Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

Say what you liked/disliked about any of it.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

This was discussed in the original discussion thread, but I think the consensus was that that live action shows or movies are not really in the spirit of this challenge. The exception would be for titles for which a major plot point involves animation or puppets like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Cool World, or The Muppets. Another close one, Tron, could go either way. Definitely wild card worthy, though.

Other than that, it was great. Gave me a chance to really dive into my plethora of animation titles.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

I agree with Numes. Since you mentioned Star Wars as a qualifying title I watched the Original Trilogy, but am not really sure that they should count as animation. If anything, those can just be my wild cards though (and that's sort of how I justified it) since after I finished I didn't feel like I watched something animated.

Enchanted, on the other hand, I felt was an animated title after I watched it and had no problem counting it as such.

I think it's tough to really say what is and what is not animation and that people should, for the most part, use their own judgment. Although I saw some titles on people's lists that I wasn't really sure if they should count, but they could have been Wild Cards. I don't think that CGI in movies should automatically make something qualify though.

I'll post more in a little bit, but I think that was my one real complaint, was that there should be a little tighter definition of animation.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

I'm going to shy away from my earlier reasoning for allowing it but changing the reasons.

The prequels should all count since over half the characters are all animated and serve a purpose.

A New Hope, I can't remember much animation.

Empire and Jedi both had a bunch of puppets, so I'd allow those.

I'd let Tron count because it has enough animation, IMO.

I agree, there's also some movies that if I watch, the first thing I don't think of is that I watched something animated. Take Critters for example, the little fuzzballs were a form of animation.

In the end, I'd rather allow a little too much than exclude something which really should count. I'll also rely on the viewer to determine if something should be a wild card or not. When I hit things like that, I just find something else and think about it some more and if I go back to it, then it's because I'll use a wild card.

Forgive my rambling. We've been working 10 hour shifts and everything is a disaster at work since a certain department had over a year to test certain things instead of just coming in and changing it all and figuring out what does and doesn't work after the fact. Solutions? Ah, we'll just blame the hardware. What's that? Everyone with that setup doesn't work? I guess there is an issue.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

I still think things like Star Wars are incongruous with what I interpret the spirit of the challenge to have been, but I wasn't required to watch anything like that to participate so I just chose not to watch them. The one exception is that I did watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with the commentary track, but that was because I felt like it and not with the express purpose of including it in the challenge. I counted it in my list because I got the "okay" when I asked afterwards, but would have been perfectly fine had it been excluded.

Anyway, here are some offhand thoughts looking forward to 2011, which you are perfectly free to ignore in their entirety:

I'd like to see a more developed checklist to help guide me into exploring new things. I'm always a fan of the decades portion, though I think in the animation challenge the ratings sub-set is pretty superfluous (made especially pointless given the dearth of qualifying NC-17 and X material).

I like the "made by" section, though I can think of a handful of folks I'd have thought more relevant than Paul Dini (no offense to Mr. Dini, of course). I'd like to see "includes voice work by Mel Blanc" on the list; possibly Frank Welker.

Also, given how many animated features are adaptations of literary works, perhaps we could add something like "watch two different adaptations of the same source material" or something like that.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

A quick point about Star Wars. Those characters weren't overtly meant to be seen as CGI characters or puppets in the movie. The intent was that they were real characters. When I watch the Star Wars movies, I don't think of Jar Jar or Yoda as CGI/Puppets, I think of them as other life forms that I am watching.

I think an animation challenge should be about the animation. I think a litmus test would be to ask yourself "Is XX an animated movie/show?" I don't think anyone would say Star Wars would be. To go back to Tron, I think if you asked a lot of people they would be like "Well, yeah, kind of..." which could either make it count or be a wildcard.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it being more defined. There are SO many titles out there that are true animation, let's try and focus on those. I see some titles on people's lists and I scratch my head.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

When making this challenge, my initial goal was to come up with something that would allow me to watch a bunch of Full Moon movies that had stop motion and puppetry. From there, I figured I could work it into an animation challenge.

So yes, Disney is an afterthought but there's a broad enough spectrum of animation that should appeal to anyone. On restrictiveness of this challenge, I think it's a good spot between the horror and make your own challenges. You can have someone watching Pokemon all month and someone else watching claymation and someone else watching stuff like Laserblast, or any combination of the three.

CGI is the one thing I do think I need to work on, in terms of tightening down, but for something where it's good CGI that makes you think they're real characters, that's some good animation and shouldn't be tossed out. I'd also need to include things like The Last Starfighter, which has a bunch of CGI that's just space battles but anyone watching would say that it's animated.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

so??? who else did their three wild cards? I know I did. ;)

I loved this challenge, other than my choose your own challenge, it was the one this year that didn't make me want to stop - the other challenge's got tired past the mid month point.

I'm a little annoyed that I didn't have more time, with some vacation, peeps in town, a couple of birthdays I only had a select days where I could just vedge in front of the tv. Other than the last day, did I really exploit the use of the internet and really delve into what is only viewable via YouTube.

As much as I enjoy Pixar films I really didn't get around to watching an actual movie. A Monsters Inc supplement got the third wild card and I was thinking of doing the cine-explore for Cars - but it didn't happen - oh well, there's always next year.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

Voice work is a great idea with endless possibilities and oppportunities to learn. Phil Harris (not the Deadliest Catch guy) and Grey Delisle come to mind first.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

I tend to favor a more restrictive definition of animation for this category. As I suggested in the earlier discussion thread, if the main characters are live-action, then it shouldn't be included, unless there are a significant number of animated sequences in which the protagonists interact with animated characters, like MARY POPPINS or COOL WORLD. I would probably have to accept TRANSFORMERS 1 & 2 as well, since there is so much interaction with the Transformers characters. I would not include movies where the "animation" is just "special effects" designed to support live-action characters. (And, yes, I'm talking about TRON and STAR WARS and their ilk.)

I also think there should be more of a requirement to mix shorts, TV episodes and movies. So that participants would have to view things they might not normally view. Maybe 30% of each. And a certain amount of anime should have been required, mainly to get those not used to it to try it.

I found the checklist very useful for making me watch things I might not have gotten around to. I would even have liked a few more items on it to make it more, y'know, challenging! Maybe add a requirement for animation from a larger number of different countries, e.g. Russian and Eastern Europe, to name a couple of regions renowned for their animation.

Granted, I have a collection that made it easy for me to find everything I needed. I bought only one item to complete the checklist (THE MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN for the "puppet" requirement), only to find that I had an episode of "Fraggle Rock" on an old tape of cartoons taped off TNT in the early 1990s, so I didn't have to buy that used DVD.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

^I'd argue against anything that forced someone to watch significant amount of a genre they do not like. For example, I *hate* anime... with a passion. It's one thing to watch a single title/episode of something you dislike for a check list challenge but to *have* to watch 30% (or even 10%) would be enough to cause me to not participate.

I'd love to see the "Watch with commentary track" removed from check lists as I dislike them in general. I was *not* going to watch with one for the animation challenge until someone mentioned the very funny "commentary" on "Brother Bear". It was better than the movie! In fact it was so good it didn't feel like a commentary track at all... rather an extended episode of "Great White North" from SCTV. That said, I'd still like it gone from the check lists as they are mostly monumental wastes of time IMHO.

I'd also like to see "watch a film from 2010" removed from the "years" category in the check list. As the decade has just started that can be *very* restrictive. It should only be added back when there are 2-3 years from which to draw selections.

Other than that I felt the check list challenge was fairly well ballanced. I liked that the "ratings" requirement and the very early years of the 20th century were optional.

I do like the suggestion to add voice actors to the list of what to watch. I also like having a somewhat obscure person or two in the list to force you to seek out otherwise unknowns.

I have mixed feelings about allowing titles with "live" actors. While I *did* watch "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" for the challenge I felt a bit like I was cheating because the leads were all live actors even though the majority was CGI. "Scooby Doo" really felt like a cheat but since Scooby is a main character in almost every scene...

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

I concur. I realize part of the intent of these challenges is give impetus for participants to expand their exposure to different things, but one of the thing that makes the Animation Challenge unique is that it's a medium-based challenge and not a genre-based challenge. I am vehemently against any kind of quota for this or any other challenge.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

:wave: - glad you enjoyed it

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

I'm curious as to why you "hate" anime. And why "with a passion"? What examples of it have you seen that made you react that way? Do you not realize that anime encompasses a wide range of genres and styles, from Pokemon to Princess Mononoke, from crime films to science fiction, from high school comedy to historical dramas, from horror to literary adaptations? Surely you can't hate ALL of it. Did you find Sailor Moon or Naruto annoying and then decided on that basis that you "hate" all of it? That would be like seeing a Judd Apatow or Adam Sandler comedy and then saying you hate ALL comedies. Or seeing one boring French movie and saying you hate all French films. That would be foolish, wouldn't it?

So, I'm assuming you saw more than just one or two series to cause your reaction. As a longtime anime fan who has reviewed hundreds of anime titles for publication, I'm eager to know what caused your reaction. And I'd love to offer suggestions of things you might not know about that might soften your opinion. If at the end of it you still hate anime, that would, of course, be okay, but at least give it more of a try.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

BobO'Link has added a few remarks since I responded to this post, so here are my additional follow-ups:

Here's a point where I disagree. I'd be against expanding that requirement, but I see no harm in asking members to explore the one commentary asked of us for the checklist.

I really felt this way, until I realized I already had something that qualified. By next August, I'm certain to have at least gotten around to buying Batman: Under the Red Hood and Toy Story 3, and probably some other new material. It was a stretch this year, but I think the plethora of animated content being churned out should make it much more viable for the second go-round of this challenge.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

Anime is a medium, not a genre, so the appropriate analogy would be to suggest that disliking an Apatow or Sandler film led to one dismissing all live action movies.

I can, of course, only speak for myself but I find the exaggeration typical of anime obnoxious and tiresome to endure. I also don't care for techno music, which I've found common in anime soundtracks. And I've never been interested in anthropomorphism, a common element in Japanese storytelling. So, regardless of the genre of the story, if these things are prevalent, I'm not likely to enjoy it. I've got no real interest in exploring anime for the time being, but I will make a point of taking you up on some recommendations for next year's challenge. Fair enough?

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

I'd be happy to make anime suggestions when the next animation challenge rolls around. (New suggested rule: you can't re-watch anything you watched in the previous challenge, unless it's for an audio commentary.)

As for the points you make regarding things you don't like about anime, I would argue that those three things are not necessarily typical of anime, except maybe for exaggeration, which can be used very well for comic effect and tends to be more typical of comic anime than the more hard-edged crime and sci-fi anime that I like. (And it's a holdover from manga--comic books--where the exaggerated facial expressions/gestures offer a good shorthand of conveying the emotions in a scene, even if it's for comic effect.) Of course, I'm so used to a lot of anime styles and tactics that what looks exaggerated to you may not seem so to me.

Anthropomorphism? I don't see that very often in anime, except in the more Disney-inspired fairy tale and folklore features that were prevalent in the '60s and '70s.

Techno music? I'm not sure what you mean there. Offhand, I can't think of an anime score that would be considered "techno." I tend to hear a lot of lyrical, orchestrated scores in anime, even in the Pokemon movies. If I had a sense of what anime scores are considered "techno" I'd be better able to estimate what percentage of anime has "techno" scores. But I doubt it would be a high percentage.

Try the Patlabor movies and TV shows. No exaggeration. No anthropomorphism. And a great score by Kenji Kawai that probably incorporates techno elements when necessary to a scene, but wouldn't be called techno by itself.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

While I would be fine with making a checklist entry to be for anime, I feel it would be uneven to make people watch a set amount of anime. I don't really feel like that fits the challenge to require people to watch 10 anime titles or whatever.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

I mentioned in the discussion thread I'd like to have seen a Disney Afternoon category for the checklist. Maybe a PrimeTime specific category for shows that air(ed) between 8-11pm.

+1

This doesn't really make sense though. The point/spirit was to cover a lot of ground and maybe expose you to something you wouldn't have otherwise watched. Sounds like the Commentary Track succeeded at that since you enjoyed it so well.

I tried to steer clear as well, but watched Prince Caspian myself. I also watched Scott Pilgrim on the final day which I think others listed (I'm still unsure how it qualifies at all :lol:).

Mentioned above, Enchanted, is another I wouldn't consider animated since 90% of the movie is live action, but :shrug: that's just one opinion.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

I think the way it was done this time around was just fine. The checklist required that we watch at least one item of CGI, Anime, and Puppetry. This forces people to broaden themselves a little and watch something they might not otherwise watch, but also makes it so they aren't forced to watch something that they don't really want to watch in the first place.

Additionally, only requiring one (or maybe two) titles in a specific medium would make it so people don't have to track down something online or purchase something they don't really want to have in their collection.

So I think a "medium" requirement on the checklist is a great idea, but should only be limited to one or two items. I'd say the requirements should be Cel Animation, CGI, Anime, Puppetry, and Stop Motion.

I strongly oppose this suggestion. There are some shows and movies that I watch all the time (The Simpsons, Futurama, Pixar, The Brave Little Toaster, etc.) and I would hate to be restricted and not be able to watch them next year. I've been contemplating watching nothing but The Simpsons and maybe Futurama next time, but I already watched some of them during this Challenge, so such a restriction would really mess that plan up.

---

I'd recommend another checklist item as "a live action movie that was adapted from an animated property." Sure these aren't animated, but as part of the challenge I think it would be cool.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

I, too, oppose such a restriction. No other challenge has it as a restriction, and more importantly, it would require the host to compare everyone's lists from two years to actually enforce it. That said, I'm going to try to shy away from re-watches next year but that's a personal choice, and one I want to try to adopt with all the 2011 challenges in which I participate.

I like this. I thought about Masters of the Universe when I was browsing my library, for instance. The obvious knock against this idea is that it opens the door for a lot of non-animated content to be viewed under the guise of this qualification, but at least this makes more sense to me than allowing movies that happen to feature CGI.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

The artwork in general is the major turnoff. All anime looks pretty much the same to me... very angular lines, exagerated expressions, etc. It's a style for which I have little to no patience. I've been known to drop comics where I like the storytelling but the artwork was changed to a style/type I dislike. Add to that the general tendancy for frenetic voice acting and preponderance of techno/modern pop style soundtracks and it's a complete turn off.

It's actually difficult to quantify. It's just an overwhelming feeling of dislike every time I see one.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

Not really. Had the content of the one I watched not been mentioned by another participant I'd have never watched with one nor have ever heard that one as it additionally suffered from only being on the non-AOR version of the film. The "commentary" I listened to was more like a *good* MSTK track than a true commentary. Because of its' nature it, too, felt like cheating.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

I'm going to say I'm the "Ash Ketchum" of commentaries. BobO'Link - What was your experience that turned you off to commentaries? I would say that at least 25% of my DVD purchases are based on whether they have commentaries or not. I listen to about a commentary every couple of days, they are absolutely amazing. I can only really think of a handful of probably over 600+ commentaries that I've listened to that were duds.

Obviously I know that commentaries are not everyone's thing, but to broadly dislike them... I guess I don't understand. Do you have a favorite director? Just as a random beginning... if you enjoy any of Guilelrmo Del Toro's movies, he has some of the best commentaries ever.

Re: Comments, Suggestions & Feedback for the 2011 "August Animation Challenge"
 

The easy way to prevent that is to just allow one and only one movie based on an animated property.