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    The animated films thread

    In the last few days I've seen Kung Fu Panda 3 and Zootropolis.

    Kung Fu Panda 3 pretty much continues where the second one left off, with Po meeting his real Panda father. It covers the difficulty faced by foster fathers and birth fathers quite sympathetically. The storyline is a bit supernaturalist with a villain coming back from the Spirit Realm to steal the chi life force of the living. I thought it was a good film overall.

    Zootropolis (called Zootopia in other territorues) is the latest Disney. I really enjoyed it. A rabbit becomes the first bunny to become a police officer in the city of Zootropolis but struggles to be accepted because of her status as a prey species. There is a clandestine plot to drive a wedge between predator and prey species in a clever parallel to racial tensions in the human world. So a bit deeper than I was expecting and some good jokes along the way. Nice homage to the Godfather as well.

    In other news Paramount has dropped The Little Prince in the States and it has been picked up by Netflix. It looks like it's not going to get a UK cinema release here after all. The trailer looked really good, so this is a shame.
    Last edited by Patrick Thistle; 03-07-2017, 08:22.

    #2
    The 2016 animated films thread

    Zootopia (as it is called here in the US, had no idea it had another title elsewhere...does that mean they call it "Zootropolis" in the movie? I wonder if they recorded different voiceovers) was really good. Some surprising stuff that is obviously about race and social differences, and the DMV scene had me in tears from laughing so hard.

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      #3
      The 2016 animated films thread

      Yes to the different voice recordings. Also different signs and stuff.

      I'd seen the DMV scene as a trailer but it was still funny.

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        #4
        The 2016 animated films thread

        I really liked Zootopia too. My daughter thought it was too scary (especially when the animals went 'crazy').

        The sloth scene is truly great (and I'd argue gets better on rewatching). (I also love that on the Star Wars release, the sloth trailer was the last one before the movie actually started.)

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          #5
          The 2016 animated films thread

          Zootropolis / Zootopia meta joke.

          Alan Tudyk voices the thief Weaselton. In Frozen he voices the Duke of Weaselton. In Frozen he corrects someone and says it's Wesselton. In Zoo (insert ending here) his name is mispronounced and he corrects it to Weaselton.

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            #6
            The 2016 animated films thread

            The Secret Life of Pets is quite good. I really liked the first trailer, was underwhelmed by the second trailer and went in with low expectations. The animation is brilliant and while the plot starts down a predictable path, it gets diverted surreally with an intervention from an unlikely source. There's also a fantasy sequence in a sausage factory that is extremely bizarre.

            There is a Minions short on the front that made me laugh too.

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              #7
              The 2016 animated films thread

              I watched it in order to avoid ENG-ICE the other night- really liked it, but maybe my bonhomie was enhanced by receiving a text just before I switched my phone off to tell me Gylfi Siggurdsson had scored. (My pal knew I'd bet on him anytime goalscorer/can't distinguish one -sson from another.)

              There are some really funny moments and even the cheesy/predictable bits are not off-putting.

              And the Minions short is excellent.

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                #8
                The 2016 animated films thread

                Didn't know that it was already out there. It's not coming to the US for a few more weeks.

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                  #9
                  The 2016 animated films thread

                  I guess I should mention it here, even though it's not a 2016 film, but Isao Takahata's 1991 film Only Yesterday was released in the USA for the first time a few months back. I believe it was the last Studio Ghibli movie not to have been distributed here.

                  I loved it, though I thought it dragged a bit in the second half. I also wasn't too much of a fan of Dev Patel's voice work. But the story and the animation made up for it. The ending had me blubbering.

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                    #10
                    The 2016 animated films thread

                    Speaking of Ghibli - and also not 2016 - When Marnie Was There has just got a release prior to arriving on DVD in October. It is lovely and charming and wonderful and everything you expect of Ghibli.

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                      #11
                      The 2016 animated films thread

                      Yes, that is very good. Made by a young director that hopefully can keep the Ghibli spirit going strong in the future.

                      Watched Finding Dory today. It's not quite at the same level as Nemo is, and it kind of has a checklist feel to it in parts. But there are some great new characters, it has an unexpected reunion of two actors from The Wire (!), and it's almost worth going alone just to see the short, Piper, beforehand. There is some astonishing animation in that.

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                        #12
                        The 2016 animated films thread

                        Hadn't mentioned FInding Dory. I really liked it. Hank the octopus is just brilliant. There was an emotional element to it that moistened the eyes.

                        The final scene with the truck had me laughing out loud. Not sure why, but the sudden use of slow motion creased me.

                        The short, Piper, is indeed amazing. There's also a laugh in the post-credits scene right at the very end.

                        I had read some stuff beforehand about the impact this might have on adopted kids wondering about their real family, given the story is Dory searching for her parents. Having watched the film I felt the criticism was overblown. For one thing, Dory isn't adopted. She's lost. That's different. Of course her parents would be looking for her.

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                          #13
                          The 2016 animated films thread

                          Patrick Thistle wrote:
                          In other news Paramount has dropped The Little Prince in the States and it has been picked up by Netflix. It looks like it's not going to get a UK cinema release here after all. The trailer looked really good, so this is a shame.
                          This apparently did poorly in the States. Having borrowed a Netflix account to watch it, I can see why. The central premise is clever - a young girl talks to a crazy old man who lives next door, who starts spinning a yarn about a time he crashed his plane in the desert and met the Little Prince. The mix in animations (computer in the 'real world', stop motion in the 'story') works very well. The fox in particular is beautifully animated.

                          But somehow it didn't work. They added in a new twist that didn't make any sense. And they didn't tell enough of the actual story, which I found frustrating.

                          I really wanted to like this film and got quite excited when I saw the trailer. Sadly it disappointed.

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                            #14
                            The 2016 animated films thread

                            Kind of interested to see how close the film version is to the original story because my wife loves it and reads it to our son quite regularly. It does leave me a little cold, though.

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                              #15
                              The 2016 animated films thread

                              A third recommendation for The Secret Life of Pets.

                              I think I have found my spirit animal in the Poodle with the iPod.

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                                #16
                                The 2016 animated films thread

                                My Name Is Ian wrote: Kind of interested to see how close the film version is to the original story because my wife loves it and reads it to our son quite regularly. It does leave me a little cold, though.
                                Not close enough. If anything the story gets skipped over. Then they try and develop it with a 'what if the Little Prince grew up' scenario which did not work for me at all.

                                The original book is both beautiful and bleak at the same time.

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                                  #17
                                  The 2016 animated films thread

                                  I saw the Argentine release of it on the coach over to Mendoza last week (the choice of films was wide and varied, but every one of them was dubbed into Spanish which I can't bear, and the only actual already in Spanish film offered was an Argentine one I've seen in the cinema. But if it's animated, the dubbing becomes way less annoying).

                                  I quite liked it, but I've never read the book*. I have read the Wikipedia for the film and the book, and gather from those that it's very different indeed, but coming to the film fresh and on its own merits, as I say I quite liked it.

                                  * Indeed, I'd never heard of the book until I came here and people started telling me I looked like El Principito (the first time it happened I thought the person who said it was talking about Prince William because I'm English and blond). It's wildly popular here, no doubt partly for the same reasons it is everywhere else (except seemingly for the UK), and also because the author was one of the founders of what is now Argentina's national flag-carrying airline.

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                                    #18
                                    The 2016 animated films thread

                                    (I should clarify that I'm talking about the Argentine release of the 2015 English-language film, as there is apparently an actual Argentine film of the book as well. I told you it was popular here.)

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                                      #19
                                      The 2016 animated films thread

                                      I loved Finding Dory too - as with Nemo, doesn't take much to get me all emotional when watching kids' films like that.

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                                        #20
                                        The 2016 animated films thread

                                        There's a CGI Asterix movie coming out.

                                        I'm a bit worried really. Asterix is one of those things from my childhood that I'd prefer it people didn't mess with.

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                                          #21
                                          The 2016 animated films thread

                                          I heavily recommend Kubo and the Two Strings like Coraline and the others produced by Laika, it is done with a clever combination of stop-motion puppetry and CGI.

                                          Also recommend that everyone go see Storks, because it's co-directed by a guy I knew growing up.

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                                            #22
                                            The 2016 animated films thread

                                            Well they already messed with Asterix with the live action movies.

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                                              #23
                                              The 2016 animated films thread

                                              Reed John wrote: I heavily recommend Kubo and the Two Strings like Coraline and the others produced by Laika, it is done with a clever combination of stop-motion puppetry and CGI.

                                              Also recommend that everyone go see Storks, because it's co-directed by a guy I knew growing up.
                                              Yeah, I'm looking forward to both of those. Storks in particular looks hilarious.

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                                                #24
                                                The 2016 animated films thread

                                                Secret Life of Pets - it's not bad, albeit clearly Toy Story with fur.

                                                It is completely predictable but there are enough clever lines and sight gags to carry you past that.

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                                                  #25
                                                  The 2016 animated films thread

                                                  The chihuahua leading an uprising was a twist I wasn't expecting.

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