'bout time I did one of those new year posts... kinda - 100
I was just thinking today how 2008 was for the first time in a while a GOOD year for Animated Features. With Kung Fu Panda first really surprising me, then I saw Horton Hears a Who and was rather pleased, followed by my new favorite Wall-E and even Disney pulling itself out of it's usual rut with Bolt. So I was just thinking, is it too much to ask for 2009 to be a better year for animated films? Yes, probably, but I can always dream right?
anyways heres the 2009 Animated Film Lineup if anyones curious...
(Dreamworks Animation) Monsters vs. Aliens... Now if you're like me you hear the title and go wtf is this crap? but someone told me to watch the trailer, so I did and I gotta say it does look better than I expected, Kung Fu Panda will be one hell of a tough act to follow but, it's also the reason I think this could be good it's restored my faith in Dreamworks.
(Blue Sky) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.... It's unusual for Blue Sky to the the one studio on the list whose film I'm looking forward to least... but what can I say Animated Feature Sequels still leave a bad taste in my mouth... and I thought the we're lucky they did well with Ice Age 2, no need to throw the dice and try their luck AGAIN! The Trailer looks, well like the other two... yeah I'm really just not looking forward to it, I'll see it if my friends are going in a group and it's convienent otherwise I might just skip it entirely... let's see some new original content huh Blue Sky?
(Pixar) Up... has some people worried but I'm very confident it will be an excelent film, if theres one thing I've noticed it's that Pixar delivers. Wall-E will be a hard act to follow but I do think it's possible to do better, time will tell! (and I've still seen stuff they showed at Comic-Con that they still havent released to the general public!!) ;)
(Dreamworks Animation) Crood Awakening... There's not a lot of information realeased yet on Dreamworks' second film for this year (but that's really not that unusual) The biggest plus originally was the script was co-written by John Cleese. Because of Dreamworks' split with Aardman studios though *tear* the project has since been handed over to Chris Sanders YAY! If you don't know his name you probably should as Chris Sanders is the amazing man who was almost entirely responsible for Lilo and Stitch! With Sanders directing the film I have new confidence in it and am suddenly greatly looking forward to it!
(Disney) The Princess and the Frog... is the single last hope for 2D animation to be ever seriously be seen in the future and to ever be taken seriously... and it looks good. I'm very excited for this film I think Disney can pull it off... I'm more confident after the decency of Bolt and I dunno I have my animators intuition that this will be a sucess, looks like the Disney Empire could be on the rise again!! (I'm also looking forward to Rapunzel in the year after helmed by the one and only Glen Keane!)
This is all this year assuming nothing gets delayed (always a possibility in this business) I think thats all the major ones coming for this year but I could be missing something, be sure to mention if you know something I dont... I didn't mention any "3rd party" or minor studio films basically because I dont know of any coming out... and you usually don't hear about them till right before and.... lets face it, they usually suck anyways. The last big studio (and newest) That i didn't mention was Sony Animation, still a baby and honestly kind of an after thought on whole... but their 2009 lineup includes Open Season 2 (I hated the first one) and a film called Neanderthals that I can't find any info on... like I said, an after thought....
Come on 2009! Impress us!!!
anyways heres the 2009 Animated Film Lineup if anyones curious...
(Dreamworks Animation) Monsters vs. Aliens... Now if you're like me you hear the title and go wtf is this crap? but someone told me to watch the trailer, so I did and I gotta say it does look better than I expected, Kung Fu Panda will be one hell of a tough act to follow but, it's also the reason I think this could be good it's restored my faith in Dreamworks.
(Blue Sky) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.... It's unusual for Blue Sky to the the one studio on the list whose film I'm looking forward to least... but what can I say Animated Feature Sequels still leave a bad taste in my mouth... and I thought the we're lucky they did well with Ice Age 2, no need to throw the dice and try their luck AGAIN! The Trailer looks, well like the other two... yeah I'm really just not looking forward to it, I'll see it if my friends are going in a group and it's convienent otherwise I might just skip it entirely... let's see some new original content huh Blue Sky?
(Pixar) Up... has some people worried but I'm very confident it will be an excelent film, if theres one thing I've noticed it's that Pixar delivers. Wall-E will be a hard act to follow but I do think it's possible to do better, time will tell! (and I've still seen stuff they showed at Comic-Con that they still havent released to the general public!!) ;)
(Dreamworks Animation) Crood Awakening... There's not a lot of information realeased yet on Dreamworks' second film for this year (but that's really not that unusual) The biggest plus originally was the script was co-written by John Cleese. Because of Dreamworks' split with Aardman studios though *tear* the project has since been handed over to Chris Sanders YAY! If you don't know his name you probably should as Chris Sanders is the amazing man who was almost entirely responsible for Lilo and Stitch! With Sanders directing the film I have new confidence in it and am suddenly greatly looking forward to it!
(Disney) The Princess and the Frog... is the single last hope for 2D animation to be ever seriously be seen in the future and to ever be taken seriously... and it looks good. I'm very excited for this film I think Disney can pull it off... I'm more confident after the decency of Bolt and I dunno I have my animators intuition that this will be a sucess, looks like the Disney Empire could be on the rise again!! (I'm also looking forward to Rapunzel in the year after helmed by the one and only Glen Keane!)
This is all this year assuming nothing gets delayed (always a possibility in this business) I think thats all the major ones coming for this year but I could be missing something, be sure to mention if you know something I dont... I didn't mention any "3rd party" or minor studio films basically because I dont know of any coming out... and you usually don't hear about them till right before and.... lets face it, they usually suck anyways. The last big studio (and newest) That i didn't mention was Sony Animation, still a baby and honestly kind of an after thought on whole... but their 2009 lineup includes Open Season 2 (I hated the first one) and a film called Neanderthals that I can't find any info on... like I said, an after thought....
Come on 2009! Impress us!!!