uh oh...

[ceagle]

Chalk this up to too big of expectations? Did something happen to half their budget? :|

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x6lqknZbXM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOfl2yT8TAY

eeep.

Comments

[julian-wilbury.livejournal.com]

Context, plz? Looks like some sort of badly CG'd mix of Narnia and Dinotopia.

And it does sort of look like it'd be good (definately one of the type of things I would've watched as a kid!) if everything didn't look like plastic and the designs overall were NOT helping...:\ (CG humans...stylization= best way to go to avoid Uncanny Valley. Not many people get that.)

[makovette.livejournal.com]

Maya run amok :)

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

If it has a good plot that may save it.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Animalia (the title of the series and the book it was based on) was made back in 2005 in Australia. By those standards, it had pretty decent production values for a PBS-type show (PBS=public television, like the BBC or kid-learning shows). The CG wasn't feature level, but it was decent.

Originally based on the English alphabet, the producers opted for a more universal theme of -"explore, wonder and solve"- the world around you concept (ie, -"It's educational, but we have no idea what we're edumacating them about"-).

They tried so hard to make the characters inoffensive that they ended up being as interesting as dry wheat toast. The show originally aired several years ago on either Animal Planet or some PBS station (can't remember which).

[orv.livejournal.com]

For a kids' TV show it actually looks pretty good. They usually get even cheaper 3D animation...sort of like how cel animated kids shows invariably were done at about four frames per second, because they figured kids wouldn't care. I mean, it's not Pixar, but it's not unwatchably bad, either.

*fuzzles the grif*

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

eeeep! Sorries... :}

There was this new-classic book maybe 15 or 20 years ago called Animalia that was all the rage because it was such a cool concept with nice art too.. seemed like it was at all birthdays and Christmas'es for a while as the perfect coffee table gift... we still have ours, too.



So expectations would be high art-wise for this transition to TV, but,... it seems (at least to me) they came up quite a bit short on budget. :/

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it seems like they are going for the lowest, or near-lowest common denominator, and it may do well. I've had lower expectations for other unfamiliar things, because you figure things starting out need a leg up to get up to speed often.. Maybe it's a generational thing... that those familiar with the item will expect more, but to a new generation, it's a whole new thing and it won't matter as much.
There are other CGI series out there to compare it to though, so it will face that challenge no matter what, and see if there's enough room in the market I guess.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

By the way, you are spot-on about the similarity to Dinotopia too.. people coexisting without any question with anthro-critters. :>

dry wheat toast

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

yikes!

I guess I missed that wave... thanks for the heads up and the review, bud!

[jedd-marten.livejournal.com]

It's very good for a made-for-tv thing. I saw most of this series in HD on CBC a couple years ago. There's an evil-ish stoat character in this show too, btw. ;)

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

oooo... Well, I hope I get to see a variety of shows to get a good stoaty sampling and breadth of character exposure to the best ones... thanks for the tip!

[jedd-marten.livejournal.com]

It's an important role revealed through the series. TC or "The Creeper" wants to destroy the central mind-control thing that makes all the animals not behave like real animals. A real freedom-fighter. :)