TALKING-ANIMAL MOVIES . . .

Initial post here

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"Talking-Animal Movies Are Ruining My Life"
by Dave White
(original article here on msnbc)

Dear Hollywood,

Why are you so lame? Why don’t you have a single original idea left in your collective head? Why do you hate audiences? Why do you continue to crank out by-the-numbers animated films that hold ticket-buying families and animation fans in contempt while trying to sell them tie-in merchandise at the same time?

Why do “Madagascar” and “The Wild” and “Open Season” and “Flushed Away” all have the same plot? How many domesticated menageries of circle-of-life-defying zoo pals actually find themselves tossed into the wilderness on a regular basis, learning the true meaning of family and home in the process?

Why did you make me sit through “Barnyard,” a movie where a bull with a milk-heavy udder played a guitar and sang Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down?” And why was I expected to take that scene seriously for even one second? Why did that lactating bull’s pals have a rave in the barn, dancing to techno and getting fake-drunk on milk and honey? Was it his milk they were drinking? And why did my four-year-old and nine-year-old nieces willingly walk out of that movie with their mother, unconcerned with how it all ended?

Why did “Doogal” get made? What was it even supposed to be about? Why was Jon Stewart a talking coiled spring?

Why weren’t “Antz” and “A Bug’s Life” enough? Why did we need “Ant Bully” too? Were there not enough ant-centric films on the pop culture landscape? Did all the DVDs of those other two movies turn to dust, creating an aesthetic void?

Why would I rather watch someone get beheaded on the Internet than sit through another one of these stupid, cheap, insulting, corporate toy commercials? When will the eyeball-scorching awfulness end?

I don’t think you have an answer for that last question, studio pals, so I would like to be your guide in the wilderness. You are apartment-bound cats lost in the jungle right now and you need someone to show you the way back to safety. I think you can still save yourselves before you all eat your own tails and audiences begin turning their backs on you. This will be hard advice to follow but I can’t believe that none of you are up to the task.

Take a break
First, you have to stop releasing animated features for about a year. Twelve months. Don’t shut down production. Don’t lay anyone off. Just take your time with whatever is coming down the pipeline. Obviously you haven’t been doing that lately. And it shows.

t used to be, decades ago, that Disney was pretty much it. Every few years, one animated feature from Disney would arrive. And that was that. They were great movies. People loved them. The studio would re-release them every few years. Audiences would return to theaters to see them again and again. This is why everyone knows that Flower is a skunk and Lady is a cocker spaniel.

This year alone major studios have released eight animated features about talking animals. There’s also been at least one independent animated feature with seals re-enacting “Romeo and Juliet” (it was called “Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss,” if you don’t believe me) and two more major studio releases about anthropomorphized cars and baseball equipment, respectively. It’s like we’re all geese and you’re force-feeding us candy 24/7. You won’t harvest paté made of money this way. You’ll just make us throw it all back up. Audiences need a rest, no matter how much you all think you can’t take a break from picking their pockets.

Back to the idea factory
Next, please begin wrapping your minds around this truth: you are creatively bankrupt. There’s more than one plot in the world but you’d never know that from the movies that get green-lighted. So you must declare a decade-long (at least) moratorium on the fish/lion/bear/mouse/insect-out-of-water thing.

Even my favorite animated feature so far this year, “Flushed Away,” from Aardman, the folks responsible for Wallace and Gromit, is about a city mouse that finds himself in the sewer. Where he learns lessons. The same lessons the “Open Season” bear learned. The same lessons the “Madagascar” flock learned. I can now safely assert that for an animal to belong to a group of other animals where that animal can be nurtured and supported — a family that animal can count on — is the most important thing ever in this world for an animal.

To say that this storyline has been been done is an insult to all the other things out there that have simply been done. It’s a premise that’s been pulverized into a gooey pile of roadkill. So knock it off. Really, does it taste good when you chomp on each other’s ideas like this? Because it tastes like wet cardboard on this end.

Famous people need not apply
Here’s another thing you might think about: no one really cares if Tim Allen or Julia Roberts is a voice in your crappy movie. Kids don’t. They don’t even know who Julia Roberts is. It’s nothing more than a guessing game for media-savvy parents to play (“Okay, yeah the skunk is Wanda Sykes, but which rabbit is Steve Zahn?”).

To this day I couldn’t tell you who voiced Thumper, but I know that little bunny well. Meanwhile, I don’t remember a single thing about any of the animals in “Chicken Little” except that Chicken Little’s pig friend was kind of Gay Vague.

You’ve set off on the dumbest road trip ever, one where really expensive horses are drawing carts with no wheels. And yes, I think Steve Carell made a great squirrel’s voice in “Over the Hedge.” But could another actor have done that rodent justice? Yes. And why? Because it was a memorably scripted character — the only one in the entire movie.

Nix the cheesy tunes
There’s more: I don’t care that Counting Crows don’t get radio airplay anymore. Quit making them a party to the evil practice of dropping a pop song into the soundtrack every five minutes because executives thought the script’s weak emotional cues needed more punch.

Hire writers you trust and let them write. Kick the marketing degree-waving suits out of the creative process. Wait until the movie’s an actual hit before you plaster the little fuzzy creatures’ faces over every single product on the shelf at Wal-Mart and then make commercials where they shill for lawnmowers and Pringles. If I’m tired of looking at their blank, poorly designed snouts before the movie even opens, that isn’t good for business is it?

And finally, if all else fails — and it has — just hire Japan’s answer to Walt Disney, Hayao Miyazaki, to shepherd the next one through. He’s a genius and you all could learn something from him. But let the man work in peace. I’m begging you.

--Dave White
www.imdavewhite.com