A Troll in Central Park...

[Set]

THAT was a Don Bluth film?

At least the Nostalgia Critic's review is hilarious.

And just as a note to any animators floating around: Please for the love of some dead guy named Pete don't make animated films like this. The clips from the review alone made me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon.

[Terastas]

I knew the N.C. would review that movie eventually.

Don Bluth was, in the N.C.'s own words, one of the animation gods of the 80s. His good side was the storyteller -- the man with a true passion for the art and who believed that his audience, no matter how young, was capable of withstanding anything (just as long as there was resolution).

His bad side was the Disney supremacist. Back in the 80s, Disney was king, and everything was either A) Disney, B) emulating Disney, or C) Japanese. The Disney supremacist in Bluth always took the storyteller's masterpieces and tried to make them a little more whimsical, a little more cookie-cutter, a little more closer to the Disney formula.

This movie is proof that Bluth's good side and bad side met in an epic battle which the bad side won.

I think this is the movie that killed Titan A.E. Great movie in my opinion, but it came out after Bluth had released this piece of crap. If Bluth had just sat on this plotless pitiful excuse of a movie for a few years longer, nobody would have known that he'd lost his mind and A.E. would've been the hit that it deserved to be.

Won't be long before the N.C. does The Pebble & The Penguin. Which wasn't as bad as this movie. . . But it was close.

[Morkulv]

Heh, I saw the NC review/sketch when it came out. Good stuff.

Never particulary liked the movie, not even as a kid.

I don't really get why so many people trip over the whole 'western vs Japanese' animation thing though. To me the originality counts, not the place where it was made. Trust me, I've seen both sucky western animations and Japanese. This is also why I like shows like Aeon Flux, because it was not anime nor exactly western animation. It was kinda like both.

[Terastas]

To me the originality counts

Which is why so many people trip over the whole "Western vs. Japanese" thing.

The Disney supremacy phase extended well beyond the 80s in both directions. For almost an entire generation, 99.9% of all western animation was either Disney, or emulating Disney, creating a limited mindset concerning what cartoons are and are not allowed to be (namely the "cartoons are strictly for children" thing) that has sustained even to the present day.

Creativity was (and still is) so stagnant in Western animation that Pixar can pass itself off as a creative visionary mastermind just by applying its rehashed, overused themes to uncommon sights and settings.

By Disney decree, there was no originality in Western animation. Which is precisely why Japanese animation was so successful even in spite of their actual animation being total crap. The animation sucks (though does make it easy to dub over), but for decades, the Japanese production companies were the only ones that looking for actual creative minds.

So if you think about it, the two markets formed their niches by contrasting each other: Disney and the companies that emulate Disney snubbed their writing quality and relied solely on good animation, and the Japanese companies snubbed their animation quality in favor of good writing. That's why people trip over "Western vs. Japanese" -- because the debate between one and the other is practically a parallel between the debate over which is more important: good animation, or good storytelling.

And yes, I'm aware that Japan has produced some total crap in terms of storytelling, but with the exception of the shows that were just made to sell video games or trading cards, those tend not to survive long enough to ever be translated (much the same way Assy McGee and Minoriteam will never be dubbed either). Really, since we have a tendency to only see the best of the opposing markets (and only remember the best of the local), it wouldn't surprise me if the Japanese have these "western vs. Japanese" debates too.

[Morkulv]

Seeing as the word anime in Japan just means "animation", I don't think they have alot of debates about it. I think for them its just animation, and the term anime as we know it ironically only exists in the western parts to label Japanese animation. There also are alot of stereotypes about both of them, which is why I mentioned that originality should count. When somebody mentions anime, the first thing that comes to alot of people's minds is the picture of characters with big eyes and giant pupils, spikey hair and a alternative-looking outfit, which is never always the case in Japanese animation. Hellsing Ultimate for example has a far more 'comicbook'-inspired style, and the character-design is alot darker then the usual stereotypical anime-characters. They even make fun of Japanese people in OVA 3.

[Set]

Won't be long before the N.C. does The Pebble & The Penguin. Which wasn't as bad as this movie. . . But it was close.

I'll be forced to watch that with my fiancee some time here soon. I wanted to show him the older, better Bluth films, (the ones that scared the s*** out of people) and he insisted we watch the penguins too.

Help me.

[Terastas]

Won't be long before the N.C. does The Pebble & The Penguin. Which wasn't as bad as this movie. . . But it was close.

I was right.

Part 1. Part 2.

By the way, if you're wondering what "the Marry the Mole" joke means. . . *sigh* He made another stinker.

Thumeblina:
Part 1. Part 2.

Usually, the rule in entertainment is that you have to start off making crap until you are lucky enough to make crap that is marketable, after which you can make good movies like you want to. Don Bluth was one of the few who was fortunate to release his masterpiece towards the beginning of his career, but was only able to produce a couple more decent movies before his career quality took a massive nosedive.

The only other director I know of whose first film was a masterpiece, M. Night Shyamalan, met the exact same fate (he won his second Razzie yesterday in case you missed it). Makes me hate to think what Christopher Nolan, Dean DeBlois and Neill Blomkamp will be doing ten years from now.