The Long Road

06/19/2003 Archived Entry: "This one's for you Etienne!"

Why I Want to See a Movie About Fish (ie: Finding Nemo)

First of all, I’m a huge fan of animation, especially animated movies, Japanese AND North American. There is a clear distinction between the two. Japanese animation tends to deal with much more mature subject matters while North American animated movies (and tv) tend to be aimed at children, this is mostly due to the fact that North American audiences think of animation as something only for kids. The view that animation is a child’s domain is almost singularly a North American fallacy. The rest of the world has accepted and embraced animation not as a genre but a medium.

Animation allows filmmakers to do things that would not be possible in a live action movie. This includes impossible camera angles and stories that could never be told convincingly using real actors.

All movies transport us to a different world but there is an explicit unreality in animation. Animation allows for a greater suspension of disbelief. When you watch the upcoming Sinbad movie and see a giant sea creature attack the ship, it will look awesome and frightening. Though you know it is fake because you’re watching an animated movie, you don’t question the reality of it; you accept, without thinking about it, that this is a creature the protagonists have to fight, that the creature exists in the same world as the characters do. If you were to do the same thing in a live movie, you would have to expend a ridiculously larger amount of time and money just to try to make the creature look REAL, to make it work seamlessly with live actors so that the audience is not reminded that they are sitting in a movie theater. This is very often unsuccessful.

The thing about animation that impresses me the most is the painstaking amount of detail that is put into most movies. With the advent of computers and computer animation, animated movies began to look better and better. Computer rendered animation was initially used to put incredibly rich backgrounds into traditionally animated movies. Watch “Metropolis” and tell me that your eyes don’t bleed from the infinitely detailed landscapes. After sitting for a while in the background, computer animation became a style all its own as entire productions were made without using the traditional method. Pixar, along with Square and Mainframe are the Holy Trinity of computer generated animation.

Mainframe is the pioneer of CG teevee series. Reboot, Beast Wars, and Shadow Raiders are some of the highest quality television series ever put on air. Square’s cinematics for Final Fantasy VII almost single-handedly made Playstation the video gaming powerhouse that it is today; no one will ever forget that “you can always press the reset button”. I even own the horrible, horrible Final Fantasy movie on DVD just because it was so amazingly well rendered.

Pixar has made 4 movies before Finding Nemo: Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bug’s Life, and Monster’s Inc. I’ve seen them all and they are wonderfully funny, well animated, and emotionally rewarding. I doubt that I’ve ever laughed as hard at a movie as I did when I saw Toy Story 2. With all the accumulated experience and technology of the last 4 films, there is every reason to expect that Nemo will be just as good as Pixar’s previous movies.

Finding Nemo is about fishes, so what? If I were shown a video of real looking rendered fish swimming around, I’d probably be enthralled by it for minutes. I’d be impressed with the technological and creative ingenuity required to have a computer render something so realistically. On the other hand, if you showed me a video of REAL fish swimming around I’d be disinterested pretty quickly. Yes, real fish can be interesting, but rendered fish are an achievement.

So um…yeah, I sort of digressed from the question at hand. Why do I want to see a movie about some fish? The answer is that it doesn’t matter what the movie is about. The fact that it is computer animated and that it is by the amazing folks at Pixar make it more than worthwhile to see.

Replies: 16 comments

I've seen Finding Nemo and I quite enjoyed it! Great animation, good story, funny characters. Monster's Inc. was great too! Cartoon's aren't just for kids!

Posted by Andrea @ 06/19/2003 09:24 PM EST

We meet at last, Trebek!

Eheh, i must say that i really like this post.

Did you know that Cowboy Bebop will soon be featured on MTV? I'm really happy of this, i think it will maybe lead to a bigger cult of japanimation in north america and will maybe lead to good not-kid-oriented north american animation movies and series in the next few years. (The canadian Heavy Metal Fakk 1 and 2 were adult oriented, but also very bad productions... I'm also glad that the movie Sprited Away received good north american critics and was fairly publicized. In my videoclub in repentigny (a ssuburb), there are about 10 dvds and 20 tapes of japanimation!! Maybe in a few years it'll be everywhere!! (but that might just be one of my fantasy lol)

Going back to the topic of Finding Nemo, I also really loved Monster Inc., it was a great movie in which not-so-youngers like us could find a lot of gags oriented for them :P. Shrek too was very enjoyable, but Monster Inc. was my personal favorite kid-oriented animation..

My favorite animation movie remains Akira, though :P (it is so... crude)

Posted by Étienne @ 06/20/2003 09:44 AM EST

Sorry i made a mistake in my post:
Cowboy Bebop will play on YTV, not MTV.

Posted by Étienne @ 06/20/2003 09:46 AM EST

When Escaflowne was put on YTV they really killed it with all kinds of changes to the story that made it a much weaker story. Cowboy Bebop will probably have the same thing done to it.

I really enjoyed the 2 heavy metal movies...especially the second one =)

Don't use the word "japanimation" calisse!!

Posted by Rayne @ 06/20/2003 01:13 PM EST

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kin, Sti!

Posted by Étienne @ 06/20/2003 01:15 PM EST

Btw I often heard the same comment on escaflowne, but i didn't see the serie at all, so i cannot judge...

i managed to view one episode of Cowboy Bebop translated in english though and it was indeed a bit weird, but at least the story was the same (the voice differs greatly, though!).

Let's pray the verion on MTV won't be disappointing!

Posted by Étienne @ 06/20/2003 01:19 PM EST

In the japanese Escaflowne, one of the male characters was once a female through some sort of magic. It was a pretty important part of the story. The YTV version ignored that whole thing altogether. That was only of the changes that were made.

Escaflowne is the best anime series I've ever seen! The japanese version, anyways.

Posted by Rayne @ 06/20/2003 02:17 PM EST

JAPANIMATION! japanimation JAPANIMATION! japanimation JAPANIMATION! japanimation JAPANIMATION! japanimation...

Posted by Étienne @ 06/20/2003 02:33 PM EST

Cool, ill try to find a way to see it ASAP :P

Posted by Étienne @ 06/20/2003 02:57 PM EST

what? cowboy bebop is going to be on ytv? when? this fall? i gotta tell my brother if he doesn't know already.

finding nemo was good but not great. i looooooooooove monsters, inc. so much more because there was more to the story. however, like you said, it doesn't really matter what it's about, right? the animinations themselves are still awesome!

Posted by Katie @ 06/23/2003 04:21 PM EST

i think i must disagree about north american animation being directed at kids

sure ... that's where the marketers direct it ... but they make it enjoyable for people of all ages ... there's always that secondary layer of humour ... or allusions that children definitely would not get

i love my kid movies ... and not just b/c i still wanna be a kid ... hmmm

i don't know what i'm saying anymore

frotting midterm studying frying my brain

Posted by melpie @ 06/25/2003 11:29 PM EST

I guess what I meant was that I want something animated thats rated R or PG or AA...you know, something thats not kid friendly.

I know I'm using ambiguous terms here (kid friendly).

But ya, I do appreciate all the movies we have, but it'd be nice to see something not "all ages".

Still to see Nemo..maybe this weekend??

Posted by Rayne @ 06/26/2003 02:03 AM EST

Lol we still havent seen it :P

Posted by Étienne @ 06/27/2003 03:37 PM EST

we all know that Thai prefer Kite and La Blue Girl kind of animation :P

Posted by Étienne @ 06/27/2003 08:30 PM EST

man...where are you coming up with garbage like that?

Posted by Rayne @ 06/28/2003 12:27 AM EST

ahah you can't fool me that easily :P

Posted by Étienne @ 07/02/2003 04:50 PM EST