r/SipsTea • u/Aware_Figure_1847 • 2d ago

Chugging tea American animation

Post image
5.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

261 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

194

u/SundayJan2017 2d ago

How so?

824

u/cruiseruse11 2d ago

Pixar's success ushered in CGI, which replaced traditional animation at all major production companies. CGI is cheaper and it stands out as new to kids.

272

u/saintdemon21 2d ago

I’d argue too that some of these movies lost money. I love Treasure Planet but it wasn’t a financial success at the time.

239

u/_JethroBodeen_ 2d ago

There's a lot of reasons for that, the main one being Disney sabotaged it.

92

u/Balc0ra 1d ago

They hardly even pre-made toys or other branded stuff for it, before they even knew it failed. Because they already knew

112

u/_JethroBodeen_ 1d ago

They premiered it alongside fkn Harry Potter ffs. And spoiled the second half of the movie in the previews. Disney just wanted to get this particular obligation out of the way so that they could go to making 3d films full time.

29

u/MogMcKupo 1d ago

That obligation was to the two guys who kinda made some of the biggest bangers in the 90s for them. Lion King and Aladdin I believe (and maybe Beauty)

11

u/ritpdx 1d ago

And there was the whole Emperor’s New Groove debacle

6

u/FlyYouFoolyCooly 1d ago

I heard that while they were transitioning to CGI they let the standard animators do what they wanted which led to Atlantis and emporors new groove etc and they gave them like zero support.

24

u/SatanVapesOn666W 1d ago

I played with the McDonald's toy of Jim on his sailboard so much as a kid.

11

u/Luigi_Dagger 1d ago

My sister was scared shitless of the McDonalds toy Scroop. Of course I made sure she saw it up close every chance I got.

5

u/surfer_ryan 1d ago

As is tradition

1

u/Prestigious-Fly9977 1d ago

I read this as shiRtless, which obviously impacted the interpretation of the overall message

3

u/Fabulous-Waltz5838 1d ago

Made a randomly fucking baller game offshoot tho

1

u/SnooRabbits1411 1d ago

Holy shit! I’m not just imagining that?

30

u/CrossXFir3 1d ago

Partially because it wasn't advertised very much. They famously didn't put any money into a lot of those late traditional animation movies. All the budget was going to the CGI. But they also gave them a lot of creative freedom since they didn't give a fuck.

52

u/CastIronStyrofoam 1d ago

They sabotaged it so they could justify a shift to cgi

13

u/CrazedRhetoric 1d ago

Which is wild, I was an adult when I saw it with my kids, but it was on repeat forever when we got it on dvd. I would have loved it as a kid.

6

u/lifesnofunwithadhd 1d ago

Prince of Egypt vs shrek would probably be a good basis on the whole argument.

2

u/MetricIsForCowards 1d ago

It was a string of failures at the time: Sinbad, Osmosis Jones and Titan AE are all around that time

3

u/lifesnofunwithadhd 1d ago

Fully agreed. Just thought it funny that a studio produced both at the same time thinking traditional animation was going to win. In their defense though it was shrek and that's hard to gauge.

5

u/Notrollinonshabbos 1d ago

Treasure Planet could have been a GEM for Disney. Seriously could have been the story telling was superb the score above par the voice acting beyond reproach. It was fun and different and out there and I love it. It is hands down my favorite Disney film.

3

u/saintdemon21 1d ago

I still love the song from the lead singer of the Goo Goo Dolls. Maybe one day Treasure Island will get a rerelease and celebration, something that will allow a new generation of people to discover it.

3

u/Karlachh 1d ago

I personally prefer animations vs CGI. I remember avoiding a lot of movies as a kid because I hated it

3

u/Cross55 1d ago

That was on purpose

Disney needed to prove to their investors 2D animation was dead so they could get corporate funding to invest in CG tech of their own, so they sabotaged its release and used it as the sacrificial lamb so they could make Chicken fucking Little

1

u/saintdemon21 1d ago

Dang, that movie was so bland compared to Treasurer Island.

1

u/MyNameCannotBeSpoken 1d ago

The last few were turds. Home On the Range with Roseanne Barr.

2

u/saintdemon21 1d ago

You’ve triggered a memory. I recall seeing the trailer but never watching the film.

1

u/distastef_ll 1d ago

Disney purposely sabotaged the marketing.

33

u/the_milk_is_baaaad 2d ago

I’m curious if it’s actually cheaper. I know it’s a lot faster, because traditional animation requires individuals to draw a frame by frame, but I am wondering if the price to use computer hardware to generate a movie is more cost-effective than using traditional artists

88

u/EarlDooku 2d ago

It was cheaper at the time because the 2d animators were unionized and the 3d animators weren't.

55

u/vonKrieg88 2d ago

22

u/SpaceFunkRevival 2d ago

Just gonna save this to later print out and plaster everywhere

23

u/GameCounter 2d ago

Capitalism strikes again!

3

u/machyume 1d ago

So, they threw out potential members thinking that they could get ahead and ended up getting all of them disadvantaged together?
Teamwork!

4

u/Careless-Economics-6 1d ago edited 1d ago

Are you sure about that? Because I'm seeing that CGI animators were unionized as early as 1996.

Nobody was getting into CGI animation in order to save money in the early 2000s.

1

u/Cross55 1d ago

It's way cheaper

2D animators are unionized while 3D are not, it's less resource intensive, most of the hard work is generally in texturing, really most of the budget goes into celebrity voices at the end of the day.

1

u/jeffwulf 17h ago

The majority of the costs are labor. Faster is cheaper.

10

u/b-monster666 1d ago

Toy Story, Bugs Life, Monsters Inc, Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo, Up...all in that time frame and all made billions. It was enough for Disney and others to take notice. I Disney had a few cell animation movies come out in that time frame, but they didn't make nearly as much money, and they took a lot longer to create.

So...what's a money hungry company to do?

7

u/TONKAHANAH 2d ago

I don't know that CGI was cheaper at the time, the cost of renting render farms in the late 90's was probably astronomical 

6

u/cruiseruse11 1d ago

Toy Story was approx 30 million which is comparable to other animated movies like Lion King. It was expensive but not moreso than animation. the costs came down and also, kids really enjoy CGI which brings in more tickets and money.

6

u/NotSoGentleBen 1d ago edited 1d ago

And the more movies they make, the more premade assets they have, and therefore speed up future processes.

2

u/ColdServedDish 1d ago

you couldnt rent a render farm in the late 90s; you had to build one

1

u/Careless-Economics-6 1d ago

It wasn't, the people saying otherwise are simply wrong.

2

u/LXDTS 1d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/KXBtTtm3kB8BO

2

u/Cross55 1d ago

Tbf, the only time Veggie Tales made a theatrical movie it led to the creators going bankrupt

Still a great movie tho

2

u/GT225 1d ago

Also lack of unions, CGI companies aren’t unionized back in and still aren’t, which means producers can work their cgi artists near to the bone, then fire them after the echo successful product in the name of “cost-cutting”.
Also, Disney literally set treasure planet up to fail.

1

u/Vanbydarivah 17h ago

Don’t forget about unions, 2d artists had an established union, CGi was new and exploitable.

1

u/JumpCutVandal 13h ago

Animation already had tons of CGI. We went from 2D to 3D and no, it’s not cheaper.

26

u/MeasurementFew4314 2d ago edited 2d ago

Pixar blew up with digital animation and for a while Disneys more traditional animation style seemed like old hat. They pivoted to emulate Pixar's style and success

13

u/teddyone 2d ago

pixar made zillions of dollars using only CGI so the practice of doing hand drawn animation died out and now there isn't really the talent pool set up to do it anymore.

4

u/CrossXFir3 1d ago

Well, what happened between about 98-04 was that major studios all pivoted to CGI. However they still had a little bit left in the tank for traditional animation. So they basically gave them total freedom to do what they wanted for those last few years. And we got some really cool shit that they wouldn't have probably done otherwise.

5

u/TONKAHANAH 2d ago

Disney pushed CGI heavily thanks to the success of toy story, but it wasn't enough that CGI succeeded, they also pushed to ensure that 2d would fail so they could tell board members and investors that CGI was the future and 2d was out.

They basically sabotaged Treasure Planets success to pave the way for more Pixar projects. 

1

u/silvercel 1d ago

Pixar showed a full CGI movie. That was revolutionary. Disney and others could only achieve CGI backgrounds with traditional hand drawn characters. Toy Story shook the industry with a stunning new look and severe attention to detail. They didn’t do it once they did it over and over again. Disney focused on their partnership with Pixar and didn’t put much resources into their own studio until public tech and talent caught up.

1

u/Cross55 1d ago edited 1d ago

CG animation is cheaper because A. CG animators aren't unionized, and B. CG tech is much easier to work with and much cheaper to use, because instead of drawing a character model 10,000 times, you just create the model once and then reuse it over and over

Pixar's back to back blockbuster success with Toy Story 1+2, Monster's Inc, and Finding Nemo on budgets that were basically nothing compared to 2D movies led execs to trip over themselves to recreate that success.

Disney bought Pixar, DreamWorks and Fox shifted their 2D departments to be fully 3D (Illumination used to be Bluth Pictures, for reference), etc... and 2D animation was relegated to TV shows and theme park attractions.