© Sony Pictures Animation

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse does not push the boundaries of animation. How can you push the boundaries of something that has none? When critics spill out that line it’s based on their own projection of the limits live action has onto a medium which refuses to abide by them. That thinking is backwards, Newtonian, animation is better described by the works of Niels Bohr and Steven Hawking, quantum, impossible to pin down, existing in multiple states and all at once, still not fully understood by the layman. 

Therefore, the story of the Spider-verse movies is not one of boundary pushing, rather this project, this experiment, exists to surrender itself to the whirlpool of animation, letting all its styles, from the stoic to the formless, wash over it, absorbing lessons, techniques and visual languages from each one to tell a story like so many others. Yet, I don’t say that to call Across the Spider-verse ordinary. Cramming all existing animation styles into a single story should be an impossible task leading to an incomprehensible product, but we forget that animation does not deal in impossibles. 

© Sony Pictures Animation

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is a year older, suffering from the mid-teen angst for freedom. His yearning to forge his own path sees him come to blows with his parents and an entire multiverse of Spider-people attempting to mould Miles in their own image. Namely Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) and The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), antagonists who, for very different reasons, believe in the necessity of Miles’ suffering. Sacrifice is part of the deal when being a Spider-Man, but also when being a teenager. Miles stands in defiance of his expectations, whether they’re as quaint as improving on his Spanish grade, as emotional as being there for his family, or as overwhelming as his duty in preventing a potential multiversal collapse. The latest instalment of the Spider-verse franchise sees Miles torn between finding freedom and a sense of belonging,

Across the Spider-verse treats the general audience to visuals unlike anything they would’ve seen in the last 40 years from a major motion picture, it shows animation nerds conflicting art styles they didn’t know could co-exist and it gives tech nerds a software-based headache trying to grasp how on earth they taught a computer to colour outside the lines so playfully. Furthering its miraculous status is the film’s almost omnidirectional praise. Experimentation is bound to leave some in the dust. How did so many audiences keep up with a film that runs through visual styles almost as quickly as it runs through dialogue? We see dimensions that look like the film has been shot through a prism, neon-lit dreamscapes, Mumbai-New York blends taking inspiration from 70s Indian comics, live action sequences and a paper mache British Spider-guy share the screen within minutes. 

Across the Spider-Verse Trailer + The Directors Speak!

Recent months have seen live action filmmakers like Ari Aster and Damien Chazelle take wide swings which bisect audiences. There’s something about the maximalism of Babylon and the unpredictability of Beau is Afraid which seems to leave some fulfilled and others enraged. How did Kemp Powers, Joaquim Dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson pull off a film that is even more maximalist and unpredictable? The answer is (predictably considering the rest of the article and the theme of the publication you’re reading) animation. Animation forces you to let go of your frame of reference, it makes you leave a sense of reality behind. Only in animation are stories like Across the Spider-verse possible. 

© Sony Pictures Animation

Sony have not introduced a third style of animation to lump in with the 3D Pixars and DreamWorks and the 2D classic Disneys and Ghiblis. To think in this way is only to scan the surface of what’s being achieved artistically. We want to say something is completely new because we feel like it validates our love for it. What Across the Spider-verse does, which is so rare, is wear its influences on its sleeve and execute them to the highest possible level. 

That is why this film will be talked about for years when we talk about animation. Fans and artists specialising in every corner of animation will gather to worship at its feet. 

While Across the Spider-verse acts as a breathtaking construction of all we know animation to be, its successes as a story come from the deconstruction of the superhero tale. The tale of Spider-Man feels as old as time, and virtually is for my fellow Gen Z-ers. Across the Spider-verse offers playfully meta alternatives to how we know these stories are “supposed” to go and deepens the relationships between characters we feel familiar with. Miles Morales is older now, things are harder, being a good friend is harder, being a good son is harder and the introduction of the multiverse-hopping villain The Spot makes being Spider-man harder. Miles is tasked with finding his place, not only in the world, but in every world, the perfect metaphor for the heavy weight of teenage metamorphosis. Watching Miles’ exuberance be tempered by jaded adults is jarring and further endears the audience to Miles’ point of view. 

© Sony Pictures Animation

Across the Spider-verse sets up a trilogy worthy of a swan song for the superhero film as a genre. Is superhero fatigue real? For how long will audiences find these stories interesting? I sense that after this trilogy is complete, there won’t be much ground left to tread. The snake would have consumed itself. 

Few times in a decade do we get the chance to bask in the glow of an industry-defining piece of art. I liken the feeling of walking out of this film to the experiences of hearing Frank Ocean’s Blonde for the first time, my first playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild comes to mind, as well as watching the original Spider-verse for the first time, 4.5 years ago. In 2023, two of those titles returned to redefine what we know about those mediums. We have the most exciting years of animated cinema ahead of us. 

5/5. We will be talking about it for years. 

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is in Theatres now.

The post Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – Review appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

© Lucasfilm

Between April 7th and 11th 2023, Star Wars Celebration plastered itself over London’s ExCel convention centre. Fans scurried onto the city’s unsuspecting DLR service carrying heavy Mandalorian armour, bulging wallets to be drained by the desire for overpriced hoodies and burgers, and dreams of mind-blowing announcements. 

Celebration is the most pleasurable sensory overload you will experience. The images of grown men dressed as Porgs waiting in line for a Costa Coffee will be burned into the minds of attendees for the rest of their lives. Panels of filmmakers and fans which deepen your knowledge and attachment to the series can be found in every crevice of the convention centre, droids roam the halls, as do the cheers of fans emanating from the Celebration Stage, where a constant supply of celebrity cameos and exclusive trailers invoke an indescribable buzz in the fabric of the building itself. 

The final day of Celebration rolled around and focus shifted to the second season of Star Wars: Visions, a series dedicated to wonderfully extraneous interpretations of Star Wars lore through worldwide animation. This crop of shorts were produced by studios spanning almost every continent. Aardman, Cartoon Saloon, Punkrobot, 88 Pictures, El Guiri, Studio Mir, La Cachette, D’art Shtajio and Triggerfish were all called up by series executive producer Jacqui Lopez to the galaxy far, far away. 

The collection of studios displays a geographical diversity often neglected by mainstream audiences. Animation in between the west coast of the USA and Japan can be swept under the rug, Lopez looked to highlight the unfairness in that. “The truth is animation comes from everywhere,” she told Skwigly, “It’s nice to get a family-run studio from Chile, an incredible Spanish filmmaker like Rodrigo Blaas, and from the very tip of Africa with Triggerfish. I hope that people do realise that there is great animation all over the world and that it does speak to all cultures.”

A studio very close to home is Aardman, a staple of British film culture. Their signature style of extremely English, comedic stop-motion is not one that immediately seems to line up with the high sci-fi stakes of Star Wars, but director Magdelena Osinska manages to pull Star Wars imagery into her world. The first step towards that was setting the story on the Star Wars equivalent of sports day, something she described as “very English.” Already low stakes are matched by the intimacy of this as a mother-daughter story, as well as an immigrant story. Osinska purposefully steered clear of using humanoid characters as her protagonists to reflect her own alienating experience as an immigrant from Poland. 

Attendees of the convention were treated to a screening of Osinska’s short, entitled “I Am Your Mother.” The marriage between Star Wars and Aardman could not have seemed more natural. Aardman’s typically light-hearted tone and astonishingly detailed animation is at home in a story that looks to have fun with the edges of this universe rather than the lightsaber-ridden action at its centre. The simple existence of a collaboration between these studios will forever make it a pop culture artefact, but it helps that the actual short itself is brilliant. 

“Screecher’s Reach” © Lucasfilm

Details were also shown from Cartoon Saloon’s short, “Screecher’s Reach.” First time director Paul Young was keen to maintain the studio’s Irish roots, looking to blend the mythologies of the country with the mythology of Star Wars. Main inspirations came from Irish ghost stories as well as Young’s own childhood. “Our story’s a bit about a kid who needs to get away. I come from a beautiful place but I got to go to university when some of my friends didn’t. There’s that idea of not wanting to tell them that you have this great ticket out of here, then leaving and feeling guilty,” Young explained. “Screecher’s Reach” seems to be an uncompromising representation of the studio’s values. Thankfully, this is mirrored by his fellow directors. 

88 Pictures’ placement as a Mumbai-based studio gives them a unique opportunity to introduce Desi animation to a wide, western audience. Producer Milinde Shinde was keen to highlight just how deeply Indian this story was, something that lit the fire inside the bellies of myself, the Indian guy a few seats down from me, as well as every Indian Star Wars fan in existence (probably). Hearing that it’s inspired by Sholay, a classic Bollywood thriller which I’ve never seen but has always lined the outskirts of my interaction with Indian media, was exhilarating. Images of a woman draped in Indian jewellery, wearing a saree, wielding lightsabers are images that I never thought I’d see. 

“Bandits of Golak” © Lucasfilm

Gabriel Osorio of Punkrobot has been a coveted name for some years since his Oscar win for 2015’s Bear Story. The short was notable for its bending of CGI to emulate stop-motion-like movements, and his effort for Visions is further consumed by a claymation style. Also carrying over is an exploration of Chilean politics through a fantastical setting. Osorio emphasised the connection between Star Wars and depictions of fascism, “I grew up watching Star Wars, and when I saw the Empire oppressing these people I thought ‘I see this every day.’” Osorio’s short, “In The Stars” seems to be a tragic, yet empowering tale of overcoming oppression. 

Similarly pushing the boundaries of their established house style is Madrid-based El Guiri director Rodrigo Blaas. His most recent film, Alma was a detailed, realistic CG short with hints of surrealism lurking beneath the surface. For “Sith,” Blaas equips a rugged blend of 2D and 3D art for what looks to be a gritty tale of dark side temptation. El Guiri’s short is home to the first images screened for the celebration stage, images which the crowd received with squeals of excitement. We haven’t seen lightsaber’s rendered like this before, the manner in which their movements leave trails of plasma-like particles in their wake provides “Sith” with an exhilarating visual twist. 

“I didn’t know much about Star Wars before this project,” states director Hyeong Geun Park of South Korean Studio Mir, breaking up a sentiment of fandom born from childhood which had filled the room. This is a much needed deviation. The joys of the first iteration of Visions came from interpretations of Star Wars lore from the other side of the world. Being based in South Korea and being new to the mythology allows Park a freedom of expression. His stylised anime tale is set in the distant past, furthering that creative freedom. Park’s short, entitled “Journey to the Dark Head,” is the product of alleviated expectations.

From Asia we travel back to Europe to arrive at the door of France’s La Cachette. The studio has a house style of extremely bold pencil drawings with thick black outlines coating the characters. Julien Chheng’s “The Spy Dancer” is another short that takes a break from the intense action of the main series in favour of something more subtle. “Our story is reliant on emotion. The first thing I said to the actors is ‘forget it’s a Star Wars story, we’re just telling a story,’” he explained. “We don’t have lightsabers in our short, or a crazy space fight, so the fights have to be emotional.” Chheng’s story depicts a delicate dance performance for a legion of Stormtroopers being used to infiltrate their ranks. The visuals are soft and poetic with a penetrating plot coursing through the background. 

“The Spy Dancer” © Lucasfilm

The philosophy of uniting the globe through animation is represented in microcosm by D’Art Shtajio. CEO Arthell Isom fell in love with anime as an artform while growing up in the USA and later moved to Japan to pursue animation. He, and the short’s director, Lucasfilm’s LeAndre Thomas, took inspiration from 80s and 90s anime VHS tapes they would wear down as children. “The Pit” has a dusty, grainy quality to its visuals, eliciting the feeling of being transported to another point in modern human history, let alone Star Wars history. Thomas expanded on the reasoning behind that classic feel, “We didn’t want it to feel too cutting edge because we wanted it to feel in line with the message, so it felt right for it to look like a traditional anime,” hinting towards the familiar Star Wars themes which their short explores. Isom added “I moved to Japan because they were one of the only countries to still use paint while the rest of the world was moving towards digital animation. LeAndre gave us that freedom of painting on paper again.”

Rounding out the canon of creators are Nadia Darries and Daniel Clarke of Triggerfish. Much like their counterparts, imbuing the short with their local culture was top of mind. “Aau’s Song” carries the spirit of South African music, inspired also by the filmmakers’ musical backgrounds. Darries connected with music as a form of finding her own identity while Clarke comes from a family with encyclopaedic knowledge on music from across the globe. Centering a story around song was a natural choice for the pair. Visually, “Aau’s Song” is an example of stunning stop motion, incorporating the use of colourful puppets made of felt sitting in backgrounds of stunning naturalistic landscapes. Darries talks about the importance of nature to the film “If you watch the film you will notice that the landscapes are quite vast which is very much inspired by Cape Town. The way we connect to ‘the force’ is by taking in the beauty of the land where we come from, living by the mountain and being able to see it every day.” Of all the styles and shorts on display, “Aau’s Song” seems to be the one looking to tap into the more spiritual side of Star Wars lore. 

“Aau’s Song” © Lucasfilm

Visions has propelled Lucasfilm to the forefront of championing worldwide animation in a mainstream capacity. There are so few opportunities for such well-known IP to be twisted and contorted to fit the styles, cultures, storytelling philosophies and visual sensibilities of so many different studios spanning almost every continent. Owning some of the biggest IP on the planet provides plenty of opportunity to be evil, closed off and secretive with it. Lucasfilm have found an ethical use for their millions of dollars and billions of eyeballs, may this set the precedent for others in similar positions. 

Star Wars: Visions Season 2 streams on Disney+ from May 4th. 

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Being happy is getting harder. Last year, a Harvard-led study found that younger adults scored the lowest on life satisfaction surveys, the inverse of a similar study conducted 20 years prior. In the UK, happiness amongst 16 to 25-year-olds hit a 13 year low. These results are corroborated by the Twitter timelines of anyone under the age of 25. Rather than being a glamorised version of existence as one might expect from social media, the online sphere is spiced with an unending sense of impending doom. 

Collapse feels inevitable when you know the world around you is not built on healthy foundations. With the means and knowledge on how to access the most information that has ever been available to anyone in the history of the human race, younger people are cursed with knowledge of atrocities major and minor across time and space. 

Overwhelming events like a global pandemic, reality-star presidents and increasingly apocalyptic environmental disasters are shoved in our faces as we just start to blossom into adulthood. Snapping back to the reality in front of us sees us greeted by a cold, uncaring capitalist system robbing us of the luxuries of past generations. 

Owning homes, financial stability, freedom of movement (if you’re in the UK) are all fossilising before our eyes. Being young in the modern day is to take on the pain of the entire world’s present, past and future while just trying to get through it yourself. The only means of coping is escape. 

Enter: the happiest movie to ever exist. My Neighbour Totoro, by its very design, combats the squashing and cluttering of our brains. The film is an animated breathing exercise, an ore of joy. Miyazaki’s masterpiece digs its toenails beneath the soil and roots itself in nature. As you get sucked into this simplified life coated in greenery, the hyper-consumerist, technology-ridden world we live in feels like it exists three planets over. 

A story set in the 50s about two girls who discover a friendly spirit in the forest next to their new house is simple enough to be peaceful and has enough layers to remind us of the magic present in the everyday (without stating it so plainly). My Neighbour Totoro was not born from a desire to live in the past, but from a desire to take people out of their money-hungry present. A reminder of what was taken from us. 

At a remove from the digital age, My Neighbour Totoro exhibits an emphasis on the manual. Tasks like cooking, cleaning, growing plants and pumping water are dressed in brilliantly coloured animation and charming music. This elicits the peacefulness which comes with focusing on a menial task. A link between completing chores and improved mental health was formed by a 2015 study by Florida State University, where washing dishes was used to promote mindfulness. Part of the satisfying, calming feeling of Totoro is seeing characters joyfully complete tasks we can often neglect in times of overbearing work assignments and poor mental health. 

We see the world of Totoro through Mei and Satsuki, children to whom their chores are their only responsibilities. They live with a healthy dose of ignorance, as children do, they accept reality as whatever lies in front of them. Through digital connection we lose the ability to detach ourselves from situations beyond our eye’s reach. 

Empty space is emphasised all through My Neighbour Totoro. The huge forest at the doorstep of Mei and Satsuki’s new home, the open fields they wander through, the vast distance between them and their school and even their neighbours. Almost every scene takes place in open air, rarely do we see a character encased in four walls. The film even limits the variety of faces and voices as we’re spending time with a small community removed from urban life.

The overdeveloped world of 2023 does not feel like it allows much room for open space, physical or mental. Breaking free from the claustrophobia of being squeezed between a series of grey buildings is rewarded with parks which feel overly controlled themselves. Perfectly trimmed grass with the odd bush and swing set just doesn’t feel natural. Can you think of a location in your local area that doesn’t reek of manmade intervention? A clear headspace is something that has to be manufactured too, scheduled around your job, watchlist and mindless scrolling. My Neighbour Totoro presents a world with a completely different cultural approach to how to spend time. 

Taking lessons from the past is a key element to Hayao Miyazaki’s philosophy. It extends into his beliefs on war and technology, and is core to what he wanted to achieve on My Neighbour Totoro. Posters for the film wore the tagline “We are returning you to something you have forgotten,” even 35 years ago the auteur was concerned about where commercial expansion was leading us. 

After the second world war, Japan’s economic growth was almost unnaturally accelerated, referred to as the Japanese Economic Miracle. The country’s dedication to its industrialised future was jarring for Miyazaki, a man with reverence for nature. My Neighbour Totoro feels like a justification for nature, a film looking to prove its value to a country polluting it with factories.

Totoro himself gets relatively little screen time, but his presence is felt in most scenes since his introduction. The film builds the expectation that something magical could be around each corner our characters turn. Even the most ordinary events can exist with a layer of surrealism. The most famous images from My Neighbour Totoro come from a scene where Mei and Satusuki are simply waiting for a bus with nothing to contemplate but what’s in front of them, this is where Totoro appears. Similarly, Mei first discovers Totoro when wandering the fields outside of their house, an idle existence manifesting a supernatural occurrence. Their father is always depicted as being wrapped up in work and thus Totoro is never revealed to him. Miyazaki laments the capitalist structure that is always pulling us away from nature, forcing us to neglect its beauty.

Proving the value of nature is wrapped into proving the value of a naturalistic story. My Neighbour Totoro’s ‘plot’ is allowed to meander as we simply follow the characters for a few days. The lack of pressure on the story is essential to the message Miyazaki is looking to communicate, that nothing is enough. 

Miyazaki sees minimalism as a virtue, evidenced by the small scale of Totoro, the small luxuries the characters experience and the little explanation of what’s actually going on in the story. The idea of exposition or lore is completely counterintuitive to what My Neighbour Totoro is asking of its audience. Those who theorise about what Totoro really is, whether he is a representation of all nature, a figment of childish animation, or a grim reaper keeping the girls company during their afterlife reverie, are missing the point. Totoro doesn’t need to make sense, just go with it. 

A consequence of economic expansion and mass industrialisation is a need for everything to have a cold, hard answer. Leaving things up for interpretation feels like much needed rebellion, proof that a film doesn’t require an intricate plot for it to be a masterpiece, it just needs to sweep you away to the point where you don’t care about any of that. 

Back in 1988 Miyazaki wanted to return us to something we had forgotten. We were losing our connection to the world in front of us, we were losing interpretive stories, we were losing our mental health due to automation. 35 years later, all these problems are worse and My Neighbour Totoro is more essential. 

Could Totoro exist in the modern day? Or is his domain too sculpted by man for him to thrive anymore? Expansion and advancement has a cost, and we’re yet to truly see the effects of a generation raised through constant stimulation. Still, we have observed significant positives about younger generations. An excess of information has made for a far more inclusive and sensitive society that looks to give a voice to historically marginalised people. Additionally, expanded technology creates an opportunity for broader creativity and accessibility. 

There also is not a single fix that fits all for mental health issues, a single movie is unlikely to single-handedly transform a life. However, a movie can be used to reflect on the actions and policies that led us down this overstimulating path.

Miyazaki’s goal with Totoro was not to showcase the 1950s as a superior moment in time and stand in the way of progress, but to ensure that progress doesn’t trod on things we should hold sacred. The progression of the human race did not depend on industrialisation, deforestation and pollution; that’s simply for the advancement of some rich people’s bank accounts. Our backsides are being munched on by the consequences of this mentality. The planet is suffering a crisis solvable by returning to a reverence for nature. 

Similarly, technological progress in automation and AI should not exclude actual human beings from being able to work. Miyazaki is quoted as referring to AI as “an insult to life itself,” because it’s born from a complete misunderstanding of why we make and love art. 

My Neighbour Totoro feels alien compared to this society which worships monetisation and new inventions despite their existential threat to the planet, mental wellbeing, the entire working class, whatever is not in their immediate view. Pulling yourself away from being perpetually online is hard, sometimes impossible. Livelihoods depend on it, whether it’s for money, finding a sense of companionship that isn’t present in your physical reality, or searching for a source of dopamine in a deprived world. However, through that constant attachment we can find pieces of art like My Neighbour Totoro which for 90 minutes frees your brain from a prison of constant stimulation. 

My Neighbor Totoro is presently available to watch on Netflix

The post ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ at 35: The Antidote to an Overstimulating World appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

The reclamation of nerd culture has hit its peak, their revenge is complete. The mainline Mario video game franchise is perhaps the most storyless series of games to feature human characters, to expand that into a feature film takes some stretching of lore and insertions that dampen the faithfulness of the adaptation. This task felt overbearing for Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel’s now 30 year old film. Though that film was unsuccessful for myriad reasons, its entire construction is an admission that the original text is little more than wafer-thin. The existence of this year’s mega-blockbuster based on the same franchise is proof of where culture has moved over the last three decades. The expectation is that The Super Mario Bros. Movie will be one of the highest grossing films of the year, rather than a risky adaptation of what was still a niche genre of entertainment at the time. 

Luckily for directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, their pool of resources is wider than what was available during the development of the previous Mario adaptation. Not only has there been a mountain of games released in that time, spanning kingdoms and galaxies, but the expansion of internet communities of Nintendo fans has provided another well to dip into. When a fan sits down to watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie, they want to see their experience reflected, to form a bond with the filmmakers and feel that they’re just as in love with the franchise. Throwing in the eel from Super Mario 64 is a reference to a game, having a Toad tell another Toad to blow into their NES cartridge is a reference to a personal experience.

References form the bedrock of what this movie is, meaning there are two ways to analyse the success of this film. Either you see it as a vehicle for fan fulfilment, a moment for Nintendo heads to bask in the mainstream Hollywood sun, or as a film you walk into as a completely detached citizen who refers to any machine capable of running ROMs as a “Game Station.” A love letter is only legible to those immersed in the franchise, otherwise you’re as lost as a baby penguin in Tostarena (see what I mean). There is a sense of prevalent video game snobbery in film communities, with games often being looked down upon as brain-rotting time wasters while cinema is often depicted as the peak of artistic expression. Already we can see a divide in reviews coming from written publications and those existing on YouTube, there’s something to “get” which one side is embracing and the other is neglecting. 

The Super Mario Bros Movie (2023) Photo – Nintendo

I will not pretend that I walk in both worlds. I slapped on every thread of Nintendo attire I possibly could for the screening and clapped and yelped and hollered at the inclusion of the Punch Out restaurant, the GameCube ringtone and the sheer surreal nature of seeing these characters, once bound to my GameBoy screen, living out this gorgeously animated adventure in front of me. Each miniscule reference imbued me with an injection of joy and like a trail of sugar-coated morsels had me narrowly focused on the experience of the narrative from its inception to its conclusion (and post-credits conclusions). 

There’s a built in cynical critic residing in my mind, ready to denounce my own enjoyment when I mention being entertained by references and call-backs. By no means should that be what all movies strive for, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t take skill, love and care. Films are enjoyable when you get the sense that the filmmakers really gave a crap about the work they were doing. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic were hyperfocused on pleasing fans with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, to the detriment of their Rotten Tomatoes score. References feel cheap to some but exhilarating to others because the thing that we like more than anyone else in our real life is reflected. It’s the most basic level of being seen, but everybody wants to be seen. 

Undeniably, The Super Mario Bros. Movie achieves its goal of representing the experience of a Nintendo fan, whether they lived through the video game crash of the 1980s or fell in love with the company through Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash. Visually, musically, verbally, the film exudes a warmth and joy which emanates from a team thrilled to be able to tell this story. 

The Super Mario Bros Movie (2023) Photo – Illumination

Equally present is a dedication to detail unmatched by animation studio Illumination’s previous output. As audiences are considering ridding themselves of their almost 20 year marriage with completely CG animation and are gazing longingly at the greener grass of inventive 2D-3D blending, The Super Mario Bros. Movie was in danger of looking half a decade behind in its approach. Vibrancy of colour, forensically constructed textures and lassi-smooth movement remind us of the beauty CG animation is capable of when pushed a little farther. 

Also helping is the supreme deftness with which the camera is moved throughout this adventure. Lakitu, or Illumination’s equivalent, consistently finds interesting angles to take to picture the action. Eagle-eyed views of blocks falling just as they leave Mario’s feet, an unbroken take sweeping through Bowser’s kingdom and a voyage inside the mouth of an eel provide a technical proficiency few were expecting when this film was first announced.

Translating what we see on screen into an imagination-based reality is part of the gig as a video game player. Even as we inch closer to realism and enhanced expression in games, we still have to fill in some gaps on how a texture would really look or how one would actually interact with a power-up. In taking those models, tweaking them for the film and blowing them up onto IMAX screens can make for an alienating experience for fans extremely attached to the less-detailed originals. Adjustments made to characters like Donkey Kong and Bowser achieve the goal of bringing more expression to their faces and movements while being in line with what fans would expect these characters to look like in a slightly more realistic setting. I found myself mesmerised at times by the detail of Bowser’s scales, the hairs in Luigi’s moustache and the newly introduced biology of a Bullet Bill (one gets its eye poked. I never imagined they worked like that. I never thought they were living beings. What a painful existence to be born and exploded within seconds).

Donkey Kong in The Super Mario Bros Movie (2023) Photo – Nintendo

The ambition of adding further colour to established Mario lore is something greatly satisfying about the film. The involvement of Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, was certainly a crucial factor in making these new additions feel consistent with fan expectations. Delightfully, Bowser is depicted as a sappy romantic with a cold, hard exterior, giving shine to his soft core which melts whenever in the presence of Princess Peach. Bowser is something of a Lord Farad figure here. His endgame has always been to marry Peach, but attempts to woo her, scenes of him fawning and obsessing over her, have never crossed my mind as a possibility. Jack Black even gets the chance to stretch his vocal chords in magnificent musical sequences as sonnets flow through his raspy voice. 

Smaller details such as practical uses for karting, coin blocks acting as ATMs and explanations for Mario and Luigi’s colour-coded outfits naturally progress established imagery and lore. Such delights are only accessible to those well-versed in the series, the ability to extract entertainment from them the reward for years of dedicated fandom. The subjectivity of whether or not one will find entertainment from a film is enhanced for the Mario Movie. What will a casual moviegoer gain from a montage which sees Mario, Toad and Peach trek through Bob-Omb Battlefield and contemplate the many galaxies in existence? 

Committing so full-heartedly to one section of the audience leads to the film requiring some balance. It looks to achieve that through unfortunately tired gimmicks from the Illumination handbook. A gripe many will have is the healthy dose of decades-old licensed music injected at various points. Nothing screams of a lack of confidence in entertaining a slightly older audience more. “Take On Me” blares over the action as Mario karts through the Kong Kingdom, an area derived from games with some of the most iconic video game music ever created.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie, for the most part, does a respectful job of incorporating original game soundtracks into the film without orchestrating them beyond recognition. However, that good work feels compromised by half-baked attempts to stop 40-year-old men from checking out completely. Why aren’t more of Grant Kirkhope’s iconic themes which have spawned an entire subculture on their own more present? Decisions like this are made without the target audience in mind, making for a disruption to the immersion. 

The film’s frantic pacing also feels designed to keep audiences on their toes and away from their watches. The 90 minute runtime feels breezier than what’s natural for any film. The colourful animation and immense detail are great, but also contribute to each frame pulling your eyes in every direction without as much as a second to breathe. Some will give in to the sugar rush, but it will be incomprehensibly quick for others. 

Additionally, the pacing leaves characters feeling incomplete, and what are intended as emotional climaxes, feeling bare. Mario and Luigi’s brotherly connection is just about developed enough through half-hourly slim gaps of breathing room from the main plot for their eventual triumph to feel satisfying, but the arcs of characters like Princess Peach and Donkey Kong seem to be set up and resolved within the same sequence of dialogue. More time could have been spent with Mario and Luigi processing the bizarre new world they land in, or with Princess Peach trying to make sense of seeing another human being for the first time since her memory began. However, the immediate acceptance characters have of their situation reflects the familiarity which the intended audience feels towards that same imagery.

When space is made for references and fan self-insertion over character, it’s hard for your thoughts to stray away from the fact that you’re watching a corporate product. Pandering to a section of your audience out of fear that they won’t be 100% invested in a way that breaks the immersion of those you already have on board before the movie begins and compromises the depth of your characters is a frustrating route to take. 

Creating a cinematic love letter fundamentally comes with the alienation of part of the audience. Committing to pleasing one side of the crowd and boldly ignoring the other is admirable, but isn’t Illumination’s style. The film is so close to charging into fan bliss but Akira-slides just before it has to take the full leap.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie did not have to have structural problems and pacing issues. There’s a not too dissimilar version that is a genuinely fulfilling cinematic experience worthy of inclusion amongst the best animated films of the year. The product we get has obviously recognisable flaws. 

However, it takes some special sauce to be able to craft a flawed film where those flaws skip right over your head and while you’re locked in. The low Rotten Tomatoes score should be held as a badge of honour for this film, it’s a wonderful feeling to experience something tailor made for you and incomprehensible for somebody else. That being said, I wish that score was lower. 

I wish they went further and resisted the urge to throw in hits from the 80s and squeeze out any of the time for the characters to breathe. I wish we had gotten more complicated, weird backstories rather than common denominator insertions about daddy issues (which almost every main character has). Fuck the critics, fuck anyone else who isn’t a fan. When the doors close and the Nintendo logo pops up, that cinema is a sacred space for Mario heads. A culmination of 40 years of fandom, a chance for us to reign supreme in a different medium, on foreign land. The experience of watching The Super Mario Bros. Movie will stick with me until my brain rots from all those games I keep playing. It’s flawed, it’s messy, it’s silly, childish, there’s pacing issues, dumb music decisions and still manages to be a resounding victory for the nerds. Keeping in step with the game series, bring on the weirder, deep cut sequel and for the love of Miyamoto, put Waluigi in it. 

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is out in UK cinemas now.

The post The Super Mario Bros. Movie Review – A Love Letter to the Love Letter to the Franchise appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Routinely thriving on the familiar is Illumination, a franchise powerhouse. All but one film in the Illumination canon are attached to a well-known IP or are part of their own original franchise. The studio is looking to repeat the trick by optioning one of the biggest franchises on the planet, Super Mario. 

Illumination’s track record with existing IP has not been met with critical applause. Adaptations of The Grinch and The Lorax are not the most well regarded titles, either by critics or fans. This leaves Illumination’s Mario movie with a Sunshine-style tightrope to cross. Creating a faithful adaptation will require Illumination to think differently if they wish to avoid cookie-cutter storylines, something general audiences have diminishing appreciation for.

Illumination vs. Nintendo

Illumination’s wounds caused by their films’ mixed critical reception are healed by the mass capital that they generate. Their reputation is built on the back of box office rather than review scores, with just one film under the studio’s banner breaking 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. Illumination mostly targets a younger demographic, knowing children will be transfixed by the deeds of the Minions. This aesthetic is less appealing to the 20-25 year olds who are the majority players of Nintendo games. The simplicity of Illumination’s breakout mascots is what allowed them to become household figures and to gross over $1 Billion in their own film back in 2015. 

Illumination’s formula remains strong, even through the uncertainty of the pandemic. They would have little reason to deviate with the Mario movie, were it not for the involvement of Nintendo.

Photo by Ryan Quintal

Since some very strange, and weirdly fungal, mishaps in the nineties regarding Mario’s film and TV adaptations, Nintendo have been cautious about how they use the moustachioed plumber. In his mainline games, Nintendo has worked hard to ensure that the name “Mario” is synonymous with quality. It’s worked a treat. Games like Super Mario 64 fundamentally altered the course of gaming history and titles like Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door and Super Mario Odyssey remain standouts in their respective genres. Nintendo are known for pushing boundaries, and do so through tight control over how their IP is managed. 

The philosophies of these two companies conflict so heavily, it’s a miracle that a film was even produced, and it’s anyone’s guess as to its quality. The gold coin-showered lands of Illumination’s box office would have been tempting to Nintendo, but the film’s promotional material gives the impression that they have pushed Illumination past the comforting grassy fields of World 1-1. 

Creative Fan-Service

From the clips and trailers released so far, it seems that Nintendo have shown Illumination a new way of capitalising on an existing franchise – respecting the source material. The film looks to be full to the brim with love for Mario and respect for the filmgoing audience. 

The Mushroom Kingdom developed by Illumination balances familiarity and creativity perfectly. The character models and environments carry that cosy Mario feeling many will yearn for, but there are world building elements specific to the film which are interpreted in a unique way. Seeing the penguins from Mario 64 be their own tribe of people and seeing coin blocks used as ATMs is compelling as it introduces elements that the audience does not expect.

A rarely-avoided pitfall in franchise storytelling is to plainly present what the audience expects to see. The promise of the Mario movie is not a perfectly traced adaptation, but a creative spin on what fans are used to, a new universe based on something familiar. 

The Origin Story

The odyssey into new ground from the Illumination-tinged world of Mario could prove to be insignificant if the story itself follows an overly conventional route. Audiences know when a franchise is being established and see through hollow films that only exist to set up the other films. Origin stories are so difficult to make interesting because studios are averse to taking risks and thus raising the possibility of audiences not connecting to a character.

The trailers depict Mario arriving into the Mushroom Kingdom as a fish out of water who trains to become the hero we know and love. This storyline conjures images of the dozens of conventional origins audiences have been fed in recent years. You never want to watch a movie that feels overly-choreographed. You never want to watch a film where you can predict the ending 30 minutes in. The blockbuster landscape has been dominated by origin stories following the same formula in hopes that this specific IP can be the next Avengers, people are tired of it. 

Audiences are also seeing through the tricks deployed by studios to make films more marketable. The inclusion of the cute animal sidekick has plagued animated cinema since the inception of the Minions, with even Disney looking to replicate that success. Characters like Sox in Lightyear, Tuk Tuk from Raya and the Last Dragon and even Olaf from Frozen have always felt like plushies more than characters. 

Illumination are well positioned to repeat their trick in the Mario movie, where the Toads are in prime position to become the breakout cute little guys. There is even a line in the trailer alerting you to the fact that the Toads are indeed adorable. 

Cynicism about the Mario movie is also derived from the rumours of a Donkey Kong spin-off film. For something like this to pop up before the initial film in the franchise is even released makes audiences feel like they’re on a conveyor belt, waiting for the next IP franchise to be dumped on their heads. The only way to cure such cynicism is through telling a genuinely great story. We can look past the animal sidekicks, the conventional story and the backdoor pilots if you make us love these characters and the journey you take them on. 

The Inherent Flaw of the Franchise

The storytelling tug of war between Nintendo and Illumination has the potential to produce something that stands out from the slog of white bread origins the box office has become known for, all while not neglecting the built in fan base which Mario already conducts. Already there is proof of affection for Mario and the desire to innovate on his image, how far they take that desire will be the key factor in how this film is received. 

Getting the Mario movie to a place where we don’t feel like we’re being marketed to is a tall, tall mountain to climb. There are unavoidable artistic compromises that have to be made when your movie is meant to sell toys, happy meals and theme park tickets. A movie that desperately needs to make money, that is begging for approval from the widest audiences possible is not a showcase for artistic freedom. 

Here, at the start of 2023, we are sliding through the walls of Peach’s Castle, still with an uncertainty of what awaits us at the end. Will it be a shining yellow star, a glimmer of hope for franchise storytelling for years to come? Or will our five-pointed prize be a hollow, blue ghost of a story told by thousands before?

The post The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Can Franchise Storytelling Be Good? appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman © Modern Films

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collision of these two ideas of disaster. Some disasters are communal, perhaps national, much like the earthquake and tsunami which underscores every scene in this film set in 2011 Japan. But disaster can be personal, too. It may not leave an imprint on the earth itself, but for one person it is an apocalyptic event.

Pierre Földes’ adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s short stories follows characters trying to make sense of disaster. Whether they’re an ageing, balding, lonely banker who daydreams about being recruited by an off-puttingly anthropomorphic frog asking him to save Japan, or a middle aged divorcee, living life on auto-pilot, trying to find a cure for his emptiness. Abstract, quiet and reflective, the film is a character study of people looking for meaning.

In this sense, the film is a departure from the source material. Murakami’s stories are segregated, often being pulled from different books to forge the narrative Földes looked to tell. The director himself has had a rather scenic career. Having grown up wanting to be a painter, Földes shifted into music composition before finding his way to making films. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman marks his feature directorial debut.

Wanting to innovate from the start, Földes implemented an experimental cousin of rotoscoping for this film. The entire film was shot in live action, but instead of being traced into animation, the footage was used as a reference for animators to study the subtleties of human facial expressions and mannerisms. 

Földes talked to Skwigly about the look of the film, finding his way to animation and the mechanics of adapting Murakami’s work. Here is that conversation, lightly edited for clarity. 

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman © Modern Films

How have you gauged the reaction to the film?

The reception has been really fantastic. One thing that makes me very happy is that the reception from the younger generation, late teenagers until about 28, they seem to really get the film and embrace it and understand it in the way it’s supposed to be understood. That means they just take it all in, and it inspires them in some way. They’re not too analytical, trying to make sense of everything. The film actually does make sense, it’s just not that easy to understand. But they accept it like that, maybe, because they’re used to seeing all kinds of confusing images, and they just take it all in.

Your journey is quite interesting, from being a visual artist, to a composer, to now a director. Was this the plan?

It was planned, but sort of a delayed plan. My father was an artist, painter, and animator. And so for me, it was obvious that I wanted to be an artist. I was always drawing and then something weird happened. I just switched and went into music for some odd reason, and I was quite good at it. And so, I just went into classical training for composition and orchestration and I sort of let go of the visual arts, but never completely. I started working as a composer, I was moving between New York and Paris, then I moved again and I went to Hungary where I went back into painting, suddenly. That was fantastic because, at that point, I thought, “Wow, this is unquestionably what I should have done all my life.” So I had some kind of regret, I must say. I just love it. I love oil painting, I love the smell of it. I love the brushes, I am really passionate about it. It’s amazing.

I also started making films and when I was very young, I acted in theatre and did some stage direction. I’m a little all over the place. The odd thing is that I started making short films really late [in life]. I just found myself suddenly going back into drawing and really finding interest in pencil drawing. Then little by little I got into animation, but developed my own technique. I had no training in animation which was really wonderful. It made me much more eager to create stuff, to create a style, and to always look for something new. 

Do you think having not a firm basis in animation helped you innovate on the animation style we see in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman?

Completely. I get lots of questions from students and young animators and artists [about animation] but it’s not like I have massive experience. But I would be almost tempted to say the only thing that’s interesting is finding your way. This depends on, are you trying to be an animator working for this or that studio? Or are you trying to be a musician working here and there? Or is your aim to be an artist? I mean an artist, somebody who is doing something absolutely unique, that nobody [can do] by recreating something. I’m only interested in that, but I totally understand that many people can be interested in being the best Disney Style animator or great jazz pianist. It’s fine, it’s just not my thing. 

I found it really interesting that some characters and some objects were drawn with white outlines instead of black outlines, as would be traditional. What was the thinking behind that?

So, there’s many ways to answer. The first one would be to say that it’s just my stylistic approach, my style that I’ve developed for this film. To go a little bit more in detail, I could say that it’s an interpretation of my perception of things. So as opposed to, let’s say, photography, live action, where you take a camera, and you print what the lens is seeing. You’re getting a 2D image that’s more or less realistic. When I think of the way I see things, my brain is working all the time which is affecting the way I perceive things. My aim, when I’m making a film, is trying to reproduce my vision. So the way this works is, I have a character who’s focusing on this other character, but then there’s something in the background which is not very important, and so it’s  [shown to be] blurry. Or maybe I’m not paying attention to that person, but I still know that it’s this shape, and this far away. It’s a sort of enhanced reality, but totally subjective.

Reality is a really important aspect of the film because there’s so much shifting between dreams and reality. What were the challenges of depicting those transitions?

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman © Modern Films

I remember really paying attention to that even when I was beginning to write the script. I’m writing the script, and then I’m doing the storyboards and I’m thinking, “How am I going to be able to shift here and there?” I wanted to avoid these moments where [the audience] thinks, “This is real and now I’m in a dream.” In order to do that, my approach was to always keep reality a little bit off, and always keep the “dreams”, somewhat connected with reality. That way, it makes it smoother, and you’re not going from one to another, it’s always there. 

What were the most difficult visuals to pull off in the film?

If something is difficult, I don’t see it as difficult. I see it as something I don’t know how I’m going to do, and this is exactly what I’m interested in. I’m only interested in diving into a world that I’m attracted to, without being able to define it. If I can define things beforehand, then it’s just a job and I know how to do it. Everybody can do it. What’s interesting is if you feel that there’s something attractive here, some emotion or some relationship, you dive in and you think, “How am I going to find my way out? How am I going to transcribe this?”

Did you have the idea to tie Murakami’s short stories into one large narrative from the start?

No, to be honest, it wasn’t from the start. In the beginning, it was going to be segmented, there was going to be four or five stories. Then little by little, I started thinking that this character could actually exist in this other story. And when you start mixing them up, things get tangled and you have to find solutions. This was my solution and it made sense. In the end, it made a sort of full circle, because when I put everything together, I needed to separate it again, that’s why I created chapters. It was nice for me to give a little separation, a little breathing room in between, like you’d normally put a book down at the end of a chapter.

How much of yourself did you want to put into the film versus respecting the source?

I don’t know. I mean, I had no plan, it just happened. Let’s say you’re an actor, you’re playing a written part, but at the same time, you’re the one who’s doing it, you are the one incarnating that character. So you read these lines by Murakami, of course, it’s his words, but at the same time, the way these words impact you, that’s you, that’s yours, it’s not Murakami anymore. If these words touch you, they touch you because of what you are, because of your life, because of your knowledge, your experience, who you are. So then, if you decide to use this to express something the way you feel it, it’s yours. It’s completely inspired by you.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman © Modern Films

The stories you pull from are set in such a specific time in Japanese history. Did you have any apprehension about tackling this real life event?

I just love those stories and I thought there was some humour in it also. I was never trying to be faithful to anything, I didn’t try to recreate a real Tokyo or real Japan, it was my vision of it. I’m always pointing out the fact that I’m just an artist, I’m not trying to be authentic, it’s fiction. 

What was the biggest lesson you learned from making this film?

Don’t do animation. Forget it, it hurts. You have to be truly of masochistic nature to go into making a feature animation. 

Are you a masochist?

I guess so! But I’m cured. Not anymore. I mean, it’s wonderful, it was just a bit too long… well, much too long. I thought it would take me two years from beginning to end, but it took so much longer. It’s completely crazy to make a film at all is nuts. Now I have many more projects. One is live action with a little animation, then I have another one that’s full animation. But I’ll cross my fingers, I hope I’m going to manage to pull it off a bit faster.

Do you think he could have pulled this film off in live action?

Yeah, I think so. I have no idea how I could have done it, but it’s possible. The Frog would have been an issue, but not really, he might have not not been a frog, it could have been just a weird character.

Have you made your dream film, composition or work of art?

I am only interested in making stuff, so there’s no such thing. I mean, I’m super happy to be making films, [this] was just far too long. In the world of the film industry, the problem is it’s an industry. Finding funding for a film and then releasing it, there’s all that work around it. I’m only interested in making stuff! If somebody wants to hire me tomorrow to direct actors, I’m there. I’m interested in the creative path. That’s it. And if I could go from one creative activity to another one, I’d be happy.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman  by Pierre Földes will be released in UK and Irish cinemas by Modern Films on 31 March 2023.

The post Pierre Földes on ‘Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman’, an Animated Adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s Short Stories appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

2022 saw critics and audiences underwhelmed by theatrical Disney projects such as Lightyear and Strange World, but it was their straight-to-streaming release that captured the hearts of the public. Domee Shi’s semi-autobiographical tale of Mei Lee, a 13 year old Chinese-Canadian girl who turns into a giant red panda when emotionally overwhelmed, finds universal relatability in the specificity of its protagonist.

Turning Red is as exaggerated, cartoonish and hilarious as Pixar has ever been all while breaking ground in mainstream animation. This is the first time that a Pixar film has been spearheaded by an almost entirely female team and also showcases the studio’s first Asian protagonist. By tackling subjects like periods and puberty, Turning Red has become a landmark of progression from the most celebrated studio in Oscars history. 

On the day of the nomination announcement, Domee took some time to talk to Skwigly about the importance of Turning Red and how it has been embraced by the animation community since its release. Here is that conversation, lightly edited for clarity. 

What was your reaction to the nomination? 

Well, I didn’t want to wake up early to watch it live because I was too nervous. So I slept through the nominations and then I woke up to a bunch of texts congratulating me and people on the crew and I was like, ‘Oh, good. We got it.’ That’s my way of being able to handle it. I can’t handle watching it live, the anticipation and anxiety as they read off the names.

I don’t blame you. Even watching it myself, I was waiting for Turning Red to pop up, and it was the last one they said in the category.

I didn’t know it was the last one, that’s crazy. I’m glad I didn’t watch it, I would have freaked out.

Does this feel different from campaigning in 2019 with Bao?

I mean, it’s the same but it’s different. With Turning Red, it’s a feature film and it’s just so much bigger, and the audience is bigger, and I feel like there’s more eyeballs on and more pressure on the film to be nominated, to be recognised. The studio and the crew put so much work behind it. Whereas for Bao it was a short film, so in some way the pressure was a little bit less. And, that was before COVID. And everything just feels so different now.

Do you feel that some of that pressure comes from the fact that Turning Red is an extremely personal story?

Sort of. It’s a personal story, but also it’s a film that has so many firsts. So that’s why it has a lot of pressure on it. It’s the first [Pixar] film to be helmed by a majority female leadership. It’s the first film from Pixar with an Asian, female lead. I think it’s the first animated feature film to really deal with puberty and all of the ugliness and clinginess and awkwardness that comes with it. And, but then it’s just a relief to just see a film that is so bold, and so different embraced by audiences all over the world and now by members of The Academy and people within the film community. It really shows that if you take chances on these specific films that celebrate different kinds of stories that are universal, you know? That a universal story can look like this and deal with subject matter like this.

What’s something that audiences have taken from the movie that you didn’t expect?

So many things. What I love most is lurking on Twitter, because I don’t account, but looking at all the memes that are created from the movie, and how people resonate and connect with the film in different ways. There was this one meme that was created where it’s that scene where Mei is under her bed, and she’s sketching in her sketchbook and they turn it into a three panel comic where the first panel is her laughing goofily, and then she draws something, and you reveal what she’s drawing and people have added their own embarrassing drawings from middle school, they add something really specific to their fandom, or to what they are embarrassed to it like. We’ve all been underneath our beds, sketching things in our sketchbooks. So that’s one of my favourite things to come out of the movie.

Fan art is so core to your journey as an artist and is baked into Mei’s character too. Has there been a favourite piece of fan art that you’ve come across?

Ah, gosh, there’s so many. There’s really creative ones out there. Like, I saw fan art comics of Mei’s mother and her dad, when they were young and how they met. It’s super specific. I’ve seen interesting, creative fan art where people create their own Panda-sonas like their own version of what their magical red panda would look like. And it’d be a different colour and a different design. And then, of course, all of the super amazing 4Town fan art. Seeing people attach themselves to this fictional boy band and get as into them as Mei and her friends are in the movie is just amazing. It’s just so cool to see how this movie has really touched everyone’s 13 year old nerdy selves in a really fun way.

Was it a big challenge for you to make sure that each character’s panda was distinct? 

Yeah, we worked closely with Rona Liu, our production designer, and the art team in making sure that there were characteristics that we carried through from each of the human designs and put them into the panda designs. We still wanted the pandas to be like pandas. But for Ming’s character, for example, in act three, when she transforms into a Godzilla red panda that design actually went through a couple of iterations. So, the first design that we approved was a much scarier version of panda Ming.

My initial instinct for shooting that whole sequence at the boyband concert was like, ‘Oh man, we just gotta make this feel as scary as possible. Mei is terrified her mom’s gonna wreck everything and kill her favourite boyband.’ And it seemed funnier in my head but then when we watched it, with that really scary panda Ming design, it didn’t read like it. It read way too scary. And I was losing the metaphor of ‘This is just an exaggerated mother-teen daughter fight in the living room on a massive scale.’ We went back to the drawing board, we redesigned panda Ming to give her more characteristics of a human being. 

We gave her that really funny looking hair swoop, we gave her a mole on her eye and then we also worked with the animators on her behaviour. In the first pass, she had more of this animalistic bear kind of animation and she didn’t really feel like a human in there at all. She felt like she was crazy and out of control. But then, in the second pass, the animators took a lot of Ming’s mannerisms. Hands on her hips, a finger wagging, just her overall sassiness, they carried that through. That really helped her read. She’s a giant, angry mom, not a giant, angry monster.

I’ve never visited Toronto, but this film made me nostalgic for a place I’ve never been. Could you talk about developing that nostalgic feel?

So I grew up in Toronto, in the 2000s and I thought it’d be a really cool opportunity to set this movie during that time. Toronto is always in movies, but it’s always disguised as New York or Chicago or another American city. It’s never really celebrated or seen as Toronto. I just really wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate just the diversity and the unique architecture and that small town in a big city kind of feeling that Toronto has that I remember growing up.

And I really just wanted to celebrate the people that I grew up with. I wanted to highlight the Chinatown that me and my parents would shop at every weekend when we first immigrated to Toronto. Even though my parents and I are not Cantonese, that was the closest thing we had to home in the West. And I wanted to celebrate all the diverse classmates that I had growing up. I was lucky that I lived in Toronto where I never felt like an other for being Chinese. I felt othered in that I was a total anime nerd and I was vice president of the anime club, that’s how I was othered. I wasn’t othered for who I was, which was nice.

Mei’s friends are definitely a representation of the types of kids that I hung out with that I befriended. There’s a large Asian population in Toronto, South Asian population, as well. It’s funny because we will always get comments saying ‘wow, you made your movie so diverse. How did you do that? Why did you do that?’ And I’d be like, well, that’s just reality. Right? Like, that’s just what Toronto is. And a lot of people don’t realise that because when they think of Canada, they think of snow, French Canadian lumberjacks and stuff, but the Canada that I know is really multicultural. It’s really cool that this movie is redefining what it means to be Canadian.

WE’VE GOT YOUR (FLUFFY) BACK – In Disney and Pixar’s all-new original feature film “Turning Red,” everything is going great for 13-year-old Mei—until she begins to “poof” into a giant panda when she gets too excited. Fortunately, her tightknit group of friends have her fantastically fluffy red panda back. Featuring the voices of Rosalie Chiang, Ava Morse, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Hyein Park as Mei, Miriam, Priya and Abby, “Turning Red” will debut exclusively on Disney+ (where Disney+ is available) on March 11, 2022. © 2022 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

I appreciated seeing some South Asian people in the movie, shout out to Priya. For my final question I have to ask about boba tea. Your go-to order is a Fresh Taro Milk Tea, can you help me understand the appeal of Fresh Taro as a topping?

It’s so great because it’s like a dessert, it’s a solid and a liquid at the same time and it feels like you’re drinking and eating a beverage. Some people don’t like that mealy texture of Fresh Taro in their drink, but I love it. I love the ability to do multiple things when you’re drinking. It feels like a good deal. It’s like a two on one thing. You get a drink and you get a little snack.

THE 95TH ACADEMY AWARDS will take place at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood Sunday, March 12, 2023. Hear more from Domee Shi in episode 12 of our podcast series Animation One-To-Ones:

The post ‘Turning Red’ | Q&A with Domee Shi appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

To boil The Last Wish down to a film taking the “Spider-verse art style” would be reductive. Of course, it blends 2D and 3D styles and varies the frame rates of characters (referred to as ‘stepped’ animation), but this is done in service of the painterly, fairytale feel the movie aims for. Despite the undeniable inspiration from Spider-verse, The Last Wish feels like its own beast and acts as a statement from DreamWorks about where they see animation going. These films do not have to look the same anymore.

At the centre of this innovation is director Joel Crawford and producer Mark Swift. Both have been at DreamWorks since the 2000s, Crawford as a story artist on movies such as Bee Movie, Rise of the Guardians and the Kung Fu Panda franchise before being given the chance to direct 2020’s The Croods: A New Age. Swift has produced 10 previous projects with DreamWorks, starting with 2004’s Shark Tale all the way up to Crawford’s The Croods sequel.

Joel and Mark spoke to Skwigly about the success of the film, the challenges with establishing its style and tone as well as the state of the animation industry as a whole. Below is that conversation, lightly edited for clarity.

Ryan: You guys look very excited for two people have been doing a continuous press tour for the last six months or so.

Mark Swift: The movie is so joyful, honestly, seeing its reaction and how people around the world have really embraced this film. You work on these movies for years and finally your baby goes out and we’re so happy and joyful to see how people have been receiving it.

Joel Crawford: That’s exactly what I was feeling too where it’s like, we are now feeding off the enthusiasm of the critics, of audiences and it’s so fun. It’s very rewarding to get this embrace from the world.

Oscar nomination morning must have been a fun morning as well, I imagine. What were your reactions when you got that news?

MS: I was a little groggy because it was very early in the morning and we were hopeful of an Oscar nomination. So I slept on and off, checking my phone. Eventually, I started seeing the texts come through and I was like, “yeah!” I quickly woke up at that stage.

JC: It was big news, but then it was so immediate where I gotta get my three kids ready for school. They don’t care that dad got nominated, so back to real life. No, it’s been so exciting.

One of the reasons the film has been embraced is because of the animation style. Did the existence of movies like The Bad Guys and Spider-verse act as guidelines for you?

JC: Yes and no. It’s wonderful what’s happened to the animation industry post-Spider-verse, where animated movies don’t have to be full CG, especially for the Western audience. Then with The Bad Guys innovating their own style was helpful as we’re developing the right look for Puss In Boots, being a fairytale painting. There’s still a lot of finding its unique look, but it definitely helps to have partners within the studio, who have been developing software and things to push the 2D Look.

Joel has mentioned in other interviews that, for a lot of the animators, this was their first time working on stepped animation. Mark, as the producer, how do you manage the time it takes for so many people to learn something new while making deadlines?

MS: The thing with artists and animators is that they’re excited to try something new. So there was an immediate embrace at the studio. Most of the animators that come from animation school, they’ve done lots of different styles over the years and to get the chance to actually work on some of that on a film, I think they were so enthusiastic. But it didn’t become an issue. The animators were so with us on every step of the way that it never felt like it was a huge challenge. There were challenges but we kind of got through them all in all, on time on budget, moving forward.

What were those challenges that are unique to this film?

MS: When we were trying to find our look, we had to find the right balance of CGI and 2D. Because we’re a sequel, we’re not brand new, people have an expectation of the Shrek and the Puss In Boots world. They know what Puss In Boots looks like, they want to pick him up and put him in their lap. And so, when you put a completely CG character in a completely 2D world, where do you switch on and switch off? He’s on a desk that’s 2D and he’s looking completely CG, it starts to look weird. A lot of our experimentations were like, “what’s the foreground look? What’s the background look? We get more painterly as you go off into the background. So, that was a little bit of a challenge finding the right balance in terms of the look.

Can you see this becoming the dominant animation style, the way that Pixar and DreamWorks established that CG realistic style in the 2000s?

JC: I would hope that it doesn’t, that it’s one of many styles. I think what’s so exciting is that DreamWorks has given this premise of, “the filmmaker should find the style and the tools to tell their story specifically.” You look at The Bad Guys and it’s innovative, it’s pushed this 2D, anime feel. And then [The Last Wish] being a fairy tale painting. I think it’s exciting to go, “can we keep, you know, finding new inspirations that are specific to the filmmakers?” But it is really great that we’re not chasing photorealism, or the CG look anymore. Some movies fully deserved to be that, but it’s nice when we can have so many animated movies in a year, and they can all feel different. That’d be wonderful.

MS: I think one of the big advantages of us, and Spider-verse, and The Bad Guys is that all these movies did well. And so from a studio perspective, it gives you, gives our studio, our executives, our team at Universal, a little bit more ability to go “Yeah, try something. Let’s give it a go.” I mean, we’ve constantly seen the short films and more independently minded animated movies taking risks and I think what we’re seeing is bigger movies now embracing that, and Joel says, being able to use whatever style suits the story best, rather than saying, “Oh, it has to look like CG, because that’s what makes them money. And if you do something differently, you know, you’re running a financial risk.” I think that’s loosening for sure, and in the next three, four years, I think we’re going to be really pleasantly surprised by how the animation industry is moving.

Could you talk about the rhythm that the action in this film possesses?

JC: I think first of all, with the style that we’re pushing, on one hand, there’s CG, traditional style, which is 24 frames a second and each image is held for one frame. It’s nice and smooth and grounded. And then in the action scenes, we lean more toward what might be considered an anime style, which is a traditional hand drawn animation, which we call ‘stepped,’ where you have certain images that are held, not for one frame, but maybe 2, 3, 4. What the effect is, you’re getting to see poses that are extreme, that catch your eye longer, and it feels hyper fantastical, it doesn’t feel like reality, it feels pushed, and superhero like.

We really wanted to make sure we weren’t just doing it because it was cool, that we had a concept behind it. It all boiled down to the story being about a superhero, Puss In Boots, who is this larger than life icon who doesn’t realise he’s mortal. We were able to use action scenes that feel so fun and turned up in the stepped animation, and then contrast it with moments where Puss is feeling anxiety, and feeling connections, and this grounded kind of reality. Using CG in a way that the audience, whether they know the technique or not, experiences that ride, because there’s two different styles.

You say you don’t do it just because it’s cool, but it’s really freaking cool. 

MS: The ideal is when you have something that works and fits, and then it’s also cool.

Did you have anything where it has that cool factor, but breaks the immersion a little too much?

JC: I think for us we’re telling the story in an authentic way where we’re making sure the story works for the characters. I’ll take the moment where Puss is in the bar, and he gets cut. You could say, Is that too shocking? But Puss is this larger than life character who has this big ego. He sings in the opening song that he’s never been touched by a blade. We needed Puss to wake up and feel something he had never felt before, fear, in this case. There’s this shocking red background in that moment, which is very stylized, but I think the audience feels a new tone. They feel fear for the first time, not only in this movie, but also in the previous Puss In Boots movie or the Shrek world. It was important that the audience almost get shocked awake, with Puss In Boots. I think as long as we are sincere to the character in these moments, we weren’t questioning whether it was too far because it just needed to work authentically for the story.

MS: And it needed to be like that because this movie up to that point is a riot. He’s defeating everyone, he has a laugh at the doctor’s office explaining all these previous lives. Everything is fun. But the journey of Puss being down to his last life, we needed a 180 spin, not just for Puss, but as Joel said, for the audience. That’s really when our movie starts, this new adventure for purpose. We joke about this [bar scene], it was one of the first sequences we did and we had to show it to our executives. Obviously, we’re making what we think is correct, but we have tiers of approval at the studio. But immediately our execs were on board, they were like, “Yeah, that’s exactly what it needs to be.” It was great that everyone could see it.

JC: I think that they understood the movie as a whole was going to be a joyful, comedic adventure. But without this moment of feeling the actual stakes, without feeling fear and vulnerability, the audience could never come away from this movie feeling joy and appreciation. Because you have to go dark to go to light. What we’re happy about is that the studio and us, we all saw the same movie. What’s really cool is seeing how that experience is resonating with audiences of all ages now.

It is that bar scene that makes you think “Oh, they’re really going for this.” It’s a great feeling to have when you’re sitting in a cinema, it’s such an adrenaline rush.

MS: So many user reviews on Letterboxd or wherever are like, “They didn’t need to go this hard, why did they go this hard?” And that’s awesome. People are picking up on that and are excited by that.

2023 has already been a tough year for animation with studios and streaming services cancelling so many animated projects. What’s your perspective on that?

MS: Look, we’re super lucky. We’re at DreamWorks so we’re a little sheltered from that because we’re very well supported. At Universal particularly, we’re huge believers in the feature animation wing. For me, personally, I think there’s been an explosion in animation over the last five, six years, where so many projects are getting made at all the streaming sites. It was an incredible time, but I think there was a part of us always asking, “Is this gonna last?” 

I’ve been in animation now for 30 years and there’s peaks and valleys in animation all the time. There’s moments where it’s like going so well, and then drops down a little bit. We had this when 2D animation started to fade away around the 2000s. So I’ve been around a few of these peaks and valleys and I think the animation industry is in a really healthy position. We may not be making quite as many movies or TV shows we made a year ago, but compared to where I started off, it’s a really healthy industry.

JC: We are in our own little bubble here at DreamWorks because the point of view of Dreamworks and Universal has maintained. We’re making big, sophisticated, nuanced movies for the theatre experience. Obviously, the movies can be viewed in any format possible, but the biggest, grandest animation deserves to be on the big screen. It’s so beautiful. It’s such a wonderful art. Universal have continued to push for the theatrical experience, as opposed to some other studios that have gone straight to streaming. I think when you send something straight to streaming, it’s fine but I’m appreciative that we’re making these movies for an audience experience. 

When we’re talking about this movie, not only is it worth seeing on the big screen for the painterly style of it and the animation, but also the range of emotions that a group of people are sitting in the theatre, experiencing laughter and joy together. Maybe there’s some tears. A whole audience, kind of like a migration of birds, feeling these emotions, synchronised, it’s a beautiful thing. That’s something I’m grateful for that we continue to be able to do here at DreamWorks.

PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH is out in cinemas now

The post Joel Crawford and Mark Swift on ‘Puss In Boots: The Last Wish’ appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

© Cartoon Saloon, Netflix

We associate home with comfort and familiarity but My Father’s Dragon is a quest to recognise a completely new and harsh environment as ‘home.’ After leaving their comfortable life in the country, Elmer and his mother Dela move into the big city, aptly named Nevergreen. The dichotomy between their new and previous lives is too big a change for Elmer to process well and he yearns for an emulation of the store his mother used to run. After a talking cat with the voice of Whoopi Goldberg alerts him to the existence of a dragon on a faraway island, Elmer devises a plan to bring it back to Nevergreen, using its magical allure to raise money to open their new store. 

The deeply intimate and personal stakes of the movie’s opening make for gentle and warm watching. The relationship between Elmer and Dela cannot be described as anything less than wholesome, the art style is pastel, soft and comforting, and viewing this life-shifting change through a child’s eyes provides a relatability. We see Elmer finally start to view his mother as mortal when financial issues arise. We see the effects of poverty on his innocence as he tries to force himself into a breadwinner position in the household. The magical realism that is still to be introduced leaves the forefront of your mind in this section of the movie. The characters are so well drawn and their relationships and struggles so well defined that you could watch an entire movie of them simply trying to make it through the month. 

Once Elmer sets sail away from Nevergreen and towards Wild Island, the supposed resting place of this dragon, some of this intimacy is lost in favour of an epic-feeling story. In some regards, this is disappointing, but it also allows for the film to push itself visually. The design of Wild Island is gorgeous and the supernatural events that take place there are depicted with an incredible balance between subtlety and grandeur. Every landscape shot in this film is worthy of a place in the Louvre and I refuse to stop campaigning for their inclusion. 

© Cartoon Saloon, Netflix

The expedition away from Nevergreen also represents the movie’s biggest shift in tone and writing style. Introducing characters like Judy Greer’s Soda and the titular Dragon, Boris, sees the writing shift to accommodate their hyperactive and clumsy personalities. Though Soda’s appearance is brief, we spend almost the entirety of the remaining runtime with Boris, a character who seems to be at 100% all the time. This might work for some viewers as Boris provides a levity to what had been a challenging story up to this point, but the relentlessness of Boris’ personality can cause a grating effect when the films looks to achieve emotionally heavy moments. Boris’ entire arc is about emotional metamorphosis as he looks to complete a ritual undertaken by every dragon. The process of becoming an After Dragon is analogous to coming of age, but Boris’ character lacks the weight to make that change feel significant. 

Other important players in the story include a gorilla and a macaque named Saiwa and Kwan respectively. These two primates are in charge of Wild Island and are tasked with protecting all life on it. Saiwa had captured Boris in order to use his power of flight to stop the island from sinking, an eternal threat for the beings who live there. As much as Boris displays an unending silliness, Saiwa and Kwan are pictures of seriousness. The gravity of their jobs and situation locks them out of the playful nature which the film maintains from the start. When they share the screen with Elmer and Boris, there is an intangible distance between the stories both parties are playing out. Elmer’s quest to urgently save the island and bring Boris back to Nevergreen sees him caught between the two tones, with the film unable to shift between the two deftly. 

A massive success of My Father’s Dragon is how it introduces characters with goals that seem simple on the surface, but the mechanics of how they are achieved makes the whole thing so much more complicated. Elmer just wants to open a store with his mum, Boris wants to become an After Dragon, Saiwa wants to save the island, Dela wants to support herself and her son. Elmer’s innocence and naiveté means his attitude towards the problems of his own and of others is somewhat dismissive. The goals seem simple, just go and do them. 

© Cartoon Saloon, Netflix

Elmer’s journey is about learning the complexity and grey areas of life, and though the movie does swing in tone, it achieves that primary arc beautifully. The opposing nature of the characters can be jarring but in isolation there are no important players without depth, and everyone has something of value which Elmer learns from. Matched with some of the best visuals of any film in 2022, this makes My Father’s Dragon a heartwarming watch and a worthy addition to the Cartoon Saloon catalogue.

My Father’s Dragon is now streaming on Netflix.

The post My Father’s Dragon: Review of the Latest Cartoon Saloon Feature appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Short-form storytelling has been the underappreciated hero of Disney’s streaming era. Creators seem to be freed by the structure and lower stakes that a short, or a series of shorts, brings. Zootropolis+ ducked under the radar of the zeitgeist in a way which I initially found worrying, but by putting time aside for the show I was rewarded with a collection of delightfully silly, creative and colourful stories from around the world of Zootropolis.

Revisiting a successful IP brings not only an established audience but also cynicism about revisiting a successful IP in order to pander to your established audience. Such concerns are valid, to a degree. Zootropolis+ does have a tendency to lean on the ‘hey I’ve seen that thing before’ effect, dropping in brief cameos from recognisable characters from the film. Zootropolis’ main character, Judy Hopps, makes a few cameo appearances at the edges of the action, as does her co-lead, Nick Wilde.

©2022 Disney. All rights reserved.

Additionally, the iconic sloths from the original film have a short centred around them. Though the joke of them being slow is the only one on show here, the format means that it doesn’t quite get old. Thankfully the exec-pleasing trick of recognisable cameos is not the only one up the sleeve of showrunners Trent Correy and Josie Trinidad.

Access to established assets from the previous franchise entry is not squandered in these shorts. Characters are expressive in ways that outdo the original film at times, backgrounds are incredibly detailed and the textures are a credit to the photoreal direction which Disney has been advancing into recently.

Performances are stellar at times too. Don Lake’s reprisal of the role of Stu Hopps is amongst the most fun the series has to offer. His charisma bleeds through the microphone and elevates an already funny script. His delivery of the line “I just saw the only part of a sheep with no hair” will stick with me for a while.

A struggle of the show is to really establish a target audience. Many Disney properties aim to be entertaining for children as well as the adults supervising them (an ideology that assumes adults can’t enjoy a cartoon by themselves but I digress), but Zootopia+ veers between appealing a little too much to one or the other. For example, it is difficult to see a child getting too much out of episode two, a riff on The Real Housewives. The parody is well-made and funny, but only works with prior knowledge of the original show.

A parody of The Godfather takes this even further by introducing a class commentary which made the first movie the cultural staple that it is. This story is slower, and rather beautiful, but is decidedly without the colour and humour of other episodes.

© 2022 Disney. All Rights Reserved.

Existing on the opposite side of the spectrum is episode 5, “So You Think You Can Prance.” Following Officer Clawhauser’s surreal audition for a dance competition show, the episode is the definition of bubblegum. While other entries felt like the creators making something for themselves, this one was definitely aimed at the pop star-idolising, TikTok dance-recreating younger end of the Gen Z population.

Something that strikes the audience balance perfectly is the pilot. We follow Stu and Bonnie Hops as they chase after their baby who has wandered onto a train. The simplicity of the setup and ridiculousness of the action mixed with incredible one-liners like the aforementioned joke from Don Lake make it an encapsulation of what the show was intended to be.

Tonal inconsistency is often a feature of anthology storytelling, in fact it is one of the joys of the medium. Zootropolis+ fulfils the quota of putting us in the shoes of eccentric characters from different pockets of the city, to the extent that a collection of six shorts can.

Due to the length of the season, having one unenjoyable episode has a large effect on its overall perception. A longer season would have avoided this issue and deepened the world-building of Zootropolis+, something that seemed to be a goal of this series. As it stands, the show asks you to pick and choose your favourite, self-contained stories to return to, but this is unreasonable with only six episodes available.

And thus, the show feels caught between the things it wanted to achieve and the things it needed to achieve. Zootropolis+ needed to appeal to a wide audience while fitting into a slim, modern six episode format, but you can feel the passion and creativity of the filmmaking team breaking through those guidelines. Finding individuality and a singular voice amongst the Disney machine is some achievement, even if it comes at the cost of the consistency of the show at large.

Zootropolis+ is now streaming on Disney+

The post Zootropolis+ 6 Episode Spin-off Series Now on Disney+ Review appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Zaslav had a specific plan to scale down production of animation and kids ‘content,’ a grouping which reflects a misunderstanding of the broad audience animation can reach, let alone the animated shows and movies under the Warner umbrella (they literally own a channel called Adult Swim). Creators are also seeing their work wiped from Warner’s hugely successful streaming service, HBO Max. 36 titles were recently removed from the service, 23 of which were animated. Many of these projects only ever existed on the streamer, giving rise to an existential crisis for filmmakers. How is it that these people are allowed to simply wipe a piece of art from existence?

Glenn Carstens-Peters

Backlash has not only come from creatives but from audiences too, exemplified in the comments on any social media post discussing the issue. Anticipated films like Scoob!: Holiday Haunt had production abruptly come to an end while beloved TV shows like Young Justice were announced to not be receiving new seasons. What the people want seems to be on the opposite end of the spectrum to what executives are doing. The power they hold, to decide who can tell stories, what art is allowed to last, to exist, is far too great to be in the hands of people who seemingly do not understand art to begin with. In the wake of the Warner controversy, audiences and creators alike are questioning how qualified these execs really are. 

Multicultural Movie Making

The aperture between animation filmmakers and film execs can be attributed to their respective demographics. There is a narrow criteria for success in the business world that requires assimilation to an environment constructed and dominated by white men. Those who get the opportunities to direct the biggest projects in animation most commonly fit that description. A study from the USC Annenberg Inclusion found that only four women directed top animated movies between 2007 and 2018 out of 197 filmmakers in total. Just one of those women was a woman of colour. 

However, as creative tools have become more democratised, marginalised people have found their voices heard through animation at an increasing rate. The modern animation landscape is a playground for people of colour, women and LGBTQIA+ folk to express themselves and finally have their unique stories told, whether that be on an independent stage or on a level of higher visibility. Two of the most celebrated movies to come from under the Disney umbrella in the last year, Turning Red and Encanto, are both animated movies from people and places that never get their stories told and have made mainstream animation the most exciting it has been for years. 

“Two of the most celebrated movies to come from under the Disney umbrella in the last year, Turning Red and Encanto, are both animated movies from people and places that never get their stories told and have made mainstream animation the most exciting it has been for years” (Image © 2022 Disney/Pixar)

Therefore, Warner’s decision to turn their back on animated projects conjured dark clouds on what seemed to be a brighter future for animation. The stories that audiences yearn for, the ones that are unique, the ones that are covering untrodden ground, immigrant stories, insights into marginalised communities, pieces of work that inspire those who have never seen themselves on screen before, these are the stories that Warner’s executives don’t seem to appreciate, apparently unable to see why the expression of a brown person’s culture, of a queer or trans person’s experience or anything in that vein is important.

The whiteness of a board room is not a problem simply for aesthetic purposes, it has the opportunity to devalue film as an artform. White execs are more likely to see value in a white filmmaker which immediately places constrictions on what film can be. A recent UK Screen Alliance study proves how difficult it has been for UK animation to break out of its cycle of whiteness. Movies can create social movements and change attitudes, their capacity to do so is diminished if only white men are allowed to make them. 

The Oxymoron of Capitalist Art

One could argue that the misunderstanding from execs extends far beyond art made by marginalised people but their devotion to creating capital means they misunderstand the purpose of art in general. Though the two have been married for a long time, it is becoming clearer that art and capitalism are enemies. Art is the embodiment of innovation, subversiveness and human emotion, an abstract, complex medium through which we aim to express the human condition. Capitalism is all about the cold repetition of what has squeezed the most pennies out of people before. 

This is exemplified in the journey of mainstream animation since the mid 90s. CG animation was invented by and for artists as a new medium to express themselves through. This innovation could easily have existed alongside traditional 2D, hand drawn work, however, the lower production times and costs that CG afforded meant that hand drawn animation has slowly been dying out in the mainstream, all for the sake of making profit and churning out movies as if they’re fast food. Art provided an innovation which capitalism only understood as a money-saving scheme, devaluing the long tradition of 2D hand drawn animation which the industry is built on the back of. 

When you only see art as something to profit off, you lack the tools to understand what makes it good or bad, all you see is numbers. Such a cold worldview finds its consequences in the infantilisation of animation and the categorisation of it as ‘kids content.’ Those whose brains are wired for conservatism are unable to process something as vibrant and innovative as animation continually is. Animation is sat at the kids’ table because of its power to create change, to give control to people that sit outside of the established corporate hierarchy. 

This issue is not specific to Warner. At the start of the year, the UK government scrapped the BFI Young Audiences Content Fund, increasing the difficulty for creators, many of which work in animation, to have their films made. This, combined with prospective Prime Minister Rishi Sunak encouraging artists to retrain into IT-related fields, spells a dark future for filmmaking if nothing is done to stop the devaluation of the artform.

Let Artists Control Art

If there’s anyone who understands why art is important, why it’s vital for a diverse range of stories to be told, it will be the people telling them. For so long the film industry has perpetuated this myth that artists cannot be trusted with business decisions, that they need businesspeople to steer them in the right direction, to channel their vision into something consumable. Though great work has been made under these conditions, it has also led to a homogenous film landscape that is slowly strangling that which is unique.

As it stands, studios judge the quality of their movies on a binary – did it recover its budget or not? There is no room for the spectrum of opinion, no consideration of a cult fanbase. The aim for studios is for each and every movie to appeal to the widest audience. This ideology is antagonistic to what’s at the heart of creating film. 

Major studios need to reframe what they expect from each individual release and have people in the room who can see the value in something beyond its ability to recover its budget. Look at a studio like A24, founded by former filmmakers, that consistently releases the most challenging and celebrated art year on year, all despite their titles not breaking the $100 million mark until earlier this year. Warner Bros.’ 2022 release The Batman grossed almost 7x its budget; surely this allows room to take a risk on an exciting young director from a marginalised background to make something potentially game changing, even if it doesn’t recoup? 

It should not take convincing to give marginalised people a chance, filmmakers should not have their work defined by a box office number, they should not have their work infantilised and they should not have their work wiped from existence because someone unqualified to control art has decided that it should not exist. The film industry cannot survive while those who are anti-art are in control of art.

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The narrative around Lightyear has not been similar, but I think it should have been. The film is an interesting allegory to what Buzz Lightyear means to a world, an animation industry, and a Pixar that is so different now. The company has fallen off the cutting edge of cinema and lost some cultural cache. Original stories such as Soul and Turning Red have seen them claw into a new era, so what is the use in revisiting Buzz?

Many Pixar films seem to pose a question themselves. What if *blank* had feelings? What if this happens when we die? For Lightyear, I suspect that question was ‘What if our movie was just really f’ing fun?’ Rather than a tale set in the Toy Story universe, we get treated to the 80s sci-fi action film which Andy fell in love with, causing him to want to get that Buzz Lightyear toy. We see Buzz (Chris Evans) mistakenly maroon 1200 Star Command troops on a hostile planet through his hubris and, through that same hubris, try and fail repeatedly to bring the squad home. Relatively unbound to the established canon, Lightyear is free to tell a story of huge scope, spanning space and time. 

TEAMING UP – Disney and Pixar’s “Lightyear” is a sci-fi action adventure and the definitive origin story of Buzz Lightyear (voice of Chris Evans), the hero who inspired the toy. The all-new story follows the legendary Space Ranger on an intergalactic adventure alongside a group of ambitious recruits (voices of Keke Palmer, Taika Waititi and Dale Soules), and their robot companion Sox (voice of Peter Sohn). Also joining the cast are Uzo Aduba, James Brolin, Mary McDonald-Lewis, Efren Ramirez and Isiah Whitlock Jr. Directed by Angus MacLane (co-director “Finding Dory”) and produced by Galyn Susman (“Toy Story That Time Forgot”), “Lightyear” releases June 17, 2022. © 2022 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Lightyear moves quickly, and in my experience I was able to follow the plot and character motivations with relative ease, though I won’t blame anyone who gets lost in the mayhem at times. There is also a cynicism to Lightyear which is difficult to ignore. This getting a cinematic release over recent Pixar triumphs such as Soul, and particularly Turning Red, genuinely hurts. 

Lightyear had to prove its worth. In order for such an easy cash-grab to exist, it had to do something interesting. It just about gets there. Rarely a scene goes by without some stunning shots, the overall design of the movie is quite singular, going for a chunky, toy-like aesthetic. I also felt like the story and Buzz’s character arc was unique in its maturity compared to the rest of the Pixar canon. Rather than have a teachable lesson for children, Lightyear is about an authority figure coming to terms with his regrets. 

Unique was not a word I was expecting to use in this review. Director and writer Angus MacLane has worn his influences on his sleeve with this movie. He mapped his own experience of watching Star Wars as a child onto what he imagined Andy’s experience to be with Lightyear, and a reverence for that franchise is clearly woven into the DNA of this film. However, there are also nods to Lynch’s Dune, Alien, and by extension, Metroid. This is not an attempt to remake Star Wars, but is a heart-warming love letter to the sci-fi genre, using the medium of highly polished animation to elevate it further. One’s mileage will of course vary, but my personal love of sci-fi was reflected on screen.

Podcast: “Lightyear” and “The Bob’s Burgers Movie”

Originality can be lost within homage, and a lesser studio may have never found it. Pixar’s ability to put a personal, character-focused story in the middle of a world of sentient vines, killer robots and multi-functional felines is such a singular trait. Lightyear is not your typical tear-fest, which may disappoint people with those expectations of Pixar projects. However, the movie does introduce a mature arc into an 80s sci-fi setting, something I found exhilarating. 

Though I love the presence of this arc, Buzz’s need to go from individualist to trusting his teammates is rather heavy handed. The plot’s want is to twist and jump from set-piece to set-piece, meaning character work can’t always be integrated into the plot so smoothly. The set-pieces all worked for me, meaning I was just about able to overlook this. The Disney trope of having a pure shock value twist villain is dangerously close to having an unwelcome appearance here, but the movie is thankfully smarter than that. Though heavy handed, the villain of Lightyear is purposefully designed. 

EVIL EMPEROR – Disney and Pixar’s “Lightyear” is a sci-fi action adventure and the definitive origin story of Buzz Lightyear (voice of Chris Evans), the hero who inspired the toy. The story, which follows the legendary Space Ranger on an intergalactic adventure, features none other than Zurg—a seemingly invincible adversary of Buzz who would go on to inspire his own toy. Featuring the voices of Uzo Aduba, James Brolin, Mary McDonald-Lewis, Keke Palmer, Efren Ramirez, Peter Sohn, Dale Soules, Taika Waititi and Isiah Whitlock Jr., “Lightyear” releases June 17, 2022. © 2022 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Where Lightyear and Top Gun: Maverick differ is in their relationships to their own legacies. Maverick exists fully in service of its legacy while Lightyear wants to simultaneously profit off it and cut itself loose from it. In a wider sense I see this as Pixar releasing themselves from the weight of their own expectations. The world almost moved beyond Pixar, leaving it a relic of a decades-old era, much like Buzz in this movie. 

In a strange way, Lightyear is Pixar moving past themselves. Exorcised of the need to squeeze tears from the audience, but also in a position where they need to pay off a character’s legacy, this is Pixar caught between generations. They do not employ the new, more cartoony art style of Luca and Turning Red, instead they design a movie around their signature, once groundbreaking style while telling a story in a way they haven’t really done before. This is a transition between eras. 

Lightyear probably won’t make you cry, there is no love interest, no mediation on the nature of existence. Lightyear is Pixar’s first thrill-ride, an 80s-style ‘one last job’ for their most fundamental icon.

Lightyear is in cinemas now.

The post Lightyear Review: The Final Frontier For Pixar’s Legacy Characters appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

AND BEYOND — Disney and Pixar’s “Lightyear” © 2021 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

The cynic in any audience member will group this in with the wider Hollywood (and Disney) trend of attempting to breathe new life into old franchises for the cheap nostalgia-bait. Suspicion around Lightyear heightens once you learn of its riffing on 80s sci-fi aesthetics, yet another nostalgic premise. 

However, despite Lightyear fitting a corporate bill, behind that box office criteria are filmmakers with genuine passion for heartfelt and unique storytelling. Creating something that meets audience expectation and warns off critic cynicism leaves the filmmakers on a balance beam of their own making. Giving Lightyear its own voice is something that the team behind the film have obsessed over, determined to innovate on these established styles, determined to not fall into a pit of overfamiliarity.

The Visual Language of Buzz

Separating the character of Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story is close to impossible, his iconography being the most ubiquitous to come from that franchise. Therefore, the task of removing overfamiliarity comes from the conversion between Buzz as a toy and Buzz as a believable human within the universe of the film. Aspects such as ensuring his classic suit has practical use within the film, having him feel natural inside other outfits and inventing Buzz Lightyear’s hair were left to Fran Kalal, Lightyear’s Tailoring and Simulation Supervisor, who spoke to Skwigly about that process. 

“The Buzz Lightyear toy has seams on it that show that this is a toy that’s been manufactured, so it’s really important that the hard surface detail on the human Buzz Lightyear looks like it was manufactured for human scale… the shading goes on top of that and shows the wear. So there’s human scale scratches and human scale wear.” 

This differentiation between toy and human is extended to the movie’s policy of removing Buzz from the familiar Toy Story cast (with the exception of Zurg). The original characters which populate Lightyear give depth to the world and establish it as unique.

Buzz develops relationships of the type we have never seen in a Toy Story movie, a necessary storytelling decision. Director Angus MacLane was clear about his intentions to not constantly remind the audience of the Toy Story canon, but in his conversation with Skwigly he maintained that there are certain expectations to meet. 

“We had a list of things that we wanted to have in the film. Most notably, Buzz and Zurg had to face off, we wanted to see what the elevator fight from Toy Story 2 looked like in the film and make sure we had the requisite upgrade of that scene, then there were some lines we had to pay off. I did feel that there were definite guardrails of what the audience would expect from the film.”

There is only so much you can change about a character, until they are someone else entirely. The Lightyear team have put a lot of brainpower into separating Buzz from the familiarity of Toy Story, but have placed him in an environment intentionally reminiscent of a golden age on big-screen sci-fi.

EVIL EMPEROR – Disney and Pixar’s “Lightyear” © 2022 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved

A Planet Far, Far Away

The aesthetic developed by sci-fi movies of the 70s and 80s never truly went away, with its pioneers, Star Wars and Star Trek, yet to leave the general consciousness. In fact, modern Star Wars iterations such as The Mandalorian look to replicate that aesthetic following lukewarm reactions to CG-heavy entries. Lightyear, set on being a space-faring movie which could have realistically been released in the 80s of the Toy Story universe makes for another almost impenetrable wall of overfamiliarity for the filmmakers to parse. 

Any space-faring film will have to grapple with the depiction of the vast vacuum. 2001’s desolate, horror-inspired space is a far cry from the casual transport route it appears as in Star Wars. Lightyear’s representation of space sits slightly outside of those, opting to see the wonder and opportunity in space, something imbued to it by Director of Photography Jeremy Lasky.

“We went through different versions of what space would look like and since Buzz is a Space Ranger, it’s about opportunity, it’s about the excitement of the unknown and not this fear about what’s out there. The main goal was, ‘how do we make it feel exciting? and how do we make it feel like this ship is going fast.’”

A hallmark of 70s sci-fi that Lightyear looks to retain is the worn, lived in nature to the technology in the film. There are glossy touch screens, but a heavy emphasis on metallic AI which looks like it’s lived a life of its own. While this familiarity will undoubtedly have the audience reflect on their Star Wars affection, it doubles as a way to establish a universe that feels real and grounded. Additionally, the design of the technology was given much deliberation by Sets Art Director Greg Peltz who wanted to give the tech of Lightyear a blocky, chunky feel.

“We have this base template of Buzz Lightyear’s armour, and at the same time we have this 80s futurism vibe that we are inspired by. So how can those two things inform each other? A big part of it for me is when you look at Buzz Lightyear’s armour, the things that stick out are the buttons, big, bright coloured buttons. Something about that stuff specifically screams out to me as a designer. Everything we make needs to have a cool visual focal point whether it’s an array of buttons here or a brightly coloured thing here that kind of brings things into that toy space. So it’s almost like taking this retro-futurism vibe and toyifying it.” 

TO INFINITY… — Disney and Pixar’s “Lightyear” © 2021 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Though any space-set adventure film will be compared to Star Wars until the end of time, the intention of the filmmakers to pay homage and innovate on that style is admirable. The sheer fact of it being an animated film means the story and visuals can be taken to places that live action sci-fi staples have never been before, giving Lightyear its own language.

Time’s Arrow

For the first time in a while, mainstream animation seems to be moving forward. Innovation is everywhere with studios like Sony, Cartoon Saloon and Dreamworks producing work that feels distinct from each other but also from their own past work. Even within Disney, the last few months have seen the releases of Turning Red and Encanto, two movies that show much needed sparks of imagination from their respective studios. 

With the industry looking to create something new, how long can Pixar keep looking back? The 2010s produced a barrage of sequels which cost them their status as industry pioneers and the days where each Pixar film felt like a new experience started to feel distant. 

TEAMING UP – Disney and Pixar’s “Lightyear” © 2022 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Lightyear is not a half-hearted return to a world we know, but it isn’t a prophecy of where the future of animation lies either. My hope for Lightyear is that it is a true crown on the era of Pixar dominance, a victory lap for this style of animation and for their most iconic creation to date. While movies like Turning Red excite audiences for the future of Pixar, the idea of Lightyear being the full strength incarnation of these movies that provided the formative moviegoing experiences for so many of us is enthralling. 

Lightyear releases June 17, 2022.

The post Can Lightyear Avoid Overfamiliarity? appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Hulu

Futurama has always occupied a unique space. In the execution of its high concept and deep character development, it was foundational to some of today’s TV animation behemoths. A curse comes with that reputation though – a lack of appreciation during its prime years. This sci-fi premise taken to the strangest of places left a disconnect between the goals of the creators and the expectations of the audience sitting down for a Matt Groening animated sitcom. 

However, Futurama’s deep roots in nerdom is what allowed for its uniqueness and for it to age gracefully as nerd culture slowly consumes pop culture. In the time of its various runs between 1999 and 2014, it was rare for a status quo sitcom to possess the sheer scale of Futurama. The Simpsons was not sending you through time and to multiple dimensions while using these situations for both comedy and character growth. Now, Futurama is set to return to an adult animation landscape in which the qualities that made the show unique are commonplace.

Rick and Morty was on hand to fill the gap left by Futurama with its own sci-fi premise – a child and his grandfather on an odyssey across the multiverse, while shows like BoJack Horseman expanded on the character growth Futurama exhibited. Since Futurama’s final breath, higher concepts and bigger emotional gut punches have been dealt by adult animation, making its return to this arena a fine balancing act. The aforementioned shows have had a significant impact on what audiences expect from animated shows, from sci-fi shows and from comedy. If Futurama looks to chase those same things, it is in danger of losing what made it so unique to begin with. 

A More Meta Future

Outside of crypto-bro scheming, the term ‘meta’ has been prevalent in descriptions of an increasingly self-referential comedy landscape. Rick and Morty’s sensibilities are a huge factor in this spike of meta humour. The popularity of Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon’s creation has sparked an uptake in meta commentary across media, but the sci-fi premise which Rick and Morty employs makes for a unique interpretation on the style. This is exemplified in the episode Never Ricking Morty where the duo are transported to a literal story train and are made to live out the story circle, an idea akin to the hero’s journey popularised by Harmon.

Such concepts set a new standard of what audiences expect from an animated sci-fi show. Futurama rarely took the risks that come with the territory with Rick and Morty, the team ever careful not to make an episode about the concepts and not the characters. Additionally, meta humour is not something at the core of Futurama. Self-referential gags are kept at a minimum. For Harmon and co., the sci-fi premise is an opportunity for a more heightened brand of comedy with character development being more of an afterthought, save for select episodes. 

Both shows have tackled time travel over their runs, with their uses of the storytelling mechanic reflecting this dissonance in their aims. Rattlestar Ricklactica acts as a large scale parody of various time travel tropes, with a focus on The Terminator, as warrior snakes from the future look to either kill or protect Rick and Morty. While Futurama is known to parody and reference modern pop culture, it rarely forms the basis of the comedy nor the wider appeal of the show. The Late Philip J. Fry has a time travel premise which sees three main characters accidentally blast their way into the distant future, away from all that they loved in the year 3000. There is plenty of time for jokes, including a Planet of the Apes reference, but the focus is on the relationships that suddenly disappeared and their forever unfulfilled potential. 

Both episodes are successful. Rattlestar Ricklactica delivers on a promise of sci-fi absurdity unique to the show, and ‘The Late Philip J. Fry’ brings us closer to our characters and enriches their relationships. Finding intense, concentrated character growth amongst the chaos of an animated sitcom is another thing that set Futurama apart during its run and is something it must not lose. In the years since, the artform has taken cues from Futurama, its influence particularly present in Bojack Horseman. Futurama caught audiences off-guard with its surprising blend of maturity and silliness, a dichotomy that Bojack Horseman made central to its premise. Bojack will see our protagonist flee Hollywoo after being responsible for a daughter-figure’s overdose in the same run of episodes where the election for the governor of California is decided by a ski race.

BoJack foregoes a handicap on character development which kept Futurama tied to the ground – the status quo. When something changes in BoJack Horseman, it changes forever. The concept of things going back to normal in next week’s episode which gives shows like Futurama, The Simpsons and Family Guy that comfortability is gutted. BoJack is a show that wants to make the audience uncomfortable, that wants to get them to question their allegiance to the main character. The lack of status quo means that the characters live carrying their full history in every moment, the familiar environments stained with their mistakes. If Futurama were to abandon the status quo in light of BoJack’s breakthrough, would it still feel like Futurama?

Between Influence and Emulation

There are worse shows to take influence from than Bojack and Rick and Morty. Finding a balance between the sci-fi chaos of the latter and the deep, grounded emotion of the former could produce something special and see Futurama innovate once more. 

No show should return nine years after cancellation as exactly the same thing. Audiences change, creators change, we want to see the personal growth of artists reflected in the art rather than a changed person cosplaying as what they were before. However, an exercise in finding what makes a show itself is necessary. For creatives, influence is subconscious and one can easily see that influence cross over into emulation. It is important to set parameters that keep the show unique and allow it room to evolve, a precarious balance.

Aside from their potential influence on creators and the raising the expectations of audiences, the most positive impact of the new wave of animated sitcoms is that the world is finally ready for Futurama. The show always carried the burden of being made a decade or two too early for it to be loved by more than a cult fanbase. In 2023, we will have been given six seasons of BoJack Horseman, at least five seasons of Rick and Morty, a slew of animated shows with their own unique gimmick looking to stand out in this densely populated landscape. Futurama could end up being a tepid drop in the water in this new era, or it could thrive, backed by an audience finally able to appreciate the world of tomorrow. 

Futurama is set to return in 2023

The post Where does Futurama sit in modern adult animation? appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Turning Red (© 2021 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.)

This news follows a year where Pixar’s parent company, Disney, gave cinematic releases to 19 projects from other arms of the company such as Marvel and Searchlight. Praise and criticism have arrived in equal parts in response to this move. Though many believe it to be wrong for Disney to convert this acclaimed studio into a sales tool, leading consumers to their streaming service, others see it as putting fan convenience first. But separating films into cinematic and streaming releases creates the idea that the latter lot are inferior.

A Singular Experience

Many of the reasons behind Disney’s distribution of Turning Red are circumstantial with much of the backlash coming from a previous stigma from straight-to-tv or direct-to-dvd or video movies. If not for the pandemic and rapidly developing home cinema technology, the gap between experiencing a film in a theatre versus watching one at home would still be a chasm. We no longer have tiny TV sets with grainy video versions of big screen classics playing fuzzily at the other end of the room, these days the average home media setup is a large HD smart TV with the latest sound technology, enjoyed by people who are actively encouraged to not leave the house. Attitudes towards the ‘correct’ way to view a movie are softening.

Though, it’s difficult to not be cynical about the true intentions of a company like Disney. Consumer-first policies are designed to offer the audience a breadth of choice but Disney have unnecessarily funnelled Turning Red’s entire audience through their streaming service. As convenient as it is for those who are unnerved by the idea of going to the cinema, it rips an option away from those who are not, all for the sake of driving up subscriptions. 

Encanto saw both healthy box office returns, and streaming fan reaction for Disney (© 2021 Disney. All Rights Reserved.)

That subscription model is dear to Disney, especially through the pandemic where box office returns have been diminished across the board but for a few exceptions. Clearly, Disney have been reluctant to take a chance on Pixar’s output being one of those exceptions. Pixar make family movies, and some may deem parents less likely to get the family together for a cinema trip, but this refuses to line up with Disney’s treatment of Encanto. The decision to send Turning Red to Disney+ came after Encanto recouped $216 million at the box office, a figure that pales in comparison to pre-pandemic numbers. Disney may have lost faith in the audience’s willingness to see an animated movie in droves. Equally important is the outpouring of love on social media for Encanto following its Christmas Eve Disney+ release, yet fans were still given the option of a cinematic viewing. The elephant in the box office, however, is likely to be the largest driving force in the minds of Disney execs – Marvel.

Spider-Man No Way Home (Sony 2021)

When discussing exceptions in Hollywood, Marvel is typically the topic. 2021 saw Marvel achieve the second biggest opening weekend of all time and break past labour day weekend records in the middle of a pandemic. Familiarity mixed with the right amount of chaos and unpredictability is what Marvel offers cinema goers. Having the most recognisable characters on the planet in your back pocket and the monetary backing to tell epic sagas allows Marvel to create cinematic events on a larger scale than any other studio. 

The effect of long-running franchise events is also clear in the figures of the latest James Bond film which, while not quite reaching pre-pandemic numbers, rises above the majority of releases this year by recouping more than $800 million. Thus, you might forgive a finance obsessed suit to not have faith in a non-franchise movie about a girl who turns into a red panda becoming a box office hit. Distribution through a streaming service is cheaper and is likely to reach a wider audience. However, such a mentality discolours the future of cinemas as an institution, narrowing the scope of what’s possible inside that building, forcing assimilation upon creators who want people to experience their film in the optimal way. 

What Does Turning Red Have To Prove?

One may determine the worth of a film through the lens of the criticism or praise it receives in reviews, but Disney’s decision with Turning Red picks at a perceived fault of its mere conception. Forging such an arbitrary barrier between what is and what is not cinematic puts a mark of inferiority on anything that is not gunning for Avengers: Endgame. Ironically, on the horizon sits Lightyear, a Pixar product which adds to a beloved franchise spanning almost three decades. 

Will Lightyear see Pixar return to Cinema? (© 2021 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.)

Lightyear seems ripe for cinema consumption but is likely to receive a significant promotional push. In other words, it is going to be built up to be the event which Turning Red has yet to be given. Marvel are successful because they put in the effort to make every one of their products feel like an event, they put the promotional work in. Increasingly, Disney give off the impression that they lack faith in Turning Red and Pixar’s other non-franchise creations leaving fans and even their own staff disgruntled. By not offering at least the option of a cinematic release, Disney have potentially hampered the success of their movie. 

Turning Red (© 2021 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.)

The way in which we experience our films is changing. A once temporary, pandemic-combative measure is feeling worryingly permanent, worrying not only for the personal desire to see a colourful, fun movie in the cinema, but for the spectrum of creativity that cinema offers. For years this mindset has seeped into the thoughts of casual audiences, it now being normal to segregate which movies are worth going to the cinema for. There was a time where the cinema itself was a mystery box, where part of the thrill was gambling a tenner on a movie about talking toys made by an unknown studio being great, or a tale of a lost fish making you cry. Opening yourself up to the range of experiences which all film had to offer is a huge part of why cinemas have felt like institutions, and setting audiences down a pre-programmed path is reductive to what cinema stands for. This may sound like the whining of a purist, but for the sake of creators, animators and all film lovers, I pray for the downfall of the homogeneity of cinema.

The post Turning Red: What is Worthy of Cinema? appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.