Cats the Musical

The Na’Vi are by definition aliens. We forgive their unusual appearance because it’s by design. The cats here are supposed to be based on actual cats and as a result, we know where certain features do and don’t belong. Hence the dissonance.

The original costuming and makeup took into account: 1. how audiences recognize character designs, 2. how much they could pare away from the costumes for wearability and expressiveness, but still evoke "cat" and "fur". "Actor recognition" wasn't even on the priority list.

Some of the cats in the movie preview are hitting Uncanny Valley hard when the camera pulls in enough for the actor to be recognized (as human or human-cat morphs) or out enough to show that these "cats" don't really have fur on their bodies (originally obscured by distance from the stage)

@Weirdguy 149 Avatar was one of the biggest technological achievements in history alongside Toy Story, Jurassic Park and A New Hope. This is also much lower budget. Not really a good comparison.

Edited by ReynTime250 on Jul 19th 2019 at 7:55:16 PM

Even Furries Hate the Cats Trailer

Wow. This... this is new low.

This is what we get for giving up our data to FaceApp's facial recognition neural net.

Truly, science has gone too far.

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I know Cartoon Brew isn't really highly regarded around here, but they did find this other piece of character art from the proposed cartoon movie.

I'm sorry if I keep saying this, but I still can't understand why they couldn't make this Cats movie a cartoon. It would've checked all the boxes for a guaranteed moneymaker:

Talking, singing animals? Check!

Celebrity voices? Check!

Based on a nostalgic IP? Check!

And then get DreamWorks Animation or Illumination and there you have it! It would've been foolproof!

And in other groan-inducing news, the trailer has more dislikes than likes...

Animated films done in a cartoon movie are too expensive when a live action is cheaper alternative and better cash grab

New theme music also a box

See, that's another thing I don't get. Why is live-action a cheaper alternative and why would people go see these even when they're all saying "oh god this is horrifying"?

Is it just human nature?

Warriors MAPs makes me crave a good musical featuring cats. Warriors is a guilty pleasure of mine and dang does it have a lot of nice artists doing animations and animatics for it. Now if only other cat-based series also did.

(x3) I'm reminded of Wicked. So many people wanted an animated version, preferably using Broadway casts (even if it's not the OBC), but it's a live-action adaptation.

Edited by Pichu-kun on Jul 20th 2019 at 7:35:40 AM

I saw the trailer, and my reaction is this:

And I didn't even see the musical and know it's plot or characters.

Edited by The12thDoctor on Jul 22nd 2019 at 9:58:39 PM

After watching this, the trailer for It: Chapter Two looks loke a Goonies clip.

Edited by dRoy on Jul 22nd 2019 at 9:25:31 PM

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This has always confused when pointed in others treads like the Sonic movie as reasons of not making an animated movie. Isn't the budget for animated movies way lower than a live action one? Captain Underpants I've read that is around 38million if I remember correctly. The emoji movie even lower I believe, as it made it's money back regardless of it's really bad run. And if you want a great and gorgeous movie that won an Oscar, Into the Spiderverse is 95million. How much is the budget of this one? Sonic the Hedgehog movie is around 90million, not including expenses in the redesing of Sonic. So it baffles me that we still use cheaper than animation as an excuse when reception and results would be way better.

Edited by eligram on Jul 22nd 2019 at 10:28:29 AM

Don't you see, animations aren't real film. It for kids, not adult. If you want to be taken serious it have to be live-action. But in seriousness, they probably think it easier to turn a stage musical screenplay into a film. Animation require creativity art direction to standout.

E.T technically is a Isekai movie

Oh, I'm aware that's the excuse of producers and executives. I'm talking about tropers here that use that excuse without irony or sarcasm when the numbers show the contrary, animated movies are cheaper than live action movies that rely in cg characters.

... unless I've totally failed to see the sarcasm or irony on their post, in if the case, I apologise.

I was not being sarcastic,a pure animated SHOULD be more expensive then a live action film,if they've paid people properly,in most cases however (sausage party) they have ways around it,plus Hollywood accounting too

Live action with animation is tricky to work out,its not my expertise

New theme music also a box

Oh yeah, I read about that disaster with Sausage Party. Hope is not the case with the other animated mivirs.

I honestly believe that they completely missed the point of why Cats is "popular", people go to see it for the experience of a theatre musical. It loses it's appeal as a movie. So they should've went with an animated movie, for kids even.

But I haven't seen or am interested on Cats in any form, so I could be totally wrong.

Edited by eligram on Jul 22nd 2019 at 11:20:48 AM

They want to ride the nostalgia of the people who saw the musical. Those who go to see the movie cause it something they know that the like before.

E.T technically is a Isekai movie

The lead cat's (the white one; I assume that's the lead) face is really poorly attached to the body. It's a problem for a lot of the characters really, where you can kind of tell the faces just aren't attached to the bodies. The faces kind of feel like they float a bit, if that makes sense. Judi Dench comes off the best overall.

They could have just gone with performance capture and made the faces more catlike. I'm not gonna overreact and say it's the absolute worst thing ever, but it's really noticeable and distracting.

Edited by edvedd on Jul 25th 2019 at 7:52:48 AM

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(x3) People like Cats for the costumes and songs. Now it just has terrible costumes, which kills the appeal community.

They're probably scared of using motion capture because of Polar Express and the like. Granted, that would require them to ignore a bunch of great video game and movie motion captures, but oh well.

It's been 3000 years…

I would say that I like Cats for the concept and for the songs, myself. (The over-arching story is okay, too, but not much more than that.)

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I would imagine Judi Dench is MOSTLY in-costume rather than the costume being CGI. Same goes for Ian Mc Kellen. Her design looks perfectly possible to costume. The others... not so much.

Because in general, animation, particularly studio quality animation, is horrifically expensive, labor intensive, and time consuming.

Edited by megaeliz on Aug 3rd 2019 at 6:27:45 AM

What I really wonder is why they make them humanoid. I mean, the reason why they're furries in the Broadway musical is because there's no other way you can do it in live theater, but in a movie... why not just make them look like real cats, even if CGI generated, like with Lion King. I mean, you don't risk uncanny valley, you give something cute for the audience to look at and all the celebrities are still recognized by their voice work.

Only humans can do choreography, that's it.