MovieChat Forums > Moana (2016) Discussion > When will 2D animation come back at Disn...

When will 2D animation come back at Disney?


It's rather simple question but i was wandering if anyone would want them to try there hands again at a full hand drawn 2D animated film.

Would people still love that?(expectantly since Japan is still the 2D animated film market that Disney and maybe the rest of the studios have seemingly forgotten about)

Plus would this film be if done do LION KING or more recently for Disney FROZEN numbers if done right with stuff like the story,marketing and the way again people with there kids wanting seeing something beyond the flooded 3D animated films and get back what DISNEY did really there best at.

Also you could say Disney is much better place with these films and story telling animation now then the early 2000s with that disappointing "flop era" in which they were in something of a complete identity crisis with random "action" films(Atlantis,Treasure Planet)or straight humor films(Home on the Range, Chicken Little both of which i never liked).

Plus i think Walt Disney himself would have wanted to challenge the film makers of say ATLANTIS to just THROW AWAY the "save the crystal and the crew mates are villains" story line and try to find something more creative and interesting with the story beyond mindless "action" film like actually make the crew work as a actual "team" and not just good/bad and also find a way to keep the submarine as a functional part of the story and not destroy it as a random action scene. Also try making the Atlanteans into a actual culture we can care about beyond just Milo(boy do i hate Milo by the way)

With Treasure Planet i think he would try to find a better story reason as to why the characters can BREATHE IN SPACE!!!!!(that was the one thing i never get about it)


Compare any of those with BIG HERO 6 or WRECK IT RALPH and i still see a big improvement over what was missing from those films(all but Lilo and Stitch and Emperor's New Groove were pretty creative and "fun" to me that was missing from every other film they were doing in that era). And yes those are 3D films but they were still pretty good and comparable with the big hits of the 90s

Heck i still like the 90s era films just as well and they at least have been getting back to that including the singing and how would still fit in naturally into the storylines.

I don't want believe they would totally forsaken hand drawn animation forever(funny enough that a number of the still talented artists there who quit Disney are now doing there own indie animated films that trying to get people back to see it as still a workable market again beyond again 3D computer animation)

Finally i don't know when or if the current talent there really want to go back to that format or why someone there thinks that hand drawn animation should be "dead and buried!!!???" since you could say the "flop era" happened mainly because of bad story telling, behind the scenes politics that get in the way anything creative, great or better ideas being thrown away replaced by less thoughtful ones, a more style over subsistence ideals, MONEY AND TIMING of releases, the weird way they handled "no singing", marketing, the HUGE lay offs, and finally Eisner himself(who was more the devil incarnated during this era then anything else).

Maybe all those factors and more is what is keeping them from trying to do another hand drawn film but i hope it's not a permanent state of mind for them ether!!!

What do you think?

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They might make a 2D animated film in a few decades from now... and that's all.

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You have to consider the fact that 2D animation is so much more involved and takes a ton more time. Do you want to draw enough pictures to fill a 1.5+ hr movie at roughly 24 fps? Even for just a 60 minute movie, that's 86,400 fully hand drawn pictures. Would you want to do that when you can instead just design the characters and sets in a computer, and then let the computer fill in all the gaps?

However, Disney has been experimenting with a type of animation that mixes the depth of 3D with the feel of 2D. It looks pretty amazing. However, it will probably still be quite a while before they use if for a full-length movie.

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These anyone have any idea as why they WANTED to get rid of the singing in there animated films?

Because i was amazed how the first DISNEY film(post-Home on The Range)even have singing and songs in it again was actually ENCHANTED and then come PRINCESS AND THE FROG.

But ENCHANTED even though it was played as a spoof still get back the classic elements that were sadly dropped or never done right during the "flop era" of the 2000s and am still wondering why though?

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There were only 3 WDAS movies between Home on the Range and Princess and the Frog. I'd hardly call that getting rid of singing in their films. And since Princess and the Frog, we've had 2 more musicals, so...I don't see your points at all.

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2D animation hasn't required animation cells for every individual frame in decades.

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It will be used in an aesthetic way for now. The Meander animation software was used in Paperman, and it cell-shaded the computer animation to resemble the look of 2D animation. Even the most recent Mickey Mouse theatrical cartoon short Get a Horse! used 2D animation alongside 3D animation.

The current leadership at Disney Animation are probably dismayed from creating a full-blown 2D animated feature. Despite strong reviews, The Princess and the Frog wasn't the bona fide box office hit it should have, while Winnie the Pooh had a poor release date in July 2011. Rumor is that John Lasseter orchestrated for the failure of those films so it would serve as evidence to 2D fans as to why Disney won't use 2D animation anymore. Frozen was originally intended to be 2D animated as seen with animator Randy Haycock's animation tests (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIQdpjzOUa0, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4haFGU-sbk) but it was changed to be computer-animated.

And lastly, it is claimed that 2D animation is more labor-intensive and requires more time, while 3D animation is more cost-efficient and more flexible to make changes with. So for now, if you want to watch 2D animated features, watch the films produced in Japan and Europe.



What we do in life, echoes in eternity.

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[deleted]

Rumor is that John Lasseter orchestrated for the failure of those films so it would serve as evidence to 2D fans as to why Disney won't use 2D animation anymore.


Yeah... No.

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I hope when the subject matter demands 2D animation, they will use it.

So now you may ask, "What subject matter or story would demand it?"

Don't know!

Ric

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It's been incorporated into a couple of Dreamwork's pieces - all of the Kung Fu Panda series has 2D sequences in them and they are beautiful! Trolls has several parts where the story is told in 2D felt as narrative is explained. Pixar has jobs for 2D animators, so there is stuff out there!

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I used to be a big proponent of hand drawn animation until the release of Tangled. It was the first time I had seen such lush animation look as smooth as handdrawn. It was then that I knew that the future of mainstream hand drawn animation was over. I don't rule out Disney making a one-off animated film. But I think the era of "animated" films meaning "hand drawn" has come and gone. We already have a generation of children that equate animation to this style. And most importantly, hand drawn films take longer to make. Remember the 4-5 year animation time frame for Disney renaissance films? Why make money on one film in 5 years when you can churn out two films instead?

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There's a bunch of hand-drawn animation in Moana... so it never left.

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That recent Mickey Short WAS very good! I've got to see that again!

I'd love another full-blown 2D animated feature. Now Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Lion King were some of the last big 2D animated films yet still incorporated CGI effects in the movie as well. Even Japan anime since around 2001 or so hasn't been hand-drawn from I what I hear. I remember Love Hina (hilarious btw) was slammed for one of the first animes that was completely done by computer and none of it was hand-drawn. Now many of their TV anime shows and movie are computerized in 2D, and not completely hand-drawn anymore... now that doesn't mean there's some studios over seas not hand-drawing 2D completely... there probably are a few. Now I hear Steven Universe is hand-drawn. I can't 100% support that it is... I'm not entirely sure. Anyone know?

With the ending of the live action Pete's Dragon I'm surprised they haven't taken off continuing that story with other dragons helping young kids. But then... that wasn't the REAL goal of the new movie was it?? But a cartoon version of Elliot helping other kids in today's environments just seems like a positive no-brainer to me... oh well, who am I?

But yeah... with the current Live Action trend bringing the classics alive seems to be the norm now... and I hate to say I'm not completely against it. I've been very surprised at what they've been doing with the classic live action.

With this trending Disney they could easily bring the cartoon CHARACTERS from Song of the South to a MODERN live action movie. That would be interesting. Forget politics, and the days gone by, just re-introduce the characters in a somewhat modern setting with their antics going after each other maybe in a somewhat Pom-Poko sort of setting... where the area they live in is slowly becoming suburban or some sort of destruction of the forest and bringing them to light among the living... I can see Br'er Fox holding Br'er Rabbit by the throat in victory as a huge chunk of trees are being demolished in front of them.


3rd generation American from a long line of Gottscheers... it was Drandul, dude!

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This ^

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Most likely they will do a mix and rather solve this through the rendering process than by hand-drawing. It's simply too much work compared to 3D. Once you have your animation sets it is much easier to create animated scenes with 3D characters. And they can be tweaked easily and re-rendered. A good example how this technology looks was their "Paperman" demo film. It looks like a mix of 3D and 2D to me, but gets rid of the typical 3D look:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo7cjPi8Xvw

Still not perfect, I think it has more character than 3D, but still isn't as beautiful as a hand-drawn movie.

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The mix of 2D and 3D seems to be the vogue thing, which makes for a compromise - it keeps the artistic painting-like beauty of a 2D animated work, and enables photography and VFX that 3D provides.

I love 2D animation myself, but I have to say that this mix seems to be a great fit. The film Klaus seems to have gotten the look right, and so should hopefully keep 2D animation still ongoing for some time.


07/08/06... 786... the sentinel of Allah has arrived.

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The mix of 2D and 3D seems to be the vogue thing, which makes for a compromise - it keeps the artistic painting-like beauty of a 2D animated work, and enables photography and VFX that 3D provides.
Paperman did it perfwctly, from what I saw of it.

I've always said I really don't like 3D computer animation. BUT! when it's a mix like that, I like it even better than 2D! 😃 I hope it catches on!

Please excuse typos/funny wording; I use speech-recognition that doesn't always recognize!

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I could have sworn that Disney was going to return to releasing at least one 2D animated film a year since Princess and the Frog was a hit.

What's missing in movies is same as in society: a good sense of work ethic and living up to ideals.

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That may have been the plan, but the movie didn't make as much money as expected.

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