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The Fantasia rabbit hole goes pretty deep, actually. If you want a fascinating read at how the company treated abstract animator Oskar Fischinger (a refugee from Nazi Germany who was a great influence on the film) read this article: http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=2409

Steamboat Willie was a theatrical release, yes, as were a lot of the Silly Symphonies of the time.

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was it a movie?

Does it matter? I thought the subject under immediate discussion was Disney's creativity (or lack of it). All the main characters that started them were original weren't they? Donald Duck, Goofy etc.

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Does it matter? I thought the subject under immediate discussion was Disney's creativity (or lack of it). All the main characters that started them were original weren't they? Donald Duck, Goofy etc.

I think Donald Duck and Goofy were original but don't forget that Mickey Mouse was a slightly altered Oswald the Rabbit after Disney lost the rights to Universal.

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I think Donald Duck and Goofy were original but don't forget that Mickey Mouse was a slightly altered Oswald the Rabbit after Disney lost the rights to Universal.

!!! Because as I'm sure you know, Disney originally created Oswald, so I'm not positive of the angle you are going here. It was a work for hire situation, sure, but I don't think it makes any sense to act like Oswald was Walter Lantz' in any way but legally.

Besides even that, Oswald is an altered version of Felix the Cat. This is not to say that Disney was special in ripping off Felix, because everyone did early on. I don't think most are aware that throughout the late 1910s and 1920s, Felix the Cat's popularity was huge worldwide and many cartoons developing at the time were copying his antics, the visual play, the black and white stylizations and the look. Felix is responsible for starting many of the early cartoon tropes and sight gags, with Winsor McCay only coming before with much more elegant and difficult cartoons. The pioneering of the ongoing character short format basically belongs to Felix, so in a way, it's easier to say everyone out there ripped off Felix.

Then you could even go on top of that and point out that much of the way Felix the Cat acted as well as the plots to his cartoons were all general rip offs of Chaplin shorts.

Does it matter? I thought the subject under immediate discussion was Disney's creativity (or lack of it). All the main characters that started them were original weren't they? Donald Duck, Goofy etc.

Even if picking on individual character from any company, you'll see the cartoon animal was just sort of a hotbed in Hollywood with many looking the same or having the same design between studios. It was when strong individual characterization prevailed director's started experimenting more and taking risks that the major characters we still remembered become a hit. Also every single early version of the original cartoon greats tended to be bland or unmemorable.

This is part of the reason why no one from the original Warners team can agree on who created Bugs Bunny. To me what looks like what may have happened is a bunch of animators were all drawing and animating a similar looking cartoon rabbit that solidified into one individual character second.

I don't agree with the notion by El Meurte is referring to that Disney originally became big without an original idea, because it seems more of a half and half case, being their own spin on fairytale works. Had they not done Snow White or Fantasia, I personally don't think they would have gotten by on their cartoon shorts alone, usually being uninspired or having little going on besides characters dancing and singing, later producing less violent rip offs of Warners.

What bothers me more about the early Disney decades is just that all credit tends to go to Walt, who was actually never very good at either art or animation and was basically a businessman who employed good people and put his name on it. Just look up Ub Iwerks and see how much Walt owes to that man. There was a parallel problem with Felix the Cat, but that one sort of doesn't matter now, with Felix the cat not being part of an empire of merchandising and licensing (though there's still some). On the other hand, everyone at Warner Brothers got their credits and in general people know the "Warner Brothers" did not create the characters themselves.

I feel like the last half century more involves the Disney company doing the leeching rather than early on, where they were just sort of a boring studio that made really pretty and solid animation.

I still don't understand the point of originally holding up the company with the better animators, since it seems strange to define the company by the artists it employed at one time. So the Nine Old Men stayed didn't leave, but it's not like they experimented out of narrowing and defining their own style. I find it more interesting to look at animators like Ken Harris, Preston Blair, Bill Tytla, or the aforementioned Ub Iwerks that left Disney (or had careers before) and compare their work at other places.

To me I think to understand the golden age of cartoons in Hollywood is missing the point to hold a studio over another most of the time, since the animators themselves did not tend to have a loyalty to one studio their whole career, switching sides and companies often or starting their own studio.

I guess that's why I took issue with you, Vimes, jumping on El Meurte's backhanded comment toward the company and you mentioning individual animators and artists as the sole defense, rather than just looking at the company as an entity or the man Walt Disney himself.

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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I'd just like to say that Splice is amazing and Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes was dreadful.

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. . .and Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes was dreadful.

Really? Why so?

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Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes was dreadful.

It's the only Guy Ritchie movie I've ever enjoyed, although I thought Downey Jr. was terrible when he was being the "smart" Holmes -- far more enjoyable when he was making mistakes.

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Well I think you're all gits. (Joking, mostly!) There's apparently a second coming out and I intend to enjoy it. It may just be further proof that I have bad taste in cinema. :getmecoat:violin:

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I didn't hate it, but nor do I think it did very well on the investigation side of things.

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I thought the Sherlock Holmes movie was nice popcorn flick type faire. I wasn't really expecting it to be very intellectual or brilliant, but I did get more than I bargained for. Nice surprise, but I probably won't watch it again.

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Unfortunately I have trouble these days remembering what it was I disliked about films Amy more than a month after seeing them. I think my problems with HOLMES were to do with an overly-slick CG Victorian London, two characters who are so far removed from the books and such a lack of detective work that they may as well have made it a new IP. Probably I found the story, dialogue and action/fight scenes sub-par too.

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Man, Shanghai Knights was good. Such a great, funny movie, just like its predecessor. Do not allow Jackie Chan access to a ladder and a wheelbarrow, because he will fuck you up.

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Unfortunately I have trouble these days remembering what it was I disliked about films Amy more than a month after seeing them. I think my problems with HOLMES were to do with an overly-slick CG Victorian London, two characters who are so far removed from the books and such a lack of detective work that they may as well have made it a new IP. Probably I found the story, dialogue and action/fight scenes sub-par too.

Or to put it another way: "I didn't like or enjoy a single aspect of this film."

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Or to put it another way: "I didn't like or enjoy a single aspect of this film."

Curiously enough, my first reaction to that movie was almost exactly the same as yours. The scenes looked weird, the color pallettes didn't seem suitable, the characters weren't at all what I expected...but then I watched the movie for a second (and eventually a third) time and I don't know why, but things just...clicked for me and I noticed more than a few things about the movie that I actually really like...I started looking at the main characters from a different approach, one that showed me that the vibe between the main actors/characters is actually quite proper and suitable for that particular Holmes - Watson relationship and really well portrayed and that, in general, there's just an adequate amount of action, humor, and witty dialogue which, combined, make a decent Sherlock Holmes story.

Also, I've heard a lot of complaints about the different approach to the character of Sherlock...especially the fighting scenes. But what do you actually imagine when it says in a book that Sherlock brings the man down? Just that what you see in the movie, he brings the man down. And he was portrayed in the books as an experienced boxer and a fighter....

Edited by tm_drummer

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Curiously enough, my first reaction to that movie was almost exactly the same as yours.

I really enjoyed it, I was just helping Ben distil his thoughts.

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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I saw Pandorum last night. A most excellent scifi movie. A bit of a mix between Event horizon and Alien. Except for the ending. Which was rather impossible, sadly.

Having your ship crash land in the sea didn't cause any leaks? And the one window breaking on the bridge suddenly sets off all the alarms? riiight

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I watched History of Violence last night, and :tmeh:.

Maybe the way Cronenberg has been directing his movies after Spider is not for me: I found both Eastern Promises and this movie very simplistic and shallow ; with every emotion being overplayed by the lighting, music, camera work, etc... and Howard Shore's orchestral score in this one is killing any sense of subtlety or minimalism the story seems to need. It's not a bad score, but it didn't feel like the right one for the movie.

The thing that makes me uncomfortable is the acting : I found that every actor was mis/overacting and that was already the case Eastern Promises too (with the exception of Mortensen and Mueller-Stahl). The thing though is that both these movies involve some major characters taking on roles in their daily-lives; so maybe the fact that they are off most of the time is part of the design (there are a few scene in History of Violence in which Tom do seem more honest that others) ... I had a similar issue with this kind of approach to 'acting' characters in Chabrol's movies, but it seemed OK for some people.

So, yeah, maybe I'm not getting it.

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Just saw Limitless and really enjoyed it, sorry TP! It reminded me of Wanted, in that it's a very enjoyable yet shallow post-Fight Club film. I didn't really care whether the drug is realistic, when the film was so fun and inventive and exciting. The trailer did mislead as to

how much of a role De Niro plays

. Granted there's not much substance, and a shedload of loose threads there, though. It doesn't invite a rewatch.

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Just saw Limitless and really enjoyed it, sorry TP! It reminded me of Wanted, in that it's a very enjoyable yet shallow post-Fight Club film. I didn't really care whether the drug is realistic, when the film was so fun and inventive and exciting. The trailer did mislead as to

how much of a role De Niro plays

. Granted there's not much substance, and a shedload of loose threads there, though. It doesn't invite a rewatch.

Am I just becoming really bad at putting across my opinions, or is everyone here getting really bad at reading? You said pretty much the same thing I did:

I also saw Limitless, which was highly entertaining, if flawed in many ways. (The behaviour of the drug doesn't match anything close to our bodies real relationships with drugs, and the ending wasn't really an ending. (Or at least I didn't understand it if it was.)) An enjoyable timewaster, but not brilliant.

Also this: "Granted there's not much substance, and a shedload of loose threads there, though." Is exactly my complaint said a different way. "Lack of substance": No realism or attempt at asking deeper questions about what the ethical, moral or practical implications of a real drug would be like. Why? Because the drug behaves like a magic super-pill with unrealistic complications and abilities that suit the plot as it needs to. Likewise "lose threads": The ending didn't bring about good resolution.

Two times in one page I've been misunderstood. Bah!

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I'm not sure I get what you're saying. You feel like everyone understands you perfectly? Or...?

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