Random Thoughts Thread

[Rurouni_Fencer]

Worst part about living paycheck to paycheck - The weeks in which you can't afford any games..

[OldSchool_Boy]

Worst part about living paycheck to paycheck - The weeks in which you can't afford any games..

Bummer dude. So that's a no on Marvel vs Capcom 3?

[Limewater]

I was eating a carrot and sneezed. Now I have little flecks of carrot all over my desk.

[Hobie-wan]

I was eating a carrot and sneezed. Now I have little flecks of carrot all over my desk.

Could be worse. You could have sneezed while brushing your teeth or taking a leak.

[Rurouni_Fencer]

Worst part about living paycheck to paycheck - The weeks in which you can't afford any games..

Bummer dude. So that's a no on Marvel vs Capcom 3?

No to the Collector's Edition that my GF was going to get me for V-Day..

But I get paid the day after it comes out, so I'll at least get my copy of the standard edition..

[Flake]

I love that my local library has the entire Harry Turtledove catalog. Otherwise, re-imagining 1914-1945 in a world where the Confederate States of America endured would be so pricey.

[8bit]

I am 26, no kids.... there should be no reason I can find something fun and exciting to do every single friday night... except all of the ones this past month and tonight... wtf.

[Ack]

Hmm…where to start?

Also, where's your collection?

You do realize that some of us can enjoy something and not own a physical copy. The fact that you threw yours up as a defense makes me think you’re actually rather sensitive about it, as if you have to prove it. How about instead I name some animation I’ve enjoyed? I could give you a list of titles I liked that I’d suggest you check out, something to look into for a rainy day, or for when you feel like expanding the highly limited scope of the collection of what you like…since that’s what you threw up, I have to assume that that’s the limit of what you enjoy, which makes me believe I was correct in my point that you don’t really like animation, just a limited subset of animation.

John K rants everyday in his blog about how bad the above are, tell him that he doesn't like animation

If you claim you like something and then spend your time criticizing the majority of it every day, then no, I don’t think you actually like it. If you really did, you’d be more willing to accept its faults and learn to value the differences. And if your getting all of your opinions from a single blog, I would really suggest you look into branching out.

Why shouldn't I criticize something? Don't you do the same in your blog? Should I like every single anime? Should I say every single anime is good? If something is bad I will say it is bad, if something is good I will say it's good. Good things can have flaws, the dialogue in Star Wars, or the plot hole in Citizen Kane.

Sure, I can accept things have flaws, but I also look at what parts of it I enjoyed. The most ripped-apart game in my blog is The Ring: Terror’s Realm, which I consider one of the worst games I’ve ever played, but I’ll be more than happy to tell you what I thought the game did well.

The production of Hanna Barbera is horrible, how the same people who won 7 oscars with Tom & Jerry when working for MGM managed to do such crappy cartoons is beyond me. Chuck Jones used to say it was not animation, it was "illustrated radio" for a reason.

One of the greatest benefits to animation is that you can have something as diverse in style and substance from things like Tom & Jerry to consider it “illustrated radio.” If anything, this diversity in style should be praised instead of being criticized, because it can allow studios to make vastly different forms. And when examining animation, you also have to consider the budget, time period, and the medium and audience that each work is geared towards, as well as the work’s plot and message.

Hanna Barbera cartoons were generally geared towards American children via television, who were more accepting of shoddy animation if the story they are presented with is entertaining enough, which they were. Sure, Johnny Quest may not be the most interesting thing to look at for you, but the stories captured a mixture of the classic adventure tale and 1950s B-grade science fiction. Space Ghost captured the 1940s and ‘50s space serials, while the Herculoids combined science fiction and fantasy with a sense of the Swiss Family Robinson. Other Hanna Barbera productions such as Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Wacky Races, and so on would mark several animation firsts and earn the company both a star on Hollywood Boulevard and eight Emmys.

All I said about it is that it starts slow, gets better in the second half and that playing the same song during 6 minutes is repetitive. Wow, so much hate And even if I gave it a bad review, what's the problem? You are free to disagree but not to claim that "I don't like animation".

You also criticized the acting of animated characters. Animated characters don’t really act, as they’re as limited or openly imaginative as the animator and script allow them to be. Animation can’t be viewed in the same way as film.

I’ll agree with you on the theme growing repetitive though.

First of all, it may come as a surprise to you but I have seen every film Disney made except for the wartime compilations and Song of the South for obvious reasons. In fact, I used to have all of them in VHS, including Fantasia uncensored. I have seen all their most well-known shorts, and actually like quite a bit Goofy.

Disney is not a perfect company that everything it touched turned gold. Their main characters tend to be bland and generic. Aladdin, Arthur, whatever that guy from Treasure Planet was called, the guy from Atlantis, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Mickey Mouse, all bland characters that palled in comparison to the far better seconday characters.

While Pinnocho or Dumbo are very good to say that Disney can't be criticized is simply naïve.

That’s good, but in some of these cases you should also look at the original source material.

I’d also say Bambi, Belle, Simba, and Ariel all made intriguing main characters. You’re right, Disney does sometimes make bland leads, but at least in the case of their fairy tale characters, the effect can leave them with a level of purity and innocence, such as in Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or Snow White. Perhaps you should consider the themes and the original source of the work when viewing these? Disney’s intention was to bring the old classic fairy tales to life after all.

You also have to keep in mind the age of some of these shorts. If you’re watching Steamboat Willie and judging it by modern standards, you’re doing it and yourself a great disservice. Time periods must be acknowledged, especially considering this was some of the first animation there was. And also consider the point: Disney did it to entertain adults and children and therefore didn’t necessarily have as sophisticated a goal as something like Looney Toons, which featuring biting satire and political commentary. Disney intended to do this eventually, but never quite succeeded. Still, the company has managed to evolve and use its properties in some diverse ways. You should look into some of the more modern animation, which are now considered classics in their own right: Duck Tales, Goof Troop, Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, Tale Spin, etc. I hope you’ve not been limiting the scope of your exploration.

Tell me what those cases are. Show me exactly where.

If I remember correctly, when you started your animation run you blasted Disney after only seeing a handful of their work. You’ve chosen to criticize Hanna Barbera, but I somehow doubt you’ve really watched all that much of it or were really taking the time to try and enjoy it. You piped up in this thread to turn someone away from looking into Miyazaki, but you’ve only seen two of his works. You’ve only watched one Pink Panther short, so I’m assuming you’ve judged the series and chosen never to return.

If you’re taking the time to nitpick my grammar, I figure at this point you’re attempting to troll the forums. But fair play, let’s discuss a few of your typing choices. The eye roll smilies, hiding behind a picture of your collection and a blog title as a personal justification for your opinions, and some of the personal criticisms you’ve been making in retaliation for my criticism of your view on animation show me that you’re exceedingly defensive on the subject. Perhaps I did come off as overly harsh with my claims that you disliked animation, but your defense mechanisms make me question.

Why, can't he be criticized when he makes a bad movie?

The direction in Howl's Moving Castle and Ponyo seemed bad to me and I said it. They made me feel that he is not that good of a director, the sloppyness could be excused for an inexperienced director but he has been in the bussiness for very long.

I suppose he can, but does that qualify you to judge the rest of his work? You took issue with plot components of Howl’s Moving Castle, have you considered the original text the film was based on? Could some of your complaints be over a personal dislike for some of his stylistic choices, his use of a whimsical innocence that you dislike, and a lack of understanding of the target audience? Did you take the time to examine the emotional response created by the world itself, or were you focused solely on the quality of the dubbing? In a world geared so much towards the fantastic, why were you so bothered by the lack of a concrete and straightforward plot? Why not allow some of the jumps that a series like FLCL can take, which you were obviously ok with?

Do you know what I like about Miyazaki? He somehow can make the image of a flowery field both innocent and compelling to me, as if he somehow manages to remove the difficulties of life, even in the most stressful moments, and instead manages to gleam a surreal beauty from it that is welcoming and playful. I’m very sorry you don’t see that, it makes his films wonderful stress relievers.

The Tom & Jerry shorts are part of MGM not Hanna-Barbera (the company).

And their series suck, it's that simple. Go watch Scooby Doo and tell me that your eyes aren't bleeding.

It doesn't help that they stole plots from Amos & Andy or the Honeymooners.

First of all, I don’t believe I said Tom & Jerry were Hanna-Barbera. If I did I’m sorry I misspoke.

A few things about Scooby-Doo:

1. Which Scooby-Doo series? You realize there are quite a few, right? Do you mean The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, the Scooby-Doo Movies, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?

2. No, my eyes don’t bleed at all. In fact many people I know have no problem with the animation in Scooby-Doo. I’ve also been watching animation ever since I was a child, and I’ve seen examples of animation that I would consider far worse. Dr. Katz comes to mind, or the animated shorts of Don Hertzfeldt, yet I enjoyed them too…well, Hertzfeldt at least. His shorts were interesting and creative, filled with absurdist humor, though they were generally limited in their animation. Dr. Katz, I never cared for the humor. Perhaps it’s that I’m more willing to accept a show with a lower level of “quality” in your eyes. It doesn’t have to meet a specific minimum number of frames per second to appeal to me. If anything, the differences in the level of animation and style that have occurred in a large variety of series, shorts, and full length movies is something I consider a strength in animation.

3. Again, remember, who was the series created for, on what medium, and with what budget? What was the context of their creation?

4. Since we’re turning to insults, I counter and propose that Looney Toons suck. Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, and the Road Runner were all pompous assholes, much like Woody Woodpecker and Jerry the mouse.

5. There’s a phrase you may never have heard: good writers borrow, great writers steal. If anything, it’s interesting that they turned to borrow plots from two shows which at that point happened to be 10 or 20 years old. Why couldn’t the children of the 1970s enjoy those plots and jokes? If they had been ripping off programs that were current, then perhaps it should be a point of concern, but if you think that level of rehash is bad, you should entirely avoid the majority of television, movies, literature, and video games.

What other cartoons? There are no kinds of Warner Bros cartoons made during the Golden Age that are not included on those DVDs.

Why limit yourself to only a Golden Age? If you want to view the history of animation, you’re definitely going to have to leave your comfort zone.

Yeah, because I can't say that a certain anime is bad if I haven't watched all of

You’re right, you can’t claim something is bad if you haven’t experienced it. I can sit here all day and claim Sonic Unleashed is a terrible game, but frankly I don’t really know as I’ve never played it. I can’t claim Eyes Wide Shut is the worst of Stanley Kubrick’s films, as I haven’t watched it. Is Children of Dune better or worse than Dune? I couldn’t say, I haven’t read it. Some series get better or worse as time goes by, and sometimes they have an off season or a sudden great revival. To write them off based on the first episode does them a great disservice. At least try to watch a little more before giving us your opinion.

I already mentioned that I have everything Tex Avery made on my computer. I don't have Tom & Jerry because I can't afford to IMPORT DVDs from the other side of the planet. Again, give me five hundred dollars and I will buy it.

It’s the first episode of Tom & Jerry on YouTube. Seriously, you can find quite a bit of classic animation on YouTube without the hassle of importing. You might even be able to fine fan websites which stream entire series, or use torrents to download a few of the ones you can’t find.

Dude, don't imply that I criticize without knowing what I'm talking about. It's sad to see you claim that I haven't watched Disney movies as if I lived under a rock my entire life.

It’s sad to see you claim you haven’t lived under a rock immediately after saying you can’t watch animation due to the import fees. Dude, don’t imply that you’ve seen so much animation and are so knowledgeable when you cop this attitude and get so overly defensive on what you have seen while not acknowledging that there is so much beyond the small amount you’ve already been exposed to and that there can be incredibly different and divergent forms of animation with styles completely beyond what you expect or can accept.

Now, if you have actually managed to make it this far without getting overly angry at our assholery towards each other, I have a suggestion: we can argue back and forth about this for a bit, both get needlessly angry over it, and eventually get it broken up by somebody else or have them jump into an argument to voice an opinion seeking to demean one side or the other…

…or we could actually learn something from the experience. I shouldn’t have been so overly harsh to you for criticizing Miyazaki or other series that I happened to grow up watching and still enjoy today. That said, I still believe that if you’re going to attempt viewing animation with a critical eye, you have got to become more accepting and understanding of the variety of styles in the medium and realize that it’s a strength for radically divergent programs with differing themes, budgets, audiences, styles, and qualities to exist. If you think Scooby-Doo is truly terrible, I’d say look up a few clips of Dr. Katz, the original Hulk, Iron Man, and Captain America cartoons, and shows like Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos(for the record the company that produced it was formed by the guys who originally created Scooby-Doo).

I’d also say you need not merely stick with the Golden Age, as there are actually several, such as the Golden Age of the Saturday Morning cartoon in the late 1980s to mid 1990s. I offered at the beginning of this exercise to offer you a list of series to look into, and I meant it. I’m extending the olive branch because there is considerably more to watch, lots more, and instead of getting into an argument back and forth over how I think you should approach animation (which is likely how this thread will go for a bit with input from third parties who probably shouldn’t get involved), I figure it would be easier if I just helped expose you to far more.

So yeah, let’s go watch some cartoons.

[dsheinem]

I have a suggestion: we can argue back and forth about this for a bit, both get needlessly angry over it, and eventually get it broken up by somebody else or have them jump into an argument to voice an opinion seeking to demean one side or the other…

…or we could actually learn something from the experience.

I consider myself a huge aficionado of American animation, but I will stay out of this other than to say: goddamn, what an epic post.

[Erik_Twice]

Ack, what do you want? You appear out of nowhere to attack me, trying to claim that you know more about me than myself, saying that I only base my opinions on John K's blog even if that would severly contradict half of what I say, trying to picture me as someone who makes claims without even watching the material, holier than thou attitude, assuming I watched Miyazaki films dubbed for no reason other than to add to the fire, claiming that I don't like diversity in the medium out of nowhere, saying that I don't know what's bad animation, picturing me as stupid by saying that I don't know that I can find animation online (If you like to pirate that's your problem not mine), assuming I also lived under a rock during the 90s and I haven't watched Darkwing Duck or Animaniacs, claiming that I ignore the flaws of FLCL because I have the DVDs without even asking me what I think about it, claiming that I hide "behind a picture of my collection" and questioning my "defense mechanisims", saying that I shouldn't claim to have seen a lot of animation when I haven't as if you knew what I have seen and what I haven't, or saying that I dimmised the Pink Panther after a single short, and a long post of crap and thinly veiled personal attacks.

You wrote a huge post, and it's all crap because you keep assuming you know more about myself and what I have seen and what not than I do.

What do you want? What's the point of your posts? They don't have any other than attacking me and trying to say that you know more about not just animation but about me than myself, it's not worth talking with you because you even refuse to talk at an even level and step down from the pedestal you put yourself on.