Ice Age 2 Teaser

[Legion]

The Incredibles, Shrek 2, and Finding Nemo where very good movies, not great but they where close.  Robots was good, nothing more.  I personally like Ice age a lot (not everyone does) but I do not think it should have a sequel, I will on the other hand go see it.  Just not as soon as it comes out.

[Entsuropi]

The Incredibles was an excellent film. Funny, clever, with some likeable characters.

And that trailer made me laugh greatly. I should hunt down the first one to see if it's as good.

[42]

First, people don't go to a movie because there isn't any better movie out there at the time. They go to movies because they are interested in seeing the movie. Movies that make big bucks get their money by being likable for some reason which can't ever really be explained.

Second, Spriggan has bad taste.  Mr. Grumpy (i.e. Spiggan) severly lacks the skills necessary to appreciate anything cool.

Third, the sabre-tooth squirrel is the funniest part of Ice Age. Unfortunately, he's just a running gag and not really a main character.

[Legion]

The reason Movies make money is because they make there movie look good, most people go see movies because they think it is going to be good.  I have seen many movies that I thought were going to be great movies, and by then end I walk away asking myself why I just wasyed X amount of money on seeing that crap

[42]

Yes, and movies like that tank in sales after opening weekend. Good movies, like the Incredibles and Finding Nemo get a certain demographic to keep coming back to watch the movie over and over again.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

while a huge chunk of the movie's gross comes from opening weekend, opening weekend is far from sufficient to make top 10 standing. People see movies because they've heard good things about it or because it's popular. Which means they wait a week or two. If the movie stinks, they won't see it. So if it's hyped really, really well, it'll have a fantastic opening weekend. But if it sucks, the income will decline sharply afterwards.

That's why i feel comfortable using those numbers in my argument. a movie like Return of the King makes a huge portion of its gross from multiple viewings (I saw it three times in the theater, and I don't think that's even a lot of times, though it is three times as often as I see most of the movies I see in theaters -- my sister-in-law saw it at least 6 times). RotK made ~$377 million dollars. Nemo made a little under $340 million. It just doesn't make logical sense that Nemo made that much without people seeing it multiple times. Which means they did *not* find it boring.

[Spriggan]

Well this conversation didn't fulfill it's purpose, shesh, what's the point of trying to entertain oneself at work when no one bothers to reply until I'm about to go home.  But ya, arguing that "no one will watch x years from now" isn't something I'd normally argue (or even believe) if work wasn't so lame.  If you remember I made the exact opposite argument, ie the one SE is using now, in the book thread a few months ago (which surprising enough most people disagreed with me on.) since I do believe how much money a movie makes shows that it is generally "good".  I just know mentioning "Incredibles" and any suggestion of "not the freaking greatest movie ever made" and people here get all defensive.

Anyway all silly arguments aside (no need to try and get people riled up now) I started my comments on the line of peoples notion if "if its not Pixar it's crap" which is a stupid comment and an argument no one would make interesting so I went with something else. I do find Nemo boring as watching grass grow and talk about one trick ponies too the only thing the movie had going for it was "how forgetful is the blue fish?" (forgot the name), but I really don't care how much others like it since I didn't.  Titanic made a butt-load of cash and that doesn't mean I have to like it or should but that dosen't mean there's not some value to it.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I'm not trying to say, even remotely that YOU should like it. Just that arguing that others don't is an error.

Of course, arguing "if Pixar didn't make it than it sucks" is generally also an error (Shrek 2 made more money than they all), but there could be reasons for it (though these are theoretical reasons, I've never heard them actually used). So yeah, I agree with you there. I don't think Shrek was all that great, but I'm probably in the minority in that opinion. But I thought Ice Age was fun.

[Chimera]

I don't think I ever said "If it's not Pixar it's crap." What I said was that, in my opinion, "Pixar seems to be the only company making CGI movies of true quality--well-written and well-executed." This is completely my opinion, but I still think it. I did not like Shrek, I only liked Shrek 2 because the references to pop culture made me laugh, but I don't think it has lasting value and one viewing was enough. I thought Ice Age was only passably funny--no repeated viewings please. All previews of Shark Tale and Robots drove out ANY desire to see the movies--and what I heard from other people confirmed this, so I never saw them. So, again, I don't mind being accused that this is my opinion--it is. I don't care if other people or statistics back me up or not--I think Pixar movies are the most appealing visually, as in that the computer graphics move the most gracefully (ie in the most realistic manner), and the backgrounds are the most convincing. Shark Tale looked so bland compared to Nemo. And I am also talking about the graphic design--I think the animation scheme/consistency in The Incredibles is fabulous art. But that is not the biggest reason I like Pixar movies. Even more important than the beautiful art is that they have great characters and unique stories. And they are funny without having the humor be the sole driving force behind the movie. AND they don't rely SOLELY on big names to provide their voices (which is always a red flag for me--"Come see the movie because it has X famous star's voice"--as if that is what makes me want to see an animated film. Riiiight. If you have to bulk up your poor story with big names, I'm not interested.)

Now, there have been times when big name actors/actresses have been a perfect fit for the role in animated films--Robin Williams as Genie in Aladdin, Eddie Murphy as MooShu in Mulan, Ellen Degeneris as Dory in Nemo. But when I saw the lineup for Robots, I thought to myself "Now, that movie has to suck. Why else would they need so many famous stars to bolster it?" Perhaps this is skewed thinking. But it's mine.  

So I still maintain that I am not excited about Ice Age 2. Being a sequel is one strike against it, being a sequel of a movie I didn't like that much is another, so that's two strikes against it already. I actually am also NOT excited about Chicken Little--the previews have given me doubts. I will probably see it in theaters, though--after I have heard from others what they think.

I also think Cars, which is, I believe, the next Pixar movie, looks silly. The previews have been very uninformative, and if they don't give more indication of a story besides "cars race fast" sometime soon then I probably won't be seeing it. I'm not going to start going to movies just because they are Pixar's--Pixar still has to deliver.

[Spriggan]

Your last post just did a great deal better of showing your prejudices then I would have ever bothered writing Chimera, thanks for saving me time.  Not that there's anything overly wrong with you having those opinions but all those movies had very strong points to them that some Pixar movies have yet to meet like Robots which was visually the best "pure" CGI movie made in the US to date, the whole city was amazing so was the world they came up with.  I use pure since technically Star Wars ep 3 and Sky Captain could be considered GCI since over 90% of each of those movies were animated.  Shreck was the first CGI to use animated muscles under the skin and in the face.  Shark Tale has Will Smith (umm ok so I haven't seen it so I cannot comment on it).

I also know, for a fact, that lots of the famous actors are in these movies because the film makers are fans of the actors (like Robin Williams in Robots or Ellen Degenris in Nemo) and their parts are written with them in mind not because big names will make people think crappy movies are good ones.  That never seams to work or Gili would have been a run away hit.  Of course there are times when big names are attached since studio heads feel better about a movie in those cases.

[The Jade Knight]

I'm a huge fan of Final Fantasy, too.

Honestly, I'm still not sure if I've seen a full-length (animated) feature film with as realistic CG to date, particularly when it comes to humans.

I've seen shorts that good, though, and I think it may not be long before another film with realistic CG comes out.

Final Fantasy was a pioneer, though, IMHO.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

visually a pioneer. If they had just bothered to hire a WRITER though....

[fuzzyoctopus]

Yeah it was pretty, but I won't watch it more than once for visuals alone.

[The Jade Knight]

See, I actually liked much of story and writing, too.  But then I wasn't expecting it to be one of the FF games transformed into a movie.

Personally, I'd place it way above Monsters Inc., but I tend to be abnormally receptive to philosophical content for an American.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

that's the thing, it WAS too much like an FF game converted to film.