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Older Disney Animation Quality

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Cream

Banned
I really appreciate the believability of Tarzan and Jane's relationship. Up there with Meg and Hercules.
 

Einbroch

Banned
The best thing about Son of Man is how the visuals match the music. The snake banging his head matches the drum beat, they walk to the beat, etc.

Is there a term for this? Because I love it when media does this.
 

cajunator

Banned
Princess and the Frog killed that genre in the US. That movie had some gorgeous scenes as well.

Its really unfortunate. I love that movie so much. Although I do have a lot of familiarity with Louisiana so I caught some of Raymon's inside Cajun jokes and some of the subtleties of the New Orleans scenes. If anything, the music wasnt the greatest. There were a few excellent ones like Almost There, but a lot of the tunes just fell short. Dr Facilier is one of my all time favorite Disney villains though. Man this show looked great at times.
There is a warmth to that 2D animation that I miss terribly.
 

ugoo18

Member
Charlotte (the lead character's blonde friend) was the best thing about Princess and the Frog, other than that the movie was very safe and very bland. Can't say I'm surprised it under-performed.

Tangled and Frozen might be CG but they are also better movies overall in terms of story, characters, music, design and worlds.

Tangled i'd agree with being better than The Princess and the Frog but not Frozen. If anything Frozen imo is one of the blandest and least interesting or particularly unique and engaging Disney big name animated movies i've seen in a long while. Not to mention Let it go for all the popularity it seems to have is simply lame. It doesn't hold a candle to the more popular songs in Disney's past collection such as Make a man out of you, Magic Carpet ride, I want to be like you, Hawaiian Rollercoaster, the plethora of Lion King 1 and 2 songs and many more. I'd also rate quite a few of the less popular ones better than Let it go by a large degree as well, I find Son of Man for example to be a far better song.

Basically Frozen felt borderline generic in essentially every way.

The best thing about Son of Man is how the visuals match the music. The snake banging his head matches the drum beat, they walk to the beat, etc.

Is there a term for this? Because I love it when media does this.

Honestly Tarzan feels like it doesn't get the recognition it deserves among Disney's 2D greats. Phil Collins work on the soundtrack was phenomenal.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
I am shocked to my core that the subject of this thread's OP was Tarzan when I was expecting something more like Melody Time
 

BadWolf

Member
Watched Pinocchio yesterday and my mind was seriously blown at the quality of the animation.

Especially during the beginning where Geppetto is with the cat and the fish. Add in the cricket and Pinocchio and that room was just over flowing with love, the character animation was incredible.

The amount of character in the cat's animation alone was just nuts.

And don't get me started on the whale sequence. Freaking 1940.

Tangled i'd agree with being better than The Princess and the Frog but not Frozen. If anything Frozen imo is one of the blandest and least interesting or particularly unique and engaging Disney big name animated movies i've seen in a long while. Not to mention Let it go for all the popularity it seems to have is simply lame. It doesn't hold a candle to the more popular songs in Disney's past collection such as Make a man out of you, Magic Carpet ride, Hawaiian Rollercoaster, the plethora of Lion King 1 and 2 songs and many more. I'd also rate quite a few of the less popular ones better than Let it go by a large degree as well, I find Son of Man for example to be a far better song.

Basically Frozen felt borderline generic in essentially every way.

I'll have to respectfully disagree :)
 
Reusing old sequences is not necessarily rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is generally used for tracing over live footage, which they stopped doing after the original Snow White.

They've definitely snuck some in since then, though. Hunchback, for example used some pretty unfortunate rotoscoped crowd scenes.
 

butalala

Member
The best thing about Son of Man is how the visuals match the music. The snake banging his head matches the drum beat, they walk to the beat, etc.

Is there a term for this? Because I love it when media does this.

I think the word you're looking for is synchronization, maybe?
 

ugoo18

Member
No kidding. If Tarzan is "older" Disney animation, what's newer? Frozen?!

Well what would i call it then?

That's what i was watching and that scene in particular caught my eye. I haven't watched the likes of The Jungle Book, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Robin Hood or other older ones in a while after all.
 
They've definitely snuck some in since then, though. Hunchback, for example used some pretty unfortunate rotoscoped crowd scenes.
Hunchback used some early 3D for the majority of its crowd shots, building on what they used for the wildebeast stampede in Lion King.

They sure looked wonky if you focused on them, but I don't remember anything looking rotoscoped. Was there a specific shot you're thinking of?


Edit: here's a pic of those blobulous cuties

d-crowd-cg-1.png
 

butalala

Member
Well what would i call it then?

That's what i was watching and that scene in particular caught my eye. I haven't watched the likes of The Jungle Book, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Robin Hood or other older ones in a while after all.

Disney animated movies of the 90's and 00's?
 

ugoo18

Member
Disney animated movies of the 90's and 00's?

But the topic isn't limited to only movies from that time period. Tarzan was what i happened to be watching at the time and it made me long for more of Disney's 2D animated movies in the current era due to how much i liked the animations within Tarzan and in general.
 

BadWolf

Member
When it comes to rotoscoping, Don Bluth seemed to be pretty big on it.

The little girl from All Dogs Go to Heaven, not to mention a lot of Anastasia and Titan A.E., seemed to use the technique heavily.
 

jett

D-Member
That Glen Keane short was really beautiful. There are things traditional animation conveys that CGI just can't.
 

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Well what would i call it then?

That's what i was watching and that scene in particular caught my eye. I haven't watched the likes of The Jungle Book, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Robin Hood or other older ones in a while after all.

Avoid Disney Book at all costs.
 

kess

Member
I am shocked to my core that the subject of this thread's OP was Tarzan when I was expecting something more like Melody Time

As amazing as the animation is on those late 40s omnibus features, some of those segments have got to be some of the most treacly, saccharine moments ever printed on Technicolor. It's easy to see why they're so overlooked.
 
Ive never heard of someone wanting to hold the torch for his mid 90s work like Troll in Central Park or Rockadoodle
If Donnie didn't have set up his studio in Ireland to train and build local talent and establish an an animation industry there, we would have never reaped the benefits of the gorgeous Secret of Kells or the masterpiece that is Song of the Sea.

403103-kells_pic_1.jpg


Song-of-the-Sea-5-wpcf_970x545.jpg



But yeah... yeesh, Troll and Rockadoodle. What a difference having Spielberg as a producer makes.
 
But yeah... yeesh, Troll and Rockadoodle. What a difference having Spielberg as a producer makes.
Don Bluth strikes me as the sort of brilliant visionary who needs a leash on him. For every great idea he has there are five terrible ones.

Princess and the Frog didn't kill 2D animation, John Lasseter did.
 

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
So essentially a George Lucas?

I always thought his terrible 90's flicks were due to pressure from Disney competition.
 
Hunchback used some early 3D for the majority of its crowd shots, building on what they used for the wildebeast stampede in Lion King.

They sure looked wonky if you focused on them, but I don't remember anything looking rotoscoped. Was there a specific shot you're thinking of?


Edit: here's a pic of those blobulous cuties

d-crowd-cg-1.png

Hmm... what I'm picturing is early in the movie, maybe during the Feast of Fools segment? And a much further out shot. I could be wrong, maybe the early 3D gave that impression, but I could swear I recognized some rotoscope on day one.
 

CrimsonN0

Member
That's what i was watching and that scene in particular caught my eye. I haven't watched the likes of The Jungle Book, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Robin Hood or other older ones in a while after all.
Be lazy like me and just youtube the musical sequences.
It is pretty crazy that the animation is still so good despite how old it is.
My family didn't really go to the theaters much, but probably got every Disney movie on VHS right when they came out, so I kinda thought for the longest time that all their movies came out in the early 90s. I was especially confused learning the Jungle Book came out in the 60s when I vaguely remember Happy Meal? toys of it.
 

18-Volt

Member
They were developing Frozen as a 2D animated feature, then Princess and the Frog and Winnie the Pooh bombed so that pretty much sealed 2D's fate at Disney.

I often wonder if Frozen had come out in 2D before Princess and the Frog, if it would have been as successful as Frozen is now, and if it would have brought back a 2D renaissance.

I don't think 2D animation is dead at Disney. John Lasseter said he was a big fan of 2D animation and he would do best he can do to keep it alive. King of the Elves is supposed to be a 2D movie, if the project is still alive (insider sources say it is). Let's hope it really turns out to be that way.
 
I don't think 2D animation is dead at Disney. John Lasseter said he was a big fan of 2D animation and he would do best he can do to keep it alive. King of the Elves is supposed to be a 2D movie, if the project is still alive (insider sources say it is). Let's hope it really turns out to be that way.
That was a while ago though. It was one of his justifications for keeping both Pixar and DAS around when the merger took place and one of the points of differentiation between the two. And the plan was to be around 50-50 2d/3d for the studio. But DAS has been able to differentiate itself recently just fine, without the use of traditional animation, so...
 

J2 Cool

Member
"Older Disney Animation Quality"

OP proceeds to talk about Tarzan.

ibiCvGIEcGrkHU.gif

This is amusingly enough, from the 2011 Winnie the Pooh.. The original shorts are classic animation though. I think I laugh more as an adult at the performances than I did when I was young.
 
I like how this completely overlooks the benefits of simpler animation style. I'd rather have fluidity and expression than uber realism, something older anime prioritized at the expense of the other two.

Also picks the one Disney movie that went with a flat color art style (which is an artistic choice) - Lion King, Hunchback, Aladdin and B&TB have more complex tones.
 
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