Who's Ready for The Emoji Movie?
- Thread starter Marter
- Start date
Just... wow.
On the bright side Marter, after watching this, you'd be happy to watch whatever mediocre films are sure to follow it.
On the bright side Marter, after watching this, you'd be happy to watch whatever mediocre films are sure to follow it.
THE EMOJI MOVIE! Featuring a character who is catatonically bored and a literal pile of shit!
Give us your money and we will entertain you!
Give us your money and we will entertain you!
Who is this even marketed towards? Kids too young to have cell phones or social media accounts? Teenagers who will feel glee at being "above" it?
The only thing I can imagine is that this is a back-door effort to make people who feel the need to do all their self-expression through emojis feel bad about themselves
[sub]In which case I can't say I entirely disapprove. But still.[/sub]
The only thing I can imagine is that this is a back-door effort to make people who feel the need to do all their self-expression through emojis feel bad about themselves
[sub]In which case I can't say I entirely disapprove. But still.[/sub]
Okay, I'll be honest, I really don't get the hatred for this film.
That's not to say it looks good, mind you, but, what, is talking emojis somehow crossing some invisible line? Talking toys, talking animals, talking food, films set in videogame worlds/the Internet/cyberspace/whatever is fine, but emojis is one leap of faith too many? And thanks to YouTube links, it at least looks a bit more tolerable than Despicable Me 3.
That's not to say it looks good, mind you, but, what, is talking emojis somehow crossing some invisible line? Talking toys, talking animals, talking food, films set in videogame worlds/the Internet/cyberspace/whatever is fine, but emojis is one leap of faith too many? And thanks to YouTube links, it at least looks a bit more tolerable than Despicable Me 3.
Maybe because it's made by Sony Pictures who people wants to just die already with all the bullshit they been doing for the past years, case in point Amazing Spider-Man, Pixel(or any Adam Sandler movie) and Barbie with Amy Schumer.Hawki said:
Except this movie is being made by Sony Animation, which is a subsiduary of Sony (Pictures), not the company itself, and would have had nothing to do with those films you mentioned. Looking at said subsiduary, they seem to have done decently critically, even if some of their best work was done in conjunction with Ardman. I can only comment personally on Goosebumps (actually pretty good), but, yeah. An emoji movie sounds silly, but no more so than a lot of other ideas in animation.Antonio Torrente said:
I'm with you. I mean, Sad-Emoji of the trailer is an animated constantly depressed character, compare that with Eeyore of Winnie the Pooh or Marvin from the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy; people like those characters. Besides, Inside Out had as lead characters five characters who are literal representations of five primary emotions; that was a beloved film.Hawki said:
So as long as they tie the emoji characters with a resonant, emotional core I basically think it could work. Though this trailer leaves a lot to be desired.
To take the question seriously:Hawki said:
Talking animals have a long and rich history in literature, folklore, and fairy tales. Seeing creators try to put a new spin on an old tradition isn't inherently unwelcome.
Real toy brands do get a lot of grief for their perceived crass commercialism, something a movie like "The Lego Movie" had to overcome (and brands like Transformers, GI Joe, Bratz, and Battleship arguably failed to accomplish). Something like "Toy Story", by comparison, is about a whole lot of other themes tied into the characters being toys; loyalty, mortality, jealousy, grief.
Talking food has had two films I'm aware of; one was almost universally panned, the other used that as a springboard for jokes and an analogy for mortality and human response to it.
The Internet and electronic worlds are where so much of so many people's lives occur today that a movie taking place in same seems barely more odd than a movie taking place in, say, Sweden.
Aside from the trendiness others have mentioned and the associated resentment, emojis are almost inherently anti-depth, anti-character. They are the purveyors of shallow sentiments and facile opinions; l33t-speak, phn abbrvs (c u l8r) and 140 character limit tweets declared too wordy, ponderous and time-consuming to be countenanced. Even at their best, they're only emphasis for actual words, little more than extended punctuation.
Imagine a full-length movie about exclamation point, if you will. (Hey, movie producers: have I got an idea to sell you. I've even got a title: "Full Stop". Call me.)
Every idea you've mentioned has had some clever jokes attached. This idea seems doomed to be saddled with eggplant sex jokes at best; the kind of jokes that aren't even _really_ jokes at all, just, "Hey, it's 'thing'! Remember 'thing'? Laugh, now, because you recognize 'thing'!"
So, to my mind, that's why. It's a movie inherently attached- burdened- with a concept that is anti-character, anti-wit, anti-depth, anti-story. It is what people turn to when they don't want to tell you about their day, explain their opinion on the new music album, express their feelings at length. A picture worth only about five to ten words, when you're ready to settle for less.
And you know, I think you might even be able to make a halfway decent movie about emojis being frustrated by such limitations.
But this will not be that movie.
I think it stems from us being bad people honestly. A lot of people enjoy watching a train wreck happen, and a fair amount of people today are cynical, so we tend to find something to bash on whether fairly or even with great gusto. Case in point, look at /v/. Sure, you can say the rest of the internet isn't like them exactly, but they are still a good indicator that people just enjoy tearing something down, especially if it also makes them look smarter or superior for having spot out the failure before it was even released. This however can cause a lot of tension, taking /v/ as another example, you can see with all the Final Fantasy XV threads that almost every discussion about it is how it's the greatest Final Fantasy of all time, or the "BLUNDER OF THE CENTURY," and the threads will continue to be this way until the next big release. Many people don't like the things that they like to be trash talked, because it reflects badly on them, so people will adamantly defend what they enjoy just so they don't seem to have poor taste.Hawki said:
Now, for the case of the Emoji movie, so many people that frequent these sorts of forums are heavily disillusioned to many things that are seen as trendy, whether it's boy bands, Call of Duty, or the heavy use of emojis. People at a movie studio have decided to make a movie on something that is seen as nothing more than a passing trend. There are few reasons as to why one might make a movie about emojis, other than simply to just make money. It's a simple target for people, so everyone can band together to hate on this one thing. It's shooting fish in a barrel, it doesn't really mean anything, it's just satisfying.