I agree, good post, dd. I haven’t seen every 2011 animated film yet, but I think my favorite might actually be a tie between Rango and KFP2, now that I think about it. What you say about the emotional aspect of Rango not being very strong, I agree with that, because the emotions of the film was never something I appreciated. I mean, I’m not usually a style over substance type of gal at all, but that’s kind of why I liked Rango; it was a breath of fresh air amongst the standard animated films. And the storytelling was pretty entertaining at that, so I guess I wouldn’t call my admiration for it shallow.
KFP2 is probably the film that I will end up watching most over the years. It actually touched me, so that’s pretty admirable. There were a few moments in the film that had me in a state of wide-eyed wonder, as if I was a small child again. I honestly wouldn’t change much about the film if I could, and that’s saying a lot! Maybe just the design of the clairvoyant goat woman; she looked ridiculous to me. I guess when I compare KFP2 to Rango, I see a finely executed film with some familiar elements but occasional moments of brilliance, and then I see another film that’s an unusual, quirky homage to western cinema and with little meaningless fluff. I don’t know if I can say which one is better.
definedancing: Excellent overview of the year, thanks for posting it! As you seem to be the only other person here who saw Mars Needs Moms!..what did you find so baaaad about it? It channeled the 50’s sci-fi classic Invaders From Mars in an effective and interesting way and had more than enough of a heart (story, character) to make its non-success rather a head-scratcher. Blame it on the marketing or the mo-cap? As a purely CG-animated film, it may well have been more successful.
The animation was clearly a step up from the original, not surprising due to the conditions under which each film was made. Also, after the first movie’s profitable run, the sequel’s release was delayed and lowballed following internal conflict and litigation, hence, perhaps, lag time beyond audiences’ memory span. Even so…no one missed much by avoiding it.
I had major issues with it. I actually think the major problem was with the awful writing rather than the mocap. Seriously, the dialogue was cringeworthy in places. I understand that you can have good films with bad scripts, but a weak script brought down all of the acting performances and sadly, it sucked out pretty much every emotional aspect and attachment I may have had with the characters. The scene [spoil]near the end where his mother gives up her oxygen for her son[/spoil] was just…corny. Sorry, it’s just how it came across to me.
What I saw in Mars Needs Moms was a lot of potential. It had a decent concept, good characters that could’ve been a lot stronger and well developed, and I suppose that classic sci-fi feel you saw in it too. But it all fell to pieces of sorts somewhere down the line, so who shall we blame it on? I’d say the mocap over the marketing; this film was catastrophic for the medium. I know a lot of people on here are harsh about mocap, but I think it’s a way of making a film that is in it’s infancy. It has been used to good effect-arguably A Christmas Carol and definitely Tintin-but it gets an awful lot of stick. And it’s sad. Marketing was an issue too; you’d have never known it was coming out over here-although maybe it got pulled from a lot of UK cinemas, which happens quite a bit if a film does badly in America.
Successful if it was a traditional CGI film? I don’t think so. I think it sits alongside The Wild as a rather mediocre film in a catalogue that won’t be remembered by many. Just my two cents.
definedancing: The elaboration is fantastic and much appreciated! It’s always good to see in-depth commentary here.
Can’t disagree with you too much about the writing on MNM!, although I saw it more as a nightmarish deadline scenario in which emotions/plot (or character/story) were self-evident and didn’t require a lot of exposition. That’s especially true of your hidden-spoiler point–yeah, it’s corny, but the behavior is almost universally understood (and would be duplicated) by people of the particular demographic. Maybe MNM! is best appreciated by parents who can remember how it felt to be kids, and that’s not exactly a wide (or ideal) demographic for ticket sales. Also, it seemed that there was sufficient negative word of mouth in advance that poor box-office figures were largely predecided. As for the mo-cap and animation, I thought the Martians came off much better than the humans, and Gribble was OK. Ki was a treat in all aspects. More to come on mo-cap in another topic…
It would be great to learn how much of the production was consciously informed by Invaders From Mars (1953). The similarities are numerous and striking, but maybe such comments belong on the Mars Needs Moms! topic.
Agreed, at the end of the day, Mars Needs Moms! was certainly not as good as it could have been, much like other 2011 movies in the animation realm. It seems like all of them (that I saw) lacked that extra oomph to push them into the zone of Undeniable Quality for which Pixar is famous. It ain’t a crime, but it does make a body wonder what was in the water coolers.
No, IV, you’re not the crazy one…that would be I, who often look too deeply into the forest, miss the trees, and go straight for the Martians…I mean the mushrooms.
I should check out Mars Needs Moms to see what the jabber about the story is. It should add another film to my list, so why not? I expect it to be lower then Gnomeo and Juliet.
Ballboi, it was tough to pick a better (or least worse) between those two, which were close. Speaking of updating the list–after yesterday’s viewing of Tintin…
Arthur Christmas (very nice but not tremendous)
Winnie the Pooh (short and sweet, but how much hunny can one eat?)
Rio (fun but light as a feather)
Rango (excellent for two acts, diminished by the third)
The Adventures of Tintin* (a fun and cool ride, somewhat hampered by technical details)
Gnomeo and Juliet (fun, with a weak ending)
Mars Needs Moms* (better than its reputation)
Hoodwinked Too! (not awful, but easily the bottom of the 2011 barrel)
[ * = motion capture…I don’t consider it animation, but others might]
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