I liked "Over The Hedge" more than "Cars&quot

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#1

Ok under normal cirumstances I would sing the praises of

Pixar and badmouth the garbage that was Dreamworks attempts at CGI Animated films. Since Toy Story all the way to

The Incredibles it as all been about Pixar for me.

I have hated every single CG Film that came out of

Dreamworks, well Antz was ok, but from Shrek to Madagascar, they have all been utter garbage. People around me

praised Shrek, when it came out and I was like “What really Shrek?”

This does not include

their Traditionally animated films or the stopmotion films they did with Adarman. Sinbad: Legend of the 7 Seas

was great and Prince of Eygpt was also. I loved Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit, but

when it came to their CG stuff they totally missed the mark on every attempt.

So I was all for Pixar and

all against Dreamworks when it came to CGI Films. Pixar was just perfect in my eyes dishing out brilliant hit

after brilliant hit, Then The Incredibles came out and I fell in love. That film became my favorite Pixar film

and my favorite Animated film period in just one viewing.

So at this point I was in Pixar heaven. Imagine

my surprise when I went to go see Dreamworks’ latest CGI Film “Over The Hedge” and liked it… a

lot. It was clever and funny and good, not at all like anything Dreamworks came out with before, this was a huge

step up and I was shocked.A Quality CG Film from Dreamworks, will wonders never cease.

So I of course

went to go see “Cars” when it came out and yea it was great, perhaps not as good as their former films,

but still high quality Pixar, but I found myself liking “Over The Hedge” better. I tried to deny it,

but eventually I had to face the truth. I thought “Over The Hedge” was better that

“Cars”…Oh well I guess it was bound to happen. Dreamworks was bound to get lucky.

But it

looks like things are about to go back to normal now. “Flushed Away” is your typical Dreamworks CG

garbage and “Ratatouille” looks like it’s gonna be brilliant, I mean it’s being directed by Brad Bird

and that man can do no wrong, “The Iron Giant” and “The Incredibles” nuff said.

As for

Disney well “Meet The Robinsons” looks like it could be really good and it has great potential, but I

said that about “Chicken Little” and I hated it.

“Open Season” was not horrible, but

not great either. “The Wild” was a steaming pile of Cow Pie. Ugh!! I loathed it. “Ant Bully”

was ok "Monster House was great, loved it. It was different and original.

Ok thats my

rant.

Ronald C

#2

Cars isn’t my favorite Pixar film, but it was the best movie this year, followed by

Monster House, then Over The Hedge, then The Ant Bully, but that’s my opinion. I

haven’t seen Flushed Away yet, but I don’t think it will be “garbage”.

I agree with you about

The Wild, though. That was worse than Chicken Run. cringes No offense, Spaz. :wink:

Just don’t

badmouth Happy Feet and Dash won’t attack you. LOL Just kidding.

~~=oP

#3

I enjoyed Cars more than Over the Hedge, but OtH was

a funny movie, and I like it. I don’t automatically hate movies because they are(n’t) made by a particular

company. That’s very close-minded. And I enjoy Shrek, although Shrek 2’s constant references to popular culture

may mean it won’t last long, as less and less people get the references.

Cars certainly isn’t Pixar’s

best, but it shows that even when they have an “off day”, Pixar can run rings around most of the

competiton. We’ll see how it stands up to Flushed Away, where I think it will be a tough call at the Oscars.

It’s the first time Aardman and Pixar have faced off like this.

#4

I agree, I was too surprised how much I enjoyed

‘Over The Hedge’ since I was a bit hesitant in watching it as I scroll through the films (on a plane).

It’s amazing how many stars there are in the film (that I know); Bruce Willis, Avril Lavigne, William

Shatner, Steve Carell, Thomas Haden Church, Eugene Levy & my fave, Omid Djalili. Cuz normally I barely know

more than 3…

Anyway, IMO ‘Over The Hedge’ & ‘Cars’ are equally enjoyable. Both great storylines,

graphics & brilliant character voiceovers

#5

I haven’t actually seen Over The Hedge, and that’s probably because of the fact that they crammed so many

famous voices into it that it didn’t seem to be a film worth seeing, at the time. I’ll make sure to watch it

when they show it on the TV, so I can really compare the two, but I’m a firm believer that Cars is Pixar’s

worst film, by far, so I guess it’s a possibility that Over The Hedge is, in a sense, more enjoyable. It really

does depend on each individual person, though.

#6

Everybody has their own opinion. I thought Over the Hedge was boring… I just had it

with CG animal movies and there wasn’t anything special about this film.

Cars was remarkable… very

different from everything else that has been coming out of the CG world this year. I enjoyed every second of

it.

I guess I was just in the mood for something new. I’m glad Ratatouille is coming out next year so

it’ll be a while before I see another animal CG film… although, since it seems to be focused on rats, it

shouldn’t be much of a problem.

#7

Correction:

"As for Disney well “Meet The Robinsons” looks like it could be really good

and it has great potential, but I said that about “Chicken Little” and I

hated it."

I loved “Chicken Run”

#8

Dude…Chicken Run is one of my favorite movies! :stuck_out_tongue: :smiley:

I liked Cars better

than Over the Hedge. It’s not because I hate Dreamworks with a passion or anything, because I don’t, but…I

dunno, OtH just felt kinda bland to me. Maybe it’ll be better the second time

'round.

But…Aardman! I heard it was pretty good, and I’m gonna try and catch it when

I can.

I actually

thought The Wild wasn’t that bad. shrug Monster House was okay…They should have pushed it a little more and

made it PG-13, though.

#9

I thought OTH was like any other movie that has not been pixar and CG this year ,

a total load of

copycatting and / or* rubbish ! ( no i’m not from london , i just like that word ! better than trash )

I mean , every other CG film besides Monster House and Cars this year was about fluffy and / or** little

animals .

  • this and or only represents Monster House since it wasn’t copycatting , but still

rubbish

** this and/or only represents pretty much the Ant Bully

#10

o_0;; Okaaay…I seem to have made a big mistake.

I meant to type Chicken

Little, NOT Chicken Run.

That movie was great. Chicken Little was just so so.

Sorry for the mix-up!

I apologize to Chicken Run and its fans. :wink:

~~=oP

#11

Ha!! PixarVixen You and I made the same mistake. I also ment Chicken Little and not Chicken Run. I also loved

Chicken Run.

#12

How could you not love Chicken Run? Rita Skeeter and Queenie from Blackadder II* were in it!

Some say it was a warm up for Aardman before they committed to doing an 80-minute Wallace and Gromitt film, but

it’s excellent in its own right. It’s the reason we have a “Best Animated Feature Film” category at

the Oscars, because people were riled it didn’t repeat Beauty and the Beast and get nominated for best

film.

*Both Miranda Richardson

#13

okay i have to take a different angle on this…

I’m gonna be nitt picky here: Please dont confuse

me… You people talk about CG movies and movies with CG in them in different vains. CG is CG. you get CG

features and live action (or claymation) movies with special effects (done in CG). And yes Wallace and gromit

has CG special effects in it.

And cars being bad? I can kind of understand that because i saw that movie

as more targeted towards animators and not their usual market. I mean, the shear beauty behind every render,

every particle system… It was the first CG feature fully rendered with mental ray (this is where you gasp) and

i read somewhere that they crashed the ENTIRE render farm at pixar while rendering out the waterfall

scene.

In english: the water fall was made up of hundreds and thousands of little, lets say, spheres.

Each sphere is made to look like a water droplet and they are all made to fall (to create the waterfall). When

the animators told their rooms of super computers to translate each point of data into the picture that you see

in the movie the super computer said “cannot compute, too much data for my small brain”

I was

just so amazed when i saw the movie, every reflection you see is calculated by the render farm. This means that

it takes much longer to render (create the film image). usually they would create the reflections with

texturing.

mmmm, just thinking of the movie… :laughing: (cant wait til i can buy the DVD… NEXT

MONTH?!?!)

#14

Well everyone’s got their opinion. I never saw Over the

Hedge (someone asked me if i wanted to see it with him but we saw Cars instead :slight_smile: ) so I cant compare, but i

doubt i’d like it more than Cars, given my almost over the top Cars obsession :stuck_out_tongue:

#15

Holy crap, they

rendered cars with mental ray?? There’s a reason they call it mental you know XD

#16

about that meantal ray stuff: what ? i’m confuzzled (

confused ) !

#17

I figured as much…I do the same thing every now and

then too. :stuck_out_tongue:

Chicken Little was probably the worst Disney movie ever made. :open_mouth:

#18

Besides Pochahontas 2…

:wink:

[b]On the subject of the whole "Over the Hedge is

better" thing[/b]:

I suppose that it all depends on one viewer’s own personal opinion

concerning this matter. I would agree with some other people in that Cars is a much

better film in terms of story and context, but…again…that is my opinion.

[i]Over the

Hedge[/i] is a beautifully animated film, and the characters – as far as personality and design goes

– are quite endearing (at least, they are to me). However, the story, although clear, was a little "rough

around the edges", so to speak – it kind of wound around corners and went off the track every once in a

while. Other than that, I thought that it was fine. RJ kind of scares me for some reason, though. I have no idea

why that is. :stuck_out_tongue:

#19

Which only goes to show, Disney computer animation is nothing without Pixar.

#20

This is how it was explained to me…
If you imagine

the image that is being created by the computer…The image has to be created pixel by pixel (each little dot you

see on you computer screen)… With mental ray the computer starts with one pixel it looks and sees that that

spot represents a red bit on lighting mcQueen. It works out from the settings youhave made that the surface is

reflective and it traces what that exact spot is reflecting. Once it gets to that spot, if the other surface is

also reflective it will search for the next thingthat its reflecting… It doesnt go on forever, you have to

tell the computer how many times it follows the reflection… a higher number would help make shiny metal reflect

a mirror… you have to set number for things like reflection and shadows and stuff…

The way they

made reflections in Buzz’s helmet in toy story (i have been told by my ancient lecturer) is they rendered (made

a picture) of what would be reflected in his helmet and put that into one of the layers in the texture for his

helmet… this way it was much faster because the computers weren’t working out the reflections, they were just

creating images of the texture (that happen to be what the reflection would be, thus making our brain think that

it IS a reflection).

And this is why mental ray is impressive…well to me anyway… It’s because it

takes a hell of a lot longer.