Does there seem to be less animated movies lately?

Maybe it's just me, but does it feel like there hasn't been that many animated movies coming out lately or there hasn't been as much attention focused on animated movies like it was years ago? Sure, we recently had Frozen which became a phenomenal hit and there are still animated movies coming from other countries, but it feels like there's not enough animated films being released every year. Now, I could be wrong about this, but does anyone else feel the same way?

I think there's still plenty. We've had seven so far this year, and there's still three more coming.

edited 7th Aug '14 5:51:20 PM by Mort08

You might not be paying attention honestly. How to Train your Dragon 2, Frozen, the Lego Movie, Big Hero Six, Peabody and Sherman...

There was that sequel for the pixar movie planes that came out this year. I remember it being animated from the trailers :p

To answer your question, no, it's just you.

It's more the opposite...there was a time in which you only got one animated movie per year, if you got lucky. Currently you'll get something between 10 and 20, with every company competing for the audience. It will be interesting to see, which ones prevail. Dream Works currently struggles, the last movies were everything but financial successes. Disney on the other hand is currently on the top.

Well, if we're looking at 2014 releases for animated movies, we have The LEGO Movie, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Rio 2, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, The Nut Job, Planes Fire and Rescue, and Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return. I might've missed one, but that's seven so far.

Taking a look for releases later this year, we have The Boxtrolls, Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart, The Book Of Life, The Hero Of Color City, Big Hero 6, and The Penguins of Madagascar. That's another six, bringing us to 13 unless I've missed something. (And that's not including Frozen, because that was technically released in 2013.)

Thirteen in a calendar year isn't bad at all, if you ask me. Just to put thing in perspective, here's the counts from 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and 30 years ago:

2004: Shrek 2, The Incredibles, The Polar Express, Shark Tale, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, and arguably Team America: World Police. Six films, and that's if we're including puppetry involving stop-motion as "animation" (which is very generous).

1994: The Lion King, The Pagemaster, The Swan Princess, The Princess and The Goblin, and A Troll In Central Park. Five films, and only one that's actually good (interestingly, 1994 was a hell of a year for live-action; tons of great films across the board that year).

1984: Um... none, actually. Pinocchio and The Jungle Book were reissued, because Disney had a habit of just putting older animated films back in theatrical release in the 80's (look, we didn't have DVD or Blu-Ray back then; if you wanted to see it in high quality, you went to the theater). But if you wanted new cartoons, you stayed home and watched television. Also, as a note, this is when I was considered the right age to watch cartoons.

Oh, and all of that is keeping in mind that nowadays, we see the occasional limited-release anime movie in theaters, which I didn't count because the wiki tends to separate the two forms.

In short, I think the thread title has it backwards. We're getting more animated movies than ever. And personally, I approve.

edited 8th Aug '14 8:59:11 AM by 32_Footsteps

(Side note: Even as a person who tends to be creeped out by some strands of CG animation, I'll still never fully understand the issues people have with Robert Zemeckis's motion capture films. I just don't get that same Uncanny Valley effect as so many others seem to.)

Stop-motion definitely counts.

You forgot Muppets Most Wanted

To clarify, if we would include direct-to-video productions, the list would be very long (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animated_feature_films_of_2014). But I think we are talking about high quality theatrical releases. Based on the studios which usually deliver high quality, this would include Big Hero 6 (I really look forward to this one), The Boxtrolls (Laika studios? Always worth a look...and yes, Stop motion definitely counts, it's the oldest kind of animation out there), Jack and the Coocko-Clock heart (not because of the studio, but it's a Luc Besson production...and sounds very nifty), The Lego movie, The Penguins of Madagascar (though I will sit this one out), HTTYD 2, Mr. Peabody and Sherman (Dream Works really shouldn't try to release three movies to an oversaturated marked), Rio 2 (yawn), When Marnie was there (Studio Ghibli),

And that's excluding some theatrical releases which are definitely bad, like "The Nut Job" and the "wizard of Oz" movie thingy. Or "Planes, Fire and rescue" (honestly, what was Disney thinking?).

Plus, there are some really important overseas releases, like the new Detective Conan movie (only released in Japan, and naturally only for fans, but that's already the 18th movie and still going strong), another Lupin the third movie aso.

You forgot Book of Life.

That was mostly live-action.

I'm sure I overlooked even more...those were just the ones on the top of my mind

It's not the "stop motion" part that I was wondering if it counted; it was the "puppetry" part. I'm not being snooty; it's just a question of where one defines the disciplines (I'm quite fond of all of them).

Also, if you want to be technical, I completely left out animation/live action blends completely because some people argue about those (particularly as to where the line is drawn... if you allow the Garfield movies, do you also allow the most recent Godzilla?). Mind you, the numbers become even more unbalanced towards the modern day if you include those - I merely went with the most restrictive definition of "animated movie" because even that clearly shows that animation is thriving now more than even 10 years ago, let alone any other point in film history.

Puppetry is still animation, though.

Oh okay, thanks for pointing these movies out to me!

I also have the same feelings about motion capture. Sure, when I first saw Beowulf I actually thought it was a live action film. But, when certain moments had the characters move in a jerky motion that you would see in CGI, I realized that it's mostly motion capture animation.

The main problem are the eyes...the characters in those movies tend to not look each other in the eyes, and the effect is really creepy. Thus said...the Tin Tin movie was pretty well done. I guess partly because the actors were acting together in the scenes, and partly because they didn't even try to make the CGI look realistic. I think nothing is worse than trying to make animation (no matter what kind) look real....the result tends to looks slightly off and therefore creepy. I guess it works with Dinosaurs, because we have no real reference for what the reality would have looked like. But otherwise, it is just unsettling.

I'm sorry but these uncanny valley movies are the ugliest/creepiest things I've ever seen and goes against almost everything that makes cartoons nice to look at >:(

I don't know how people can find it "beautiful"

If anything, there are MORE!