Disney Treasures: Donald Duck

[Arrrhalomynn]

I got myself this dvd some weeks back and I'm amazed at great it is. I had seen all these before on tv of course, but they're slightly improved on the dvd version. The colors overal are improved, although they sometimes flicker a bit.

What impressed me most is the animation. It's so incredibly fluent and lifelike. Nowadays cartoons seem more animated than actually drawn. It's great to see how Donald's tail moves when he shakes his beak, or how his legs bend just a little when walking.

It's sad that we can't get this level of animation anymore, almost 70 years later. I love some modern day cartoons, like sponge bob, but one look at cartoon network or nickelodeon is enough to realize that the art of animation has long been lost.

[sinning.dragon]

Thank you!

One of the biggest examples of how animation has changed is in The Little Mermaid (to me anyway). I mean, the first Little Mermaid is my favorite movie. Granted the animation isn't perfect, but they did a damn good job. The second Little Mermaid? I don't think they even tried. Assholes.

[den68]

The second Little Mermaid movie was a straight to video release. I believe those are done by Disney's television animation studio not the movie studio.

The budget is far less for those than a feature film that's why the quality of the animation is lesser.

The same can be said of the Donald Duck cartoons. Those were originally created as theatrical shorts that's why they are of the same quality as the early Disney feature films like Snow White or Pinocchio.

With the dawn of television the major studios stopped making theatrical shorts and moved to television. They needed to find a way to make cartoons cheaper and quicker. The old Hanna Barbara cartoons are a good example of this. Shows like Yogi Bear and the Flintstones. Often times it's only the mouths that are animated while the rest of the character remains static.

This method doesn't work all that well when attempting a realistic look. Check out some old Super Friends cartoons if you want to see some bad animation.

I think todays television animation is far superior that that of the 70's or 80's. Shows like He-Man and GI Joe look pretty bad side by side with Batman the Animated series or X-men Evolution. Computers have really helped improve the quality of television animation but even so, most employ a very stylized look that masks the limitations of what can be done quick for TV.

Going back to the Little Mermaid. that was the Disney flick that put animated feature films back on the map as major players. Until that one animated feature films were relegated to the Saturday kids matinee for a number of years. It also marked a return to what Disney was known for in it's early classics like Cinderella, Pinnochio, Sleeping Beauty, beautiful animation and a fantastic soundtrack.

Not that movies like 101 Dalmations, Sword in the Stone, The Black Cauldron or the Rescuers are bad but terms of quality of animation and music they can't hold a candle to Beauty and the Beast, Alladdin or Lion King.

[Arrrhalomynn]

I'm not sure if I like the computerhelp in animation shows. It's always great when it's new, like in beauty and the beast and more recently futurama, but when you look back on it now, it's very obvious that it has been made by computers. It's often too pretty, too tight and sharp to fit in with the rest, but at the same time it's very clean and clinical, which makes it look empty. I don't really like it.

[den68]

true, it does stick out a bit but that's full on CG effects. I'm talking about using computers for plain old animation. I doubt anyone is inking or coloring animation cells by hand anymore. hell a lot of them, South Park, Invader Zim and such look like they were done with Flash.