My dad and are at disagreement again.
I was happy for the release of The Princess and the Frog because this is back to what the Disney company’s all about, right?
My dad thinks otherwise. Who cares, he says. 2-D animation has run its course. CGI is TODAY. Yes, animation was great for its time, but that time is long gone.
Unfortunately, I didn’t really have an argument for that. Maybe someone could help me think of a decent argument?
A lot of people have this view and a lot of the time there is little you can do to change their minds. All I would say is the film suits the medium it is in. If all animations were CGI it would be very dull. It is very naieve to say traditional animation has run its course, this film looks fantastic, it certainly doesn’t look out dated at all.
Personally I think it is great Disney is making a return to traditional animations. The hard work and dedication it takes to make one of these films is admirable, and it should be celebrated
EDIT: (looking back at this, I know I’m saying soooo much, but please read…I think I was making a good point underneath all that ranting).
Hm, I know how you feel. I was so mad at the showings of Playhouse Disney’s Mickey Mouse Clubhouse because of these reasons:
(1), It’s reserving Mickey Mouse, the icon of the very start of all Disney, the very unforgettable creation of Walt Disney that led to so many achievements, the drive of the children everywhere, for very LITTLE kids only. 
Which is like Disney itself is stating Mickey Mouse is for the preschoolers. Before putting this show on, they took down the Mickey Mouse show that more people enjoyed- House of Mouse. They removed the show where Mickey’s himself and everyone’s invited to dine and watch with their favorite classic characters, and put in a little corny kid’s show. (no offense to the preschoolers out there).
(2) Not only was the very first Disney character of all time changed to look CG, but they made him and his friends A LOT DUMBER. Mickey Mouse was NEVER that dumb. It was an insult to these characters, sersiously. Now, I wouldn’t mind if they kept this on so little kids could enjoy it as well, but the fact that they took down a show where Mickey’s the Mickey we know and still kept this on, that’s what angers me.
(sorry, I’m rambling/ranting…I just wanna let this out before I make my point).
(3) My dad called this “the improved Mickey Mouse”. He’s like “Mickey looks better this way”. I was like, “Uh, no.” These characters had a certain charm to them that CGI only strips down. CGI looks better on some characters than others. Granted, Mickey Mouse going from black-and-white to colored was also a step foward to improving him, but at least that didn’t change his classic lovable character. You know what I mean?
sigh ok, my rant’s over. Anyway, it’s hard to change these people’s minds. I was actually shocked that there were people who aren’t fond of animation like this, but it’s true. I think the number of people who embrace 2-D animation outnumbers the people who scowl at it, which is good. But the fact is, life is not a majority rules vote. Some people’s personal opinions will never change for sure, but it doesn’t hurt to lay out why you disagree.
Actually, when I was little, I remember learning how long it took to make the average 2-D animated movie and how long it took to make the average CGI movie. At that time, I didn’t see much of a difference, as it was the story that took me away, not much the animation. (Yes, I took it for granted). At the time, I generally thought CGI was better as it took less time to get done and still looked good and told the story without altering it.
Some part of that is true. There are times when it doesn’t matter what made the movie, just how well the movie’s storyline itself was pulled off. But I don’t really understand how people can doubt there’s a difference between CGI animation and hand-drawn.
I’m not sure how to explain it (so sorry if I can’t really give you good arguments), but there is a beautiful, certain level of charm to hand-drawn animation that CGI cannot grasp no matter what. For some strange but true reason, sometimes hand-drawn 2-D animation feels EVEN MORE REAL to us and more believable than CGI! I’m not sure why, but it’s a thing all true Classic Disney lovers understand. 2-D animation should be saved because it brings us back to that unexplainable adventurous feeling.
Most of my family believes that it isn’t necessary to go through the harder level if you can do the exact same thing an easier way- by that I don’t mean cheating, I mean when it comes to movie making (my dad thinks CGI looks more real all the time and is enough, my mom thinks stop-motion animation is too much work if you can do the same story with drawing it out and animating it).
I for one think it’s nice to have a balance in types of movies, you know? If all Disney went CGI, we may lose what Walt himself invented and should be remembered for, therefore losing the purpose of Disney in the first place. If all Disney went live-action (though Disney Channel is barely enough to be called live “action”), Disney is truly down the drain. If Disney went all 2-D, true, that’s preserving the true heart of Disney but it may take a long time for each film, not to mention it’s neglecting the inventions to make animation easier and more efficient. Even back in the old days Disney had some live-action classics, most of them severely underrated by now.
As said in Meet the Robinsons (which is CGI but actually considered a Classic too by some), we should keep moving foward, true. That’s what Walt Disney himself said. CGI was a good acheivement, too, and we should keep using that, too. However, “keep moving foward” doesn’t mean leave all the achievements of the past behind, you know?
It’s like with friends. There’s this poem I heard:
"Make new friends but keep the old
One is silver, the other is gold.
The same can be said with modern technology, life, and Disney especially.
Make new achievements, but remember the old
One is silver, another is gold
It’s good to move foward, but don’t give up all the past
For it’s what brought you this far, it’s what made you last
Long enough to make the new ones to add
There are things about the old that the new never had
The old shan’t be replaced nor the new thrown away
There must be a harmony for everything to stay
Wow, I can’t believe I just wrote that… 
Anyway, you get my point. Disney really ought to be balanced. Disney Classics will never be replaced by Pixar or anything else of newer Disney, nor should the modern inventions and success of the newest be thrown away for the sake of the older ones. Right now, Disney had been way out of balance (but I’m not blaming Pixar for this). Disney Channel seriously corrupted the minds of children today to think there’s nothing else to their life than the little teenage angst troubles and the drama of getting the right date and yada yada yada. Not that I hate all of Disney Channel, I just hate the way you see no cartoons there at all except Phineas and Ferb, and they show non-Disney movies more than their own acheivements they should take pride in.
And don’t get me started on Disney XD. I hate Disney XD because when Disney Channel threw out their cartoons, they were still preserved on Toon Disney. But nooo…Disney thought it would be better to put Disney XD on instead of Toon Disney. And what does Disney XD have? Pretty much the same as Disney Channel except there are more boy characters, and while there are cartoons, the cartoons were just BOUGHT from other channels. That’s not Disney at all yet they have the nerve to label it Disney. Let’s face it, Disney was no longer a sacred thing…it was smacked on a title to near anything.
(ahhh sorry I’m rambling again).
So, with Disney being so lost and scattered now, and almost only Pixar being the high point of Disney, many fans began to rage and cry out that Walt would be turning in his grave. Which I agree with.
A few shows of teens on Disney is fine. It’s when it takes over every inch of Disney that I begin to hate it.
That’s what Disney desperately needed.
Balance.
See, we needed more traditional animation, the beginning of Disney, to remind Disney “Hey, let’s not forget the start of it all.” The real teens side was overloaded now, so we needed more traditional animation otherwise Disney would fall into a Tragic Kingdom rather than a Magic Kingdom.
Now, I know you orignally meant CGI vs. hand-drawn, and here I am dipping into live-action talk as well. But it all contributes to this point so please bear with me.
Now, Disney had been doing animated films, too, in hope of keeping this balance. CGI films and 2-D sequels. They didn’t exactly fail. They just weren’t enough. The CGI still did good jobs, had great stories, and all the stuff Disney should have. It’s just that they each didn’t carry exactly enough charm, enough magic somehow.
And sequels- now I know they meant well but most the time the sequels were just same-old concept just toned down and play-it-safe version. They were just chewing on the old stuff. Not daring enough. Not dark, emotional, or sacrificial enough. Too happy-go-lucky sometimes. (Not that sequels were all that bad- I liked some. They just couldn’t live up to the original standard.) So through watching the sequels, some people were misguided into thinking that’s all there was to it. (It’s like Ratatouille, you know. The big guy, top dog, head chief, the awesome boss, dies, and the rest try to do the same as he did. That’s the problem. The original was famous for experimenting. They try to do the same (but don’t get it) by doing the same “experiments”. So they’re no longer experiments. No longer special. You see?) They forgot how to do something new, something fresh, as Walt was famous for doing. By now, traditional animation for a completely new story would be more refreshing than anything.
Now Pixar did an excellent job with bittersweetness in just-right amounts and awesome storytelling. It’s just that Disney can’t depend on Pixar to do all this for them. Pixar can only make so many films at a time. Disney itself needed to step it up.
So the balance was still overwhelmed by teen-only Disney. So Disney was still dominated by the live action side, no matter the amount of animation combined, and was still in danger.
That’s where tradtional animation comes in. It was desperately needed to keep this balance, this side of Disney alive.
That’s what Disney should have more of nowadays. After years of confusion and slacking off and searching for band-aid solutions, they finally went back to it. First through Enchanted, to honor the past Disney and get the hang of animating like before again, and now the amazing, heart-racing, much-anticipated with you-know-what to carry it on.
So by creating The Princess and the Frog, it truly shows that they are taking A Step in the Right Direction (title of deleted song in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, I felt it was perfect to describe this) and will slowly regain this part of the Disney kingdom, a part where everyone can be enchanted again, where everyone can be inspired.
Disney took long enough to realize that. 'Cause let’s face it, all-teen Disney made kids “grow up” faster when Disney should be about the opposite, keeping the child in you strong as you mature.
(The problem is, Disney Channel has yet to do their part to maintain this balance. Don’t kick shows out, just bring back the old ones too. And movies, too. Seriously, “keep moving foward” does NOT mean bury all your past treasures. It means take those, honor those, and use them to do more in the future. Reference to Rafiki’s wisdom in TLK.)
For example, one thing Disney has done to do the true meaning of “keep moving foward” was adding bits of CGI into their classics to make them appear more amazingly real without tearing it away from its magic. Good examples of that would be the Hydra in Hercules. the chandelier in Beauty and the Beast, lots of The Little Mermaid, and Treasure Planet. Are you with me?
So…yeah, I know I typed sooo much and most of it was ranting, but hopefully you see my ultimate point here. I’m sorry for the rants (you’ll see that a lot though when it comes to Disney), but at least the rants were all in support.
I agree with you. I do not believe that traditional 2D animation has become outdated or defunct with the event of computer animation.
I think of it in this way…just because photography has been invented, does that mean that oil painting is now outdated? Of course not. They are simply two different media.
Same goes for CGI and hand-drawn animation. Both have their charms, so I wouldn’t say that one is necessarily superior to the other.
Wow! bright dot-dasher, that was an awesome post…you ridiculous ranter. JUST KIDDING. 
Impressive post BDD!
Because it has flaws so to speak. CGI by nature is very pristine. The computer is made to create perfect things. The world isn’t perfect. It is full of asymmetrical, tarnished things. If artists don’t go out of their way to ‘dirty things up’, CGI will end up looking fake. That is why 2D can look more real. It has texture and personality right out of the box.
1986: For me it is all about story. If you don’t have a good story, no matter the medium, it’s not going to be appealing to the masses. The last few 2D animated films before TPatF weren’t that great. People saw that the CGI films were successful so they assumed that is where the future of animation lies. Hence 2D animation is “dead”. 2D animation is alive and strong - The Princess and the Frog reminded us of that. I know we can all think of at least one if not more CGI films that aren’t too great. Story is king. Animation, 2D or CGI, is just the medium used to tell the story.