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A Rebuttal To An Earlier HORTON Review!
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
One way or another, I’m seeing this one with Toshi and his little girlfriend Frannie and her folks as soon as it opens. He loves the spots, and I just hope the movie doesn’t make the Dr. Seuss fan in my cry.
Fingers crossed this guy is right:
Hi there...
If you run this review please just refer to me as Mister Zabladowski...
Here’s my rebuttal of your previous review.
Just watched the new version of Horton Hears a Who... As a long time Seuss fan who’s had his fingers or should I say eyes and ears.. and heart! burned one time too many watching terrible film adaptations, I was anticipating yet another disaster.
Ok...The trailer looked promising, but that could easily be down to good editing. (Though to be fair, creating even 30 seconds of good trailer material from that Mike Myers Cat in the Hat remake must have been a daunting task.)
But I had a funny feeling this adaptation would be good...there just seemed to be more respect for Seuss’ innocence and whimsy in the short preview clip.
To start with, the animation is pretty good, not to say excellent. Similar to Ice Age’s CGI (so not as detailed and textured as Ratatouille for instance) and entirely appropriate in its styling and colour tones to the original material. In fact, the landscapes, architecture and characters were really beautifully rendered.
Don’t forget, I’m a real Seuss fan so I’m not just saying this as someone who kind of likes any old CGI animated film. I get chills down my spine when I watch the Hans Conried’s Do Mi Do duds sequence in 5000 fingers, or the incredible basement ballet/orchestra scenes with their crazy instruments. (Even though Seuss himself was disappointed by 5000 Fingers’ film adaptation, I think that along with the original Grinch cartoon, these two films pretty much nail Seuss’ world).
I was also really disappointed.. wrong word... disgusted with the Cat in the Hat. Vulgar, manic, hollow, so far from Seuss - completely soul-less .. or even dare I say it... predatory. I find it hard to belive Mike Myers wouldn’t have felt ashamed to have distorted such a beloved character with such a self serving embarrassing comedy routine.
Horton is different. Your previous reviewer talks about a few of the ‘contemporary’ references that have been added to the script (whospace, etc) but believe me these hardly register in the whole Horton experience. The heart of the film remains intact. Its story, its characters, its design and its soul still beat in time with Theodore Geisel’s. Really.
Hey, my jaw dropped in disbelief 100 times or more during Cat in the Hat, through all those tired ‘modern’ and wanna be sassy catch phrases.
But despite a few (very few and none of the smug delivery) of these in Horton, they really are very gentle nods; fair enough we could have done without them but they don’t interfere much.
What I would agree with is that the 2-D animated sequences are completely pointless. The first bit drawn in a very Seuss style could easily have been dropped, it serves little purpose and jars stylistically, but its inoffensive.
The NINJA segment however is pretty poor and might be the one time I thought “What the Heck is this doing here?”. With its bargain basement animation (think Power Puff Girls styling, but then imagine it animated by the guys who brought you Cinderella 2 ha ha) and modern day manga references, it seemed almost like an afterthought imposed by a worried and misguided exec. (Also, the montage would probably have been much funnier and effective in normal 3D CGI without the Manga references.) Thankfully, this bit only lasts 30 seconds so you can overlook it.
Another off-putting sequence: the song at the end. Again, its so short you don;t get the time to hate it but I had just enough time to think that it was completely out of touch with the rest of the film. Its vaguely Celine-soft rock-disney sound just didn’t fit, and if a song really needed to be added, surely a very Seuss like number (like in 5000 fingers) or something more akin to the playful material in Corpse’s bride (not as dark obviously) would have been a better choice.
But the rest is great. Whoville looks stunning, all the brilliant inventions, instruments, creatures, trees, mechanisms etc.. they’re all there and beautifully executed. You really wish you could stop the film and go for a walk around to properly appreciate these finer details.
Its in seeing Seuss’ imagination come alive, replete with all these loveably crazy beings, that you realise how rich his world was and how wrong it is to veer away from it. When you have this wondrous source material, shouldn’t you be humbled to even be able to play with it?
I felt the team who worked on Horton really must have felt a bit like that because they’ve succeeded where so many people have failed. And I’m sure Dr Seuss’s widow, Audrey Geisel, who’d banned any further live action adaptations of Seuss’s films after seeing The Cat in the Hat, will finally feel that - for the most part - someone has finally managed to capture the essence of Seuss and better still, make a film which will hopefully open the eyes of a whole new generation to the wonder and charm of such an incredible author.
Mister Zabladowsi
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I can't watch the trailer without picturing both of them in a recording booth somewhere. REAL VOICE ACTORS, PLEASE!
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...what could that mean?
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Mar 10, 2008 2:11:58 AM CDT
A Plant tries to do Damage Control to an Earlier Horton Review!
by shiftyeyeddog2
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It's a kids film. They'll love it. When you're six you don't care about "stylistic jarring" or "the essence of Seuss", it's just a cartoon with a silly elephant and tiny people in it. It is so un-worthy of comment when we should be discussing things like Mushishi - getting set reports from Watchmen - following rumours of new films - not talking about an unacceptable ninja section in a kids film. C'mon guys. Really.
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all the pretty colours in the background are not animation. character design is not animation. layout isnt animation. what IS animation, the character movement, and ice age really are damn good at that, and im talking to pixar standards. the problem is they get let down in other departments (usually story.) if you compare this to any dreamworks film and actually look at the animation, Blue Sky are so much more advanced. They just need new story and script guys, ad then we'll have another genuinely great animation studio.
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Seems like brad bird's the only one who gets it. it's visuals, animation, *and* story, all three woven seemlessly together. Incredibles, Ratatouille are the only ones modern examples I can think of since Lion King or Toy Story. Maybe Finding Nemo.
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is part of the reason the Seuss adaptions have gone wrong, because some hack writer has to fill-in Seuss's original idea with 1 1/2 hours of bullshit. Has anyone tried to see if Carrey's "Grinch" could be edited down to a 30 min. decent movie, for instance?
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Despite the obvious fact that this 'review' is a textbook 'plant' review (love ths bit where he has a pop at the exec that forced them to add the 'afterthought' sequence; i wonder how the exec feels about the filmmakers making this remark in their viral marketing plant campaign)...
However, yeah, it does look fun. -
hi, im zabladowski. actually i'm not a plant, whether you believe me or not. not sure what i need to say to prove i'm not a plant... i'm just someone who likes dr. seuss and is glad that after a few failed attempts, someone got it right. and i was disappointed the first review on aicn didnt see the spirit of seuss in the film. i mean, the proof is in the pudding or the eating or whatever the darn expression is ( i bet someones gonna hate write a talkback saying they hate people who dont use the right food expressions!). the film is out soon so once you see its good, you'll remember this post and think.. gee he wasn't a plant after all. though lets face it, the chance of anyone remembering this post is slim, ha ha. oh except for those guys who hated the way i used the word animation so nonchalently. what a pr*ck i am! oooh i've just read the variety review...they weren't too hot on horton, but good to see hollywood reporter loved it. and last thing... i know that animation refers to the movement, but i was being lazy with my terminology by just referring to animation as a catch all to encompass all the visual development, character design, movement etc. apologies. i forgot how easy it is to get people upset on here! i was just quickly trying to show how much i liked the movie...
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That's "the proof of the pudding is in the eating", which is a good point. Sadly it means that no matter how much you talk about how good the pudding is, the only way we'll know for sure is to eat it ourselves. That being said, I like the earnest feeling behind the review, and the reference to Mr. Zabladowski from Dr. T made me laugh.
The Reef, taste dictates worth. I could dismiss Watchmen as being worthless if I looked at is as another overblown Hollywood attempt to make a buck off of a trash literature satire of kiddie books, but that's a really limited view of Watchmen that marginalizes art and limits all of us. Just decide this isn't your cup of tea and let others enjoy their drink instead of pissing in the pot.
Obscura and 4we8have15to16go23back42, animation is a visual medium, and trying to divorce motion from images when talking about animation sets you up as elitist, picky and rude. Feature animation especially is a hugely colaborative process, and the outside viewer shouldn't have to consider each part seperately to judge quality, and if they were to seperate the aspects of animated films into categories, I don't see why your personal view of them should be seen as the accepted delineation.
I hope this is good and look forward to trying the pudding for myself. -
for the considered reply. i like and agree with your appraisal of animation. and anyhow i find it pedantic to separate all those things, as you note they really are linked. it makes no sense to have great movement if the character design is cruddy, etc etc etc. anyhow, please do let me know on here if you liked horton mister holdyntwyst. ta!
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Rambo 5!
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I'm glad I got to see Horton on the big screen. Definitely a loving treatment of the book, really using the events of the book as solid markers along the plot. Images like the first fly-through of Whoville with various vignettes of Who-life felt very lovingly pulled from Seuss, and the cavernous hall of great mayors and the daughters' room were charming and awe-inspiring images, and the pull back to reveal the epic field of flowers was beautifully handled and emotionally powerful. Some great performances by the animators, and, although I think there were definitely times when they should have been pulled back, the voice actors also had a good ammount of charm and reverence for the book. I think this film does speak well for a future for Dr. Seuss films, and I'd love to see a similar team tackle weightier books like the Butter Battle Book or the Lorax.
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