Disney Animated Classics, You Did NOT Like

[Disneykid]

[Waits until Disneykid leave the room...]
Well I did write an attack on Alice in Wonderland for the short lived DIScussions features. It just about sums up my feelings on that film.

(from the other room) I heard that. Still, I've already come to terms with your opinion of the film, so I'm past the "OMG, YOU HATE ALICE?! NUUUU!111!!" phase. Mostly. Besides, at least my fandom isn't being attacked by 3/4 of the members here like the Chicken Little fans are.

[Voiceroy]

Besides, at least my fandom isn't being attacked by 3/4 of the members here like the Chicken Little fans are.

No one's attacking anyone's fandom here. They're just critical opinions of the movie. And again, the numbers don't lie: on the average, more than half the people who've seen it didn't like it.

It's a decent kids flick, but I just wouldn't recommend it for adults.

But just because some don't like it doesn't mean it should affect anyone's personal enjoyment of the movie. Like they say, "different strokes..."

[mariadny]

Chicken little is a horrible movie.
It isn't a good film, the characters are the worst and it's reallyyyyyyy boring

[TheSequelOfDisney]

Chicken little is a horrible movie.
It isn't a good film, the characters are the worst and it's reallyyyyyyy boring

That's just your opinion.

For me, it ranks somewhere in the middle. It has classic characters and a unique styling that differentiates it from the rest, and I don't just mean it's CGI. Each film has it's own unique way that makes it different from the others. Just because it's CG, doesn't make it bad, or boring or have bad characters. No characters are bad, in that sense, not like bad as in a bad-guy who will eat you alive or anything like that. It has a wonderful and semi-original plot that makes it one of the best. Just look at the director/producer. The same who made the wonderfully comedic TENG. And TENG is a great movie, and so is CL. They are both great and are wonderful as Disney films. CL cannot be claimed as "reallyyyyyyy" boring and the characters are simply fantastic, but aren't as great as some of the other films, like "Fantasia" for instance (:P). So just stop with the whole CL bashing. CL is a great film and doesn't deserve what everyone is saying about it. Wasn't CL popular in the movie theaters? Didn't it make a large sum of money, not like TLK, but a good sum? So obviously tons of people like it, or wanted to experience it. So stop with the bashing.

Wow that was long.

[mariadny]

of course, this is my opinion

[Voiceroy]

TENG is a great movie, and so is CL. They are both great and are wonderful as Disney films. So just stop with the whole CL bashing. CL is a great film and doesn't deserve what everyone is saying about it. Wasn't CL popular in the movie theaters? Didn't it make a large sum of money, not like TLK, but a good sum? So obviously tons of people like it, or wanted to experience it. So stop with the bashing.

That's just your opinion.

Maybe you should apply that to your own opinion. Just because you say it's "great" doesn't mean it is to everyone else.

It did do fair at the box office, and was profitable for Disney because people took their kids to see it. It wasn't because "tons of people liked it". I could name a number of other movies that got bad ratings, but still did decent at the box office. You can't assume that "tons of people" liked a movie just because it was a fair financial success. Movie goers spent their money BEFORE seeing it, and you don't form an opinion about a movie until AFTER you've seen it, right?

Here's some box office comparison data, from UD's own review of this movie:

Chicken Little is being touted as "Disney's #1 Animated Movie of 2005", but in reality, the movie earned domestically just a bit more than half of what The Incredibles and Monsters, Inc. did opening the same time in 2004 and 2001. Respectable though Chicken Little's intake may have been, it paled next to 2002's Lilo & Stitch and Dinosaur, Disney's mostly CG-animated 2000 flick which has (justly or not) earned the reputation of being a flop for the studio.

And having a negative opinion of a movie isn't "bashing" it. Film critics are not called "critics" without good reason.

Note the negative comments on this film--yet again--from UD's own review. And I get the feeling the author was lenient:

It's not a bad movie, but it's definitely not a great one either. The mediocre nature of the final product seems to have been dictated by demographic appeals, test panels, and management interests, which leave the viewer thinking that financial success was more of a goal than artistic. Even if you can lay aside those unsavory ponderings inherent to show business, the film just doesn't readily entertain in the ways it attempts to. It comes off as an uneven hodgepodge, where the embraced styles of DreamWorks and Pixar are transparently emulated and only crumbs of Disney's storytelling sensibilities are thrown in. That's kind of a sad state for a studio that was largely the industry leader not long ago. Still, it's overdramatic to classify Chicken Little as anything more than a CG comedy which did not meet its potential. Like Range, it's not tolling the death of Disney Feature Animation or revealing weariness in the medium, at least not single-handedly. It's merely a mild misstep which will probably age and be forgotten more quickly than most.

....Chicken Little...isn't a must-own by any standard.

[Wonderlicious]

Anyone feel that these type of threads are perhaps the most fun?

Anyway, I've gotta say Chicken Little. I do agree that some of the reasons why it's considered bad are ludicrous ("OMG, it's not a Diz-nee fairy tale musical" is not really valid as a criticism in my opinion...especially since it's loosely based on a folktale and does have some songs), but I just didn't like it. Artistically (as in design and animation), it's not bad. Yet storywise, it feels like two different types of film were just flung together, with little desire from David Stainton and his executive chums (who probably ended up having more choice than the real directors) in making it truly work, so long as it has enough pleasing attributes to get crowds to see it.

Looks like Meet the Robinsons is going to be good, though.

[Timon/Pumbaa fan]

Sorry, you'll have to tell that to the rest of the internet too:

- 37% on the tomato-meter at rottentomatoes.com
- 2 stars out of 5 at netflix.com
- 5.8 stars out of 10 at imdb.com

Who cares what the critics think? They've hated some of the greatest movies ever made. Every critic working in 1940 bashed Fantasia, it's not only decades later people saw it as the classic it really was. Netflix is still relatively new, even for the internet, so there aren't many people who have rated it on Netflix. As far as IMDB, well, let's just say they aren't the friendliest site for animation.

Anyway, c'mon guys, Chicken Little is pure fun! If you're going to view every movie and compare and contrast it to say Aladdin, of course you're not going to like it. You won't like many movies if you hold on to that attitude. It's really a great movie if you give it a chance.

Besides we all know a certain movie that stars a mutated fish freak(who whines more than double the amount of "Pink Elephants" in Dumbo) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame as well as most of Dreamworks' films are worse. So there.

[Disney's Divinity]

Besides we all know a certain movie that stars a mutated fish freak(who whines more than double the amount of "Pink Elephants" in Dumbo) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame as well as most of Dreamworks' films are worse. So there.

Really? We do?

As for me, I don't even consider Chicken Little an "Animated Classic," so there's no reason for me to give my feelings on it.

My least favorite classic would probably fall either to Bambi or Oliver & Co. The former's got incredible animation, but is one of the dullest movies I've ever watched. Oliver & Co. has a lot going for it, but it just doesn't appeal to me for some reason.

[TheCaucus]

I'm almost ashamed to say Bambi, I did not cry when his mom died.

[TheSequelOfDisney]

Maybe you should apply that to your own opinion. Just because you say it's "great" doesn't mean it is to everyone else.

Yes, but I'm sure that since a lot of people have seen it, they would probably like it. It is a great film after all.

It did do fair at the box office, and was profitable for Disney because people took their kids to see it. It wasn't because "tons of people liked it".

Well, actually, you really don't know that. So you can't really say that it wasn't because of that factor. It is highly possible that tons of people liked it. It's always a possibility that tons of people liked it, you don't know. You can't verify that.

I could name a number of other movies that got bad ratings, but still did decent at the box office. You can't assume that "tons of people" liked a movie just because it was a fair financial success. Movie goers spent their money BEFORE seeing it, and you don't form an opinion about a movie until AFTER you've seen it, right?

I actually can assume that tons of people liked the movie because it was a "fair financial success." Oh and that's not true. People can form an opinion before they see a movie in theater. Everyone can, and everyone does. If they didn't form an opinion then they wouldn't go and see it in the theaters except if they were forced to, which is like .1% of the population. So that is not true at all because they have to form an opinion otherwise there wouldn't be any point to see the movie.

Here's some box office comparison data, from UD's own review of this movie:

Chicken Little is being touted as "Disney's #1 Animated Movie of 2005", but in reality, the movie earned domestically just a bit more than half of what The Incredibles and Monsters, Inc. did opening the same time in 2004 and 2001. Respectable though Chicken Little's intake may have been, it paled next to 2002's Lilo & Stitch and Dinosaur, Disney's mostly CG-animated 2000 flick which has (justly or not) earned the reputation of being a flop for the studio.

And having a negative opinion of a movie isn't "bashing" it. Film critics are not called "critics" without good reason.

Yes but most of the critics shouldn't be criticizing the films anyway. It really doesn't matter what the critics say because they are completely incorrect. They are forming your opinion for you. That is all they are doing. They want you to think in their process to affect how you think about a certain topic, and in this case a movie.

Note the negative comments on this film--yet again--from UD's own review. And I get the feeling the author was lenient:

It's not a bad movie, but it's definitely not a great one either. The mediocre nature of the final product seems to have been dictated by demographic appeals, test panels, and management interests, which leave the viewer thinking that financial success was more of a goal than artistic. Even if you can lay aside those unsavory ponderings inherent to show business, the film just doesn't readily entertain in the ways it attempts to. It comes off as an uneven hodgepodge, where the embraced styles of DreamWorks and Pixar are transparently emulated and only crumbs of Disney's storytelling sensibilities are thrown in. That's kind of a sad state for a studio that was largely the industry leader not long ago. Still, it's overdramatic to classify Chicken Little as anything more than a CG comedy which did not meet its potential. Like Range, it's not tolling the death of Disney Feature Animation or revealing weariness in the medium, at least not single-handedly. It's merely a mild misstep which will probably age and be forgotten more quickly than most.

....Chicken Little...isn't a must-own by any standard.

Once again the people who do the reviews, Aaron, Luke, Al and others are forming an opinion about the film. They are criticizing it and forming an opinion. Everyone has their own opinion and it is everyones choice whether or not to read the reviews here at UD. They are accurate, but you can make an opinion before and after you see a film.

CL is a great film. In fact all of the Disney Animated Classics are great films if you do not compare them to anything else. They are special on their own merits including CL.

That's all I have to say.

[PatrickvD]

Black Cauldron for me. Story doesn't work. I mean, it's okay to rehash the formula, because the formula is just that for a reason, but they couldn't even get the formula right so it's just not a good film. But I do appreciate it for what it is. You can see it was all testing and leading up to Mermaid. Now if only Chicken Little was leading up to something though.

Because those two are my bottom 2. Eventhough CL did get some laughs out of me.

[slave2moonlight]

Oy, Chicken Little. It's a bad film. It had potential here and there, but it is not a good film when all is said and done. Yeah, that's my opinion, but all the folks posting and saying "That's YOUR opinion. Chicken Little is a great film!" News Flash: That's YOUR opinion too. It's always an opinion. No one has the last word on it.

What annoys me though, and the reason I'm posting here again (because I've already given my least favorites here), is because I'm so tired of people defending Chicken Little by saying it is from the same people who made "The Emperor's New Grove," which was great! First off, I agree that "The Emperor's New Groove" was great, but I know a lot of folks hated it, so that's one reason you can't use it to defend Chicken Little. But the main reason is that Emperor's New Groove IS NOT Chicken Little. So what if it is from the same filmmakers! Jeez, Howard the Duck and Star Wars are both from George Lucas, but that doesn't make Howard the Duck a great film by association.

[Escapay]

it is everyones choice whether or not to read the reviews here at UD.

Though, of course, we prefer if you guys do read them. If only to amuse yourselves

Anyways, I love how people are confusing critique and opinion when it comes to professional critics and DVD reviewers. An opinion is something you believe in and want others to believe in as well. A critique is an assessment and a review of something, and whether or not you feel it is a good or bad thing, but you aren't trying to sell your critique to anyone. You're just making a statement.

For example, my opinion of High School Musical is far lower and much more harsh than my critique of it or its DVD.

Likewise, there can be a glowing DVD critique for a two-disc set like Atlantis: The Lost Empire - Collector's Edition, but the person's opinion of the movie may be that it's just "blah".

When it comes to Chicken Little, I admit, there are some problems with the film that do get on my nerves. But in my opinion, these problems are minor compared to what I like about the film. I can call it a great film, based on my beliefs of what a good film is, but at the same time, I'm not going to go out and say "Guys, if you hate Chicken Little, you have to taste in cinema!" A lot of people hate Legend, but I recommend it to them to rewatch from a different mindset/perspective, not as a way of getting them to like it, but just for them to try and understand why I like it. Same with Chicken Little. I like to recommend for people who hate it to re-watch it. But not watch it thinking "This is a bad Pixar-rip-off with lousy animation and stupid characters" Watch it from a "So...how delightfully campy can this movie get? What can I find remotely funny that I was ripping on before?"

I always prefer to watch a film once, just to watch it. Then watch it again, to pick up on things I may have missed the first time. Finally, watch it one last time from a "is this a film I truly will enjoy?" mindset. See if it gets better or worse with repeat viewings. Don't just write it off after ten minutes or just after watching it once. You may miss out on some things that you'd find important later on.

Let's take a non-Disney movie, like A Place in the Sun. Watch it once, get the main idea of who the cast and characters and story is. Then watch it again, with the knowledge of what's happening, and analyze a character's journey from beginning to end. Analyze their actions, their motivations, their purpose within the film. Then watch it a third time. But now that you know the characters, story, etc., watch just to see what you like or don't like about the film. Is it too sappy, or just the right amount of sappiness? Is it poorly acted or brilliantly performed? Is the dialogue stiff or enrichingly good? Quite simply, what did you like about the film, and what didn't you like, and could you see yourself watching it again some time later and having those expectations met?

At the end of three viewings, there's always a far better and much more fair assessment of a film than at the end of one.

And everyone's a critic these days. It's just some people get paid to put on airs and be film snobs, while most others don't.

Escapay

[jeremy88]

Yeah, Chicken Little is okay. I mean, it doesnt have an original sound track and oh my goodness its in cgi. Big deal. Its entertaining, kinda. Its hard to connect with the characters since their a tad underdeveloped.

I cant say chicken little is my favorite or my least since its not bad either. Just one that needs to be viewed with a more open mind away from the classic Disney genre. At least thats what I had the first time I saw it.

I probably would have loved this one if it had a nice score and original soundtrack and it was in 2-d but thats just me. Oh and if the animals werent in so much of a human influenced world.

[carter1971]

With all this heated discussion of Chicken Little, I'm going to have to pick it up when I get paid tomorrow and check it out for myself. It was one of those I didn't have the funds for when it came out.

I agree with what Escapay said about critiques and opinions. I like quite a few films that I don't consider cinema masterpieces. Take Robin Hood, for example. I enjoy the film, but will readily admit that's it not great by any means.

I also agreed with your statements about repeat viewings and I need to watch those films I listed in my previous post again. I really didn't like Mulan when I first saw it but have since come to appreciate it.

Finally, try not to get upset if others don't share your love of a particular film. I never let that detract from my enjoyment of it.

[jeremy88]

Oh and I forgot to do this....

Besides we all know a certain movie that stars a mutated fish freak(who whines more than double the amount of "Pink Elephants" in Dumbo) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame as well as most of Dreamworks' films are worse. So there.

GRRRRRRRRR!!

lmao I guess we all cant agree with each other. But c'mon all those movies are even that bad.

At least in my opinion lol.

Oh btw..this part down here isnt a response to Timon/Pumbaa fan lol

Well, yeah, they aren't that good of movies at all, but they're enjoyable when you aren't watching it with an angry mob ready to strike at it. Besides, how often does the public enjoy good movies anywayz? havent u ever noticed that all the films that r pure trash are usually the higher grossing while all the good and award winning movies nobody ever hears about or sees. So, ya, if u wanna be cynical, those movies r pretty worthless art of film style, but as for just enjoyment (and a cheap 50 million plus profit at the box office) they aren't that bad. anyway, i dont think disney makes movies like chicken little so people can leave the theater saying "Wow, my whole perspective on life has now changed because that movie was just so damned good!"lol. if anything, just watch it for fun and im sure you wont be too disappointed.

[Ting Ting]

The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It's disturbing, it's sad, and I don't think it deserves a G rating. I also think that a lot of the movie isn't appropriate for children. Personally, I think the only good thing about this movie is "God Help the Outcasts". It's such a beautiful song.

[Widdi]

The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It's disturbing, it's sad, and I don't think it deserves a G rating. I also think that a lot of the movie isn't appropriate for children. Personally, I think the only good thing about this movie is "God Help the Outcasts". It's such a beautiful song.

I don't understand this argument. So because it's not a movie necessarily for young children it's bad?

[Voiceroy]

Yes, but I'm sure that since a lot of people have seen it, they would probably like it. It is a great film after all.

Please don't confuse your opinion with fact.

Well, actually, you really don't know that. So you can't really say that it wasn't because of that factor. It is highly possible that tons of people liked it. It's always a possibility that tons of people liked it, you don't know. You can't verify that.

That's true, because that's MY OPINION.

But I CAN verify that more than half of the regular people--not critics--people like you and me gave an overall negative rating/review for "Chicken Little". I honestly don't see how you can argue with statistics. Granted, we're talking about the internet here, but look up the reviews for yourself on amazon and imdb for starters. Overall, they are negative--and we're talking the majority of people too.

Here's a classic example:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/c ... n%20little

Again, the average for more than half the users who reviewed and posted comments about the film at metacritic gave it a score of LESS than 50 out of 100.

And here's another:
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=chickenlittle.htm

Out of 548 current user votes, 401 of them rated the movie with a "B" or lower. Do the math, and the majority rules by a landslide. And an overall rating of "B-" is just barely favorable.

So, faced with these stats, how can you possibly verify your opinion that "tons of people liked it"? That "tons of people" went to see it I can't deny, but did they all like it? Well, the overall reviews and ratings of the general public say no.

I actually can assume that tons of people liked the movie because it was a "fair financial success."

Um...no, that's really not a good measure for assumption.

Take "Space Jam" for example. It made over $230 million worldwide and kids loved it, but critics, animation fans, and most adults largely hated it. By comparison, "The Iron Giant" made a paltry $23 million because WB dropped the ball promoting/marketing the film, and it went on to be embraced by animation fans and critics alike.

So, no--just because a movie is a fair financial success doesn't automatically guarantee that "tons of people liked it."

People can form an opinion before they see a movie in theater. Everyone can, and everyone does. If they didn't form an opinion then they wouldn't go and see it in the theaters except if they were forced to, which is like .1% of the population. So that is not true at all because they have to form an opinion otherwise there wouldn't be any point to see the movie.

Okay, let's change the word "opinion" to "review" then. You shouldn't review or even rate a movie unless you've seen it. Otherwise, you're just spewing BS.

Yes but most of the critics shouldn't be criticizing the films anyway. It really doesn't matter what the critics say because they are completely incorrect. They are forming your opinion for you. That is all they are doing. They want you to think in their process to affect how you think about a certain topic, and in this case a movie.

I should just drop this argement now. I can't believe I'm even hearing this. Please don't assume to know what I'm thinking. I don't allow someone else to think for me or even to form an opinion for me. But an overall negative review or rating of a film is very helpful for preventing me from wasting my time watching it. And I'd say that 90% of the time that I went against that better judgement and watched the movie myself, the overall opinion turned out to be correct... and I wasted my time.

Who cares what the critics think? They've hated some of the greatest movies ever made. Every critic working in 1940 bashed Fantasia, it's not only decades later people saw it as the classic it really was. Netflix is still relatively new, even for the internet, so there aren't many people who have rated it on Netflix. As far as IMDB, well, let's just say they aren't the friendliest site for animation.

You seem to have missed my point. My comment about "critics" was just a punchline. But have you not heard the cliché that "everyone's a critic"? That's the point I was trying to make. I cited three sources of overall negative reviews: rottentomatoes.com, imdb.com, and netflix.com. These are comments, ratings, and opinions of users--that's regular people just like you and me, and not "film critics" like Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin and the like. I generally don't even acknowledge the opinion of film critics because they tend to be film snobs and only like artsy, indy, heavy drama stuff that I don't care for and then give bad reviews to anything mass-marketed to the public.

I'll have to come back later to include how many members have posted reviews for "Chicken Little" on netlfix because the site's down at the moment. But I seem to recall there being at least a few dozen members who took time to review it, and I'd say it's likely been rated by a few thousand members as well.

I'd also like to add that Netflix started in '98. Nearly 10 years as a company disqualifies them from being "new". They also have, to date, 8.4 million subscribers. That's more that twice as many as Blockbuster has.

CL is a great film. In fact all of the Disney Animated Classics are great films if you do not compare them to anything else. They are special on their own merits including CL.

That "Chicken Little" is "special" appears to be the only thing I can agree with. But unfortunately, I don't mean "special" in a good way. And even if I didn't compare it to any other film (which is ridiculous, frankly), it's still not "great" to me. I can't say that it's even good, which is why more than a dozen others in this thread cite it among their "least favorite" animated Disney movies.

But again, we're arguing over a difference of opinion. You like the movie? Fine, I have no problem with that. But don't even attempt to say that CL is a "great film" if you have no solid evidence to support it. So you're in the minority on this one--so what? You think I'm a popular guy in my family because I'm 35 years old and I love watching cartoons?

I'm used to being in the minority. I'm a geek and not ashamed of it. But I also know when to acknowledge that something is my opinion and don't try to state it as fact.

Chicken Little is not a "great film." So says the majority of people who've seen it. If you think it's a great film, more power to you. But you will find very little support here for that claim.