I agree that whether people like the movie or not, it's nice to have coverage to know that it exists. I just went to see "Mr. Peabody and Sherman" yesterday, with the "Almost Home" short and all the trailers for animated kids' features with it. "Rio 2" - CGI from Blue Sky, "The Boxtrolls" - stop-motion from Laika, "Planes: Fire and Rescue" - CGI, Disney subcontracted to Prana Studios in Mumbai; "For a company that isn't Pixar," Prana is doing GREAT at the moment, "How to Train Your Dragon 2" - CGI from Pacific Data Images, "Paddington" - CGI, I guess (the trailer is designed to show almost nothing yet). Hmmm, I guess that Animal Logic doesn't have anything coming out soon. Between all of these and "Mr. Peabody and Sherman" - Pacific Data Images again; PDI does all of DreamWorks Animation's CGI work - I'm sure that if I had seen "Alpha and Omega 3" too, it would have looked sick by comparison. Even startup CGI studios like Triggerfish Animation Studios in Cape Town ("Zambezia", "Kumba"), Reel FX in Dallas ("Free Birds"), and ToonBox Entertainment in Toronto ("The Nut Job") put out better-looking CGI than "Alpha and Omega 3".
Who did "Alpha and Omega 3", anyway? Richard Rich's Crest Animation Productions. It figures. From this review, they're improving -- but they still have a looong way to go.
To digress, is it just me, or are Laika's stop-motion movies getting increasingly disgusting? "Coraline" was a good creepy horror thriller. "ParaNorman" had too much emphasis on revivified rotting, falling-apart long-dead bodies for me. "The Boxtrolls" is apparently going to feature closeups of big worms or caterpillars crawling across faces, people with really gross table manners, and the like. Laika's stop-motion is brilliant, but is the studio going for the gross-out trade?
I agree that whether people like the movie or not, it's nice to have coverage to know that it exists. I just went to see "Mr. Peabody and Sherman" yesterday, with the "Almost Home" short and all the trailers for animated kids' features with it. "Rio 2" - CGI from Blue Sky, "The Boxtrolls" - stop-motion from Laika, "Planes: Fire and Rescue" - CGI, Disney subcontracted to Prana Studios in Mumbai; "For a company that isn't Pixar," Prana is doing GREAT at the moment, "How to Train Your Dragon 2" - CGI from Pacific Data Images, "Paddington" - CGI, I guess (the trailer is designed to show almost nothing yet). Hmmm, I guess that Animal Logic doesn't have anything coming out soon. Between all of these and "Mr. Peabody and Sherman" - Pacific Data Images again; PDI does all of DreamWorks Animation's CGI work - I'm sure that if I had seen "Alpha and Omega 3" too, it would have looked sick by comparison. Even startup CGI studios like Triggerfish Animation Studios in Cape Town ("Zambezia", "Kumba"), Reel FX in Dallas ("Free Birds"), and ToonBox Entertainment in Toronto ("The Nut Job") put out better-looking CGI than "Alpha and Omega 3".
Who did "Alpha and Omega 3", anyway? Richard Rich's Crest Animation Productions. It figures. From this review, they're improving -- but they still have a looong way to go.
To digress, is it just me, or are Laika's stop-motion movies getting increasingly disgusting? "Coraline" was a good creepy horror thriller. "ParaNorman" had too much emphasis on revivified rotting, falling-apart long-dead bodies for me. "The Boxtrolls" is apparently going to feature closeups of big worms or caterpillars crawling across faces, people with really gross table manners, and the like. Laika's stop-motion is brilliant, but is the studio going for the gross-out trade?
Fred Patten