October 30th, 2006 - Animated movies have come a long way since Toy Story, but now they seem to be in a rut. They're all just variations on the same formula. Kids movies, Disney imitators with talking animals and lessons to be learned. Pixar has tried to push the format with movies like Brad Bird's The Incredibles, but even as great as that movie is it's still a family film.

Attempts at CGI filmmaking further outside the norm have met with lukewarm reaction. Well, that's probably just because they haven't been very good. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within looked good, but come on it's pretty bad. Still, after all these years no one in America seems to have figured out that animation doesn't have to be geared towards kids. Brad Bird seems to be the only filmmaker at all aware that it's possible to make a great animated movie without talking animals in it.

So I always get excited when I hear about an animated movie like this. Variety says John Williams' Vanguard Animation is developing a CG animated sci-fi, action thriller called Citizen Siege. The movie presents a bleak future, created by extrapolating current global conditions to their logical, paranoid-liberal conclusion. In Citizen's dystopia, democracy has been demolished by global coporatism.

What really caught my eye about this project is that it's being developed by the creators of the rich and celebrated videogame franchise Oddworld, Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna. Of course the last time gamemakers got involved in computer animated moviemaking it resulted in the aforementioned horrible Final Fantasy movie, but this could be different. Oddworld already has a fairly cinematic feel, and part of its strength (besides great visuals) is rich, well-developed characters. Lansing says, "I'm a storyteller and solid stories transcend all mediums." Come on, you've got to like the sound of that.

Source: CinemaBlend

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I think the main reason we don't usually see animated films aimed at a wider audience is that fact that there really is no point for it to be an animation when real-life actors could portray the movie in the same light, if not better.

Animations main appeal to children is the 'cartoon' style which we all loved as a kid. If a film like Toy Story were done with puppets rather than as an animation, I think you would probably just have a bunch of freaked out kids, worried that their toys are going to come to life and hack them to pieces.

But you are certainly right about all these films just being about talking animals, just from the top of my head theres Madagascar, The Wild, Barnyard and Chicken Little. You think they would be able to come up with a different concept.

Perhaps the only mature films which should be animated would be those which have stemmed from a video game. But even then, in a way people have already seen it before as they played the game. It is literally bringing a character to life which makes the movie.

A film will always have a greater appeal with a real women with fake tits, rather than a fake women with really fake tits.

I guess with Western producers simply aiming at what gains them the most money, kids and family movies are the main focus.

On the other hand, the East seems to have both family orientated and that aimed to a mature audience, even if it may only be through action or storyline, but these movies are hardly available unless people know where to look.