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What happened to Dreamworks Animation (Prince of Egypt)?

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ManaByte

Member
So I finally managed to track down a copy of the DTS DVD of Prince of Egypt and am watching it now and remembering how good the movie was I realized that Dreamworks Animation has yet to top it or even come close.

I mean after Prince of Egypt, they did Road to Eldorado and Sinbad with CG stuff like Antz, Shark Tale, and Shrek. Shrek did well, sure, but Prince of Egypt hit and hell it was better than anything Disney had done since the Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, and Aladdin days. The movie attracted people who would normally not go see a cartoon in theaters (hell my dad went to see it), and had an awesome cast and soundtrack. It looked like Katzenberg was finally going to give a massive middle finger "fuck you" to Disney animation, and then things went downhill with the movies they followed it with (hell, the direct-to-video sequel to Prince of Egypt was better than Eldorado and Sinbad).
 

ManaByte

Member
suaveric said:
Like everywhere else, hand-drawn was pushed aside for computer generated.

But even their CG stuff sucked. The only reason Shrek did well is because it was packed full of pop-culture references and fart jokes. Pixar's movies were much better.
 
ManaByte said:
The only reason Shrek did well is because it was packed full of pop-culture references and fart jokes.
rolleyes_big.gif
 

Teddman

Member
I really liked Sinbad, nice blend of 2D & 3D with some great action sequences. Shrek movies were OK. Everything else they've done has been mediocre to bad.
 

3phemeral

Member
ManaByte said:
The movie attracted people who would normally not go see a cartoon in theaters (hell my dad went to see it), and had an awesome cast and soundtrack.
While it was a great movie, this is probably due to the Christian Theme. My mom still watches it with my nephew in hopes that she could use the film to familiarize bibilical lessons to him. Otherwise she'd have to bore him reading scripture. Look at how well The Passion did.
 

Macam

Banned
Dreamworks tends to, in my opinion, make high budget second-rate entertainment. To me, they seem more intent on simply filling an increasingly niche market and trying to capitalize on that by pursuing the respective #1 leaders in the 2D and 3D markets (Disney and Pixar) rather than really creating some worthwhile movies. But that's me....I hated Prince of Egypt and the rest of their stuff; I wish they'd focus less on trying to draw big voice talent for their movies and get better script writers on the whole since their artistic output is quite solid.
 

jett

D-Member
Dreamworks 2D fucking rocks. The animation in their films is just beautiful, and they're pretty fun, at least to me. Too bad Sinbad and Road to el Dorado bombed.

P.S.: Shrek sucks.
 
Man, funk this.

As much as I wanted to like Road to El Dorado, Dreamworks had to fuck it up with musical numbers. I have yet to see Sinbad, but I fear it will have musical numbers. Dreamworks is two for three from what I've seen.

Don't ask me why I allowed for musical numbers in Prince of Egypt.

More importantly, why is it bad when Disney resorts to the requisite musical numbers to validate an animated film, but you'll chug it down when Dreamworks does it?

Sorry, it's a bit of a tangent; but Dreamworks would get more respect from me if they struck out on their own. Then again Disney's Atlantis bombed, so maybe Dreamworks just decided to play it safe and keep the musical numbers?

I dunno.

JUST STOP SINGING DAMN YOUS!

Animated Idol :X

I'll have to borrow Sinbad from my buddy and hope it doesn't prompt me to drive rusty nails into my testicles.
 

Exis

Member
Doc Holliday said:
Hmm 100 bucks that dreamworks next movie has superheroes in it!

Nope their next film is Madagascar about animals from the new york zoo that get 'freed' and go back to their native land.
Next year it is 'Over the Hedge' based on the comic strip.

Their 2D animation was great, sadly no studios in America are backing non-3D features.

and the stuff that Disney is doing looks like ass, except for Bad Dog, I like the designs on that.
 

Shinobi

Member
heavenly said:
Thanks. I got that movie, yet I didn't know it was a sequel. Isn't that really a prequel? Joseph came before Moses, didn't he?

Heh yeah, it's a prequel. Really good stuff in my view, almost as good as Prince of Egypt, which is one of my favourite animated movies ever. Difference between the singing in these movies and the drek normally found in Disney is that none of the songs (well, save for the number with the wizards in Prince) are cornball, kiddy-type crap. Hell I liked the music so much, I bought the soundtrack years ago. Of course if you're atheist you'll probably have an aversion to it.

Sinbad I bought a while ago, but as with most of my DVD's I haven't even watched it yet. Think I'll change that this week though. I don't think there's any singing in the movie though...that's the main reason why I bought it. :lol
 

Prospero

Member
I loved The Prince of Egypt.

When I saw it in the theater, there was a mother in the seat behind me with her young daughter, and about two thirds of the way into the movie the kid said in a plaintive voice, "Mommy, why is God killing all those people??" Then she started crying. I'm sure that the mother had a lot of explaining to do after she got home.
 

tedtropy

$50/hour, but no kissing on the lips and colors must be pre-separated
Prospero said:
I loved The Prince of Egypt.

When I saw it in the theater, there was a mother in the seat behind me with her young daughter, and about two thirds of the way into the movie the kid said in a plaintive voice, "Mommy, why is God killing all those people??" Then she started crying. I'm sure that the mother had a lot of explaining to do after she got home.

Kid: "Mommy, why is God killing all those people?"
Mom: "Because they talked through the fucking movie!" <smack> :lol
 

SteveMeister

Hang out with Steve.
ManaByte said:
I think it's best for everyone to forget Spirit.

Did you see it? I saw the previews for it and thought it looked horrible. Thought it'd be full of singing & talking anthropomorphic horses.

But then it was on TV, and so my wife & I watched it. And surprise surprise, the horses didn't talk, and didn't sing. Other than the too-human eyes, the horses behaved largely like real horses behave, and it's actually not a bad movie at all.
 

Shinobi

Member
Finally watched Sinbad yesterday...thought it was a very cool movie, kinda in the vein of Aladdin and (possibly) Treasure Planet. More importantly there are no stupid talking animals, over-heroic kids and NO SINGING. For those reasons alone, I give it a gold star.
 

RiZ III

Member
I remember Prince of Egypt being really good when I first saw it in theaters, but then I saw it again a few months ago and realized how much it sucked. I realize its hard to compress the story of Moses into 90 minutes, but I think they could have done a better job.
 

Koshiro

Member
Mike Works said:
No need for rolleyes, he was pretty much on the button. Sure the animation was top class, but the content was grade A sellout material, seriously unoriginal. Granted their 3D work is better than Pixar's, but Pixar are a million miles ahead of those guys in terms of creativity.
 

Shinobi

Member
RiZ III said:
I remember Prince of Egypt being really good when I first saw it in theaters, but then I saw it again a few months ago and realized how much it sucked. I realize its hard to compress the story of Moses into 90 minutes, but I think they could have done a better job.

What I really liked about the movie is the way they showed the warm relationship between Moses and Ramises, which made their inevitable conflict all the more engaging and tragic. The way Moses broke down after the plague of death was extremely powerful, due to that prior relationship. I prefer seeing that to say, Moses dancing a jig after the first born in every Egyptian household had been wiped out, as some other versions of the story might tell.
 
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