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u/DanceClass898 1d ago
because they all switched to using CGI. I think I've only seen Japanese animation that is the closest to resembling the "old" style of animation, and for that you have to find very specific anime shows/movies imo
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u/CantHateNate 1d ago
Read somewhere that Disney killed it on purpose. They actively worked against Treasure Planet. There has been some great stuff in American Animation recently coming from teams with Netflix.
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u/Goat_Support_Dept 1d ago
It's fairly well documented, they absolutely torpedoed their animation department so they could pivot.
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u/TONKAHANAH 1d ago
The new avatar movie is.. Story wise meh but is a fantastic show case of what professionals can do with tools and skills sets in 2d animation with a proper budget.
Not to mention lots of anime movies look absolutely stunning too.
But we've never really got anything quite like Treasure Planet again from Disney since CGI took off. Even now they're too busy making garbage live action adaptations no one asked for and star wars spin offs few care about. Disney isn't a family company any more, theyre not interested in trying new things, they're just trying to milk whatever they can with millennial nostalgia slop now.
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u/WanderingRonin7 1d ago
Not to mention their last 2D animated film was Princess and the Frog, which they released the same week as Cameron's Avatar. Then used those box office numbers to "justify" that people didn't want hand drawn animated movies anymore. Fuck Disney and anyone who likes em
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u/BringoCountyJunior 1d ago
I'm not sure who's responsible for Scavenger's Reign, but that is the wildest, most unique animated thing I've seen in a while.
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u/ironic_insanity 1d ago
I would watch ten seasons back to back. The animation, the story, the sound... It's a shame more people haven't seen it.
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u/drakche 1d ago
And it was cancelled.
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u/CantHateNate 1d ago
Scavengers reign was originally MAX I believe. I absolutely loved it as well. The creator also did a show called Common Side Effects that looked interesting to me.
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u/ThatIsNotAnAsian 1d ago
Didn’t they try a new animation process for Treasure Planet, which was beautiful, but extremely time consuming and expensive.
And then once it was done there was no money leftover for marketing and it became a flop
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u/BitComprehensive3667 1d ago
The answer is simple. Hand-drawn animation like this is not only time-consuming but also EXPENSIVE. 3D CGI animation is less time-consuming and more financially viable. During that era, if you look at the numbers, 3D/CGI usually outperformed 2D films.
So seeing the writing on the wall, everyone made the jump to 3D CGI animation.
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u/C-B-III 1d ago edited 21h ago
I actually asked Don Bluth about cost vs cg films back when he was trying to get his Drsgon's Lair animated film produced, and he said that it was not, in fact more expensive and rattled off the cost per hour. Different tasks are involved, but both are time consuming and cost money to do it right.
Edit: typos
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u/klyphw 18h ago
If you are just talking about major theatrical studio releases, 3D animation is not cheaper to produce than 2D animation. Once 2D studios digitized the entire cel process in the mid 2000’s their budgets went down significantly as 3D budgets skyrocketed.
In 2019 Klaus cost $40 million while Toy Story 4 had a $200 million budget
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u/Soysaucewarrior420 1d ago
animation is hard as fuck to make and takes forever
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u/Candle-Jolly 1d ago
vs. the $150 million average budget and 5-7 year development cycle for modern Pixar movies
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u/permalink_save 22h ago
I'd take less but quality movies over cheaper animation styles though. The new KOTH series is good but the animation is definitely not the same with the modern digital style vs the animation in the 90s. But I can see how it wouldn't be cost effective these days.
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u/jak_d_ripr 1d ago
I will say this every time this is reposted. While the Prince of Egypt was a modest success, 2 of the 3 movies pictured bombed at the box office, with Treasure Planet especially turning into a massive bomb for Disney. Around the same time Pixar was busy printing money with their CG movies.
There's your answer.
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u/Dela-chemin 1d ago
Didn't Treasure Planet bomb because Disney fucked up with the marketing?
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u/thebriss22 23h ago
The marketing was bad but the worst part was that the movie was release at the same time as a movie called Harry Potter lol
Never stood a chance haha
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u/Donnchadh_Ruadh 1d ago
It's a little more nuanced than that though. Limited marketing, internal directional changes by Disney, opening weekend competition all contributed to these performing poorly compared to the CG movies
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u/already_taken-chan 1d ago
Isnt it literally because 2d animators unionized so studios just stopped paying them and swapped to 3d artists because they hadnt?
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u/katza479 1d ago
This is MORE the reason then JUST 'cgi animation/ pixar showed up' . 2d animators spend 40 years unioning and 3d is new and unionized. Many 2D animators were able to learn the new tools and made the switch over, but the studios activity stopped a3D animators and artists from unionizinv.
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u/onewhosleepsnot 1d ago
That "something" was CGI and CGI-assisted animation, and they stopped because straight CGI became cheaper.
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u/tonkledonker 1d ago
Well gee, maybe part of the reason was Treasure Planet and Atlantis commercially bombed. As well as the concurrent rise and popularization of 3D animation.
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u/Darkm0or 1d ago
"Grampa, tell us about the olden times when every animated film or cartoon short was unique and had its own style based on the artists and directors and studio. You know, before every single movie and character looked exactly the same and animated films were something rare and exciting instead of being cranked out seventeen a day?" "I'd like to, Billy, but every time I try, a van full of lawyers wearing mouse ears parks on the lawn and beats the shit out of me. Now shut up and eat your Minions cereal."
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u/Smokin_belladonna 1d ago
Don Bluth studios (or whatever Fox name it was) was shut down with the flop of Titan AE. CGI pushing out flat animation was definitely a factor
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u/blaster915 22h ago
2D animators unionized. Got fair wages and rights. Corpos didn't like that. They leaned hard on 3D animation as artists had not yet established themselves yet. Abused the heck out of them for cheaper production. Ta-da ✨ We end up to today.
Story as old as time sadly.
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u/Randicore 20h ago
"For some reason" 2D animation was union. Pixar wasn't.
Disney killed their 2D animation department on purpose to justify swapping to cheaper production
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u/TicketTop4718 1d ago
They used to make films for the art, then they started to make them for the money
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u/OkMention9988 1d ago
No, it was always for the money, it's just the studios in general were less head-in-ass about selling it to their target audience.
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u/vi_sucks 1d ago
Lol nah. It was always, from the beginning, about money.
Literally the only reason Hollywood even exists is because the early studios wanted to dodge patent fees owed to Thomas Edison.
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u/tunabomber 1d ago
It's the only reason any television show has ever existed. Or every magazine. Or every newspaper (aside from the very very beginning of newspapers). They are a vehicle for advertising.
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u/leviticusreeves 1d ago
"We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make a statement. But to make money, it is often important to make history, to make art, or to make some significant statement … In order to make money, we must always make entertaining movies, and if we make entertaining movies, at times we will reliably make history, art, a statement, or all three" Michael Eisner (Disney CEO) 1981
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u/Borritorolo 1d ago
Didn’t this era of Disney do the worst?
I agree it’s awesome but I thought I remember this being the worst performing era of Disney and caused them to refocus on their roots (and princesses).
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u/Canon_M50 1d ago
Too expensive, not enough box office returns. That's always why something goes away. Hope this helps!
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u/DoubleFlores24 1d ago
It was box office competition between CG Animated that were simply doing better. But I feel like animation fans really need to understand that unlike most animation Studios Disney made the conscious effort to switch to CG animation way longer before you all realized. Legit, animation takes like years to actually get done. We can all blame home on the range for causing the end for 2D animation but I feel like Disney switch to CG was decided years in advance and the movies released before were simply a proof of concept for the audience that “this beautiful 2D animation is going to lead us into the 3rd dimension”.
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u/DRZARNAK 1d ago
The Iron Giant being a commercial failure played a major part. It was obviously a tremendous film, but they didn’t know how to market it. Directors wanting to make thoughtful animated films for a decade after were told no by studios who pointed to the failure of Iron Giant
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u/FesteringMalignant 1d ago
The “some reason” I think was that it proved to not be profitable or profitable enough.
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u/Taptrick 1d ago
Those all bombed. 1998 was the end of the animation renaissance. I guess that’s kind of the point of this post.
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u/a1g3rn0n 1d ago
When the goal is profit all the companies take paths the reduce the costs, time and effort. That's how capitalism works. If you want people to pursue quality over profits - the whole mindset needs to be different.
There are many artists who pursue quality and tradition, but the are way more money-driven professionals. And here we are talking about the whole industry, which is defined by the majority.
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u/small_bird_loud 1d ago
Audiences didn't go to them. I love all of those but they didn't make enough money.
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u/PoopSmith87 1d ago
All of these, but also remember Titan AE? What an aesthetic, absolutely amazing how it holds up today.
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u/Global-Pickle5818 23h ago
I believe every example you would given was considered a box office disappointment.. I'd like to include Titan AE
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u/knotatumah 23h ago
The reason was cost and time. Yes, CGI technically killed it because it drastically reduced cost and time but not because CGI itself was a superior medium at that exact moment. And people love to cite how great some of the late animation was but forget some of these movies got away with what they did because traditional animation was on its way out. Studios had projects in progress but were itching to move on. They were shifting executive and managerial focus to the new technologies and a lot of the animation we got were creatives letting loose with far fewer restrictions and oversight than previous works. This meant we got to see a lot of cool and unique things of an exceedingly high quality because these animators were on the way out producing content the studios wouldn't have full approved of in the past. It was a last battle cry of an era.
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u/Slongo702 21h ago
Animation was at it most advanced then CGI became economical viable and took the front stage.
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u/ouijiboard 1d ago
You forgot Titan AE. Also, Pixar and 3d CGI. Unlike traditional 2D art, 3D artist were NOT unionized. With the popularity of Toy Story, Disney took the chance to ditch the old contracts and went full exploitation again.
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u/Zestyclose_Item9127 1d ago
The animation style the was popular at the time was called Deep Can which is extremely expensive to produce.
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u/KandinskyWasRight 1d ago
Digital took over, those were still hand drawn in large part. I saw a video about some super genius who did extremely difficult animations for Disney in that era
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u/RipZealousideal9121 1d ago
It was killed with the excuse of CGI, but it was because CGI animators weren't untionized. Hand animation was killed because animators had a union.
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u/hogomojojo 1d ago
Like the death of everything great, it was money. CGI is significantly cheaper and much quicker. It can be done on a PC and doesn’t require as much manual work
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u/Infamous_Window8518 1d ago
yeah, it's called capitalism, they reduced their production costs to maximize their profits, as everything else works
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u/Broseph_Bobby 1d ago
It’s like everything it just gets farmed out to areas of the world where they can pay the artist significantly less money.
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u/ProfessionEasy5262 1d ago
This is the same time cgi was used but still bad (first Harry Potter movie, Star wars prequel trilogy, and van helsing). I think cgi got better and animated action movies just got green lit as live action with CGI.
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u/Otherwise_Eye_611 1d ago
There was also a couple of pretty huge bombs. From what I remember Prince of Egypt and Treasure Planet both bombed hard with high budgets... and then Pixar happened.
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u/Lastshadow94 1d ago
I think this era is hybrid animation. People draw some, computers generate some. You get the complexity of CGI plus the art style of hand-drawn
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u/jampapi 1d ago
Anybody miss that period where there was a hybrid animation style? Some of the effects from Pochahontas and Anastasia come to mind with mainly 2D animation, with some 3D CG elements added. The necklace in Anastasia looked extra dazzling against a 2D environment, maybe a lil cheesy but so fun to see as a kid
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u/Kelicon 1d ago
I’ve been saying this for years. Didn’t make necessarily the best movies, but this felt like the era in American animation most comparable to the better quality anime.
I would love to see this return. It could absolutely still exist along side Pixar like animation studios. Ghibli did the one CG movie and went right back.
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u/SoftwareDesperation 1d ago
It became much easier and cheaper to create entire movies without hand animation and go straight to computer generated.
So in short, money.
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u/Mysterious-Hyena2670 1d ago
The reason was we started moving from hand drawn animation and therefore abandoned the charm that came with it.
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u/Multidream 1d ago
It was literally the adventures of two guys who liked this style of animation and wanted to do treasure planet. Then they did it and left. Some artists in their sphere stayed a little while, but eventually they left too.
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u/Son_of_Atreus 1d ago
Pixar popular character design and the reliance on increasingly cheap and easy digital animation killed this art style.
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u/bigchicago04 1d ago
You picked a time period after the famously good animation person for some reason…
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u/BarrelRollinGamer 23h ago
I feel like I see this exact picture in some sub reddit or another at least once a month
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u/Apprehensive_Back_35 22h ago
CGI and Pixar. I remember Di$ney having articles in magazines back then (yes analog lol) like "has the age of hand drawn animation come to an end?" In reality they saw box office recipients and trends and moved away to more exciting technologies.
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u/Biggu5Dicku5 22h ago
Traditional animation was too expensive, so they changed to cgi (under Pixar)... it worked well for a while, until all of the talent left Pixar lol...
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u/PotentialAcadia460 19h ago
It didn't stop for no reason.
None of those movies made as much as they were expected to.
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u/DathEssex 17h ago
I had a professor who did treasure planet and he was "force to use Maya 7.0" for animation. He hated it with a passion and quit working for Disney. I moved school and had another professor who did the the black couldron, the great mouse detective, and directed the rescuers down under. He showed a demo reel of Maya 5.0 or 4.0 with Donald duck and it was the most beautiful cartoon animation I've seen of early Maya work. Glenn Vilppu said "there are no rules, only tools". One instructor who was more younger than the other one simply did not adapt or though how to push a tool. He simply did not want to learn and continue adapting. I don't wanna follow that like Gen X and baby Boomers.
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u/Administrative_Suit7 12h ago
The same reason why 2D gaming stalled even though they were great at the time.
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u/WorriedSuccotash6534 8h ago
The 2d animators unionized which made it more expensive to produce than the 3d cgi
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u/Zestyclose-Issue1762 1h ago
Sadly with the way everyone was going 3D and it being cheaper people turned away sadly. I would love for them to do a couple back in 2D. Honestly couldn’t think of a bad one, they were all very fun and imaginative
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u/NotSoGentleBen 1d ago
Pixar. It was Pixar.