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The Ten Best Pixel MoviesAug 12 '01 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line It's a mixed bag out there with most films having something in them worth seeing, but the best overall is still Toy Story. Computer animated movies are a really mixed bag of various combinations of good or bad plot, ground-breaking or status quo special effects, and box office success or bomb. They also vary in story type with everything from kids' stuff like Toy Story to decidedly adult stuff like Titan AE which didn't really bill itself as a film for adults but had some pretty adult scenes and subject matter. Then there are the hybrid films which combine computer animation and live action. Star Wars The Phantom Menace used so much computer animation (even one of the main characters is animated) that it's almost an animated film. Then there's movies like Jurrassic Park and Jumanjii which blended computer characters so well with live action people and scenes, that they almost seem real. Since there is such variety I think I'll skip the usuall list of 10 films format and nominate 10 films as the best of several categories. And the winners are: 1. Best Overall Totally Computer Animation Film: Toy Story. I'm not usually big on kids' films, but of the Computer Animated films I've seen, Toy Story has a fairly unique idea (how many talking toy movies have you seen before Toy Story came out? Very few.) Amazing animation especially for the year it came out. Memorable characters (My favourite is Buzz Lightyear, partly because I had a toy spaceman kind of like him as a kid and because I'm a Tim Allen fan). 2. Best Immersion of a Computer Animated Character in an otherwise live-action film: Dragonheart. This mildly successful film is one of my favourite films. Sean Connery as Draco was amazing and the Computer Animated dragon was drawn so realisticly (for a fairy tale creature), and scripted so compellingly that you could forget that it was animated and think of and feel for it just like any other character in the wonderful film. 3. Best Combination of Computer Animated and Live Characters in a live-action film: Jumanjii. The story is fairly original though convoluted. But the main thing is the computer animated animals are really real looking even the ones with hair. I remember seeing a making-of featurette on the Disney Channel and seeing what they accomplished to make the hair on the animals look real. It was simply amazing. 4. Biggest BreakThrough Computer Animated Movie: Final Fantasy. Though I didn't care for the basic premise of the film which is basically one of those "new-age, Mother Earth" type of messages, the computer animation is simply the most advanced I've ever seen. If the people hadn't been slightly stylized, you almost couldn't have told they weren't real. The Alien Ghosts were rather original bad-guys and very well animated. 5. Best Computer Animated Backgrounds and supporting characters: Star Wars: the Phantom Menace. Unless you saw some of the making-of featurettes on the internet or TV, you would be amazed to know how much of the aliens and background in the film was done on computer. Almost every scene has some CGI in it. It is so well blended with the live characters and on-location scenes that it's almost impossible to tell where computer animation and physical set design and real locations begin and end. One caveat though I'll admit, even though I'm a huge Star Wars Fan, Jar Jar Binks, amazingly animated as he is, is plain annoying and not funny. 6. Coolest Computer Animated Space Ships: Babylon5 . I know its a TV show, but you've got to admit, the space scenes are really cool and they are all done on computer. Pretty amazing for a series since it has many more minutes of animatio, is produced over a much longer period and usually on a lower budget than films. 7. Weirdest Computer Animated Movie: Reboot. Hey, weird can be good! It's hard to discribe this film if you haven't rented it. It takes place inside a gigantic computer and the main character is a humanoid guy with blue skin. The Animation is as fluid and expressive as any traditional cell-art animated film I've seen. 8. Best "Special Effects" in a Computer Animated Flim: Titan AE. I know CGI is usually conciderd a Special Effect in and of itself, but this film did the most remarkable job of animating lighting effects, transparancy, reflection, shockwaves, and sound that I've ever seen. Its an achievement computer game makers should aspire to. 9. Best Gratuitous Computer Animated Character: Lost In Space (the newest version). The pet alien Penny names Blurp or something like that, was really well animated and they did a good job of making it look like the alien is really in her arms and interacting with the other characters and objects as well. The only thing is, the little guy is pointless and was never in the TV series in any form. I wonder if the CGI department just wanted to show off what they could do. 10. Most Over-The-Top Computer Animation in a Film: The Lawnmower Man. The visuals in this early attempt at a CGI film are nightmarish and bizaar. I haven't seen anything quite as complex and overwhelmingly rendered as the virtual reality computer game scenes in this film. They are always coming out with new CGI movies and pushing the envelope of what's possible these days, so this list will change in the next year or so. Right now, however, these are, in my opinion, the 10 best Computer Animated Films, each in it's own way.  |
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by carstairs38
