Disney/Pixar In General

Black Cauldron is #47

Here's the next 10

Edited by megaeliz on Nov 22nd 2018 at 12:40:34 PM

Robin Hood certainly looses points for animation, but it is still better than the majority of the Disney movies. I take if over any of the package movies, Oliver and Co (which belongs firmly into my bottom five), Bolt, Pocahontas, Hercules and a number of other movies which have currently slipped my mind every day. In fact, it is better than all the movies which have been listed so far.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 22nd 2018 at 10:23:53 AM

Well in fairness early Disney was renowned for reusing animation so Robin Hood hardly the only offender.

While I don't think the film is amazing, I don't think it has significant downsides to make it the worst, besides ones other higher rated Disney films have like having an outclassed villain (Aristocrats and The Rescuers have even more ineffectual ones, while Winnie the Pooh doesn't even have one) and being disloyal to it's source material (practically EVERY Disney movie does that).

I can only wonder how this would have ended up if they included the Disneytoons tie in movies.

Edited by Psi001 on Nov 22nd 2018 at 6:39:43 PM

Next ten

Edited by megaeliz on Mar 23rd 2019 at 2:23:26 PM

I can think of three films in the post above that should be, at the very least, ten spots higher up in that list.

The Fox and the Hound is one,the film with the cats should be at very bottom

I am surprised The Aristocrats was rated so high. Most people I've heard an opinion from tend to consider it unmemorable.

Also surprised that The Rescuers will seemingly top it's sequel, since Down Under often gets regarded as far better.

Strange that Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is the one film out of all these that lacks enough scores to be ranked. You'd think that would have got more critical notice than half of these, some of which more passive audiences don't even know about.

Edited by Psi001 on Nov 22nd 2018 at 7:21:10 PM

The Rescuers is a very beloved movie in Germany.

Yes, reusing animation was something Disney did fairly often, but flipping cells, reusing the same animation in the same movie and having scenes with limited animation was NOT common. Robin Hood was made on a shoestring budget. But it has its character animation going for it, as well as a really engaging climax.

I happen to like The Aristocats. Plus, it is the one Disney movie for cat lovers unless you count Lion King.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 22nd 2018 at 11:29:07 AM

I remember several reused shots in The Jungle Book, while Many Adventures of Pooh used the same bits of character animation for Tigger over and over (though we won't know if that got it rated down or not).

I mean literally the same animation for the whole frame, not just the same animation for one specific character. Like the Football scene with Lady Gluck. they basically show a scene, then flip it and show it again, then flip the cell again. I mean, they were quite inventive doing it, but once you pay attention to it, it is fairly obvious that they saved money wherever they cut. Which is, btw, why the end is so weird. They basically couldn't afford to do the ending they had planned, so they just did a fast narration and were done.

Hot take (which I doubt anyone in this thread agrees with): Bolt is better than Moana.

Edited by Spinosegnosaurus77 on Nov 22nd 2018 at 2:41:40 PM

I guess it's the fact that, even with those problems, it felt like a more grounded film than some other entries (which in fairness could be equally choppy even with the necessary budget). I mean it was humbly made and not particularly epic, but it felt like that was what it was meant to be. And even with the animation it had memorable aesthetics and designs.

It's not amazing but I can at least remember some of the characters and parts of the plot as somewhat entertaining, while some other entries just aren't memorable at all besides as Bile Fascination.

The Jungle Book, Sword in the Stone and Alice in Wonderland suffer a bigger lack of consistency and attachment to me, they feel only a cut above the package films in how they switch from one story/character to another and then discard them completely with little relevance to the rest of the story. I mean that is kind of the point for Alice in Wonderland but even then it feels lacking much heart and depth, and is almost a bit mean spirited in its treatment of Alice, who lacks any effective source of empathy.

Edited by Psi001 on Nov 22nd 2018 at 7:50:47 PM

I will say this about Alice in Wonderland: The Animated movie is the best take which has been done so far. But, well, this isn't really a book you can adapt without losing a lot of its meaning, and it is frankly not my kind of story.

I actually love Robin Hood. I am pretty sure it would be in the top twenty of my favourite Disney movies. But that doesn't mean that I don't see that the weakest part of the movie is easily the budget. Might be a strength, too, though. It forced the animators to be inventive.

My best assumption is that Robin Hood more often got ranking by animation buffs who were insulted by the cheap budget, while those with more positive opinion had the usual "Meh, it's okay" outlook that wasn't worth reviewing over. It only really has one huge downside over the others, but everything else, while presentable, isn't really exceptional enough to bring it up.

This is likely the same reason Many Adventures of Pooh didn't even get enough reviews, Pooh is liked, but not considered the most outstanding of the lot, it's light hearted viewing, so there's neither enough to write in awe or disgust about. No one really likes writing reviews that are just "Yeah, it's good....it's fun I guess".

Edited by Psi001 on Nov 22nd 2018 at 8:15:19 PM

30-26

There’s a bunch tied for 19

The Climax is. Robin Hood has my second favourite Climax after Sleeping Beauty. It has everything: Sneaking around in the dark, a lot of tense moments, a chase scene, then Robin being trapped in the castle looking for a way out, the fire, the hail mary jump into the water, all set to an spot-on score.

Mulan on 30 is unjust. It is way better than for example Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Frozen or Princess and the Frog. Same for Tangled.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 22nd 2018 at 12:22:28 PM

I guess my biggest issue is that there only feels like a brief break during all that where Robin isn't largely running rings around the villains (vs the Sheriff in the tower). While the civilians were vulnerable, Robin and Little John for the large part were Comically Invincible Heroes throughout the film, with the darker point in the film being less a huge retraction of that than just the baddies proving they can bungle their way up to making them sweat a little for a win. Compare to say Jafar's Not-So-Harmless Villain climax in Aladdin where Jafar completely destroys Aladdin at first and even during his second wind risks winning before Aladdin plays a last ditch trick. Aladdin felt like the underdog who had to pull out all the stops to win, while with Robin Hood it felt like the villains who had to resist their pitiful instincts best as they could so they'd at least go down with a decent fight.

As said though Robin Hood was supposed to be comical in the first place, and there's plenty of villains that are supposed to be way more threatening but flounder more anti climatically (eg. the Horned King), which means they fail more in their purpose than Prince John and the Sheriff, who were primarily meant to be bumblers you weren't supposed to take too lightly.

As for Ichabod and Mr Toad I get the feeling the Headless Horseman brought it up the list for the large part.

Edited by Psi001 on Nov 22nd 2018 at 9:03:56 AM

next few:

I don’t dislike Hercules, but I call BS on it passing Tangled & Wreck-It Ralph.

I will say I'm surprised the 2011 Pooh movie got rated so high when Many Adventures didn't get rated at all. I mean it's still good, but it's largely considered the same as Many Adventures just slightly lower quality. It's the B Team Sequels that ironically attract more attention due to their more consistent and poignant stories (eg. Pooh's Grand Adventure and The Tigger Movie).

Granted a lot of it's down to an absurd amount of ties for 19th place.

Edited by Psi001 on Nov 22nd 2018 at 8:46:07 PM

I'm surprised 101 Dalmatians is that high.

I have no doubt the villains are at least partway responsible for some of the higher marks. 101 Dalmatians and Hercules aren't the most high regarded films, but Cruella De Ville and Hades are some of Disney's most iconic antagonists.

Here’s the last few

Wow, I figured The Three Caballeros would be near the bottom like the other one. And I'm also surprised Dumbo and Pinocchio are the most critically popular ones (Fantasia I can understand why).

Caballeros is probably the best of the anthology movies (this coming from someone who still prefers to watch Fun and Fancy Free or Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad), with a lot better and more creative animation than most of them, very distinctive and likeable characters (even Jose is a lot more endearing in Caballeros than in Saludos, where he comes of more as just being Donald's Brazilian fanboy/guide), and with segments that are very well framed and plotted. It's not too much of a surprise for it to be considered one of Disney's better films.

I can also believe Pinocchio being number one. Visually, it's marvelous: a codification between the style they started with in film with Snow White mixed with the fluidity and vibrant nature of the shorts and later films. Plotwise, it's very well done - it's dark, but everything works very well. It's one of the fewfilms I can think of (another being Forrest Gump) where a Pinball Protagonist comes off as building the plot well and working rather than just being annoying and unfocused (this being a major problem with the Jungle Book).

There's still a lot I disagree with in that list (and, well, people are always making lists like that so what does one more really matter), but those two I can definitely understand.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 22nd 2018 at 3:06:33 AM