Toon Zone Talkback - Imagi Animation Studios Shuts Down

The best CGI studio this side of Pixar and it closed:shrug::sad: this is a sad, sad day!

*Waves goodbye to any decent movie adaptations in the furture*
 
Sad to see Imagi go cant say I was in love with the TMNT movie but it wasn't the fault of the animation that was top notch in my book. I would have loved to see that Gatchaman movie. Hope everyone that was apart of that company finds new work there was a lot of good talent there.
 
Damn, I actually liked their take on TMNT, and I wanted to see Astro Boy when it was in theaters, but I was overloaded at the time. Wish I could see their take on Gatchaman though.
 
Chowder is animated in China. If you poke around some of the other shows on TV now, more of them are also being animated in China. Sure, there's still the super cheap-o animation houses, but they can do quality work when they set their minds to it.

However, I looked at that news as pretty much meaning they aren't going to make movies any more. Considering the constantly changing writers and directors for Gatchaman (and even Astro Boy, if I remember correctly), I think the cost of the movies really had very little to do with the cost of the animation itself.
 
Its too bad. As much as I like Gatchaman, I don't think it would've actually been finished or released anyway. The folks at IMAGI seemed like cool, genuine people. But Astro Boy was still extremely flawed. It tried way too much to be like WALLE instead of its own thing. IMAGI also put way too much weight in meaningless name value (Charlize Theron in a pointless VA cameo) over good storytelling.

However, this means that myself and anyone else who was able to get the Gatchaman hats from IMAGI as convention giveaways now have hats to a movie that will never see the light of day :D .
 
This is sad to hear, as I thought that TMNT was a great movie. Imagi shutting down also means that we'll never see the possibility of a CGI Tetsujin 28 movie coming out. :(
 
Well unless someone else gets the license and tries to make it.

Personally, I'd be much happier if Tatsunoko just made a new Gatchaman show. Like a true sequel to the original that explains what happened to the Science Ninja Team.
 
Pretty sad to see Imagi go like that. I've been rooting for IMAGI cuz they're from Hong Kong and my Hong Kong roots gives me even more reason to give them support. But if even the local Hong Kongers can't find a reason to support them, it'd be pretty hard for IMAGI to sustain support elsewhere. And from what I heard, Francis Kao moved his studio to Hanzhou.
 
This doesn't surprise me one bit. As said already, they had potential, but poor execution. Thier first film, TMNT really wasn't that bad. I admit, I liked their visuals, but other aspects on their movies (especially Astro Boy) could of been a lot better.
 
Me too. It was excellent. I think a lot of people made assumptions about it (that it was too Americanized, too dumbed down, too many things were changed -*buzz* WRONG!!!!!!) and overlooked it. Too bad for them, and too bad for Imagi, because Astro Boy was a cut above TMNT. Better designed, animated and written. I almost shed a tear during Astro, and found myself caring a lot more about what happened to him than I did for Leonardo and co. And some of the animation was SPECTACULAR. When Astro tried out his flying ability for the first time and went soaring through those clouds...man!!!! Too cool.

Well, Astro Boy wouldn't be the first animated classic to be initially ignored by audiences...a lot of classic Disney would fall into that category (Fantasia, Bambi, Pinocchio). People who missed Astro Boy at the theater should rent it when it comes out on DVD this March. See what they missed. I bet they'd be surprised.
 
I liked Astro Boy but it was far from being animated classic. That's not just a term you can just throw around.

To me it spoke volumes that Astro Boy only had his classic looks twice in very brief periods. Almost like they were afraid to have a half-naked robot superhero.
 
They probably were. The classic look has always been a source of joke and innuendo, after all. Things have changed since the character was created in the 1950's. To me, Astro wearing normal kids clothes in the movie didn't faze me at all. He looked fine. And the character DID wear clothes in the manga most of the time unless he was in a fight with a giant robot or something. The filmmakers really didn't change things all that much.

As for the word classic, I think I'm throwing it at the right target. :) I enjoyed Astro Boy much more than I did Up or Princess and the Frog or 9 or Ponyo. It's a classic so far as I'm concerned.
 
OK radioflyer. You can say that, but the movie bombed. So it did not make much of a difference. You make it sound like it's inappropriate, but you are also forgetting that's been Astroboy's classic recurring look for years. That's his classic, iconic look. When I spoke with IMAGI, part of their big push was referencing that Astro Boy was a popculture icon. Quentin Tarantino had Astro Boy on his tie on talk shows, stuff like that.

However, why couldn't Astro Boy have suddenly donned his classic look in the gladiator fight or in the big climactic fight?



I think if anything Astro Boy will simply be a product of its time rather than a true animated classic like say IRON GIANT (which was more Astro Boy than the new Astro Boy movie). Not to mention being derivative and copying a more popular acclaimed CG animated movie like WALLE.
 
I also think Imagi's cg was second only to Pixar, its a shame to see them go, I was really looking forward to Gigantor and Gatchaman. Imagi showed troubles within shortly after TMNT came out, with them firing the directors of all their upcoming movies and whatnot.

TMNT had its flaws, but I really enjoyed it anyway. It did a few things wrong that hurt their potential with the older fanbase as well as not kiddy enough for a younger one. Astro Boy I was not looking forward since it looked too americanized, however after watching it I loved it.

Astro Boy had already bombed recently in the US, I really wonder what Imagi was thinking in trying to bring it back. To their defense their version of Astro Boy was indeed Americanized and easily better than Dreamworks cg films yet it still remained the basics of Astro. It really should have done well.

But with Gatchaman and Gigantor they were going for some old niche franchises, I really don't think either of them could have saved the company.
 
FWIW perhaps Imagi's old projects are not necessarily abandoned, given this page for the Gatchaman film. It features a teaser that I don't believe has ever been posted before. Perhaps it's something they'll outsource?

That said, this doesn't change that it's still stuck in preproduction....

(hat tip: Anime News Network
 
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