The Secret Life of Pets - Toy Story with Animals, No Ambition
- Thread starter Marter
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Let's not forget Cats and Dogs where the animals also change to human behaviour when the owners aren't around. That's two much better films this is reminding us of already.
On a less related note, Louis C.K. always sounds like an expensive perfume to me.
On a less related note, Louis C.K. always sounds like an expensive perfume to me.
- Mar 31, 2010
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I'm starting to feel talking animals are overdone at the moment in animation. Yeah, I know it's been a trope of children's literature since forever and there are plenty of good ones out there, but all the same, just watching a bunch of film trailers at the cinema recently felt insanely repetitive. Maybe animals are easier to depict attractively in 3D than humans. Though it's not just the animals, also the general 'cartoony feel'. Whatever happened to the darker children's entertainment, like Watership Down?
I saw great potentinal in the first trailer, then the second trailer came along and the Toy Story parallels couldn't be any more blatant. I have faith in Illumination entertainment, the first Despicable ME showed that even without an original soundtrack or a ground-breaking story that didn't mean something enjoyable couldn't be done.
Their next movie is Sing, a movie about an animal society with different animals going through a singing competition, again, a little clich?, but the trailers showed promise.
Their next movie is Sing, a movie about an animal society with different animals going through a singing competition, again, a little clich?, but the trailers showed promise.
Okay, haven't seen the film, so maybe everything Mater says is on the money. That said, I have to ask...
-Does Toy Story really have a monopoly over this concept? Pets acting differently when their owners aren't around and possessing a pseudo-society of their own? Gee, that goes at least as far back as Cats vs. Dogs. Brothers get separated (said brothers having animosity) forcing the supporting cast to find them? The first Rugrats movie. Pets flushed down the sewer, recruiting other animals to join them? Billy the Cat did an episode based on that premise (just replace "humans" with "dogs" - long story). True, you can draw parallels to Toy Story as well, but I don't think it has a monopoly over any of these concepts. Maybe the execution is the key determinant here, but from what I've seen, saying that this ripped off Toy Story feels like saying Inside Out ripped off The Numbskulls.
-Looking at their record, Illumination has an average record for original works, depending on how you define "original." Despicable Me (an original) spawned two sequels (soon to be three). Hop is an original, and The Lorax is an adaptation, plus we have Secret Life and Sing. I can project further into the future, but either way, that's four originals, three sequels, and one "other" (Lorax, depending on how you define it). That's pretty much par for the course. Blue Sky has Ice Age, Sony has Open Season, DreamWorks has multiple franchises interspaced throughout originals, and then you have studios that base their output entirely on franchises (e.g. Crest Animation). Point is, based on the line "I guess I understand why Illumination is riding the Minions train this hard; coming up with new ideas is hard. It's easier to stick with something you know, which in the studio's case is either yellow gibberish-talking annoyances or ripping off Pixar," makes me raise an eyebrow. The original-ratio record seems to be pretty decent for Illumination. Begs the question, does the franchising of a series equate to lack of originality within a studio? Considering that Pixar arguably has two franchises (Toy Story and Cars, based on amount of output), yet still does lots of original IPs, I'm not sure if that's necessarily the case. The idea of a "bread and butter" franchise allowing you to take risks is something I can understand.
Yeah, probably just rambling, but hey, go figure. I guess if I had to admit it it's because that when it comes to discussing animation studios, Disney, DreamWorks, Pixar, and Studio Ghibli are the only ones I see mentioned with any regularity, and DreamWorks seems to be known more for good franchises (Panda, Dragon, Shrek, etc.) then their work as an actual studio. Variety is the spice of life and all that.
On the flipside, kind of looking forward to Storks, even if it seems to be "50% fun, 50% stupid" judging by trailers.
-Does Toy Story really have a monopoly over this concept? Pets acting differently when their owners aren't around and possessing a pseudo-society of their own? Gee, that goes at least as far back as Cats vs. Dogs. Brothers get separated (said brothers having animosity) forcing the supporting cast to find them? The first Rugrats movie. Pets flushed down the sewer, recruiting other animals to join them? Billy the Cat did an episode based on that premise (just replace "humans" with "dogs" - long story). True, you can draw parallels to Toy Story as well, but I don't think it has a monopoly over any of these concepts. Maybe the execution is the key determinant here, but from what I've seen, saying that this ripped off Toy Story feels like saying Inside Out ripped off The Numbskulls.
-Looking at their record, Illumination has an average record for original works, depending on how you define "original." Despicable Me (an original) spawned two sequels (soon to be three). Hop is an original, and The Lorax is an adaptation, plus we have Secret Life and Sing. I can project further into the future, but either way, that's four originals, three sequels, and one "other" (Lorax, depending on how you define it). That's pretty much par for the course. Blue Sky has Ice Age, Sony has Open Season, DreamWorks has multiple franchises interspaced throughout originals, and then you have studios that base their output entirely on franchises (e.g. Crest Animation). Point is, based on the line "I guess I understand why Illumination is riding the Minions train this hard; coming up with new ideas is hard. It's easier to stick with something you know, which in the studio's case is either yellow gibberish-talking annoyances or ripping off Pixar," makes me raise an eyebrow. The original-ratio record seems to be pretty decent for Illumination. Begs the question, does the franchising of a series equate to lack of originality within a studio? Considering that Pixar arguably has two franchises (Toy Story and Cars, based on amount of output), yet still does lots of original IPs, I'm not sure if that's necessarily the case. The idea of a "bread and butter" franchise allowing you to take risks is something I can understand.
Yeah, probably just rambling, but hey, go figure. I guess if I had to admit it it's because that when it comes to discussing animation studios, Disney, DreamWorks, Pixar, and Studio Ghibli are the only ones I see mentioned with any regularity, and DreamWorks seems to be known more for good franchises (Panda, Dragon, Shrek, etc.) then their work as an actual studio. Variety is the spice of life and all that.
I'm very wary about Sing. I'm left to ask what animals actually add to its plot that humans wouldn't, since it's based on a singing competition, and features the usual tropes one could expect (closet singer with the gorilla, the cocky guy with the mouse, the introvert with the elephant, the trod-down housewife with the pig, etc.). Granted, cliches aren't inherent negatives, and I will say that there is a bit of earnestness with what I've seen in the trailers, but when does that cross the line into emotional manipulation?Igor-Rowan said:
On the flipside, kind of looking forward to Storks, even if it seems to be "50% fun, 50% stupid" judging by trailers.
If we're gonna be real honest, Planes, Trains and Automobiles did it first the "a duo of opposites must work together to reach their destination". The thing about the Toy Story paralels is kind of the same thing with Hydlide and The Legend of Zelda, one did it first, other did it right and anybody who tried to do anything in those lines would be instantly compared to Zelda. However it's not so much who did it first, it's what it could have done new, showing a lot of missed oportunities for the movie, heck, I've seen one reviewer who thought this was gonna be his movie because he has multiple pets who had to learn to live with each other, making the movie an even bigger disappointment.Hawki said:
I loved Sing's premise because it remembered me from an underrated animated movie Cats Don't Dance, where a lot of misfits animals had a dream to perform, but had one common obstacle: somebody who actively didn't want them to succeed. Sing appears to have no bad guy, just people whose lives would greatly improve by winning the competition. But the fact they're animals made people already think of Zootopia just because they're animals, but I am hopeful for this one.
My mom told me she wants to see this movie when its convenient to her specifically... I told her it reminded me of Toy Story... I guess we were coincidentally on to something here...
Other than that, now that I think about it, is there a movie where both animals and appliances communicate with one another when no one's looking/noticing?
Other than that, now that I think about it, is there a movie where both animals and appliances communicate with one another when no one's looking/noticing?
How can I forget that movie when it was part of my Bible Study curriculum?Xsjadoblayde said:
Oh good, it's cliche. I was gonna skip it anyway, doubly so now that I know there's a goddamn Minion short before it - I really loved Despicable Me but... because of Gru. And the other characters. I hate those fucking Minions.
[[ Also the Lorax is my favourite Dr. Seuss story and they completely butchered that so yeah, get bent, Illumination. ]]
[[ Also the Lorax is my favourite Dr. Seuss story and they completely butchered that so yeah, get bent, Illumination. ]]
Ugh I just watched that trailer and it looked awful you can just hear how much Lewis CK is just phoning it in
Movie has Ringworm and System of a Down and ends with an Andrew WK song.
Good soundtrack for a fairly enjoyable film.
Good soundtrack for a fairly enjoyable film.
I honestly don't think the Minions really deserve all the vitriol they get. If anything, I'd pass most of it on to the Rabbids.
Watership Down... children's entertainment.JoJo said:
Watership Down is very much children's entertainment. It's repeated mid-morning a lot in the UK a very English children's film.leet_x1337 said:
- Apr 1, 2009
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Probably the pg-13 rating. We used to only have R and PG, Jaws was rated PG. The PG rating was intended to mean that parents were supposed to come with their kids to provide context or decide if a movie was appropriate for them, but instead parents just tended to view it as "its PG its fine for kids."JoJo said: