Monday, September 29, 2014

TREASURE PLANET

2002

Based on the famous novel "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Planet is Disney's 43rd animated feature, and probably the studio's best work mixing 2D and 3D animation. If you look at Disney's next films, hand-drawn animation is reduced until it completely disappears in the last couple of movies.

Although we'd seen 3D and 2D animation very seamlessly put together in previous Disney films, this time the production team took it a little bit further and created their first character using both animation methods and even one character completely animated in 3D. Although it's very easy to tell that the vehicles are computer generated, the CG in the characters is pretty great (not that the vehicles aren't awesome).

Saturday, September 27, 2014

LILO & STITCH

2002

Lilo & Stitch is Disney's 42nd animated feature and could be considered as a small return to the aesthetics of the classic Disney films. Even though there is a lot of Computer Generated sequences in the film, the watercolour backgrounds and the style of animation is reminiscent of the features of the 40's.

The plot, art direction and even some of the voices were created by mastermind Cris Sanders who pitched the idea while the studio was looking for a new story to develop as a low budget film. Sanders came up with the whole concept (although the story was originally to take place in Kansas) and created a bunch of concept art and character designs which were later taken as the foundation to create the film.

Monday, September 22, 2014

ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE


2001

Atlantis is Disney's 41st animated feature produced by Disney and the second film co-directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. After Hunchback of NotreDame, the pair decided to work together on a new film, and adventure feature inspired by the works of Jules Verne instead of a musical like so many other Disney movies. In other words, they wanted something with "Fewer songs and More explosions" as they stated.

But making a movie with no songs wasn't the only thing that set this project apart from previous Disney films, aesthetically it is very different from what the studio was known for doing. The characters and overall mood of the film were based on the work of Hellboy Creator Mike Mignola.
Most times, when a movie's art direction is based on the work of an outside Disney artist, the product is very unique. See what happened with Hercules for example.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE



2000

The Emperor's new Groove is Disney's 40th animated feature and, after the package films from the 40's, its return to a southamerican based story. The film is also really different from what the studio had produced in previous years story, character and humor-wise.

In my opinion it is also one of the most underrated animated films from Disney. I could easily place it in my top 5. I think its great all around. It doesn't have the epic scale of Lion King or Pocahontas, it's not based on great stories like Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland,  and none of the supertar animators worked on the final version of it. So how is it that this is still one of my favs?

The color in the backgrounds, added to the amazing environment design is simply great. The characters are


Saturday, September 13, 2014

DINOSAUR


2000

Dinosaur is Disney's 39th animated feature, the second one from the year 2000, the first one made only with 3D characters, and the first one to include live action environments.

The year 2K was a weird one for Disney in my opinion. Fantasía was an unexpected movie for Disney to make I think. I guess as kids we got used to the amazing adventure movies that Disney had put out in the 90's and were expecting more of them, so when Fantasia 2000 came out, I guess we were all a bit underwhelmed (although now that I saw it again I thought it had some great stuff).

We still had a chance to get an adventure movie the same year with Dinosaur, but apparently Disney focused more on bringing some incredible visuals and not so much in creating the great characters that they normally develop or an interesting/new story for their new film. Sory-wise they gave is a new (and not very good) version of The Land Before Time, and character-wise they failed to create visually appealing and likeable characters.

Monday, September 8, 2014

FANTASIA 2000

2000

Fantasia 2000 is Disney's 38th animated feature, and the second instalment of Walt's ongoing music based project which began in 1940.

Since the 1930's Disney had been working on animated segments based on music scores which were called Silly Symphonies. The very first one (and probably on of the most famous ones) is the Skeleton Dance which came out in 1929. Since then, and until 1939, Disney produced 75 different Silly Symphonies sequences before releasing its first feature film: Snow White.

Walt's idea with Fantasia was that there would be new sequences coming out every once in a while so that the film would be constantly changing with the inclusion of new stories and some of the classic ones from previous Fantasia versions.

Monday, September 1, 2014

TARZAN

1999

Tarzan is Disney's 37th animated feature and the second one developed in part at Disney's studio in France. The first time this happened was on Hunchback of NotreDame, where the three studios (Burbank, Orlando and Paris) worked together.

For Tarzan, Supervising animator Glen Kean thought it was really important to work with the Paris studio due to their heavy studies on anatomy. So he even flew over to Paris to work directly with the team at that studio.