New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

The other way of tackling the question is how it might apply to kids movies and the really young audience, those films that parents take their children to. On this front, I believe there is a sad miscalculation on the part of studios about a family's willingness to kill a couple of hours with the kids entertained by something other than parents themselves. I have always thought that studios should make the effort to produce more kid friendly films, as the animation and movie experience can be fun and memorable. I can only speak with my own wallet, but I believe studios are leaving money on the table in this regard.

Max Braden: I think animation struggles not because there's too much of it but because it seems harder to do really well, and the types of stories it can tell are narrower. We're not going to see animated action movies like Olympus Has Fallen or romcoms or even straight up animated dramas. So instead we get epic treks (Croods, Ice Age), anthropomorphism (animals/toys/monsters behaving like people), or growing pains (Brave, How to Train Your Dragon). (Or that weird Ponyo stuff. It didn't hurt, but I still feel uneasy like I got alien scanned by that movie.) And some work really well, but when they don't work well they can feel much more lifeless than a lame live action movie. Knowing that, and the large investment of these projects, has to be both a temptation and a scare for studios. I'm in favor of them to keep trying, and failing from audience rejection if necessary, because that's how things improve. Even when animation is as old a genre as live action, it still feels like animation has the most room for growth.

David Mumpower: I am squarely in the animation fatigue column. I also believe that the studios have no one to blame but themselves. For every entertaining film like The Lorax (hi Edwin!), there are reckless sequels like Ice Age: Still Robbing You Blind and Shrek: Remember That One Character You Used to Like? Worst of all, Pixar has acquiesced to this temptation. First, there was a giant top sales campaign with Cars 2, and they followed with the unimpressive Brave. 2013 will feature the release of Planes, which may prove to be wonderful. On paper, however, it is one of the most shameful marketing ploys disguised as movies this side of G.I. Joe/Transformers/Battleship. Yes, Pixar is becoming Hasbro while DreamWorks Animation has become complacent in most of their endeavors. Consumers are not blind to this, and it is having an impact in the industry.

Kim Hollis: I tend to think that it's a quality issue more than any sort of real fatigue. Edwin's analysis of recent films in the genre was pretty much on the nose. People will still go out to see them because it's nice to take the family out for a movie every now and again, but they've learned to be more discerning. Studios need to remember that story and characters are the crucial ingredient for success here.

Continued:       1       2       3       4