Kyle's Various Stuff

Fine Tooning's Drew Taylor describes the LILO & SCRATCH 2D/CG hybrid visuals as:

"I was absolutely amazed by how 2D the whole thing looked because they tried to recreate a shot from the original movie with these new techniques, and it was almost one-for-one, and then they hit a button and the Lilo and Stitch characters kinda did a 3D rotation and they were 3D characters. But they looked perfect. And then there was another test shot they showed where Stitch was interacting with Scratch, and Stitch was a 3D character, and Scratch was a 2D character, and there was NO difference."

I *really* need to see what this looks like in motion.

Like, please, HEXED trailer 2, whenever it comes out... They need to have this in it.

I keep thinking about this project and what it could lead to, and from this description specifically, it sounds like Disney Animation finally perfected a three-dimensional "hand-drawn" animation?

I know I asked quite a few posts back, in regards to the background of the footage being a painted still image: "Why not do the whole thing as 2D, then?"

But part of me thinks they could actually up this tech into features...

Now, I've been burned before. All the talk of how 2D or at least that hand-drawn, hand-painted look was going to make a comeback some day... A whole decade of it... Meander lead to little outside of the shorts PAPERMAN and FEAST. Plus there was every time an exec or filmmaker said "Well, the director/crews CHOOSE to do their movies in CGI, but we do have the option to do 2D", that's how you knew it was just them trying to shut certain animation fans up. It was especially obvious post-2013, the year Disney laid off a chunk of their major 2D animators. MOANA had been conceived as a 2D feature and was even announced as such in 2012, back when it was just known as some untitled Ron Clements and John Musker picture set in the South Pacific. But around 2013, after those layoffs, it became a CG film. (Yes yes, Maui's tattoos, I know. But that, in a predominantly CGI film with the usual quasi-realistic rendering and detail.) Ron and John tellingly left WDAS after completing MOANA, which was the first film they had "co-directors" on since their debut... THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE, some 30 years earlier, when they were both quite young and might've needed the help of more experienced directors. (Those directors being Burny Mattinson and Dave Michener.) Well, at least Ron's back in some sort of senior consultant role.

Again, it was shorts where it mostly thrived. ONCE UPON A STUDIO, I think, being the prime example here. (Which I really liked.) WISH tried to do a 2D storybook-like look, and I like that it tried, but I feel that one looked much better in stills than in motion.

It's often debated why Disney Animation, and the other major studios, shuffled 2D animated features out the door. It was a lot of things, especially some Murphy's Law-caliber stuff. CG being a novelty in the early 2000s while much of the 2D films were stories people mostly avoided, that's always brought up and I do think it played a part. Disney began laying off animators as early as spring 2001, likely in response to how their post-LION KING films were doing. That was *before* the likes of ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE and TREASURE PLANET came out. They were getting ready to abandon ship even back then. It's all actually more nuanced than "the existence of [insert popular 2000s CG film here] did it!"

The BIG thing that I feel few talk about is this...

Editorial.

A computer animated picture is easier to micromanage, because the sets, the character models, the props, everything, that's all in the digital space. So, if the producers or directors or whoever want to re-do something within - say - 5 months to release date (oh, and boy DO THEY), the crew don't have to redraw a character ON MODEL multiple times, nor paint up a new background, draw new props, color them, etc. It's almost as if the rescue effort that was TOY STORY 2 kinda showed the studios 25+ years ago, yeah, you can just retool it any time! Not that one should, but you know how these things go. You've heard all the nightmare stories w/ films like WDAS' own FROZEN flicks, and Sony Animation's ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE.

That, and supervising character animators being the actors of their character as much as the living actor voicing the character is in a 2D film... Yeah, studio executives certainly liked having to deal with that, too.

I feel that's the biggest reason why we likely won't see the big studios do that kind of movie again. No film that looks like your typical late '90s/early aughts 2D film, whether it's THE PRINCE OF EGYPT or TARZAN or THE IRON GIANT or THE ROAD TO EL DORADO or TITAN A.E. or ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE, list goes on.

And honestly, looking back at the two attempts at reviving these kinds of features at the Mouse House... THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG and WINNIE THE POOH. Disney Animation used to have their own top-of-the-line resources that allowed them to make the 2D films look as beautiful and resplendent as they did. Post-1980s: C.A.P.S., which Pixar - pre-TOY STORY - helped them establish, what kinda toolbox THAT unlocked for the artists. CGI, too. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST's ballroom, ALADDIN's Cave of Wonders, LION KING's wildebeests, all the way up through Deep Canvas for TARZAN and TREASURE PLANET... Whereas, PRINCESS AND THE FROG and WINNIE THE POOH had none of that. WDAS under John Lasseter's leadership - and in the early years of it where Roy E. Disney was still alive and involved - did not bring back C.A.P.S., it did not bring back Deep Canvas, no special Disney process for making the films... They were animated on Toon Boom Harmony. Even back in 2007-2011, it felt like those films were playing second-fiddle to the studio's CG projects. BOLT, TANGLED, etc. all touted their technical achievements, whereas the 2D films just kinda existed.

They are still gorgeous, beautifully-crafted films, and the filmmakers on both did everything they could with what they were working with. And I've said this before, but they are also both deliberately "old school"-style movies. FROG aesthetically feels like it could've been made in the 1950s, and WINNIE THE POOH is literally designed to look and feel like the featurettes made in the '60s and '70s. Audiences didn't bite back then. And the shorts made during this period, unsurprisingly, are like that too. Most of them are Mickey & Friends endeavors, and THE BALLAD OF NESSIE - which was attached to WINNIE THE POOH - looks very immediate post-war Disney, like a package feature segment. All of it was very classic/retro, and maybe that wasn't gonna fly circa 2010. Especially when something like AVATAR is out, wowing people with its visuals and use of 3D... Flash-forward to 2019, former Disney animator Sergio Pablos pioneers a great immersive three-dimensional style of 2D with KLAUS, which went to Netflix... That's the film FROG should've been, honestly. A pity that Pablos' EMBER, utilizing similar techniques, hasn't gotten off the ground, though.

That was the end of that, and who knows if a TARZAN/TREASURE PLANET-sized 2D film with lots of CGI in it could've done any better in the late 2000s...

But could it be?

Did Disney Animation - in 2026 - finally crack it? That they found a CG technique that could beautifully replicate the look and feel of the hand-drawn films without having an animator - using their own hands - keep a character on model through MULTIPLE DRAWINGS? In a way WISH never could? In ways even PAPERMAN and FEAST never could? (I still love the look of those films, PAPERMAN especially. Back in 2012, I soooo hoped the tech and style would be used for a feature.)

And what better way to walk audiences into this new way of Disney Animation with... Good ol' Lilo and Stitch? The lead characters of the most, if not *only* successful 2D Disney feature of this millennium. FROG made 2.5x its budget, but Disney didn't seem happy with how it did theatrically. BROTHER BEAR turned a nice profit, but it wasn't enough to them. Everything else lost money, and HOW.

Plenty of animation fans note that Sony Animation, DreamWorks, et al. have all found ways to stylize CG, to make it look more painterly or 2D-like for features... And that Disney Animation is way behind the 8-ball here. That they have stuck to the TANGLED/FROZEN style that's only vaguely painterly now. TANGLED certainly looked softer than many a Pixar or PDI/DreamWorks film back in 2010, but the advancements made in stylized CGI since the mid-2010s (think BOOK OF LIFE and PEANUTS MOVIE) have seemingly rendered those feats a little obsolete. Combine that with where management wanted to go with things, and whatever influence the larger company had on the product, and... Well...

Should LILO & SCRATCH be the first of a bold new CG/2D hybrid style that truly makes WDAS' CG resemble a traditional animation film, something that truly looks more LION KING than FROZEN... That would be a hell of return... Waiting all those years to really show the other biggies what's what. Perceived to be playing it safe all these years, then they really burst through the gates with a style that more than holds its own against all the SPIDER-VERSEs and LAST WISHes. What a way to reassert their position as a legendary animation studio, huh? Much in the same way they did in the late '80s and early '90s, after a period of filmmakers like Don Bluth kinda filling the void the Walt-less studio had left.

BUT... This is all just speculation on my end. It could just be, as I've said earlier, a one-time thing. Just to celebrate LILO & STITCH in a year that lines up with Stitch's experiment number. Part of me also thinks, what with relatively new leadership (Jared Bush took over in November 2024, from Jennifer Lee), some 2D animators old and new working there, some things that Bush has said in interviews... Maybe? A slight sliver of hope? Or am I just going to be burned again?

Huh, looks pretty cool.

Fascinatingly, it looks like a straight-up animated romcom. With human leads. Something some people would argue "oh that could easily be done in live-action", if you took out the little gumdrop-looking aliens. I admit, it'd be kind of interesting to see one of the big American animation houses do just that. No creatures or talking animals or superheroics or whatever, it's a very human story but told with the animated medium. It can be done. In fact, it has been done before, too. Plenty of international animated features have told human stories without involving some kind of fantasy element. I often put it this way, in order to make that work and to differentiate it from live-action, "you have to tell the story animated-ly". Not just be done in animation. PERSEPOLIS, BUBBLE BATH, MARY & MAX, a few of those off the top of my head.

I'm not ragging on the aliens being part of the film, the aliens do look like fun and it wouldn't be the sci-fi "hide the alien refugees" comedy it's promising to be without them, but if I had never heard of this movie and saw this trailer... I'd be thinking "so this is an animated romcom w/ no fantasy elements?" But then the aliens come in, so. Clever trailer in how it sets up the premise like that.

Undeniably Illumination-looking, but there are some fun angles and color choices here. Also, Bowie. Getting flashbacks to LIGHTYEAR's first teaser using 'Starman', haha. It's got a subtle '60s flavor to it, space age and all. SECRET LIFE OF PETS kinda had that midcentury vibe too in some ways, and of course you had the first MINIONS movie, set in 1968. RISE OF GRU jumped ahead to around 1975... And the third movie jumps back to the roaring '20s! Those artists over at that French unit like it old-school, don't they?

Looks like NBCUniversal, which of course includes Universal Pictures... Illumination and DreamWorks... Is being spun-off from Comcast.

Concerning, this could open up the doors in a not-great way... They could be bought by some other megaconglomerate... Like, can we not?

HEXED directors Fawn Veerasunthorn and Jason Hand discussed their film to Cartoon Brew, shedding some more light on what could be in store for their Disney Animation fantasy adventure.

A film that I don't think looks spectacular by any means, but am looking forward to it just the same because a new original WDAS is still cool to me, while a lot of the internet have made up their minds about it. (Read: They've determined it's the worst thing since, idk, FOODFIGHT?)

It's a really solid interview, just two filmmakers talking about inspiration, intent, etc. No buzzwords, no nonsense, no silly PR-friendly shit. And certainly no "here's how our heroine is STRONG and NOT DEPENDENT ON MEN, because we seem to remember all of our past heroines being dumbass damsels out of a Dudley-Do-Right cartoon!" None of that. It's just a nice convo, with some unlikely turns: Hand discussing how watching CHAINSAW MAN with his son gave him ideas for HEXED's animated acting, Fawn naming Garfield as an influence on main character Billie, all the fun stuff. Personal stories, that sorta thing. Further proof that these two people are good at what they do, and if the movie ends up being a stinker, it's because of other factors from up above. Not "they are inherently bad filmmakers because of WISH and MOANA 2", like some people (who don't know how things work) like to insinuate.

Oh yeah, and both filmmakers are actually quite aware of some of the absolutely ludicrous poppycock that's being spouted on Al Gore's Internet... They briefly spoke about the whole "this movie is vertical/smartphone/TikTok ratio" hooey or whatever... All based on a few scenes from a trailer likely made up of whatever they had on hand, because the movie is literally in production RIGHT NOW, a lot of what was shown at Annecy a few days ago wasn't even finished. Some grade A Alex Jonesian shit right there.

"Bizarre and not true," Hand said. Straight-up knocking that right down. Love to see it. The two continued to talk about intent behind how shots are framed, staged, etc.

I guess if any of the OWL HOUSE conspiracy theories can't be proven, they'll find something else to use as ABSOLUTE PROOF that HEXED is an oncoming failure that'll singlehandedly ruin animation, or something. For days, it's been relentlessly suggested that the film is framed a certain way, or even worse, that AI is being used based on a split-second animation error or something. In a teaser trailer, at that. Remember how someone manipulated an image from WISH and said "Ahhh! Ahhh! Disney used AI!"? We're in that territory right now.

I don't have a crystal ball, but...

I can picture it. It's the end of the year, the movie has been out for a few weeks... The general reaction is "it's fine", "it's pretty good". Any and all concerns about TikTok framing or AI or whatever is nonexistent at this point. Only a few magpies still squabble about its similarities to THE OWL HOUSE.

So many big-time animated movies like these, beloved or otherwise, went through similar bullshit online discourse before release. All the favorites, too, like COCO, INSIDE OUT, FROZEN, ZOOTOPIA, etc. Plenty of super-duper-online, completely detached nonsense. People straight up waging personal wars against these things. I've lived through all the idiotic phrases, too: "Cal-Arts", "bean mouth", "GrubHub". HEXED at worst will probably just be so-so like WISH and MOANA 2 were to me, but much of the Internet only looks at things in "PEAK" or "THE WORST THING EVER!" binaries.

So TOY STORY 5 dropped an estimated 56% this weekend, with a haul of around $70m, the steepest second weekend drop for a TOY STORY film...

However, it's also the biggest opening in the series (and 2nd biggest, domestically, for Pixar - behind INCREDIBLES 2), and probably a little more frontloaded than not, then it should stabilize once MINIONS & MONSTERS comes rolling in. The A CinemaScore and positive word-of-mouth should still make it Pixar's second $500m+ domestic hit. It's at #1 again, MINIONS & MONSTERS should keep animation at #1 'til MOANA remake comes out. A 4-week streak.

Remember, INCREDIBLES 2 dipped around this amount on second weekend... But its domestic multiplier ended up being 3.34x. Plug that into TOY STORY 5's $159m opening, and you still get around $531m. I think it'll make it. It's already at $585m worldwide, cruising right to a billion in a matter of weeks.

Tough break for DC Universe Movie #2, SUPERGIRL. I highly doubt it's as bad as some are saying, it just seems like it's a leftover superhero movie from this past decade that doesn't quite adapt its great source material well, and that audiences wanted something more than just yet another superhero movie with a blah color palette. (Seriously, look at the specific comic it adapted, and look at the visuals of the movie... What the HELL happened?) It's literally just the early MCU all over again: IRON MAN was a hit and then that was followed up with THE INCREDIBLE HULK, which kinda just fizzled out of sight and did not recoup its budget.

Luckily, you have low budget horror CLAYFACE next, and then MAN OF TOMORROW. Just a dent in the armor if it doesn't break even. It's not because it's about a woman, nor is it specifically Milly Alcock's fault. The gadflies' opinions do not matter, neantherdals gonna neanderthal.

I keep beating this drum, but in the 2020s, if you're launching a new superhero movie, I think you gotta do something new. Last year's SUPERMAN kind of did by being more pointed and relevant in its political leanings, and embracing a sort-of goofy sincerity missing from many previous post-Reeves Superman endeavors. The movie also being quite solid also helps, whereas SUPERGIRL apparently couldn't find its footing. Recent MCUs are hit-or-miss at the box office and critically, too. Something like SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY is pretty much all set to be big, but other movies have to work harder, even a solid movie like THUNDERBOLTS* needed to show what it was made of before opening weekend. Its good word-of-mouth and legs couldn't save it in the end. A shame, it's low-key among the best MCUs of the decade. You would've never gotten that from the dull trailers, though. DC had it rough in the final years of the previous universe, and even for one-off things... And apparently SUPERGIRL just needed to go an extra mile and present audiences with a "now" vision of a superhero movie. Not a 2010s one. That was it, really, not any "hurrr durr the evil blonde lady who speaks her mind ruined it!" nonsense.

Especially when the #1 movie and current blockbuster was co-directed/co-written by a non-binary person, so who is really winning here? Haha. Happy Pride once more.

The sort-of intersection of Bay Area late '80s/early-to-mid '90s weirdness and mainstream animation...

In the world of computer graphics and stop-motion!

I've been on a little TOY STORY kick since the fifth film came out, and I have been enjoying those excerpts of that 35mm film print of the first TOY STORY that are online. I've often written about how TOY STORY 1 & 2, from 1995 and 1999 respectively, differ from their successors in that they feel more in line with this sort-of thing than the more "mature" middle-aged reflective vibe of 3, 4 & 5... Though 5 interestingly does attempt to re-kindle some of the more fun tone and overall vibe of the first two - particularly 2, but without that distinct edge. Helps that the movie's co-director, Kenna Harris, is a millennial who grew up on the first two films. They, in their 30s, bring back some of that energy in a way. At the very least, it balances out the sauteed-in-cry-juice sentimentality that ruled 3 & 4 with a lot of wacky stuff. (Particularly that third act chase.)

But, there's something unique about TOY STORY, and some of the other productions that were happening around this time. Pixar used to be based in Marin County, which is right across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. In 1989, they'd relocate to Point Richmond, which... Take the Richmond Bridge from Marin County, and you're there. Or if you're coming from Frisco, take the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, cross Treasure Island, pass... Funnily enough, Emeryville, and you'll get there.

Skellington Productions' work was done out of a warehouse in San Francisco. So, geographically, there are plenty of connections here, and some shared artistic sensibilities I think.

Pixar had John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, et al., while Skellington's key people were obviously Henry Selick and Tim Burton, but you also had someone like Jorgen Klubien working at both and Disney Feature Animation as well. All Cal-Arts/former Disney animators, people who felt stifled by the Disney management circa 1980, and left to go pursue cool things that spoke to their talents, their hunger to do new things... More so than, say, THE FOX AND THE HOUND and MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL did.

I had written about it before, but there's a certain sort-of artsiness to the early Pixar shorts. Particularly after being spun off as Pixar after Steve Jobs entered the picture, the four shorts they did from 1986-1989: LUXO JR., RED'S DREAM, TIN TOY, and KNICK KNACK. They experimented with what could be done with 3D animation, but they are also some of Pixar's more outre efforts - albeit still working off of familiar themes that someone watching could get: Desk lamps interact like a parent and child, a unicycle dreams to be used, a toy soldier sees a baby as a kaiju, a desk ornament trying to escape his confines. But it's the way these were told, and how the young John Lasseter opted for weirder choices than usual. GERI'S GAME, directed by the Czechoslovakian Jan Pinkava and released in 1997, fits in beautifully with these as well.

LUXO, JR. has this delicious jazz soundtrack, all of which was taken from a Bruton library album called COUNTERPOINT IN RHYTHM, all of its selections composed by Brian Bennett and Carlton Hall. LUXO JR. used 'Chateau Latour', 'Finesse', and 'Quicksilver':

Combine that with the only thing we see being a wooden floor in this black void, there's a particular kind of surrealism there, which matches up with a lot of other early CGI and how downright bizarre a lot of it is. Similarly, KNICK KNACK brought in Bobby McFerrin for its accappella soundtrack... Because why not? Get the singer of 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' for this short that, at the time, will only be shown to people in the field. Namely SIGGRAPH. These shorts saw a commercial release in 1996 on a VHS and LaserDisc called TINY TOY STORIES, which Walt Disney Home Video released after TOY STORY was such a big hit. A fun video volume where the stars of the movie introduce the kids at home to what Pixar was making in the before-times. That's how I myself saw those shorts as a kid.

Pixar, interestingly, would fish some of those old shorts back up afterwards. LUXO, JR. ran before TOY STORY 2 in theaters in 1999, while a slightly revised (heh) KNICK KNACK played before FINDING NEMO in 2003. Their home video releases had them included as well. They're also used in TOY STORY 2 - alongside commercials Pixar made from 1989-93ish, when Hamm is flipping through the channels to find an Al's Toy Barn commercial.

The shorts being silent, very much in old cartoon tradition, also helps... And the commercials? That's a whole other story right there. Animated TV commercials IN GENERAL are high-key some of the most important things to happen in animation history.

TOY STORY having Randy Newman be its musical force was also a very offbeat choice for the time. Disney's then-new animated musicals were all Broadway-style, and if they did incorporate some pop elements, they'd get someone like Elton John. Newman is more in the league of, say, Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks (who did the music for THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER), more eccentric and poetic in both their music and lyrics, plus his vocals aren't for everyone. Newman has written some songs that were hits for other acts, such as Three Dog Night ('Mama Told Me Not to Come'), but rarely did any of his albums or singles do all that well. 'Short People' from 1977 was an exception... So, picture: It's the early 1990s, and this Bay Area studio is making an all-computer animated feature for Disney... Who do you get? Randy Newman, that's who! To this day it's still such an eccentric choice for an animated family movie, even though his work on the film - and his stuff in general - has been kinda mocked to the moon and back. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot-

NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS turned to Oingo Boingo's Danny Elfman for the music and for Jack Skellington's singing voice, very much of the underground weirdo '80s/early '90s pool. A perfect match... However, JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, in production alongside TOY STORY, had Newman doing double-duty. Still, having him involved fits the weirdness of the film.

Newman, of course, would go on to score multiple Pixars up to this decade: A BUG'S LIFE, TOY STORY 2, MONSTERS INC., CARS, TOY STORY 3, MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, CARS 3, TOY STORY 4, and now TOY STORY 5. In addition to those, he did all the music for Disney Animation's THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG. He's in his 80s now, still doing this kind of great work... But let's rewind, there was a time when Newman was an odd choice for this kind of film, and here we had two films of two unique mediums opening months apart from one another with Newman as composer. TOY STORY opened Thanksgiving 1995, JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH was an April 1996 release. They were on video in time for Halloween of 1996. Stop-motion films certainly existed prior to Skellington's efforts, but this was a level unseen and unheard of in mainstream feature animation, ditto what TOY STORY was achieving.

And Disney embraced it, during what would be a heated period, where film chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg clashed with CEO Michael Eisner, which eventually lead to the former's exit in fall 1994. All the while Disney Animation was enjoying a new rebirth, their "Renaissance". These movies were in production while BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and ALADDIN were breaking records and delighting critics/audiences alike. THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS opened in October 1993, filling in for THE LION KING, which had to miss its planned Thanksgiving 1993 frame due to story problems. Much like 1988's WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, it was like an alternative Disney (literally, both were released as Touchstone films), the sort-of cool edgier brother to your mermaid, beast, and street rat. They all formed up a diverse offering, alongside A GOOFY MOVIE. 1992-1995ish must've been so fun to live through as an animation fan. I was only a baby, lol.

("Not you" to Miramax's animated releases, though. TOM & JERRY: THE MOVIE? The bastardized THIEF AND THE COBBLER edit? Nah.)

TOY STORY would be released under the Walt Disney Pictures name, but it too is a bit on the weirder side, much like NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Again, Newman doing the music, the more buddy movie-informed storyline and tone, some of the humor. The CG of the era gives it a kind of surrealism, which isn't much of a thing as the technology is refined for sequels and Pixar's next features. TOY STORY 2 by contrast is a lot of warm summer hues and clean environments, more outdoor settings (thanks to A BUG'S LIFE!), a little more spacious. In TOY STORY, some of those scenes in, say, the Dinoco gas station, Pizza Planet, and Sid's house especially? They evoke a different, unique feeling that you don't see in many subsequent Pixar films, period. I grew up in the '90s, so in my head, I link that sort-of stuff up with other surrealistic pop culture of the era: Commercials, idents, bumpers, picture books, early 3D video games...

Not to mention, a lot of the concept art...

Like, that's got early '90s scrunkly gnarly kids' book written all over it. That's more Jon Scieszka to me than, say, traditional Disney. And funnily enough, children's book author William Joyce - who was very very active in this era - did some concept art for the film when he was at Pixar for a bit. The studio even considered adapting his book DINOSAUR BOB into a feature, how 'bout that?

Much is written about that "Black Friday" version of the production that nearly derailed everything, and how remnants of it remain in the finished film, but I feel like the edge would've always been there. What tanked "Black Friday TOY STORY" was not so much "make it edgy", which is a brief summation of what happened, a seconds-long passage from a documentary. But if you ask me it's not really the full scope of what Katzenberg asked Pixar's filmmakers to do w/ the movie, it was "make everybody in it UNLIKABLE AF" that was the problem. These were young guys at the top of this film, so there was going to be some kind of edge and bite to it - with or without Katzenberg's influence, I feel. This wasn't being made w/ the same rules as a contemporary Disney Feature Animation endeavor.

The TOY STORY crew that went on to direct movies of their own, like Andrew Stanton, like Pete Docter, show a different side the older they get. I think there's a subtle change after MONSTERS, INC. - in production while Pixar moved from Point Richmond to Emeryville, 2000-01. MONSTERS, INC. still has the Randy Newman soundtrack, it still has some of the eerier parts and early CG funkiness of TOY STORY, the majority of it is set in a factory at that. Metal and clinking-clanking machinery and lots of pipes and such. Sometimes the characters are completely alone, and there's some kind of threat lurking... Some of it in rather, dare I say "liminal" hallways and spaces?

MONSTERS, INC. was followed by FINDING NEMO, a straight-up colorful underwater spectacle populated with extras galore. Very BUG'S LIFE that way, big wide open environments, though you still had some confined spaces here and there. The deep, the trenches, the fact that we barely see anything outside of P. Sherman's office other than the road... THE INCREDIBLES is set in a city and an island jungle. CARS opens and closes with pulse-pounding races in jam-packed stadiums, the rest is in the desert. You get the idea, the tech becomes more advanced, but those directors from "Team TOY STORY" kinda leave the old '80s/'90s Bay Area sensibilities and move onto other things as they age, have families, etc. A sort-of "house style" took hold by the end of the 2000s and into the early 2010s, especially as Lasseter became leader and didn't quite let others outside of his circle direct films as they saw fit. Brenda Chapman and BRAVE, for starters...

Henry Selick and Tim Burton didn't leave the weirdness of their younger days, though. Burton's CORPSE BRIDE and FRANKENWEENIE, Selick's CORALINE and WENDELL & WILD (did anyone besides me actually watch that film?), they still have that distinct weirdo spirit in them, but they never felt like tired retreads of decades long-gone. Those were stories they told, true to themselves.

This is all part of how I view Pixar, and any animation studio really. Not so much as a brand, or even a collective, but as a studio where filmmakers make movies. Looking at a studio as a singular author, a "Mr. Pixar" if you wall, making all the movies, I think contributes to the sort-of genre-ification of animation... And that whatever Pixar morphed into or whatever, is more informed by what's going on more so than "their filmmakers one day decided to stop making PEAK movies".

I'll expand a bit on LILO & SCRATCH...

Kind of a big deal in that, some 24 years after its original release, Walt Disney Animation Studios is doing something *new* with the film that came from them in the first place. Not the TV Animation division, not the Parks side of things... No, WDAS themselves...

Everything Stitch afterwards has largely been a production made elsewhere. In the 2000s, Disney wasn't doing theatrical sequels to their films, that was the era of the direct-to-video sequel. Disney probably could've scored a *blockbuster* gross off of a WDAS-made LILO & STITCH 2 sometime in like 2005/06, but they passed that up. I had actually learned recently that at one point, they were thinking of sending LILO & STITCH 2: STITCH HAS A GLITCH (of course, a Disneytoon Studios production) to theaters... But the performances of other Disneytoon/meant-for-video films that somehow went to theaters... such as THE JUNGLE BOOK 2... Dissuaded them from doing so. The film made its debut on DVD in August 2005, complete with a sticker plastered on the front cover touting that original film director Chris Sanders was A-OK with it!

Also, them going back to an older 2D animated movie of theirs. It's worth noting that Disney Animation, under Jennifer Lee's leadership, almost did something with THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG in the form of the TIANA series that looked to utilize painterly-CG combining the look of the film with three-dimensional renderings... But in March 2025, it was announced that the plug had been pulled on that, and that a short film is in the works instead. A short presumably working off of what was made for the cancelled Disney+ series. All the assets and such. Well, that project was announced before this one was... And this is near-done, has a rating, and a release date... Is that PRINCESS AND THE FROG short still happening? You'd think they'd say something about it at Annecy, so I presume it's... Not happening?

But again, WDAS is doing something new with an older 2D property of theirs. And keeping it within that realm, well, for the most part. I'm aware that this short has Lilo and Stitch themselves as CG characters, the backgrounds are hand-painted, and the Scratch character is straight-up 2D, animated on paper and everything. This kind of things, kind of unheard of since 2011's WINNIE THE POOH, which is still currently the final 2D animated feature film made at the studio.

It's also big in that... Well, during John Lasseter's tenure (2006-2018), there seemed to be no real interest in doing new stuff for the 2D films. Not even the Renaissance favorites, save for some theme park stuff. RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET does have a ton of Disney cameos in it, the majority of them reimagined in the Disney Animation CG house style... I think only Humphrey the Bear is 2D, and he's in the background of a shot. But that's about it, really.

Lasseter, as I've heard from various trenches, actually really did not like LILO & STITCH. Infamously, he had taken Chris Sanders off of his AMERICAN DOG, and had it recooked into BOLT - which was definitely not very Chris Sanders in design nor tone. In the early 2000s, former Pixar owner Steve Jobs had also taken jabs at Disney's output at the time. Back when Pixar was willing to break away from The Walt Disney Company after their contract was up. There was definitely some fightin' words being exchanged back then, for sure: Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner had told the press some time in late 2002/early 2003 that he was sure that FINDING NEMO would be Pixar's first flop, an oncoming dud that would be a "reality check" for the studio. Jobs fired back, something to the tune of "Haha, he's one to talk, look at the crappy movies Disney has made lately!" He was absolutely referring to money-losing films like ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE and TREASURE PLANET, and could've also meant the others from the era, like LILO & STITCH - which was a moderate hit in theaters, and later took off on home video. After Disney bought Pixar, Jobs had floated the idea of shutting down Disney Animation altogether and just having Pixar be the ones to make the company's animated output. Lasseter vetoed this, thankfully.

There were some attempts to do cool things with classic characters here and there. It feels like that was more of a thing early on in Lasseter's run, though. 2007 saw the release of the Goofy short HOW TO HOOK UP YOUR HOME THEATER, then came 2D animated THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG from directors Ron Clements/John Musker in 2009. 3D conversions were made for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and THE LION KING, the latter of which did very well theatrically in fall 2011. BEAST, however, didn't do as well, and they ended up cancelling a planned theatrical re-release of THE LITTLE MERMAID in 3D. WINNIE THE POOH arrived in 2011 and went... So by the mid-2010s, they're kind of getting away from that. Outside of the Mickey short GET A HORSE! in 2013, that is. Since Lasseter shut down production of all 2D direct-to-video sequels, you would think... Getting it back under the original roof... I do seem to remember a bit of an attitude back then, "Well, these guys needed us to get back to making good movies." Combine that w/ Lasseter's dislike of LILO & STITCH, and other things he had said about some past Disney animated films, and yeah... It's not like they were gonna make shorts or anything new with those characters. I think THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE could've feasibly gotten something, too, but nah. By the time FROZEN came out, it was a whole new road ahead. MOANA, originally envisioned as a 2D film, was changed into a CG film some time in 2013.

Under Jennifer Lee, again, there was that TIANA series that got scrapped, and also, ONCE UPON A STUDIO happened. All the 2D characters, and there were PLENTY... Were actually done in 2D. I *love* that short, one of the better things to come out under her watch. Or out of WDAS in general over the past ten or so years. The film was clearly made out of love for the studio's many films and legacy, and featured characters from films that flopped. Like they're all still family at the end of the day.

Speaking of tributes, even if I don't really care for WISH and found its half-hearted attempts to be this grand origin story for all Disney animated classics to be part of its undoing, it is kind of nice that the film looked to be a tribute in the first place. I don't think Lasseter would've okayed a movie like that. I admittedly do like that the credits showed characters from several films in the library. Including some of the "lesser" movies. Hell, ZOOTOPIA 2 made overt references to films like LADY AND THE TRAMP and ROBIN HOOD.

(Edit: There were other tiny bits of 2D and classic stuff, too, like those Eric Goldberg shorts depicting Goofy "teaching" COVID safety... DIY DUCK, from a few years ago, and also that Givenchy ad w/ the 101 DALMATIANS characters.)

Now, under Jared Bush's leadership, Disney Animation is dipping back into a property from the pre-CGI times, the later Eisner years at that. Like I said, I think that's big. I don't think a Stitch project would've happened under Lasseter, let alone one utilizing 2D and an art style that translates the original designs to CGI while not resembling a typical CG film from the studio.

Now I know this is being done because this year in 2026, and 6/26, but also...

Last year there was a theatrical live-action remake of the original movie, w/ plenty of animation in it. It made a billion. This was the first theatrical LILO & STITCH anything since the original movie back in 2002, as all of its sequels went straight-to-video. This year, we have this short, in addition to the new DTVA short made for Disney+/YouTube, and in 2028 we're getting a Chris Sanders-directed sequel to the live-action remake. Like, Stitch is really back, isn't he? All the kids who loved the movie in the 2000s, they're in their 20s-to-30s now, and nostalgia is definitely a powerful tool for these big-ass movie companies. And while I have no interest in either the remake nor its sequel, if its existence helped will this short into existence, then that's pretty cool honestly. I wouldn't mind a new Stitchmania that leads to more projects like this. To think Sanders passed up directing THE WILD ROBOT ESCAPES for DreamWorks to come back to Disney and get involved with Stitch on this level again, and with this short out... It makes me wonder a little bit... What else does he plan on doing in the world of LILO & STITCH after he finishes up the live-action sequel?

But I also wonder what it means for other pre-CG films made at Walt Disney Animation Studios. If this goes over very well, I can see them trying again with something else. A perfected painterly CG look from Disney that holds its own just fine next to all the SPIDER-VERSEs and LAST WISHes and such could be a fun playground for re-introducing old friends. Like could you imagine them doing a LION KING short? Or something with THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE even? Various classics? I'm sure they could do something with some of those classic Princesses™ and other classic characters... In ways the DTV films and TV shows couldn't? Sky's the limit, really. I suspect the features side of things is also overprotective in ways the other divisions aren't, but they can loosen up a bit if you ask me. Maybe Jared Bush is open to more stuff like this.

As for it being attached to HEXED, and the marketing already promoting that... I wonder what that could mean. I alluded it one post ago, but...

The last time Disney used a short to promote something, it kind of backfired in a weird way that was exclusive only to that project.

You see, when Pixar's COCO came out, someone at Disney decided to take WDAS' then-new FROZEN holiday special meant for TV - OLAF'S FROZEN ADVENTURE - and attach it to the film. COCO runs about 100min, and this was a half-hour special. There *was* promo for it, including a trailer that told audiences it would come w/ COCO, and the theater I used to work at had a lobby display for it as well... But, a lot of people went into COCO on opening weekend not expecting a half-hour FROZEN thing before the movie.

Funny story, that weekend, I made sure - when working the box office and as ticket-taker - to inform audiences going to see COCO that there would be a half-hour FROZEN special before the film. One shift, I went on break. The person covering for me did not know about the FROZEN special. I returned to the podium, and one person came up to me and asked me if he had accidentally walked into a FROZEN movie. I told him it was a half-hour special, and all was well for the rest of the evening. When I myself saw COCO opening day, I remember some murmurs and mumblings halfway through the FROZEN special from the audience. Kind of like "wait, are we in the right movie?"

Within weeks, Disney pulled it from the screenings... That was a disastrous decision to say the least. Perhaps if Disney had made it clearer to the public that the FROZEN special would be before the movie, or put a title card before it that said something like "Before our Feature Presentation, here's a new FROZEN special", maybe there wouldn't have been as much backlash? It would've at least alerted audiences, "Here's where you can go out into the lobby and make a phone call" or something.

Whereas LILO & SCRATCH should probably run less than 10min, a digestible length. But I do think it can be used to help HEXED, an original movie being released in an era where they have more work to do to get audiences interested, do solidly on opening weekend.

Very similar to how ROGER RABBIT shorts were part of the marketing for the live-action Disney/Touchstone movies they were attached to:

Or how the promo for THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER emphasized you'd be getting THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER with it:

Off the top of my head...

You may be saying, "But RESCUERS DOWN UNDER didn't do great". It didn't, but I suppose Stitch is different from Mickey and friends, and this resembling the original film *could* help HEXED. Especially if HEXED's next trailer, or a new poster, has Stitch chomping away at it. Trolling the movie in a way, in Stitch tradition. Self-deprecating humor done right, lol.

Shorts special! At Annecy!

The FINDING NEMO short being directed by Lou Hamou-Lhadj (BORROWED TIME) is called LOVING DORY. Less find, more being kind. A sort-of mock romcom where Dory mistakes a plastic bag floating around for a jellyfish, some subtle environmentalism on the side. A "real-time puppetry" system of animation was devised for this short, so it's making a small breakthrough for Pixar.

Still no firm confirmation on whether it screens before GATTO or not. I mean, it should. Water aside, attached shorts used to be a Pixar tradition, one that they've been on and off with post-COVID. SOUL would've had BURROW attached, but COVID happened. Limited theatrical "re-releases" of SOUL, LUCA, and TURNING RED in 2024 had shorts attached, and ELEMENTAL had the final episode of DUG DAYS attached. LIGHTYEAR, INSIDE OUT 2, ELIO, HOPPERS, and TOY STORY 5 all ran without short films attached.

Plus it'd be a solid marketing tool, "See a new Dory cartoon w/ Pixar's new film!"

And CONFIRMED... Walt Disney Animation Studios is doing that newly-classified LILO & STITCH short, titled LILO & SCRATCH. Damn, it's a very watery-themed Disney presentation at Annecy, innit? GATTO set in Venice, a NEMO short, now this. The girl who played Lilo in the live-action remake, Maia Kealoha, voices Lilo, and of course Chris Sanders voices Stitch. The short is being directed by HEXED/WISH director Fawn Veerasunthorn and VERSA director Malcon Pierce. The latter's film was a short that Disney were seemingly too afraid to put in front of ZOOTOPIA 2 last year.

Described as both as "2D/CG" hybrid and a film that looks to be PAPERMAN-esque (painterly CGI), Stitch supervising animator Alex Kuperschmidt is back as well, handling hand-drawn scenes. Footage looks to have had 2D backgrounds, but CG Lilo and Stitch that highly resembled the originals... Which just begs the question, why not do it ALL in 2D? If they have the unit they SAY they have there... Why couldn't they? Ah I don't know, I'm sure it'll look nice.

Scratch also won't be the alien experiment from the Chinese cartoon STITCH & AI, instead it'll be a little cat...

Said cat will also be fully hand-drawn, and that the cat's interactions with the duo will play with both mediums. Apparently in the footage, the cat takes an object from one of them, and it becomes hand-drawn. Iiiinteresting...

The studio's first theatrical short since 2021's FAR FROM THE TREE, it *will* play with HEXED this November. Again, a good way to get people to the theaters to see the new original Disney animated film, as seen in the promo image above: "See Stitch with HEXED!" Maybe do a trailer where he highjacks the movie, much like the marketing for the original 2002 film (which the remake also tried to emulate, but nowhere near as successfully). Very similar to how THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER had the half-hour Mickey Mouse featurette THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER attached, and how much of the promo for that film emphasized that it would be attached.

Happy 6/26 2026 indeed...

Footage from HEXED's first act was also shown today, and that a lot of it is still unfinished. We already know this one's a crunch production, likely due to all the last-minute changes, but this also tells me that all the excessive negativity (as opposed to constructive criticism) around the trailer is even more unfounded. It's probably formed up of what they had on hand, while the movie is literally *deep* in production. A second trailer come the fall should give us a more solid idea of what this film will look and feel like.

Veerasunthorn tellingly said during the presentation that Milt Kahl's work served as inspiration for the character design and animated acting, so, that sounds fairly promising. Kahl was one of the best, and Veerasunthorn is probably "can spot a Milt Kahl head swaggle" nerdy herself.

Hot off the success of his WEAPONS and in time for his upcoming RESIDENT EVIL, BARBARIAN - a 2022 movie - is finally on disc... And frustratingly, it's a collectors' steelbook-only release that'll likely be made in limited quantities.

Some other 2020s 20th Century movies await a physical release, like THE EMPTY MAN and SEE HOW THEY RUN. I get that physical media's standing is not the best, but it was IMO still unusual in that new films from the distributor weren't going to come out on disc.

There we go.

Swap untitled Illumination for a DreamWorks spin-off: DONKEY is scheduled for June 30, 2028. Directed by Charlie Bean, best known for directing THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE for Warner Animation Group and his long list of TV show work stretching all the way back to TINY TOON ADVENTURES, it's sure to be a fun little treat. I was one of the few who actually enjoyed that LEGO NINJAGO movie for what it was, so with a character as silly and wisecracking as Donkey, I can imagine it being similar to PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH in that it shows us his perspective, unique to the SHREK look. Stylistically, what does his wacky world look like?

Co-directing with him is Matt Flynn, whose most recent work is story/storyboard artist on DreamWorks films, such as THE WILD ROBOT and THE BAD GUYS. He also worked on some LEGO stuff for WAG, and a few Illumination films. He also happened to direct the LAST WISH home video short, THE TRIDENT, so... Good hands, I think.

DreamWorks' runway now, not counting the two pictures their name is attached to:

09/25/2026: FORGOTTEN ISLAND

06/30/2027: SHREK 5

09/24/2027: UNTITLED (likely a non-sequel film)

06/30/2028: DONKEY

09/22/2028: UNTITLED (possibly THE WILD ROBOT ESCAPES)

Genndy Tartakovsky adapting CONAN THE BARBARIAN for Cartoon Network Studios... That... Just makes *all* the sense, really. I guess this will fill in for the promised but never made [adult swim] series KORGOTH OF BARBARIA (the pilot will always kick all kinds of ass), which Tartakovsky was a big part of, as does PRIMAL. Sure to be a winner!

I mean, it's a real match - his amazing style and that. Right off the bat, it's sure to be good.

LILO & STITCH has *two* new shorts, what with 6/26 2026 right around the corner. The first of which is already on Disney+ and YouTube, titled STITCH & ANGEL'S PERFECT SUMMER DAY. A cute little piece with a fun painted style... As for the other one... An MPA rating was assigned to a LILO & SCRATCH this week...

Now, "Scratch" is a character from the Chinese LILO & STITCH spin-off series STITCH & AI.

Stitch got a few local made-specifically-for-that-market cartoons like that, such as the anime series STITCH!

The rating also says it's animated, so I wonder... Is this a Disney TV Animation project that's going to theaters? Or did Walt Disney Animation Studios straight-up make a 2D LILO & STITCH short some 24 years after the release of the original movie? Or at the very least, a CG short that looks more 2D than regular realistic 3D?

So many questions, and the possibility of it being attached to something later this year. MOANA '26, maybe? HEXED? We still don't have word on what Pixar's new FINDING NEMO short is supposed to appear with, whether it goes before GATTO or is a Disney+ exclusive. Last Pixar to have a short attached was ELEMENTAL, which included the final episode of the Disney+ series DUG DAYS: CARL'S DATE. As for WDAS... All the way back to fall 2021, ENCANTO came bundled with FAR FROM THE TREE.

I don't think 2D is really much of a thing at WDAS at the moment, despite some claims here and there from leadership, some 2D animators being there, the existence of ONCE UPON A STUDIO... But I suppose that team could whip up a little Stitch short. Maybe, maybe not. Again, it could just be from the DTVA side of things like the Stitch & Angel short is, or it could be the Stitch from the 2025 remake roaming around some CG sets or whatever.

I expect an announcement on the actual day, to celebrate.

All of this, after the untimely passing of Daveigh Chase, Lilo's voice in the original film and the ensuing TV series and direct-to-video spin-offs. This would have to have a dedication in it.

New looks at Brad Bird's RAY GUNN, which he directed at Skydance Animation...

I know, the lot of us wish this were the 2D film he envisioned it as, but the art direction shown of it still promises something very, very Bird.

And finally, a release date... December 18th of this year...

Bird, humorously, revealed that he got the idea from hearing The B-52's' 1979 song 'Planet Claire', which he initially thought was the theme from the TV series PETER GUNN. The PETER GUNN theme - composed by Henry Mancini - has been referenced in works such as the 1983 arcade game SPY HUNTER, and a sequence in THE LION KING 1 1/2 where Timon and Pumbaa try to prevent Simba and Nala from falling in love. So he concluded, that's more "Ray Gunn" than "Peter Gunn"... And from there, the movie was born.

On a personal note, that's often how I work, too, a lot of my ideas often flow through my idea upon hearing songs... it stimulating me, and then me setting a whole epic sequence to it in my head, a lot of my ideas form up that way. Can definitely relate to that, haha.

RAY GUNN looks to be the usual Bird endeavor, a retro-future informed by the early-to-mid 20th century (in this case, a future world working off of the aesthetics of 1939), a story that isn't interested in being a "kids' film" only, and one's identity vs. how multiple identities of theirs are perceived by the wider world around them. Quite INCREDIBLES, that. I first heard of this movie at age 12, a little after THE INCREDIBLES had been released, so I've been waiting... And it's quite surreal finally seeing it come out later this year...

Oh yeah, I'm aware that Netflix denied RAY GUNN an IMAX theatrical release, opting to give it to the David Fincher-directed sequel to ONCE UPON A TIME... IN HOLLYWOOD. Plus, given what dates are booked, it seems like it wouldn't have happened anyways. HEXED has the Thanksgiving corridor that THE ADVENTURES OF CLIFF BOOTH will also open during, while December has *four* biggies in place: JUMANJI: OPEN WORLD, AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY, DUNE: PART THREE, and THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE 3. Like, that's already a crap-ton of movies right there, battling for moviegoers' wallets. I mean, October could/could've worked, but still... No theatrical for RAY GUNN, it seems.

Since that's part of Netflix's slate, other projects of theirs were shown at Annecy, such as the new take on the Wonka stories CHARLIE VS. THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (the premise sounds fun and the concept art is neat), and a young adult-oriented entry in the GHOSTBUSTERS franchise set in the 1994 - Sony Animation/Flying Bark's GHOSTBUSTERS: NIGHT SHIFT. Sony Animation were supposed to make a feature film, too, and I think it's high time one happens. GHOSTBUSTERS already had at least one cool animated series, and there's potential there with all the supernatural elements and such. Could do for such a tired series what SPIDER-VERSE did for superhero movies in general.

Showrunner Ben Hibon seems to think so.

“Animation as a medium allows us to approach each horror element of the story with various degrees of stylization... Think of keeping violence graphical and abstract, and really infuse and craft a sense of dread, tension, and fear right into the design of the world itself.”

I wonder if NIGHT SHIFT leads into that planned film in some way, or at the very least is like a taste of it. Going a YA sort-of route is cool, in that you're not doing the legacy sequel thing nor trying to recreate what was already done right in 1984. Could give it like a SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK vibe or something like that, and honestly, we could always use more animated horror with that kind of edge in the PG space.

Another summer where a Pixar sequel and an Illumination heavy-hitter open within weeks of each other...

Could we be seeing history repeat itself for a third time?

In 2016, FINDING DORY held the #1 spot at the box office until THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS came out. From mid-June to early July. Back-to-back animation on top. 5 straight weeks...

It happened again in 2024. INSIDE OUT 2, mid-June, #1 until DESPICABLE ME 4 kicked off July, and held #1 for two weeks. Five weeks total for animated movies.

This year... TOY STORY 5, obviously at #1 with its great $159m opening... This coming weekend, DC Studios' SUPERGIRL, which is tracking... Not so hot? $40-50m-ish? While TOY STORY 5 will likely make more than that on its second weekend (they're thinking somewhere from $80-90m), as audiences love it and it won't see a big dip. It seems very likely that it'll keep the #1 spot.

I think Warner Bros. made a mistake in putting SUPERGIRL there, especially with SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY right around the corner, and other movies being audience priority over yet another superhero movie that looks - from most of the promo - like it could've come out a decade ago. Not the most original thought of mine, but it really does look like that kind of movie if you ask me. If it underperforms, I highly doubt it's because of what all the mouthbreathers are screaming about. (Rrr-grrrrr, the lead actress called out all the no-life trolls, hrrr-grr-rggg-grrrr!) The same ones who tried to derail last year's SUPERMAN, but their bellowing had no influence whatsoever.

Then right after, MINIONS & MONSTERS kicks off July. That opens on a weekday, and will easily score the July 3-5 weekend frame... Probably opens with more than $80m, the previous MINIONS movie opened with $107m back in 2022. However, the weekend after is Disney's live-action/VFX'ed MOANA remake, which is sure to take the #1 spot from MINIONS & MONSTERS. Tracking currently has that at $80-90m for the opening weekend, but it could rise or dip a week before release. I know people are convincing themselves that it'll be a flop, but I think the general public - who are so not plugged in and online like we are - sees "MOANA again, but w/ real people!" And will go just because of that. I guess it'll make enough money, but might not be a mega-blockbuster. We'll see.

Warner Bros. Pictures Animation made a big splash today, announcing a film called PREHISTORIA, from HAZBIN HOTEL creator Vivienne Medrano. A show I have yet to see, believe it or not... And maybe that's for the better, I missed all the discourse... So whenever I do get around to checking it out, it won't be tainted by a shitstorm lol.

Concept art of PREHISTORIA has been released...

... Depicting some sort of dragon/dino/wizard hybrid thing? It's pretty cool-looking, whatever it is... I don't know if it'll be 2D, though. I think Warner would make it a point to announce that this film from the creator of a popular indie animation series would be done that way. This, in addition to some stuff from the studio's upcoming 2027-2028 films.

BAD FAIRIES looks to be trying on a fun style of its own, I particularly like that creature to the left of the lead character. Like something out of an early '90s picture book, so that's cool. Love the punk-like ransom note logo, too. THE LUNAR CHRONICLES, if the finished film resembles that concept art, looks to be going for a more ornate look, matching the sci-fi/fantasy setting of its source material quite nicely. MARGIE CLAUS and OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO seemed to be a bit shafted here, but the logo for the former was shown, which - as pointed out by a friend of mine - has a groovy '60s Rankin/Bass-like look to it.

Even the HELLO KITTY movie looks promising:

Additionally, Rashida Jones and Will McCormack's TOM & JERRY movie has been described as a LA LA LAND-esque rom-com, which was already quite similar to the MGM musicals of the day... The very productions that Tom and Jerry shorts were attached to theatrically in the 1940s... Well, I guess that's one way to do a TOM & JERRY movie after doing discount RESCUERS and whatever the 2021 movie was. (Something about a hotel, I think?) I at first guessed that it'll be a Tom and Toodles story, but apparently it's about a couple (assuming they're live-action) who adopt both Tom and Jerry... But the duo, true to form, look to fight each other and "destroy" the couple's relationship. Per McCormack:

“Tom and Jerry do whatever they can to kill the other or to break up [their owners]... It’s a rom-com in the style of LA LA LAND. Why are these characters fighting so much? Because they want to be seen, and they want to be loved. The logline of our film is literally ‘Love is worth fighting for.’”

With them being owned by a couple, it's honestly giving the later Hanna-Barbera shorts vibes, when Tom and Spike were owned by that sugary happy '50s couple, George and Joan.

These details indicate that the movie is moving along quite fine, and could release some time in 2029. Meanwhile, no word on MEET THE FLINTSTONES, even though that has had a directing-writing team in place for a while. Ditto "Super Secret Looney Tunes Project". These will probably be out in 2029-2030 at the earliest, at this point. 2028 already has four films in OH THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!, DYNAMIC DUO, HELLO KITTY, and THE LUNAR CHRONICLES. I believe one of those will absolutely move...

Given how far along DYNAMIC DUO already is, and presumably PLACES, I suspect either KITTY or LUNAR moves to 2029. Plus, DYNAMIC DUO shares a release date with a currently untitled Illumination movie... Which could very well be a sequel, like SECRET LIFE OF PETS 3 or a fifth DESPICABLE ME with Gru & co.

Swaybox, who are doing the cutting edge puppetry and animation techniques for DYNAMIC DUO (that's the "two Robins" DC movie), already have another film based on a WB IP in the works... Not specifically DC... Which could mean... Hmmmm, who knows.

Rumor also has it that a THUNDERCATS movie was part of their sizzle reel, and also the possibility of a theatrical POWERPUFF GIRLS movie. If the latter is indeed true, that's *big*, considering that the poor performance of 2002's THE POWERPUFF GIRLS MOVIE scared Cartoon Network off from doing a theatrical movie ever again. There was TEEN TITANS GO! TO THE MOVIES in 2018. The show was a Warner Animation/DC endeavor, that always aired on Cartoon Network... But I guess it isn't a "Cartoon Network movie" in that sense? I suppose if The WB had still existed by 2013, TEEN TITANS GO! would've first aired there w/ re-runs on Cartoon Network right afterwards. The way it happened with the 2003 TEEN TITANS. Otherwise, shows based on Cartoon Network originals would only get a TV movie. (Such as ED, EDD N EDDY'S BIG PICTURE SHOW.) Attempts at an ADVENTURE TIME movie fell through, and there might be a theatrical AMAZING WORLD OF GUMBALL movie, maybe not.

They presented all of this, as if there was no possibility of being acquired by Paramount-Skydance... Speaking of whiiiich-

Paramount Animation looks to bring in 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE and PREY director Dan Trachtenberg to direct a *horror* comedy called FREDDY THE 13TH. He'll probably nail this, considering how last year, he gave us an animated PREDATOR movie (KILLER OF KILLERS) in addition to a theatrical live-action film (BADLANDS)... While not an animated FRIDAY THE 13TH film, it is based on a graphic novel by Yehudi Mercado (who also co-directs) about a family on vacation who deal with an Uncle Freddy who accidentally kills the Boogeyman and gets his "powers"... It'll be a PG-rated film, so something a little edgier than usual. But that premise is pretty fire... Would be cool if Paramount Animation actually saw it through to completion.

However, our first look at it appears to be an AI-generated image, or at the very least an image touched up with a lot of AI... So that does not bode well...

In better news, Illumination's 2027 original movie is called NOT ALONE, a romcom starring Timothee Chalamet and Selena Gomez, about a couple - a mechanic and an astronaut - who hide three aliens.

More animated sci-fi/space stuff is fine by me, and it's nice to see what is the studio's first original since MIGRATION... Back in 2023... Which was their first original movie since 2016's SING... Wow.

Perhaps a teaser for this shows up before MINIONS & MONSTERS in a matter of weeks?

Plus there's plenty of other stuff going on, lots of European and other international films getting some spotlight, hopefully lots of it can come out here as well. There's even a sequel to that movie BALLERINA coming, which got Weinsteinized and released here in America as LEAP! There already was an English dub of the movie out in the UK, even.

You know what's an often-repeated bit of "conventional wisdom" on the Internet that annoys me?

It goes something like this:

"The animation in TOY STORY is soooo dated. Those humans. Rough! But it's the writing that saves the day."

You know, it's the reverse of this OTHER common saying...

"The early Disney animated features like SNOW WHITE and PINOCCHIO are visually beautiful, but their stories are kind of shallow."

I immensely dislike both sentiments. Here's why, lol.

Some aspects of TOY STORY's visuals indeed haven't aged the best, and the humans are easily the least convincing of the onscreen animated characters... HOWEVER, the filmmakers already knew this back in 1995, not to mention they only really had five major human players: Andy, Molly, their mother, Sid, and Hannah. The kids at Andy's birthday and everyone in Pizza Planet is a palette-swap of one of those characters. Sid's dad, who is only "seen" in one scene, is an arm and a leg... Obscured by perspective shots of a recliner chair.

So what did they do? They worked around the limitations of 1995-era CGI... And this was achieved through very very VERY clever filmmaking, staging, lighting choices, and other cinematic touches. TOY STORY wasn't merely an experiment. For starters, it was directed by a man who already had character animator experience AND had directed four short films, along with a test w/ 2D characters running around a CGI environment. (The WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE test John Lasseter made with Glen Keane at Disney Animation in 1983, shortly before the former was let go.) Everybody on board was making a FILM, and they made sure they did just that. Years of concept art and explorations, and what made it into the final film. The limitations forced the filmmakers to be creative with their shot compositions and angles, which I think... Makes the world feel more immersive than a lot of Pixar films made well after the early run of films. It's even BETTER when you watch it on 35mm film!

What actual film run through a projector and shown on a silver screen does with lighting effects... Sublime. Those Dinoco gas station scenes hit different. All the shadows within Pizza Planet's line of arcade cabinets. Chef's kiss, yes indeedy. It was that way on the original 1996 VHS and LaserDisc release, too. I remember, as a kid, watching the film via that VHS in the late '90s... The Pizza Planet scene literally felt like stepping into a legit intergalactic room somewhere in the cosmos, it was so cool.

And that's exactly what the movie was made with in mind... FILM. Actual physical FILM. The early DVD releases of TOY STORY, along with other Pixar films, boasted that they used the original digital source for the presentation. "Direct from the digital source!" the Pixar filmmakers would say in an intro. Much in the same way a lot of the DVDs and Blu-rays of Disney animated films from the '90s use the raw CAPS files, and not film prints... But they look so flat in comparison, if you ask me. And don't even get me started on years of "restorations" of the older Disney films, which stripped them of film grain and many of their filmmaking nuances. When seeing THE LION KING during the 2024 theatrical re-release, which is straight from the CAPS file and not a film print, I felt like something was kind of missing. I own two Blu-ray releases of THE LION KING, but it's like... Give me a film print of it, that's the best it'll ever look.

TOY STORY is still a good-looking, beautifully-realized movie. TOY STORY 2 as well. So many wonderful directing choices that put you in the movie, and these characters' worlds. The writing can't do that on its own.

The way some people talk about TOY STORY 1's visuals, you'd think it was FOODFIGHT! or a Video Brinquedo piece of trash or something.

There's a weird tendency to treat films as if they're radio dramas or something. That the writing matters above all, when, NO actually... These are MOTION PICTURES, the pictures need to work, too! A lot of people online complain about how crappy movies look today, yet a lot of people also seem to think "style over substance, it's the writing and story that's most important." Well, which is it, then? Why not both?

Director Denis Villeneuve, when promoting DUNE: PART TWO back in spring 2024, garnered some controversy for saying the following...

“Frankly, I hate dialogue... Dialogue is for theatre and television. I don’t remember movies because of a good line, I remember movies because of a strong image. I’m not interested in dialogue at all. Pure image and sound, that is the power of cinema, but it is something not obvious when you watch movies today.”

He got so much flack for this statement online, people were saying he actually hates dialogue (if he did, all of his films would be silent films), he hates TV, whatever... Just like how Martin Scorsese was given so much guff over his statements on Marvel movies. Missing the forest for the trees... Villeneuve is absolutely correct, the pictures are important. That's what he meant, he wishes for movies to be less workmanlike in their visuals and actually MATCH the writing, if not surpass it. Visual storytelling is also very much a thing, and not all movies have to be this hold-your-hand ordeal that tells you the story in a digestible way. Like watch something like MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, that's a film that communicates so much through visuals, George Miller's directing choices, the editing, sound design, and the characters' body language that words do not need to.

That's how I feel about a lot of the early Disney animated features, the way they used animation to visually communicate their stories, not just through what the characters say and do. That was Walt Disney's specialty, really. He and his team weren't these slouches living in a bubble, making 80min cartoons. They were surrounded by cinema, they studied what was around at the time, they already had nearly a decade of Mickey Mouse cartoons and Silly Symphonies behind them. Walt was particularly influenced by a silent movie based on the Snow White fairy tale he had seen when he was a teenager. The early Disney animated features are told in a way that's more lyrical than what we're used to in animated movies post-, what, 1985? Script-driven, talking heads, peppered with snappy one-liners, etc. Not shallow or lacking, there is far more texture to the likes of SNOW WHITE, PINOCCHIO, BAMBI, et al. than many give them credit for. Walt's efforts were praised by top filmmakers and writers during that period, people such as Sergei Eisenstein and Ray Bradbury. Walt collaborated with artists like Salvador Dali, and almost landed collaborations with people like Orson Welles and Aldous Huxley. The Walt of the 1930s was definitely not the Walt of the post-war years, as that era could cloud judgment on what kind of a trailblazer he was prior to his actions during the 1941 animators' strikes... And of course, every story artist, animator, writer, onboard those still-astounding movies... There was so much more to the Disney studio's work than what some people choose to see in them.

Pixar's films absolutely take the torch, tricks, and cinematic teachings from the Disney animated classics of yore, up to this day even. TOY STORY 5 also has an extended reference to BAMBI in it, a film its writer/director - Andrew Stanton - named as an influence on him when he was making FINDING NEMO. His WALL-E has two silent lead characters who only communicate in digitally chirping limited phrases. Some of that WALL-E-style pantomime comes through when we first meet the army of 50 Buzz Lightyears in TOY STORY 5, and their trip through a forest and campsite. He had also once said about silent movies of the 1920s...

"We felt like we knew everything about cinema and were the filmmakers of the future, only to be humbled and sobered by the fact that, oh, they had everything and we’ve lost it. It was all there in the simplicity, but the complexity was disguised in each one of the pieces because life is fractal like that."

Huh, look at that... Some rather TOY STORY-related news, right after the opening of the fifth movie...

Josh Cooley, former Pixarian who directed TOY STORY 4, is looking to head up a new LEGO movie for Universal starring... Duke Caboom himself, Keanu Reeves!

From toy movie to toy movie to another toy movie... TOY STORY 4, TRANSFORMERS ONE, untitled LEGO movie... Cooley is sure playing with toys, isn't he? He's an '80s kid, and I bet he's having the time of his life.

That is... If he isn't still working on the Paramount Animation movie I EAT POOP.: A DUNG BEETLE STORY. That project was announced at Annecy last year, but given Paramount's "announced movie that never makes it" to "actually completed/released movie" ratio... I can imagine that one either withering, or being given to another director, while Cooley goes off to make another toy movie. TRANSFORMERS ONE deserved so much better, and in a slightly better timeline, a sequel to it would be happening with him back in the director's chair.

There are other films Cooley was supposed to direct, such as a Universal Monsters-inspired film called LITTLE MONSTERS, and a live-action movie called MALAMANDER. At another point, he was writing that TOWER OF TERROR movie that was supposed to star Scarlett Johansson. Looks like the dung beetle movie might be one of those, and given how much of a mess Paramount itself - not just their animation wing - is, and how much of an even bigger mess they look to be within a year... I can see him abandoning the poop movie for LEGO, lol.

Back in fall 2024, when PIECE BY PIECE - the LEGO Pharrell Williams biopic that was actually really solid - was coming out, Universal said that multiple live-action/animation LEGO movies were in the works. This indicated that a third LEGO MOVIE proper with Emmett, Wyldstyle, and pals was not a go anymore. After all, THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART failed to recapture the success of the 2014 hit, and didn't make back its budget. That was the final LEGO MOVIE in Warner Bros.' series, and there are plenty of unmade movies from that era, too... Such as Jorge R. Gutierrez's THE BILLION BRICK RACE, which sounded all kinds of cool.

Directors and writers were attached to those announced hybrids as well, but the reports don't indicate this is one of those w/ a change in director. This seems like an all-new project, and since a star of such a size and influence is attached, I think this one goes full steam ahead. Universal has had the LEGO movie rights for a while now, and it's high time they actually... Ya know, get going on making one? And Cooley's previous film is almost two years old at this point.

But what do they mean by HYBRID, though? The LEGO MOVIE series from Warner had humans and live-action sequences in them, sometimes meshing the two mediums. A live-action cat wreaks havoc on a city in THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE, for example. Do they mean something that's more like ROGER RABBIT, where humans interact with LEGO minifigures and that there's bricks coming together magically to build locations that the humans travel around in? Or something we haven't really seen in a hybrid before?

TOY STORY 5 spoilers ahead...

We all knew it. Andrew Stanton had said that there were ideas that could cover two more TOY STORY movies following the release of the fifth film, which is likely going to make somewhere in the big billion range when all is said and done.

Now he's saying a 6th movie - specifically - could function as the end of the Bonnie trilogy. It all makes sense, really. When TOY STORY 4 came into existence, I would little by little look at TOY STORY 3 as the end of the Andy trilogy. The toys' life with Andy. TOY STORY 3 was both an ending and a new beginning, as life is. Like, even when you're not looking at this stuff from an animation nerd perspective, the third movie literally ends with a whole new gang of colorful toys as the group's new pals... Why wouldn't you do more with them?

Some feel that the shorts and TV specials were fine enough, and I guess that's fair, but I like what TOY STORY 4 and TOY STORY 5 are about, even if I find both movies to be jumbles of fantastic A+ moments held together by Scotch tape and not a much stronger adhesive, some kind of glue per se. But no matter, TOY STORY 3 begins an era of more sentimental storytelling and reflections on aging, legacy, moving on, finding new life, etc. The series matures with its middle-aged creators who are still there, and those shorts functioned as fun treats, to give us some funny stuff with Bonnie's toys just in case they get sidelined in sequels. Which, I feel they do, especially in 5. For example, Jeff Garlin's Buttercup character doesn't utter a single line in the film, nor do the aliens. Other supporting characters have minimal dialogue at best.

I think with a TOY STORY 6, given that Bonnie has much more of a presence in TOY STORY 5 than before and given that she befriends another kid who also loves playing with toys... Both have lots of toys, especially Blaze with her 50 or so horse toys, like hwow... Lots of stuff they can do there, really... Bonnie and Blaze's playtime sequence at the end was absolutely delightful, seeing their two senses of creativity mash together - which was kind of a nice change of pace. I was expecting a sort-of Hallmark card moment there, where it's sweet and emotional, but no! They did that painterly art style again and had some more fun! And also, anything to have more Conan O'Brien toilet-training toy, that's for sure. Hell, you could make a whole Disney+ series out of the two girls' play sessions in that art style. For years, I wanted a TOY STORY movie that was just a 90min realization of one of Andy's playtime scenarios. The opening of TOY STORY 3 with the Wild West action, but it's the whole movie.

Going back to Bonnie making a friend in TOY STORY 5... Outside of the kids at Andy's party in the first TOY STORY, we never really saw Andy interact with friends of his across the first two films. To be fair, he was days away from moving in the first film, and he was away at Cowboy Camp in TOY STORY 2. A couple humans in a CGI film was already a feat back then, so I'd imagine there was probably no intentions to have a scene of Andy at Cowboy Camp... If made recently, TOY STORY 2 I think would've had a scene showing Andy at Cowboy Camp, because they can. CGI movies are populated with multiple humans now, but back in the late '90s, one human alone was a tall order. Al McWhiggin himself was a technical breakthrough for them. The old man who restores and cleans Woody is a reused character from a prior short film, Geri from GERI'S GAME. But regarding a Cowboy Camp scene... Sometimes less is more, and that we don't see Andy for a massive chunk of that film, makes the stakes all the more effective. And of course, in TOY STORY 3, he's around 17-18, not playing with toys, and he's off to college in a matter of days. Once again, we see him at the beginning and at the end, save for a scene of Mrs. Potato Head's other eye seeing him halfway through the film. Flashbacks show just him, and sometimes Molly. Ditto TOY STORY 4's title cards.

Others, such as one of my favorite animation commentators on YouTube - CellSpex, suggested maybe starting fresh with a future installment. Many of the actors are getting older, some of the crew even (Randy Newman, for example, who didn't write a single song for the film)... In fact, that's kind of my concern with some other Pixar sequels, like INCREDIBLES 3 (Craig T. Nelson is up there, too) and the next MONSTERS movie... So what better way to revitalize the franchise than to start anew after sending off the original gang with a banger second trilogy closer?

So with a seventh TOY STORY... New kid, new toys, lots they can do there. Maybe that kid has a whole separate model of one of the classic characters. Not Bonnie's Buzz, but someone else's, haha. Maybe it's a variant of sorts, similar to the mini fast food Buzz seen in the SMALL FRY short (underrated favorite of mine). We did have that army of high-tech Buzzes, after all. Without having to think of where these old characters are at, they can re-channel that fun energy of the original TOY STORY, with a younger crew in charge this time, making something that feels fresh again. The first TOY STORY specifically, which is probably the least tear-jerkery one lol, but also among the funniest with a unique edge to it. (I know, I'm a broken mp3, I keep saying that about the first two TOY STORY movies vs. the later films.) I always wondered if the series could do just that starting with the fourth one, but they didn't, for obvious reasons.