What I essentially ask is "Can anyone give me animated films that are serious and realistic." Though I admit I needed to edit my OP a lot.Abandon4093 said:
Why aren't more realistic and serious animated movies being made?
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Unrealistic animation is charming, sure, but I like realistic stuff as well. Like most of the people in Pocahontas. And to explain my point, well... If you see a realistically drawn animated film you can still see that it's not live-action, right? There's a difference between it and a live-action film. The thing that makes the difference? That is what I like.Abandon4093 said:
The problem with this thread is you are stating three very different things next to each other. They are even somewhat contradicting within the context you are describing them.Queen Michael said:
You bring in people with the old "Why is most animation aimed at children" argument. Then you switch the argument half way through your post to "Why does most animation rely on fanciful concepts/themes?". Then you hint at "Why don't many animated films tackle tough themes and concepts?"
These are very different questions with different answers. The first question is easy to answer. They're not aimed at children. Most animation (if we are including the Japaneses/anime variant) is aimed at teenagers and young adults. The same happens with live action films. The reason is because they are the crowd that spends the most money on these things.
Most animation rely on fanciful concepts and themes because that is what people typically want to see. Again, the same thing happens in live action. There are ones that don't but they make up a smaller percentage.
The last one you somewhat hint at (at least that was my interpretation) is also false. I would even say that a greater percentage of animated films tackle tough concepts and themes than live action.
I have to admit that you're right; I'm being too unclear. I'll rewrite the OP to be clearer.Navvan said:
I may be an adult now, but that doesn't mean I suddenly have to like realistic things. I enjoyed the kings speech movie, but I also enjoyed captain america, star wars, and thor. I liked red dead redemption, but I also thoroughly enjoy extreme G games, wherein ion powered bikes of questionable safety go zooming at speeds of 200 to 900 mph around incredibly bendy and twisty tracks that are also of questionable safety. Look, I have no problem with you enjoying what you like, but don't expect me to enjoy it exclusively as well when I hit a certain age.
You might want to try Secret of NIMH though. Yes, it has talking animals, but it explains why they talk.
You might want to try Secret of NIMH though. Yes, it has talking animals, but it explains why they talk.
Don't know if it's already been said, but Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (while sullying the FF name) was a good movie if you forget about the Final Fantasy being in the name.
You didn't even watch Rango or Up, did you. For gods sake Up had a scene containing the protagonists wife receiving news that she had a miscarriage. No nine year old gets nor cares about that. It's a topic only adults can understand.Queen Michael said:
So the gist of it, if I'm understanding you correctly, is that you want to see more animated films that portray a human drama without tacking on the usual accouterments of a fantasy setting.(by which I mean the realm of unrealistic/futuristic worlds)Queen Michael said:
I think you set forth an interesting challenge for an animated feature to reach, as I think it would be amazing to see animated films more in line with classics like The Godfather. The inherent problem that I think you run into with it is that I think you're dealing with two very different worlds of thought.
When it comes to the live action setting I believe that it is only inevitable that you're going to see more realistic films come to life on the screen than you will fanciful. The reason is that with live-action films you're working in a very tangible setting and the directors and other creative talent (excluding actors) that produce the film have to approach it from a very technical stand point. After all in it's infancy film was considered a trade not an art, and even today most of what you will see taught in film schools is the technical aspects of film making. Filming in live action, in at least my opinion, requires not just creative talent but substantial technical knowledge of the tools at your disposal. Live action film-making lends itself heavily towards creating films that stick mostly to the realm of reality. This is not to say it is an exclusive realm they work within, as we have countless examples of live-action films set in unrealistic genres. Still, you are more likely to see films aimed at adults that are set in the real world but include aspects of unrealistic genres.
Animation, on the other hand, is at it's core part of the more traditional forms of the visual art. Yes, there is technical knowledge required for the creation of an animate feature but it is wholly different than what is required for live-action. The tools remain the same but are not constrained by the limitations of live-action film, which often require the use of artificial lighting, sets, green screen, etc. Animation has the benefit that every aspect of the film, save any non-diegetic sound, is completely "real" within the setting they've created. The lighting, the props, the sets, all of it "exists" within the animation. Yes, animation is an artificial medium and as such everything within an animated feature is considered artificial. However, if you've got characters inside an office building and there's a chopper outside shining a flood light through the window that chopper is really outside the window in the space created by the animation. It's not a sound stage with an office build style set, that's got a light kit sitting on the other side of the window to replicate the effect of a floodlight dangling from a chopper outside, with the actual shot of the chopper hovering outside the window to be shot later or already was shot, and will be compiled together in the editing room to create the continuity of space required for the audience to go "holy crap there's a chopper hovering outside the window with a floodlight". In animation you draw it and it's there, you don't even have to use slight of hand to make it so the chopped is "obscured by the light" in the sound stage shot. There is no disconnect of spatial continuity which needs to be sewed up later in the cutting room. With the physical limitations of the real world removed it creates a creative environment where creating more realistic films is seen as creative laziness. I mean, why stick to only what's real when the tools at your disposal allow you to make samurai's fighting on the moon in a hailstorm? With animation it is often set in a world of fantasy that includes aspects of realism.
This is not to say that technical advancements in either realm of film making could make the other obsolete. I am instead saying that the tools available to the creators are what result in the preference of subject matter for both live-action and animation. It is what makes the live-action director more suited to anchoring their films in the real world, and what makes the animation director more suited to anchoring their films in the fantastical.
You've essentially just told us "I don't like fantasy and/or non-realistic movies. I think those are for kids."
Why couldn't Spirited Away have been a good live-action movie? Miyazaki happens to make anime movies. Spirited Away could have been a fine CGI-based live action movie. Look at Avatar, dude -- talking cat people. And it was pretty darn awesome, and certainly didn't look animated. (Plot being trite or not, I'm pretty sure we could have been in Pandora and it would have been only marginally more real-looking.)
Talking animals does not a kids' film make. Look at Pan's Labyrinth. The Faun is pretty much a satyr, which is a talking magical beast.
Why couldn't Spirited Away have been a good live-action movie? Miyazaki happens to make anime movies. Spirited Away could have been a fine CGI-based live action movie. Look at Avatar, dude -- talking cat people. And it was pretty darn awesome, and certainly didn't look animated. (Plot being trite or not, I'm pretty sure we could have been in Pandora and it would have been only marginally more real-looking.)
Talking animals does not a kids' film make. Look at Pan's Labyrinth. The Faun is pretty much a satyr, which is a talking magical beast.
The realistic part kinda rules out most films generally, but im no expert on animated films so couldnt comment on that one, i tend to stick to the series for the most part.
1 and 5 on your list are counter-productive, as sci-fi does in fact NOT make a work "childish". It just makes the work unrealistic.
Want an example.
watch Akira, then honestly tell me you think that it's a kids movie.
Want an example.
watch Akira, then honestly tell me you think that it's a kids movie.
Complete and totally obvious homage to Clint Eastwood's "Man with no name". Pretty much took a film for adults animated various animals in for the kids and called a day. BTW- sorry bout the Up accusation glad to hear you liked it.Queen Michael said:
So uh... since when DIDN'T everybody recognize that animation wasn't only for kids? I mean, that stereotype has been gone since the mid-90s at least.
I'm not sure if it's already been mentioned but I'm about to go old school in 1986 the film "When the wind blows" was written and animated (at least in part) by Raymond Briggs it's about an elderly British couple who build a shelter and prepare for an impending nuclear attack, unaware that times and the nature of war have changed from their romantic memories of World War II.
It's dark, realistic and very dramatic, while there may be a couple of chuckle moments early in the film, it's not laugh out loud comedy, it's pure human interest.
A very moving film by all accounts that could just as easily have been made in a live action format.
It's dark, realistic and very dramatic, while there may be a couple of chuckle moments early in the film, it's not laugh out loud comedy, it's pure human interest.
A very moving film by all accounts that could just as easily have been made in a live action format.
They should do animated films with the technology they make videogame cinematics. I mean the people at square enix could easily make a movie that would look AWESOME judging from their trailers/ prerendered cutscenes.