DISQUS

andrea · 4 years ago

ha, funny I am reading this because ward and ava left about fifteen minutes ago to see chicken little...! ava was excited (of course) but ward has read the reviews and seen the promos and is not expecting much... (he'll enjoy reading your take on this, jon, when he gets home)... I'm going to let ward address the whole disney thing as it's the thorn in many a side of many an animator. the incredibles indeed rocked the casbah and pixar is to thank for that. disney just owns pixar and in no way can take any credit for the creativity and freshness there... which brings us to chicken little and you see what disney is doing and it doesn't seem to be working. they have made some horrible, horrible moves and this movie is the proof. yikes, I'm starting to channel ward here! anyway, enjoyed reading your review/rant.

jenny vorwaller · 4 years ago

ohhh my husband and i totally agree on this whole movie thing about dreamworks, and thanks for saving me from another bad one! :) LOVE the incredibles too though, so it was worth a shot :)

Ward · 4 years ago

Just got back. I was told to read your post, and I have to say that it's a very interesting take, especially in the 'resolution' aspect of the film -- which I was a little disappointed about. But no biggie, as it was an important part of the story of the movie. (I just think it was too heavy-handed. Sometimes I just want to be entertained, and not have any heartstrings pulled on purpose...) Anyway, regarding the pop culture references, I hear ya, but this film wasn't that bad compared to past films. First of all, you gotta know that the director, Mark Dindal, is known for this type of film. He directed "Cats Don't Dance" (which is brilliant) and "Emperor's New Groove" (which not a lot of people dug, but gets better and better the more you watch it. I love it.) -- both of those films had a quick pacing/fast timing way about them, with *wink wink, nod nod* pop references, but not so sickening as Dreamworks' films. (And I hear ya about those guys-- Shrek I could've done without!)

But Pixar did "The Incredibles" and "Finding Nemo" -- not Disney, who only distributes their films -- and they, indeed, create more "classic" and "timeless" storylines. They are outdoing Disney in their own game, and all the other studios are playing catch up. Disney did the knowing pop culture reference jokes first with "Aladdin", but that film was solid, with a great story to back it up. All of Dreamworks films are crass, busy and loud -- except for "Prince of Egypt" and "Madagascar" -- but that's the way Katzenburg (the animation guy at Dreamworks) likes it. He's going for the quick buck.

But enough of my verbose comment, I wanted to say that I actually liked "Chicken Little," it was not as bad as I thought it would be, with some great animation. The guy who animated the father is a Disney biggie, who went from the traditional side to the CG side with this film -- he's a pro and his work on this film showed it. I just wished the last act of the film was stronger. It got kinda weak near the end. Oh well. Peace.

Kris · 4 years ago

Okay, I'll throw in my two cents on the Disney / Pixar thing. I haven't seen "Chicken Little" yet, and will definitely wait for a rental based on what I've heard so far.

Like Ward says, Disney doesn't own Pixar, they just had a deal to distribute Pixar's movies. (A bit of history: George Lucas started Pixar as part of ILM, but didn't see any future in the technology so he sold off that portion of the company. Also Steve Jobs of Apple fame is the current CEO of Pixar.) After "Finding Nemo", Pixar wanted Disney to pay more money for the distribution rights and Disney didn't want to pony up the extra dough. Unless there's a complete turnaround, "Cars" will be the last Pixar film distributed by Disney.

As a response, Disney said, "We can do this just as well as Pixar," and Chicken Little is supposed to be the proof. Clearly Disney is no Pixar. It probably doesn't help that Disney got rid of the majority of its "traditional" animation staff which was responsible for some great films like "Alladin", "Beauty and the Beast", and "The Little Mermaid".

At this point in time, Disney is really a mostly a collection of theme parks, TV stations (ABC, ESPN, and some cable stations), and movie distributors (Buena Vista, Touchstone, Miramax, and Dimension). The days of Disney creating quality animated movies seem to be a thing of the past.

As usually, Wikipedia has a ton of info (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Co...). It's telling that there's currently no information about Pixar in the article.