Topic: Critter's Animated Film/Anime Marathon

[Critter]

 

Wow, I sure am thankful for the English translations of that song. Especially the voice of King Louie.

[W0m6at]

AFAIK, I didn't find this on these forums and just forget where I got it from, but apologies if that's what I've done.

I've not seen this myself, so can't offer an opinion, but apparently it's photographs manipulated and then animated. Should present a really unsettling experience.

[Critter]

Thanks for posting that Wombat, I hadn't heard of this one before but now I am really eager to view it. That animation is amazing, slightly unsettling like you said, but amazing none the less. It certainly has a unique look about it, like stop-motion but with real images.

[Achim]

Seems as good a place as any! 

Well, that's what I saw in the cinema as a kid and that what I listened to all the time (owning the "audiobook" LP). The voice is form a then-quite-well-known actor called Klaus Havenstein. For me hearing the original for the first timewasthe oddone out

[Critter]

WALL•E



Year: 2008

Director(s): Andrew Stanton

Run Time: 98  minutes

Plot: In the distant future, a small waste collecting robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind.

Cast:
Ben Burt – WALL-E/M-O
Elissa Knight – EVE
Jeff Garlin – Captain McCrea
Fred Willard – Shelby Forthright
John Ratzenberger – John
Kathy Najimy – Mary
Sigourney Weaver – Ship’s Computer

DVD Extras:
•   BURN-E (Short Film)
•   Presto (Short Film)
•   Deleted Scenes
•   Animation Sound Design: Building Worlds From The Sound Up
•   Audio Commentary

My Thoughts
This is a film that I enjoyed so much when it was first released that I saw it four times in the cinema. Three of which were all in the space of one week. I have since watched it again on DVD but it has been a while so I felt due for another viewing. I am still yet to watch this film on blu-ray but my DVD in a blu-ray player enhances the quality already and certainly does the film justice. I am looking to purchase the blu-ray of it in the future though.

Where do I even begin with such a fantastic story, Pixar has yet again set the bar for animated films monumentally high with WALL-E. This is a perfect example of how much credit Pixar gives to young people. The idea of having a film with two protagonists who can’t even speak, save for a few words, and an opening 30 or so minutes with almost no dialogue at all may seem crazy for a film that many will see as being primarily aimed at children. Most children however, do have the understanding and the concentration to sit through something like this and enjoy it just as much as a lot of the adults who saw it would. Animated films for kids don’t need to be all fart jokes and bright colours to keep them entertained, which is something a few animation studios are yet to learn.

Not that WALL-E is without it’s humour of course, many of the robots within the film are hilarious, as each of the non-human characters seem to have more personality than all the humans in the film put together. Like many films coming out now, WALL-E has messages of environmentalism and conservation, themes and messages which have been prominent in many films as subtext, yet here there is nothing subtle about it. In WALL-E we as humans are slapped in the face with having once again destroyed planet Earth. Only here we have destroyed it to such a degree that we can no longer even live on it. Earth as it is in the film is an amazing setting and offers some truly haunting yet stunning scenes. Pixar have managed to make dust beautiful in the Earth scenes as cityscapes of nothing but dust, piles of garbage and old rundown buildings are brought to life.

The characters themselves are wonderful in both personality and design. EVE is a credit to the animation team especially. Here we have a character that is essentially a floating white orb. Yet the amount of emotion and the large expression range, combined with the wonderful sound effects means that us as the audience are never at a loss to understand what she is thinking, and feeling. While the big sweeping scenes in space are visually stunning, I think that where the team shone the most is actually the close-ups in the film. Especially that final close-up between EVE and WALL-E towards the end. During this moment the fact that these characters are robots, are in a film, or aren’t real does not matter at all. These close ups bring a type of life to the character that makes you believe they really are right there in front of you.

I really could go on forever with this film, but I’ll wrap up this review with a final mention of the music. The soundtrack to the film was stunning in every scene, and the inclusion of songs from ‘Hello Dolly’ was a fantastic idea that worked perfectly in the film. WALL-E was not only one of Pixar’s finest hours, but computer animated films in general.


My Rating


 
 

[Najemikon]

WALL-E fascinated me because of the photography faults. The way the animators had the computer controlled virtual camera mimic the weight and speed of a real camera, so there are lots of depth of field tricks and focus pulls, etc. There's a great piece on the disc I am sure you will have seen, where they asked a traditional cinematographer to help them and he found it funny because they were using all the problems that photographers have spent the last century trying to hide!

Just shows how Pixar never stop thinking. Absolutely superb film. Didn't think they could go any higher and they pull Up out of nowhere. Ratatouille was exactly shabby either! Learned not to trust them now, except to make stunning films and continue to be the finest film studio producing today, live action or not.

[Critter]

I do remember seeing something about that Jon. I love the irony that computers like to make everything perfect, so they had to teach the computers to make mistakes becuase that's what they wanted.

The next Pixar film I am looking forward to the most is 'Brave'. Not that I don't love their sequels so far, becuase I do but it's always they new, stand-alone stories that I find are their best. And Brave seems to almost creepily involve many things that I love. I mean really,  Pixar film about a female archer! It's like they knew I existed and made it for me  .

[Najemikon]

Oh yeah! You'll probably hate it.

Actually, is that even possible?

[Critter]

I highly doubt that I will ever really hate any Pixar films, but who knows where the future will take them. The day I hate a Pixar film will be a sad day for mankind.
But hell, if I do end up hating Brave then I owe you a drink  ... for your clever prediction an all.

[Najemikon]

Hell, I'm saving a screen capture of this page! 

[Dragonfire]

 

I remember seeing that part about putting in the problems Jon.  I watched more extras on the second WALL-E disc after I watched The Pixar Story.

[Najemikon]

We've talked about it before too. When Emma started the Firefly/Serenity thread, because I seriously believe that Whedon hasn't been given the respect deserved for starting this attitude that it's ok to make your expensive CGI look like crap, so to speak!

http://www.dvdcollectorsonline.com/index.php/topic,5935.0.html

[Critter]

It's funny that you bring up Firefly right now. I was just about to say that many of the camer angles, zooms etc of the spaceships in WALL-E reminded me greatly of the same use of camera in Firefly.

Marie, as you can see from the special features list in my above review... I am desperatly starved of WALL-E features. I don't know how but I ended up with the worst WALL-E DVD ever. The packaging sucks, it is only one disc, and it has hardly any extras. Oh how I await the day when I will own it on blu-ray.

[Dragonfire]

There are all sorts of goodies on the 2 disc DVD version.  I think all that stuff is on the Blu-ray too.  With Pixar movies, the extras are always so interesting.  At least for me.

[Critter]

I have recently done some major renovations on the front page of this marathon where I am keeping track of everything. It was getting too clustered and crowded there so I simplified everything and also minimized it quite a bit. But now I have come to a stage where I would like to hyperlink all of the film/show titles to where the review is in this thread. It's quite embarrassing as I have already once asked for help on this matter while I have been here but well... I have forgotten how to do it again.
I would love it if someone would be kind enough to explain this process to me... again.