DreamWorks stuff

I thought their traditional animation works have been hailed properly (and maybe even Spirit).

Come to think of it, The Road To El Dorado seems like prime Vindicated by Cable fare. But I've never seen it on TV. Shame...

Because Katzenburg can't get his head out of his ass and see that it doesn't matter what medium and film is made in in order to be a success!

Thats what we call a greedy bastard.

edited 25th Feb '11 3:36:26 PM by Theoriginalblader

http://www.awn.com/news/films/dreamworks-ani-backing-away-5-film-release-plan

...

• puts on monacle, improves poster, builds snooty expression, and points very elegantly outward and forward*

Ha.

My problem with Dreamworks is that they seemed to rely too much on the cast selling the movie and/or a lot of pop-culture references to carry the movie.

With Pixar, sure they may go out and get famous people to do voices for their movies, but you almost never see them sell the movie based on that. You didn't see advertisements for Toy Story 3 pushing the names of actors like Tom Hanks, Joan Cusack, or Tim Allen.

With Dreamworks movies (Shark Tale and Kung Fu Panda come to mind as the worst offenders, but a lot of them qualify) you see them really selling the fact that they have an all-star voice cast. Now Kung Fu Panda wasn't a bad by any means (Shark Tale certainly was), but do we really need Angelenia Jolie to voice a one-dimensional character like Tigress? Is their really a point to hiring Jackie Chan to voice a character that has roughly four lines in the entire film? You can make similar arguments against the casting of ALL the Furious Five. Granted, I suppose you could say they might get more character development in the sequel(s).

But leads us to another problem. With Dreamworks, any movie that is considered a reasonable success is guaranteed to get a sequel whether it really merits one or not. We ended up getting FOUR Shrek movies when the concept had gotten stale after the second movie (perhaps even the first). Kung Fu Panda has an upcoming sequel with the grapevine telling us that more are on the way. Madagascar got a sequel with a third getting set to come out. Even How To Train Your Dragons is getting a sequel.

With Pixar, sequels are handed out more sparingly. We waited 11 years between Toy Story 2 and 3. People (myself included) have been begging for an Incredibles sequel for years now but the director says he won't go forward with one until he has a worthy story. You know if Dreamworks was running that show we'd be up to Incredibles 3 at the very least by now (and we'd probably be sick of it). It's only recently that Pixar really seems to be getting into the habit of doing sequels in masse, and Cars and Monsters Inc. seem like odd movies to get the sequel treatment, Pixar has also spent over 15 years earning our trust with quality movie after quality movie.

This isn't to say that Dreamworks and it's movies are terrible. With the exception movies like Shark Tale and the later Shrek sequels, they've generally been fairly decent I would say.

Here's my understanding. Dream Works produces and markets their cartoons like regular live-action films. Think about it. Would you make the same kind of accusations toward the pop culture references and big names if they were live-action, and the actors were really there on-screen? Audiences, especially artists and animation fans, expect animation and live-action to have particular qualities, and Dream Works is challenging those qualities. That doesn't make them any less uncomfortable to watch however.

That depends really. Shrek handled the sequels a bit poorly after 2 because they handled the sequels unwell (Shrek 2 was interesting because it added more to the world of Shrek, 3 and 4 didn't). We've yet to see for Kung Fu Panda and How To Train Your Dragon, but know that martial arts flicks tend to have sequels and HTTYD had many books.

I've been wondering this - we all know that Dream Works smile right? The problem is that people forget that smiling is one of the universal expressions that it can be seen in everyone (it's also my argument against that Kricfalusi entry regarding Tangled and how "Disney uses the same faces"... ugh), and that Pixar also had a similar look.

I don't get the Dreamworks Smile thing either. It's just like Pro-Pixar people couldn't come up with an argument and just said "LOOK THEY MAKE THE SAME FACE IN EVERY MOVIE! THEY ARE SO UNORIGINAL AND INFERIOR!".

You mean the Dreamworks Face. It's a trope.

It's a stupid trope because just like that comic implies people are using it to say Dreamworks is unoriginal. I'd rather watch Kung Fu Panda or Monsters vs. Aliens than Cars or A Bug's Life anyday. Besides, Pixar is guilty of having the same face styles in most of their movies, the same goofy white block teeth and the same cartoony eyes specifically. Not to mention probably the real reason Newt got canceled was because it was Alpha and Omega (blech) with lizards instead of wolves.

Dreamworks Face is a terrible and unfair trope when used as an argument.

You're reiterating just what the page says at the end of the introduction. People don't call it Dream Works because they produce bad quality- they call it Dream Works because the smile is mostly associated with them. They are by no means exclusive. GAINAX has two tropes named after them, yet the definitions have absolutely nothing do with them!

edited 26th Feb '11 1:26:27 PM by Shota

The trope feels like People Sit On Chairs, because it really doesn't explain anything other than "these people have this smirk".

And yeah, there is that negative implications in that.

What the... I never knew that were was such a thing like "Dreamworks Face"...

Another troper to learn!!!!!

I wish there's a "Forced Trope" trope... XD

Make one.

There is Enforced Trope.

I hope I'm not the only one who thinks about this, but will anyone give dreamworks animation a chance if they made films on the lines on How to Train Your dragon? I don't mean by stuff like this, I mean by actually making films without usage of pop culture reference overdosing. And focusing on story?

I would.

Me too

They've actually done it even prior to How To Train Your Dragon. Outside of junk food references, Over The Hedge is like that. Kung Fu Panda is another. The fourth Shrek movie is surprisingly few in pop cultural references too. Then there's the traditionally-animated movies.

I beg to differ. Over The Hedge was a good film on its own but was nothing to gossip about, so it stays silently in memories. And Shrek 4 was a necessary evil... "necessary" because Dreamworks wanted to make it.

Over The Hedge, Monsters Vs Aliens and Mega Mind are some of the best comedic films Dreamworks has made recently. Besides the DDR shout out in Monsters, I can't remember any pop cult refernces in either of these.

I have to say, I'm actually one of the few people who'll say they liked Mega Mind over How To Train Your Dragon, mainly because I liked the characters a fair bit more in Mega Mind.

I didn't really care for the setting or the pace in How To Train Your Dragon, but tonight on the work T Vs Megamind was playing and it was actually alright. Not great but not horrible.