Movies In General

[Death Blossom]

But that belongs in bad animated movies.

[Anyponedrawn]

Oh, that too.  But we can discuss stuff here too. 

[Death Blossom]

But then that feels redundant.  About Chicken Little.

[Anyponedrawn]

I know, but at least we have a topic to discuss films in general now.  I thought we used to have one, but that must have been on PSF 1.0.  I looked all over for one but couldn't find one. 

[Death Blossom]

Well hmm, in general. Uh. Kubo is a good movie. Laika makes great movies, except Box Trolls. I don't know what drugs they were on, but that movie is uh... Eeeee, aaaaah, it's no Bueno. Not by their standards. It's just... I can't get behind it. The characters just aren't that engaging

[Anyponedrawn]

I still haven't seen either, but their animation techniques are fascinating to me.  You really helped promote me to go seeing them.  It's amazing what they can do with hand made parts still.

[Death Blossom]

GO SEE THEM! Go support Laika and watch Kubo. They're getting completely screwed over by the theaters (at least the ones near me). They aren't giving it many showings and they're at odd hours of the day so it isn't getting many people in the theater. Go watch it, reeeeeeeeeee!!!

But yeah, if you have free time (go watch Kubo first) Box Trolls is alright-ish. I liked it on the first viewing, but even the first time I really disliked the designs. They were just gross and ugly, which isn't new for Laika, they intentionally made characters ugly in Coraline and ParaNorman. But this was a new level. Crooked teeth, disgusting scenes of characters eating cheese like chomp chomp, it for me was very squicky. And the female character was... Disturbing in the bad way. She seemed to have like a nightmare and gore fetish as she just seemed a bit too excited about the prospect of seeing Box Trolls eat a human and playing with their bones. A bit too enthusiastic... It was creepy...

[RainySunshine]

I feel that sadly, this type of animation, turns a lot of viewers off.  It isn't right, but I think thats true. 

[Anyponedrawn]

But yeah, if you have free time (go watch Kubo first) Box Trolls is alright-ish. I liked it on the first viewing, but even the first time I really disliked the designs. They were just gross and ugly, which isn't new for Laika, they intentionally made characters ugly in Coraline and ParaNorman. But this was a new level. Crooked teeth, disgusting scenes of characters eating cheese like chomp chomp, it for me was very squicky. And the female character was... Disturbing in the bad way. She seemed to have like a nightmare and gore fetish as she just seemed a bit too excited about the prospect of seeing Box Trolls eat a human and playing with their bones. A bit too enthusiastic... It was creepy...

Well, they are from Portland, and the saying there is "Keep Oregon Weird."  Hence why the show Gravity Falls took place in Oregon. 

[Anyponedrawn]

I feel that sadly, this type of animation, turns a lot of viewers off.  It isn't right, but I think thats true.

I think that too.   It is too bad.  But this animation is still sticking around thanks to them and Aardman.  No one wants to do traditional animation for some reason, even though people still love it. 

[Death Blossom]

I don't think it drives people away. Look at the grossing a of their movies. They're incredible. They get a lot of people watching their movies when they come out. They do a good job and it shows. If anything I feel people are drawn to their style because it's different, because it's not CGI. Sure some people are freaked out by claymation, but that was the old styled stuff where claymation was actually scary.

[Anyponedrawn]

Hate to break it to you... but making a $100-150 million is very low for a film.  Yes, it's a ton of money for their small studio which spends about $60 million, far less then most studios who spend double.  So they are making good money, but compared to most animated films, they are making far far less. 

[RainySunshine]

I had to go look.  They made a good amount of profit, but didn't actually make a lot of money compared to other animated films.  Even their biggest hit Coraline only made about $150 million in the box office. 

EDIT: APD beat me to it.

[Death Blossom]

True, but it's not like they're tanking. And their movies are praised by critics. I mean, for a small studio, that's good. Sure it's not a lot more like big name studios, but big name studios are just that. Big name studios. They already captured their audiences and people go because it's the big name studio they trust to put forth quality films. Laika needs to continue to build that reputation. I think in general yeah, they might not make as much as Disney or Dreamworks, but they aren't at least driving people away from their films. I don't see anybody saying they won't see their movies just because it's claymation.

[Rainberry]

And this is how a small studio keeps growing, by performing consistently good films that are different, and they seem to be doing that.

You can argue now that Dreamworks and Blue Sky are just cookie cutter producing the Toyota's of films.  All bland and the same.