The End of Animated Features (???????)

OK, I've been criticized HIGHLY about this subject, but with today's release of Disney's Beauty and the Beast in live action (with many more plans announced for other major Disney flicks including The Lion King), I wonder, is this it with animated features since some reviews claim it better than "the cartoon version"?  Well.....let's take a look.

First of all, I, unlike politicians, will be honest with you...YES I did claim at one point the end of ALL animation.  However, with the recent announcement of Boomerang going streaming, there will still be a need for cartoons for both TV and streaming to help keep kids satisfied.  In fact, one of the new ones coming out is based on a live action movie that's a classic (The Wizard of Oz)...go figure right?  So no, cartoons will still be around my friends.  I did want to get that on record before anyone calls me a flip flopper.

My beef is not about the reboot's casting.  Some say Emma Watson is not the best cast Belle.  In fact based on what I saw she looks very very pretty.  And of course Josh Gad (that's his name right???) is a perfect cast of Lefou.  You may remember him as the voice of Olaf, so he has it in big time with the Disney Company.  Speaking of Lefou, my complaint isn't at all about the so called "gay moment".  Although not necessary IMO, it's not an anti gay rant.  Go read the theater owner's comments if you want that, but I would never do it here.

My beef is about this film's existence.  I mean sure it can be great, but the problem here is this: the original film opened in 1991 and was considered an immediate classic.  Very few movies can pull that off.  What's more, it is the only animated feature to be nominated for Best Feature.  This was before Best Animated Feature was even thought of, so use your imagination on what that meant for the film.  These past few years, Disney announced one by one they will be rebooting their films and turning them into live action features.  While it may work for some, movies that I said were immediate monster hits like Aladdin, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast, were on the list.  That got me to thinking, is this the end of animation?  I lived through the era of Miley Cirus and Hannah Montana when kids showed little to know interest in cartoons.  Thankfully, folks like Penton Ward and Lauren Faust turned it around.  I did not want to see that ever again.  I want to see cartoons continue to thrive both classic and new.  Once the film becomes a hit, more will be on the way.  Disney wasn't the only one doing this as Pokemon and in a couple of weeks Ghost in the Shell will also have live action features (more on that later).

So here's my conclusion:  let's take a look at animated features out now and coming out later.  Going back about a year, yes Zootopia, Finding Dory, and Moana proved successful, but that's three.  Norm of the North opened with a 0% on Rotton Tomatoes.  That is not good.  Then came a few more duds including the "smart" idea of an adult film with Seth Rogan.  Bravo Sony.....Jump to this year, Rock Dog is a failure and The Emoji Movie is a failure waiting to happen this summer.  Boss Baby is also not getting great reviews.  There are a few things that have curiosity going.  Cocoa is the next Pixar film and has the guy from The Book of Life working on it (he is one of us).  With the duds of those live action Smurf movies, Smurf 3 is being replaced with this new CGI good looking Smurfs and the Lost Village.  It looks much better than the previous two movies and has a former Dreamoworks director involved, but can it win?  The same goes for My Little Pony the Movie coming soon.  Records have shown in history books that My Little Pony fails in the box office.  However, the My Little Pony of the 80's is a whole other animal compared to today's My Little Pony franchise, so time will tell (more on that on a later date).  So yeah...it's safe to assume if more duds come, more animation departments will close and more reboots will happen.

On the other hand, as much promotion Beauty and the Beast got, Ghost in the Shell got much less attention.  Based on an anime, this one is opening with much more controversy than Beauty and the Beast.  I do predict that one to be a bomb and more live action Hollywood adaptations of anime titles will not happen.  Anime films will continue to screen thanks to devoted fans, and there's still interesting stuff coming out there from Your Name to Sword Art Online.  Just don't expect a big budget Sailor Moon movie ala Wonder Woman anytime soon.  Again, time will tell.

Film is sadly an aging art as technology advances, and with these new Disney reboots, only time will tell which versions the public will prefer.  While reboots are a great idea for bringing back classic iconic characters (or else they die), they should be just that....REBOOTS, that way when the wind clears, the best versions are the originals (with a few rare exceptions).  Just keep that in mind when you go see the movie.  Enjoy it, have fun with it, but keep the original version in your heart.  I wish the movie well, and I hope it keeps the core as to what made Beauty and the Beast beloved to begin with.

Everything you need to know (as of now) with Boomerang's new Streaming Service

Turner just announced something major, something that WB fans have been waiting to hear for a long time, the classic cartoons will officially start streaming.  For $5 a month (or $40 a year), fans can soon officially stream their favorite classic cartoons on Boomerang.  What started as a TV channel in 2000 in order to give more room to new originals on Cartoon Network may become better than ever.  Anytime, anywhere, Looney Tunes, Popeye, Tom and Jerry, and more can be enjoyed with your family and friends or simply just by yourself.  So what will this mean????  Variety gave their report, and there's a video promoting it already, but here's my take on the new era of Looney Tunes


First of all, based on the video, the quality of some of the cartoons are going to be better than what's on TV right now.  It should be noted that a whole lot of cartoons have already been restored for Blu-ray and DVD.  If you haven't bought the Looney Tunes Golden or Platinum Collections, you are already missing out.

There will also be more stuff than what's on Cartoon Network and the TV network Boomerang right now.  While both may show Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry (if Teen Titans Go stops 400 reruns), they will not show Yogi Bear or Huckleberry Hound anymore.  This is the place to see them.

It won't be just classic cartoons.  New cartoons will also show up such as New Looney Tunes, new Scooby-Doo episodes, and new series such as a new Wizard of Oz series (why we need another Wizard of Oz cartoon I have no idea).  Think of it as if it were the original Cartoon Network from the 1990's only with streaming.

While this is very exciting news for many, there are some things to keep in mind: do not expect the entire cartoon library on here.  There are still several cartoons deemed politically incorrect by today's standards.  The Censored 11 is still in effect, the Tom and Jerry cartoons still have issues with Mammy Two Shoes, and Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips still has Bugs saying every word in the dictionary deemed offensive to Japanese and Asian people.  Do not expect the black and white shorts, if any on the service, to be in black and white.  WB colorized their library twice (1968 and the early 90's).  Turner did a colorization of their own library too such as Popeye.  Finally, it costs thousands of dollars to restore the cartoons, so from the get go, some of the cartoons may not be restored, but if the service proves successful, maybe this will finance WB to restore more cartoons for streaming.  The good news is that nearly half of the Looney Tunes are restored, almost all the Tom and Jerry cartoons are restored, major Hanna-Barbera cartoons are restored, and the Max Fleischer Popeye cartoons are restored (however, 97% are in black and white, so don't expect those to show up).  The bad news however is that the original master negatives for the pre 1951 MGM cartoons were lost in a major fire in 1967 (though all the cartoons still exist in some form), and the Hanna-Barbera library had been handed down many years and were treated poorly under Taft and Worldvision causing some of the material such as original titles and interstitials to be lost as well as some of the cartoons to fade and decay over time.  Thankfully, WB knows what they are doing for the most part.

That said, while this is a major victory for us, the battle is still not over.  There are still tons of old classic cartoons just sitting there in the studio's libraries unrestored, and unless it's WB or Disney, they are an endangered species.  We hope other studios such as Universal (who just inherited a boatload of classics through their Dreamworks acquisition) and Paramount will do stuff next.  These are just as much classic as The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Star Wars,  and Gone with the Wind.  We hope for a bright future as we move to the next step in the right direction.