Well being busy, I missed this, but with free time and finding this, I might as well respond.
Disney-Fan wrote:[
I agree. That's spot on. What you don't see though, is how contrived the drama is gonna play out (oh wait, nevermind. The whole father/son crap has you cringing from the start). Let me correct myself, you KNOW the drama is gonna be there just for the audience to feel sorry for the little chicken. You can actually feel a bad movie in progress. The humor ain't that promising or witty too, if I may say so myself.
I think your confusing this with Finding Nemo.
Seriously, I think almost every animated film(at least Disney) has some type of drama. So by that you could say The Little Mermaid is a bad movie, becuase you know what the basic plots will be before the movie. I didn't remember laughing incredibly hard, so is it not witty? I'll use a better example, is The Lion King(yes I'm using my beloved TLK) a bad movie? You know Scar's going to be villain and you know Mufasa will die early in the movie so the audience knows the drama there to before it happens(not that those are flaws, but that's for another time in case someone uses those points to diss TLK
). In other words, that's the case with most animated films. Now, I'm not saying all animated films are predictable, but sometimes, it's the "how" instead of the "what" that matters.
Unlike Aladdin, which you so eagerly bring up, this movie has pop references in all the wrong places with the worst timing ever. Heck, the sci-fi elements never even felt right for a movie of this kind. Watching Chicken Little was the first time I've felt brain cells going to waste since Batman and Robin.
Worst timing? You obviously haven't seen SharkTale. That's like 100 times worse(well, c'mon you can't honestly say with a straight face it's a better film can you?) Nuff said about that statement.
Shrek, which you also bring up, was MADE to have references to pop culture. Heck, it was one huge parody of Disney. It FELT right. Chicken Little never settled on a tone and feeling. Is it slapstick? Is it purely for children? That would perfectly fine if they settled completely for that. Is it a father/son drama? Is this even a family movie? Does it want to have the Disney 'feeling'? You never know, because this movie keeps you guessing the whole way through.
I think that's just being incredibly nitpicky. Now, I got called "nitpicker" because I said the Pixar films were the same, but I think that's a bit too much. C'mon, it was trying to appeal to families! Nothing wrong with that. As for slapstick and "Disney 'feeling'", why do those have to be seperate? Watch the documentary on the DVD, and you'll see that many of the character's movements and designs were helped designed by Goofy and Donald cartoons. So I don't see that arguement.
Okay, let's say opinions are facts and Chicken Little was a "bad movie" as a fact, well what was Shrek trying to be? Is it gross-out comedy(burping farting, sexual innuendo etc.) Is it a buddy comedy? Is it a comedy? Is it even a family film? Is it just to make fun of Disney? Is it just to make fun of fairy tales in general? "You never know because it keeps you guessing all the way through".
I'm sorry, but to even see it being compared to Aladdin, or heck, even to Shrek, which started the whole animated-pop-culture-referencing fad seems almost intolerable to me. They are leagues apart, and always will be, because at the end of the day Chicken Little will never feel more than just a semi-formed movie. As for Dinosaur. Yes, the plot was horrible in some aspects, but at least it seemed ambitious. Chicken Little never seemed important or worthy of the Disney Classic status. Dinosaur pushed the envelope technically, and that's an achievment. Chicken Little just left you with a feeling of meh.
Knowing what kind of movie you're doing is key to its' success, and it was clear as day that Chicken Little's makers never knew what kind they were doing.
Well, I don't think Shrek really created it. Remember: t.v. shows! Before Shrek, we got The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, and (to mention more family friendly shows) The Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, The Timon and Pumbaa show(which so happens to be Disney), and heck, pretty much anything created by "Hanna Barbera" or Jay Ward. From that, it had been made for a long time before the idea of Shrek on-screen became. I guess the only thing Shrek did was make it into a movie, and added cruel jokes.
But still it's not like Shrek was the only film to make it in film form. If you look at the Pixar films, there are pop-culture references(not as many, but still there), so Shrek could've easily taken from that. Plus does it seem kinda odd to anyone else Shrek is like 75% a buddy film? Also, remember Aladdin like I mentioned(along with a few others).
Now in the end, I agree with mostly everyone here, pop culture references can be a hit or a miss. For a lot of shows that I mentioned above, it worked wonderfully. For the Shreks and SharkTales, they were just thrown in there. A lot of them weren't even really that funny(Tower of Londen Records???) Chicken Little, didn't have that many, and, imho, it worked in the movie(people 50 years from now will get the idea Runt-of-the-Litter is nerdy because of the type of songs he sings).
Getting back to the "Dinosaur v.s. Chicken Little" discussion, I thought the animation in Chicken Little was good BECAUSE it didn't try to approach realism. I mean films like Robots, The Wild or Monster House tried to approach that, and while the animation was really good(except for MH, imo), and in some ways innoventive, they just didn't have interesting stories that apparently didn't appeal to a great many, or me(except The Wild which I haven't seen). Dinosaur, once again, great animation, but once again, didn't have much of a story. Chicken Little approached a stylish story and provided stylized animation with it making it a success(in my eyes and a few others anyway).
Overall, back to the the point, I don't want to make it like I'm "forcing" anyone to like such a movie. If you don't, fine by me. There are movies/shows I don't care about and other people I know like. I just feel that people are being way to harsh, and should see it for what it is. It was approaching a fun film that would appeal to fans of "Shrek" yet adding the Disney touch to it making it MUCH better(well at least in some levels,which I think people here can admit). And to me, they did a really good job at it and frankly gets to harsh a beating on it doesn't deserve.
