Xx

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

The things I wanted to see in CARS...

I'm one of the few weirdos out there who actually digs, no... Not just digs, **loves** CARS.

Time to turn in my "animation fan" card, huh?

Yes that's right, the 2006 Pixar film that was largely conceived and mapped out by the incredibly talented Jorgen Klubien, but highjacked by a very overzealous John Lasseter, who pretty much wrote Jorgen's contributions to the movie out of the official production history. Anyways- Yeah, whoever actually made that movie, I love it.

And it's honestly very refreshing to see a generation who grew up watching that movie regarding it as "top tier Pixar" or "cinema". I was there from the start, I knew back then that it was pretty cool. CARS came out when I was 13 years old, and that young animation enthusiast back then loved it every bit as much as previous Pixar darlings like the TOY STORY movies, FINDING NEMO, and THE INCREDIBLES... While everyone else around them jeered that it was their first misstep, or it just was not as good as their previous movies. That it was just a DOC HOLLYWOOD rip-off. (A movie that no one would've ever thought of, until Pixar made something... See also, HERMAN'S HEAD being dredged up from the past when INSIDE OUT was being released.) Even THE SIMPSONS made a joke about CARS being regarded as a Pixar black sheep. Oh, and the endless discussion, "How does that world work??? It makes no sense???" (Please don't show these people 1940s and 1950s talking vehicle cartoons, lol.)

The previous whipping post/designated "weak link" was A BUG'S LIFE. No surprise, a relatively "simpler" fable that wasn't interested in reinventing the wheel... (And that too has been reclaimed, particularly for its not-so-subtle parallels.) Interestingly, CARS was conceived in the mid-1990s, and in another timeline it would've been the third Pixar movie *after* A BUG'S LIFE. I feel both movies had a lot in common, so this linking just confirms that for me.

Anyways, yeah... I knew it all along, but it's cool to see younger folk have held onto it since seeing it as kids and hold it up in high regard. The kids are alright, they know don't they? Just like they did with animated financial flops of the 2000s such as THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE, and critical duds like ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE. But that's what happens when adults go into an animated feature expecting something that specifically caters to their tastes, eh?

So, yeah, CARS of course spawned a massive franchise - and remained a thorn in the side of AH-dult animation fans and anal-retentive types who insist that Pixar only put out one specific kind of movie. CARS' success in 2006 lead to two theatrical sequels, two spin-offs produced by Disney's defunct animation studio Disneytoon (who handled direct-to-video movies and such), a ton of short films, and even a Disney+ series that came out last year.

However, I find it rather unusual that two of my favorite things pertaining to automobiles were *never* in these movies...

A) One of my all-time favorite cars...

Dodge Vipers.

The Viper was in production from 1991 to 2010, a short hiatus occurred, then it returned in 2013... But then the Viper ceased to be in 2017. It's seemingly a relic now, a car contained to the 1990s... But I'll always love the Viper, no two ways about that. Video games I had and played religiously starting in 1998 had a Dodge Viper option, and I fell in love with that car right off the bat.

And yet, not a single CARS movie, show, short, etc.... Had a Dodge Viper in it... Why you do me dirty like that, Pixar? I know that the series could only have so many kinds of real-life licensed vehicles in it, but the Viper was still a thing when the first movie came out and when the second movie was in production... And the third movie, for that matter...

Why no Vipers?

Ah well, Lightning McQueen kind of looks like a late '90s/early '00s Dodge Viper GTS Coupe anyways. The curvy front, the back spoiler, I kinda think so. No?

So yeah... No Vipers... I'm sure Pixar will continue this franchise in some way or another. CARS ON THE ROAD debuted in September 2022, which was five years after the release of CARS 3... The only new CARS stuff that came out in those five years were... Shorts, I think? There was at least one PIXAR POPCORN short dedicated to it. And it's very possible that show gets a second season, even if one of the people instrumental in it and other CARS media - Steve Purcell - got let go from Pixar.

Thing is, CARS 3 didn't really do all that good. Lowest grossing mainline movie in the series, and one of Pixar's lowest grossing in the pre-COVID years at that. $383m isn't terrible by any means, but against a $175m production budget... And when you compare that to what CARS 1 made in 2006 *without* the aid of 3D or IMAX or any premium formats... 11 years earlier, when tickets cost less... Yeah, I think that film kind of was the end? Disneytoon would've made more vehicle movies, such as a spacecraft movie that was set for 2019 and a movie about subway trains, but Disneytoon was shut down after Lasseter was ousted from every position of his at The Walt Disney Company. It's as if he kept DT on life support in the post-Eisner era.

But then again, it's still apparently an easy moneymaker for Disney, so a fourth movie could happen. Or another Disney+ series. After all, Cars Land is a thing among other various parks stuff.

I dunno, I just wanna Viper in a CARS movie or show!

And, also, I'm a weirdo. I'll gladly take another few of those movies, especially if they pay for more originals at Pixar.

So, what else did these movies not have?

B) Beach Boys songs about cars... And other classic cars songs, at that!

Okay, so I am a massive fan of The Beach Boys... And in their early years, roughly 1961-mid 1964, they did a lot of songs about cars amidst the burgeoning "hot rod rock" scene. Classics such as '409', 'Shut Down', 'Little Deuce Coupe'...

... heck a whole LITTLE DEUCE COUPE album filled to the brim with car songs, in addition to songs like 'Don't Worry Baby', 'Little Honda', etc. etc. etc.

Anyways, I can literally smell the motor oil when I hear these songs. Once leader Brian Wilson started producing the group, he really brought a level of immersion to these songs via the harmonies and arrangement of the instruments. Like, these songs define "car song".

Outside of The Beach Boys, you have songs such as fellow surf group Jan & Dean's car tunes. Here's a banger one, 'My Mighty G.T.O.':

About half of the soundtrack of CARS 1 was vintage stuff, but not really car stuff. I mean, you did have 'Route 66' by Chuck Berry, a road song for sure, but a song like the two above. That being, I always loved the needledrop choices in that one: 'Sh-Boom', 'My Heart Would Know', the cover of 'Life Is a Highway', etc. In addition to the songs recorded specifically for it.

Because CARS 2 largely sidelined its racing stuff for a spy plot, there wasn't much car song stuff to go around. And weirdly enough, that movie has a cover of 'You Might Think' by The Cars... You would think (hah) that they'd use the original version by **The Cars**? What is with these movies?

CARS 3 thankfully circled back to this kind of musical backdrop, but it was just a few covers of road songs and some new stuff, like Dan Auerbach's 'Run That Race'. Good stuff, but... No '60s hot rod songs!

Heck, if they ever made a fourth film or another series... I'd be down with it being set in the '60s. I'd legit love for it to be a straight up 1960s racing movie, as that was a prevalent subgenre back in the day. Something like those film reels of Doc Hudson's races that we saw in CARS 3, but as a whole series or film. Complete with the grain and worn out film texture. Hire me Pixar, I'll pitch you that and direct it, and I'll stuff it with all those '50s and '60s car song needledrops!

...

This piece was largely written in jest. Who am I to tell an animation studio what to do? Lol.

[curatedbyhatto]

one song every day - vol I

Hello again, it's me, the hat man.

If you follow me on instagram (and if you don't, you should) you've probably seen that I started doing a mini curation every day with the aid of those '30 days of music' images.

Precisely, I want to make a post explaining each of them briefly, along with a playlist. This is because I don't want the instagram stories to get overcrowded, so every time that I start a new one, I will delete the previous one and leave a link to its corresponding post. OCD? Well yes, of course.

So, let's start, let's get to it.

vol I spans from August 12th to September 10th, 2022

1. A song you love to sing along to: Bonsai by Polär

- I really like it, what can I say? It's really catchy.

2. A song you listen to while walking outdoors: Lost & Found by Corbu (ft. Jimi Goodwin)

- I was kinda biased on this one because I looked for the song for a while without remembering its name, then I found it and listened to it while walking to my workplace. I mean, it works, right?

3. A song by a boy band: Youngblood by 5 Seconds of Summer

- I like the metal cover by Maddison a lot better, but well, the original is good too.

4. A song by a girl group: Peek-A-Boo by Red Velvet

- I'm not way too deep into k-pop, but I like a couple songs here and there, and this one really got me because of the instrumental.

5. A song that reminds you of home: The Sign by Ace of Base

- It reminds me of my mum.

6. A song with a long title: two queens in a king sized bed by girl in red

- girl in red is sooooo good. There's really no explanation for this one 🤷‍♀️

7. A song you like from a movie: Life is a Highway by Rascal Flatts

- It's from Cars, by Disney Pixar.

8. A song that makes you productive: Language I: Intuition by The Contorsionist

- Thanks Dave for showing me this song. I also discovered a great band because of it. Again, there's really not much to explain.

9. A song where you know all the lyrics: Si Pudiera by Manuel Medrano

- I obsessed over this song. Manuel voice is sooo soothing.

10. A song from the 80s: Bad News by Moon Martin

- Everything about this song is perfect. The riff, the voice, the lyrics, the changes of mood. UGH. SO GOOD.

11. A song that describes your college years: What's My Age Again by blink-182

- I mean yes, I am a college dropout, but I am still on my college years and still act like a dumb kid in some situations (and to be honest I don't want that to change, I like to have fun)

12. A song from the 2000s: Wherever You Will Go by The Calling

- If you know me you know I'm nostalgic for the years between like 1998 and 2006. Music on that period had a very cool feeling, and most romcoms I love were created back then.

13. A song you're afraid to admit you like: Transylvania by Iron Maiden

- I'm afraid to admit I like it because of all the dumb toxic culture and gatekeeping around music like this.

14. A song from the 90s: Kiss from a Rose by Seal

- Thanks again for an amazing song, mum.

15. A song with the best instrumental: Insomniac by Lucy Lu

- This one was tough, ngl, but Insomniac was the winner on this ocassion.

16. A song you loved but hate now: Eye of the Tiger by Survivor

- When I was 10 I loved it but it has been overused and now I can't bear it.

17. A song that puts you to sleep: chance with you by mehro

- I actually just play random mehro to sleep. He's so comforting.

18. A song that you discovered this month: Down by Hemlock Ernst

- I discovered it on August. I think I was just messing around, surfing artists on Spotify and this absolute masterpiece came across. Yes. Oh yes.

19. A song in a different language: Leven by Maan

- I really like music in Dutch, and specifically Maan is one of my favourite artists.

20. A song from the 10's: Ophelia by The Lumineers

- Some people hate this kinda music, you know, the stomp, clap, tambourine. I really like it (actually thinking of making a playlist of it)

21. A song you sing to in the shower: Monophobia by Deadmau5 (ft. Rob Swire)

- I spent all that day thinking of a song that I liked to sing to in the shower and nothing came to mind, so I used one that I like to listen to, though I don't know the lyrics. Its original mix is also like 10 min long so it helps me keep track of my shower time.

22. A song that was released this year: The Valley by Yotto

- Spotify recommends you music sometimes, and they definitely hit the nail with this one. Very good.

23. A song that makes you want to travel: Feels Like Summer by Childish Gambino

- My boss told me that I always pay attention to wording on instructions, so that I can know exactly what I’m being asked for, and provide more than 1 solution if needed. I did this here. I tried to think of a song that I would like to hear while on my way, but I couldn’t think of anything. Then I used my second interpretation of the phrase, so I thought of a song that I’d like to listen to while on my destination, in this specific case at a beach on the afternoon.

24. A song you used to hate but love now: Lovumba by Daddy Yankee

- I used to critique certain types of music, gatekeep and be arrogant. Thank God I’m not anymore, and I can actually listen to whatever the flip I want without caring about dumb people’s opinion. #reggaetonviejito

25. A song that reminds you of Christmas: You Make Winter Warm by Andrew Huang (ft. Dusty Lima)

- I mean, pretty literal. Go listen to the making of, it’s cool.

26. A song title that is all in uppercase: SHIMMER by Ocean Groove

- Me? An Emo kid in 2022? Yes, and I also just bought some Vans Era.

27. An underrated song: Lullabies of Love by Rose Ringed

- Rose Ringed in general, his approach to music is formidable.

28. A song that you've had stuck in your head: Everything Machine by half•alive

- one of my top 1, 3 favorite bands. My favorite song by half•alive, probably?

29. A song that makes you feel sexy: meow by lvusm

- No song could make me feel sexy, sorry, but I really like lvusm’s music.

30. A remix of a song that you like more than the original: My Head Is A Jungle (MK Remix), originally by Wankelmut (ft. Emma Louise) [which at the same time is a rework of Jungle by Emma Louise]

- One of my top 3 favorite DJs/producers, along with Oliver Heldens and... idk, there may be more than 3. About the song itself, wow, MK’s pianos never disappoint.

you can find the playlist here

and if you wanna take the challenge too, here's the pic:

[argentdandelion]

Who’s Qualified for the Infinity Train? (June 27 Twitter Party Edition)

Who’s Qualified for the Infinity Train? (June 27 Twitter Party Edition)

An excerpt released in time for the Twitter party on #InfinityTrainHBOMax. Limited to a few theatrical films made by Disney Animated Studios and Pixar, from 2000 and later, starring human protagonists.

(Yes, a six-year-old could have a higher number than a surly teenage boy.)

Lilo (Lilo & Stitch)

Jim Hawkins (Treasure Planet)

Lewis (Meet the Robinsons)

Tiana (The Princess and the Frog)

Rapunzel (Tangled)

1. Lilo Pelekai (Lilo & Stitch)

Severe Emotional Turmoil:

Lilo’s is a six-year-old girl whose parents died in a car crash. She gives peanut butter sandwiches every week to Pudge, a fish she supposes controls the weather, probably because rainy weather contributed to her parents dying in a car accident and she doesn’t want anyone else to suffer the same way. A classmate outright calls her crazy for her beliefs about Pudge, and Lilo hits and bites her. Lilo does not have friends: they’re evidently unnerved by her eccentricities and how she attacked a classmate. Nani, her 19-year-old sister, became her legal guardian after their parents’ death. As much as she tries, Nani is initially an inadequate caretaker, yells at Lilo, and is often busy with her job(s).

Crossroads:

When the tough social worker Cobra Bubbles shows up and concludes things have gone wrong.

On paper, Lilo's turmoil after this point isn't much different from that of the average strong-willed six-year-old arguing with an older sister put in charge or an unprepared or irritable mother. Still, the Train doesn't seem to discriminate between mundane, common, seemingly small problems and extreme loss. Amelia boarded after the death of her fiance, but Jesse boarded just because of his people-pleasing doormat tendencies. Lilo's turmoil is also compounded by multiple problems: not just Nani's unsuitability as a caretaker, but the loss of her parents and lack of meaningful relationships with her peers.

Can’t Fix Problems: While Lilo is not constantly sad about it, Lilo nonetheless is badly affected by her parents’ death. She outright claims her family is “broken”. Lilo cannot undo her parents’ death, nor stitch the wounded family together. Though going to grief counseling would be plausible in this setting,  it doesn’t seem as if either went to grief counseling, possibly due to financial problems or Nani’s tight schedule.

Early on the in the film, Lilo has Nani, David (Nani’s boyfriend), and possibly the hula studio employees. (They don’t dismiss her beliefs about Pudge, apparently making the connection between her Pudge appeasement and her trauma)

Best pickup time: After Cobra Bubbles shows up: shortly after, Lilo goes up to her room and screams in her pillow.

Parallels: Grace has no friends. Tulip’s parents are divorced, which is also a parent-based and living situation problem. If Min-Gi and Tulip can get on the Train, despite having their loving parents inadvertently making things worse, then it is possible Lilo can get on the Train. Six is evidently not too young to get on the Train; three Apex members seem around that age, and Grace and Simon aren’t surprised at Hazel, who seems to be a Passenger who’s six-and-a-half years old (as of later in Season 3, when they’ve been traveling for some time).

Number: Above 202 (Min-gi and Ryan), below 337 (Amelia’s number).

-----------

2. Jim Hawkins (Treasure Planet)

Severe Emotional Turmoil: A delinquent who has violated his probation by operating his solar vehicle in restricted areas. His father left them and he’s raised by a single mom having trouble operating an inn; he’s failing at school, constantly in trouble, sullen. Believes he has no future. After being caught again solar-sailing in a restricted area, the police-bots take away his solar sail.

Crossroads: If he trespasses one more time, he’ll go to “juvenile hall” (juvenile imprisonment). He probably knew the risks of going into the restricted area, since he’s done so before. His solar sailing is somewhat dangerous; he’s not even wearing a helmet. (Though it’s possible there’s some technology that keeps his feet attached to the sail, making it safer than it looks.)

Can’t Fix Problems: He seems sullen after being apprehended/arrested, and later on. It may be solar sailing is the only enjoyable activity for him, even if he tends to get in trouble from it, and without it, he may have no joy in his life left.

Since his mother seems to work a time-consuming, demanding job, she might not have much time to properly raise him. He doesn’t seem to have relationships with anyone but his mother and Dr. Doppler, a friend of the family.

Best pickup time: Right before the old turtle-pirate shows up.

Parallels: His problem seems to be somewhat small-scale but long-simmering. The closest parallel is Grace Monroe, who engaged in delinquency (specifically shoplifting) apparently just to get her parents to notice her.

Number: ~202, near Min-Gi’s and Ryan’s number.

3. Lewis (Meet the Robinsons) – NOT QUALIFIED.

Lewis had gone through substantial emotional turmoil. He mother left him at an orphanage, he had gone through 124 failed adoption interviews by age 12, he figured his adoption prospects when he turns 13 the following year are low, he could have killed a potential parent who was allergic to peanut butter after spraying him with peanut butter from an invention malfunction, and his public attempt to recover memories of his birth mother was a disastrous failure.

However, Lewis was never a crossroads, at least prior to the movie’s plot properly starting with its sci-fi elements, and he can fix his own problem. Lewis can just try again with the machine, or he can get adopted by different parents. (which he does: he finds the younger versions of the people he knows adopt him when he time-travels to the future year of 2037). He also has the support of his roommate Goob, the orphanage director Mildred, a supportive science teacher, and possibly other teachers and classmates.

4. Tiana (The Princess and the Frog) – NOT QUALIFIED.

As of the best time for pickup, at least, Tiana is doubly, perhaps triply, not qualified for the Infinity Train.

Firstly, Tiana's persistence, can-do attitude and great competence in accomplishing her goals (had prejudice not interfered) just makes her too well-adjusted for boarding. Though her father died in World War I, at the time of the film, it doesn’t seem to greatly affect her. Though she gets sad sometimes, but she's not some kind of dysfunctional wreck like the other Passengers.

Secondly, she's not qualified for the Train for similar reasons as Lake. Even if One-One agreed to give Lake a number, Lake's problems ultimately lie upon how others perceive her, the system separating denizens from Passengers, and the enforcers of parts of that system (the Flecs), not in issues that simply require emotional growth. Similarly, while not outright stated in the film (it’s implicit in how her “background” is mentioned), Tiana faces prejudice that hinders her long-term goal of starting a successful restaurant.

Arguably, Tiana’s support system is also too strong for her turmoil to be too severe, or to have a strong enough “crossroads point”. Tiana has her mother, her friend Charlotte, and at least five (unnamed) friends which meet with her at the beignet cafe.

If one were to write a work in which Tiana gets on the Infinity Train, one would need to amplify the problems she faces up to that point, or alter the events so Naveen doesn’t show up and then add more problems after that point.

5. Rapunzel (Tangled) – NOT QUALIFIED.

She must have a supernaturally sunny disposition due to the power of the Flower of the Sun or her hair healing her mentally, because she should not be this well-adjusted due to all the child neglect, abuse, and no healthy relationships (but for her pet chameleon) she’s had for practically her whole life. She’s melancholy and hates herself for disobeying her abusive mother figure’s orders to never leave her tower, but quickly just gets sunny and cheerful again.

[supergoodwill]

Co w duszy gra Online Cda Zalukaj  Chomikuj

Movie Co w duszy gra online proves the theory that all the studio's films take place in an interconnecteduniverse.I'll also show you how Soul explains the Toy Story movies, where the Incredibles get theirpowers, and the origins of the magical doorways in Monsters Inc and Brave.Plus I'll explain how the new film fits in with Inside Out and Coco.

Of course, there'll be some spoilers, so take care.Jon Negroni first introduced the idea of a single Pixar timeline, and it's in Soul'sThe Hall of Everything where we can find especially compelling evidence to confirm Negroni's theory.The hall is overflowing with specific objects and locations which often recur in Pixar'sfilms, from the iconic Pizza Planet truck to the blimp from Up, and even the weirdlyshaped rock, called Wille's Butte from the Cars movies.And that's a huge pointer that the films exist in the same universe.But Soul goes even further than this, because even though the film appears to be set roughlyin the present day, which I'm basing on the look and feel of New York City and the cellphoneJoe uses, the Hall of Everything even has objects fromthe future such as the Axiom from Wall-E, one of a fleet of giant starliners that wasn'tused until 2105 when Buy N Large arranged for the evacuation of Earth.This implies that The Hall of Everything may even contain blueprints or at least the inspirationfor events that are still to come in the future of the Pixar universe.

Co w duszy Gra CDA also demonstrates one of the most important concepts at the heart of Negroni's Pixar Theory,that humans are batteries.The idea is that human beings are a source of energy to sentient objects such as thetoys in Toy Story which is why they crave the love of their owners;otherwise, it's suggested that if the toys end up stored away they lose their life.And in Monsters Inc, we know that technology exists that can harvest energy from humanemotions such as fear or joy.And there are several moments in Soul that strongly support this idea of humans as anenergy source.When Joe is on the elevator that leads to the Great Beyond, he notices that as the soulsof the recently deceased float up into the big bright light, they fizzle and cracklelike an electrical charge.[electrical crackling sounds] As if to reinforce this idea that a soul isa form of energy, there's also an electrical crackle sound effect whenever we see Terrycounting souls on her abacus.[electrical crackling sounds] Joe also discovers in the Great Before thatbefore new souls can take their place on Earth, they not only have to acquire a set of personalities,but they also need what the movie calls a "spark" to complete that personality.Without this spark, theoretically a soul isn't allowed to go to Earth and live a human life.

Twenty-two does end up on Earth by accident, but the general rule is that a "spark" isneeded to complete the Earth Pass which a soul needs to live a life.The word "spark" can, of course, mean a number of things such as a burst of electricity oran intense feeling or emotion, which again points to this idea of human beings as a formof energy or batteries even.Another crucial element of Negroni's Pixar theory is the idea that Boo from MonstersInc travels back in time to become the Witch in Brave.I'll get to how Soul supports this idea shortly, but first let's quickly recap what the theorysays about time travel.Brave is set in 10th-century Scotland whereas, given the monsters' advanced technology, MonstersInc takes place in the future.The clearest evidence which suggests time travel is the wood carving of Sulley thatthe Witch has in her cottage.She's also obsessed with bears which could be her way of expressing the strong friendshipshe made with Sulley in Monsters Inc.On top of that, the Witch has carvings of the Pizza Planet truck which should be impossiblegiven motorised vehicles most definitely did not exist in medieval Scotlandand she has carved parodies of famous art by artists from the future like Michelangelo.

The door to the Witch's cottage is also magical and can transport her into an alternate interiorversion of her hut, and it can also make her disappear.This is because Boo learned how the technology of the portal doors at the Monsters Inc factoryworked, which is how she travelled through time and space.Crucially in Soul, we can see this same technology in the You Seminar.After souls are paired up with their mentor, Jerry conjures up a door and sends them throughit, instantly transporting them to another location.And when Jerry gives Joe his second chance to return to Earth, he passes from The GreatBeyond through a door and emerges on Earth through another door.Given The Great Before existed at the beginning of time, it suggests that the technology formagical portals in the Pixar Universe was originally born there.Soul also makes a sneaky possible reference to Boo's time-travel shenanigans in what initiallyappears to be a throwaway line by one of the Jerrys.When Terry turns up to complain that the count is out by one soul, Jerry replies:"I seriously doubt that.The count hasn't been off in centuries."This is a vital piece of information for Pixar theorists because it tells us an anomaly similarto Joe escaping the elevator that was taking him to the Great Beyond has happened previously,several hundred years ago in fact.To understand what may have happened all those centuries ago, let's look at what happenedwhen Joe's soul accidentally fell into the body of Mr Mittens."Why am I in a cat?""I don't know!""Meow."It seems that Mr Mittens' soul was sent off to The Great Beyond.So, what if Boo did a similar thing when she time-travelled to medieval Scotland?

Could she have landed in the body of a Scottish woman and displaced her soul sending it upto the Great Beyond?That would mean there'd be an extra soul in the afterlife without a corresponding deadbody on Earth, which could be the reason for the count being off as Jerry said.Interestingly, when Joe returns to his old body in Soul, Mr Mittens appears to regainhis original soul too as we see him reunite with his owner,so if my theory about Boo and the Witch's soul is correct, it makes me wonder whetherTerry did anything about the anomaly that occurred in the soul count hundreds of yearsago.By the way, it's worth pointing out that there's also a Brave easter egg in Soul during thevideo at the You Seminar when we see a soul find its spark after it successfully shootsan arrow into the centre of one of three targets, referencing Merida's demonstration of archeryskills when she fired arrows into three targets.And there are, of course, many more Pixar easter eggs in Soul including the Chinesetakeout box, A113, and the Luxo Ball, all of which I reveal in my full easter eggs video.Now, there are two Pixar movies, Inside Out and Coco, which on the surface seem to contradictSoul and maybe pose a problem for how smoothly it fits into the interconnected universe ofthe Pixar Theory.

The first issue is to do with personality.In The Great Before, we discover that every soul acquires a set of personalities beforethey go to Earth."This is where personalities come from?""Of course!Do you think people are just born with them?"However, in Inside Out, personalities are formed whenever a new core memory is made."Each Core Memory powers a different aspect of Riley's personality.The Islands of Personality are what make Riley...Riley!"While these ideas about personality may appear to be at odds with one another, they can beeasily reconciled if we think of a new born soul as having a baseline personality at birth,some of which adapts and changes as that person grows up and has different experiences.In fact, in Inside Out we see that Riley loses her personalities when she experiences a traumaticevent, however, these are later restored and new ones are also added as she grows up;so an individual's personality is clearly not something static or unchanging.Likewise, Soul also shows us how Twenty Two's personality changes as she experiences lifeon earth.Something else we need to reconcile is how Coco's Land of the Dead fits with Soul's depictionof The Great Beyond.

In Co w Duszy Gra online, the afterlife is a relatively simple place with an escalator that leads souls toa giant white light in the sky.This representation may be alluding to the idea that many people who report near-deathexperiences describe a tunnel with a bright light at the end that draws them towards it.Coco's spirit world, on the other hand, is complex and bursting with colours, with theMarigold Bridge forming a connection between the Land of the Living and the elaborate andcomplex Land of the Dead.Fear not though, because we can resolve these differences by turning to Pixar's officialThe Art of Soul book, which describes The Great Beyond as"a place beyond all that can be known […] represented by a brilliant white light ina vast space […] What lies beyond the light is all up to interpretation."As the book suggests, we can interpret what is beyond the bright light in our own way,and so we can see the Land of the Dead in Coco as a culturally-specific vision of whatthe afterlife is unique to people of Mexican heritage.This would also explain how Coco can have its own specific rules for its spirit world,such as allowing the dead to cross over to the Land of the Living one day each year.What's common to both Soul and Coco though is that the dead souls all retain the appearanceand age they had at the time of their death, whereas in the Great Before, all the soulslook more or less similar, likely because they haven't yet taken a human form yet.The sparks that a soul acquires may even explain where the Supers in The Incredibles got theirpowers.Could it be that the souls that ended up as superheroes were supercharged with extra powersby the spark they received in the Great Before?There is, after all, a statue of what looks like a caped hero on a plinth in the Hallof Everything.

Maybe that statue was responsible for sparking the unfortunate idea of caped superheroes."No capes!"And this is just a fun idea, but could the soul that's being interviewed here for theYou Seminar training video be the soul of Buddy Pine, aka Syndrome."I'm a manipulative megalomaniac, who's intensely opportunistic.""Oh ho!This one might be a handful, but that's Earth's problem."Perhaps Syndrome got his spark from that statue, because after all it was his cape that provedto be his ultimate undoing.And yes, Syndrome wasn't born with powers, but that statue might have inspired him toseek glory in whatever way he could.Or could that soul be Evelyn Deavor, the master manipulator and evil tech genius from thesecond Incredibles movie?The soul's possibly female-sounding voice might also suggest this, although we knowfrom Twenty Two that a soul can change their voice to sound like any type of person."I can sound like this if I wanted to.Or sound like this instead.I can even sound like you."If you like either of these ideas, leave a thumbs-up or comment below with which otherPixar character you think this troublemaking soul could be

[ordinaryschmuck]

Top 20 BEST Animated Series of the 2010s-10th Place

Aside from the first few seasons of Regular Show, there aren't that many shows for teenagers. Mostly because they're the most difficult group to appeal to. You either go too mature or not mature enough, and it really is a hard balancing act to pull off without the right amount of talent. That being said, this next show is one of the few that pulls off such a balancing act...with mild success (I'll get into that).

#10-Infinity Train (2019-)

The Plot: A mysterious train of unknown origin pops into existence to pick up passengers for one purpose: To help them grow as people. This could result in many issues, depending on the person and what troubles them the most. However, it is up to each passenger to figure out why they're on the train in the first place. And what they must do to get off and back to the real world.

Now, before you kill me for not placing this show in the top five, I want to make it clear that thirteen-year-old me would have absolutely loved Infinity Train. But twenty-one-year-old me? Let's just say that I still enjoy it, but there are issues that I have. Although, before I get into that, I should first go over what I love.

First and foremost, I love how this show is technically an anthology. I say "technically" because while each season focuses on a new character, Infinity Train builds upon other characters introduced in current or previous seasons. Some of them even being the main focus for each new story, making it a unique take on what makes something an anthology. And the fact that it's an anthology means that Infinity Train can go further with its premise. If it stuck with the same character for several seasons, the show would have to drag out that character learning the same thing over and over again or having a new issue that requires them to go back on the train. And you get the whole "not this again" bullcrap that shows up in every not great sequel ever made. But the show avoids this by introducing new characters with their own unique problems. It gives Infinity Train gets a chance to explore even more themes and story without getting stale, making it entirely possible for the show to go on for, well, infinity. This is good because Infinity Train is one of those rare shows that gets better and better each season.

Season one is...fine. I enjoy bits and pieces of it, but it's clear that the writers were trying to find footing, and target audience, for the rest of the series. Season two immediately kicks it up a notch with a more interesting character, a tightly woven story, and an incredible message that I would not have expected from season one. And by season three, everything somehow improves further due to a greater sense of drama and maturity. With most shows, the level of quality peaks at a certain point, proceeds to fluctuate in quality for a spell, and then ultimately forcing a conclusion when it's clear that nobody is watching anymore. So far, Infinity Train has yet to have peaked in quality, and I can only hope it will continue to raise the bar in the future.

But, by far, the best thing about this series is the themes and messages that it tries to teach. As stated, each season focuses on a new character, each one having their own problems and, therefore, their own lessons to learn. Even better, each moral that the season's protagonist has to learn ties brilliantly into the antagonist. Because while you have the protagonist working toward a goal to better themselves, the antagonist already accepted their fate and decides that there is no going back for them. Sometimes even convincing the protagonist to join their ideology, creating great drama and tension.

Plus, the themes of this show are perfect for teenagers. They're essential for kids to understand but a little too mature for their age. On the other end of that, while adults clearly understand each lesson, there's rarely anything that speaks directly to them. And, sorry for potential spoilers, but I got to go through each season's moral:

Season one features a moral about moving forward and not letting disillusioned memories of the past obscure the present. This message applies to family and losing a significant other, saying that no matter how "good" the past was, you still need to move forward in the here and now.

Season two is fascinating because there are two ways a person can perceive what the main message is. What I perceived was a lesson on self-existentialism, focusing on common anxiety of whether or not a person is alive and if they really exist. Other people see the main message as being about self-identity, focussing on how a person can say, "I am this" when others say, "No. You are that." Either is applicable and doesn't matter which one is the real moral. Because both are equally important and equally identifiable for almost everybody.

Then there's season three, which might just have the most well-handled message in a long time. Because season three focuses on the idea of redemption. More specifically: Whether or not a person is too far gone to be redeemed. And where most shows go the route of everybody deserving the chance of redemption, Infinity Train might just be the first series in a while to say, "Nope. There is a line drawn in the sand, and there will be consequences for if you cross it." Given the number of times I've seen a series force out redemption for a character who didn't deserve it, it is refreshing to see something that points out how there's a limit. And keep in mind, this coming from a guy who actually likes those shows despite their forced redemptions.

So with everything that this series does right, what does it do wrong? Well...first of all, this show is not as funny as it thinks it is. Sure, some moments get a chuckle out of me from time to time, but there are one too many jokes that just don't land. I'm usually a fan when a show tries to find that balance between comedy and drama, but when the comedy is pretty stale, the show comes to a grinding halt.

There are also times when it feels like an episode, or an episode's segment, that just drags on for too long. For example, the first few minutes of "The Ball Pit Car" focuses on this cutesy little segment of the characters going through a McDonald's style playpen. It was cute at first, but it quickly gets old as they follow this stuffed animal that treats the whole thing as a game.

This leads me to the main problem this show has: When it tries to appeal to kids. To me, Infinity Train's at it's best when it appeals to teens and sometimes adults. So when it introduces a quirky, cartoonish sidekick or a babyish new character, it does not work for me. There are plenty of times when appealing to all ages does a piece of media a favor (case in point: Every Pixar movie ever made), but it doesn't for this show.

However, if I was still thirteen, I would be praising Infinity Train non-stop about everything it does right, maybe even claiming it to be perfect. Now that I'm twenty-one, I still praise it, but I'm more likely to see the cracks in the armor. It has a brilliant concept, some fantastic themes, and manages to get better each season. It just needs to polish out its comedy, work on its pacing, and figure out it's intended audience. Take a ride if you have the chance. The journey may be bumpy at some points, but it is worth it for the destination.

(Also, don't be that person who pirates it. I understand if you're broke as hell and can't afford ONE streaming service, let alone the fiftieth one. But if you have the money and you can afford HBOmax, then there's no excuse for you to sign up and watch the show, especially since it's at risk of cancelling because of people pirating it.)

[vital-information]

This is a Brenda Chapman appreciation post

She was the director of Prince of Egypt (1998) and also the first female director of a major animated film

She was the head of story on Lion King (1994)

And she was a key story artist for Beauty & the Beast (1991)

And for the Hunchback of Norte Dame (1996)

She was an essential part of some of the greatest US animated films of all time. For animation, the films she worked on have a unique focus on morality, legacy, beauty, and humanity. In addition to her work at Disney and Dreamworks, she also contributed quite a lot to Pixar. You might specifically notice her input seems to go directly to the most thoughtful and emotionally potent films the studio made (Up, Wall-E, Cars, Toy Story 3). And while those movies may follow the Pixar story rules, they also retain space for quiet introspection—the opening half hour of Wall-E, the Ellie/Carl sequence in Up, the lingering of the camera on Doc’s photographs showing his former glory, those final moments in Toy Story 3 as the toys are passed off. I can’t say for sure, but I would place major bets that Brenda Chapman had a major hand in these moments. Her filmography shows a deep understanding of the tensions we face and an appreciation for quiet moments that let these feelings simmer and deepen (what Hayao Miyazaki terms ‘ma’).

In 2012, Pixar released Brave. It’s first female-led film and it’s first princess film. But, despite Brenda Chapman’s initial role as director, this would not be Pixar’s first female directed film. You see, after creating the characters and designs, the dynamics between the characters (that both respected the women characters in the film and recognized the conflicts that still exist for women), after creating a story supposedly more reminiscent of the gentle contemplation of My Neighbor Totoro, Brenda Chapman was taken off the film due to “disagreements” between her and the executives at Disney/Pixar. She complained at the time about how the men at the studios did not appreciate her ideas and would often claim any ideas they did like as their own. Now we can also see how Pixar was at the time moving toward more sequels, more output, and more action/adventure type films (how many times can we watch the same buddy roadtrip type plot??). And on top of that, we have the firing of John Lasseter due to harassment allegations (and Emma Thompson, voice actor from Brave, taking a stand and refusing to work at the new studio he has moved to).

Doesn’t it make you wonder what Brave might have been in an environment where Brenda Chapman was allowed to flourish. She has a filmography that’s rivaled by perhaps only Miyazaki in its consistence of quality. When you see Brenda Chapman’s names in the credits of some trailer or a film (she has helped with the story for the live action Lion King and has her first live action direction credit for a film called Come Away which is still under production), I urge you to appreciate not only the struggle she’s undergone as a woman in animation, but what she has contributed to our lives and the world of film.

[thedisneydoc]

Lands That I Love: Life Could Be a Dream

Has Disney ever completely changed your mind about something? I used to have some very solidly-built opinions on certain Disney topics. But thanks to Imagineering Magic, I have been converted to an avid fan of these franchises that I previously disliked simply because Disney parks built an entire “land” around them. I’m going to start with my favorite “new” land...

Cars Land, Radiator Springs

Cars was my LEAST FAVORITE of the Pixar movies at the time this land came out. I thought it was dumb concept just to have cars that could talk. So I wasn’t entirely thrilled to have an entire section of DCA dedicated to it. And when it first opened, I feel like it didn’t have much going on for it besides its major thrill ride, Radiator Springs Racers, which always had a long-ass line and a Fast Pass Distribution that not only had a long line of its own, but also ran out of Fast Passes almost immediately after rope drop. It was just one ride and a bunch of very specifically themed Cars stores. I don’t think Luigi’s Rockin’ Roadsters was open for a very long time due to the trackless technology at the time and Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree was still a “kids ride” to me back then.

I don’t remember the exact moment when I fell in love with Radiator Springs. I think it happened gradually during the year I was a local Annual Passholder. I was in SoCal for 1 year to get my graduate degree and I only lived about 30-40 min from Disney, so I thought it made sense to finally get an AP again after nearly 2 decades. I ended up spending a lot of time going as a solo AP adventurer, going to Disney almost every weekend by myself just to wander and have fun. There have been several times that I have gone to Disney just to study (believe it or not) with my notes and my iPad, bumming off the new guest wifi hotspots they had just installed. One of the best wifi hotspots was at Flo’s Diner in Cars Land. I remember one day, I brought my homework out there and finished a group project on Google Slides out on the patio. They were playing my favorite vintage music from the 1950s and 1960s on a loop. There was an ice cold beer at my side and every few minutes, I would see the Radiator Springs Racers zoom by the beautiful butte next to me. I remember that’s when I realized Cars Land was one of my favorite places to be. 

Radiator Springs Racers is a fantastic ride when the wait times aren’t outrageous. But two of my favorite DCA rides are actually Luigi’s Rockin Roadsters and Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree. During my year as a local, I also came with some regular friends. I don’t remember exactly which friend convinced me to try it first, but after we rode them for the first time, my friends and I always make it a point to ride them every trip. The wait times are usually 5-15 min long and they have enough spin and fun to them that it’s always entertaining. On Mater’s the momentum of the spinning is strong enough to whip you around and cause you to squish your unsuspecting friend into the side of the cab. On Luigi’s you usually get a different musical dance every time and depending on which car you choose, you could end up as the star of the show. And there’s always a spin at the end! My friends and I all know when the spin happens in each number, so we always throw our arms up just before the car twirls us around.

Cars Land also has an AMAZING Halloween overlay that started a few years ago. Before then, DCA has never dressed up for Halloween! I love all the themed decorations. There are spider gas cans and a spider car, a zombie car, a sugar skull car (who I affectionately call Dolores), Jack-O-Lantern traffic cones, and the Cars Land sign gets this “Happy Haul-O-Ween” makeover with a adorable little witch car in the front for Photopass Opportunities. The punny car movie posters across from Fillmore’s snack stand also change to holiday themed films! Something similar happens for Christmas with Cars-themed decorations, lights, and a winter makeover with a snowcar for the welcome sign. And no matter what time of year it is, Radiator Springs always has a special neon-lighting ceremony at sundown, just like in the movie. When you hear “Sh-Boom” over the loudspeakers, you’ll know. 

I went back and rewatched Cars with a newfound appreciation. Maybe I was just too young to appreciate the story before, but now I understand the nostalgia and the small town beauty that the film focuses on. I think just being on the streets of Radiator Springs and having such good, nostalgic memories of my own there have really made the Cars franchise special for me. 

I have another land that has completely changed my mind about that franchise, but I’ll save it for later! Any guesses?

PC: the.disney.doc

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Pixar Films

I dislike Disney as an entity; it is an evil corporate conglomerate that makes focus-grouped schlock to appeal to as wide an audience as possible at the detriment of story.  That said, Pixar was once the greatest animation studio on the planet.

Keep in mind, these are movies for kids, so anything negative I say will almost certainly be rebutted with “you’re just old and you don’t like Disney because it’s popular and you’re a hipster and you’re not even the target audience anyway so shut up.”  I’m just giving my two cents, whatever that’s worth.

I’m not gonna rate them on a number scale, I’ll just tell you how much I would or would not recommend watching them.  Some are must-see-cinema, others are bland and skippable affairs that you should not feel obligated to watch just because it has the Pixar brand on it.

Let’s start from the very beginning (a very good place to start)

Toy Story (1995) Groundbreaking, the first feature length 3D animated movie, spectacular cast, great story, though a little wonky by today’s standards both in the visuals (though that’s just a product of the times) and in the characterization (Woody is kinda of a jerk in this one; he was worse during pre-production, so this is the tame version).  Pixar started off on the right foot.  Would Recommend

A Bug’s Life (1998) This has some flaws, but is still a really fun movie.  Not as good as Toy Story, but infinitely better than Dreamworks’ knockoff Antz.  Great ensemble, memorable characters and set pieces, really funny.  Would Probably Recommend

Toy Story 2 (1999) An excellent sequel, they knocked it out of the park with this one.  It’s surprisingly deep, exploring concepts like the inevitability of change; nothing lasts forever, you can’t keep kicking the can down the road forever.  The journey is finite, but that doesn’t make it worthless.  Would Definitely Recommend.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) To date, their best original movie, maybe even better than Toy Story 2.  Everything about it is perfect; John Goodman and Billy Crystal have great chemistry, Steve Buscemi plays the perfect sleaze, Boo is just adorable, it’s an excellent movie.  Would Definitely Recommend.

Finding Nemo (2003) This is a beautiful movie; they had to invent new animation techniques to make it look this good, new ways for light to bounce and diffuse through the fishy medium.  Amazing story, absolutely heart wrenching at points, hilarious at others, without feeling tonally dissonant.  Would Definitely Recommend.

The Incredibles (2004) Another home run, they’re just showing off at this point.  This is a much deeper and arguably darker story than any of their previous films.  It doesn’t pull any punches and explores adult concepts like mid-life crises, extramarital affairs, death (oh, so much death; red shirt mooks and civilians alike).  This may be my favorite (definitely top 3; I’ll expand the list below).  Would Definitely Recommend.

Cars (2006) A competent movie, though by Pixar standards it’s not quite up to snuff.  Not bad, by any means, but this one is the most blatant cash grab of them all, just a commercial for hot wheels and die-cast toys.  I have a soft spot for it because this is the one I’ve seen the most; my mom would turn on this DVD to keep my baby sisters occupied, so it was literally always playing in our house.  That said, I’m not nostalgia blind; it has good parts, but it’s not great.  Would Probably Not Recommend.

Ratatouille (2007) C’est Magnifique!  Patton Oswalt does a fantastic job, I identify with Linguini on a spiritual level, the human characters are all perfectly demented and the rats are equally so.  I love this moral; anyone can be successful, it’s about who you are not where you come from.  Funny and relatable, an all around feel-good movie.  Would Definitely Recommend.

WALL-E (2008) Top 3, hands down, this is a true work of art, a modern masterpiece.  A film mostly devoid of dialogue, it expresses so much emotion from how the characters carry themselves and react physically to their surroundings.  The body language, the color choices, the camera work (especially in the space dance sequence), just how RAW everything is, how grounded it feels, how fleshed out these little robots are..  I Cannot Recommend This Enough, Watch it Right Now. Now. Why Are You Still Reading This?  Now! Go Watch it Then Come Back.  Even if You’ve Already Seen it, Go Watch it Again.

Up (2009) Another near perfect installment under Pixar’s belt.  They’ve really nailed the art of opening scenes; Carl and Ellie’s love story moves me to tears, it is so beautifully portrayed.  Some of the characters can be a tad annoying and overly cutesy to sell merchandise, but the story never suffers from it.  The villain actually feels like a threat, there are stakes, and the image of a house sitting by a waterfall and the story connotations thereof are indescribably bittersweet.  Would Definitely Recommend

Toy Story 3 (2010) This is is sort of hit or miss.  It’s a very well made movie, and an excellent CONCLUSION to the Toy Story franchise (Conclusion: noun, the end or finish of an event or process).  I liked it, felt it really wrapped things up in a satisfactory way, but it’s not better than Toy Story 2 in my mind.  I feel like this was a turning point for Pixar; after this, they were never quite the same, never really bounced back.  May or May Not Recommend, I’m on the Fence

Cars 2 (2011) You don’t give the comedy relief their own movie.  That’s storytelling 101; the comic relief bit-character can rarely stand on their own and meaningfully carry a story, though corporations are laughing all the way to the bank as I say this because these types of movies keep making boatloads of money even if they suck.  Minions made bookoo bucks, the Pirates of the Caribbean series is still ongoing despite the loss of Bloom and Knightly (and bringing them back for the last one doesn’t really count because Depp is still the main character), Cars 2 is a corporate cash grab, and devoid of artistic merit; this is my first hard no.  Would NOT Recommend.

Brave (2012) This is not a Pixar film, it is a Disney film that they decided to make under Pixar’s name instead because they knew Pixar had enough good will and positive connotations to get people into seats regardless of story.  It’s not terrible, but it’s not great.  That’s the story of modern Disney; not terrible, not great, just okay because that’s all it needs to be.  People will watch it no matter what, so they put in the bare minimum amount of effort so nobody can say they suck at making movies again (because for the longest time in the early 2000s, they did suck; Dinosaurs, Home on the Range, Chicken Little).  Would Not Recommend.

Monsters University (2013)  Why did you do this, Pixar?  Why did you take one of your best movies and do this specifically to it? Nobody asked for this, nobody wanted this.  I can only applaud them for having integrity enough to NOT give people what they wanted; people wanted a sequel, and that would have bee terrible.  You can’t follow up on Monsters, Inc, it had a perfect ending, it was hopeful and heart warming and definitive.  A prequel is the only thing they could have made without messing up the ending of the original, so I’ll give them some credit for that.  It’s not good.  Would Not Recommend.

Inside Out (2015) Their best one since Toy Story 3.  Not terrible, I actually liked a lot of things about this one.  I like it when Pixar takes on more serious subject matter, and I thought they did a good job exploring how a kid would react to such a drastic lifestyle change.  The cast was good, the animation was fun (inside Riley’s head; outside was generic and samey).  Not bad Pixar, not bad at all.  Would Probably Recommend.

The Good Dinosaur (2015) It doesn’t matter what i think because this movie still made hundreds of millions of dollars.  Disney is losing no sleep over this.  Would NOT Recommend.

Finding Dory (2016) Again with the continuations!  This was better than Monsters University, but the original was still such a hard act to follow.  It had potential, and I liked how it respectably handled mental illness in a way that was easy for kids to understand without dumbing it down and underplaying its significance in the lives of those who it effects.  I think Marlin kinda regressed, having to relearn what he already learned in the first one. The hardest I laughed was during the climax, the truck chase scene, “It’s a Wonderful World,” just amazing.  Would Probably Not Recommend

Cars 3 (2017) I hope Disney was happy with this end product.  I hope the producers really enjoyed cashing their toy checks for this one.  I thought it was worse than Cars 2, but I can see why some people might like it more.  Either way, it’s worse than Cars 1, which wasn’t particularly great anyway.  Would NOT Recommend.

Coco (2017) I’m on the fence with this one.  It was beautifully made, and the songs made me cry, but it’s hard for me to look at this movie without judging it as a product made by a focus group of mostly white people.  By itself it’s a good movie, but when you know how the Disney sausage is made it feels disingenuous and calculated.  Might Recommend, But it Had Some Baggage

The Incredibles 2 (2018)  I am Boo Boo the Fool, Pixar suckered me and I fell for it.  I was legitimately enthusiastic for this one because the original is one of their best, and unlike Monsters, Inc it actually left room for a sequel.  It had so much potential, and big shoes to fill, and it did so in the most generic Disney way it could.  Like Brave it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either.  Middle of the road, some things were fun, others made little sense, it was “appealing” in that it literally appealed to as wide an audience as it could without alienating anyone by doing anything particularly risky.  I liked Voyd, I liked how Helen became the main character, I liked the villain twist; I did not like how easy it was to make superheroes legal again.  It felt like it was tacked on at the end, like he just says “and there we have it, they’re legal again, congratulations,” like he was announcing the winner of the Price is Right.  Would Probably Not Recommend

Toy Story 4 (2019) I want to be clear that I made a point not to pay money to see many of the previous films on this list.  If I thought they were going to suck, I waited until a friend bought it and saw it with them for free.  This one, though, I was forced to pay for because my mom insisted on seeing it in theaters as a family.  It wasn’t terrible.  Wasn’t great.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  It was the same villain again; Stinky Pete, Lotso, Gabby-Gabby... I can’t wait for the fifth one where the villain is an old toy who is mad because they weren’t played with.  Buzz was made much dumber for this one, and I felt they didn’t do enough with Forky.  I was excited to see how they handled the existential aspects of the series; what makes a toy? How are toys sentient? Why are toys sentient? In the first movie Woody implied that there were rules that toys were honor bound to follow, so what is stopping Forky from blowing their cover on accident?  None of these questions were answered.  I liked Keanu Reeves, I didn’t like Key and Peele.  Would Probably Not Recommend.

The mighty have fallen.  It’s just sad. 

”Onward” looks kinda dumb, like a kiddy version of the flop Will Smith movie “Bright.”  I have no faith in this production company anymore, but I’m sure it will make hundreds of millions of dollars; the cast are fan favorites, including Disney’s favorite topical pet celebrities (because let’s be honest, Disney basically owns Tom Holland at this point.  Whether they own Spider-Man or not, they own Tom Holland, he is theirs, his soul contractually belongs to them).

Speaking of souls, ”Soul” will probably go over well with critics, though I can’t help but notice that their main character of color is transformed into a non-human for most of the movie.  Again.  I’m also not a fan of this one-word naming convention Disney has fallen into in the last decade.  “Brave” was originally titled “the Bear and the Bow,” but one-word titles seem to test well with kids.  Hopefully this will pass, but I’m not holding my breath.

I’m swearing off Disney movies, firsthand.  I might catch them second hand, through friends or other means, but I refuse to give this corporate conglomerate one more penny.  They basically own Hollywood, so my money will eventually make my way into their pockets, I just want to put as much distance between them and myself as possible.  No more Pixar, no more Star Wars, no more Marvel, no more Disney.  I am one drop in the bucket, I will not be missed, and they will not be affected in the slightest by my absence, but I need to prove to myself that I have integrity enough not to keep funneling my hard earned cash into a trillion dollar snack company.

Disney movies are snacks, not meals.  And I’m going on a diet.

Anyway, here’s my top three:

Monsters, Inc

The Incredibles

WALL-E

[the-kings-tail-fin]

I know you've noticed this, (obviously, its a RACING series for peat's sake!) but there's always that big wreck in each cars and planes movies. I mean, we witness one in each movie. The King, Doc, Lightning, Dusty, etc. Why? Why does Disney + Pixar make us feel things? So, my real question for you is, in all 5 Cars and Planes movies, rate each bad wreck/crash from bad to the worst one that makes you feel the most things. Thanks!! :P -Chrysanthemum V.

I think Pixar does in fact want us to feel things - but it’s warranted. What’s the lowest low a vehicle can go through? A sudden wreck is painful physically and emotionally - it’s a big thing to happen and always signifies a turning point - whether it’s for better or worse. 

Also, just a side note, but in the course of my life, I’ve definitely cried over all the major wrecks in these series D’X 

All opinions are my own.

#6- Least bad

Cars 2. So many minor wrecks. All the wrecks in this movie are results of sabotage on cars that are background characters, more or less. We’re not meant to be emotionally charged when they blow up/wreck. It’s more of an inconvenience, and unless one of the racers is your niche favorite, these wrecks won’t bother you.

#5 Bad.

This is gonna be subject to debate - but this is where I place Doc’s crash we see that clip of in Cars 3. It’s not that it’s not traumatic, and it’s not that it doesn’t tug on my heart strings. I definitely tear up at that scene - but I don’t think it’s because Doc is crashing. It’s Lightning’s emotional state that kills me. We’ve known that Doc had a bad crash for like 11 years before we ever saw it. Thus, the crash is more tolerable, despite the emotionally charged scene that contains it.

#4 This is Real Bad.

Planes 1. These movies in general have no chill, and that’s what I love about them. I remember when the trailer came out for this movie, the main reason I wanted to go see it was because they showed part of the ocean scene and Dusty hitting the waves, and it was so dark and morbid I instantly fell in love with it. I love pain. That’s just the way I’ve always been. By the time I actually got to see the movie, the pain was everything I thought it would be. Blessed agony.

#3 HORRIBLE

Now, you might think that asking me specifically this question would imply that my answer to the worst wreck ever would be The King’s, right? Close, friends, close. In terms of quantity, I have witness this wreck most than all the others, so the cumulative pain I have felt is indeed larger in scale. But, because I’ve seen it so many times, the pain is more dull and expected. The real emotion comes when Lightning give up his dream to give a li’l push.

#2 MY HEART

Cars 3 - Lightning’s crash. I don’t think I need to explain why. The drama. The sounds. The fact that in this one instance, there’s actually an EMS team to go save his motionless body. I was a blubbering mess in the theater when I saw that scene for the first time.

#1 CAN’T TAKE IT

I debated this for a while, should Lightning’s crash be #1? Is it the most traumatizing? For some, yes. Some die hard Lightning fans (not naming names here) have yet to actually see Lightning’s crash because they keep closing their eyes when the scene rolls around. But for me? The one that killed me the most the first time I saw it was Dusty’s crash in Planes Fire and Rescue. Here’s why: he was suffering the entire movie, he had just lost everything he’d ever valued. He was physically broken. He knew that doing what it would take to save the park tourists would probably kill him. He knew death was imminent and he did it anyway. AND THAT BROKE MY LIL HEART.

[hannaharchy1-blog]

Disney and Pixar Theories

    Disney has been making animated movies since 1937, with Snow White and The Seven Dwarves being the first. These movies are all well known throughout every generation. Everyone remembers a Disney movie that they saw when they were a child, and they also remember seeing Disney movies with their own children. Some people might think that the movies are for pure entertainment and nothing more, but do the Disney movies have more to them then the eye can see?

    Disney movies may do more than just entertain. The movies may connect with life changing moments in history, or they may connect with one another. Some believe that almost all Disney movies connect in some way, whether it is two characters connecting, or if the worlds of different movies connect in some way. Some theories don’t make much sense, but some theories help explain the movies in a deeper way. Here are 5 theories about Disney movies and why they make sense.

Toy Story: Andy’s mom was actually Jessie’s original owner

    In Toy Story 2, there is a clip and a song that explains Jessie’s past life, and her past owner, Emily. Throughout the sad song going through the life of the new character Jessie, Emily is shown wearing a red and white cowboy hat. This hat is the same hat that Jessie wears, and is also the same hat that Andy is wearing in the first scenes of Toy Story 1. Since Andy and Emily are wearing the exact same hat, this suggests that Emily and Andy could be connected in some way. The time between the age of Andy’s mom in Toy Story, and the time of Emily makes sense. This suggests that Andy and Emily are related, in fact, Emily is Andy’s mother.

    This is important to fans of Pixar, and more specifically Toy Story, because Andy’s mom is kind of a mystery. She doesn’t have a lot of lines, and her face is rarely shown, which is strange. But this theory gives something for fans to grasp onto when it comes to Andy’s mom. Pixar connects a lot of its movies with the small things they do. This new theory of Emily being Andy’s mother is just another way that Pixar can connect two of its most beloved movies in a subtle way.

Tarzan, Elsa and Anna are siblings 

    In the movie Tarzan, the opening scene shows his parent’s ship in flames, sinking into the ocean. Tarzan’s parents luckily make it to the island where Tarzan grows up. But could Tarzan’s parents actually also be Elsa and Anna’s parents? Elsa and Anna’s parents are shown leaving for a trip in the movie Frozen. It never shows where they were going, but it does show that it never made it to the destination. The ship sunk in a horrible storm. In Frozen, we never see that the sister’s parents made it out of the wreck, but it never shows that they died. Theory suggests that Elsa and Anna’s parents made it out of the wreck, and they landed on an island, built a treehouse, and had another child. This so called child would therefore be Elsa and Anna’s brother or sister. Since theory suggests that Elsa and Anna’s parents had a child on the same island that Tarzan grew up on, that would mean that they had Tarzan. This makes Tarzan the younger brother of Elsa and Anna.

This has been buzzing around the fan communities of Disney ever since Frozen was released to theaters. Once again, Disney and Pixar can find ways to connect their movies to make them more enjoyable. This could be another one of those times that Disney does this. But this theory can be argued. We never actually see the ship Anna and Elsa’s parents were on in flames. We just see the ship get swallowed up in the see. We also never see an island near them like in Tarzan. This doesn’t mean that the ship was never on fire. It’s a stretch, but the ship could have been extinguished from the waves before it sunk. This would mean that they could have gotten off the boat and made it to the island, bringing Tarzan into the picture.

Carl from Up

    We all know the first ten minutes of Pixar’s Up was one of the most heartbreaking scenes in Disney and Pixar history, but does Carl die before the men from Shady Oaks pick him up? Some say that Carl actually dies the night before the retirement village guys come and pick him up in the morning. If this theory is really true, it makes the whole movie more sad then it was originally.

    People believe in this theory because of the strange events that happen to Carl as he journeys to paradise falls. At the first of the movie, everything seems normal, there is no element of magic in any of the scenes. The first time we see something sort of magical, is when Carl’s house lifts off the ground carried by hundreds of balloons. This could not really happen in real life. A house is a lot heavier then it may seem, no matter how many balloons you attach to it. Carl also has to steer his house by a homemade steering wheel. Balloons can’t be driven, they go wherever they want to go. Another element of magic is when after the storm, they are all the sudden a days trip away from paradise falls, Carl’s original destination. That wouldn’t happen in real life, they would have to do a little bit more to get there. The dog Doug is also a magical character. He is a talking dog, and even though he has some sort of device that allows him to speak, that just doesn’t happen in real life.

    Russell also has a part to play in his afterlife. Carl was a mean old man until he met his companion Russell. This character could be a way to show that Carl needed some guidance through the afterlife. Because the movie starts out in a totally normal world, this theory makes sense. Before Carl was going to be picked up for Shady Oaks, everything seemed normal, then after, the element of magic makes an appearance. That's why this theory is in the running for one of the most reasonable theories.

Finding Nemo and grief 

   Finding Nemo is one of the most heartfelt and funny Pixar movie ever made. The funny and loving characters are in our hearts forever. And with the release of Finding Dory, the appreciation for this movie has reappeared. The movie about a father trying to find his son is heart wrenching and special to many people. In the first scene of the movie, Marlin and his wife are shown looking at their children. The wife is killed in the attack of a barracuda, along with every one of their children, except for one, Nemo. But did Nemo actually survive the attack, or did he die with the rest of his brothers and sisters?

    Some say that Nemo never survived the attack, and the whole story of finding Nemo is about Marlin going through the five stages of grief. This theory is sad, but may actually be true. The movie clearly shows the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, despair, and acceptance. Marlin didn’t want Nemo to go to school alone, he was in denial that the fact that his son was growing up. Marlin gets angry at Nemo for swimming to far out of the reef. Marlin’s entire trip across the ocean is an example of bargaining. He finally knows despair when he thinks he loses Nemo forever when he is flushed down the toilet. Finally in the end, Marlin lets Nemo go to school, and lets go of being a strict parent. The five stages of grief are clearly shown in the scenes of this movie.

    The theory got flushed down the toilet when Finding Dory came out later. Nemo is clearly in the movie, doing well as usual. This theory still has people wondering what is true with the movie and what isn’t true. All in all, the movie is a great family movie that will be in our hearts for a long time, whether we believe in the theory or not.

Aladdin is set in a post-apocalyptic future

    Aladdin, a Disney movie that came out in 1992, is supposed to be set in the middle east in a fictional place called Agrabah. This movie is also supposedly in the early years of the middle east. But theory has hinted to the movie Aladdin being set in the post-apocalyptic future. Things in the movie hint to this many times.

The hints are subtle, but if you look past the humor of the character the Genie, he gives several hints that the movie is set in the future. When the Genie first comes out of the lamp in the cave of wonders, he says “10,000 years will give you such a crick in the neck!”, but nobody thought about all of the references the Genie makes to a different century then then movie is supposed to be set it. For example, when Genie is making Aladdin a brand new outfit for him to woo Jasmine, he mentions the third century. Genie also makes a nice car, and turns himself into a casino machine, which have not been invented in the century that Aladdin is supposed to be set. Along with those references to the future, the Genie impersonates modern day celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jack Nicholson. Aside from all of Genies references, in the Aladdin video game, there are modern day inventions like stop signs. Along with the stop signs, there are skeletons of humans and bones of animals in the wasteland. Theory also suggests that there was a nuclear explosion which would explain why there would be human and animal carcasses everywhere.

    This theory may just be a stupid idea that someone came up with. The ideas are almost absurd, but with all the references that Genie makes to the modern day, this theory has a place in the top 5 Disney theories of all time.

     None of these theories have any actual proof that they are valid, but the suggestions in each of the movies makes Disney fans think about their childhood shows deeper. Disney has never actually released information that any of these theories, or the hundreds of other theories are true. Even though we have no proof, Disney fans will always will find ways to theorize the movies that are released by the multi million dollar company.

[atthevogue]

“Tony de Peltrie” (1985)

The basics: Wikipedia

Opened: A landmark piece of computer animation, the Canadian short was part of the 19th Annual Tournee of Animation anthology that showed at the Vogue Theater in March and April of 1986.

Also on the bill: At least one Saturday in April, it was programmed in the 9:00 slot after Chris Marker’s Akira Kurosawa documentary A.K. and Woody Allen’s Sleeper, and before a midnight showing of Night of the Living Dead, which sounds to me like a very good eight-hour day at the movies. Otherwise, you could have had a less perfect day seeing it play after Haskell Wexler’s forgotten Nicaragua war movie Latino and the equally forgotten Gene Hackman/Ann-Margaret romantic drama Twice in a Lifetime.

What did the paper say? ★★★1/2 from the Courier-Journal film critic Dudley Saunders. Saunders described the Tournee as “a specialized event that shows signs of moving into the movie mainstream,” correctly presaging the renaissance in feature-length animation in the 1990s generally and Pixar specifically, whose Luxo, Jr. short was released that same year. Of Tony, Saunders singles it out as “one of the most technologically advanced,” and that it featured “some delightful music from Marie Bastien.” He then throws his hands up: "Computers were used in this Canadian entry. Don’t ask how.” Saunders was long-time film critic for the C-J’s afternoon counterpart, the Louisville Times, throughout the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. In the late 1980s, he would co-found Louisville’s free alternative weekly, the Louisville Eccentric Observer.

What was I doing? I was six and hypothetically could have seen an unrated animation festival, though I'd have been a little bit too young to have fully appreciated it. Although, who knows, I’m sure I was watching four hours of cartoons a day at the time, so maybe my taste was really catholic.

How do I see it in 2018? It’s on YouTube.

A four-hour-a-day diet of cartoons was probably on the lower end for most of my peers. I grew up during what I believe is commonly known as the Garbage Age of Animation, which you can trace roughly from The Aristocrats in 1970 to The Little Mermaid (or The Simpsons) in 1989. The quantity of animation was high, and the quality was low. Those twenty years were a wasteland for Disney, and even though I have fond memories of a lot of those movies, like The Black Cauldron, they’re a pretty bleak bunch compared to what was sitting in those legendary Disney vaults, waiting patiently to be released on home video.

Other than low-quality Disney releases, the 1980s were highlighted mostly by the post-’70s crap was being churned out of the Hanna-Barbera laboratories. Either that, or nutrition-free Saturday morning toy commercials like The Smurfs and G.I. Joe. Of course there’s also Don Bluth, whose work is kind of brilliant, but whose odd feature-length movies seem very out-of-step with the times. Don Bluth movies seem now like baroque Disney alternatives for weird, dispossessed kids who didn’t yet realize they were weird and dispossessed. (Something like The Secret of NIMH is like Jodorowsky compared to, say, 101 Dalmatians.) Most of the bright spots of those years were produced under the patronage of the saint of 1980s suburbia, Steven Spielberg. An American Tale or Tiny Toon Adventures aren’t regarded today as auteurist masterpieces of animation (or are they?), but they were really smart and imaginative if you were nine years old. Still, the idea that cartoons might be sophisticated enough to be enjoyed by non-stoned adults was probably very alien concept in 1985.

In the midst of all of this, though, scattered throughout the world were a bunch of programmers and animators working out the next regime. Within ten years of Tony de Peltrie, Pixar’s Toy Story would be the first feature-length CGI animated movie, and within another ten years, traditional hand-drawn animation, at least for blockbuster commercial purposes, would be effectively dead. That went for both kids and their parents. Animation, like comic books, would take on a new sophistication and levels of respectability in the coming decades.

I love it when you read an old newspaper review with the benefit of hindsight, and find that the critic has gotten it right in predicting how things may play out in years to come. That’s why I was excited to read in Saunders’ review of the Tournee that he suspected animation as an artform was showing “signs of moving into the movie mainstream.” His sense of confusion (or wonder, or some combination) at the computer-generated aspects is charming in retrospect, too.

Tony de Peltrie is a landmark in computer-generated animation, but its lineage doesn’t really travel through the Pixar line at all (even though John Lassetter himself served on the award panel for the film festival where it was first shown, and predicted it’d be regarded as a landmark piece of animation). The children of the 1970s and ‘80s grew up to revere the golden era of Pixar movies as adults, and the general consensus is that not only are they great technical accomplishments, but works of great emotional resonance.

As much of an outlier as it makes me: I just don’t know. I haven’t really thought so. I think most Pixar movies are really, really sappy in the most obvious way possible. The oldest ones look to me as creaky as all those rotoscoped Ralph Bakshi cartoons of the ‘70s. Which is fine, technology is one thing -- most silent movies look pretty creaky, too -- but the underlying of armature of refined Disney sap that supports the whole structure strains to the point of collapse after a time or two.

Film critic Emily Yoshida said it best on Twitter: she noted, when Incredibles 2 came out, she’d recently re-watched the first Incredibles and was shocked at how crude it looked. "The technoligization of animation will not do individual works favors over time,” she wrote. “The wet hair effect in INCREDIBLES, which I remember everyone being so excited about, felt like holding a first generation iPod. Which is how these movies have trained people to watch them on a visual level...as technology.” There’s something here that I think Yoshida is alluding to about Pixar movies that is very Silicon Valley-ish in the way they’re consumed, almost as status symbols, or as luxury products. This is true nearly across all sectors of the tech industry now, but it’s particularly evident with animation.

One of my favorite movie events of the year is when the Landmark theaters here in Minneapolis play the Oscar-nominated animated shorts at the beginning of the year. Every year, it’s the same: you’ll get a collection of fascinating experiments from all over the world, some digitally rendered, some hand-drawn. They don’t always work, and some of them are really bad, but there’s always such a breadth of styles, emotions and narratives that I’m always engaged and delighted. They remind you that, in animation, you can do anything you want. You can go anywhere, try everything, show anything a person can imagine. Seeing the animated shorts every year, more than anything else, gets me so excited about what movies can be.

And then, in the middle of the program, there’s invariably some big gooey, sentimental mush from Pixar. Not all of them are bad, and some are quite nicely done, but for the most part, it’s cute anthropomorphized animals or objects or kids placed in cute, emotionally manipulative situations. I usually go refill my Diet Coke or take a bathroom break during the Pixar sequence.

Yeah, yeah, I know. What kind of monster hates Pixar? 

I don’t hate Pixar, and I like most of the pre-Cars 2 features just fine. The best parts of Toy Story and Up and Wall-E are as good as people say they are. But when you take the reputation that Pixar has had for innovation and developing exciting new filmmaking technology in the past 25 years, and compare it to the reality, there’s an enormous gap. And it drives me nuts, because if this is supposed to be the best American animation has to offer in terms of innovation and emotional engagement, it's not very inspiring. Especially placed alongside the sorts of animated shorts that come out of independent studios elsewhere in the U.S., or Japan, or France, or Canada. 

Which brings us to Tony de Peltrie, created in Montreal by four French-Canadian animators, and supported in part by the National Film Board of Canada, who would continue to nurture and support animation projects in Canada through the twenty-first century. A huge part of the enjoyment -- and for me, there was an enormous amount of enjoyment in watching Tony de Peltrie -- is seeing this entirely new way of telling stories and conveying images appear in front of you for the first time. Maybe it’s because I have clear memories of a world without contemporary CGI, but I still find this enormous sense of wonder in what’s happening as Tony is onscreen. I still remember very clearly seeing the early landmarks of computer-aided graphics, and being almost overwhelmed with a sense of awe -- Tron, Star Trek IV, Jurassic Park. Tony feels a bit like that, even after so many superior technical accomplishments that followed.

Tony de Peltrie doesn’t have much of a plot. A washed-up French-Canadian entertainer recounts his past glories as he sits at the piano and plays, and then slowly dissolves over a few minutes into an amorphous, impressionistic void. (Part of the joke, I think, is using such cutting-edge technology to tell the story of a white leather shoe-clad artist whose work has become very unfashionable by the 1980s.) It’s really just a monologue. The content could be conveyed using a live actor, or traditional hand-drawn animation.  

But Tony looks so odd, just sitting on the edge of the Uncanny Valley, dangling those white leather shoes into the void. Part of the appeal is that, while Tony’s monologue is so human and delivered in such an off-the-cuff way, you’re appreciating the challenge of having the technology match the humanity. Tony’s chin and eyes and fingers are exaggerated, like a caricature, but there’s such a sense of warmth underneath the chilliness of the computer-rendered surfaces. Though it’s wistful and charming, you wouldn’t necessarily call it a landmark in storytelling -- again, it’s just a monologue, and not an unfamiliar one -- but it is a technological landmark in showing that the computer animation could be used to humane ends. It’d be just as easy to make Tony fly through space or kill robots or whatever else. But instead, you get an old, well-worn story that slowly eases out of the ordinary into the surreal, and happens so gradually you lose yourself in a sort of trance.

As Yoshida wrote, technoligization of animation doesn’t do individual works favors over time. To that end, something like Tony can’t be de-coupled from its impressive but outdated graphics. These landmarks tend to be more admired than watched -- to the extent that it’s remembered at all, it’s as a piece of technology, and not as a piece of craft or storytelling.

Still, Tony is the ancestor of every badly rendered straight-to-Netflix animated talking-animals feature cluttering up your queue, but he’s also the ancestor of any experiment that tries to apply computer-generated imagery to ways of storytelling. In that sense, he has as much in common with Emily in World of Tomorrow as he does with Boss Baby, a common ancestor to any computer-generated human-like figure with a story. When Tony dissolves into silver fragments at the end of the short, it’s as if those pieces flew out into the world, through the copper wires that connect the world’s animation studios and personal computers, and are now present everywhere. He’s like a ghost that haunts the present. I feel that watching it now, and I imagine audiences sitting at the Vogue in 1986 might have felt a stirring of something similar.

[cartoonessays]

“This Wasn’t Made For You”

WARNING: The following piece contains spoilers for Bao and other films.

I ranted about Pixar shorts a few years ago, mystified by what I saw was a decline in quality.  I was feeling like ever since Paperman, Disney and Pixar got stuck in telling the same tired and generic “boy meets girl” love stories with their shorts, Lava being their nadir.  They were creating new and amazing art aesthetics with shorts like Paperman, Blue Umbrella, and Feast, but my nagging thought watching these was that imagine if they used these boundary pushing aesthetics to tell a story that’s actually worth a damn.

There’s good news, though.  I think there’s been an improvement since then.

I haven’t seen or remember every Pixar/Disney short since 2015, so I’ll bring up the ones I remember off the top of my head.  Sanjay’s Super Team was like a breath of fresh air, especially after the embarrassing Lava.  I don’t really remember the hermit crab short that came before Finding Dory.  The short right before Moana about the dude’s internal organs was mediocre.  I didn’t see the short before Cars 3 and the half-hour Christmas special before Coco starring Mater the Snowman was pretty excruciating.  As of this writing, the most recent short is Bao, which is about a Chinese woman doting on a little dumpling she made as her child.

I liked this one very much.  I absolutely loved the cartoony way the human characters were designed and the cartoony way they were animated.  And while the story of the growing rift between the doting mother and the dumpling child wanting to go his own way in life as he grew up didn’t move me to tears, it was nonetheless very touching.

The short was directed by Domee Shi, a Chinese-Canadian woman and just like with Sanjay’s Super Team and its director Sanjay Patel, Bao draws on Shi’s Chinese background.  There seems to be a weirdly polarizing reception to Bao, attracting a lot of praise (particularly from other Asians) and confusion (particularly from white people).

Bao’s story is particularly resonant to Asians raised by immigrants in a Western country.  I’m not Asian, but I didn’t think the story was so uniquely Asian or Chinese that it’s completely unrelatable to anyone outside of that culture.  Bao is basically a condensed version of A Goofy Movie.  It shares parallels with Brave and the aforementioned Sanjay’s Super Team too.  So I’m completely mystified that there has been such a big chunk of people so detached to this that they can only come away from it baffled.

I’m also the child of immigrant parents who’s culture has not been represented in any of the cartoons I grew up watching or have watched since growing up.  Relating to all the white, Japanese, and anthropomorphic characters that inhabit all my favorite animated shows and films was never a problem for me.  As a matter of fact, I always found it even cooler when those shows introduced me to parts of their culture I wasn’t familiar with.  I’m not Jewish, so I was introduced to Passover and Hanukkah through episodes of Rugrats.  I learned what a bar mitzvah was through Hey Arnold!.  I’m not Persian, and one of my all-time favorite films is Persepolis.  The concept of Bao and the emotional gut-punch scene where the mother, fed up with her dumpling child’s defiance, devours him is no less confusing than CatDog’s mom and dad being a big blue Sasquatch thing and a big nosed frog.  They’re all metaphors for the points they’re getting at.

Asian fans of Bao were also mystified by some of the glib and dismissive responses the short has gotten from some white audience members.  Some of these fans argue and defend its cultural specificity to Asian immigrant culture by suggesting they should suck it up because this isn’t for them and there’s a billion other media that centers their experiences anyway.

(I don’t know how to embed tweets on Tumblr posts....)

I don’t agree with this take either.  Like I mentioned before, I don’t think Bao is so specific to Chinese culture that it can’t be relatable to anyone outside of it.  Domee Shi’s perspective is still one that comes from growing up in the West and she directed this film for a Western studio that primarily targets Western audiences i.e. audiences that aren’t Asian.  A studio like Pixar would never release a film that would only be relatable to a small cultural niche.  When Disney or Pixar portrays any cultures outside the dominant, they always package it in a way that allows for those outside of it to engage, for better or for worse.

However…

In This Corner of the World is a movie adaptation of a manga about a young artist who lived in Hiroshima during World War II.  I watched this movie last fall and I didn’t like it.  I found it too mundane and it was a struggle to keep from dozing off or to keep my attention on it.  This is a film that has garnered critical acclaim so I was confused by what I was missing, especially because I really liked other films/manga like Grave of the Fireflies and Barefoot Gen.  But then I realized something.

Most of In This Corner of the World takes place before Hiroshima is bombed by the United States.  The story mostly revolves around the young artist named Suzu getting married, moving in with her new husband’s family, and adjusting to her new duties as a wife.  These aren’t things that readily come to my mind when I think of Hiroshima.  When I think of Hiroshima, I think of the ravages and the immediate drama portrayed in Barefoot Gen or Grave of the Fireflies (although that didn’t take place in Hiroshima).  I don’t think of marriage or domestic home life when I think of Hiroshima.

And this is what is so pivotal about In This Corner of the World.  It portrayed Hiroshima and its residents before the bombing, laying them bare as no different than any other town in Japan (or anywhere, really).  The people there get up in the morning, go to work, get married, raise children, play, laugh, and cry just like anyone else.  Even as the war rages on in the background, the people of Hiroshima do their best go on with their lives.  The tragedy of the film is that the reality of living in a war-torn country steadily disrupts their lives more and more until it is unavoidable.  It started with taking shelter during the occasional air raid.  Then it continues with Suzu occasionally seeing bombs exploding in the sky.  Then it continues with food and water rations.  It continues further when the air raids increase in frequency and devastation.  And then it hits close to home when Suzu’s older brother is killed in action.  It hits even closer to home when Suzu’s sweet little niece is blown up by a time-delayed bomb.  This all culminates at the end of the film when the nuclear bomb is dropped on Hiroshima.

Hiroshima will forever be haunted by the specter of the nuclear bomb, even as the surviving residents continued to live on as best as they can for the next 70+ years.  There are several generations of Japanese people who only know a Hiroshima after the bombing.  So it is a big deal that In This Corner of the World provides their audience with a vision of what Hiroshima was before the bomb and what it could have been if not for the bomb.  I can only imagine how powerful this is for Japanese audiences, especially those from Hiroshima, those who have relatives from Hiroshima, or those who have loved ones who died in Hiroshima.  I specifically say “I can only imagine” because this was not my response to the film.  I have no cultural or personal connection to Hiroshima at all, and I think this why my response to this film was so lukewarm.

In other words, In This Corner of the World wasn’t made for me.

This isn’t to say it could only resonate with Japanese people or people from Hiroshima.  Based off of its critical acclaim, it clearly has wider appeal.  I’m just acknowledging this as the likely reason it didn’t personally resonate with me.

So for those that didn’t like Bao, they don’t have to like it.  I just think it would do them some good to think about why it might resonate more with others and to demonstrate more thoughtfulness in their discourse.

Hell, I don’t doubt there are people who did culturally relate to Bao and still didn’t like it.  Actually, I related pretty strongly to Riley’s gradual descent into depression in Inside Out and it’s nonetheless one of only two Pixar films I didn’t like.

[jeffozule]

Annotated Bibliography

Agarwala, A., Hertzmann, A., Salesin, D. H. Seitz, S. M. Key framed-based tracking for Rotoscoping and animation. Association for Computing Machinery: Transactions on graphics. August 2004. Vol. 23 (3). http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/rotoscoping/roto.pdf

Rotoscoping is an age old technique for animation and creating Special effects that involves tracing over live action footage frame by frame. Agarwala et. al. (2004) in their study developed a model to make rotoscping easier and faster. The model involved tracking contours in a imagine sequence with a multiple user defined curves acting as keyframes an AI tracking algorithm. The process described by Agarwala et. al. (2004) used computer vision and user interaction to track the sequence and was tested with multiple examples. Rotoscopy is an animation area of interest and I look to combine hand drawn and Cg computer animations in my films, so this paper was useful as it also showed how 2D animators can make films using a variation of the algorithm based on the ‘roto-curves’(Agarwala et. al. 2004).

 Amid, A. (2011). The art of Pixar: the complete Colorscript and select art from 25 years of animation. Chronic Books. San Francisco, California.

Amid explains how Pixar uses Colorscripit. According to him, Pixar were the first studio to develop a Colorscript for each of their movies. Predominatly with pictures and illustrations, he analyses the Colorscripts of over 20 Pixar animations including the 12 Pixar featuture films at that time starting from Toy story to cars 2, how they were used to tell the story for each film. I found it particularly interesting seeing the original colorscript for Toy Story straight to DVD release before it was converted to feature film. Pixar is one for the foremost animation studious worldwide, so understanding how they colored would aid animators like me in making better movies. I came across this books while researching color and emotion in animation and Its now serves as a point of reference for my color pallets.

 Bai, Y., Kaufman, D. M., Liu, C. K. & Popovic, J. (2016).  Artists-Directed Dynamics for 2D animation. Association for Computing Machinery. July 2016. Vol. 35 (4). https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~ybai30/artistic_dynamics/artistic_dynamics_sig16.pdf

Bai et al. (2016) in their article for ACM suggested a model that you could be used to incorporate both simulation animation and key framing. They explained how their model creates an efficient workflow allowing artist animators to use both key frame and simulation stating that a combination of both methods addressing the two drawback of each approach making the simulation becomes more user defined and the keyframing, more automated. Their investigation attempted to solve three challenges: cause of action when elastic simulation digresses from artist’s goal, how to simulate unattainable exaggerations and how to re-use these simulations on varying projects (Bai et al., 2016).  Understanding this model could show how to get more from puppet animation.

 Bellatoni, P. (2013). If its purple, someone’s gonna die: The power of color in visual story telling. Published by Taylor and Francis Ltd. Oxford

Bellatoni in her book, if it’s purple, someone’s gonna die (Bellatoni, 2013) writes about the relationship of color and emotion in filmmaking. With over 25 years work on researching color, she grouped over 50 movies in 6 color groups – Yellow, Blue, Red, Green, Orange and Purple triggering different emotions. She explains the how, why and where a color stimulates emotions in the actors in the movie or the viewers. Bellatoni cited the importance of her book to the fact that she noticed her students were making arbitrary color choices.

 Fugate, J, M, B. & Franco, C, L. (2019) What Color is your Anger? Assessing Color emotion pairings in English speakers. Frontiers in Phycology. Vol. 10. Page 206. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00206/full

Fugate and Franco (2019) attempted to determine in their study if emotions are precisely and consistently associated with a particular color. They conducted a study with adults as the participants. However they were not able to determine consistency and specifically in the results and concluded that studies in the past that gave this opinion were at best experiment specific. They also found that saturation, value and to a lesser degree hue “predicted color-emotion agreement rather than perceived color” (Fugate and Franco, 2019). I found this particularly interesting as it opened up by critiquing the use of color emotion In Pixaar/s inside out movie.

 Griffin, M., Harding, N. & Learmonth, M. (2016). Whistle While You Work? Disney Animation, Organizational Readiness and Gendered Subjugation. Sage Journals, 26th September 2016. Vol 38(7) 869-894. https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1177/0170840616663245?utm_source=summon&utm_medium=discovery-provider

In Disney’s early animations, patriarchy was rife as female characters were portrayed to weak and should wait to be provided for rather than provide as aligned with the times (Griffin, et. al. 2016). In this paper, the researchers collected data from Disney movies spanning 70 years, explaining that even if recent Disney movies portray woman differently, the old Disney movies are still popular and can affect the constructions of the female self. The paper goes on criticize recent Disney movies stating even if they try to be feminism sensitive, “they are also trapped by the past, consciously and unconsciously citing back to previous ‘traditional’ performances of gender.” (Griffin, et. al. 2016. P.4). The study highlighted the roles Disney plays in influencing organizational readies for girls and it is important for us to all understand the role we have to play in challenging patriarchal l norms.

 Kalmakurki, M. (2018). Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty: The Components of Costume Design in Disney’s Early Hand-Drawn animated Feature Films. Sage journals. 12th March 2018, 13(1) 7- 19. https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1177/1746847718754758?utm_source=summon&utm_medium=discovery-provider

The writer analyzed the costume design 3 of Disney’s early hand drawn animated movies focusing on the costume design process and choices for the characters. He explained that in animated films, costume design is important in portraying the story of a particular character, scene or time. The process of animating these films involved rotoscoping and it extended to not just character movements but also the movements of the clothes on the character. Costume design has long been a crucial part of character design and is necessary in the story telling.

 Kaya, N. & Epps, H. H. (2004). Relationship between color and emotion: A study of college students. College Student Journal, September 2004, 38(3), 396–405. http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/ehost/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=31cba36a-5df6-48fb-afab-5cd7b71516bb%40pdc-v-sessmgr02&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=14669489&db=ehh

Kaya and Epps in their article conducted research on color and emotion amongst their students. The goal of the study was to examine students’ emotions to different colors. They conducted a qualitative study method using questions adapted from Boyatzis and Varghese (1994) and (1996) using ‘how’ and ‘why’ in respect to the colors. The results revealed that the principle hues according to the Munsel color system comprising of Blue, Red, Green, Yellow and Purple yielded the “highest positive emotional responses” (Kaya and Epps, 2004). This is in comparism to the intermediate hues. The mean age of the participants of the study was 21, this is a demography I target while making films.

 Lasseter, J (2001). Tricks to animating characters with a computer. Association for Computing Machinery. May 2001. Vol. 35 (2). https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse457/03au/misc/p45-lasseter-tricks.pdf

In his article, John lasseter who worked as an animator at Pixar in his book wrote about how he used traditional animation principles to make CG animation. He gives tips on how to make the animation work better delving into concepts like how key framing is done differently and how weight, a thinking character, emotion and readability of actions (Lasster, 2001) define the animation. I try to combine hand drawn and puppet animation in my films, so studying these tips is necessary for my practice.

 Schloss, K. B., Witzel, C. & Lai, Y. L. (2020) Blue hues don't bring the blues: questioning notions of color–emotion associations. Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, Image Science, and Vision. 1st May 2020, 37(5):813-824. https://www.osapublishing.org/josaa/fulltext.cfm?uri=josaa-37-5-813&id=431080

Schloss et.al (2020) in their article, questioned previous research citing different hue eliciting different emotions.  Focusing mainly on yellow and Blue, they found in their research that emotions were more affected by the brightness and saturation rather than Hue. In their study they attempted to challenge the notion that blue represented to elicited sad emotion while yellow, happy emotions. Dr Schloss, Witzel and Lai are all researchers on psychology and it was important for me as an animator to get a physiological driven perspective on the effects on color on emotion.

  Thomas, F. & Johnston, O. (1981) Disney animation: The Illusion of Life.  . 1st edn. Abbeville Press, New York. Pp 47 -70.

In the Illusion of life, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston who were one of Disney’s famous ‘Nine Old Men’ wrote on how Disney worked on its then animations. In chapter 4, which formed the basis of the book, they introduced the 12 principles of animation. They expanded on how each principle giving examples and explain how it was formed, its importance and how Disney used it in making animations. In the pursuit of making quality animations, understanding not just the principles of animations but the ‘why’ they were introduced is very important.

 Richard, W. (2009) The Animator’s Survival kit: A manual of methods, principles and formulas for classical, computer games, stop motion and internet animations. November 2009, Published by Faber and Faber. London

Richard Williams animators survival kit is a must read for any animator regardless of the level they are. In this book, the book serves as a manual for animation comprised of in-depth formulas, tips and established methods in animating. The most explained concept in the book is movement, highlighting its importance as walking and movement in general is the common thing to see in an animation and Richard Williams spends a lot of time illustrating how to make movement top quality, emphasizing on concepts such as spacing and weight. The book has served as a source of reference for the last few months as I look to the most out time and spacing in movements.

[wesleybates]

7 Ways to Humanize Your Brand Through Web Design to Build Trust

Trust. For many big, medium and small companies, this is one of the most important words in the lexicon of human language. Trust is something that every company strives to cultivate in its major stakeholders, particularly its current and potential customers. Conventional wisdom states that when a customer trusts a brand, they build an emotional connection with that brand and are likely to remain loyal to that brand and purchase its products and/or services many times.

Naturally, the question that business leaders constantly ask themselves is: how do I build trust with my current customers and my potential future customers? It’s no secret that we live in a time where more and more people are losing faith in brands and institutions. Most recently, we have seen this play out in the tech industry, where concerns about privacy have changed people’s perception of companies like Google and Facebook. This example shows us that building trust with your consumers is more important today than it has ever been.

This brings us back to the question of how to build trust. In order to build trust, it helps to borrow some tactics from public relations (PR). PR is all about building and fostering relationships with key stakeholders. From a PR perspective, one of the most important things a brand can do is to connect with stakeholders on an emotional level, which many have argued, is more important than customer satisfaction.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, people can’t make a connection with something that is cold, faceless and lacking in a personality. That’s because people are used to making emotional connections with other humans. And guess what: our minds crave emotional connection because it has a positive effect on our overall happiness.

The key takeaway here for a business is that making an emotional connection with customers is key to building trust. One of the ways that companies can achieve this is through web design, specifcally by humanizing its brand through web design. In this article, we will talk about 7 web design tactics that will humanize your brand and cultivate an emotional connection with customers, which will build their trust in your company.

WHAT IT MEANS TO HUMANIZE YOUR BRAND

Before jumping in with two feet and implementing strategies to humanize your brand, it pays to first define ‘humanize’ and what exactly this word means in the business world.

The dictionary defines humanize as a verb that means to make (something) more humane or civilized and to give (something) a human character. For a fun example of what it means to humanize something, just take a look at what Pixar does with movies like Toy Story, Cars and Finding Nemo.

Some business leaders might suggest that it is easy to hold up Pixar to help define the word humanize because Pixar tells fictional stories. They might even say that a brand can’t look at a movie studio for inspiration about how to humanize their brand.

A business leader that thinks this way would be correct…and incorrect. Yes, business leaders can’t tell fictional stories about what their brand does, but they do have a story to tell that would build an emotional connection with their stakeholders: the story of their business.

Every brand has a story, and a company can tell that story by answering some basic questions for customers like: Where did the idea of the business come from? When did the company start? What problem is the company here to fix? Who are the people that work at this company? Where do they work and what does it look like? Why is this company the most reliable company in a certain field? How does this company run? 

How does this company communicate? These are the questions that a company should answer using all of the marketing tools available, including its website. Just like a good story in a newspaper or magazine, give customers the who, what, where, when, why, and how of your brand.

Business owners should not treat their brand like Fort Knox. Just think about how many meaningful relationships you have built over the years with people that didn’t share anything about themselves and never showcased their personality. I would safely guess that you couldn’t come up with one example, so let your brand’s personality and character shine through.

Brands that use a website as an inside look into the company provide multiple points of emotional connection for visitors to the site. Here are 7 of the tactics we will discuss in this article that create points of emotional connection on a company website:

Use real images

Use real videos

Keep the tone conversational

Develop your blog to tell your brand’s story

Create a great ‘About Us’ page

Include customer reviews on your homepage

Connect your social media to your website

1. USE REAL IMAGES

We touched on this earlier when talking about the Gilmedia website, but it is important enough to repeat it: use real images of your company/people/the work that your business does on your website. (Pro tip: Try your best to ensure that these images are high-quality)

Too often, we see small, medium and large-sized businesses using stock photography to showcase their brand. It’s understandable why businesses decide to go with stock photography from sites like Shutterstock, but we argue that companies should avoid this practice.

Stock photography sites have a wealth of images for people to choose from. In the image below, you’ll see an example from Shutterstock after I typed ‘professional business people’ into the search bar.

As you can see, the images are of high-quality and versatile enough that just about any business (regardless of its size) can use any of these images. Furthermore, having a repository of fairly generic images is convenient and cost-effective for companies. With a stock photography site, a brand doesn’t have to pay a photographer or spend time creating images.

There’s just one, MAJOR problem with stock photography: it’s always obvious when a picture is stock photography and not a real image from a company. People are bombarded with marketing imagery every day, and at some point, they learn how to spot stock photography. Although stock photography is usually high-quality, it comes off as hollow next to a real image.

As you can see, both images are similar as far as the setting and what the subjects are doing. In both images, you see employees around a computer obviously talking about a project or task. 

By showing our employees and the work we do, it adds authenticity to our brand and gives us the opportunity to establish our brand’s personality. It also allows us to show off the fun side of our personality a bit by showing images like this one:

2. USE REAL VIDEOS

This tip is very similar to the first tip, but it is still worth mentioning. If you can find space on your website for videos (either on the homepage, the about us page or in a blog article), then it will do wonders for humanizing your brand. Again, although there are stock videos out there that you can use, we would advise you to create your own videos.

As an example, let’s take a look at the Wistia website, specifically the landing page for the company’s original series “One, Ten, One Hundred.” When you land on this page, you immediately see a video that shows behind-the-scenes shots of the team working on their series.

Like photos, videos can give a behind-the-scenes look at a brand. The advantage that videos have over photos, however, is that videos go a little deeper into what goes on at a company. An image captures a moment whereas a video lets us live that moment.

But videos don’t have to just exist on a website to show what happens behind the curtain. A brand can also work with clients to create video testimonials that can be published on its website. This is something that we did on the Gilmedia website to show real people giving an honest assessment of our work and their experience working with us.

Video testimonials are a good tool for humanizing your brand because it shows real people talking about your company, thus giving your brand validity and a trusted and reliable recommendation.

3. KEEP THE TONE CONVERSATIONAL

In all of the messages you direct to your customers, it is best to establish a tone that is conversational. No one wants to think they are being talked to by a robot, and people don’t enjoy reading text that is too technical. People want to have conversations with other people, so when you are developing text for a page on your website or writing a script for a video, try to avoid sounding mechanical.

Obviously, you have to use your discretion when implementing this tactic because it’s great to make your website fun, but you still need to give your customers the information they need to make an informed choice.

There are a lot of brands out there that do a great job sprinkling in a fun, conversational tone throughout their websites, but here are some of our favourites:

Dollar Shave Club

Firebox

Think Geek

The great thing about making your text or scripts conversational is that it encourages you to let your personality come out, which, as we’ve already established, is a great way for building an emotional connection with your customers.

4. DEVELOP YOUR BLOG TO TELL YOUR BRAND’S STORY

I’m sure many people will see this and think, “Thanks for the tip Captain Obvious.” Most businesses in 2019 have a blog on their website, but there are many opportunities that are missed on these blogs.

A blog can’t just be there for the sake of having one or just for SEO purposes. Blogs need to inform and delight website visitors. Any company’s blog should have a good mix of articles that supplement the information on your website with more granular details about your product/service, articles that discuss the problem that your product/service fixes, articles that show off your company’s culture, and more general articles about the company.

As an example, brands can use a blog as an opportunity to share helpful guides about a product or service. These blogs can be made up of text with images, text with a video or text with an infographic. Many people are going online to learn about how to do things, so create content on your blog that empowers people with knowledge.

A blog is also an opportunity to talk about life at your company. There are a lot of companies out there that treat their blogs like a diary in order to give their customers an idea of what it is like to work at their company.

An added bonus of a blog section is that it creates additional opportunities to share real images and videos on your site.

Google, for example, does a great job with its blog. The blog informs people about online tools, talks about Google’s corporate culture, highlights what Google employees are doing and what projects the team at Google is working on.

Remember, a good way to humanize a brand is to tell a brand’s story. What better place to tell your brand’s story than on your company’s blog?

5. CREATE A GREAT ‘ABOUT US’ PAGE

An About Us page usually talks about what a company does, what it is, what the company is all about, and what the company’s values are. This makes the About Us page the perfect place on your website to frame your company’s story.

Right off the bat, the design of the page is great because it is bright, eye-catching and attractive. Beyond the visual aspects of the page, it establishes a very personal touch. The page goes right into who they are, what they are about and what their story is. In this case, the company partners with artisans living in extreme poverty to manufacture comfortable hammocks, while using the profits from the hammocks to pay the artisans a living wage.

The company’s ‘About Us’ page works because the message is succinct and it tells a story that people can immediately connect with. You’ll also notice that the page features real images and videos of the artisans (which people connect with on an emotional level) and of how the product is made (which interests the audience and satisfies their curiosity).

6. INCLUDE CUSTOMER REVIEWS ON YOUR HOMEPAGE

If businesses thrive through meaningful human connections, then your company website should feature meaningful connections that it has made in the past. One of the best ways to boost your efforts to create an emotional connection with potential customers is to show the positive emotional connection you have already made with previous customers. You can accomplish this by creating a section on your homepage for customer reviews from places like Google.

The benefits of putting customers reviews front and centre are twofold. First, it can lead to more sales because positive customer reviews are essentially a recommendation to potential customers. Second, it shows real people sharing real, positive experiences with a brand, which is a high premium for companies trying to humanize their brand through web design.

7. CONNECT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOUR WEBSITE

Social media is a great tool for showing an audience what life in a company is like. It’s just so easy for a team member to snap a picture with their phone and upload it to the company’s Instagram, Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you think that your social media does a great job of putting a human face to your brand, either through imagery or the written content in posts, then include that on your website. This is something that we did for one of our clients More Fashion Socks. As you can see in the image below, we added a slider on the homepage that displays up to 8 images from the company’s Instagram account; and when a user hovers their cursor over an image, the fun, conversational description for the post pops up.

Another good example of a brand connecting social media to its website is the company Beardbrand. This company has a block on its homepage that displays 10 images from the company’s Instagram account. The images vary from product images, behind-the-scenes image from company events, and pictures of the team members and their epic beards. 

These images show a company that is dedicated to its industry and likes to have a little fun from time to time. For a company looking to humanize its brand through web design, Bearbrand offers a great example on how to do it by harmonizing social media with web design.

When it comes to humanizing a brand to build trust with consumers, there are many opportunities available to companies through web design. This is a worthwhile endeavour for companies because putting a human face and personality to a brand goes a long way towards making your brand more appealing to potential customers. 

By focusing on adding real images to a website, adding real videos to a website, keeping the tone of the text conversational, developing a blog to tell a brand’s story, creating a great ‘About Us’ page, including customer reviews on the homepage, and attaching a social media channel to the homepage, you can inject your brand’s website with the type of appealing and charming human qualities that people gravitate towards.

If you have a website that is in need of a makeover that humanizes your brand, then connect with the the expert Website designer in Denver, CO.  They have helped many companies humanize their brand through web design, and they can do the same for you.

[creative-type]

Good vs Great: Details Matter

So with the release of the new Thor movie I thought it would be appropriate to write a post celebrating one of the greatest superhero movies of all time. Released before the genre really got popular, it has everything one could hope for in an action flick: Strong character and story, tense action, and timeless themes. The movie wasn’t produced by Marvel,  DC, or even Fox.

It was Pixar. Pixar made the best superhero movie, and I will fight anyone who disagrees.

Like most things I write about, I absolutely love this movie. I remember seeing the trailers for it way back in 2004 and was obsessed even before it was released. As a middle schooler I sought out reviews and merchandise, and even clipped out an interview with director Brad Bird out of a newspaper. I got the two-disk special edition as soon as it came out and watched every special feature and both commentaries...more than once. 

So usual disclaimer: I will try to keep my clearly unhealthy bias under control, but no promises.

Before going too deeply into why I think The Incredibles is such an, er,  incredible movie I think it would help to compare it to another animated family film that covers a lot of the same narrative themes but without the same emotional weight.

To be clear, I don’t think the first Despicable Me movie is bad, but many (myself included) consider The Incredibles to be one of Pixar’s best movies and a classic in its own right. The question here is what elevates The Incredibles from good to great, and I think the devil’s in the details.

Pushing Boundaries   

One thing that becomes clear when watching the commentaries for The Incredibles was that it was freaking hard to animate. Remember, this was back in 2004. Pixar had never made a movie starring humans. They had no idea how to do long hair (Violet) or heavy muscle/feats of strength (Mr. Incredible). Budget constrictions limited the number of “universal men” the animators could use for crowd scenes. In fact, Bomb Voyage actually shares a character model with Frozone, albeit slightly modified. 

That’s just the human characters. Water and fire are both difficult to animate, and The Incredibles has its fair share of both. And remember the opening montage, when Mr. Incredible’s car transforms into the Batmobile? That was difficult, time-consuming animation and it shows up twice, and never outside of the opening (it would have been once, but the animators felt if they were going to go through all that effort they might as well make it worth their while.)

And behold, one of the most technically difficult scenes to animate in the entire movie

I know, I was surprised too, but it seems the act of Bob and Edna putting their hand through the ripped suit gave the animators fits. Apparently they asked Bird if there was a way they could cut around actually showing the action itself because it was so damned hard. 

I will be the first to admit that being technologically innovative does not always lead to a good movie, but there’s something to be said about pushing the boundaries and just seeing what happens. With a budget of $92 million it wasn’t as if Bird and his team were working with peanuts, but they did everything they could to make the best use of their money.

Despicable Me does have a strong aesthetic that separates it from Pixar or DreamWorks, and these visuals are a good fit for the tone of the story. The exaggerated proportions of the characters is right at home in the zany world that they live in. I don’t think Gru’s daft plan to steal the moon would have worked as well in a film with a more traditional Pixar look.

But as far as animation quality goes, there’s nothing particularly special with Despicable Me. To some degree this makes sense. Despicable Me had fewer resources to work with. It was Illumination’s first feature film, and a flop could have sunk their studio. 

Despicable Me is a fun little romp, but it also plays it very safe. The story is by the numbers, and it does enough for the warm fuzzies at the end to feel earned. It is very much a kid’s movie, without ever thinking too deeply into its characters or the natural consequences of their actions.

The Incredibles is an animated film, but it doesn’t really feel like a kid’s movie - and in fact Brad Bird caught some flack for some of the violence and dark implications of the film. It does not pander to children.

With that in mind, look at this scene between Helen and Bob

I bring this up to show some of the nuance that goes into visual storytelling. Any married couple could tell you that Bob and Helen are not really arguing about Dash here. This is a long-standing conflict that’s been simmering for years, and it highlights the effects Bob’s major character flaw has on the family. 

All of that is found in the script. It’s a scene that could be found in a movie, book, or play. While well-written, there’s a universality to it. It was up to Bird to add something to this scene that I think only works in an animated film.

Look again at the end of the scene. When Helen shouts “It’s not about you!” she uses her stretchy power to tower over her more physically imposing husband. It’s such a tiny detail, but it completely changes the dynamic of the argument and their relationship as a married couple.

And apparently figuring out this scene was so memorable that producer John Walker mentioned it in the commentary and Edwin Catmull (current president of Pixar animation studios) specifically brought it up in his book Creativity, Inc

(I have somewhat...eclectic tastes in literature)

And this is what I really mean about pushing boundaries to bring out the best of a story. You don’t need millions of dollars to animate a husband and wife arguing, but you do have to pay attention to what they’re saying and how they’re saying it to 1) make sure it fits the plot/tone of the movie you’re going for, and 2) have it feel real/authentic to the audience.

I didn’t ever get this feeling of authenticity from Despicable Me, and it’s not just because of it’s overall more light-hearted tone. Kung Fu Panda was loaded with humor and had its protagonist voiced by Jack Black and it still managed to have more emotional depth. The world and the majority of the characters who live in Despicable Me are flat and one-note.

The biggest example can be found in the girls Gru ends up adopting. For one, Edith has no impact on the movie whatsoever. She could have been cut and nothing would have changed. To me that proves that the girls could have been given more depth.

Secondly, the effects of Miss Hattie’s abuse are never really explored. If anything it’s played for dark comedy  

With this scene alone Illumination had the setup for a truly despicable, Dolores Umbrige-style villain, but nothing ever comes if it. The movie wastes run time with a montage of the minions going out shopping, but it can’t be bothered to tell us that Margo, Edith, and Agnes aren’t actually blood siblings or how they came to be as inseparable as they are.

The Incredibles is a movie about a man reconnecting with his family trapped in the guise of a superhero flick. As Brad Bird said, it’s the fantastic and the mundane smashed together into something that’s both awesome and very human.

Despicable Me had the potential to do the same, this time exploring a non-traditional family structure, foster care and adoption, and the difficulties of being a single parent. And don’t get me wrong, it does do some of those things, but often they take a back seat to the more superficial aspects of the story. Illumination didn’t plum the depths of their concept like Pixar did with theirs, and that’s the difference between being good and greatness.