Pretentious Animated Films

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RWPossum

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Have you ever seen an animated film that tried to be more intelligent than it actually was? I know there are live action examples like "Southland Tales" and "Sucker Punch".
 
I really want to say Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, but it's been so long since I saw it I can't really make a comment. I just remember being completely nonplussed by it despite it's hyped expectations to revolutionize the industry.
 
Ghost in the Shell 2, all the way. The first Ghost in the Shell maybe a little bit, but it was at least clear what was going on and the philosophical discussion added to rather than detracted from the story. The sequel is a completely different story. One of the worst scripts ever, just throwing together random literary quotes in an attempt at profundity. Who knows, maybe there was something actually profound that went over my head, but it's still crappy dialogue. The first movie was one of the major influences on The Matrix; the way I see it, the second one took a few too many lessons from Reloaded and Revolutions.
 
Films, not shows. Anyway, I'm thinking Ralph Bakshi may be an example. I mean, he did films with social commentary in them. Does any of it come off as eye-rolling to anyone?
 
Well, I liked GITS2 better than the first movie.

For the topic in general, I like ambitious failures better than unambitious successes. For most people it's the other way around, but I'd rather see someone try to do something big and fail than someone doing something that's been done 200000 times before and succeed. Our society rewards well executed sameness while absolutely spitting on spectacular failures.
 
Ive heard that Fantasia was considered extremely pretentious by many critics back when it first came out in the 40's, while over time it has started to be regarded as a genuine classic. I love the film myself, but even so, i can see what those old critics meant.
 
I can see how Fantasia can be considered kitsch (check out this program from a 70s rerelease: http://www.goantiques.com/scripts/images,id,294695.html ) but I think it's meant as an introduction to classical music, not a replacement. Honestly, do you think anyone who works on a version of the 3 musketeers where Barbie or Mickey play D'Artagnan expects it to replace the original novel? No, it's about inspiring some of the kids to read it when they're older.
 
Really? I'll disagree. I think the film is clearly geared simply toward sci-fi/action fans. But I could tell from the ads and then seeing the film that the studio probably had no idea how to market it. It seems like if an animated movie doesn't have cute, fuzzy animals and cheerful songs, then they don't know how to respond. By definition, pretentious is something with "an unwarranted claim to importance or distinction." Which could not be further from the truth Titan A.E.
 
Akira comes to mind.

While it is a marvel in animation the story itself was more than a little pretentious and really bad at being philosophical. If you think of it as a good action movie with some quirks it's a fine movie but if you try to take it seriously it's just laughable at best.
 
Akira is one of the least pretentious anime movies out there. People make too big a deal out of the lack of story and technobabble philosophy. It's basically an old fashioned monster movie. It has the same kind of monologues found in campy science fiction, and it follows most of the formulas to a tee. The dialogue in Akira is no more pretentious than in Godzilla. Or King Kong, for that matter. And you know, I really don't think it tried to be anything more than that. The manga is more ambitious narratively, but the movie is really just trying to punch you in the face with AWESOME action and LOTS OF EXPLOSIONS. And it does that extremely well.

Whereas with Ghost in the Shell, I can at least see where people are coming from. Oshii's a pretentious director (whom I like and respect regardless of his quirks) and he always aims for more than his films ultimately can handle
 
Whoops, didn't explain myself well. Sorry!

IMHO, Titan AE came off as pretentious because it tried too hard to be edgy and fell flat on it's face. The fact that it was trying so hard to be something it's not just made it even more so.

But hey, different strokes for different folks :-)
 
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