Lilo & Stitch / Hit or Miss?

[SnackyStacky]

When people talk about the heyday of Disney animation, people continually bring up talk of The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin, and The Lion King. The one thing that all of these movies have in common is that they are musicals.

Although the music is not the defining feature of these movies (personally, for me, the music is the high point, but that's just my opinion), it most certainly helps when you can walk out of a theatre humming a tune. Not to mention, that the pop remix of a tune from a movie can bring in TONS of advertising. (And I'm not talking about the A Teens doing Can't Help Falling in Love...I'm talking about Celine Dion doing Beauty & the Beast, and Peabo Bryson doing A Whole New World, and Elton John doing The Circle of Life)

I believe that if Lilo & Stitch had had original music, it might have fared better.

Just my $.02

 

[WDWHound]

Originally posted by SnackyStacky

I believe that if Lilo & Stitch had had original music, it might have fared better.

Just my $.02

I love Disney musicals, but I feel that making this film a musical would have ruined it. The film strikes a very delicate balance between reality, fantasy and emotion, and I think that adding song and dance numbers would have destroyed that balance.

This an amazing film, the first truly unique film that Disney has done in a very long time. It may take awhile, but the sheer creativity, imagination and emotion this film packs will eventual cause it to be recognized as one of the greatest animated films of our generation.

 

[Galahad]

Yeah, I hope there are more Disney animated musicals. I love them too. But L & S would never have worked as a musical.

 

[SnackyStacky]

Originally posted by Galahad
Yeah, I hope there are more Disney animated musicals. I love them too. But L & S would never have worked as a musical.

I don't see how music could have hurt it. Possibly not an entire musical score, but one song, written specifically for the movie. (Think of My Heart Will Go On from Titanic....not used in the movie, but rather gave a musical, radio voice to the movie)

 

[hopemax]

Did you miss "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride" and "He Mele No Lilo?"

These were both original songs.

 

[Jeff in BigD]

Although I enjoy the traditional fairytale-musicals, it's good to see Disney flexing it's creative muscles a bit. I would like to see more of a commitment to developing the movie to perfection, but with the current demands of the higher-ups for the animation department to turn & burn, it's a pipe dream for now.

 

[Another Voice]

It’s being pretty widely talked about throughout town that senior Disney executives are saying that ‘Moments’ (re-titled from ‘Brother Bear’ and soon to be retitled again) will be Disney’s last traditional animated movie. Since the movie is being produced in Florida, all non-computer animation staff here in Burbank will be eliminated.

Future Disney animated films will be CGI, although some my mimic the traditional flat look as a stylistic choice. And flat animation will continue in the form of direct-to-video cartoons and television shows, but they will all be produced in Asia by outside film companies.

The era is over.

As one very sad message said – “I hope everyone never forgets this whole thing started by a mouse – and it was all ended by rats.”

 

[Captain Crook]

- and it was all ended by rats.

Is this statement really fair? Disney isn't the only one pulling he plug on traditional animation is it. Haven't all these fomer Disney creative types at Dreamworks, Pixar and elsewhere also closed the door? This just seems to be the end of the line and not particularily a Disney or Eisner issue...

 

[Another Voice]

A computer will not create a better story.

A computer will not imagine characters that an audience will care about.

A computer will not design worlds that are a wonder to look at.

Only people can do that.

But people don’t work on fixed marketing schedules, people don’t always get things right and people require a talented leadership to point them in the right direction.

At the moment, Disney lacks that leadership. They are unwilling to find, retain and motivate people to create good films. Rather than developing these skills, they have chosen to believe the latest fad and to buy the latest buzzwords. Disney is taking the cheapest and easiest way to paper over some very deep seated problems.

A bad movie is still a bad movie whether it’s drawn by a thousands artists or digitized by a couple of machines in a basement. And cost is irrelevant if no one pays to see the finished product. When Disney gets back to wanting to make good movies again, it won’t matter if computers, animators or stick figures are used.

 

[Captain Crook]

Voice, you confuse me... I agree wholeheartedly with your last statement but I inferred that you were blaming Disney for the killing of the hand-drawn animation film:

Future Disney animated films will be CGI...The era is over.

My point: Disney didn't kill the hand drawn feature...It was a group effort.

And to makes things clearer, YES I AGRE that the creativeness of the story & ability of the storytellers are far more important that how the film will be put together...

 

[*Robin*]

Originally posted by Another Voice
It’s being pretty widely talked about throughout town that senior Disney executives are saying that ‘Moments’ ............sad message said – “I hope everyone never forgets this whole thing started by a mouse – and it was all ended by rats.”

AV, this depresses me beyond comprehension...I only hope you aren't right on this one...Animation has been a passion of mine since I was a kid...Disney books steered me toward a profession in art...

We just heard we are being transferred to Orlando, probably moving in about 9 months...It looks like the rats will have taken full hold by then huh? (not knowing when moments will be released.)

Maybe I should see what IOA is like after all....

 

[airlarry!]

Quick takes:

The contest will not officially end until after the Labor Day weekends.

Lilo & Stitch is the Pinnochio of the Ei$ner era.

I don't care who else contributed to the sad state of animation support, but if Brother Bear is the end, then history will remember Ei$ner as the executioner.

If I hear one more exec try and compare any animated movie's box office cume to The Lion King, I will choke on a midget. Comparing L&S to Lion King to determine if L&S was successful is like comparing every movie to Titanic's cume. In other words, there will always be one movie that connects to the audience so much that it does mega-repeat business and breaks every record known to man. I guess we should compare Treasure Planet's cume to Star Wars I or declare it a failure? Should we compare Princess Diaries to Pretty Woman?

Artistry should not be concerned with hitting 'The Titanic King' grand-slams. A single, double, triple, and a homerun will score the same amount of runs, and all of them are hits.

If Atlantis had the heart of Lilo, it would have done $150 million too.

The End of the Ei$ner era will be the Beginning of the Next Age of Animation for Disney.

 

[Another Voice]

Captain sir, the point is that Disney is blaming the public’s alleged disinterest in traditional animation as the justification for the bad box office. Therefore they must kill traditional animation “to give the public what it wants”. They are in complete denial that bad movies are killing traditional animation. Instead of trying to create good movies they believe that simply throwing in CGI will sell tickets. Watch the upcoming hype for ‘Treasure Planet’ and see all the talk about the use of computers.

The problem is that bad movies are still bad movies no matter what technology they use. Simply trashing traditional animation won’t solve Disney’s core problem, but they will be throwing away a great art form that can still produce great films. And the real reason 'Toy Story' and 'Monsters' were big hits had nothing to do with pixel density or texture mapping. Either of those films would have worked just as well hand drawn or CGI.

Worse, they’ve thrown away an entire generation of animators. And they will never be replaced.

 

[Captain Crook]

Disney is reacting to the results they've seen...Right or wrong? I tend to agree with you that they are wrong, it isn't the process in which the films are made that doom them it is the material and / or application of that material. But still they are mking a decision to cast off the past for the future, exciting world of CGI ... along with Dreamworks, Pixar and whoever else.

Again, it isn't just Disney that is giving up on handdrawn, it appears to be all of those wonderful, talented, creative people you keep telling us have left Disney for greener pastures doing the same thing...

 

[Another Voice]

Disney’s been using computers in animation since ‘Beauty and the Beast’. The issue isn’t really over with the technology used to make the movie itself, but with the process used to make the movie. The traditional approach at Disney placed a lot of emphasis on the artists, the new computer methods place much more control on the producers and the executives. Again, it’s not really required by the technology, it just is the business practice. The suits find it much easier to get a roomful of technicians to do things their way than they find it is to get a roomful of artists to follow the company line.

What’s really funny is that Pixar (state of the art for computers) uses the old Walt school of animation management and is producing good movies. Eisner has tried to force the new "top-down" school of thinking onto traditional animation and produced bombs like ‘Atlantis’, ‘Treasure’ and ‘Peter Pan 2’. He doesn’t blame the management style, he blames the pencils. He thinks that by getting rid of the all those those people that he will suddenly become a better filmmaker.

 

[raidermatt]

This sounds in some ways very similar to the thrill ride vs. dark ride debate...

A failure to recognize that the underlying cause for recent successes and failures lies within, not with industry trends.

I don't think Pixar ever even took a crack at "hand drawn", did they? They had success right off the bat in CGI, and it wouldn't make sense for them to alter course.

Dreamworks produced flop after flop in hand-drawn, and is one for one in CGI. It could be argued that they are also drawing faulty conclusions. But honestly, who in the general public really cares? Dreamworks does not have a "fan following". Disney does. Dreamworks has no tradition of hand-drawn animation success. Disney does, and most importantly, Disney is having success with a current release.

Dreamworks maybe making the same mistake, but nobody cares.

Rather than pointing to L&S as a reason to pursue both genres, Disney is trying to kill hand-drawn, and will no doubt blame it for Treausre's failure, should it fail. Its just deflecting blame from the real problem.

MAYBE if all else is equal, audiences do prefer CGI over hand-drawn. But even if that's true, its still a secondary reason, and clearly Disney is using it as a primary reason.

 

[Another Voice]

Rule of thumb – Delaying a movie for a year so they can rework the last thirty minutes and then giving up so they can shove the movie out to meet a marketing deadline is not a sign of an artistic triumph.

Or so it's been rumored....

 

[Jeff in BigD]

Using Toy Story as an example, what initially got a lot of people in the theater was a new media (3D animation), what kept them coming back was a great story & likable characters. The same was true in 1937 when Snow White was released.

Fast forward to Shrek & Monsters Inc., good story, likable characters - they would have been successful, regardless of whether they were 3D or 2D. Antz (& Dinosaur for that matter) were flops because the characters were pedestrian & the story sucked.

Yes, 3D animation is still growing, so the "wow" factor is there, but the novelty isn't nearly what it was & isn't the primary reason people will go see a movie.

I have no problem with adding 3D animation to compliment traditional animation, or releasing 3D animated features along with traditional animated features. A complete abandonment of traditional animation, however, is a huge mistake. But not even holding on to the talent is an even larger one.