MovieChat Forums > Watership Down (1978) Discussion > The Animation...

The Animation...

posted 14 years ago by castostarlight
14 replies | jump to latest

The featured review up there said the animation was right up there with Disney classics. I'm sorry, but not even The Aristocats looked so crass. Every character has a wobbling black outline from the xerography process; a trademark of the 60's and 70's I know, but is nonetheless tacky looking. A good chunk of the animation is done at less than full frame rate. And the backgrounds look absolutely awful. They look like half finished watercolor paintings with an offensively saturated color palette. Am I the only one who can see this?

[–] carlydunham 14 years ago

what can you expect it was the 70s there was no computer animation and its a uk movie they didnt have what disney have!!!!

[–] slay-er 14 years ago

Ugh, computer animation... the most fluid animations were made in 40s-60s (Disney from 80s-90s I think wasn't as good as Disney from 50s). Look at the Soviet Golden Antelope (1954), it looks like a movie, so smooth. It's about how much time and effort you are willing (or can) to put in. Maybe they didn't have that big of a budget or much time. I think fluidness is the only knock that can be made because the style of animation is purely subjective thing.

[–] BoultersCanary 14 years ago

Am I the only one who can see this?

Yes.

The church may shout but Darwin roars

[–] elsporko 14 years ago

It doesn't look like Disney animation, but I assume that was the point. Disney makes cartoons, this is an animated movie but is far from a cartoon. It is suppose to be reality. You also have to give them credit for making the rabbits move like rabbits. A look at the animated series shows how difficult this apparently is. Those characters move in ways that sometimes better resemble humans then rabbits.

[–] andy-1394 14 years ago

most of the movie is done in children book illustration style, and i would say on purpose.

I remember words that fell
like coins into a wishing well

[–] Naphthous 14 years ago

Certainly it wasn't as fluid or detailed as Disney. I don't see how anyone can argue that (I don't know if they do, either). I still think it looks good, although the outdoor backgrounds are a bit weak, as you said.

Most importantly, in my opinion, the characters look good and emotive, and they move well.

I don't think the sub-Disney framerate and detail standards beg to be viewed as a strong weakness. Sometimes the budget just isn't there. What really matters is the creative spark, and this beats most Disney movies hands down as far as that.

[–] wight1984 14 years ago

They look like half finished watercolor paintings with an offensively saturated color palette.

From what I understand, those are actual paintings of the Watership area (the author based these adventures on real places, places you can go visit should you ever be in Hampshire).

[–] Alfabeta 13 years ago

No, you are absolutely right. This has nothing to do with Disney. The whole point of this adaptation was to look as surreal and close to the look of the art from the book as possible. That's exactly why, as you say the backgrounds "look like half finished watercolor paintings with an offensively saturated color palette". They were going for this "dreamlike" quality of a painting. It was never suppose to be cute or realistic as Disney animations.

[–] Shabooti 12 years ago

The animation in this movie perfectly captures the beauty and slight melancholy in which I remember the English countryside as I was growing up in the 80's.

It's a feeling so strong when I watch this movie that it's almost tangible. That's what makes the animation so fantastic in my view.

[–] hmoorz 11 years ago

castrolight must be pretty blind then, because when I freeze frame the film I see the rabbits outlined in clearly multicolored ink. No xerography here. Even the Black Rabbit in the main story was created with dry-brush.

I'm personally amazed at how some critics can't seem to tell the different rabbit characters apart... is this a male color blindness thing or just sheer laziness? The rabbits not only have different hues but also have different sizes, different eyes & ear shapes.

The characters were purposely designed to not be so detailed they blend into the backgrounds (which I personally find lovely) and streamlined enough so the relatively small animation crew could handle the workload involved. Also, not even Disney regularly does animation at full frame rate. Drawing 24 drawings for every 24 frames per second is considered indulgent & extremely expensive when 12 drawings per second suffices. This is industry standard for hand-drawn film animation.