CHICKEN LITTLE

2005

Chicken Little is Disney's 46th animated feature film and the first one in the studio's history to be done entirely by computer animation.
The movie marked a new era in Disney, which in the beginning didn't seem like it would be a good one. After the ALGO of Disney's previous movies Brother Bear and Home on the Range, and the success that other studios were having with 3D animation, the studio decided to shut down the 2D animation department and focus only on CG features.

Although Disney had already used CG to enhance some scenes since the late 80's and had even released Dinosaur, a movie done with 3D characters over live action environments, this was the first time the studio produced a movie done entirely in 3D. And I think that they struggled a lot in the beginning to create nice characters and environments and get to the 2D animation's level that Disney was known for.



If you compare Chicken Little with Toy Story, there's a huge difference in terms of layout and environment design. Even though Toy Story was released exactly 10 years before Chicken Little, the environments seem a lot better (even with the texture and lighting being much more precarious) and the whole world in which the movie takes place is much more interesting.

Something that I don't like about the first Disney movies done 3D (and that I think even happens in Frozen) is that the environments seem much more simple than any of their 2D animated features, to the extent that they seem empty. This especially happens in Meet the Robinsons.

The biggest problem though is that the story and characters again fail to connect with he audience. This was something that had happened since Brother Bear and would continue till the Robinsons. It seems pretty incredible now after watching so many amazing stories been told by great animators, that Disney came to this stage, probably the worst in its history (maybe compared with the early 80's), in which the story and characters were left behind.

Thankfully, since John Lasseter was appointed as Director at Disney animation, story and characters have once again been at the center of their features.