Next traditionally animated movie?

Can we go yet?

Can we go yet?

Active Member
Original Poster
Have these movies dwindled down to a much smaller number? Most of Disney's future works like Wreck-it-Ralph and Frozen are going to use CGI animation, but what happened to the good old traditional animation? :confused: I heard a year ago about something to do with Elves, now I have no clue. Anyone have any info on this?
 
kap91

kap91

Well-Known Member
I thought I had heard somewhere that the Princess and the Frog didn't do as well as Disney would have liked, and based on that they weren't planning on doing any more traditionally animated films for the time being. Doesn't exactly strike me as sound logic but that's how producers tend to think.
 
Can we go yet?

Can we go yet?

Active Member
Original Poster
kap91 said:
I thought I had heard somewhere that the Princess and the Frog didn't do as well as Disney would have liked, and based on that they weren't planning on doing any more traditionally animated films for the time being. Doesn't exactly strike me as sound logic but that's how producers tend to think.
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If this is true...just ugh. Sleeping Beauty was a finacial failure from what I hear, but that didn't stop them from building her a castle and continuing making films. CGI just seems like a gimmic now, just because alot of films recently in this form have been succesful doesn't mean they can't make an equally succesful film in traditional animation. Sorry, this just irks me.
 
B

Bob Saget

Well-Known Member
A lot of it has to do with traditional animation falling off the grid in popularity. Princess & The Frog, Home On The Range, Brother Bear, Treasure Planet, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, etc.
This isn't just a one-time flop. Traditional animation has sadly been losing it's luster on the big screen for awhile now. It pains me too, as that will always be my favorite type of animation. No CGI can ever top the feel of classic Disney animation.
 
erasure fan1

erasure fan1

Well-Known Member
I agree, I would love to see more traditional animated films. I sometimes feel like disney sabotaged princess and the frog so they could say "see, people just don't care." The marketing for it was just unbelievably bad. Of course that's kind of par for the disney course.
 
Beholder

Beholder

Well-Known Member
There is certainly something "warm and organic" about traditional animation. It will probably take a "sleeper" to come along and create a shift back to hand drawn movies. At least I hope so. I really enjoy traditional animation. I love well done CGI, but something about the human touch that can't be replaced.
 
ellie-badge

ellie-badge

Well-Known Member
... you all know that Winnie the Pooh was traditionally animated, right? It was even released the same day as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II, and still did well at the box office.

The Princess and the Frog wasn't a financial failure by any means, it's actually one of the few traditionally animated films that's done well and was universally praised in the 00's (some people even said it was their best film since The Lion King). The only reason Disney thinks it could have done better was because of the seemingly girl-oriented name, hence why they gave such gender-neutral names to Tangled and Frozen, and more than likely why Pixar opted to name their newest film Brave.

It really isn't because the medium has gone down in popularity, it's because most of Disney's films released after Tarzan were... well, to put it bluntly, pretty bad and not very memorable. That's not to say I don't like Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, or Brother Bear, because I do, but after stepping back, really looking them over, and comparing them to what was released during the Disney Renaissance or even The Golden Age of Disney Animation, Disney could have definitely done better.

Before The Princess and the Frog, the only other traditionally animated film released during the 00's that has so far stood the test of time and has become a family favorite was Lilo & Stitch. In between a bunch of films that were mediocre at best with most audiences, it was a huge success for The Walt Disney Company. It had unforgettable characters and an amazingly touching story that most everyone loved, including myself (I'm not going to lie, it's my personal favorite Disney film), and that is precisely the reason why it did so tremendously well and why Disney insists on flaunting its name on television and in the parks. It was the one good movie they had in a series of constant failures, all of which weren't exclusively traditionally animated. Does Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons ring a bell?

Bolt was Disney's first decent animated film since Lilo & Stitch (I still see plushes of Bolt being sold at the Disney Store and Disney Parks), but The Princess and the Frog was Disney's ticket to success, and with how well that, Winnie the Pooh, and Tangled have done, I don't doubt that we're entering into a new "era" of successful animated features from the mouse.

Anyway... my point is that people want to see good movies, and if it's not good enough to meet people's demands, nobody will see or remember it, regardless of the medium it's presented in. Yes, traditionally animated features such as Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, and especially Home on the Range were panned, but so were CGI films such as Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons. But, as I previously mentioned, Lilo & Stitch was the "diamond in the rough" so to say and did absolutely fantastic, and things started to pick up the pace after Bolt was released.
 
Bairstow

Bairstow

Well-Known Member
There's a Phineas and Ferb movie in the works, but depending on which rumors you read it may be partially live-action.
 
KeithVH

KeithVH

Well-Known Member
As someone else has said, a good story is a good story. Medium is really secondary. I'll bet Toy Story would have grossed as well hand-drawn.

My question would be whether there is enough staff and/or actual talent available on hand to create a complete traditional project? It's not just the people doing the cells but the whole infrastructure required to churn out the final print. I'm wondering if resources have been so re-focused in the digital age that might make older style animation workflow difficult? Yeah, they have new digial multiplane cams but again, that's just part of the process. And it's my understanding Disney hasn't been the best of bosses when it comes to the way the animation staff has been treated over the last 10+ years so you've got that issue to deal with also.
 
Bairstow

Bairstow

Well-Known Member
KeithVH said:
As someone else has said, a good story is a good story. Medium is really secondary. I'll bet Toy Story would have grossed as well hand-drawn.

My question would be whether there is enough staff and/or actual talent available on hand to create a complete traditional project? It's not just the people doing the cells but the whole infrastructure required to churn out the final print. I'm wondering if resources have been so re-focused in the digital age that might make older style animation workflow difficult? Yeah, they have new digial multiplane cams but again, that's just part of the process. And it's my understanding Disney hasn't been the best of bosses when it comes to the way the animation staff has been treated over the last 10+ years so you've got that issue to deal with also.
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True, but at the same time advances in technology assisting 2D computer animation like Flash would probably allow high-quality animated features to be produced by much smaller crews than in the past.

Case in point: Phil Nibbelink made Sealed With a Kiss darn-near by himself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_&_Juliet:_Sealed_with_a_Kiss
 
flavious27

flavious27

Well-Known Member
It matters if it makes sense to have the movie created either in cgi or using traditional animation. Wreck it ralph could not be made with traditional animation, princess and the frog would have been awful if they used cgi. And then you get a movie like tangled that uses one method to have the look of another and ends up being the second most expensive movie to date, while barely breaking even. The look of the film needs to make sense with what is actually going on.

As for mentioning the flops or near flops at WDAS, the story is going to matter. In the middle of all of those strikeouts, lilo and stitch was released. It has a good story and likable characters, which is why it made a good amount of money and disney overused that ip in the parks.
 
BrightImagine

BrightImagine

Well-Known Member
Traditional animation is what made me love Disney in the first place... like many, I once dreamed of being a Disney animator. There was a rumor going around about two months ago that Musker and Clements were returning to start work on a new traditionally animated film. It made my heart leap at the time, but now I can't find anything saying that it is true.

The fact that my heroes Andreas Deja and Glen Keane have both left Disney in the past few years does not bode well to me. I would LOVE to be surprised.

And thank you for mentioning Frozen... I had long hoped that Disney would create something based on The Snow Queen, and I know this has been an on and off project for eons.
 
MansionGoer13z

MansionGoer13z

Active Member
I always loved the traditional animation Disney films. On Blu-Ray they look stunning with bright and vibrant colors that no theatre could acheive. It might be the fact the that we managed to secure the HDTV in demo mode and haven't bothered to change it cause it looks so good and could almost qualify as a 3D movie without the glasses. I'm currently on the hunt for a reasonably priced Pinocchio on Blu-Ray but haven't come upon one yet. But anyway I would welcome a return to traditional animation. Its just too bad that the executives don't get that CGI is a bit overplayed.
 

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