I totally agree and have been saying for awhile that there are just too many CGI films being made.  A CGI film just isn't the special movie event it used to be.  Now audiences and families have to pick and choose which CGI films they will see or buy.  For studios to stay in the CGI arena they'll have to be on top of their game.

It is comparable to the 90's when Disney hand drawn animation took off.  Soon many studios (Fox, WB, Universal, Dreamworks) jumped on board hoping to make the money Disney films were.  Some of these had success financially (Fox's Anatasia, Dreamwork's The Prince of Egypt) others critically (Iron Giant) but in the end Disney and Dreamworks were really the only ones that hung on until Treasure Planet, Home on the Range, and Sinbad did so poorly at the box office.

I think we'll see the same and even more with CGI films.  Many studios are making CGI films and many will exit in the next few years.  I only expect Disney/Pixar, Dreamworks, and possibly Fox to continue on this course in the future.  I'm really starting to doubt that any of the remaining CG films this year will cross the 100 million mark.

I'm also glad to see Disney getting back into hand drawn animation because I strongly feel these films can still make lots of money if the proper time, money, and quality is there.  What I'm saying is I already can't wait for "The Frog Princess"!

Thank you, Jim for finally focusing on the bigger issue!  Hallelujah!

And in response to your question, the only DVD's vying for my dollars will be Little Mermaid, Cars, and The Fox & the Hound.  The others (that I haven't watched -- I hate to admit that I saw The Wild, but it was at the El Capitan, at least) are all patiently waiting in my Netflix queue.

Mickey_Hal said:
It is comparable to the 90's when Disney hand drawn animation took off.  Soon many studios (Fox, WB, Universal, Dreamworks) jumped on board hoping to make the money Disney films were.  Some of these had success financially (Fox's Anatasia, Dreamwork's The Prince of Egypt) others critically (Iron Giant) but in the end Disney and Dreamworks were really the only ones that hung on until Treasure Planet, Home on the Range, and Sinbad did so poorly at the box office.
----
A recent Variety article on "Ant Bully"'s disappearance asked the key question:
"Remember back when 'Valiant' was the ONLY CGI flop?"

Which, of course, as already pointed out in another thread, was incorrect: "Antz" was the first CGI flop, and even if you didn't think so, there was always "Final Fantasy"--
But since this was the early days, critics and industry analysts called -anything- in CGI a "breakthrough hit", since there was only Pixar to compare it to--And because, being analysts, they thought one studio created every animated movie ever made and the exact same audiences went to both, and assumed it must have been some sort-of hit anyway on X vs. Y numbers.
What wasn't around back then, and that we have today, is the IDEA that different studios can make different CGI pictures, and that, well, some of them can possibly stink.
This is the crucial ingredient in any evolution of art or technology:  First the breakthrough, then the public acceptance, and then the critic.  And it took third-party CGI pretty darn longer than usual to reach that third stage--Even longer than it took the third-party 2D-animation flood in the 90's.

As for the rest of the article:
We've already reached that third stage with direct-to-DVD CGI movies, where an original title can open at Target-Mart and we don't have to care.  "Wild", "George", "Hedge", "Mermaid" and "Cars" [and should we be paranoid about how that one got into an article about "shaky DVD-sale competition"?] were all known quantities from their theater releases, and sink or swim on the reviews they got and how many were already wanting to take them home ahead of time.
As for Barbie and Brother Bear, however, we've long since become numbed to seeing them as Toys-R-Us marketing, and stopped expecting any kind of story or character development.  They've got their own shelves now, apart from the "real" movies.

Oh, also:
---
"You want to know the really ironic part of this whole situation? Based on what I just saw at SIGGRAPH 2006, some of the strongest, most entertaining CG films of this year (I.E. "Flushed Away," "Happy Feet" & "Open Season") have yet to actually open in theaters. Hell, even "Everyone's Hero" (based on the footage that I got to see earlier this month in Boston, anyway) looks to be a real charmer."
---
The trailer's up at Apple, and my first reaction was, on paper, this was -exactly- the kind of story that Pixar--Brad "Iron Giant" Bird, even--could have made magic.  It just had all the ingredients, and you could see some of what Christopher Reeve had in mind going in at the beginning...But it wasn't, and as a result, we get Whoopi Goldberg as a jive-talking bat.
I can't come up with a more perfect metaphor for What Goes Wrong when other studios do CGI movies.  And that's the hurt that's coming out of the glut, right now.

And for "Open Season", everyone's already brought up the "critter flood", but I still say it'd be an interesting article to watch whether Roger Allers and the ex-Pixar people now at Sony ever get wooed back "home" to the new animation-friendly Disney/Pixar.
Unlike the other commercial-FX companies who say "Hey, there's money in this!", they, at least, have a resume', training, and a career ahead of them.

OK, you asked for the titles I'd most likely buy. For the record I'm the 45-year-old male half of a married couple without children. Still, my wilfe and I are animation and film fans with a DVD library of more than 400 films and a half dozen TV series. We don't have cable ... just local TV stations and our DVDs.

Here's our list:
Little Mermaid
Fox & The Hound -- although I'm interested in seeing if the bonus material is worth the $18 to $24 price.
Over the Hedge ... good voice casting and an entertaining film.
Monster House ... a pretty good story, although I don't really care for the motion capture animation and the soul-less eyes of its characters. If I see it on sale for under $20, it's a maybe at best.
Cars -- most definitely. We own all of Pixar's films and know that they're worth rewatching and enjoying one or two times a year. Cars is not my favorite Pixar film; nor is it my least favorite. It's squarely in the middle of the pack ... but what an impressive pack it is. Even my least favorite Pixar film hits enough of the right notes to earn its place in our DVD library.
Mickey Mouse Playhouse ... I'll wait to read/hear and see more info before adding this to the collection.
Ice Age Meltdown ... We'll likely pick this one up as well ... didn't see it in the theater and it might be worth purchasing. We liked the first film and the trailers -- we simply let this pass us by at the multiplex.

Finally, I also intend to purchase "Ant Bully" when it comes out ... As a member of the media, I saw an advance screening and had rather low expectations. But it surprised and entertained me more than Chicken Little -- which I also have on DVD (unopened though).  

I only hope that when good films like "Ant Bully" fail ... that the talents who made them get another chance to create movie magic.  The creative team who put Ant Bully together did a superb job ... Producer Tom Hanks and the marketing department did an abysmal job of creating a buzz and selling it to the masses ... but maybe it was a bit of animation overload for the general public.

Sometimes good movies take a while to find their audiences -- and some of the "classic films" we love and admire today were not successes when they were first released. Anyone ever heard of the films "It's a Wonderful Life," "The Wizard of Oz," "The Nightmare Before Christmas -- I'll bet you the digital 3D re-release this October will have a better domestic box office return than it did in its initial run -- and finally, Disney's own "Alice in Wonderland," "Fantasia" and others? In their day, they were judged as harshly as Wall Street judged "Cars," but I doubt anyone who has been entertained by any of those films would call them failures today.

I have high hopes and expectations for "Open Season" and "Happy Feet," and I'm feeling just a tad better about "Meet the Robinsons," knowing that the brain trusts and creative talents at Pixar likely offered some really good suggestions to improve the film.  Will any or all three of these be hits? Time will tell. But, again, my expectations aren't exactly the same as those of the myopic analysts on Wall Street and curmudgeonly but lovable columnists.

 

mnmears, I agree with, in regards to TNBC, that it probably will have a higher box office this time around...if it'll be in enough theaters, meaning if it's not too limited in its release.  I didn't see it when it came out, but I'm so excited to see it on the big screen!

"Which is why it will be really interesting to see who's still in the CG business come 2009 & 2010."
What I'm curious about is how many traditionally animated films will come out by then; surely "Curious George" won't be the only traditionally animated film for a while...

I'm going to buy "Brother Bear 2", "The Little Mermaid", "The Fox & the Hound" (probably...I mean, any bonus features will be better than the Gold Collection DVD...), "Cars", maybe "Mickey Saves Santa", but probably not, and then Dec. 12th, I believe, is when "The Fox & the Hound 2" comes out, and I'll get that...it takes me a while to actually watch them (still haven't even watched "Tarzan II", but I bought it), but I buy them.

I think the movie critics at Entertainment Weekly put it just right when they said that "this was the summer when CG movies jumped the shark."  Especially wiseacre talking animal CG movies.  Just as the hand-drawn animation binge of the early 90's ended up hurting everyone, it's not hard to imagine this glut not only wiping out the minor leaguers, but leaving viewers weary of all CG content, even the good stuff (yes, like "Cars").

Hmmm.  Seems like Business Monday's leaking into tuesday.  But that's being picky.  At least today has a different subject matter. (Although, Jim, you DID take another litle swipe at CARS) At any rate, I do agree with much of this.  We have a CG flood of lame crap. Studio heads seem to believe that as long as it's CG it wil sell. 2D is dead. Someone should slap these guys silly. It's all about STORY and CHARACTER.  I've seen most of these CG features as I have a four year old who loves going to the movies. Most of them left me somewhat cold. THE ANT BULLY was okay, but ultimately nothing to get REALLY excited about. OVER THE HEDGE same thing. Even CARS didn't grab me like THE INCREDIBLES, but it had terrific characters and story so it stood out in the crowd. Right now we just have too much mediocre product out there.  All or most of it looks pretty cool in trailers, but fall pretty flat. I find myself NOT going to as many movies at the theatre in general because too few of them are worth the price of admission.  Particularly when I realize I can buy the movie on DVD cheaper than  can take the family to see it.   And then when you get to the list...who can buy it all? And I hate to say it, but I won't be buying CARS. Nope.  Disney has decided to release a lame version and I won't buy it.  A few months from now they'll try to nail me with the special edition.  I'm not buying it twice. No. Although I waited and waited for LILO and STITCH's special edition which never showed up and finally bought the regular version. And now I won't buy that NEW version if it shows up. A couple years ago anything DISNEY was an immediate BUY. Not anymore.  Too many direct to video sequals that absolutely stink. So from your list I'll be buying...

LITTLE MERMAID- Gotta have a nice DVD of that one.
ICE AGE 2 -I enjoyed that almost as much as my daughter.
CURIOUS GEORGE-Though it was definitely for little kids, I really enjoyed this one. And my daughter gigled all the way through.
MONSTER HOUSE-missed it in theatre, so a buy here won't kill me.

WILL NOT BUY:

CARS- see above
FOX AND THE HOUND-Already have a perfectly good version
BROTHER BEAR 2- Why?

And Jim, here's one I'd be interested in your take on.  The newest wave of DISNEY TREASURES.  One disc we'll all want is YOUR HOST WALT DISNEY.  Although, the word is two of the episode on it are already on DVD. "I CAPTURED THE KING OF THE LEPRECHAUNS" is on DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE  and the "TENTH ANNIVERSARY SHOW" is on a DISNEY TREASURES Disc. This is horrible double dipping on discs that should be truly special. Your thoughts?

Quite frankly, this year's major animated films sucked in my opinion. The one exception in my mind is Monster House. Although there were parts I didn't like, this was the only animated film (to me) that really stood out this year in a good way. Now I saw Hoodwinked earlier this month on DVD (from Blockbuster) and it had so much potential to it. Andy Dick & Patrick Warburton were great and I loved the whole detective/interrogation theme, but they just ruined it with all the modern references (and the annoying-as-hell squirrel). My sister rented Doogal (which I saw 5 minutes of and left), the Ant Bully looks like Antz 2, I won't touch Barnyard with a 10-foot stick and I won't even talk about Cars. With the Wild, although I though many of the clips were funny, had too little things going for it. But mainly, it had the unfortunate pleasure to premier after Madagscar (even though it was made first).

As for the rest of this year, I still don't see many stand-outs. Open Season reaks of Dreamworks (even though it's made by Sony), Happy Feet seems like another crappy Robin Williams movie (ala Robots), Everyone's Hero looks okay (but the trailer gives away the whole story...Robin Williams also has an uncredited role here), & Flushed Away seems like when Dreamworks made Sharktale. The next good one in my opinion will likely be March's Meet the Robinsons.

As for what DVDs I will get, well... I plan I getting Brother Bear 2 (which, [shameless plug] is being given away at TheAnimatedFilms.com[/shameless plug]) & maybe The Little Mermaid Platinum Edition . That's pretty much it on the animation front. I'm saving my dollars for Whose Line is it Anyway (September 27th), Lost Season 2 & Dead Man's Chest.

I have seen several of the CGI releases this year, while some of the others have looked terrible and almost insulting:
Doogle--that was the worst thing I have seen in a long time, hands down! The only movie that I can think of that I wanted my money back!
Ice Age 2-- Lame, slapped together follow-up that had none of the heart or fun of the orginal.
OTH--Funny, funny stuff! Loved Hammy, but it had the standard Betrayal story-line!
Cars--Saw it 3 times, loved it everytime! Can't wait for the DVD!
Monster House--One of the funniest things I have seen as an adult! I think that this movie suffers from bad timing (a Halloween movie in the summer) and too many other movies released about the same time! It was very funny and my son and my wife all really enjoyed it.
The others Barnyard, Ant Bully, and Open season all look like junk storytelling coupled with less than steller animation!

The market is definetly flooded. I even only bothered to see 2 of the animated films released this year (Over the Hedge and Cars, both of which I enjoyed). Animated films being released are certainly no longer fun events.

As for what DVDs I'll be buying, probably the the Little Mermaid and Fox and the Hound DVDs, and the Cars DVD.

I've been worried about the CGI glut myself. The novelty of the process has lost a lot of its appeal now, and too many of the films had a paper-thin plot that frankly aren't worthy of a feature-length film. Ice Age 2 didn't have a single good laugh in it, Over The Hedge wasn't worth the theatre tickets (not a bad film, but story-wise it's not exactly "Lion King" level) and as for crap like "Doogal", well, when you have a Nicktoon producer like Butch Hartman (who ruined his own show "Fairly Oddparents") writing the script, you wind up with a film that smells like the source of much of its humor: farts. Monster House was okay, although I'm still not a fan of motion-capture animation, and I refuse to see Barnyard because 1. It's a Nickelodeon film, which means it's doubtless loaded with Nick "sensibilities" (see above reference to farts) and 2. Boy cows are STEERS or BULLS and do not have udders!!!!

Now, having said all that, I might still see Open Season, because it does actually look funny. But yeah, I'm sick of the CGI glut and I wonder if computers have made the animation process a little TOO easy, since everybody and his brother seem to be getting into it...

This biggest problem most of the CGI movies have is that they don't play to kids. Is Monster House for kids?!? If you took you younger children to it, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Disney and Pixar have ALWAYS done well for TWO reasons.
One (and MOST important) - trust. Disney/Pixar has made some lame movies, BUT they have NEVER made a movie that was inappropiate for children. I as a parent (and most other parents) KNOW that we can TRUST Disney/Pixar. I have taken my kids to Disney/Pixar movies sight unseen. I would NEVER do that for a Sony or Dreamworks! Pixar especially has the talent to play to adults by using harmless adult references (not sexual ones i.e. Shrek) kind of like the Looney Tunes used to.
Two - kids. We can pretend as much as we want, but animation is and will probably always be seen (in the US) as for kids. Pixar has never forgot this and when Disney has (Treasure Planet, Atlantis) they have been "punished" at the box office.

"Hell, even "Everyone's Hero" (based on the footage that I got to see earlier this month in Boston, anyway) looks to be a real charmer."

Unless that footage is EXCEEDINGLY better than what's on the trailer, I'd say I'm gonna disagree here. Everything about it smacks of pure cheesy formula. As DerekJ mentioned, we end up with Whoopi Goldberg as a jive-talking bat. Oh, and don't forget Raven-Symone, who portrays (and I quote from the official site) "a fun loving, energetic tomboy who exemplifies Girl Power. She becomes a good friend of Yankee's [the main character] who helps him through tough situatiuons and to acheive his goal." Blecch. As much as I don't like to judge from the trailer, I'm still gonna pass on this.

Seems to me that the animation industry continuously hits these cycles where a genre / technique / trend becomes popular and immediately everyone starts shouting "Me Too!" Where we once had something unique, we now get a dozen mediocre products all pushing and shoving to try and get the public's attention. The problem is that this keeps on happening over and over and no one seems to be aware of it. It happened in the 90's. It's happening now, and not just in movie theatres. Just look at tv animation. For example, a few years ago the only anime you'd ever see was on Adult Swim at one in the morning. Now? Every other show is either an import or an American cartoon designed to look like an import. And you know what? Eventually, that'll burn out too. And all the analysts and studio heads will look around at each other with that dumbstruck gaze and say "How could this have happened?" and fire all their artists. And then they'll do it again in ten years.

Man, I get riled up at this stuff.

"Is Monster House for kids?!? If you took you younger children to it, you should be ashamed of yourselves."
That's called generalizing. We took my 8 year old sister to it and she loved it. My mom on the other hand thought it was scary.

"BUT they have NEVER made a movie that was inappropiate for children."
So is Hunchback really appropriate? I mean you have Frollo who wants to have Esmerelda be "his" & you have the whole segment about hellfire (and the whole dark tone to the movie).

What about Incredibles? You see a guy jump to his death (suicide), you have the whole gun chase scene in the begining (with the Robbers), you have Mr. Incredible litterally making a car crash and the movie heavily deals with adultery.

Or what about the comments in both Cars and Home on the Range? "My brother is lit", "Yeah....they're real", "Go take a cold shower", "Hillbilly Hell."

Don't get me wrong, I love/like all those movies (Hunchback is my favorite)... but they aren't any more or less inappropriate than something like Monster House.

I predicted this CGI weariness some time ago, though it is occurring much faster than I expected. But it looks like now our prayers (or murder-suicide threats :P) are being answered.

Seriously, the real thing I found scary about this CGI glut is that some of them just came out of nowhere. I didn't hear anything about Monster House until just a few weeks before its release. The upcoming DVD releases will be a chance to show that Disney and DreamWorks' decisions three years ago to abandon hand-drawn animation were in fact STUPID decisions.

For me, I'll be renting The Little Mermaid, even though I already have a VHS copy from 1990. I'll probably be seeing Curious George and Cars again, and if I really REALLY feel like it, I might see Over the Hedge (I still haven't yet).

Brendan said:
"Seems to me that the animation industry continuously hits these cycles where a genre / technique / trend becomes popular and immediately everyone starts shouting "Me Too!" Where we once had something unique, we now get a dozen mediocre products all pushing and shoving to try and get the public's attention. The problem is that this keeps on happening over and over and no one seems to be aware of it. It happened in the 90's."
----
The "Me Too!" glut of 00's CGI and 90's mock-Disney 2-D both came from the same root:  Whoever had a big hit made it Look Easy, got a little sloppy by applying Insta-formula, and the Me-Too'ers took notes on the pattern and thought that was all there was to it.
With 90's 2-D, it was Katzenberg beating the Formula into the ground, with villains, big-serious melodramatic plots, big Broadway songs, and anybody who thought they had a story Disney didn't own imagined they had their own piece of the market...With 00's CGI, and Dreamworks beating their "Shrek" meal-ticket into the ground, it was hire a cast of sitcom voices for the weekend  (and tell them they're "making something for their kids"), make hip current references, and have wisecracking sidekicks wince after the character's pratfall and sitcom-zinger, "Oo...That's gotta hurt."
(And by odd coincidence...What do both these beaten formulas just happen to have in common?)  :)

What makes Pixar films different--apart from good management who know story--is that they were making Art long before anybody went commercial.  They were putting out the dialogue-free Best Animated festival shorts, back when every other studio was doing FX dinosaurs and pesticide commercials.
In a word, you can't fake Knowing How to Do This Stuff, and especially not by copying somebody else's licks.  You can try, but the audience'll smell it in a second.

I'm still reeling from askmike1 putting Hoodwinked into the same paragraph as Monster House and Ant Bully.
Whew.
Hoodwinked had some of the worst looking animation I have ever seen, the story was predictable, the characters were cliche and did I mention the horrible animation? Bad deforms, horrible fur, rickety rigs, no overlap and weak poses all made this the kind of event that makes me want to jab forks in my eyes.
I'll be buying Over the Hedge, The Little Mermaid and maybe Cars. I thought it was visually stunning, with fantastic art direction, some nifty animated business with the character stuff and Mater. He was great. But, with a weak story that borrowed too heavily from Doc Hollywood and Owen Wilson playing Owen Wilson, I'm not still on the fence.

I will get The Little Mermaid, Cars and maybe Over the Hedge. It does seem like the whole CG boom is coming to an end, which is simultaneously good and bad. On the one hand, it's pretty much signalling a renaissance in hand drawn animation, yet I'm worried that it may either send animation onto life support if 2D animation doesn't take off again or it may hinder the performance and popularity of films from the likes of Pixar and Disney.

I thought Little Mermaid was slated to get the 'Disney Special Platinum Edition' treatment.

What features that would have made this a Platinum Edition are being left out to make this just a 2-disk special edition?

This was going to be an absolute must-buy for me, but now I'm skeptical.

According to the Press Release...

___
On October 3, 2006 Walt Disney Home Entertainment proudly opens the vault to debut a spectacular new two-disc Special Edition of the most-requested Disney DVD title ever, the Academy Award® winning, THE LITTLE MERMAID. The first time ever on a two-disc DVD, the eighth addition to Disney’s acclaimed “Platinum Collection,”
___

So if I understand correctly, it is another Platinum DVD, but it will say Special Edition instead on the cover. I could be wrong though.

^ The Platinum Editions have never stayed in the same packaging.  Right after the premier of Snow White's (The first and best Platinum Edition IMO) they completely changed.  Each time they got cheaper and cheaper.  Now they won't even put Platinum Edition on it?  They should take notes from the older Masterpiece and Walt Disney Classic collections of VHS tapes and keep with the same format.  I have many of those and they all line up neatly on my shelf unlike the Platinums sitting next door.

Jim also forgot to mention that Paramount/Nickelodeon is releasing a DVD release of Rugrats, in their own version of Jack and the Beanstalk on September 5.

But that show got boring a long time ago, so who cares? :P

Yesss...good article Jim!  There are way too many CGI films to count.  I only had time to see one of those listed, and that was Cars.  It was different, but I'm not sure I liked all the play on NASCAR.  Of the rest of the bunch, I'll rent Over the Hedge and Ice Age 2 before I'll commit to a purchase since those actually looked somewhat interesting.

You get too many films of one nature, people get sick of it.

PingBack from http://noahblog.site2gb.com/bestbuytoomuchcompetition.html