Rambly Nightmare Before Christmas post
It wasn't the first film Tim Burton ever worked on. It wasn't even his first time working with animation. Hell even the content wasn't very revolutionary because we had movies about monsters who saw their tendency to scare people as a harmless past time (hell the Addams Family television show was on the air decades before this move was ever made).
However I fell pretty confident in saying that this movie was the first of it's kind to stylistically exist. The stop motion animation is excellent and the story/world building for this film are just solid. Ever since the success of Nightmare Before Christmas (rising to a disturbing cult following even) Tim Burton has been stamping out similar products like Frankenweenie and Corpse Bride. I haven't seen the first flick (though I've heard it's not that great), but I saw Corpse Bride in theaters. Now to be fair I don't think the tone and setting are exactly like Nightmare Before Christmas, but the style (since Tim Burton worked on it too) is pretty much the same. Honestly I like Corpse Bride a lot, but if you compare to Nightmare Before Christmas it seems pretty lack luster.
Then we have Coraline which was created by the director of Nightmare Before Christmas (it even says that above the title on the DVD). In my opinion this movie get's unfairly panned by people. Tim Burton didn't even get near this, but it's still a very well animated piece and I felt the world building was extremely solid. Admittedly though the title character comes off as pretty bratty with wanting to get away from her parents who weren't the best mom and dad in the world, but they certainly weren't awful to her. It just creates a bizarre message, but perhaps it's better to go into this movie without expecting a lesson to be learned despite it being a kids flick.
Also I think Coraline as opposed to Nightmare Before Christmas is that Coraline is legit frightening to watch. Nightmare Before Christmas has interesting and monstrous looking characters, but it really goes out of its way to show that it's not a scary movie at all. Coraline seems to play it's dark tone straight though originally it was going to be a more light hearted musical. To be honest I like that this movie dared to take itself so seriously and be so dark. And it isn't a meaningless kind of dark that wants to be adulated. It's a dark film because the story is more appropriate with a darker tone. Yeah it's got it's silly gags and humor, but I like to argue that a good serious film has at least one instance that is absolutely hilarious. Comedy also seems to grow from a dark place perhaps as a coping mechanism. Laugh or cry.
On a slightly unrelated note what I love about animated films as opposed to a lot of live action films is that when an animated feature is made and released to theaters you can bet at least 8 times out of 10 that it was made by people who want to tell a story. I actually find a lot of life action movies insufferable because it's usually some dumb ass "comediac" movie for adults or made because some high profile actor/director wants to win an Oscar. I won't knock the action and genre flicks too hard since those can at least be fun to watch. I can barely tolerate sitting through an "inspired by a true story" movie or so called comedies that cater to the lowest common denominator and often rely on offensive stereotypes for their jokes.
However I fell pretty confident in saying that this movie was the first of it's kind to stylistically exist. The stop motion animation is excellent and the story/world building for this film are just solid. Ever since the success of Nightmare Before Christmas (rising to a disturbing cult following even) Tim Burton has been stamping out similar products like Frankenweenie and Corpse Bride. I haven't seen the first flick (though I've heard it's not that great), but I saw Corpse Bride in theaters. Now to be fair I don't think the tone and setting are exactly like Nightmare Before Christmas, but the style (since Tim Burton worked on it too) is pretty much the same. Honestly I like Corpse Bride a lot, but if you compare to Nightmare Before Christmas it seems pretty lack luster.
Then we have Coraline which was created by the director of Nightmare Before Christmas (it even says that above the title on the DVD). In my opinion this movie get's unfairly panned by people. Tim Burton didn't even get near this, but it's still a very well animated piece and I felt the world building was extremely solid. Admittedly though the title character comes off as pretty bratty with wanting to get away from her parents who weren't the best mom and dad in the world, but they certainly weren't awful to her. It just creates a bizarre message, but perhaps it's better to go into this movie without expecting a lesson to be learned despite it being a kids flick.
Also I think Coraline as opposed to Nightmare Before Christmas is that Coraline is legit frightening to watch. Nightmare Before Christmas has interesting and monstrous looking characters, but it really goes out of its way to show that it's not a scary movie at all. Coraline seems to play it's dark tone straight though originally it was going to be a more light hearted musical. To be honest I like that this movie dared to take itself so seriously and be so dark. And it isn't a meaningless kind of dark that wants to be adulated. It's a dark film because the story is more appropriate with a darker tone. Yeah it's got it's silly gags and humor, but I like to argue that a good serious film has at least one instance that is absolutely hilarious. Comedy also seems to grow from a dark place perhaps as a coping mechanism. Laugh or cry.
On a slightly unrelated note what I love about animated films as opposed to a lot of live action films is that when an animated feature is made and released to theaters you can bet at least 8 times out of 10 that it was made by people who want to tell a story. I actually find a lot of life action movies insufferable because it's usually some dumb ass "comediac" movie for adults or made because some high profile actor/director wants to win an Oscar. I won't knock the action and genre flicks too hard since those can at least be fun to watch. I can barely tolerate sitting through an "inspired by a true story" movie or so called comedies that cater to the lowest common denominator and often rely on offensive stereotypes for their jokes.