Animation Therapy - Turbo Teen (1984)

Turbo Teen (1984; ABC Network)

Sometimes there’s a show that is both very easy to describe yet impossible to explain to someone who hasn’t seen it.  That said, I cannot fathom a scenario where the people behind Turbo Teen weren’t met with either uproarious mocking laughter, or an irritated slap to the face.  A lot of the shows I really got into were from the late 80’s, so this was just shy of that period for me, and it was too big of a failure to really maintain any post-run momentum in syndication or home video that I recall.  Now, even as a kid I was very picky and didn’t like a lot of the shows my friends did either because of the way the characters looked, or because of the show’s pacing or tone (not that I really understood what that meant back then, but it’s a quality that is often recognized without definition).  So, I guess even then I was sort of a jerk when it comes to entertainment (wink).  That begs the question: Do I regret watching an episode now?  Nope!  Because this is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in my life!

The awesomely stupid premise for Turbo Teen is as follows: Brett Matthews is a teen driving home from work in his sports car when a tree is struck by lightning, forcing him to swerve and sending him flying off the road, over a cliff and into the side of a secret lab where he crashes right into the path of a ray that merges the molecules of Brett’s body with those of the machine’s, giving the teen the power to transform into his car.  When exposed to heat (hot water, food, ect.) Brett uncontrollably takes the form of his car where cold then turns him back (Where have I heard a similar premise before..?)  Together with his friends Patti and Alex (who have skills of their own) and Comic-Relief-Dog, Brett goes on crime-fighting adventures against powerful enemies.  Yes!  This exists!!!  I am SO happy about this!

In the 80’s there was no absence of bad animated series.  Really, the quality spike didn’t peak until the late 80’s when Disney Animation Studios started hitting their stride and series like Transformers and G.I. Joe reached their pinnacle.  Things will stay good for a while until the airwaves became flooded with bad knockoffs and celebrity-themed animated shows like Wishkid (THAT damn show’s day is coming…).  Before that, there is this strange dead zone filled with bland animated tripe from Hanna-Barbera Productions (who were already starting to fade in quality by that point) and a few other companies like Dic, for instance.  Turbo Teen lands somewhere in-between debuting in 1984 and lasting just one season.  It never really gained an audience, probably because it is such a ludicrous premise that a kid may find it more stupid than anything.  It takes a few years (or decades) for a show like this to re-emerge and become a sort of cult favorite.  I think, from what I’ve seen, Turbo Teen is ripe for that sort of cult rebirth.

Now, as out-there as the show’s premise is, knowing the episode I saw as a jumping-off point will make things even more enticing.  The episode is entitled “Video Venger” and opens on the teens playing an arcade game but when Brett has a piece of pizza land on his face he transforms into his car right there in the Pizza parlor while playing the game.  Still wanting to beat Alex’s highscore, Brett has his friend plug him into the arcade cabinet via a universal cable in his dashboard so he can control the game as a car.  This causes a military insurgent group monitoring the game to unleash an army of robots onto the city resembling enemies from the game and only the Turbo Teen and his friends can save the day.  This episode ends with the group saving the President by having two ice-firing tanks crossfire into each other through some Turbo-Teen-Trickery right in the White House… driveway..?  Ultimately the President awards them with medals.  

Okay, so if I missed anything it could be that while watching this I was mesmerized by its existence and was also somewhat distracted with bouts of hysterical laughter.  There is so much stupid in that last paragraph that I can understand you wondering why I would recommend this to anyone.  All I will say is, if you’re a fan of over-the-top, so-bad-it’s-good entertainment, and are just in awe by really, really awesomely bad TV in-general, you will probably love this show.  If you go in with the right attitude, you may be surprised by how much enjoyment you get out of it.  I went in expecting it to be one of the worst shows of the decade by reputation.  It isn’t.  The worst animation from the 80’s-90’s is either boring, a cheap cash-in, or is MEANT to be funny but isn’t.  This is none of those things.  It’s too insane to be boring, there really isn’t much like it (unless you pick out parts from about six different shows), and it isn’t really meant to be a comedy.  It’s an action show.  Sure there are gags in it but for the most part it was played straight.  I love so-bad-it’s-good stuff and this is up there for me.  I enjoyed the Hell out of Turbo Teen!

Watch Turbo Teen: Video Venger in Cartoon | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Generation Wars: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) vs. TMNT (2007)

Now, I know I’m not the first person to do this, but I would like to see how many of these classic series have evolved over the years and I decided to start this series with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  

Originally based on Mirage Comic’s violent cult series of the same name (created by the duo of Laird and Eastman), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made their mainstream debut in the late 80’s.  Now, it’s important to note that this was a time where a lot of major companies were seeing great success with animated series based on toy tie-ins.  The two biggest ones before TMNT were G.I. Joe and Transformers.  These two series drew huge fans to the stores to buy every toy for everything they saw on the 30 minute TV series.  The fact was, these shows really didn’t have much in terms of plot.  They were really just toy advertisements.  The same goes for a lot of hit series from the time, including The Real Ghostbusters and Thundercats.  Then came 1987…

‘87 was a bad, BAAAAD year for movies, but on TV, things were changing.  Some of the biggest shows ever made their debuts in this year.  Three notable entries were Star Trek: The Next Generation, Duck Tales and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  The latter of the two did something very different.  Unlike a lot of their tie-in contemporaries, these two animated series attempted to craft short stories around existing characters with established relationships and arcs.  They weren’t Shakespeare, but they were smart, funny and entertaining.  These two shows were essentially responsible for the huge boom of Saturday Morning animation in the late-80’s and early 90’s, a genre that was starting to fade a little at the time.

Fast forward to 1990.  A series as big as Ninja Turtles was not going to escape the Hollywood treatment, and on March 30th, fans of the series were treated to a hard-edge, energetic, fun and somewhat edgy action flick.  This was NOT a kids movie, in spite of its rating.  It had pacing, action, and the characters that were mostly known by everyone at that point were treated well in terms of their nature and relationships.  It must be said, that if you did not grow up in this period, you likely have no idea just how massive this series was.  Compare it to anything big today, and you may be close, but just short.  TMNT was a phenomenon, and it was everywhere.  So much so that it never actually went away.  The series lasted well into the 90’s, running for nearly a decade (that was HUGE for an animated series), and other animated shows, comics, games, movies (to a lesser extent) and other spin-offs continued to come out.  Still, the question is, does the 90’s movie hold up?

Well, not too long before writing this article I went back and watched it and was astonished by how good it still is.  No, seriously.  The action was good, the characters were spot on, they stayed true to the overall story and, thanks to help from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, the Turtles themselves were amazing.  The movie hit the nail on the head, transporting the Turtles out of the realm of 2D and bringing them to life.  Naturally the movie was a big hit.  The sequels… not so good, though.  They didn’t hold up and tried too hard to be more kid-friendly, ultimately losing some of the momentum the first film built.  This was partially in-response to some backlash that the first film was “for kids” but was too violent and dark for a few parents to handle… Boy how times have changed.

As a sort of hiatus, the Turtles went back to the shadows and remained out of the mainstream for a short time until being revitalized in a new 2007 animated film.  TMNT debuted to mixed reviews.  It sits at a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes and was generally panned by critics.  Two things are wrong with this picture.  First, having watched the movie, it was not a bad film; not by any means.  It was certainly better than a 37%.  I have SEEN what a 37% looks like and it’s a Hell of a lot worse than this.  No, I think there was some backlash to the tone in some cases.  First, the new movie addresses some of the things that were just glossed over in the original film and series more directly, in-particularly, April O’Neil’s restlessness and Raphael’s rebelliousness.  The latter is a prominent plot point early in the movie as it is an established and ongoing trait of the character.  No complaints there.  

Another point of contention is the 2007 film’s plot.  The story revolves around an ancient immortal warrior who is able to resurrect his ancient generals when the stars align, and with the moment right, he can open a portal to conjure up monsters and take over the world.  It’s like something out of a Final Fantasy game, and it’s goofy, but it’s not the worst I’ve seen from that type of story.  The other subplots involve a barely glossed-over relationship between fellow-vigilante Casey Jones and April O’Neil and the returning theme of Raphael’s lone crime fighting ways.  What I liked about TMNT is how it addressed the latter.  Leonardo, who returns from a prolonged absence of self reflection, finds his family in disarray and is faced with bridging a severed relationship with Raph.  It turns out, another armored vigilante hero has been taking out thugs around New York and Leo, in an attempt to stop him, finds that this so-named Nightwatcher is actually Raphael.  This leads to the two brothers having a nearly-fatal brawl on the rooftop.  As a long-time fan of these characters, THIS was satisfying to me.  It was the obvious and inevitable result of their rough relationship and at that point I was sold.

As a standalone movie, TMNT is not a masterpiece, but it does what it set out to do: Make a fun and solid TMNT adventure.  The only real complaints I have about the movie is it has that odd, jagged CGI animation a lot of series do today, that has these 3D characters with Disney eyes that looks sort of odd in the high-detail world around them, and a few of the “chase” scenes are a little overlong and are basically just filler.  These long action scenes make the few more meaningful ones seem longer than necessary by association.  Lastly, the plot is nothing fresh or astonishing, but it sets the stage for some cool character design for the villains, and a few pretty solid fights.

Really, I do not see why this has such bad reviews.  It is NOT a bad movie.  It’s faithful, it was obviously made by people with a lot of love for the source material, it has a lot of quality animation (especially in the case of the Turtles) and the attention to detail in the production design is great.  I also like that they didn’t go overboard with references to the old series.  Sure they’re eating pizza, Splinter is watching soap operas and Casey Jones is donning his trademark hockey mask, but it isn’t abused and shoved in our faces like a lot of throwback remakes and reboots tend to try to do.  It’s respectful is what I’m saying.

So, which one is better.  Well, in this case it really isn’t a contest.  The 1990 film was engaging and had warmth as well as tension.  There is just something about seeing these characters in the “real world” that brings them to life.  Also, practical effects always look better than CGI and while at least the 2007 movie is entirely animated, the tangible Turtles from the earlier film are much more believable.  For anyone who didn’t grow up during Turtlemania, I would say watch the original movie.  It is not too dissimilar but definitely feels more real and, on the whole, is a much better movie.

TV Pilot Hell: Bubsy (1993)

NOTE: When I wrote the first draft for this it was nine paragraphs and two-and-a-half pages long!  I did my best to edit it down as much as possible.

 

 

The 90’s was a great decade for animation.  Batman, Animaniacs, Daria… The list goes on and on and honestly, even the laziest, stupidest series from that decade seem to have their fair share of fans.  However, there has always been one medium that has failed to create a real lasting success in animation: Video Games.  Sure, there were moderate successes like The Super Mario Bros. Super Show and Sonic Sat. A.M., but these were mostly short-lived and more reflected the popularity of their source material than any actual objective quality.  So, given the (at best) mediocre standards of video games-to-animation, where does Bubsy fit on that scale?

Well, first, a little backstory: Bubsy was a mascot game created for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis in the early 90’s.  It was an effort by the fledgling studio Accolade to create a lasting series and, surprisingly, it kind of worked.  The few games in the series were spread across the SNES, Genesis, Jaguar and the Playstation and Bubsy 3D, released on Sony’s flagship console, is ranked among the worst video games ever made.  So, in a nutshell, Bubsy was an attempt by a B-studio to put out a game that will be their Mario or Sonic.  Accolade was banking so hard on this that they actually commissioned to have an animation group work on a tie-in for their game.  The company of choice was a small studio called Calico Creations.  Never heard of them?  Well, how couldn’t you!? I mean they are only the masters who brought us the majestic Denver the Last Dinosaur and Widget the World Watcher!  I mean, come on!  (No… Seriously, these guys were bad…. Very bad.)

On paper, there is one promising credit: Rob Paulsen, who did the voice for Bubsy in the games and is back for the TV show.  Paulsen is a tremendously-accomplished voice actor who worked on just about every animated series of note from the past thirty years.  He’s a highly-regarded talent and hearing his voice in this show is like if Peter O’Toole interrupted one of Michael Bay and Ehren Kruger's comic relief moments to give a resounding monologue.  They must have been desperate and paid him a ton in hopes that this series would catch on.  As with most animated tie-ins from its time, Bubsy was an attempt to expand name recognition and popularity.  It didn’t work… at all…

That was a lot of setup to cover and for that, I apologize.  Still, even knowing myself the ill fate of this franchise going in, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  The pilot for Bubsy is entitled “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” (Which was also the title character’s uninspired catch phrase), and follows Bubsy, his friend Arnold (voiced by another talented voice performer in Pat Fraley), and a couple of obnoxious twins as Bubsy volunteers to be the guinea pig for a powerful piece of technology created by doctor Virgil (...ugh) Reality.  The device is a helmet that can harness the imagination of its wearer and conjure it into reality.  So, essentially it’s Anthony from Twilight Zone: The Movie… except more overblown and stupid.  The rest of the episode involves all of the characters, and a team of villains led by a spoiled, fat, female cat, battling for control over the helmet.  It’s all a device to create a bunch of slapstick animated set pieces to sell the show, and boy does it fail.

The problem with Bubsy as a character is, even in the video games, he was essentially a Sonic rip-off with greatly-inferior level design and there simply isn’t much you can do with this premise.  At least with Sonic going in there actual characters and a plot that felt like it could be fleshed out in some way, but Bubsy was never that interesting to begin with.  It would be like making Frogger into an animated series (Oh!  WAIT!!!  They actually DID that!)  A result of this lack of personality is a lead character that is forced and over-confident as to be completely stupid.  This has worked in the past with some characters (Bugs Bunny, for instance) but here, it just feels like Bubsy suffers from some sort of chemical imbalance that leaves him completely incapable of expressing any emotion outside of “Ohhhhh yeaaaah!”.

Now, to talk about the actual quality of the episode.  A common problem with a lot of animated series is the writers and animators go in wanting their show to be for kids and simply try to make it as flashy and noisy as they can to keep their interest, forgetting that even silly shows like Animaniacs had a fair share of quieter character moments.  When the show is just noise and grunting from start to finish “exhausting” doesn’t even begin to describe it.  There is not one moment for the audience to breathe here.  Either Bubsy is fast-talking and spouting out his catch phrase for the tenth time or Arnold is grunting and growling after every line.  Every character has one joke that is driven in over and over for the entire episode and the animation is lackluster and lazy, with most scenes just showing the characters in one frame posing or falling on a moving background.  This show is scene-to-scene just noise and flashing lights.  It has no substance and not even one joke lands, it’s all wrong.

I find it interesting that Obvious Villain Cat character (I can’t be bothered to look her up name again) uses nails on a chalkboard to torture her minions because this show felt like someone was doing that for twenty minutes.  It’s loud, stupid, unfunny and really just boring.  As bad as this is, and as shocked as I was watching it, I will likely not even remember seeing this before too long.  It just was not interesting enough to care about and it doesn’t surprise me that it wasn’t picked up to series.  It was further proof that a show that is clumsily thrown together as an advertisement for a brand most people were already indifferent about just doesn’t work.  Still, that hasn’t kept studios from trying over and over again.

My 40 Favorite Films of the 90's - 19 - Princess Mononoke (1997)

Princess Mononoke (1997; Studio Ghibli,
Miramax (U.S. Distributor))

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Writer: Hayao Miyazaki

Starring: (Original Japanese Cast) Youji Matsuda, Yoriko Ishida; (English voice cast) Billy Crudup, Claire Danes

Anime is a modern type of filmmaking that spans many genres and ranges from quality dramas to silly romps.  Spanning decades in Japan and growing immensely in popularity in America in the late 90’s due to the domestication of series like Dragonball Z, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop, and with the help of movie releases like the cult classic Akira and the wondrous piece of fantasy Princess Mononoke or もののけ姫 (Mononoke-hime) in Japanese.  Written and directed by the Walt Disney of Japanese animation, and arguably the second greatest animation director in film history (after the great Disney, of course), Hayao Miyazaki, Mononoke is a fantasy that is powerful and brilliant in every way.

The story begins following a warrior name Ashitaka, who is cursed by a rogue boar that became possessed by a evil spirit.  When he returns home he is forced to exile so as not to curse the rest of his village.  He travels a great distance on the back of his companion, a “red elk” (that isn’t a freaking elk, by the way) named Yakui.  Hoping to find a cure for his ailment, he seeks aid from the spirits of the forest that guard the untouched natural landscape from the fires of man, in particular those coming from the nearby forge fortress of Irontown.  Run by a headstrong matron named Lady Eboshi (Minnie Driver), who rescued many of her working girls from the cities’ brothels to help forge more powerful weapons, the town awaits the return of its men and readies itself for war against the animal spirits.  When the town is attacked by a nimble and fearless girl named Mononoke, who refuses to identify herself as human as she grew up with the guardian wolves in the nearby forest, Ashitaka rescues her from her fate but is wounded in the process.  Nursed back to health by the wolf girl, the young warrior is now caught in the middle of a war between his fellow man, and the spirits of nature that could cure him of his curse.

Typically, the man versus nature theme is done very, very poorly.  This is especially the case when the story has a shoehorned, heavy-handed environmental message in it.  Films like Avatar always came off to me as more PSA than film, especially since that movie in-particular is just several hours of Cameron telling everyone how “awesome” he is.  However, Mononoke actually shows us the struggle of violence against nature and puts us in the shoes of the creatures and lives destroyed by man’s lust for power.  Mononoke herself is a direct contrast to Eboshi. The titular heroine is gruff, strong and devoted to her forest family, while Eboshi is arrogant, beautiful and willing to sacrifice her own people to get what she wants.  The most interesting thing about this contrast is how the characters are introduced.  When we first meet Eboshi, it is a natural assumption to assume she is good, while Mononoke, clad in furs and a wooden mask, wields a dagger and slashes and dives at the frightened villagers.  

Princess Mononoke plays with expectations, and is actually, and surprisingly, not bound by too many cliches, despite the obvious references to Burroughs’ Tarzan novels as well as a number of other man-vs.-nature stories.  It is an inspired story that is both empowering and heartbreaking.  We see the once-mighty spirits stumbling and bleeding from the powerful weapons of the humans of Irontown.  They are prophets of their own doom, so willing to give in to their collective fate.  We see that nature becomes helpless against man’s rage unless some are willing to help fight with and for it.

Like all of Miyazaki’s writings, this film has touches of Japanese folklore and spiritualism in it as well, and the cultural elements of his movies are often some of the of most fascinating parts.  Environmental themes aside, this is a great allegory to growing into one’s self, overcoming the past and accepting who you really are.  It pulls you into the world and shows you the pain each character is feeling without being emotionally-manipulative, instead it relies on one’s own empathy to truly relate to and understand what these characters are going through.  What is even a greater testament to the complexity of this film: I did not even scratch the surface in terms of plot.  There is a lot going on here that tie the emotional elements and themes of the film together better than most that have tried have been able to do in narratives past.  Miyazaki created a masterwork here, and it is widely regarded as one of the greatest animated films of all time.  It earned this title, as Princess Mononoke is a deep, engaging masterpiece, and even though it is only my second favorite film of Miyazaki’s (Spirited Away is my #1), it is certainly high among the greatest animated features in the history of movies.

My 40 Favorite Films of the 90's - 26 - Toy Story (1995)

Toy Story (1995; Walt Disney/Pixar Studios)

Director: John Lasseter

Writers: John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Andrew Stanton, Joss Whedon, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolov

Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen

In July of 1928, Steamboat Willie became the first “talkie”, with a full spoken audio track playing over an animated short film.  It was a landmark achievement in filmmaking from an idealistic young director named Walt Disney.  A decade later, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became the first feature-length animated film and set the standard for the art of animation in its time.  Walt did much more for filmmaking than adapting classic fairy tales and building theme parks, though.  He designed and engineered the multiplane camera, allowing for the effect of perspective and depth in 2D animated films and was responsible for implementing many new forms of editing and effects that would revolutionize the way we look at the art of movies.

By the 70’s, however, Disney, as a company, was at an all-time low in terms of morale and success.  When Walt Disney died from cancer in 1966, the studio had a hard time keeping up the pace and begin producing fewer and fewer successes until the late 80’s saw the Disney Renaissance, a period of massive growth for Disney as a company.  In 1994, Disney gave us The Lion King, a massive achievement in filmmaking, and a year later, a small group of animators introduced the world to the first feature-length computer animated film: Toy Story.

Toy Story is an incredibly simple, timeless story told very, very well.  It follows the secret lives of toys when their owner, a boy named Andy, is not around.  They have a hierarchical ruling structure based on how much Andy loves them, with Woody (Voice of Tom Hanks), a pull-string talking cowboy, being the favorite and thus, the leader.  On Andy’s birthday he is given the next big toy, an electronic space hero named Buzz Lightyear.  Immediately Woody feels cast aside as Buzz appears to become Andy’s favorite new toy.  The only problem is, Buzz does not believe he is a toy, and thinks he is a real interstellar action hero.  Over time, Woody becomes so angry and envious of Buzz, that at one point he is accused by the other toys of killing Buzz when the space hero disappears.  This forces Woody to take action to find Buzz and prove his innocence, the two becoming friends in the process.  The film takes several turns in the story, with one surprisingly dark subplot involving a toy-torturing, truly messed-up kid who temporarily gains possession of Buzz and Woody.

Toy Story is a tale of unlikely friendship told through the a technology that was, at the time, still very new to general audiences.  Computer animation had been around for well over a decade but it was always very shallow-looking.  Bright colors and blocky figures dominated the artform, so imagine audiences’ collective surprise when Toy Story featured fully-animated characters in highly-detailed scenes.  It was a shock to most people, and it put Pixar near the top of the animation totem pole, right up there with Walt Disney Studios (a separate entity from Pixar) and Studio Ghibli.  The characters are interesting and relatable without being too cliched, the voice performances are all top-notch and art is still astounding by today’s standards, even after we spent years sitting through one mediocre CGI-fest after another, with the medium no longer being novel, just boring.  Toy Story is a reflection on a time when talented filmmakers were still very excited about a new art-form, and the potential of this new style of animation was still on the horizon.

NOTE: I would also point out that this was an early major screenwriting project for fan-favorite filmmaker Joss Whedon, so there's that, too!

My 40 Favorite Films of the 90's - 31 - The Lion King (1994)

The Lion King (1994; Walt Disney Studios)

Directors: Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff

Writers: Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts

Starring: Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones

The Lion King is Disney’s telling of Hamlet.  That’s it.  Well… Okay, the story follows Simba, a young lion who is the heir to an undefined “kingdom” in Africa called the Pride Lands.  The story is “adapted” from a number of sources including the works of Shakespeare, the Bible and an anime from the 1960’s from Japanese Animation pioneer Osmau Tezuka titled Kimba the White Lion.  The various sources of the film, with the exception of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, were not properly cited when the film was originally released (as is unfortunately typical with Disney).  This led to some notable controversy surrounding the film.  With all that, is the Lion King still a quality production?  Well, yes.

Despite the stolen premise and the disingenuous way in which it is presented, The Lion King is a strong production that set the standard for animation for years upon its release.  The film follows Simba, a young lion cub who, after witnessing the murder of his father, the king Mufasa, flees and lives his life in exile from his homeland.  There, he befriends two layabouts named Timon and Pumba, who act as the obligatory comic relief of the film but also as a parallel to Simba’s real responsibility to his homeland.  When Simba meets up with his childhood friend and promised future mate Nala, he learns of Scar’s overthrow of the crown, and his oppressive and destructive rule.  It is now Simba’s duty to return to his home and face the usurper of the throne to face his true destiny.

The story is a rather simple one, really.  It is about denial of one’s true self, and about the ideas of reason and responsibility.  Shakespeare, being a playwright for the people, often depicted the ruling class as slovenly or lazy to an extent and this story reflects that trope.  Simba, as an adult, starts off absorbed into Timon and Pumba’s laissez faire lifestyle, forgetting his roots and role in the world entirely.  The arc is his facing of adulthood.  It is a strong character shift and a well done part of the film.  It all culminates in a climax where Simba squares off against the evil Scar in the wasteland that was once his home.

Production-wise, everything about this film is top-notch.  The animation is some of the best of the studio’s history, the music is quite good, despite a few slightly annoying numbers that go on a little too long, and the story is big in scale yet it is told very accessibly for all audiences despite its source material.  The voice acting is also very good, especially Jeremy Irons as Scar.  I do love Irons as an actor and here he is funny and intimidating as Hell as one of the best movie villains ever, right down to one of the best damn musical numbers in the history of film “Be Prepared.”

As far as the rest of the music goes, it features some powerful moments.  Much of the film’s music was composed by one of my favorite artists, Elton John, and his contribution is notable.  It is a much more sophisticated soundtrack for the time.  The Disney Renaissance was littered with “kid-friendly” musical moments and for every “Part of that World” or “Be Our Guest” there was an over-silly and rather schmaltzy number like “You’ll be in My Heart” or this film’s contribution to bad Disney Music, the reason for the creation of the Mute and Fast-Forward Buttons, “Hakuna Matata”.  Still, there is one moment in this movie that hits me to the core every time I see it. The film ends as it begins, hence the film’s theme, “The Circle of Life”.  It plays as Simba’s son is presented to his subjects and the film ends on a triumphant pound of the drum.  It is a fantastic use of exposition-free storytelling and is one of the most powerful moments in cinema.

All-in-all, this was definitely the best animated film of the period, and I am not the only person to say so.  Disney was on a roll with hits leading up to this film and yes, I do like The Little Mermaid, and I am not ashamed to say it.  I think it’s a lovely story told quite well with likable characters and top-notch production value.  Beauty and the Beast was good, but not great, and Pocahontas was a successful little piece of shameless revisionism with a nice coat of paint, so take that for what you will.  However, this period also gave us Hercules, a film I most certainly did not like (except for James Woods as Hades, because Woods is a badass no matter what he does.  He wins forever.)

The Lion King has also been the subject of much accolade since its release.  Its music and score was nominated for and won multiple Oscars, it won best Comedy/Musical at the Golden Globes, it currently ranks at #57 in IMDB’s Top 250 and is a common fixture in books and lists of “Greatest Films of All Time”.  It is a memorable, nostalgic and vibrant work and, despite its flaws, it is a classic movie that I think will become one of the principal staples of the best of modern cinema that will be remembered, preserved and revered for generations to come.

Film Review - Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Wreck-It Ralph (2012; Walt Disney
Animation Studios)

Video games are now part of mainstream pop culture.  Well, they have been for more than two decades but if Hollywood's viewpoint really mattered at all you would think gamers were a frindge group.  Hollywood's treatment (fear) of video games and gamers has been visceral, with countless stabs in the form of nerdy gamer characters in lazy comedies and many, often-intentional film butcherings of beloved video game franchises.  Hollywood has a problem now, however, in the fact that the Nintendo Generation has grown up, many with children of their own, and with Wreck-It-Ralph it seems that a major studio has put aside its ire in lieu of an attempt to bridge a generational gap.  Is it perfect?  No.  Is it a step in the right diection?  Yes.

Wreck-It Ralph has been compared to Toy Story.  I see it, because that is pretty much what it is.  The premise is that in an arcade, all of those cabinets are actually self-contained worlds, connected by power cables to Game Central Station, which inhabits a power strip, the worlds' single common connection.   When the arcade closes, the characters in the cabinets live a life of their own, still holding to the rules and ideals set fourth in their games.  Wreck-It Ralph has spent decades in his world as a Donkey Kong-esque villain constatnly overshadowed by his game's hero, Fix-It Felix, Jr.  He struggles with lonliness as the denizens of his world fear and hate him for his constant destruction of their apartment building.  He looks up in jelousy as Felix is praised and parties are thrown in his honor.  Finally having enough, Ralph takes a step towards trying to make friends with the people in his world but is strongly rejected because he is not a hero.  Now, desperate to become a hero, Ralph begins to travel to other worlds to get that elusive title and earn the affections and friendships of his fellow game world inhabitants.

Now, I say "other worlds" but I really mean two.  The first is a shooter game world he initially enters, meeting up with Jane Lynch's Calhoun, a gung-ho military babe with a tortured past. Next he travels to the game that will become the central setting for a majority of the story, Sugar Rush, a cutsey racing title with freakish sprites disguised as little girls (and one gender-confused boy) as the racers.  If you need an idea of what this world is like, imagine Dr. Doom used some sort of power to mutate a copy of the Candy Land board game to a sentient giant and said board game monster went to the hills of Ireland and puked out the Chocolate Room from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory all over the landscape, that's pretty much what it looks like.  This world annoyed me from the start, but I forced myself to get used to it.  It is not as though I had a choice in the matter.

This leads to my major complaint about Wreck-It Ralph, the ads lied to me.  I went in expecting a movie filled with lots of old-school gaming in-jokes and got a by-the-numbers romp instead.  Now, the video game references are there, they are there in spades, but they are sparse in comparison to the main premise, which could have taken place in any type of world outside of video games and would have more or less worked. This is a shame because there were so many directions they could have taken here, and they decided to make it an underdog sports story, a rag Disney wrung dry about twenty years ago.

On the technical side of things, Wreck-It Ralph is top-notch.  I did not see it in 3D because that crap gives me a headache but the film looks really good.  The characters are expressive and well-designed and the worlds are expansive and full.  The movie uses scale well too, as in the shots of the giant arcade machine screen looking out into the world from Fix-It Felix's apartment building inside the game. As far as characters and acting goes everyone is good except for one person.  Can you guess who that is?  In all honesty, I expected to absolutely hate Sarah Silverman's character Vanellope.  I didn't.  At least not nearly as much as I expected to.  I will say that her voice wears very thin on the nerves after a while but the writers did a good job of making her character sympethic enough that you kind of start to care about her, I do not think I will ever forgive the writers for this offense.  I have heard her compared to Jar-Jar Binks.  No.  She is nowhere near that annoying.  Still, she is what she is, a character designed to hook the kids in the audience who do not know who the hell Q*bert is.  Her story is pretty tragic too, and the my reactions to her childish antics often mirrored Ralph's, which I suppose was the idea.  As far as the rest of the cast goes, John C. Reily, an actor I normally dislike, is occasionally one-note as Ralph, but the character is written and animated well-enough that I can give him a pass.  Jack MacBrayer, Jane Lynch and Alan Tudyk are all fantastic, no complaints there.  Most everybody is more or less very good here, Silverman is just a little too much for me through most of the movie.

Now for the ultimate question:  Was Wreck-It Ralph any good?  Yes.  My complaints about a large chunk of the film aside, this is a solid movie.  Parents will like it as will their kids.  There are lots of nice references here and there that will make NES owners feel at home and the tragic ebb and flow of arcade gaming in America has left a grave need for loving nostaliga, which this film brings.  Putting aside the paint-by-numbers Disney-default story, the twist ending I saw coming from a mile away and the numerous eye-rollingly bad puns and there is still a lot here to take home.  I do not see myself rushing out to grab the Blu-Ray when it releases, but this is still the best animated film I have seen in 2012, and certainly the best family movie of the year.  Do as I did, forgoing aprehension and ignoring one's better judgement, and enter and just enjoy what you are given and you may find that Wreck-It-Ralph is a lot of fun.

Our Top 40 Favorite Anime Openings - The Top Ten!

Cartoon by Christopher McElfresh

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10 - Happy Lesson (TV)
"Telescope"
Sleepin' Johnny Fish
I just adore the song Telescopes.  It is a song that is full of life and the images in the intro are a perfect match for the song’s lively and cheery tone.  The very first image shows Chitose and his younger sister sharing a bike ride along to the music as the vocalizations smoothly chant over the guitar and synth, the drums and bass.  It’s a perfect shot for a breezy song.  Overall, this is a very well-composed opening from start to finish and the intro animations share with us the personalities of the various characters in the story.  This is another one of my favorites.
-Chris

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09 - R.O.D. the TV
"Theme of Read or Die"
Yet another instrumental opening.  The intro for Read or Die’s TV outing (another one of my all time favorite anime) is a jazzy series of animations cut between random pictures of a naked chick, carefully posed not to expose anything, covered with kanji which are (I’m sure though I haven’t confirmed this) the opening credits.  The song is memorable and funky, with lots of slick drum fills, bass lines and an awesome little brass riff.  The scenes that show characters from the show occasionally use camera tricks like Dutch Angles and tilting left and right that come together to give this intro an interesting feel a film noir in full color.  This one is great!
-Chris

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08 - K-on!
"Cagayake! Girls"
Aki Toyosaki
The Opening K-on! establishes its show very well.  The girls are in a band.  Yep.  That’s the show.  The cheery pop song and images share with us the Light Music Club’s camaraderie.  Few intros present a friendship as well as this one.  This is also a very, very well-animated opening scene.  With characters playing their instruments convincingly, instead of just bouncing while swinging their arms randomly,making it easier to suspend disbelief that this is a story about a band and not just a piece of animation.  This is good stuff, even if you hate J-pop.
-Chris

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07 - Higurashi no Naka Koro ni
"Higurashi no Naka Koro ni (When the Cicadas Cry)"
Eiko Shimamiya
For sheer intensity, I cannot think of an anime theme that compares to When the Cicadas Cry (or When They Cry, or whatever you might call it).  This is a truly, TRULY dark and gruesome show that is, itself, very intense and this intro creates a tension and sets a chilling tone very well.  The imagery is simple yet striking, mixing colorful kaleidoscope images with cuts that include a girl in a Kitsune mask and one covered in what is presumed to be someone else’s blood.  The song is haunting, filled with chants and a chord that is both disturbing and powerful.  The chord in question is the first one you hear in the song, and repeats with each refrain.  It conjures images of the traditional horror soundtracks that arguably started with Hitchcock’s screeching stabbing song from Psycho.  The bass line is fast, chaotic and powerful, setting the pace for the rest of the song.  The vocals are chilling and distorted with reverberation, delay and other filters that sound distant and almost ghost-like.
-Chris

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06 - Toradora!
"Pre-Parade"Rie Kugimiya, Eri Kitamura, and Yui Horie
The opening song for Toradora!, Pre-Parade, is about as close to a millennial Euro-American club hit as I think anime music can really get, I think.  The intro is laced with mixed-messages.  The opening shot of the girl pulling up her stockings and then glaring at the camera makes me think of traditional spy films, or maybe stories of female assassins, but then we get all of these other queues to the show being a rom-com.  I have never seen Toradora! and when this was requested for the shortlist, I was surprised by how much I liked the intro, given my taste in music, which usually leans more towards the technical, imaginative, emotional or powerful.  This song really is none of those things.  It’s a pretty traditional club song, still the mix of character images, the song’s tone and the quality of the animation in the scene makes me love this one.
-Chris

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05 - Cowboy Bebop
"Tank!"
The Seatbelts
TANK!  Okay.  So this show kicks ass.  Oh, yeah!  The intro... right.  There’s definitely some tribute paid to the cheesy and fun openings of the 007 films mixed with a slick jazz tune that gives this intro a slight 70’s vibe.  The editing is spot on, the animation is stunning and the whole thing is just fun to watch.  This short musical montague may just be one of the single greatest pieces of animation of all time.
-Chris

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04 - Eden of the East
"Falling Down"
Oasis
This is another anime I just adore.  The show explores what happens when someone is given virtually unlimited power, and what they become after they explore their limits (or lack there of).
The intro is a great song by talented British rockers Oasis that flows with intro animations, matching the tech-obsessed plot of the show.  The characters are lost in a splash of synthetic nonsense, appearing as sort of a digital wasteland. I would also add that I do know there's a Japanese opening but the song is nowhere near as good, nor does it flow with the animation as well as this version.
-Chris

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03 - Cromartie High School
"Jun"
Takuro Yoshida
Define weird.  I mean... Really, really weird.  There are a lot of anime that have a... strangeness to them, but few come close to Cromartie High School.  This show is odd and the intro does the job of letting you know this right from the start.  Everything up to and including the kitchen sink is thrown on screen.  We see forty-year-old men in animal costumes, robots, gorillas and Freddie Mercury, all of which are prominently featured in the show at some point, some even have entire episodes devoted to them.  The song is perfectly out of place, sounding just right in a strange way.  This is another of my favorites.
-Chris

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02 - Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu
"Sore ga, Ai Deshou? (Isn't That Love?)"
Mikuni Shimokawa
This intro ranks as my number one pick.  Sore ga ie Deshou? is such a beautiful song.  There are certain songs that just hit me the right way, and this one is one of them.  I don’t usually fall for the poppy, love song type but this song’s mood and chords just work for me.  The intro is full of fluid animation displaying essential characters as they prepare for their day and the soft light is that glimmers in various scenes is absolutely perfect for this song.  The last shot of a narrowly-framed Bonta-kun doll on a chest with a soft glow is both lonely and inviting.  This single still piece of art just may be my favorite single frame from any anime (EVAR!) and the song’s final few seconds begin this kinetic show with a scratch over a soft piano, the perfect blend of hyperactivity and a gentle touch of emotion, just like Full Metal Panic!
-Chris

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01 - Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad
"Hit in the U.S.A."
Beat Crusaders
An intro is supposed to introduce you to a world and a small cast of characters quickly and there is arguably no intro that does it better than that of Beck.  The rock music, the band meeting, the tour bus, the sweeping American vistas blended with the comically-bad English of the lyrics.  Despite the funny Engrish in the song, it works and it sets the stage (so to speak) for a rocking character drama that is actually one of my all-time favorite Anime... ever.
-Chris

Our Top 40 Favorite Anime Openings - 20 - 16

Cartoon by Christopher McElfresh

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20 - Happy Lesson (OVA)
"C"
Hikari Okamoto
Thundering music stings and crazy-looking characters are prologue to a poppy, squeaky, almost choral J-Pop anthem to a show that is both insane and endearing.  We see our lead character Chitose constantly abused (mostly accidentally) by his overbearing but well-meaning teachers all while the perky song bounces in the background.  Happy Lessons’ intros tend to show all of the story characters in flashes and stances, sometimes so frantically that if you don’t know who to look for, you just might miss them.  This is a fun intro, but hardly ranks among my all-time favorites.  Still, it rated high between us, so somebody loves it.
-Chris

NOTE: I was having trouble finding a copy of the opening I could embed, I embedded the song instead. The original intro (low quality) can be found here.

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19 - The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
"Boken Desho Desho? (It's an Adventure Right, Right?)"
Aya Hirano
For a show about a girl who has no time for “normal human beings”, this intro is pretty pedestrian stuff.  That said, I cannot think of a better way to present this show.  It starts with the title character approaching school, where she then becomes the very center of everything, a position she asserts herself to in the show.  Running through a tunnel of stars, she is orbited and surrounded by friends and acquaintances.  The biggest strength of the intro is just how well the animation flows with the song.  The rhythm is almost seamless.
-Chris

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18 - Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu
"Perfect Area Complete!"
Natsuko Aso
This intro is another one of those that shows a lot of bare backdrops, introducing characters one at a time.  This show, about a school of magic users that comes under siege by its underachievers through a series of challenges to their upperclassmen, is a little weird, and structured a lot like a video game.  This intro, though, is all anime, and is really only okay to me.  Though, I do kind of like the song okay.
-Chris

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17 - Neon Genesis Evangelion
"Zankoku na Tenshi no Tēze (A Cruel Angel's Thesis)"
Neko Oikawa
The classic anime powerhouse lands at number 17 on our list.  I am honestly surprised it was so low, as it is considered by some to be the greatest anime opening of all time, however, I have to admit, it is not hard to see a little fandom in that assertion.  Still, this is a great intro, flowing with the music and full of original animations as the various characters are presented.  I do get a little tripped out by this intro though, considering what these characters go through throughout the course of the story.  The famous song, A Cruel Angel’s Thesis, has become somewhat of an anime anthem as Evangelion is considered one of the all-time greatest anime and ranks very, very high on my list of favorites.
-Chris

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16 - Chobits
"Let Me Be With You"
Round Table feat. Nino
How do you introduce a show that overtly sexualizes an android?  With a romantic opening styled as a traditional television show credits scene, that’s how!  Chobits is one odd show but it also has some good-natured qualities that are present in this opening scene.  Despite the slight repetitiveness of the song, this is still one of the better intros out there and an obvious fan-favorite.
-Chris