The Decline in Quality of Today's Animation (Re: This Cartoon is SHIT)

[myu2k2]

I don't think it's wrong to be interested in spectacle in and of itself, but I guess the problem is that most people are only interested in spectacle, correct?

yeah. I think that is also what major blockbusters run on. "It doesn't need to make sense! Just make it bigger, flashier!"

[Triangle Man]

yeah. I think that is also what major blockbusters run on. "It doesn't need to make sense! Just make it bigger, flashier!"

Regardless of how you feel about Robot Chicken's overall quality, I think they may have inadvertantly summed up this aspect of Major Blockbusters in their mockery of Micheal Bay's movies, seen below.



Personally, I figure that explosions should come alongside interesting characters/plot/general story elements instead of being the central parts of a story, but if people in general like the explosions enough than they may not care about the other things, and I guess that's a bit depressing.

Why do people in general prefer explosions to other things, however?

[Quirk]

Why do people in general prefer explosions to other things, however?

Explosions are

1) Pretty
2) Loud
3) Simple
4) Can be used to create the illusion that something is happening

Also, people in general are stupid, shallow, and sheep-like.

[Gzar]

Explosions also look like sheep:

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Maybe it's a mating instinct?

[ArmsAreLoud]

...That is much funnier than it should be, Gzar.

[weirdguy]

Well I know what I'm using as my new avatar.

[darkDetective]

Hey, so did anyone end up checking out Thundercats 2011? I ask because I finally finished season 1 and I have like a dozen more adult themes to add to that last, which I probably won't since they might result in actual spoilers.

End of the last episode. Panthro. Just sayin'.

[laserdogbad]

Hey, so did anyone end up checking out Thundercats 2011? I ask because I finally finished season 1 and I have like a dozen more adult themes to add to that last, which I probably won't since they might result in actual spoilers.

End of the last episode. Panthro. Just sayin'.

uh what

[Quirk]

Theme songs. We need more awesome cartoon theme songs here.

Seriously, there's some hidden art to it. Chalk me up as disappointed that RS doesn't have one, and that there's not a longer version of AT's.

[alexthewhite]

I can't believe I didn't know about this thread until now. It's very relevant to my interests. Very.

Very.

Some thoughts!

Danny Phantom:

Eh, it could work at a lower rating, but something tells me that the execs wouldn't be too fond of Danny talking to Holocaust victims or sitting in at a Vatican Council or having normal, not evil human beings try and kill his family on a near-daily basis because they had the unfortunate luck of turned everyone's world upside down and causing mass panic and instability. The implications alone make it pretty serious, and the writers could pack some serious punches with it, but I think a kid-friendly rating wouldn't give them that freedom to explore the uneasy questions. It wouldn't be all biff pow bam, I'm sure of that.

EDIT: And really, if you think about Danny Phantom, it is already terrifyingly dark. They've discovered an afterlife but no God, and it's an afterlife that everyone goes to, no matter their actions in life. That fact alone and the inplications thereof, if applied to the story universe, are very existential and for me downright terrifying. That ain't kid stuff.

It was implied pretty heftily that the ghosts aren't actually, y'know, the souls of the restless dead. They included, after all, the likes of the thimble-sized Skulker (who had an amazing design, BTW,) three vaguely-offensive Yiddish crows, and a sexy genie.

True, there were ghosts that acted like dead humans (Pointdexter, the "I want to go to the ball" Dragon,) but that didn't mean they were dead. They could have just thought they had died, or something. Ghosts, it always felt like, were a magical race that lived in a world parallel to Earth. Hence how Jack and Maddie were able to build a portal to the Ghost Zone. It's a portal to an alternate dimension, not to the afterlife. Much more plausible.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: Firstly, great cartoon, great show. But the finale?

Fuck that noise. Those last four episodes were garbage, some of the worst in the series. A cartoon whose primary triumphs were its complex character arcs and villains that could actually be threatening, and it threw it all away with a bunch of loathsome bullshit.

I wish Korra was a retcon instead of a sequel, so that we could reverse that travesty and get something worthy of the 56 episodes that preceded it.

Thundercats: I actually had a fit when I watched the premiere and the robots blew up the city. I mean, holy shit. An entire city of people are killed or, if they're lucky, enslaved by Mummy Satan and his army of cyber-reptile commandos. I really need to watch all of this show, and not just the first five episodes.

The DC Animated Universe: Needs to be a bigger part of this discussion. The Justice League remains my all-time favorite cartoon. I sincerely hope I'm not alone in that.

Young Justice: My response to people who say there's nothing good on Cartoon Network besides Adventure Time and Regular Show.

It's Teen Titans+Justice League-Brilliance. I wouldn't call Young Justice a miracle or anything, but it's gorgeous and some of the episodes are really really good, especially in the second season.

One starts with the entire Justice League getting systematically killed by aliens. All of them. Onscreen. It was obviously all a dream, but still. Damn.

Sleep: Sleep is my second favorite cartoon. It's 2:30, about time for me to watch it for a while.

[AProcrastinatingWriter]

That's very interesting that you so hate the last four episodes of Avatar the Last Airbender, alex. Could I get some of the reasoning why? (Yes, I've read the reasoning you've already presented, but I think I'm going to need some reasoning behind the reasoning, if you get what I'm saying.)

And Quirk, if that's just a knee-jerk reaction, why didn't you

you know

backspace

[Quirk]

@Alex - Let me guess: your complaint involves Azula's mental breakdown, yes? That and energy bending. While I don't think I can sucessfully argue the latter with you, the former really does fit with Azula's character: she is, in fact, a human being. One who just so happened to latch onto her bastard of a father because she thought her mother didn't love her. Despite her sheer competence as a villain, she's not completely evil. Not good at all, but still human.

When someone builds their life on pillars (like Azula), and one of those pillars is taken out (Mai and Ty Lee turn on her: her control over someone is broken), things tend to fall apart.

Also, ghost = dead. If they weren't dead, they'd be spirits, or fae, but no, they're ghosts.

[Triangle Man]

Quirk, I honestly do not see that as being a good reason to not watch something. If the fact that it involves furries is truly enough to cause disgust in you whenever you see it, however, then I guess I cannot control that...

[AProcrastinatingWriter]

Before alexthewhite's response to Qurik is posted, I would like to remind everyone of the forum's rules against not respecting people and their opinions.

Don't ask me why I suddenly posted that, I just get this sudden feeling of impending doom is all.

[Quirk]

Before alexthewhite's response to Qurik is posted, I would like to remind everyone of the forum's rules against not respecting people and their opinions.

Don't ask me why I suddenly posted that, I just get this sudden feeling of impending doom is all.

Once again my fingers move before my brain thinks. Forget I said anything on the matter.

[Triangle Man]

So...

Anyone else want to share their opinions on various Westren Cartoons?

Does anyone here remember watching Reboot and Cybersix?

[DJ-P0N3]

I remember Reboot.
It was a good show, poor animation, but the overall value makes it worth watching.
I remember the later seasons getting notoriously badass at times.

[Triangle Man]

Cool.

And to be fair, Reboot was one of the first ever cartoons done entirely with 3D animation, so it was pretty groundbreaking init's time. If I'm correct on this, I think it was also made by a Vancouver based studio, so I am proud of that (although I will need to check this later...)

And the later seasons did indeed reach some awesome points of Badass at times. I think most of Season 3 and the early parts of Season 4 were where these moments of badass occurred.

[Farsinian]

If I'm not wrong, both Reboot and Beast Wars were done by the same studio up there, Mainframe Entertainment. And yes, both shows had oodles to badass running around (especially in the later seasons of each).

[alexthewhite]

Before alexthewhite's response to Qurik is posted, I would like to remind everyone of the forum's rules against not respecting people and their opinions.

Don't ask me why I suddenly posted that, I just get this sudden feeling of impending doom is all.

This is a THREAD on a FORUM consisting of GROWN PEOPLE talking about CARTOONS. Why would anyone ever be uncivil?

@Alex - Let me guess: your complaint involves Azula's mental breakdown, yes? That and energy bending. While I don't think I can sucessfully argue the latter with you, the former really does fit with Azula's character: she is, in fact, a human being. One who just so happened to latch onto her bastard of a father because she thought her mother didn't love her. Despite her sheer competence as a villain, she's not completely evil. Not good at all, but still human.

When someone builds their life on pillars (like Azula), and one of those pillars is taken out (Mai and Ty Lee turn on her: her control over someone is broken), things tend to fall apart.

Oh, no, I loved the mental breakdown. It was easily the best part of the finale, and Azula showed signs of cracking at the Boiling Rock. No complaints there.

It was everything else that was bad.

It was four plotlines in total: Sokka, Suki, and Toph taking down the Fire Nation fleet, The Order of the White Lotus retaking Ba Sing Se, Zuko and Katara going to confront Azula, and, of course, Aang's battle with Ozai. I'll just go through my problems with each.

Sokka, Suki, and Toph vs The Fire Nation Fleet: The best of the four, but that's likely because it was the safest. I don't think anyone believed for a moment that they would fail. There were no named Fire Nation types on the ship, and the entire thing was, well, predictable. It was fun, though, and would have worked as a complement to the other stories if they were good.

Order of the White Lotus vs The Fire Nation Occupation Force : I saw the idea here was to show how incredibly badass these five old guys are, but that's the thing. There were five of them, plus whatever unseen other members there were.

That's their camp. That's, I don't know, sixty tents? Meaning the Order can't be more than 100, 150 old dudes. Very powerful old dudes, yeah, but, well, there were thousands and thousands of firebenders in Ba Sing Se, each one of them supercharged by the Comet. I might buy it otherwise, but this was supposed to be the one day when Fire Nation mooks are actually a legitimate threat.

Instead, Iroh blows up the impregnable walls in one shot. Ba Sing Se was built up as completely impossible to penetrate. A drill the size of a small city couldn't do it. Iroh couldn't do it in 500 days. It only fell in the first place due to corruption from within.

It just felt cheap, like the writers couldn't think of anything better but realized that Ba Sing Se had to be liberated. It was sloppy writing, plain and simple.

Aang's vs Ozai: Energy bending was an asspull that came right the fuck out of nowhere. There isn't much to say, but this was dreadfully hackneyed and I don't like it at all.

Zuko and Katara vs Azula: I really didn't like this, other than Azula's breakdown. She was perfect through all of this, simultaneously terrifying and pathetic. Great voice work, great animation.

It's just too bad the other half of the equation failed so hard.

So Zuko goes to duel Azula, and it's pretty clear he'll win until he takes some lightning meant for Katara. Katara then proceeds to beat a souped-up Azula for him.

That's a loathsome way to end a character arc. Zuko learned the "You can't do everything alone" lesson a season ago. And, remember, Zuko comes from a culture that is all about honor. Honor, honor, honor. Certainly, part of his character growth is learning there's other things in life besides that, but it still remains his primary motivation even in the dying episodes. His definition of honor may have changed, but it's pretty clear that it's still very important to him.

Zuko has always been made to feel inferior by his sister. He wasn't as good a bender, as good a leader, as good a member of the royal family, anything. He had spent his entire life being emasculated by her. She nearly killed Iroh, and then later turned Zuko on him. Even more than Ozai, Azula was the antagonist that was everything he needed to overcome.

But he didn't. He lost, and Katara finished the fight instead. What did that do for her? Jack shit. She had no real personal grudge on Azula, short of them being on opposite sides. I get that without it, Katara would have had nothing to do all finale, but they could have given her something to do.

Katara beating Azula doesn't even go in with feminist empowerment, because it didn't do anything for Katara. We already knew she could beat manly men. What we didn't know is if Zuko could beat Azula, the key question about him ever since he completed his face turn. And because of his pointless injury, we'll never know that.

Also, ghost = dead. If they weren't dead, they'd be spirits, or fae, but no, they're ghosts.

Well, it was already said Nickelodeon wanted to avoid anything too occult with the show. Spirit is definitely more occult than ghost, and fairy is...well, not exactly the most appealing word to the show's target demographic. I think ghost was their best option.

[Quirk]

Valid complaints all around, I say. Don't feel them as severe as you do, but I'd be lying if I said they weren't there.

[AProcrastinatingWriter]

Everything you have pointed out is certainly valid, alex, but I personally was not as bothered by the energy bending as you were.

I would have been, except it was clearly shown that Aang already had the ability to beat Ozai without energy bending. The only problem was that Aang could only beat Ozai without energy-bending by killing him, whereas the energy bending simply gave him a way to stand by his beliefs that no one, not even Fire Lord Ozai, should die at the hands of another.

Which isn't to say that doesn't create its own problems, of course, but for me personally it gets a pass, and that's my explanation as to why. I completely understand that it doesn't get a pass from you, and certainly can respect your opinion about the final four and do, in fact, find it exceedingly valid. So there you go.

[weirdguy]

About the thundercats, the whole thing is pretty solid, but it still lacks the something that grips my attention, but that's probably because I need to see more of the show to figure out what either it might be missing, or what I'm not seeing yet.

kudos to mummra actually being a threat though, in the original show he was almost as much a butt monkey as skeletor

[Obselescence]

I would have been, except it was clearly shown that Aang already had the ability to beat Ozai without energy bending. The only problem was that Aang could only beat Ozai without energy-bending by killing him, whereas the energy bending simply gave him a way to stand by his beliefs that no one, not even Fire Lord Ozai, should die at the hands of another.

I guess the issue might be that Energy Bending represented something of a contrived cop-out to Aang's moral dilemma, rather than a technique that he pulled to beat Ozai.

[AProcrastinatingWriter]

I guess the issue might be that Energy Bending represented something of a contrived cop-out to Aang's moral dilemma, rather than a technique that he pulled to beat Ozai.

Which I agree with, hence the "which isn't to say it doesn't create its own problems". But again, I fully recognize and understand that some people are gonna give that a pass, and some people aren't, and some people would even if it were just an original-scenario Deus Ex Machina. And all that is perfectly alright.