Hey so I got to thinking I've never really seen anyone talking about animated movies aside from comic book-related ones, so I was curious as to what everyone thinks about animated films.

No I'm not just talking about Disney or Pixar or "kid" movies. Animation's not reserved for entertaining small children.

Well, there's Heavy Metal and Fire and Ice. Two greats from the 80's.

Ever since I saw the 1980-1982 trilogy of animated movies put together from the best bits of the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam anime series (plus a generous amount of redone and improved animation, especially in Part 3), I have maintained that they are the best way to experience not only the very quintessence of the Gundam franchise, but also to appreciate how, despite greater sophistication in both technique and scripting for the subsequent expansions & re-imaginings of the Gundam mythos, the original remains one of THE touchstones of anime.

...oh my God someone on here knows Gundam.

C'est moi.

Robots tearing each other to pieces, that's my cake of choice.

The rest is icing on the cake. And if it has a dollop of substance mixed in, that only makes it tastier.

I just watched the first of the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin movies. It was... ok. I wasn't aware that it would only consist of backstory for Char Aznable and Sayla Mass. The manga started off by retelling the events of the original series, which was honestly the only one I watched any of.

I've been out the Gundam loop for the past 7 or so years, after the second season of Gundam 00 (Zero-Zero) got off to what I felt was a really bad start, as I'd enjoyed the first season quite a bit (FTR, this was the version of Gundam that was aired late at night on SyFy.)

Anyhow, I'll take your word for it that Mobile Suit Gundam Origin (which I just Wiki-ed and was not impressed) is yet another reason to stay out of the loop. Thanks, Matlock.

Have you followed Victory Gundam?

That one eluded my radar, I have to admit. I just Wiki-ed it, and, HOLY $#!T, Yoshiyuki Tomino (for the Gundam uninitiated, he's the principal creator of the original version of Gundam) clearly hates that show, even though he was at its helm! It says in the Wiki article that there was a lot of corporate monkey business going on with the toy company's acquisition of the animation studio, and I'm well familiar with how that can have a negative influence on the projects being produced at the time.

Of all the Gundam iterations I've seen (and, to reiterate, the last "current" one I saw was Gundam 00), my second favorite after the original is a rather predictable choice: Gundam Wing, the Gundam of choice for Americans. I also liked the 1988 Gundam movie "Char's Counterattack," but I was disappointed in the movie trilogy that tried to do for the Gundam Zeta series what the original movie trilogy had done for the original series (put it this way, I thank the Gods that I found Char's famous speech on YouTube, because for whatever reason, it was left out of the movies...which, BTW, were only about 90 minutes each where the previous ones had been over 120 minutes each.)

And, just so that there's no too much unintended overlap between this thread and the Anime Thread, I have to confess: what I consider one of the most disturbing scenes ever committed to celluloid was in, of all things, an old *Disney* animated film: "Pinocchio." I'm talking about the scene where the bad boy who almost leads Pinocchio astray slowly metamorphoses into a donkey, getting more and more hysterical with each phase of the conversion until he completely loses it, and then later we see all the bad kids fully transformed and being treated horribly by the donkey wranglers. Bloody hell, just dredging up that memory chills me to the bone!!

And just to wrap up this post on a brighter note, my favorite Disney animated film is "Fantasia." The sequences with the dinosaurs and the demons scared me, too, but more in a "this is actually awesome, and I wanna see more stuff like this" way.

^ According the The Art of Walt Disney, he received tons of complaints that "Pinocchio" was too violent. I think that is why it is kind of glossed over quickly before historians talk about "Fantasia". I personally find an obscure 1920s cartoon really disturbing...unsure if I should link to it. It is about a character that keeps running away from responsibility.

My favorite Disney animated movie is "The Jungle Book". It has a great soundtrack and beautiful animation. As a child it was "The Emperor's New Groove".

I have had "We Are One" from Lion King II: Simba's Pride in my head lately. I tried checking out reviews for the TV show, they seem pretty mixed, but if it gets kids to seek out the movies I guess that is good.

Thanks, Emily. Glad to know I'm not the only one who found it a bit much.



Agreed 100%, and, as it happens, one key song from the soundtrack was covered by a heroine of mine and her band:

Of all the Disney films we saw with Mom as children, I think Pinocchio was and is my favorite. The drama of saving your parent simply moved me more at that age than the drama of princesses finding true love could.

Any fans here of The Mouse And His Child? It was probably the first animated film I ever saw only on cable TV, back around 1978 or so. It, too, took a violent turn at one point that was pretty haunting to a sensitive, skittish kid. Years later, I found a copy of the original story by Russell Hoban. Despite the changes to the story the film made, I'll always be glad that it introduced me to such an underrated "kids'" book.

Rereading the book has since become part of my personal annual holiday tradition, when I have time. Though it's not a Christmas Story as such, it does begin and end at Christmas.

I finally rewatched the film on YouTube last year, and while the imagery and music is pretty dated (post-Hippie Seventies), my affection for it hadn't cooled at all. I'm kind of worried that some day Disney or Pixar will dig it up and reintroduce it all glossed up and merchandized and stuff.