DVDizzy Forum

I'm frightened...

Its not even being made by pixar guys, not even their Canadian studio as speculated (what the heck are they up to anyway, have they been doing nothing all this time?).

This is the cars equivalent of the Buzz Lightyear series basically. it'll probably be a hit with kids, but pixar and/or disney fans shouldn't feel obligated to watch it. Like it or hate it, its not going to matter much in the long run other than give them more money to produce more original stuff.

Well at least it gives me more shit to review.

Kyle wrote:Its not even being made by pixar guys, not even their Canadian studio as speculated (what the heck are they up to anyway, have they been doing nothing all this time?).

What are you talking about? It was known from the beginning, that Planes is the follow-up project of the Toon Studios, after the Tinkerbell series is done.

Before long, it'll be followed by yet another franchise: Trains.

Then we'll have ourselves Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

Scamander wrote:What are you talking about? It was known from the beginning, that Planes is the follow-up project of the Toon Studios, after the Tinkerbell series is done.

I thought that was just a rumor, not officially confirmed.

Semaj wrote:Before long, it'll be followed by yet another franchise: Trains.

Which makes me wonder how they're going to pull it off, without getting comparisons of Thomas the Tank Engine. They pretty much owned the "talking transportation with faces of them" market, before Cars came along.

Which makes me wonder, what is it about slapping faces on vehicles or modes of transportation that children seem to fall head-over-heels? Then again, even I fell under the spell of Thomas when I was young. Come on, who honestly didn't love those Thomas train sets that were always set up in the toy stores?

milojthatch wrote:Um, I know Pixar has been perfect so far, but I really worry that that may end this decade. They suddenly got sequel happy and now this?! I trust Pixar, but right now it's turning into an uneasy trust. DTV films have never been THAT good. A few have been ok, fun to watch, but never "Beauty and the Beat," "Lion King," Toy Story," or "Up" good.

I worry.

They always wanted to do sequels. Their worlds at least imply sucfh possibilities, so why should it be a bad thing?

Anyway, Pixar's not involved in this, so why worry? It's DisneyToon

Yeah I don't get the hate. It's a DisneyToon production. And as long as they're making these original series of DTV's I'm fine. They're not insulting Disney's classics and Pixar is in no way involved.

I do hope the visual style more resembles Susie and Pedro instead of Pixar, since this is Disney after all. Also, a bit more cartoony than Cars would be nice.

Comedian Brad Garrett will be bringing his distinctive voice to the Cars spin-off Planes, arriving direct-to-video in Spring 2013. He tells the Sacramento Bee: "My next is another Pixar movie called Planes, in the line of Cars. I told them their next movie should be Luggage". Garrett is technically wrong in calling Planes a Pixar film. While it is an extension of Pixar's franchise, Planes is being made at DisneyToon Studios and will evidently not be branded as "Disney/Pixar".

Source: http://pixarblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/b ... lanes.html


You know what? Although I do not care for the film, I really hope it becomes immensely successful. In that way, DisneyToon Studios can keep making more of them or other Pixar spin-offs and forever leave WDAS characters and properties to rest in peace.

Hayao Miyazaki would want to see this film. He adores things to do with flight.

He finds refreshing that the movie is simply made to sell merchandise? It's that the norm? Wouldn't the "refreshing" thing be making art for art's sake for once? Perhaps he found refreshing that the execs were honest about it at least; that they weren't hypocritical in making assertions of art and high filmmaking.

Steve Hulett wrote:What gets under-reported these days is that animation is one of the big drivers for merchandise revenue, and the conglomerates know it. As a Disney Toons staffer told me yesterday: "When I got hired here to work on Planes, the execs made no bones about the fact that Toons was making movies to support a line of toys. No art for art's sake around here. I find that kind of refreshing after some of the other places I've worked at..."

Source: http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... ndise.html

PatrickvD wrote:Yeah I don't get the hate. It's a DisneyToon production.

Oh ya, that should be enough to stop the concern...

Sotiris wrote:He finds refreshing that the movie is simply made to sell merchandise? It's that the norm? Wouldn't the "refreshing" thing be making art for art's sake for once?

Perhaps he found refreshing that the execs were honest about it at least; that they weren't hypocritical in making assertions of art and high filmmaking.

As an animator-to-be myself, I'd be extremely glad to take a position like that, because even though animators are considered "artists", I'm not in this for "art". I don't care if I go down as a great "artist." I just want to entertain people and make people happy. If movies are the way to do it, great - if merchandise based on movies is the way to do it, great. I think a lot of animators feel that way.

Also, the fact that they're being honest is huge. They weren't as honest with Pooh.

SWillie! wrote:As an animator-to-be myself, I'd be extremely glad to take a position like that, because even though animators are considered "artists", I'm not in this for "art". I don't care if I go down as a great "artist." I just want to entertain people and make people happy.

But in order to entertain people and be a good entertainer, don't you need to be a good artist too? Aren't these usually two co-dependent?

^In a sense, they are, but sometimes the artistic value outshines the entertainment value and vice-versa. It's a balancing act. Transformers has so much action, the audience loses interest, but if a film were to be too artsy, the audience loses track of the reality or gets bored.

SWillie! wrote:
Also, the fact that they're being honest is huge. They weren't as honest with Pooh.

What do you mean?

Sotiris wrote:

SWillie! wrote:As an animator-to-be myself, I'd be extremely glad to take a position like that, because even though animators are considered "artists", I'm not in this for "art". I don't care if I go down as a great "artist." I just want to entertain people and make people happy.

But in order to entertain people and be a good entertainer don't you need to be a good artist too? Aren't usually these two co-dependant?

Yes and no. You can make a film with sock puppets, but so long as it engages the audience, does it matter? I mean tell me that "Jackass" or video's on YouTube like it are "art?" My experience has taught me that most people get bored with "pure" art. Entertainment is in fact something different. It's keeping someone's attention for an unset amount of time. Art on the other hand is someone's expression of thoughts or feelings. See the difference? But, many times the two world do co-exist.

milojthatch wrote:What do you mean?

He probably means that although the decision to make another Pooh film was solely due to the need to reinvigorate the franchise and boost merchandise sales, (Iger personally asked Lasseter to revive Pooh), they gave the impression that the reasons were more than that (i.e. artistic, continuing the legacy of hand-drawn animation etc.).

Steve Hulett wrote:A veteran over at Walt Disney Animation Studios said to me, back when the animators were bent over their light boards creating it, that Disney corporate was behind the newer, hand-drawn Pooh feature because it anticipated big DVD and toy sales. (Gotta keep that A.A. Milne money machine humming. It's worth billions, after all.)

Source: http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... ndise.html

milojthatch wrote:Yes and no. You can make a film with sock puppets, but so long as it engages the audience, does it matter? I mean tell me that "Jackass" or video's on YouTube like it are "art?".

Yes, but that has to do with one's definition of entertainment. Personally, I wouldn't call the Jackass franchise "entertainment" but to each his own. It comes down to personal taste, I guess.

Regarding animators and other artists in the industry, I think that although they may not be involved in a finished product that could be called "art" as they have no say in the storytelling process, as long as they do the best to their abilities in relation to the time and budget provided and care to do the best work possible, I would still call that a "devotion to art".

Sotiris, you're spot on about what I said about Pooh. Although that's not to say that I have a problem with that. Quite the opposite, in fact. My issue with things is that so many fans and artists in the animation industry have this delusional idea that films should all be made in high art, and so many fail to realize that the biggest driving force in any Hollywood film, animated or not, is money.

Even back in Walt's day... he didn't make Snow White because the artist in him wanted to burst free. He made it because shorts weren't pulling in enough money to uphold the studio. Sure, he made it to the best of his ability, but he was never a "create art for art's sake" kind of guy. There's a quote from him that goes something like, "I am not concerned with making art. I make my films the way I want to make them and then let the experts tell me about them." And when merchandise based off of characters came into play, Walt was a frontrunner with all of the Mickey merchandise that started showing up.

So merchandise based on animation is nothing new, but the minute a decision is based on something from the money side of things, people get all up in arms. I think that's stupid. They start blaming "the suits" and whatnot, and while it is true that it IS the suits' decisions, so many fail to understand that making money is their job, just as making the film as entertaining as possible is the artist's job.

Basically what I'm saying is that it's nice to hear that DisneyToons was just upfront about it, saying "Listen. If you want to be an "artist", go somewhere else. We're here to make money." That's what is refreshing about this.

All in all, I think if someone wants to be an artist, they need to go make independent films so they can make all the art they want to and make all the decisions they want to. But don't apply to Disney or Pixar or Dreamworks hoping to be artistically fulfilled, and then complain when decisions are made to make money.

/rant. Sorry this was so long haha... I didn't expect it to be. We actually had a pretty in depth conversation about this at school a few weeks back, so I have all these thoughts on the tip of my tongue haha