How Shrek Kneecapped American Animation

foreign [Music] animation in America has an image problem while animation as a medium provides nearly unlimited Freedom with regards to what can be portrayed on screen it is widely viewed by General audiences at least in the west as a genre and with that assumption comes expectations about what exactly animation should and shouldn't be and to understand what exactly it was that Shrek did we first need to understand the history of the medium [Music] American public's General perception of Animation can be traced in part back to the long-held and rarely challenged theatrical dominance of Walt Disney Animation Studios as well as the situation from which they emerged in the early 20th century while numerous techniques for creating the illusion of motion with drawings had existed long before the Advent of Cinema in the late 1800s film animation did not develop until the first decade of the 20th century these animated cartoons quickly became popular though it was not until Walt Disney's 1928 short film Steamboat Willie which synced animation to sound that the so-called golden age of Animation began lasting until the 1960s the Golden Age saw Disney's shorts appearing alongside those of its competitors namely Warner Brothers MGM Paramount and Universal these animated shorts were shown in theaters as the television would not become widely available in ordinary households until the 1950s during this period Walt Disney Studios also branched out into feature length animation stunning the world with the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937 which to this day Remains the highest grossing animated film of all time when adjusting for inflation now at this time animation was not perceived as a children's medium but it's highly comic absurdist and slapstick heavy nature would leave a mark on the psyche of the American public as the television became commonplace in American Homes throughout the 1950s and animated cartoons became available in many American households the desire to go see animated shorts in theaters dwindled taking advantage of this Walt Disney Studios shifted its focus to producing feature-length theatrical animated films quickly establishing itself as the dominant force in the market while the other Studios would primarily produce television cartoons most of which were aimed at younger audiences Disney would enjoy nearly four Decades of virtual monopoly over theatrical American animation lasting from the late 30s until the early to mid 80s this extended period of massive influence over American popular culture would ingrain the idea of what theatrical animation was meant to be in the minds of audiences at large relatively friendly reasonably safe and most importantly appropriate for children while many Disney films would touch on darker subject matter they studiously maintained the family-friendly image of their brand and during this time period the Disney brand effectively was American animation at least in terms of feature-length films while animated media in countries like Japan had grown to Encompass a wide variety of styles subject matter and ratings America saw quite the opposite occur now don't get me wrong many of Disney's works from this time period are good and some are even great but the problem is that this Monopoly led to a lack of variety as the animation process required specialized personnel and Equipment the field was very difficult and expensive for newcomers to break into while Ralph bakshi made flawed but admirable attempts to prove to American audiences that animation could exist beyond the Disney mold and Martin rosen's masterful adaptations of two of Richard Adams novels saw critical success as far as the general public was concerned animation remained something intended for kids and hardly a field in which to push any kind of boundaries enter Don Bluth having been inspired by Disney's earliest Classics Luth briefly worked for the studio in the mid-50s before returning full time in 1971 working his way up the animation hierarchy only to become disappointed with the direction the company was heading in the flashpoint came when working on the adaptation of The Fox and the Hound Bluth and several others felt that the character of Chief needed to die to properly generate tension between Todd and copper while director art Stevens believed that it was too off-brand for a Disney movie to feature the death of a main non-villain character this combined with other disagreements that occurred over the course of the film's tortured production would lead Bluth and several like-minded animators to defect from Disney and form their own studio in 1979. after producing an animated short to secure investors they set about animating their Studio's feature-length debut an adaptation of Robert C O'Brien's novel Mrs Frisbie and the Rats of nim which had already been passed over by Disney for being too dark The Secret of nim premiered in 1982 to critical praise and modest Commercial Success the movie's dark subject matter portrayals of violence and death Exquisite animation and lack of the then ubiquitous musical numbers made it stand out markedly against its contemporaries drawing the attention of Steven Spielberg who would support Bluth in his next animated Endeavor An American Tale grossing more than 100 million dollars on a minuscule budget An American Tail challenged the long-held notion that Disney Reigns Supreme Over the landscape of American animation and while Disney itself had begun to Branch out in its theatrical offerings giving audiences two darker non-musical features in the Black Cauldron and The Great Mouse Detective both had failed to win significant box office success with the former actually jeopardizing the financial status of the entire Studio but it was not until 1988 that Disney and their upstart competitors truly went head-to-head at the box office with the dueling releases of Oliver and Company and The Land Before Time and though Disney's film would end up grossing more money in the long run bluth's entry earned nearly twice as much revenue in its opening weekend and went on to have much greater cultural staying power in response to this challenge to their animation hegemony Disney did exactly what they should have done they innovated bringing in new voices ideas and influences expanding the boundaries of what exactly brand-friendly meant amidst a changing landscape the result was what is now known as the Disney Renaissance the critically acclaimed and commercially successful run of 10 films released between 1989 and 1999 beginning with The Little Mermaid and ending with Tarzan and while many of these films can still be considered relatively on brand being musicals based on fairy tales or literary Classics the studio certainly expanded their reach drawing on stories from around the world and refusing to shy from including darker subject matter that only two decades before would have been nearly Unthinkable ironic in the meantime Don bluth's production company had unfortunately floundered almost as if their desire to see the horizons of Western animation expand had been fulfilled at the cost of the quality of their own films while 1989's All Dogs Go to Heaven still holds a lot of charm and continued to push boundaries with its portrayals of Hell violence murder and drug use subsequent entries into their filmography failed to live up to the level of their prior work belief's only big hit post all dogs 1997's Anastasia was essentially a Disney movie and all but name a mythologized musical account of a European princess story Bluth would go on to produce one more theatrically released animated film 2000's Titan AE and while the film did follow in the Blues tradition of boundary pushing giving us a gritty action-oriented science fiction story it unfortunately bombed at the box office but while Bluth himself may not have seen much success Post in 1989 his influence had spread far beyond his former competitors at Disney leading to a Renaissance of competition across the breadth of Western theatrical animation Pixar's mid-decade debut Toy Story would lead to a string of beloved and widely successful fully CGI films while Warner Brothers feature animation and fox Animation Studios would also join The Fray meanwhile Bliss former partners at Spielberg's company amblin had launched a new animation studio amblimation producing several films the greatest and last of which Balto would barely register as a blip on the box office radar for a deeper dive into the movie itself I not so humbly suggest my 25th anniversary retrospective on the film but Balto's failure would prove to be the Genesis of an all-new competitor inflammation was shuttered leaving their final project an adaptation of the musical Cats to be abandoned but the Studio's talented animators and considerable resources were transferred to the newly formed DreamWorks a collaboration between Spielberg and former Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey katzenberg their first film 1998's ants allegedly involved a lot of corporate Espionage with katzenberg again allegedly taking advantage of Industry connections to learn about Pixar's upcoming bug-centric story A Bug's Life then simply titled bugs but while Ants In A Bug's Life did end up sharing many basic story elements with each following a misfit ant who Pines after the princess of his Colony saves his Society from a threat and is recognized as a hero the two films took fairly different approaches where A Bug's Life is more traditional in its presentation clearly following in the family-friendly footsteps of its contemporaries ants is irreverent sardonic and violent even including multiple instances of swearing something almost unheard of in mainstream American theatrical animation at the time at this point in their history DreamWorks was not yet sure of what exactly their brand was and the first few entries in their filmography reflect this while ants seems to foreshadow the subversive irreverent nature of Shrek which I'll get to shortly DreamWorks next feature The Prince of Egypt is an almost complete 180. The Prince of Egypt is a grandiose musical inspired by the biblical story of Exodus and in addition to probably being DreamWorks best animated feature it follows heavily in the mold of the Disney Renaissance but their next movie The Road to El Dorado which released only two years later is a light-hearted and occasionally surprisingly raunchy Musical Adventure comedy and its follow-up is chicken run the delightfully British aardman co-produced stop-motion parody of The Great Escape and in addition to a movie about a certain green swamp dweller they would set to work on two other features an ambitious film centered around wild horses in the American Old West which would feature neither musical numbers nor talking animals as well as a non-musical pirate Adventure film based around the tales of the mythical Middle Eastern hero Sinbad in the meantime as the New Millennium approached Disney found themselves branching out even further from their own branding after producing a follow-up to their classic Fantasia they released dinosaur a live-action CGI hybrid non-musical Adventure film other movies that began production around the time the Disney Renaissance was coming to a close include The Emperor's New Groove a heavily comedy-focused story set in the Incan Empire Atlantis the Lost Empire a fairly dark and gritty non-musical action-adventure film inspired by pulp exploration and adventure stories from the early 1900s Lilo and Stitch a modern age family drama in which grieving siblings confront the loss of their parents set against the backdrop of a Sci-Fi Action Thriller and also with no musical numbers Treasure Planet a non-musical steampunk meets spell Jammer style reimagining of the literary classic Treasure Island and brother bear a non-musical pre-columbian Native American furry fanfic but Disney and DreamWorks were not alone in pushing the boundaries of mainstream animation while Don bluth's Titan AE produced under Fox Animation Studios was by no means a masterpiece it is still worthy of note and another former Disney animator Brad Bird was able to write and direct two excellent animated features of his own first The Iron Giant under Warner Brothers animation and then The Incredibles under Pixar while not every one of these films was particularly groundbreaking or even good and not every one of them proved to be commercially successful that is to be expected when pushing the boundaries in any art form or Market and if we could have had another few years of this level of leeway and experimentation then who knows what might have made its way into the mainstream of American theatrical animation wood major Studios have begun venturing into the realm of producing PG-13 or even R-rated big budget animated features the world may never know because in the midst of this crucial period of extraordinary opportunity and change something rather unexpected happened releasing on May 18 2001 as DreamWorks was still testing the waters with regards to what would constitute their emerging Studio brand Shrek would go on to gross over 484 million dollars on a 60 million dollar budget earning widespread praise from critics and audiences and demonstrating significant cultural staying power Shrek would prove to be DreamWorks animation's most financially successful movie up until that point and would even go on to win the first Oscar in the newly created category of best animated feature at the Academy Awards the following year but Shrek didn't just make a lot of money by making jokes and including pop culture references it gleefully delighted in mocking the foundations of its major rival Disney Walt Disney Animation Studios established Itself by adapting famous fairy tales from European history treating them with reverence and portraying them in a very traditional manner attractive Heroes and heroines usually of noble blood are pitted against ferocious monsters scheming villains and vile witches and must defeat them to restore the rightful status of Their Kingdoms but Shrek turns all of this on its head with an ugly brutish monster cast in the role of Hiro fighting against a corrupt feudal Lord over a princess cursed with the form of a monster who ends up choosing to remain in this form and shirking the Norms of her Society the screenplay was Loosely based off William stieg's 1990 children's novel Shrek and was enthusiastically embraced by one of DreamWorks heads Jeffrey katzenberg katzenberg had formerly served as the chairman of Walt Disney Studios from 1984 until 1994. only to have a bitter falling out with others at the company including CEO Michael Eisner and founder Walt Disney's nephew Roy and while I admit that this does involve a degree of speculation I can't help but suspect that katzenberg's fondness for Shrek's subversive and deconstructive nature stemmed at least in part from his negative personal history with Walt Disney Studios the main villain of Shrek Lord Farquaad has on more than one occasion been described as a caricature of Disney CEO Michael Eisner while his castle duloc made to resemble a theme park clearly and deliberately evokes the imagery of Disneyland now while I must admit that Shrek's screenplay includes a number of clever elements and hilarious jokes some I have to say that I've never really been a fan of the film as a whole it's heavy Reliance on reference humor combined with the highly non-aesthetically pleasing style of its characters and animation in general just don't appeal to me personally but the point that I've been working my way towards over the course of the last however many minutes is this that Shrek's success had an inordinate and in my view largely negative effect on the broader industry simply by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time Shrek is an effective parody of the Trope heavy fairy tale inspired stories that Walt Disney had built his media Empire on but in being so successful at such a crucial point in the history of American theatrical animation Shrek played a major role in determining the direction of said industry for years to come something that we are in many ways still feeling the effects of today Trek demonstrated that animated movies could be massively Successful by prioritizing crass and irreverent unsubtle reference humor and meme worthy moments rather than ambitious grandiose more mature storytelling and don't get me wrong I love a good crass comedy in the Jerusalem Garrison really as well as a clever deconstruction but the problem is that when this profitable of a trend emerges large swaths of any Market will tend to swing in that direction and this is especially true of American animation the contrast between the pre and post-trek World become starkly apparent when you look at the major Studio movies that went into production before the movie's release and compare them with those that began production or had their production significantly altered afterwards with Disney we went from the likes of Atlantis and Treasure Planet to Home on the Range and chicken little DreamWorks quickly abandoned its period of experimentation leaving Behind The Prince of Egypt spirit and Sinbad in favor of three Shrek sequels four Madagascar movies Shark Tale Over the Hedge and B-movie Don Bluth Studios Fox animation and Warner Brothers all became financially unviable and were quickly replaced by the likes of Blue Sky Sony and worst of all illumination blue skies comparatively dark and mature 2002 debut Ice Age was followed by a much more childish sequel four years later and Sony spent years producing these before giving us something as good as spider-verse meanwhile the illumination's use of cheap animation techniques combined with their increasing willingness to Pander to the lowest common denominator in their writing has allowed them to churn Out movie after movie at a fraction of what their competitors spend this isn't to say that every animated movie that began production after Shrek has been bad or even that every major Studio film has fallen into these same categories after all movies like bolt zootopia Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon are all above average and Encompass a variety of styles and I'll admit right here to finding a lot of Madagascar 2 funny in spite of the movie's numerous faults there is no sacrifice greater than [Music] but the problem is that this shift in the market kneecapped American animations potential to move Beyond its prior family-friendly constraints after all why would a studio bother to take risks when they could just make the boss baby and comfortably earn half a billion dollars while Studios like Leica and Ireland's cartoon Saloon struggled to break even at the box office for daring to challenge the prevailing Orthodoxy illumination can pump out Despicable Me sequels and spin-offs and rake in billions of dollars in box office earnings and merchandise Revenue perpetuating the prevalence of these types of movies sure the occasional Masterpiece does manage to emerge from the mix but for every Fantastic Mr Fox we get 20 Madagascar or minions clones that individually rake in dozens of times what it earns I completely understand that at the end of the day the movie industry is just that an industry they need to earn money to operate and one of the easiest ways to do so is to cater to popular Trends but the problem is that when ignoring the art portion of the art profit balance you rarely create anything truly spectacular I also understand that within the field of Animation there will always be a demand for entertainment made for children seeing as they make up a large share of the market it would just be nice if we could get a little more variety within the medium because at least for the foreseeable future I don't see much changing in that regard while technological innovations and options for internet distribution and monetization are making it easier for independent animators to produce and share their works we probably won't see much boundary pushing in the realm of mainstream American theatrical animation anytime soon and for that we largely have one ogre to blame [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] sauce

Channel: Cardinal West

Views: 21,006

Keywords: Disney, Dreamworks, Don Bluth, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Puss in Boots, The Last Wish

Id: Lsw1KUWoR80

Length: 21min 13sec (1273 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 20 2023