THE PACK Message Boards

Rock-A-Doodle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1opcboNUNI

Fern Gully
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae7x3sp4 ... ed&search=

We're Back: A Dinosaur Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLYiYgONJGc

Oh man, how I loved those last two!

Good Lord. These "films" are an embarassment to hand drawn animation.

I remember loving those as a kid.

Weren't they in reality quite awful?

MattSullivan wrote:Good Lord. These "films" are an embarassment to hand drawn animation.

*nods* Whenever people comment on how 3D animated movies suck compared to hand drawn, these are among the cartoons I typically bring up in their defense. Well, Rock-A-Doodle and We're Back anyway. Fern Gully wasn't completely horrible.

I really liked Fern Gully, plus it gives a good message at the end.

I actually liked Rock a Doodle, although the story was insane...

Fern Gully... Meh... it was nothing but an Earth First promo to induct kids into enviromental terrorism...

Come ON! Smog never killed anyone... cough... cough... hey is that a third eye!

I still have those on tape. They're in my closet.

I haven't seen them in quite a while, but I really liked them when I was younger.

Watched all of those when I was younger. Ferngully is definitely my favorite out of all of them. Gotta love Batty Still really like that movie.

I remember I wanted the dinosaurs in 'We're Back' to stay in their 'bad' forms. lol. They look way better that way anyway.

Rockadoodle sortof freaked me out back then. The owls and the boy-turning-to-cat part. Back when transformation scenes still scared me.
Trippy, weird movie that.

Anyone remember "A Troll in Central Park"? Hated that one. Used to be scared of that one too(the bad goblins and when the boy turned into a goblin)

Or "Pebble and the Penguin"? I remember I thought they sung way too much, was like, 'ok, get on with it...'


Good times(though not particular the best animated movies ever made(except Ferngully))

A bad movie is a bad movie. I appreciate some of the animation...but story is king and well...that's how I feel.

Silverclaw wrote:Anyone remember "A Troll in Central Park"? Hated that one. Used to be scared of that one too(the bad goblins and when the boy turned into a goblin)

Or "Pebble and the Penguin"? I remember I thought they sung way too much, was like, 'ok, get on with it...'

...Those are in my closet too.

Silverclaw wrote:I remember I wanted the dinosaurs in 'We're Back' to stay in their 'bad' forms. lol. They look way better that way anyway.

Glad I wasnt the only one that thought so!


Senior year, in Environmental science class, my teacher let us watch Fern Gully and we all got so excited. Then we had a lockdown and you're suposed to turn off the lights and not do anything (there was no real danger!) but we convinced my teacher to keep the tv on because we wanted to see the end! Those were good times!

i remember them too....but i have not seen them for ages now....I liked them all alot^^

Silverclaw wrote:Anyone remember "A Troll in Central Park"? Hated that one. Used to be scared of that one too(the bad goblins and when the boy turned into a goblin)

Or "Pebble and the Penguin"? I remember I thought they sung way too much, was like, 'ok, get on with it...'

Oh, good lord those were horrible! The Pebble and the Penguin has long been at the top of my "worst ever," list, but that's only because I forgot about A Troll in Central Park. I honestly don't know which was worse, and I'm certainly not going to look back and compare the two either.

Terastas wrote:

Silverclaw wrote:Anyone remember "A Troll in Central Park"? Hated that one. Used to be scared of that one too(the bad goblins and when the boy turned into a goblin)

Or "Pebble and the Penguin"? I remember I thought they sung way too much, was like, 'ok, get on with it...'

Oh, good lord those were horrible! The Pebble and the Penguin has long been at the top of my "worst ever," list, but that's only because I forgot about A Troll in Central Park. I honestly don't know which was worse, and I'm certainly not going to look back and compare the two either.

I remember liking "Pebble and the Penguin" a good deal more than "A Troll in Central Park" At least PATP had some decent moments(killer seal chase). Its been years since I've seen it though...now I want to watch it again lol

The opening at the beginning of Rock-A-Doodle was pretty good, I thought. Too bad the rest of the movie didn't follow suit.

How about the Pagemaster? Another movie that was slated to be huge, got some real talent working on it, and fizzled into history, forgotten?

Memories . . .

I can't believe I actually watched those again. . .

I will say this though: The end of Professor Screweyes in We're Back (fast forward to 7:45) sticks with me to this day. . . But the rest of the movie sucks.

That's the weird thing about some of these movies: They had some seriously dark villains and disturbing imagery, especially for children's entertainment, and yet all we remember is how absolutely lame the rest of the movie was.

A lot of Bluth's stuff was pretty dark as far as children's entertainment goes. Yet a lot of it was entertaining : D

We're back wasn't...er THAT bad. I remember seeing it in theaters as a kid
: p Rock-a-doodle was definitely freaky and kind of confusing.

Ferngully = awesome! Come on! Hot fairy chick, Tim Curry as a singing smog guy, Robin Williams as a bat, Christian Slater when he still had a career! Great stuff! I would still watch it and enjoy it today and theres nothing wrong with an environmental message cartoon unless your Captain Planet and your show sucks! : p

speaking of crazy old cartoons with messages do any of you remember that corny kids cartoon back in the day where all the cool characters of the 80's (ninja turtles, muppet babies, slimer, Alvin and the Chipmunks, etc) sang about drugs and helped this druggy kid get his life back on track? Man too bad a lot of that stuff didn't really work.

-Neko

I remember them all coming out in theaters, but never saw one of them. Now I have.

As for Rock a Doodle, what was that thing on top of his head?! It was very....animated. And why is a dog tying, let alone, wearing shoes in the first place?! It doesn't make sense! GOD! And the ending was the most confusing with that real life kid and the dancing and the singing and the reality mixed with the fantasy world. The kid is stuck in that fantasy world, after the credits have ended and remains in that retarded universe forever! Does anyone feel sorry for him besides me?! This movie enrages and scares me!

As for Fern's Gully, what AlphaAnubus said and all that stuff about environmental terrorism. Though, the ending was kind of nice with the guy going off into the sunset with his two male companions.......(smirk)

And then there was We're back. I just wish there was more human squishing. Sure, there was the squishing some lizard underneath one of the dinosaur's feet, but I wish there was more squishing. The only thing I don't understand was why the dinos turned into duphus looking characteratures when their more primal illustration looked so much better and should have been used instead. I just saw it as some cheep way of shorthanding. It would have been a good movie if it were not for the director. They should have hogtied Tim Berton and made him direct these films. That way, they would be pretty decent movies.

Ah yes. Memorable movies from childhood that suck in today's standards....They're almost comparably shunable as Colors of the South.

nekocj wrote:A lot of Bluth's stuff was pretty dark as far as children's entertainment goes. Yet a lot of it was entertaining

Oh yes, Bluth was a master in his own regard (Secret of Nimh is, as far as I'm concerned, still one of the three greatest animated movies of all time). I just get the feeling he never believed in his own creative genius and instead tried way too hard to be more like Disney. Thus, he wound up directing some total crap (he directed three of the five movies in question here, and no, not either of the two that some of us said were only "kinda sorta" crappy), and worse, made crappy some movies that would have otherwise been real gems.

Think about it: Would An American Tail have been better without "Somewhere Out There" and that cheesy friendship song? And did All Dogs Go To Heaven really need the singing alligator? Nothing kills a movie more, in my opinion, than gratuitous song and dance, and when it comes to that, Don Bluth was the world's greatest offender.

Think about it: Would An American Tail have been better without "Somewhere Out There" and that cheesy friendship song? And did All Dogs Go To Heaven really need the singing alligator? Nothing kills a movie more, in my opinion, than gratuitous song and dance, and when it comes to that, Don Bluth was the world's greatest offender.

Well, I loved those parts when I was a kid

The musical sequences have dwindled down in the last movies, simply because no one could really get into it and the music really did suck. However, I'll bet that there will be a surge in musical numbers in later films. That High School Musical movie and the way that our culture has embraced stuff like American's Idol and singing Bee shows. I wouldn't doubt that there's going to be a movement of musicals and movies with song and dance to come.
Though, I wish they never introduced the dancing in the Spiderman movies. Just wait until you see what they did with the new Hulk movie.

Y'all do realize you're watching a dying art form, don't you? Hand drawn art is hideously expensive next to Computer Amimation, and takes a lot more time as well.

Even the Japanese Anime is becoming computerized, although the look of handwork is still there, mostly it isn't.

Eventually, we;ll lose that artform as well; and the Anime will look realistic-yes; but will it be art? No, IMHO.

Even when Anime was hand drawn- you still couldn't figure out the plot. Like Matt says: the Story is king; the pictures just help tell it.

Somebody shoot me: I just agreed with Matt Sullivan!

RedEye wrote:Y'all do realize you're watching a dying art form, don't you? Hand drawn art is hideously expensive next to Computer Amimation, and takes a lot more time as well.

Oh not that again!

CGI is not, I repeat, not killing hand drawn animation. Hand drawn is just no longer the standard -- animators are using CGI to produce their prolefeed and half-hour toy commercials, but the art form will persist in the hands of those that prefer it as an artistic mode.

Every time something new comes along, people start harping that "it's killing [insert old art form here]." When photography was introduced, people harped that it would kill painting. There are still plenty of painters out there, and now I'm hearing a ton of photographers complaining that digital photography is killing film photography.

Do you know who does the most complaining? The no-talent artists that were never very good to begin with. The one guy that was ever ballsy enough to tell me that my digital photography "doesn't have a soul" previously made his living taking pictures of fruit for magazines. Because of digital, he can't charge people $500 for a piece-o-crap job anymore; instead everyone pays someone like me a fraction of that to have it done better looking and sooner. The real good photographers haven't said a word yet.

Same thing with animation. The most vocal opponents of CGI were the animators that had nothing but crap for credentials. Now there are programs available that let the average man create works of animation that would put the entire animation team of Home on the Range (generic hand-drawn crap's last stand) to shame. The art form isn't dead -- you just can't expect top dollar for something half-rate anymore.

Same thing will happen to CGI eventually, and a lot of the animators currently making the Barbie movies will be harping that the new form is killing CGI too. It's a pattern with all things: those that were never very good with the old format and are unwilling to relearn the new format do nothing but piss and moan about it. Just you wait, in a few years you'll hear the oil companies complaining that energy-efficient vehicles and clean alternatives are a conspiracy to put them out of business. Same scenario, different invention.

Draca wrote:
How about the Pagemaster? Another movie that was slated to be huge, got some real talent working on it, and fizzled into history, forgotten?

Every time I go to Blockbuster I look in the "family" section and consider renting this movie because I thought it was pretty cool.