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Polar Express
I wrote a quick entry on the IMDB for the Polar Express, just to warn other parents to stay away. Since they sometimes have lost or rejected my reviews, I'm saving a copy here.
Date: 6 December 2004
Summary: Loud, creepy, horrifying
Against my better judgment my three-year-old son was taken to see The Polar Express this weekend.
Five minutes into the movie he screamed and begged to go home. And he's not a particularly cowardly toddler.
This G-rated movie is incredibly LOUD, violently kinetic, and a total sensory overload - completely inappropriate for young children. I got to see the rest of the movie after my son was taken home, and time after time I was amazed by scenes that were far more frightening than the one that first terrified my boy. He'd never have made it through without major trauma.
Perhaps a five-year-old could handle it - but they would have to be pretty desensitized.
For myself, the virtual actors were creepy, the elves at the North Pole scenes were disturbingly reminiscent of Nazi propaganda films, and the writing was disappointingly poor. The whole thing felt like a very deliberate, cynical attempt to manufacture a Christmas classic, but throughout the movie it was impossible to miss the set-ups for future rollercoaster theme rides and products.
Why does Hollywood feel it necessary to blast moviegoers into insensibility? And why, why, WHY don't they understand that good writing is the core of a movie? The television version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" was wonderful and heartwarming. The atrocity that was Jim Carrey's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" was just awful. Why? Writing, more than anything. That, and the apparent belief that loud sounds and abundant special effects are all that's needed to make a good movie.
People in Hollywood need to be chained into a theater showing all the incredible, well-written movies made without seat-shaking audio and computer-generated effects: movies like Casablanca, The Third Man, A Christmas Story, and even relatively lowbrow (but well-written) movies like Used Cars. But of course, Roger Zemekis directed and CO-WROTE Used Cars. What happened? What's his excuse for The Polar Express?
Date: 6 December 2004
Summary: Loud, creepy, horrifying
Against my better judgment my three-year-old son was taken to see The Polar Express this weekend.
Five minutes into the movie he screamed and begged to go home. And he's not a particularly cowardly toddler.
This G-rated movie is incredibly LOUD, violently kinetic, and a total sensory overload - completely inappropriate for young children. I got to see the rest of the movie after my son was taken home, and time after time I was amazed by scenes that were far more frightening than the one that first terrified my boy. He'd never have made it through without major trauma.
Perhaps a five-year-old could handle it - but they would have to be pretty desensitized.
For myself, the virtual actors were creepy, the elves at the North Pole scenes were disturbingly reminiscent of Nazi propaganda films, and the writing was disappointingly poor. The whole thing felt like a very deliberate, cynical attempt to manufacture a Christmas classic, but throughout the movie it was impossible to miss the set-ups for future rollercoaster theme rides and products.
Why does Hollywood feel it necessary to blast moviegoers into insensibility? And why, why, WHY don't they understand that good writing is the core of a movie? The television version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" was wonderful and heartwarming. The atrocity that was Jim Carrey's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" was just awful. Why? Writing, more than anything. That, and the apparent belief that loud sounds and abundant special effects are all that's needed to make a good movie.
People in Hollywood need to be chained into a theater showing all the incredible, well-written movies made without seat-shaking audio and computer-generated effects: movies like Casablanca, The Third Man, A Christmas Story, and even relatively lowbrow (but well-written) movies like Used Cars. But of course, Roger Zemekis directed and CO-WROTE Used Cars. What happened? What's his excuse for The Polar Express?
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There might well also be a problem in movie makers not quite knowing how to use the new technologies. I gather that in this film they were trying to have very realistic CGI for characters, but perhaps didn't consider if the thing should have been done with CGI at all. With a good story it may not matter all that much if it's conventional "cell" animation (which, to be sure, is really mostly done on computer these days, and mostly in Korea and Japan) for all that it doesn't have quite the "realism" of computer graphics.
I'm seeing ads for a Disney direct to video film with the familiar characters like Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse but with computer graphics. Remember that Disney has shut down its conventional animation shop so all their cartoons in future (if I'm not mistaken) will be CGI save maybe for the occasional Miyazaki film (like "Spirited Away") they elect to distribute. The video looks like, well, a computer game.
Are the companies embracing CGI for animated features because of a few successful films, but without really having any other reason or vision?