You know, I was working on a big blog post this morning to talk about Monsters Vs. Aliens, but my browser crashed before I could post it, so I lost everything.
I’m kind of frustrated at the moment, so I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version instead:
- I used to think Dreamworks Animation sucked.
- Kung-Fu Panda changed my mind about that.
- Now I’m really looking forward to Monsters Vs. Aliens.
I know that doesn’t give you a lot to hang your hat on in terms of discussion, but I was literally just about to hit the “SEND” button when I lost the whole thing. So I’m just gonna roll with this.
I think I might be back a little later in the day with some more news. But in the meantime, let’s see if we can generate some conversation around Monsters Vs. Aliens. Are you guys excited for it? Dare I say I might be anticipating this one a little more than I was Watchmen! It just looks fun! Leave your comments below!
Thanks!
Yeah! We just got them in! We have a poster for every character!
There's the indestructible gelatinous mass...
...the 50 foot tall woman...
...and the human cockroach!
HEY! I'm standing right here!
I’m definitely looking forward to it. The trailer is absolutely hilarious and though I’m not too fond of DreamWorks just hiring celebrities to play the roles (hello! Tress MacNeille and Billy West are a hundred times more talented than Angelina Jolie or Antonio Banderas), but the choice of Stephen Colbert to play the President of the United States is just genius.
That was part of my complaint against Dreamworks in my lost rant – the employ of celebrities as voice talent. Yeah, Pixar is guilt of the same thing (Owen Wilson in Cars, anyone?) but they mix it up a little bit – tossing in animators who do funny voices or kids from the production staff. Up until Kung-Fu Panda, Dreamworks Animated films seemed like a fairly soulless affair. But they look like they’ve started to ditch some of their snark, which I think is a good thing.
I guess their reasoning behind it is because it will attract more people to see their films. But Wall-E was a huge hit and who was their biggest star in that? Jeff Garlin? Finding Nemo is one of the highest-grossing animated films of all-time and I think their biggest name in that was Willem Defoe.
I was in the same boat you were in, regarding Dreamworks. Everybody was so gaga over Shrek, and I couldn’t see why. Comparing Dreamworks to Pixar was just no contest. With Kung Fu Panda, though, we got a pretty stellar animated flick. Beautifully animated, and just an all around good movie.
On a different note, I really don’t mind them using celebrity voice talent, as long as they are talented. I mean, the cast in Kung Fu Panda was pretty stellar, and it fit in pretty seamlessly (my biggest complaint with that movie, was that they didn’t use their voice talent enough).
I guess the biggest test will be to see if they can pull it off again with Monsters Versus Aliens.
I’ve never minded celebrities as voices in animated pictures, as long as it’s done right. Disney did this to a large degree of success in the early 90’s – Robin Williams in Aladdin, JTT and James Earl Jones in Lion King, Mel Gibson in Pocahontas. The names aren’t as big now (and one of them is a punchline), but back then they were in or near the prime of their careers.
To me, the key is not to splash the names of the actors/actresses all over the place before releasing the movie. Animated fillms have the advantage of using someone’s talent and ability without having that person on screen. That helps the audience detach a little more from reality (i.e. thinking during an Angelina Jolie movie that we’d seen her on ET 28 times in the past week). You lose that when your posters focus on the voice actors and not the characters themselves, which you cannot do in a movie where you have to suspend any sort of sense disbelief to get into the movie. **coughcoughSHARKTALEcoughcough** Disney did it perfectly by letting the audience focus on the characters on screen and not really letting us know who was in it until the credits (aside from a few promos on the Disney Channel, etc.)
Also, while I agree that Dreamworks Animation turned a corner with Kung Fu Panda, to me it really started with Over the Hedge, which I think is one of the more under-rated animated movies from the past few years.
Kudos to Mike for bringing up Over The Hedge, that was a wonderful little gem that doesn’t get near enough attention.
Overall I’ve been fairly lax about Dreamworks. They have made a lot of really good movies; first two Shreks (sue me, I loved them), Over The Hedge, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar (second one currently pending review for me) and Wallace and Gromit (though the last two weren’t all them). It’s just that, when spliced in with the rest of their stuff (Shark Tale anyone?), it all seems to level out at a sort of ‘eh’ area of interest for me.
Still, the studio has definitely started looking up recently, the trailer for Monsters vs. Aliens was pretty funny, and Stephen Colbert is in it, so I’ll definitely give it a look.
Short comment here, but I have to voice my agreement with Mike. Over the Hedge is GREAT!
Your browser seems to crash somewhat often right before you hit the send button. Have you considered typing up the post in Word, or Notepad?
I’ve tried writing my stuff in Notepad before, but I always fall out of the habit. Feels like an extra step, I guess.
I should probably fall back into the habit.
Whenever I’m posting something large, I always select all and do a ctrl+C before I click submit. It’s a good habit to get in to, as when everything ends up lost, hit a ctrl+V and paste it back. 🙂
Funny comment and anything about Arron Eckhart is golden.
I am so looking forward to Monster vs Aliens. My favorite so far this year. It looks really funny especially with the voices of Stephen Colbert and Seth Rogan. i hope I can see it opening weekend.
DreamWorks hasn’t disappointed me yet at least with Madagascar,, Shark Tale and Shrek. i didn’t see Kung Fu Panda.
Tom – there are a few extensions for Firefox (I think you’ve mentioned before that’s the browser you use) which automatically or manually save your textbox entries so that if something like this happens (or you hit the back button or click a link by mistake, and lose your entry), then you’ve got it saved already. I haven’t used any new extensions in awhile, so I don’t know what theyre called, but Google is your friend!
Szara, Thanks for the tip.
I will use my Google-Fu to find this extension!