In 1991, Walt Disney's Beauty and The Beast was the first animated film to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards. It was a throwback to the musical past of the studios traditional output, enchanting and entertaining. It was also the pinnacle of the Disney resurgence. Aladdin followed in 1992, and then their last great success, The Lion King, in 1994. These films not only signalled a revival in fortunes after spectacular failures such as The Black Cauldron (1985), but they featured the first techniques that would signal the fall of 2-D animation.
The ballroom waltz in Beauty and the Beast , animated spectacularly with ink and pen, is enhanced with computer wizardry to simulate live-action techniques such as depths of field and character rotation. Aladdin featured a carpet ride that incorporated similar tricks as the characters swooped over the city and under arches at every possible angle. The Lion King's stampede scene was breathtaking in it's realism as the camera dollied, as if on tracks, through the wildebeest. While Disney counted the profits rolling in as The Lion King became the largest grossing animation of all time, they were unaware that a small animation studio (with Disney funding) were about to change the fate of the Magic Kingdom forever.
It had started with a lamp. A lamp that had come to life. Created in the internal workings of the most powerful computers money could buy. PIXAR was born. The brainchild of John Lassiter, a former Disney employee, and his team of expert animators. After a series of critically acclaimed shorts (most of which can be found on the studios numerous DVD's) they embarked upon the first motion picture to be created entirely from computer animation.
A titanic struggle between a cowboy doll named Woody and a hilariously unaware space robot called Buzz Lighyear. It's ironic that the main theme of the movie is about the souped up, technologically advanced toys battle with the nostalgic doll of days gone by. In the end, the two characters forge a partnership, and put aside their differences to co-exist in the toybox, the metaphor however had a different outcome. Toy Story went on to be one of the biggest grossing movies of that year and achieved the miraculous feat of making you forget you were watching an animated film. It also transcended the target audience of young children with in-jokes and detailed characters that appealed to the adult audience
Ask any child (and adult for that matter) what their favourite animated film has been over the last five years and they will undoubtedly answer one of the following; The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Toy Story 2 (In league with The Empire Strikes Back , and The Godfather 2 as sequels that surpassed the original), A Bug's Life, Shrek etc. Nowhere on this list will you find Atlantis, Road to Eldorado, Lilo & Stitch, Treasure Planet, Sinbad etc. Ever since the first cry of "To Infinity and Beyond", traditional 2-D animation has fared poorly both critically and commercially.
While PIXAR continue to create character driven animated masterpieces that have twisted the arm of the Academy to create a Best Animated Film category, other studios have been scouring the world to assemble their own team of computer geniuses to rival them, with considerably mixed results. The studio that has come closest is, unsurprisingly, DreamWorks SKG, with its post-modern attacks on Disney in the form of the Shrek franchise. The second instalment out grossing Finding Nemo to become the biggest animated earner of all time. Where they have failed to capture the magic of PIXAR is in the care taken on the characters. DreamWorks CGI output has relied on a starry voice cast to propel its movies; the plot appears to be secondary. It's no great surprise that the weakest character in The Incredibles is Samuel L. Jackson's Frozone, a creation (like all of DreamWorks) that is built around the persona of the actor providing the voice instead of creating one for the film. Too many of the most recent CGI animated movies have relied on this technique, Madagascar and Valiant to name two, and although performing reasonably at the box office, they have lacked the charm of a PIXAR movie and before long audiences will grow tired of the template.
The measure of this theory will be tested this Autumn with the release of Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and Aardman animations Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Going further back than the ebony haired lady and her seven little helpers to a technique mastered by the great Ray Harryhausen in classic movies such as Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans , stop-motion animation.
How this regression to a forgotten technique will be accepted by a generation fuelled by films that resemble Playstation games (George Lucas?) is yet to be seen but both films have impressive credentials.
Nick Park's creations, Wallace and Gromit are the proud owners of a couple of golden baldies, and have achieved critical acclaim on a worldwide level. Christmas wouldn't be the same without a screening of The Wrong Trousers and the aforementioned point of putting character creation before anything else is displayed no better than in the world of Aardman.
The film attempting to resurrect the fortunes of non-CGI animation is Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. Similar in tone to Burton's previous stop-motion effort, A Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), which he co-directed with Henry Sellick (who brought the creatures of 2004's Life Aquatic to life). Nightmare was critically well-received but it was only on video and DVD that is garnered the appreciation that it deserved. The aces up Corpse Bride's sleeve are the director, hot off the back of the phenomenally successful Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , and his leading man, Mr Johnny Depp. Both have ensured that the film has opened in the US with a $20M plus weekend.
Only time will tell whether the gothic comic story of a young bachelor who mistakenly weds a corpse can send the likes of Shark Tale's neon saturated, Will Smith, mute button inducing creation to an early grave. Morph certainly hopes so.
Matthew Rodgers
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