There isn't much family animated movies that are good today (or at least, original), in my opinion.

For example, The Secret Life of Pets. It's a very generic animated family movie that is one of those movies where you would forget the plot in a month or two. The characters didn't have much development and at the beginning one character hates another character for no reason at all. The antagonist was just one of those average “OH I'M SO INSANE but I become a good guy with the protagonist at the end” characters. It seemed like a Toy Story/101 Dalmatians crossover at the most, which means that it didn't use any unique ideas.

Yes, people always use the excuse “It's for kids! Of course they wouldn't want something with so much deep messages and layers of character development.” What about moviegoers that review these kinds of movies? Hasn't it already been proven by Disney with Zootopia that you can make a family animated movie with deep messages that children can enjoy?

I want your opinion on this. What do you think about the family animated movies of today?

I agree with you for the most part, but I think some messages take much deeper analysis to find in an otherwise ‘simple’ movie (whether or not The Secret Life of Pets has this I don't know because I haven't watched it).

However, it's not necessarily a bad thing to have a what you see is what you get movie; I haven't done an analysis of Big Hero 6, but I didn't need to for it to be moving (just as Undertale is the only game that has ever made me bawl, Big Hero 6 is the only movie that has done that).

Now let's go to something really unoriginal (that I have seen)- Transformers Prime Predacons Rising. Yes, I count that as an animated family movie. It was BEYOND disappointing in so many ways that I will not rant about it here. Seriously, I was obsessed with Transformers when I watched it and I was still left empty. The way Unicron was defeated was unoriginal/campy, so many cliffhangers were left, etc. The only sad parts for me were when Knockout betrayed Starscream and apparently became an Autobot (FUN FACT: It took several episodes for the Autobots to trust Smokescreen but it only took one quick self-preservation backstabbing for a proven Decepticon who has fought on the side of evil for millions of years to gain said trust) and when Prime died. I guess. To be fair, I think some of the cliffhangers were left for Robots in Disguise to pick up on, but it still felt unsatisfying. The whole thing to me was boring, poorly written and overall disappointing.

I guess it all depends on who made the movie and whether or not it's their main focus. I think Disney has feels down to a science and can fall back to their old patterns because it makes them money and it works, whereas a company like Hasbro has a million other things to worry about, and I would imagine they were itching to work fully on Robots in Disguise at the time-plus they had to keep it in mind when creating the plot- especially since Transformers Prime didn't really need a movie to wrap things up (but I suppose they needed an excuse to kill off Prime so I'll give them that).

I found Inside Out to be both amusing and moving. It made both the missus and me cry at certain points and covered many things about personal emotional development that we hadn't seen in anything else, let alone, as you say a “family animated movie”.

Something you perhaps are missing is the production side of things. Animated films in many ways take far more work to create, at least if they're to be done well. One can attempt to delve into deeper issues but is that really going to pay off? It's a big risk and unless handled very carefully isn't worth the trouble.

It often makes more sense to bank on simple, easy to digest premises. Writers and directors may want to do something more complex but if the studio doesn't think it'll make enough money then the creative side of things is out of luck. Opportunity cost plays into this too. The studios want to get the maximum return on their investment. Do they put their money and talent into a fairly easy win or try something that might go over the heads of much of their target audience?

Flamekebab wrote:

I found Inside Out to be both amusing and moving. It made both the missus and me cry at certain points and covered many things about personal emotional development that we hadn't seen in anything else, let alone, as you say a “family animated movie”.

Something you perhaps are missing is the production side of things. Animated films in many ways take far more work to create, at least if they're to be done well. One can attempt to delve into deeper issues but is that really going to pay off? It's a big risk and unless handled very carefully isn't worth the trouble.

It often makes more sense to bank on simple, easy to digest premises. Writers and directors may want to do something more complex but if the studio doesn't think it'll make enough money then the creative side of things is out of luck. Opportunity cost plays into this too. The studios want to get the maximum return on their investment. Do they put their money and talent into a fairly easy win or try something that might go over the heads of much of their target audience?

I think that's a very good point. The purposes of the industry are to entertain and- probably more importantly- make money. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And then I guess is where indie animators come in.

Pturretdactyl wrote:

I agree with you for the most part, but I think some messages take much deeper analysis to find in an otherwise ‘simple’ movie (whether or not The Secret Life of Pets has this I don't know because I haven't watched it).

However, it's not necessarily a bad thing to have a what you see is what you get movie; I haven't done an analysis of Big Hero 6, but I didn't need to for it to be moving (just as Undertale is the only game that has ever made me bawl, Big Hero 6 is the only movie that has done that).

Now let's go to something really unoriginal (that I have seen)- Transformers Prime Predacons Rising. Yes, I count that as an animated family movie. It was BEYOND disappointing in so many ways that I will not rant about it here. Seriously, I was obsessed with Transformers when I watched it and I was still left empty. The way Unicron was defeated was unoriginal/campy, so many cliffhangers were left, etc. The only sad parts for me were when Knockout betrayed Starscream and apparently became an Autobot (FUN FACT: It took several episodes for the Autobots to trust Smokescreen but it only took one quick self-preservation backstabbing for a proven Decepticon who has fought on the side of evil for millions of years to gain said trust) and when Prime died. I guess. To be fair, I think some of the cliffhangers were left for Robots in Disguise to pick up on, but it still felt unsatisfying. The whole thing to me was boring, poorly written and overall disappointing.

I guess it all depends on who made the movie and whether or not it's their main focus. I think Disney has feels down to a science and can fall back to their old patterns because it makes them money and it works, whereas a company like Hasbro has a million other things to worry about, and I would imagine they were itching to work fully on Robots in Disguise at the time-plus they had to keep it in mind when creating the plot- especially since Transformers Prime didn't really need a movie to wrap things up (but I suppose they needed an excuse to kill off Prime so I'll give them that).

Disney is probably the best family animation company right now. illumation, the producer of The Secret Life of Pets, hasn't produced anything good in the last year.

Flamekebab wrote:

I found Inside Out to be both amusing and moving. It made both the missus and me cry at certain points and covered many things about personal emotional development that we hadn't seen in anything else, let alone, as you say a “family animated movie”.

Something you perhaps are missing is the production side of things. Animated films in many ways take far more work to create, at least if they're to be done well. One can attempt to delve into deeper issues but is that really going to pay off? It's a big risk and unless handled very carefully isn't worth the trouble.

It often makes more sense to bank on simple, easy to digest premises. Writers and directors may want to do something more complex but if the studio doesn't think it'll make enough money then the creative side of things is out of luck. Opportunity cost plays into this too. The studios want to get the maximum return on their investment. Do they put their money and talent into a fairly easy win or try something that might go over the heads of much of their target audience?

I would really prefer something like Zootopia or Inside Out. Yes, production and effort counts, but something with good messages and morals would be perfect for people who want to review the movie like me. Inside Out was released a year ago, and Inside Out is a Disney production, not by illumination, Hasbro, or other family animated movie companies.They also have to keep the older people in mind, who don't just want a bright screen of playful characters. They want a good plot and good characters.

raspykoo wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

I found Inside Out to be both amusing and moving. It made both the missus and me cry at certain points and covered many things about personal emotional development that we hadn't seen in anything else, let alone, as you say a “family animated movie”.

Something you perhaps are missing is the production side of things. Animated films in many ways take far more work to create, at least if they're to be done well. One can attempt to delve into deeper issues but is that really going to pay off? It's a big risk and unless handled very carefully isn't worth the trouble.

It often makes more sense to bank on simple, easy to digest premises. Writers and directors may want to do something more complex but if the studio doesn't think it'll make enough money then the creative side of things is out of luck. Opportunity cost plays into this too. The studios want to get the maximum return on their investment. Do they put their money and talent into a fairly easy win or try something that might go over the heads of much of their target audience?

I would really prefer something like Zootopia or Inside Out. Yes, production and effort counts, but something with good messages and morals would be perfect for people who want to review the movie like me. Inside Out was released a year ago, and Inside Out is a Disney production, not by illumination, Hasbro, or other family animated movie companies.They also have to keep the older people in mind, who don't just want a bright screen of playful characters. They want a good plot and good characters.

To be honest, if they're making money, what do they care? And I'm not being cynical or anything, because if their endgoal is to make money and they do, they've done a good job. Maybe not from the viewers' perspectives, but they did achieve their goal.

Pturretdactyl wrote:

raspykoo wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

I found Inside Out to be both amusing and moving. It made both the missus and me cry at certain points and covered many things about personal emotional development that we hadn't seen in anything else, let alone, as you say a “family animated movie”.

Something you perhaps are missing is the production side of things. Animated films in many ways take far more work to create, at least if they're to be done well. One can attempt to delve into deeper issues but is that really going to pay off? It's a big risk and unless handled very carefully isn't worth the trouble.

It often makes more sense to bank on simple, easy to digest premises. Writers and directors may want to do something more complex but if the studio doesn't think it'll make enough money then the creative side of things is out of luck. Opportunity cost plays into this too. The studios want to get the maximum return on their investment. Do they put their money and talent into a fairly easy win or try something that might go over the heads of much of their target audience?

I would really prefer something like Zootopia or Inside Out. Yes, production and effort counts, but something with good messages and morals would be perfect for people who want to review the movie like me. Inside Out was released a year ago, and Inside Out is a Disney production, not by illumination, Hasbro, or other family animated movie companies.They also have to keep the older people in mind, who don't just want a bright screen of playful characters. They want a good plot and good characters.

To be honest, if they're making money, what do they care?

Yeah, sadly the american family animation business only cares about money, not the reviews that say it's bad.

Let me change that a little for you:

raspykoo wrote:

Yeah, sadly the american family animation business only cares about money, not the reviews that say it's bad.

The overwhelming majority of businesses exist primarily to make money. Anything else is secondary. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part you'll wind yourself up less if you remember this. Companies are not your friends and do not care about you.

Flamekebab wrote:

Let me change that a little for you:

raspykoo wrote:

Yeah, sadly the american family animation business only cares about money, not the reviews that say it's bad.

The overwhelming majority of businesses exist primarily to make money. Anything else is secondary. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part you'll wind yourself up less if you remember this. Companies are not your friends and do not care about you.

Well, we are not going to go off topic here. We are talking about something specific, not how corrupted american businesses are today.

Companies are not your friends and do not care about you. Do not care about anybody.[/quote]

American has very little to do with it and companies certainly do care about some people! Investors, legislators, and similar

It's not off topic though - you were asking about opinions on the subject and it all ties in. Most films are made for financial reasons and the market for deep “family” animated movies is pretty weak.

…or is it?
With my generation being old enough to have children of their own now perhaps we will see a shift. I also wonder whether your perspective on the matter is skewed a little by your age. To me there have been several good animated films in the last few years but for me that's 5 - 10 years. I'm going to take a guess that a time period like that is significantly larger portion of your life than it is of mine. I hope I'm not doing too bad a job of explaining what I mean with that.

Flamekebab wrote:

American has very little to do with it and companies certainly do care about some people! Investors, legislators, and similar

It's not off topic though - you were asking about opinions on the subject and it all ties in. Most films are made for financial reasons and the market for deep “family” animated movies is pretty weak.

…or is it?
With my generation being old enough to have children of their own now perhaps we will see a shift. I also wonder whether your perspective on the matter is skewed a little by your age. To me there have been several good animated films in the last few years but for me that's 5 - 10 years. I'm going to take a guess that a time period like that is significantly larger portion of your life than it is of mine. I hope I'm not doing too bad a job of explaining what I mean with that.

I don't think it's necessarily that they don't care (otherwise everybody working at these companies would all hate their jobs), it's just that money is the priority, and with good reason.

Like I said, I adored Big Hero 6, and while Wall-E was a bit preachy for me (again not completely about the money) I still really enjoyed it and liked watching it over and over. I guess Nightmare Before Christmas counts, although that came out in '93.

Flamekebab wrote:

American has very little to do with it and companies certainly do care about some people! Investors, legislators, and similar

It's not off topic though - you were asking about opinions on the subject and it all ties in. Most films are made for financial reasons and the market for deep “family” animated movies is pretty weak.

…or is it?
With my generation being old enough to have children of their own now perhaps we will see a shift. I also wonder whether your perspective on the matter is skewed a little by your age. To me there have been several good animated films in the last few years but for me that's 5 - 10 years. I'm going to take a guess that a time period like that is significantly larger portion of your life than it is of mine. I hope I'm not doing too bad a job of explaining what I mean with that.

I know, in general you, at your age, see an animated movie that came out last year and feel like it's only one individual piece compared to other animated movies you've seen throughout your life.. That's how I feel… Honestly I look at the family animation business on a bigger scale than just my life. But if we're talking about modern day animation you have to stick to the family animated movies that are coming out right now. And also, just because my generation was in the 2000s doesn't mean each and every millennial thinks that the music of today is good or the animated movies of today is good. I like doing a deeper analysis, while other children my age are just there for the laughs and things I would honestly not care about.

If i'm not understanding this please make your opinion more clear.

Pturretdactyl wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

American has very little to do with it and companies certainly do care about some people! Investors, legislators, and similar

It's not off topic though - you were asking about opinions on the subject and it all ties in. Most films are made for financial reasons and the market for deep “family” animated movies is pretty weak.

…or is it?
With my generation being old enough to have children of their own now perhaps we will see a shift. I also wonder whether your perspective on the matter is skewed a little by your age. To me there have been several good animated films in the last few years but for me that's 5 - 10 years. I'm going to take a guess that a time period like that is significantly larger portion of your life than it is of mine. I hope I'm not doing too bad a job of explaining what I mean with that.

I don't think it's necessarily that they don't care (otherwise everybody working at these companies would all hate their jobs), it's just that money is the priority, and with good reason.

Like I said, I adored Big Hero 6, and while Wall-E was a bit preachy for me (again not completely about the money) I still really enjoyed it and liked watching it over and over. I guess Nightmare Before Christmas counts, although that came out in '93.

Yeah, but making money does make your business a success I guess, but you need to get good reviews on the matter itself.

Pturretdactyl wrote:

I don't think it's necessarily that they don't care (otherwise everybody working at these companies would all hate their jobs)

I think you might be misunderstanding me here. It's not quite that bad! People working there may well care a great deal and be really passionate about what they do. Companies aren't people though and decisions are made based on what's best for the company.

It's also a tad more complex than that as sometimes it's not directly about money but about “positioning”. A company might opt to make a game that doesn't make them as much money as others might if it helps them change how they're perceived. Perhaps they were making good money making flight sims, for example. At a certain point there's no more people willing to buy more flight sims though and so in order to grow further they need to move into a different market. Their next game might not sell as well but could help them be seen as someone to pay attention to for a different genre. Does that make sense?

raspykoo wrote:

Yeah, but making money does make your business a success I guess, but you need to get good reviews on the matter itself.

In 1996, sure!

Now though who reads reviews?

Perhaps quite a few people - but how many? Are they people that were going to pay to see the film?

I would think this is especially true of “family” films. The adults are the ones paying and may well not expect much for them if they take their children to see it. Children appreciate things that aren't quite as good (which is great for them and not so much fun when they rewatch something they loved as a child twenty years later…). As such as long as the film isn't too terrible then the reviews might not have much impact on the amount of income it generates for the studio.

Let's not forget that there's lots of films, books, and games that are known as “cult classics”. Often these things did fairly poorly when released but over time have garnered a lot of praise and fans. That's lovely for the creator but not necessarily for the people who financed the original project!

Flamekebab wrote:

Pturretdactyl wrote:

I don't think it's necessarily that they don't care (otherwise everybody working at these companies would all hate their jobs)

I think you might be misunderstanding me here. It's not quite that bad! People working there may well care a great deal and be really passionate about what they do. Companies aren't people though and decisions are made based on what's best for the company.

It's also a tad more complex than that as sometimes it's not directly about money but about “positioning”. A company might opt to make a game that doesn't make them as much money as others might if it helps them change how they're perceived. Perhaps they were making good money making flight sims, for example. At a certain point there's no more people willing to buy more flight sims though and so in order to grow further they need to move into a different market. Their next game might not sell as well but could help them be seen as someone to pay attention to for a different genre. Does that make sense?

raspykoo wrote:

Yeah, but making money does make your business a success I guess, but you need to get good reviews on the matter itself.

In 1996, sure!

Now though who reads reviews?

Perhaps quite a few people - but how many? Are they people that were going to pay to see the film?

I would think this is especially true of “family” films. The adults are the ones paying and may well not expect much for them if they take their children to see it. Children appreciate things that aren't quite as good (which is great for them and not so much fun when they rewatch something they loved as a child twenty years later…). As such as long as the film isn't too terrible then the reviews might not have much impact on the amount of income it generates for the studio.

Let's not forget that there's lots of films, books, and games that are known as “cult classics”. Often these things did fairly poorly when released but over time have garnered a lot of praise and fans. That's lovely for the creator but not necessarily for the people who financed the original project!

I honestly don't like family movies with not a lot of effort in the plot and still earn loads of money. I also know many people who watch reviews on Youtube about family animated movies, too.

raspykoo wrote:

I honestly don't like family movies with not a lot of effort in the plot and still earn loads of money. I also know many people who watch reviews on Youtube about family animated movies, too.

Are you or they the ones who pay for the tickets?

Flamekebab wrote:

I think you might be misunderstanding me here. It's not quite that bad! People working there may well care a great deal and be really passionate about what they do. Companies aren't people though and decisions are made based on what's best for the company.

It's also a tad more complex than that as sometimes it's not directly about money but about “positioning”. A company might opt to make a game that doesn't make them as much money as others might if it helps them change how they're perceived. Perhaps they were making good money making flight sims, for example. At a certain point there's no more people willing to buy more flight sims though and so in order to grow further they need to move into a different market. Their next game might not sell as well but could help them be seen as someone to pay attention to for a different genre. Does that make sense?

Okay, gotcha. So something along the lines of Rovio probably should've migrated (ha ha bird pun) from Angry Birds while they had the chance? Sure it might not do as well at first, but at least they could have less of a reputation of milking one game idea to death.

I guess what it really boils down to is psychology, and like I said, Disney seems to have a framework that can be used for a variety of completely different concepts yet still be meaningful. Once you have something like that, it's almost foolproof- so long as you do a good job with the actual animating (and yeah, I understand how tough that must be. o_o' I can admire them all in that respect).

Alright, so what about family animation and other media that tries to be meaningful or relate to its target audience? Let's ignore the money aspect for a second- I guess my question is what makes it work really well and what makes it really cringe-worthy?

Pturretdactyl wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

I think you might be misunderstanding me here. It's not quite that bad! People working there may well care a great deal and be really passionate about what they do. Companies aren't people though and decisions are made based on what's best for the company.

It's also a tad more complex than that as sometimes it's not directly about money but about “positioning”. A company might opt to make a game that doesn't make them as much money as others might if it helps them change how they're perceived. Perhaps they were making good money making flight sims, for example. At a certain point there's no more people willing to buy more flight sims though and so in order to grow further they need to move into a different market. Their next game might not sell as well but could help them be seen as someone to pay attention to for a different genre. Does that make sense?

Okay, gotcha. So something along the lines of Rovio probably should've migrated (ha ha bird pun) from Angry Birds while they had the chance? Sure it might not do as well at first, but at least they could have less of a reputation of milking one game idea to death.

I guess what it really boils down to is psychology, and like I said, Disney seems to have a framework that can be used for a variety of completely different concepts yet still be meaningful. Once you have something like that, it's almost foolproof- so long as you do a good job with the actual animating (and yeah, I understand how tough that must be. o_o' I can admire them all in that respect).

Alright, so what about family animation and other media that tries to be meaningful or relate to its target audience? Let's ignore the money aspect for a second- I guess my question is what makes it work really well and what makes it really cringe-worthy?

I agree with you. It's not all about money, it's about how the people like it too, and Disney is great, but yeah, animation is hard and requires loads of effort. Even for me, 2D animation takes a lot of work.

When an animation tries to be meaningful or relate to it's child audience, it really depends on how they do it. A good way of how this works really well is telling a story with good messages and themes and exploring different sides of the protagonist on a level that children can help build up their empathy skills. Some TV shows, like Breadwinners, use the “apply to our target audience” method and make it cringe-worthy to other people who might want to critique the show. Breadwinners makes the animation so fast paced, and shoves in small details everywhere so it makes it harder to follow the plot and the characters. They force the message to the viewer at the ending so it doesn't help at all.

Illumination's Despicable me 1 and 2 were good, and they prove they can make good movies.
Zootopia, inside out, and tangled are all great.
And unlike everyone else on earth it seems, I liked frozen. The animation was amazing, the plot was interesting, Elsa doesn't have a love interest, and the songs are arguably the best part. Sure, it's a bit overrated, but it doesn't make it a bad movie.
Wreck it Ralph was good, even though I'm not a gamer so many of the references went over my head.
I think That's everything i have to say. Oh and as for bluesky animation, I liked rio and the peanuts movie. Please stop with ice age movies though. It was good the first time, but ice age is dead. please no more sequels/threequels/quadquels.