An important movie

So, because Ralph Bakshi didn't succeed with these two movies about hundred years ago, it means that every new attempt is destined to become a failure?

By the way, another of Bakshi 's animaed movies for adults, Fritz the Cat, did it very well. And Fantastic Planet is amazing.

Bakshi's Lord of the Rings was fantastic. It also was not a 'flop' by any proper standard, having a budget of 8 million and grossing 30 million. It just didn't make enough to justify a sequel, probably because it was a cartoon and Tolkien fans were a very definite, small target audience. The real question is why so many people went to see the Jackson version which isn't better. For some reason by the time it came out it was just more acceptable for adults to go to fantasy films.


"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."

A lot of stories can be boiled down to a short sentence. Romeo and Julie for instance; a story about forbidden love when a boy falls in love with a girl.

Besides, it is the movie as a whole that counts, not the single elements. We see a post apocalyptic world in an amazing landscape that as far as I know, has not been shown in animation before.

I'm not saying it was Oscar material, but it was different and fresh, and just as good as many movies from the main animation studios. And none of those silly jokes or funny comments known from these studious.

Actually 9 is one of my favorite Animation movies out there.

First off, to say that the characters are paper thin indicates not realizing or understanding the full aspect of the movie. Spoilers ahead:

If each and every one of those ragdolls represent a 1/9th of the whole soul of the scientist, how much of a character can there be to each one. They need to be seen an as a whole and as individual reflections of the whole. And even with all that, there is a fair amount of exposition. #1 eventually makes the ultimate sacrifice even though he firmly believes that humanity is not deserving of it.
9 turned out to be a leader who was also willing to sacrifice himself for the better of the world and humanity, when he merely started as an over curious individual.

And thin dialogue? How so, the dialogue is the most important aspect of the film. It's the meat of the movie, special effects, animation and soundmix come second. The story is very much intriguing and it draws you in very quickly. Sure there are certain ambiguity to the concept of the machine, why it needs to suck out souls.. and how releasing souls into the atmosphere gives the planet a second chance at human life... Perhaps a bit abstract, existential and art-house like feature.. but it works..

Job well done on the movie.

Well, the more, the merrier. More variation means more ideas, and it will affect the industry in a good way.

It's true that it usually doesn't end up as block buster successes, but as long as the numbers are not read, it's shouldn't be that important. But the studious wants really big numbers. Luckily, there are individuals like Tim Burton around that can use his influence to make these films possible now and then.

I jsut hope there will come one around soon that makes a huge amount of money, and so open the doors for other filmmakers to do their own animated projects, if only for a while. At least computer animation is getting both better and cheaper with time, so movies like this should become less impossible in the future, even if they still requires a budget on a few millions.

I have heard that the Secret of NIMH did not get the required promotion, and despite all its innivations and return to old quality, it didn't do too well. Had it been a modern Snow White, Bluth's studio would have been able to finance their own movies, and be free to choose whatever story they desired. But they did what they have to do to keep the studio alive, projects that was more of a safe bet and make money. When Spielberg made contact and told him he wanted him to make an animated story about a family of Jewish-Russian mice that migrates to America, Bluth could only say yes.

Just as I would have loved to see what movies Disney would have made had Fantasia and Pinocchio become just as huge successes as Snow White, and the WW2 thing hadn't happened, one must wonder what would have come out from Bluth's studio if they had gotten the chance to do what they wanted to do.

Shane Acker had plans to make one or more sequels to 9, but it looks like it didn't do well enough to make it possible. Where I live, it wasn't even shown at the theatres, but was released straight to DVD.

But if he can join forces with someone, and find other who are willing to invest in another project, then we could expect more in the future. If not, then at least he is one of the main inspirations these days, showing others with a similar background that it is actually possible to make something that's outside the box.

(And a little off topic; 9 seemed to have some elements in common with Theodore Sturgeon's More than Human. If the novel was an influence, or if it's just a coincidence, is hard to say.)

Not just dark animated films, but more adult animation in general. I wouldn't say that Fantastic Planet is dark, a movie I like by the way, but it is not a film for children. Still, a high-quality horror movie made as animation would have been really interesting.

As mentioned, the software keeps improving, and computer power becomes cheaper and more impressive as time go by. Imagine if you made a movie like Toy Story today. It would have been pretty cheap compared to present animation, where the budget can be as high as 200 million dollars (or as in Tangled, 260 million). 9 had a more modest budget, with only 30 million. If adjusted for inflation, it should still be possible to make these movies for a relatively few million dollars. And that's a start. All you need is one giant success, and we could have something new. Hopefully there are more idealists out there with a lot of talent, and with a foot in the industry, knowing the right producers and such. In the "old days", superhero, fantasy and science fiction were often low budget stuff. And in the 70s, much of the animation was independent stuff, and could compete with Disney (who wasn't exactly on its high back then).

For some reason, stop motion is associated with the darker side of animation these says. It's still pretty innocent and made for children, but it could be a start, and with a CGI movie next (what happened with The Goon by the way?).

Because of Pixar and Toy Story, DreamWorks and Blue Sky and so on, computer animation is seen as something for children. But Pixar only succeeded because they got financial supposert from Disney during the production of their first films. Seeing how succesful they were, other studios followed next. But it could have been a different story. In the 70s, some feares that animation was dead, and the Disney studio almost closed. Again, the independent stuff would have survived, as well as television animation. If Disney had closed, then there would be no Pixar.

But computer games had an independent evolution, and the computer characters become more and more complex. Even in a world without Disney and major animation studios, there would sooner or later be someone who said "let's take this game technology and use it to make a completely computer animated movie". What would have happened then, no one can tell. "Kaena: The Prophecy" was by the way made this way, as you maybe knows, even if that happened years after Toy Story. Perhaps it would be some low budget and independent movies at first, until someone got lucky, and made a box office hit. If this had been a non-children movie, the evolution would have taken a different path.