Wednesday, August 1, 2007

More on the Alvin and Horton trailers


At his blog, Mark Mayerson has posted his thoughts on the recently released trailers for Alvin and the Chipmunks and Horton Hears a Who. His blog post is titled "Two Trailers; Two Tragedies" -- can you guess what he thought of them? About the Chipmunks, he says:

What is it about toilet humour and animated films? We've gone from fart jokes to characters defecating on screen in Open Season to characters eating each other's waste material now. When did family films look to John Waters and Pink Flamingoes as a model? When did a porn fetish become children's entertainment? And who, at the MPAA, approved this trailer for all audiences?

My objection is not to the obscenity, it's the complete and total lack of imagination. In a medium where characters can do anything, they choose to do this? With the entire history of film comedy to draw on, this is the best they could do?


He's not much kinder to Horton Hears a Who:

Furthermore, whoever is behind the screenplay doesn't understand how to write for animation. There's way too much dialogue and the animators are stuck looking for gestures to keep the characters alive while the dialogue drones on. I don't envy the animator stuck with that Steve Carell scene. It's a tough challenge, but he or she is making it worse by using gestures to illustrate words and phrases as opposed to thoughts. The character is overly busy and the gestures are mostly empty of emotion.

At his own blog, Michael Sporn gives some of his comments on the trailers. Here's some of what he says about Alvin and the Chipmunks:

My immediate reaction to the ugly cg chipmunks was absolutely negative. There is nothing that could make me go to that film. The designs of the characters are completely off kilter. To think back to those limited animation but beautifully designed Format film originals, I can only sigh when I look at what a bastardization of ugly design people do today. It’s sad, really.

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