Another vote for great story first, and the methods/styles of getting there being secondary.

Why not combine CGI and Stop-motion and build robots that can make and film clay figures?

Try reading posts before replying to them

Uh, I did sir... several times, because I couldn't believe what I was reading.

There's a sneak preview of this film now up on the official website:
http://www.flushedaway.com/flushedaw...akpreview.html

I hate CGI animation. They never make the human characters look realistic enough. If CGI is to be used at all in animated films, use it for backgrounds. I love traditional animation and clay and stop-motion animation. Just give me a good dose of rotoscoping or some clay, and I'm a happy camper.

Good thing this film features rats.

This movie just looks horrendous. I've never been a fan of this studio's work to begin with, but this has to be the worst idea ever. A rat flushed down a toilet has adventures with other creatures in the sewer and also with talking pieces of shit.

And not to mention, I had NO IDEA this movie was from the same studio that brought us Chicken Run and the Wallace and Gromit cartoons. The animation style makes this look like just another lame ass Pixar rip-off attempt.

Really? Everything about the look of the characters screamed Aardman to me..

Yeah, the eyes and the teeth/mouths of the characters are spot on Aardman work.

I guess I just missed the signature style in the trailer I saw on TV, especially with the animated shit talking on trailer.

Do you mean the slugs?

Technically I don't mind CGI, but studios have run the whole 'cute, wisecrackin' CG talking animal' genre into the ground. I'm just kinda gettin sick of it.

Apparently a lot of other people are too, since CG films seem to be bombing as badly as their 2D brethren used to.

Well, it's not like the talking animal genre hadn't been steadily mined in the 2d animated world. With Disney we got films like Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, Oliver and Company, Dumbo, Bambi, Robin Hood, heck even The Little Mermaid had the talking fish, crab, and seagull.

I wouldn't say they've all been bombing. Cars grossed $244 million, Ice Age 2 grossed $195 million, Over the Hedge $155 million, and very recently Open Season has grossed $70 million so far. A few others, Monster House and Barnyard, cracked $70 million, while even The Wild grossed as much as probably one of the biggest 2D flops, Treasure Planet.

Granted, there are a few CGI films that have decidedly bombed. However, I think that has more to due with the sheer volume of CGI films being released, about 1 a month, and the quality of some of the efforts than any real consumer fatigue with CGI overall.

So why are all these animated movies the same fucking premise? It's like there is a law that says you can't make one animated movie with out copying the exact same story a year later.

A Bugs life then Antz
Finding Nemo then Shark Tale
Madagascar then The Wild
Over the hedge then open season
Flushed away then ratatouille
Happy feet then surfs up

Is anyone coming out with a movie called, BOAT ? Or PLANE? if not I got an idea to sell them...

Well, with the first example, a lot of people credit the two films existence to Jeffrey Katzenberg, who left Disney to found Dreamworks. Once there, Dreamworks started producing a number of films with similar plots to Disney films that had been in development while Katzenberg was working there. One of those films was A Bug's Life (originally titled just Bugs). Armageddon and Deep Impact is another example.

There's also evidence that something similar may have happened with Madagascar, which was a script at Disney before it moved to Fox and then Dreamworks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild#Criticism

With these rest though, the premises for the two films are completely different, despite having similar type animal characters. It's like complaining that 101 Dalmations and Lady and the Tramp have the same premise because they both feature dogs.

However, focusing just on the fact of similar setting or animals, most of the time it's because both studios start the project unaware of the other one. It's happened recently with horror films set in caves (The Cave and The Descent), and films about Truman Capote (Capote and Infamous). In both of those live-action cases, one of the studios sat on their film for a year to avoid direct comparison. It's one of those weird things that happens occasionally in Hollywood.

However, you forgot to mention all the instances of CGI animated films that have not spawned a competing film with similar characters or setting:

Toy Story
The Incredibles
Ice Age
Cars
The Polar Express
Dinosaur
Chicken Little
Robots
Barnyard
Monster House
Valiant
Everyone's Hero
Doogal
Kaena: The Prophecy

I haven't seen the Wild, but I have seen the trailer. Doesn't it rip a bit on Finding Nemo? I see that one of the animals is trying to find his lost son as well as leaving the zoo in New York for the "wild."

Copying movies extends beyond animation and into live action as well. It's nothing new.

I'd also point out that Flushed Away is an Aardman film. Just looking at Creature Comforts & Chicken Run, it was all about talking animals.

Well, Aardman also does Wallace and Gromit, in which the anthropomorphic animals specifically do not talk. They've also done other animated projects without talking animals.

However, we could also look at Warner Brothers, which with Looney Tunes has a long history of wise-cracking animals. Also, from other studios, there's Woody Woodpecker, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Droopy, and then countless Saturday morning cartoon series like Care Bears and Eek! The Cat.

I liked this film "Flushed Away", it moves pretty fast, and the characters are either very likable or purposefully not likable, or provide the humor through their bungling. The only thing that was weird was how much the CGI mouth movements mimicked the claymation style from Aardman's previous efforts.

I give it 3 stars or a grade of B.

Disney did the 'cute, wisecrackin' talking animal' with the live action Incredible Journey remake and its sequel.

Neither of which were as good as the narrated original.

I think most are bombing for the same reasons as most films, animated or not.

Poor stories/storytelling (regardless of the basic story concept, i.e.) and/or filmmaking.

Computer-animated films are not a novelty anymore, and also there are many released each year now, many of them are not so good. Only the best companies will survive in the coming years.

Here is an interesting read: "Animation films are losing their novelty": http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/.../animation.php

For a list of released and upcoming computeranimated films: www.computeranimatedfilms.com (notice how many were released in 2006, and how many are upcoming).