Shrek stalks Monsters...

[johare]

From EOnline

Shrek stalks Monsters

 

[YoHo]

I'm gonna side with AV on thios one and say that there ain't nothing going on.

However it is interesting that that semi-pro Disney story was on E! Online

 

[Captain Crook]

It seems obvious to me that Katzenberg is still personalizing all of this, and you know what? I don't blame him. I'm sure I'd rub it in Mike's face, too...And for sure I'd be trying to topple him. However, I know I'm too emotional to be successful in this type of venue & emotion & sound business policy seldom make good compatriots...methinks perhaps the midget could be making this too personal, as well...No skin off my nose either way, time will tell...

 

[johare]

Well, I'm going to stop at Target on the way into work today and pick up the Shrek DVD (even though I've had a great SVCD copy for months) and then when I get home tonight I'm taking the kids to see Monsters Inc.! So, it looks like everyone can win!

 

[JeffJewell]

It's a fine movie which caught on and then caught on fire...but Dworks needs a track record of more than one before staking a claim to an all-time historical rivalry...

I understand what you mean as far as comparing the companies' bodies of work, but I think the article's intent was to say that this is the first time a non-Disney piece of Feature Animation struck such a chord with the public. This is the first time I can recall non-Disney animation pulling down old school Disney animation type numbers.

True, they've only done it once, but they've proven it can be done. I'm not certain anyone, particularly Disney, really knew that, before.

Jeff

 

[Captain Crook]

Agreed, Jeff...But once is still only once, and it seems to me a lot of "riders" have been attached to this "one". It seems that people looked at all of Disney different because Shrek was a hit and Pearl Harbor was not - I know Atlantis was the film that should be inserted where I've put PH, but IMO the failure of Atlantis didn't seem so big. Further, at about this same time we started to hear the rumblings about IOA being a serious competetor to WDW...A snowball affect of Disney falling on hard times in every segment...All because of Shrek?

Maybe I'm reading too much into it & blurring too much for coherent conversation, but Dreamworks failed miserably prior to Shrek and then with Shrek they hit big. Not much of movie, IMO, certainly no Beauty & The Beast, but hey, thats taste and I'm an old guy who no longer appreciates a lot of bathroom humor...But back to Scoop's point, does one hit mean Company success any more than one failure means the end of Company success?

If I'm blithering more than usual, please excuse, as Hurricane Michelle has me quite on edge...

 

[All Aboard]

Johare,

We've been viewing the .avi file for months now (that's even worse than the VCD, it's a digital camcorder recording of about the middle 2/3 of the movie screen). We turn the couch around to face the computer! It will be nice to have the DVD. You mentioned Target. They are charging $19.99 for the DVD. Circuit City and Best Buy are both asking $17.99. At Circuit City if you buy two 8-packs of batteries (with Michelle approaching, might not be a bad idea) and the $17.99 DVD, you get $5 off your purchase.

It's nice to have a preview of the Sunday inserts on a Friday!!

PS, we'll probably watch Shrek tonight and see Monsters, Inc. at noon tomorrow. Movie theaters in Miami on Friday nights are absolutely nuts.

 

[JeffJewell]

but it seems that some studio in the 80s put out several animates which caused this same concern...again, my memory is foggy and could be doing me wrong...but does anyone else recall this???

...I believe you are talking about Don Bluth Productions; Bluth was former Disney and put out a couple movies and arcade games in the 80's. The animation quality was very good (more stylized than Disney's, at the time. It seemed to me that Bluth was about the earliest adopter of the more angular art and animation style popular recently), but the general consensus was that the stories were lacking, and I don't recall any of the movies actually becoming any kind of threat to a Disney movie.

Captain...

back to Scoop's point, does one hit mean Company success any more than one failure means the end of Company success?

...not necessarily. I think it's more of a factor on the perception side: AV has often alluded to the company that tested their animated movie to a luke-warm response, then tested it again, but told the viewers it was a Disney movie, and the response was much better. People associated "excellent animation" with "Disney."

Now, Shrek has proven another point AV made recently: Excellent Animation is _not_ the exclusive playground of the Walt Disney Company.

If you're a hot young animator, do you want to work for Pixar, or maybe Dreamworks, or Disney? At this point in time, I strongly suspect that Disney is going to be the third choice for a lot of animators. Shrek's success doesn't mean the end of Disney animation, but it sure bodes ill for a division that's already bleeding from the gut.

Jeff

 

[All Aboard]

I'm jumping in late here, and I'm not sure how (or if) this was covered. But, I think there is a fundamental difference between Shrek and other animated features. Let me preface by saying that we absolutely love the movie, we think it is hilarious.

However, I think Shrek's success is partly due to animation quality, partly due to story, and partly due to the nature of the humor. It's almost a hybrid. Part Beauty and the Beast and part South Park. It meets in the middle somewhere. This formula is clearly very successful in this instance. But, it got there with an assortment of fart jokes and grossness. Sort of like Seinfeld's "cutting across the infield" at a car race analogy.

But, to me, Shrek lacks the charm and (dare I say it) magic of the vast majority of Disney and Disney/Pixar animated features of the last 12 years. To me, all three (pending tomorrow) Pixar offerings were much better, more captivating and charming films than Shrek. And certainly, I find Mermaid, B&tB, Aladdin and Lion King all to be superior.

I can't argue with success. Certainly comparing this year's Disney (Atlantis) to Shrek bears no chance for Atlantis. But, I guess I'm one of the only folks out there that found The Emporer's New Groove to be a wonderfully funny film with a great story.

I am firmly in the camp of needing more than a single hit to hand over any crowns. I'm with you Scoop, aside from Shrek II, I'll need better than the Road to El Dorado to believe Dreamworks has mounted any real charge in this battle.

 

[johare]

We've been viewing the .avi file for months now (that's even worse than the VCD, it's a digital camcorder recording of about the middle 2/3 of the movie screen). We turn the couch around to face the computer! It will be nice to have the DVD

Actually my first copy was that cheap camcorder shot version, then I got a pretty decent version with chinese subtitles and then finally a couple months ago I downloaded a SVCD copy which looks as good as any DVD I've seen. I can't imagine the DVD being much better, but I enjoy the movie so much that I would feel guilty not buying a copy...plus there are some nice extras on the DVD. That won't happen with Atlantis or Pearl Harbor though...VCD copies of those are enough!

You mentioned Target. They are charging $19.99 for the DVD. Circuit City and Best Buy are both asking $17.99. At Circuit City if you buy two 8-packs of batteries (with Michelle approaching, might not be a bad idea) and the $17.99 DVD, you get $5 off your purchase.

Our Targets are charging $17.99 and giving you a $3 coupon towards a 12/24 pack of any softdrink. Best Buy is charging 16.99. I went to K-Mart which is near where I work and had them price match Best Buy at $16.99 and I got a free Shrek story cd-rom for my PC.

PS, we'll probably watch Shrek tonight and see Monsters, Inc. at noon tomorrow.

We are planning on at least trying to go see Monsters, Inc. tonight. If that fails we'll try again on Sunday. We've already been watching Shrek so much that I'll probably just check out the extras and file it away in my collection.

 

[YoHo]

The 80's movies I can think of were
An American Tale (Fival, Somewhere out there(definatly Disney class song))
All Dogs go to Heaven
The Last Dinosaur? (I'm not sure if that's the name)

All three were fairly good movies, but with the exception of An American Tale, I don't think any of them really captured the teen date crowd.

Certainly Bluth has ahd more successes here then Dreamworks.
BUT, As much as I'm not scared of Dworks YET, they are the most credible rival simply, because no company besides Disney has ever made this kind of money on Animation.

As I have been saying multiple times, Disney's big advantage with Monsters Inc. and any Future G movies is going to be 911. There is a strong chance that the trend towards PG may have made a sharp U-Turn on 2 wheels.

As always, We shall see.

 

[Planogirl]

There was also The Secret of NIMH. And who made Ferngully?

 

[YoHo]

I only ever saw secret of Nimh as and ABC Saturday morning special. If your going to name every movie, then there was also:
Transformers the movie,
GI Joe the movie
Heavy Metal.

And lets not forget the sixties and seventies when we got the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and Return of the King, all of which have a new found relevence. Oh, and Puff the Magic Dragon.

 

[Another Voice]

The conventional wisdom in Hollywood was that putting the Disney name on an animated film guaranteed success no matter what the film was like, and that putting any other studio’s name on the film guaranteed failure. The rivalry came from the fact that Jeffrey Katzenberg was willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to prove that was wrong. And this summer proved it.
‘Shrek’ was the first film to compete on Disney’s own terms and it worked brilliantly. ‘Shrek’ got the same audience that ‘Beauty’, ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Lion’ had captured. ‘Atlantis’ tried for those same people and failed miserably. Worse, it didn’t even get the core family audience since Disney made the decision not to appeal to its own core.

‘Shrek’ also marked a huge chance in Hollywood because it made Dreamworks the top player. Yes, it’s only one movie, but you’re only as good as your last film. Hollywood looks to the future and has an extremely short memory. Prior failures have been forgotten; Dreamworks is hot – and Disney has abandoned the feature animation realm. It’s a cruel town and all of the talent is going to DW. They are seen as the ones willing to take risks and to create, Disney is seen as the cartoon company that settling for ‘Wind in the Willows 2: Mr. Toad Rides Again!”.

 

[YoHo]

They are hot in Animation, How about that?

And In Case you forget, In the early 80's Disney became fodder for a take over, BECAUSE there movies sucked.

They were not immune. and they had upstarts trying to unseat them. Disney recovered in time and the upstarts failed. this time the upstart suceeded and Disney is showing no signs (although I Want to see Lilo and Stitch.)

 

[YoHo]

I agree with you, but I am a simple midwestern kid Like you. L.A. is an unnatural city in the middle of a desert that has more car chases then water in its riverbed.

I don't pretend to understand how things work there.

(remember my issues with the All Powerful Buzz?)