dvdjunkie wrote:Okay, after reading this thread from the very beginning, and including my posting, I don't understand how anyone can be moved to tears in a 'cartoon' movie. Doesn't anyone here watch "real" movies.
Animated films are great, but they can't show true human emotion, and I will grant you that I get a lump in my throat when Mufasa dies, and in "Dumbo", and "Oliver and Company", but these are animated films and we should be judging 'real' movies on their merits of emotion, shouldn't we.
Maybe I am way off base, or just because I am the oldest Disney freak here, that fact has passed me by. I love all Disney movies, but I would never cry in an animated one, sorry.
Wow... Color me stunned.
First off, animated movies ARE real movies. They tell stories, develop characters and even feature techniques commonly used in live action films. They take a lot of hard work, dedication and love to complete so to me animated movies are real movies.
Second, for someone who claims to be a Disney fan I am stunned that you would say that animated movies aren't real enough to create emotions in the movie, especially when Disney himself worked really, really hard to convey emotion in animated films. And he was extremely successful for it. People actually cried and sobbed during Snow White's funeral at the premiere, so they did a good job of getting an emotion out of the audience even though they were just really watching animated drawings.
Finally, you say that since animated movies aren't real. Well, live action movies can be considered fake too. Yes, it has living, breathing people. But the emotions they portray are fake. They are told to act sad, happy, surprised, angry and sarcastic. They rehearse when they are dying or when they are in love. Someone told the actors to act that way so the story is better.
Let's go even further, shall we?
E.T. is just a rubber puppet. The shark in Jaws is just an animatronic. The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were animatronics and CG characters. Most of the time the actors are talking to dead air in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The lady's blood in the show scene in Psycho is really just red powder. Most of the sound effects in the Star Wars movies came from trash and other stuff. Hell, the Na'vis in Avatars were just motion capture actors in black suits with white dots on them.
See what I mean? By your logic, these movies shouldn't move people because everything is fake, acted out, rehearsed and planned. Movies are fake, therefore no emotion should be created in the viewer.
But still, we defy that logic because at the heart of all these movies is the story. We humans have a great skill: imagination. Its imagination that makes us enjoy wonderful stories, whether they are read to us or being watched in a giant screen, told via sock puppets or on a grand and prestigious stage. Its our imaginations that allow us to forget the fact that we are watching is often fake and lead us to believe that its real. Most importantly, we connect to the characters emotionally.
THAT'S why people feel sad for Dumbo when he visits his mother, THAT'S why we shed a tear when Simba realizes his father is dead, THAT'S why we jump for joy when the shoe fits Cinderella, THAT'S why we are thrilled when we see the forest sprite come back to life and revive nature after a devastating volcano eruption, and THAT'S why we feel sympathetic towards Carl Fredicksen when he is declared a public menace, even though all he ever wanted was to live life at peace.
Again, all we are watching are hand drawn characters painted in either ink or via a digital inking program or characters created in a character. But our imaginations allow us to look past that and see the characters as extensions of our own hearts and souls, effectively creating emotions and pathos towards the characters. And the greater the story, the stronger that connection becomes.
To end this... "Does anyone here watch real movies?" What? Did you actually insult the intellect of the posters here because they confessed that they cried or felt sad watching an animated movie? First of all, if you actually bothered to check the other forums we DO watch "real" movies, enough to create long and never ending debates about screen rations, plot holes, lazy acting and the like. Second, just because you don't feel any emotions when watching animated movies it doesn't give you the right to insult anyone else that does. Finally, as of late, animated movies have proven to be better than most "real" movies nowadays.
I'm surprised at you, dvdjunkie. You proclaim yourself to be the eldest poster in this forums, yet you sometimes post some degrading, insulting and just plain bigot comments in this forum. There's more to being an elder than just a number. It takes a lifetime of knowledge and experiences, and it surprises me that with your experience you act in a childish manner just because we don't share the same views as you.
That's only everything Walt Disney ever strived for. And he has succeed in doing so. People -adults, famous actors- were crying at the premiere of Snow White, when the Dwarfs mourn her. If you really feel this way, I'm surprised you're a Disney-fan.