Meet the Robinsons

[Kooshmeister]

Anyone else seen the trailers for this movie? It looks positively awful. I don't usually judge a film based solely on its trailer, but this one turned me off in a way few others can. And not just for the brand of comedy it's pushing (that is, loud and spontaneous; witness the bit with the female scientist and the "caffeine patches") but also because of... the dancing dinosaur.

Apparently the film's villain will have a tyrannosaurus rex under his control, and, while I do like the gag of the T-rex being unable to get the kid because his head is too big and his arms are too short, what I don't like is the bit at the end of each trailer where they have the T-rex dance. And he doesn't just dance. He freaking moonwalks and does the Arsenio Hall "rotate your arm while going 'Woof-woof-woof'" thing. It's difficult to explain precisely why this bothers me. Maybe it's because there's no way in hell the film's target audience, kids of today, are going to "get" it, or maybe it's because it's an obvious clue that the filmmakers are so creatively bankrupt and have so little faith in the virtues of their film that they figure the only way to lure audiences in is with a completely out of context gag of a dancing dinosaur.

"Hi! We don't think the film's story, characters, or the comedy samples we've shown you are enough to interest you, so here's a dinosaur doing outdated dance moves! Isn't he cool?"

Now, admittedly, if the dinosaur actually does perform these dance moves in the film, I'll eat crow, but it'll still annoy the hell out of me because I'm sick of this kind of comedy. As I noted above, it's loud and spontaneous and I get tired of it after only a few viewings of whatever film it's in, and, worse, it reeks of "Look at me! Look at me!"-style theatrics on the part of the actors/writers/animators.

[KYGOTC]

I cant stand all these c.g. movies that hollywood spews out every year. They hype them all up months in advance and then after the release date, no one ever talks about them anymore. Shrek is an exeption. Everyone seems to like Shrek.

I liked most of the Pixar movies, but now Pixar duzznt even exist anymore. Disney ate their SOULZ.

[D-Man]

Even with Pixar on board, and despite all that John Lasseter may do, Disney is no longer the company that Walt founded. 

Walt Disney was an artistic and imaginative man who was always looking to the future, and would always strive to have his company create things that no one had ever seen before.  Yes, he made money, but he had his logical, and business oriented brother Roy to thank for that part of it.  He was ultimately a great showman, who knew how to promote things that many naysayers said were impossible to pull off....they told him people would never pay to watch feature length cartoons...they told him he could never create a park that was beyond your average amusement park, and make it a profitable venture...thank god he didn't listen to those people who'd tell him he was crazy, or else who knows how things would have turned out. 

But Today's Disney...they think they've got too much to lose now.  They won't take any risks, they won't try anything new. They just want to stick to their formula of heavily hyped CGI-fests and straight-to-video sequels, which despite our grumblings, the impulse-buy crowd will keep purchasing to satiate their kids, many of whom are too young to really know quality when they see it. 

I've liked pretty much all of Pixar's stuff, but ever since The Incredibles, none of their most recent work has really wowed me.  John Lasseter's a good guy, with a good head on his shoulders, just like Walt...but he's up against a huge corporate machine here.   

[Flangepart]

And that machine will suck you dry. Its soul is hungry for money and public image.
What a loss.