LAZY ANIMATION!

[pinkrenata]

The colecovision-esque computer animated "Festival of Fools" extras in Hunchback.

The ironic thing about those crowd people is that I remember there being a television special before HoND came out where they bragged about this new method they had for doing crowd scenes and how spectacular it was. That was what really made me notice the horrid-ness of it all. It they hadn't talked it up like that, I might not have noticed... Maybe.

[pap64]

Some continuity problems and other issues with The Sword in the Stone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1gtszkTAmo

So The Sword in the Stone is in competition with Robin Hood to see how much animation they can recycle...

Though, the beard jokes are a running gag, not really recycled animation.

As for these animation issues I am willing to forgive them because animation is hard. During the dark ages after Walt's death the animation department was losing money, so the only way they could finish a film is to recycle animation. Its lazy but that's how they could finish a film.

Crowds are ALWAYS a pain to do, in 2D or CG. Considering it takes hundreds of animation cels just to do a minute or two carefully animating and creating unique characters in a crowd of HUNDREDS is hell on Earth, so its obvious why they rather go with the CG crowds of stamping the same characters over and over.

The animators have expressed that sometimes they work under lots of time constraints, and the medium itself is slow to work with, so they admit they used time cutting techniques to make the film look good.

I'm pretty sure Princess and the Frog will have similar issues, especially since Disney had to hire a new batch of animators after their closed down their own studios.

[MattDean]

Pap64 said,

'The animators have expressed that sometimes they work under lots of time constraints, and the medium itself is slow to work with, so they admit they used time cutting techniques to make the film look good.'

We totally understand this and these tell-tale signs are what we're celebrating here! ...Although how 'good' is questionable

Matt

[Goliath]

It's often said that the animation in The Rescuers is rather sloppy or shabby, but I think the more-than-simple animation is part of its charm. It certainly gives the characters and the story the room to develop. Does the film use much recycled animation? I know they use some from Bambi, though not much, I think.

[Elladorine]

I'd lean more towards blaming it on budgetary concerns rather than laziness.

[MattDean]

The Rescuers is one of my favourites!

Apparently, some of the Bayou (sp?) backgrounds feature in The Little Mermaid 'Kiss the Girl' sequence, and there's a brilliant continuity problem when Miss Bianca is dressed in a purple coat one minute and then it's gone the next, when she's looking out of the window at Albatross Air. Not to mention the rather naughty lady that looks out of her apartment as Albatross Air flies past!

Matt

[Cordy_Biddle]

Eric and Vanessa's shipboard wedding in "The Little Mermaid"--the little boy in blue looks like something from "He-Man".

[pap64]

Pap64 said,

'The animators have expressed that sometimes they work under lots of time constraints, and the medium itself is slow to work with, so they admit they used time cutting techniques to make the film look good.'

We totally understand this and these tell-tale signs are what we're celebrating here! ...Although how 'good' is questionable

Matt

I mean make the film look good despite the time constraints.

[Marce82]

Uh boy...i like this. A forum to be bitchy about animation.
Well first, I have nothing against recycled animation, as long as it works with the story. And I think its natural for a person (Merlin in this case) to have certain mannerism they repeat all the time. Its part of their character.

Animation things that bother me:

- When the queen in snow white is giving the order to the huntsman, there is close shot of her tapping her fingers. Her chest is moving ALL OVER THE PLACE. Very jumpy.

- I agree about the crowds in the Hunchback. Also, I hate that Esmeralda never has a septum (makes her face look flat), and that they used shadows to close of her face instead of a line.

- In BatB, the first scene with Maurice, Belle looks badly rotoscoped. Also, right after the beast turns into the prince, she looks TERRIBLE, off-model and is poorly animated in every shot until she says "it IS you".

- In Peter Pan, when Wendy is going to show peter what a kiss is...in one of her close-ups she looks deformed.

- In 101 Dalmatians, Cruella looks weird and off-model in one shot, RIGHT before she cackles ("i know i know....Roger's...Roger's songs....-cackle")

- AND THIS IS THE MAJOR ONE: THE ENTIRE HUMAN-AGAIN AND MORNING REPORT SEQUENCES ARE COMPLETELY OFF-MODEL, OFF-COLOR AND WITH VERY VERY VERY BAD ANIMATION.

[MattDean]

Esmaralda's jerky, almost disney-toon like, dance from the Festival of Fools sequence of Hunchback! Makes me laugh every time. Rhythm, Esmaralda?!

Matt

[Rudy Matt]

Esmaralda's jerky, almost disney-toon like, dance from the Festival of Fools sequence of Hunchback! Makes me laugh every time. Rhythm, Esmaralda?!

Matt

Yeah, they were too afraid of actually doing a pole dance, although that's what she's doing. Hunchback is fascinating in its brilliance married with its spine-scraping compromises.

[Rudy Matt]

It's often said that the animation in The Rescuers is rather sloppy or shabby.

No it isn't. You're the first person I've ever heard state the animation in The Rescuers was sub-standard. The production values in the film are clearly below films from the 40's and 50's, and Don Bluth's pointless scene at the Zoo is a wase of time, but man, there is AMAZING character animation in The Rescuers...the flashback with Penny and Rufus is one of the all time greatest moments in Disney animation, not to mention Frank's work on Bernard, Milt's Medusa...Rescuers Down Under has far greater production values and a larger budget, but the actual character animation in The Rescuers trumps almost everything in RDU other than Keane's work on the Eagle.

[Cordy_Biddle]

Goliath wrote:
It's often said that the animation in The Rescuers is rather sloppy or shabby.


No it isn't. You're the first person I've ever heard state the animation in The Rescuers was sub-standard. The production values in the film are clearly below films from the 40's and 50's, and Don Bluth's pointless scene at the Zoo is a wase of time, but man, there is AMAZING character animation in The Rescuers...the flashback with Penny and Rufus is one of the all time greatest moments in Disney animation, not to mention Frank's work on Bernard, Milt's Medusa...Rescuers Down Under has far greater production values and a larger budget, but the actual character animation in The Rescuers trumps almost everything in RDU other than Keane's work on the Eagle.

Oh, I so agree with you Rudy! The scene with Penny and Rufus gets me every time. I defy anyone to watch the scene and not be affected by it.

[BelleGirl]

It's often said that the animation in The Rescuers is rather sloppy or shabby, but I think the more-than-simple animation is part of its charm. It certainly gives the characters and the story the room to develop. Does the film use much recycled animation? I know they use some from Bambi, though not much, I think.

I always thought that Penny's face looked very similar to that of Mowgli from Jungle Book. Could you call that recycling?

[Goliath]

Yeah, they were too afraid of actually doing a pole dance, although that's what she's doing.

They're not anymore. Just ask Miley Cyrus.

It's often said that the animation in The Rescuers is rather sloppy or shabby.

No it isn't. You're the first person I've ever heard state the animation in The Rescuers was sub-standard.

Then you must not have read Michael Barrier's book 'Hollywood Cartoons' or the countless of articles and forumposts I've read about the film.

The production values in the film are clearly below films from the 40's and 50's, and Don Bluth's pointless scene at the Zoo is a wase of time, but man, there is AMAZING character animation in The Rescuers...the flashback with Penny and Rufus is one of the all time greatest moments in Disney animation, not to mention Frank's work on Bernard, Milt's Medusa...Rescuers Down Under has far greater production values and a larger budget, but the actual character animation in The Rescuers trumps almost everything in RDU other than Keane's work on the Eagle.

I agree with you on character animation, but other than that, you're dead wrong. The sequel has much better animation than the original, although it feels cold and lifeless, but it looks good. The original was a much better film.

[Cordy_Biddle]

I saw "Rescuers Down Under" when it was originally released to theaters in the double-bill with "Prince and the Pauper", and later owned it on video; but have never felt the urge to own the DVD or even see the film in what is probably close to sixteen years. The original RESCUERS is much, much more entertaining a story to me. The only cool thing about the sequel was the reuniting of Eva Gabor and Bob Newhart.

[Siren]

Some continuity problems and other issues with The Sword in the Stone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1gtszkTAmo

Some of the quotes at the end of a few scenes fit so perfect..."Somethings fishy around here"

[Flanger-Hanger]

I'd lean more towards blaming it on budgetary concerns rather than laziness.

I agree with this and also will mention that time is a major factor in quality. The Great Mouse Detective may look sloppy at times but the movie was only in production for a year with a $12 million budget. Although there was still time to do some great work with Ratagin's body language and Basil's facial expressions for example, not to mention the experimental work with computer animation.

On topic, everything from Little Mermaid through Hunchback (with oddly the exception of Pocahontas) has some obviously rushed/sloppy scenes in it. More so in Mermaid than Hunchback for example but the clear effort to rush these movies out every year is evident in these films. From Hercules onward however, the staff seemed to have gotten more used to the time frame to work in and produced much more consistent work.

The Rescuers has some great work in it and I would never think of any scene that could be questionable in terms of quality. But I'm sure there's a negative stigma around Xeroxed work and it's scruffy look automatically deemed inferior to computer or hand inking, regardless of how a character may move.

[BelleGirl]

I'd lean more towards blaming it on budgetary concerns rather than laziness.

On topic, everything from Little Mermaid through Hunchback (with oddly the exception of Pocahontas) has some obviously rushed/sloppy scenes in it. More so in Mermaid than Hunchback for example but the clear effort to rush these movies out every year is evident in these films. From Hercules onward however, the staff seemed to have gotten more used to the time frame to work in and produced much more consistent work.

Was 'rushing out' a movie every year really the cause of the sloppy/rushed scenes? I 've heard that different teams of animators worked on every film and that each film took some 2 or 3 (if not more)years to complete. So even if the movies followed eachother quickly, this didn't necessary mean the animators realy had too litte time to make the movies and hence had to rush several scenes. Compare this to the 40's: Pinocchio and Fantasia came out in the same year and neither of these movies appear rushed to me. (of course you will be able to spot some obvious mistakes if you look close).

[Rudy Matt]

Yeah, they were too afraid of actually doing a pole dance, although that's what she's doing.

They're not anymore. Just ask Miley Cyrus.

No it isn't. You're the first person I've ever heard state the animation in The Rescuers was sub-standard.

Then you must not have read Michael Barrier's book 'Hollywood Cartoons' or the countless of articles and forumposts I've read about the film.

The production values in the film are clearly below films from the 40's and 50's, and Don Bluth's pointless scene at the Zoo is a wase of time, but man, there is AMAZING character animation in The Rescuers...the flashback with Penny and Rufus is one of the all time greatest moments in Disney animation, not to mention Frank's work on Bernard, Milt's Medusa...Rescuers Down Under has far greater production values and a larger budget, but the actual character animation in The Rescuers trumps almost everything in RDU other than Keane's work on the Eagle.

I agree with you on character animation, but other than that, you're dead wrong. The sequel has much better animation than the original, although it feels cold and lifeless, but it looks good. The original was a much better film.

Okay - so you agree with me that the character animation in The Resucers is superior to Rescuers Down Under, but other than that, I'm dead wrong? What else is left? Only thing left is FX animation. You know, both films have phenomenal water f/x, and I might have to give the nod to the original for those water wave f/x during the scene where Nero and Brutus swim bu Bernard, Evinrude, and Bianca, not to mention the great underground pirate grotto f/x. But RDU has spectacular water animation, also.

The Rescuers Down Under is superior to The Rescuers in one aspect...ambition. There are spectacular - F-U-Look-What-We-Can-Do-shots in RDU that bring to mind the great staging in the old Walt films. True, this was due to the realization of CGI animation heavily employed in the film (Pixar is a consultant on the film - check out the closing credits) but I don't rank a technique higher than a result. Keane's Marahute is one of the greatest achievements in American animation. But Ollie Johnston's work on Penny, Frank's work on Bernard, and Milt's work on Medusa trump all the work on Cody and Bianca and Bernard in the sequel. Easily.