Ha, I didn't even realize the cross problem, and I just went back to watch it and you're totally right. For all the details in those beautiful backgrounds I'm surprised they got that wrong. I'm more surprised I didn't notice tho...I've made ornaments at home for Christmas with those crosses quite a few times and I didn't even recognize the problem, lol.
I was also wondering, if it's another mistake as to accuracy of architecture, but the use of onion dome roofs. I was under the impression that they were actually only used in a few places in Russia and for specific buildings, and when the grandmother's house is shown built with them I was a little confused.
Others also mentioned the whole ethnicity problem behind the little girl, and since Russia is, in fact, part of Asia, then it's very likely that lots of people have the tendency to look slightly more asian rather than european.
I will argue one point behind the problem with gradient shadows like the ones in Little Matchgirl. I didn't originally go into depth with all my complaints (which too many people on here find tedious and annoying, but I hope prospective artists and appreciators take the time to read), but I get pretty keen on critiquing visual aspects of animation art (since a lot seems to go awry now a days).
Especially in Matchgirl, the contrasts of blend shadows vs. the crisp, well-rendered watercolor(?) backgrounds is too stark and takes away from the solidity of the piece. When you have soft blends on objects and characters closer to the viewer than the backgrounds are, it creates perspective issues that clash and can really take away from visual beauty...or at the very least visual solidity. It goes against even general understanding of perspective to the eye, where normally things at a distance are more out of focus than things in the foreground...or from another approach, when the eye or camera focuses back and fourth between important objects.
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In short, it's backwards perspective, and it really takes away from something that should otherwise look really solid. Nothing looks grounded, and everything is the same fuzziness which blend all the characters together TOO much.
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It can't really be argued either that maybe this was an artistic intention, since Disney tries really hard to replicate normalcy (however stylized) in their animations. Artistic intentions for Disney are, say, the colors chosen for this film, or the style in which it's drawn in.
Blend shadows also read too much like 3D animators trying to replicate 2D animation, or as if they're under the notion that the general audience expects 2D animation to be as "profound" and "exciting" as 3D. I believe it's just an unfortunate misguidance in the studio's judgment.
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quinapalus
17 years ago
I don't have your eye for shadows but they didn't bug me; I was too busy drooling over the palette. I doubt "3D animators trying to replicate 2D" was the problem here, as I read an interview with the... director? producer? who said he used to draw boards for Disney back in the day and it was great to get back to that. I do note that part of the theme of the story is that she isn't particularly visible to the people around her, so perhaps the shadows were a thematic choice rather than a graphic one per se. I'm not looking for an argument, though, I accept your artistic judgement on the matter. Just something that occurred to me.
I too went, "onion domes? on residential architecture? seems odd". But as to the girl's ethnicity, my first thought was "Mulan??" and my second was, "wait a minute, was the LMG Kazakh?" The only thing I remembered about the Andersen story was how it ended. I guess she was Dutch originally. But the girl as drawn strikes me as a very plausible Kazakh child: (vis ref: http://www.kazakh.ru/photo/faces/) On the plausibility of a Kazakh child in St. Petersburg in the 19th c., or for that matter whether St. Petersburg is even the setting... I have no qualified opinion.
But the cop lifting her off the streetlamp -- that wasn't random, that was totally to the point of the story. He isn't there to help her, he's there to nudge her back in line.
EDIT: It's "Andersen", you oaf.
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Niffiwan
17 years ago
Well, the girl doesn't look ethnically Russian, that's all there is to it. I guess it might've been a kind of political-correctness decision, or it was meant to suggest that the reason that nobody's paying attention to her is because she's "ethnic". I do think that making her non-Russian was an unneeded element and that the story might've been stronger without it, but I guess they made that choice...
You're completely right about the onion domes on a residential house - that's kinda like having a church tower with a bell on some peasant's house in Western Europe.
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Math problems? Call 1-800-[(10x)(13i)2]-[sin(xy)/2.362x].
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17 years ago
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Niffiwan
17 years ago
Don't flame. If what you said was true, the job of "wine taster" wouldn't exist. And by your own logic, you have no right to praise the film because you can't do any better either - so what makes you qualified to say whether it's good or not?
Perhaps you simply don't understand his critiques because you haven't seen better animation yourself and he has, so to you this looks excellent while his expectations were higher.
Personally speaking, I thought that if the character animation of the little girl had been done with more subtlety, the film would've been better - I say this because I've seen the difference that it has made in other films and I can imagine what it would've done in this one. For me, at least, the little girl's emotions were too exaggerated; it was being hammered into your head what she's feeling, and I thought that this story would've been more effective if it had been allowed to stand on its own, with less extreme emotions on her part.
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Math problems? Call 1-800-[(10x)(13i)2]-[sin(xy)/2.362x].
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quinapalus
17 years ago
Um, she's not reading things into it, she's perceiving things you don't perceive because she's a professional and you're just some cheeto-stained clown on a message board and when she watches something like this she sees about 2000x more than you do. (I think I remember from another thread that blueraptor is a chix0r.)
I don't even agree with her but I have to scoff at counterarguments that go "UM UR RONG IT WUNDRFL"
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