Television '2-D is Dead'?

That was the official declaration of Michael Eisner in the now-infamous memo to Disney staff. Eisner (The controversial CEO) has decided that Disney's latest two-dimensional movie ('Home on the Rage', opening today) will be its last for a very, very long time.

How do you guys think this will impact the American animation industry? I find it so fascinating that Japanese 2-D animation can be amazingly successful in the movie format, but over here we need 3-D for a cartoon to be widely accepted. It's as if in addition to a great story Western audiences need the ability to marvel at the latest incredibly technology. I'm not saying that's a bad thing by any means, but it's certainly not necessary to enjoy an animated film.

Other thoughts?

 

I can only say that this will do very bad things for the animation industry.
Eisner's freakin' dense if he thinks there's no demand for traditionally-animated films. He's also leading Disney down a bad direction, turning their back on their roots. This is never a good thing for a corporation because it alienates the consumer.
I, for one, would rather watch some old-school traditional animation than that new-fangled compucrap. That's just me, though.

 

i despise 100% cg, hell 20% and above is too much. 3dcg just doesn't have the quality of good 2d. 2d is dying though because it's cheaper and easier to just make 1 3d mnodel that you can then manipulate for everything. maybe also the american skills for 2d are there anymore. i've seen very little good 2d from america. maybe thats just a reflection on all the 3d and how it's taking over.

 

You obviously haven't been watching a lot of TV or movies. I will refer you to such films as The Emperor's New Groove, Hercules and The Lion King. Not the most recent, but still farely new. Also consider Clone High USA, Undergrads (although it was Canadian-made) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (although the short episode thing is garbage).
Really, Americans should stay away from CG. They will just inevitably be shown up by the Japanese and Canadians.

 

I've never been a fan of Disney, really. I only prefer the 2-Ds like Simpsons and Family Guy and the likes. I've been dragged along to all sorts of animated Disney movies and couldn't help but.. well.. fall asleep. So really, 2-D, 3-D, whatever, no loss on my part. Just so long as either way they go down the crapper. Just so long as Disney doesn't start making reality TV Shows like everyone else.

 

While I've got nothing against CG, I've never really liked to mix it in with animation to the point that it clashes with or shows up the traditional animation. It's very good for support - think the wildebeast stampede in The Lion King - but all-CG movies and series just really don't do anything for me. A lot of the appeal of animation is that it doesn't need to be super-realistic to look appealing.

One problem with CG is that, while they can do incredible things with it nowadays, animation-style CG still always has that "plastic" look. Sure, CG in live-action movies works very well - but when you mix it with animation or try to replicate animated effects, it's just not the same. Imagine a classic anime super-deformed expression done with CG - think it would be cute? Probably not. It would look strange and disproportionate, whereas that sort of thing works on paper.

I honestly prefer old-school animation. It really bugged me the first time I saw Blue Submarine #6 because the computer-done scenes felt disconnected from the traditional animation. I still enjoyed it, but I felt the experience would have been better without such pervasive use of fully CGed animations. Last Exile took a bit of getting used to for that same reason.

It's a shame if Disney is going to start producing nothing but CG-heavy movies. While things like the Toy Story films were impressive, I never felt immersed in the world in the same way I do with other high-quality animation. Full-CG movies strike me as... too showy, maybe? I don't know. It just feels more like the company is showing off, focusing on the effects instead of the core story and characters. CG is very realistic, the way it's developing - I mean in terms of simulated textures (hair, skin, leaves on trees, etc) - and much of what I like about traditional animation is the sometimes-unrealistic things that can be achieved with it, without it looking unnatural in context.

 

I've always thought that Disney made the highest quality animation in America,and that they'd be truely unstoppable if they made a serious more mature film.They've always limited themselves to just children's films,and it's been a real waste.I always knew Disney could do so much more.

But now we won't even get that chance.They're going downhill fast.

-BC