Toon Zone Talkback - Best Animated Feature of 2009: "Coraline"

Or we could give the award to the movie that had all 3 of those qualities - Astro Boy. When watching Astro Boy, man, I really found myself caring about him. I even teared up a little a couple of times. And the jokes were funny (no snot or fart jokes either) the characters were awesome, the animation was beautiful. It's tragic that so many wrote the movie off before even seeing it. They missed out is all I can say.

I agree about Coraline. You said it perfectly for me.
 
It's fine that you think Coraline is the worst animated movie you've seen in 2009, nothing wrong with that. However why would you say it can be the worst movie of 2009 when many people loved and enjoyed it?


Really? Why? What's the big deal?



I only saw it 2d and still had a great time.
 
I did not see Coraline in 3-D. That said, the opening, as HG said, and when she was going through the tunnel, the Other Father playing the piano, the climax with the hand, and any moment with Wybie's motorcycle felt like I lost something by not seeing Coraline in 3-D.
 
I did see Astro Boy and it is easily in my top five animated films of the year. However, I thought the animation was average, and once Astro went down to Earth, the movie slowed down. That's why I did not list it.
 
In my opinion, it could be the worst movie of 2009 but just to let you know, there was one movie I thought was worse but that belongs in the Entertainment Board



It just felt like once you get to nudity, you are trying to hard to be edgy, when nudity isn't.

OT: How do we post multiple quotes in one post?
 
Hmmm...I thought a lot of cool stuff happened when Astro went down to the Surface:

That's when Astro met Cora and her gang, and ended up fighting other robots in the arena, which was awesome. Then later he fought the Red Core robot, and that was amazing. So I don't see how any of that slowed the movie down, just my opinion.


And FWIW I thought the animation was great, especially when Astro was flying for the first time and went zooming through the clouds. That was really beautiful. Again, just my opinion.
 
The Astro Boy movie doesn't offer any of those qualities, and wasn't true to the source material at all. The excellent Astro Boy 2003 series (Japanese version, not butchered English version) was superior in all ways. Offering a new angle, while staying true to source material.

I would have rather seen an accurate translation of the Astro Boy movie based off the Astro Boy 2003 series, which could have even been shown in IMAX cinemas.
 
I disagree. And I didn't care for the 2003 series - Astro's voice sounded awful, although the animation was okay. And the source material in that version differed a heck of a lot from the original manga and anime (Astro rebelling against his father, for instance, occurred NOWHERE in the original version), and I think the movie stayed closer to the source material than the 2003 anime did, because:
in the movie, like in the original manga and anime, Astro and Dr. Tenma parted ways because Tenma rejected him, because he decided that his robot could never take the place of his dead son. And there were lots of references to the source material in the movie: For example, the CG Astro drills through a mountain - just like the 2D Astro did in the opening of the 1960's manga. He gets pitted against other robots by Hamegg, which is very much like what happened in the original anime/manga. When Toby dies in the movie, we see his empty hat, just like we did in the 1960's anime. In the movie, Astro shares his energy with other robots, and he did that in the manga/anime too.


I think the movie is as valid a re-imagining of the Astro boy story as the 2003 anime you speak of. I think it's actually better in a lot of ways. But again, just my opinion.
 
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Technically, Sita Sings the Blues was released in 2008. I would have covered it for its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC that year, but I couldn't get the scheduling to work. I did get to talk with Paley for our feature shortly after the fest was over, though.
 
Coraline was playing on one of my 13-hour flights across the Pacific this summer, so I decided to give it a try.

I turned it off before the end.

The movie looked beautiful, and I can appreciate the world it was trying to create. At the same time, however, it was horribly boring and featured one of the most unsympathetic main characters in recent memory. Coraline was such an unlikeable brat that I found myself not giving a crap whether or not she returned to her mother, and it didn't help that her journey happened at a snail's pace.
 
Then why release in 2D? I only go to 3D movies if they are over 2 hours long to make the extra $2.50 worth more. That rule has resulted in me seeing only 2 or 3 movies (depending how you look at it) in 3D and making it an event for 3D makes it feel more special.
 
For a major cartoon forum like toon zone (new member, long time lurker), I think the idea to go with Coraline was a good choice. They didnt choose something that was mainstream from a company that has put out a number of successful movies whether they be box office (Monsters and Aliens, Ice Age 3) or a movie studio with a long history of critically acclaimed movies (Pixar's Up). They ignored any bias, and picked the movie that they thought was the best and brough inovation to the genre. Very few sites are willing to take that kind of risk and reccieve backlash from its community.
 
Personally, I adored Coraline. But, then again... that's just my type of movie. The art style initially turned me off, honestly, but the final product was just FANTASTIC. It was very... basic, in an almost low-budget way, but far more fluid than most stop-motion. The tone that Gaiman set works PERFECTLY with Henry Sellick's direction. I'll admit it's a very slow-paced movie, but, well, I think it was for the best. It moves along at a very slow creepy... a horror movie without any real "horror" for most of the film. It reminds me of classic horror films, with slow, deliberate camera motions for a lot of scenes. Really lets the mood sink in, y'know?

And by the end I had a wide grin on my face. So, yeah, I wouldn't say it's out of line to call it the best of the year... Ponyo was great, too, but Coraline was wow-inducingly great.

...and, just to note, I didn't even see it in 3D. If it's really that better, well, I should probably get on that.
 
Some people just can't afford it.

It's just his opinion.

It's also mine. The 3D is not a gimmick in this film; it's quite beautifully done. It's subtle, but it's just stunningly great.
 
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