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Tag: cartoons

Turtle power!

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Finally have the chance to go see the new animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Mutant Mayhem to the rescue. Whee! I’ve been looking forward to this. One bonus from the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike is that movies have the chance to stick around a bit longer rather than washing out of the theaters after two weeks. A less crowded launch schedule means we can wait to find a suitable time to go to the movies. I’m pumped. We’ve watched the original feature film, plus Secret of the Ooze, with people in suits. Then the two CGI heavy versions with Megan Fox as April, and my kids were watching a more recent animated tv show on Netflix. So near total TMNT saturation has been hit, and we can go sit through a feature length film. Still up in the air as to whether the youngest will join us too. Not known for being able to sit still for two full hours. Either way I think we’ll get a kick out of this new version.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this very youthful version of the turtles is not geared to me, but to my eight year old, and I’m ok with that. I got to see the original when I was ten, and it is still – by far, my favourite version of the franchise. Although this art style, much like across the spider verse, really piques my interest. I like this new stylized animation that is coming out of Sony. We are also not going to see it in 3D, so that should also make it easier to watch. I think I’m the only one who enjoys that gimmick in my immediate family. My kids don’t wear sunglasses either, so it may just be an eyewear thing, and not the added depth of field that is giving them pause.

We have had a pretty glorious lazy Sunday morning so far. Even had a hot breakfast delivered. Very bougie, I know. But it was kinda fantastic. I would have made a hot breakfast but our bread has gone mouldy, and I can’t make bacon & egg sandwiches without any bread. Could have done bacon, eggs and beans, but we were looking toward sandwiches. Blinders on I guess.

I see that Angry Birds is on tv. Might take a brief moment to watch some of that. Red is about as far away from Ted Lasso as an actor can get. Lots of range in that Sudeikis fella. Ciao Bella!

Edit** Made one of the classic blunders by getting the show times wrong by pushing the date ahead in the app to see showtime’s, but not waiting for the shift to take effect, and then not double checking the next day. So we wasted an hour driving around to get to a non existent movie showing. Didn’t feel like waiting the three hours for the next actual show time. Came home and ate lunch instead. Going to try an evening show tonight, and this time we’ll do snacks and should get to see the movie! Fingers crossed.

Why are so many of today’s cartoons so nonsensical?

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What on earth is going on with the writers of all these cartoons? Why is absurdist nonsense the soup of the day right now? Did they all grow up on Spongebob and think “Hold my acid tabs”? What a bunch of odd, weirdly all over the place, rapidly paced, fast cut, gibberish. One or two shows of this nature makes sense, you know, corner that market, but now it seems like everything is talking cupcakes, wishing upon farts, dopey unicorns, leprechauns, and manic squirrels, or inanimate objects come to life, like a stick with a leaf for a pal, and a talking strawberry. There’s far more weirdness out there than I could recount, but so much of it is “just” weirdness. Don’t get me wrong, I was a huge fan of Ren & Stimpy, and Spongebob too, but this just seems like excess. As though they put words into a salad bowl, pulled out several and then thought this is good enough.

Not a fan of the current animation style either. But that’s more of an aesthetic taste, than anything to do about quality. I’m sure they are all ridiculously time consuming to produce, and reuse portions to cut down on costs. Run cycles, and character transformation breaks (think Sailor Moon transformation sequence) draw it once and reuse it in every subsequent episode. Looks like a lot of the shows use a similar animation program from 2d drawings. They have a sameness to them, in line work, line weights, colour palettes, and fluidity of motion. I think the days of flipping through frames over a light board are long gone. Do they still do inbetweens and key frames with the current software? Or is it filled in by the software? No idea. I’ll have to ask the animators I know from Sheridan College. I’m sure they’ll love that line of questioning.

Not that any of this matters mind you, just an observation. Perhaps it all stems from the television channels that we frequently watch. If we were more adventurous maybe we’d find new, more linear shows with alternative animation styles. I think that because I grew up in the 80’s with G I Joe, He-Man, Transformers, Thundercats and then TMNT, and other classics along those lines, that that is the animation style that I respond positively to. Or, those early 2000’s CGI movies that went hard in the paint for texture and movement. Not that feature film animation bugs me, we’re talking some of the made for tv stuff. Then I think back to the 90’s with X-Men and get all nostalgic again. But that could be due to how they drew Rogue, and how often Jean Grey moaned on that show. Ha.

Happy Sunday to all of you out there. Ciao Bella!