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"Titan AE-like" Animation - Page 2

post #31 of 64
3/23/10 at 6:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rhett7660 View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by marcusm750 View Post

For anime, does anyone remember Battle Of The Planets (1978-85) which was an edited-for-America version of the Japan's Gatchaman? Later, it was rereleased in 1987 as G Force with difference voices and character names (abomination!).

Oh my god. I just saw the youtube video of the 1987 version. Good lord they fubared that all to hell!

Yeah, I just could not believe it when I first saw "G Force" on Cartoon Planet in all its perversion and mutation. OK, it was first bastardized as the American version of the original Japanese show, but this was one of my all-time favorite cartoons as a young kid and my first introduction to the anime style (even if I didn't know it at the time). Further, I tried to watch it in its original Gatchaman form but can't get past the show I knew and loved from my childhood. By any estimation, the '87 version is just plain horrible.
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post #32 of 64
5/8/10 at 8:37pm
Thread Starter 
Update #3 (with some slight spoilers)



A "remastered deluxe edition" of the 1978 Lord of the Rings was released in April on both DVD and Blu-ray.*

The film uses a mixture of techniques, but most of the characters are either rotoscoped, or done with hi-con'd live-action footage (which sometimes works well, and sometimes not so much). The backgrounds are generally well rendered, and sometimes the effects are pretty decent (e.g. the encounter between Gandalf and Saruman), while other times they're amusingly poor (e.g. the Balrog which looks like a guy wearin a mask and some fake wings). Depending on your POV, those sort of gaffs could either spoil the film, or add to it's quaintness and charm.

The title is a tad misleading as well, since the film only covers about the first half of the trilogy, and leaves out most of the business in Mordor at the end. So either there was supposed to be a "sequel", or the production just ran short of cash. The 1980 Rankin/Bass Return of the King sort of covered the rest though, and featured some ok voicework by John Huston, Roddy McDowall and others (as well as a couple catchy tunes).

*Edit: Looks like the DVD edition of the new LOTR could be Fullscreen (ie 4:3 format), while the BD is listed as 16:9 with 1.85 image aspect.
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post #33 of 64
5/9/10 at 10:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ADU View Post

The 1980 Rankin/Bass Return of the King sort of covered the rest though, and featured some ok voicework by John Huston, Roddy McDowall and others (as well as a couple catchy tunes).

It happens to have the best song evar in any animated title:

When There's a Whip, There's a Way!
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post #34 of 64
5/10/10 at 9:37pm
Thread Starter 
Ok, so scratch the "catchy" part then.
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post #35 of 64
5/13/10 at 1:45am
There's a 2003 Korean title "Wonderful Days" [Korean/Japanese Region 2 DVD] or "Sky Blue 2142" [English Blu-Ray] that is kind of unique. I didn't know until I saw the extras that actual miniature sets were extensively used as backdrops and scenery scapes... pretty interesting since you would think it's drawn and CG only.
Story is ok, but the visuals are what sets it apart - especially for being made in 2003.

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post #36 of 64
5/13/10 at 5:57pm
Thread Starter 
Looks pretty cool from the clip. Tks for the suggestion Vracer111.

Interesting idea re the miniatures as well. Always sort of wondered why more FX aren't done that way nowadays, especially with all the sophisticated camera gear and techniques now. Seems like it would save alot of $$, and often look just as convincing (if not more so) as CG. I think the live-action LOTR used that approach for some of its sets/backgrounds as well.
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post #37 of 64
3/17/11 at 4:26pm
Thread Starter 
Update #4



A new 25th Anniversary edition of The Black Cauldron was released on DVD in September 2010. The new version appears to be 16:9 anamorphic widescreen (~2.35 aspect ratio), versus the 4:3 letterbox of the previous DVD release. No BD yet that I can see.



Wolverine and the X-Men: The Complete Series was released on Blu-ray and DVD in October 2010. This is 16:9 anamorphic and 1.78 A/R.

I recommend both of the above titles, with the small caveat that Black Cauldron contains some fairly intense action scenes and abrupt sound cues that might be a little rough on some younger viewers and possibly other sensitive persons.



Also recently saw Green Lantern: First Flight and Superman: Doomsday and recommend both of those as well. I can't give Superman/Batman: Public Enemies quite as high marks though. The animation wasn't quite as well-done imho, and the story seemed like been there/done that. It featured plenty of action and a diverse cast of heroes though.
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post #38 of 64
3/18/11 at 11:28pm
I just picked up quite a few animated titles on Blu-Ray:

The Last Unicorn
Summer Wars
FLCL
Nausicaa
How to Train Your Dragon
Megamind

among others. I'd say animated tiles make up at least 25%+ of my collection.

Oh, BTW, Netflix Streaming has quite a few anime titles available (unfortunately English dubbed only), but has a lot of the Warner/DC titles too- If you haven't caught them yet I highly recommend Under the Red Hood and Superman/Batman: Apocalypse.
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post #39 of 64
3/19/11 at 4:21pm
Thread Starter 
Welcome back Dave.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveFi View Post

If you haven't caught them yet I highly recommend Under the Red Hood and Superman/Batman: Apocalypse.



Thanks for the tip on these.

Looks like I've fallen somewhat behind on the superhero stuff. In addition to the two you mention above there are at least 3 other new ones I haven't seen, including All-Star Superman, Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam and Wonder Woman...



I've also added some new anime. One I can suggest is a 2006 series called Jyu Oh Sei (Planet of the Beast King)...



I picked this up at a discount store for a ridiculously low price, and really enjoyed it. Also grabbed the first disc of the 2003 Hokuto no ken (New Fist of North Star), Evangelion and a couple others, and was fairly impressed. (It's amazing the stuff you can sometimes find when digging around at the discount shops.) Some of these are definitely geared more towards mature viewers though.

What were your impressions of How to Train Your Dragon and Megamind? (Since you bought them on BD, I'm guessin they were positive ones.)
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post #40 of 64
3/19/11 at 4:50pm
I own all the Warner/DC animated titles on Blu, and All-Star Superman is pretty faithful to the comic. It's well done. Superman/Shazam is just a compilation of animated shorts from previous Warner/DC releases, plus one new 20min short (the title)- not worth the purchase. You can catch Superman/Shazam on Netflix Streaming in HD.

Jyu-Oh-Sei is also one of the anime titles available on Netflix streaming in HD (but dubbed only). Eventually I'll get around to watching it. I must have at least 75+ anime titles in my backlog I have to watch.

I think all those who know animation know Nausicaa is a Ghibli title and gets a wonderful treatment from Disney on Blu, both in the video and audio (both language tracks are lossless) dept.

Summer Wars is a more recent anime, but also is no-less wonderful, and has stellar Blu treatment from Funimation. Get this.

As far as Dragon goes, I just watched it on my new 60" Sharp Aquos LCD and was pretty impressed. I can understand why it scored 98% on RottenTomatoes last year. It's clearly a made for 3D title, and while I don't have a 3D display, the story and animation was more than enough to pull me in. Clearly one of the, if not the best Dreamworks animated title so far (and probably one of the best movies last year). Way better than Toy Story 3.

Haven't gottent around to watching Megamind yet. I picked up these two on sale at Amazon, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered. I seemed to have lost interest in CG animated titles (other than Pixar of course). The shift towards 3D hasn't helped.

FYI: Funimation, MediaBlasters and Sony have really picked up pace in the Blu-Ray anime dept. In the next few months we should get (if not already out):

Moribito
Queen's Blade
The Cowboy Bebop Movie
Dance in the Vampire Bund
Gungrave
Evangelion 2.0
Highschool of the Dead (probably)

among others. It's a good time to be an animation fan.
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post #41 of 64
3/23/11 at 5:48pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveFi View Post
I own all the Warner/DC animated titles on Blu, and All-Star Superman is pretty faithful...
Tks for the add'l details on the DC and anime stuff above. Sounds like some good possibilities to explore there. I've heard an animated Green Lantern series may be in the works as well. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

Wolverine and the X-Men was pretty well done btw, both story and animation-wise (hence the earlier recommendation). The animation rivals the quality of some D2V features I've seen recently.

Quote:
As far as Dragon goes, I just watched it on my new 60" Sharp Aquos LCD and was pretty impressed. I can understand why it scored 98% on RottenTomatoes last year. It's clearly a made for 3D title, and while I don't have a 3D display, the story and animation was more than enough to pull me in. Clearly one of the, if not the best Dreamworks animated title so far (and probably one of the best movies last year). Way better than Toy Story 3.
That's pretty high praise for HTTYD.

Quote:
Haven't gotten around to watching Megamind yet. I picked up these two on sale at Amazon, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered.
A little surprised folks still do blind buys like this. But I've heard mostly positive things on these 2 films as well, so maybe not such a gamble. Did you happen to catch Despicable Me? (another CG film I haven't seen but was somewhat curious about)
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post #42 of 64
4/9/11 at 3:31pm
Thread Starter 

Update #5

Warner archive is now offering the 1991 Pirates of Dark Water series as a one-off DVD set. The series was sort of a colorful blend of LOTR and POTC, and (as previously noted) was cancelled before the quest was actually complete. What I've seen of the series, I enjoyed. So I suppose I can recommend it on that basis, with the obvious caveat above. Maybe Netflix or some other rental outfit will pick this up though so folks can get a look at it first.

In addition to PODW, the archive has added a number of other cool retro H-B titles to their collection including: Young Samson (one of my favorites as a kid in the 60's), Thundarr, and Valley of the Dinosaurs.

Another popular animated title being offered is The Flight of Dragons. Haven't seen this yet myself, but most reviews of it seem positive.

All of the above are "one-offs" (ie made-to-order) as opposed to mass-produced DVDs.


Edited by ADU - 7/3/12 at 5:48pm
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post #43 of 64
4/9/11 at 9:07pm
Flight of Dragons deserves a Blu release simply because it is one of Rankin and Bass' best titles. Speaking of which, if you haven't picked up the Blu of The Last Unicorn, do it now. It's quite excellent (grain and all).
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post #44 of 64
4/14/11 at 5:33pm
Thread Starter 

Update #6
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveFi View Post

Speaking of which, if you haven't picked up the Blu of The Last Unicorn, do it now.



Not sure I've seen this, but looks like a good fit with other fantasy material here. Added it to the list in the first post along with some of the other titles above.



Two other animated fantasy classics were recently released on BD: Heavy Metal (available exclusively through Best Buy until June 14th), and The Secret of NIMH! Hope PQ and sound are decent on these.



More superheroes on the way: Thor: Tales of Asgard in May, and Green Lantern: Emerald Knights in June.



The Secret of Kells (2009) also looks somewhat interesting. Some of the screenshots on this are fairly striking.

A Blu-ray column has also been added to the tables in the first post.


Edited by ADU - 8/2/12 at 5:09pm
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post #45 of 64
4/20/11 at 7:52am
Very nice work!
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post #46 of 64
4/21/11 at 8:14am
Secret of the Kells is awesome. It was nominated for an Oscar last year for best animated feature. I watched it in HD on Netflix streaming. Worth picking up.

The upcoming Thor DTV animated movie looks poor, and the GL animated DTV looks like typical WB animated stuff. I wish WB would allot more time to their animated movies- for some odd reason they restrict them all to ~73mins.
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post #47 of 64
4/21/11 at 5:42pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveFi View Post
Secret of the Kells is awesome.
Will be on the lookout for this.

Quote:
The upcoming Thor DTV animated movie looks poor...
Looked at the Tales of Asgard trailer on utube, and animation looks ok, but perhaps tailored towards a somewhat younger audience. Just have to wait and see I guess.

The original "Mighty Thor" toons of the 60's are also fun to check out. The limited animation approach used back then was similar to today's motion comics (e.g. the new Thor & Loki: Blood Brothers mocom set for release this month), but without CG to jazz it up.
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post #48 of 64
4/21/11 at 5:48pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wytchone View Post
Very nice work!
Glad to hear it. If you have recommendations, suggestions, corrections, criticisms... feel free to post 'em.
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post #49 of 64
4/22/11 at 8:13am


Justice League S2 Blu-Ray is scheduled to come out July 26.
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post #50 of 64
4/22/11 at 9:31pm
One title I've been anticipating for a while is Redline, which finally has a Japanese release scheduled (August 10th), and I'm debating whether to get the LE or regular Japanese edition (both have English subtitles). I know the price is $$$ (Japanese release) but with US/UK release date still not given and after 2 years of waiting I can't wait any longer...

Regular Edition - Same artwork as what has been shown for the US/UK release

Limited Edition - different artwork...



Very nice hand drawn animation...
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post #51 of 64
4/25/11 at 8:53pm
Thread Starter 
^ Coolness. An R1 of this would be VERY nice.
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post #52 of 64
4/25/11 at 8:54pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveFi View Post

Justice League S2 Blu-Ray is scheduled to come out July 26.

Added note to the list.
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post #53 of 64
4/28/11 at 11:03pm
A whole slew of Marvel animated productions are being added to Netflix streaming today:

Coming April 29
  • The Incredible Hulk (1996-97)
  • Spider-Man Unlimited (1999-2001)
  • Iron Man: Extremis – Marvel Knights Animation (2010)
  • Astonishing X-Men: Gifted – Marvel Knights Animation (2010)
  • Spider-Woman: Agent of the S.W.O.R.D. – Marvel Knights Animation (2010)
  • Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes (2006)
  • Silver Surfer (1998)
  • Black Panther – Marvel Knights Animation (2010)
  • Iron Man: Armored Adventures Season 1 (2009)

Coming throughout the summer
  • Marvel Action Hour: Iron Man (1994-96)
  • The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes! Season 1 (2010)
  • X-Men Evolution (2000-3)
  • X-Men (1992-7)
  • Spider-Man (1994-‘98)
  • Spider-Man (1967-‘68)
  • Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends (1981)
  • Spider-Man (1981-‘82)

Coming in the fall
  • Iron Man (1966)
  • Thor (1966)
  • Captain America (1966)
  • Hulk (1966)
  • Sub-Mariner (1966)
A nice list there. Looking forward to the Bakshi stuff.
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post #54 of 64
5/18/11 at 8:31pm
Thread Starter 
Some interesting stuff there. I'd probably watch all the old 60's toons, and some of the Marvel Knights mocoms.
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post #55 of 64
6/4/12 at 9:11pm
Thread Starter 
Re: Dragon Hunters



Watched this over the weekend on BD. Some nice CG graphics and animation. It probably would have worked better for me as a short though. Just not enough going on to really hold my attention for 82 minutes. Some younger viewers might dig it though.
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post #56 of 64
6/4/12 at 9:39pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Wonder Woman



Also saw this recently, and it was pretty good. Decent animation/drawing, witty dialogue, a nice mythological component, and a fair amount of graphic violence for a "kids cartoon". This'll probably be a buy for me if I can find it cheaply on Blu-ray. Lookin forward to Wonder Woman, Part 2!

 

Edit 7/12: The HD Blu-ray transfer looks clean as a whistle. If you have any interest in this, I recommend passing on the DVD and just getting the BD edition. It looks simply fantastic! This is PG-13 for a reason btw, and not recommended for very young viewers.


Edited by ADU - 7/5/12 at 11:40am
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post #57 of 64
6/6/12 at 6:58am
I've had Dragon Hunters and Wonder Woman for years now.

I recently picked up the two Ghibli titles Whisper of the Heart and Arriety. Great stuff.

If you like animated titles, once again I recommend Netflix streaming. They have quite a few of them.
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post #58 of 64
6/6/12 at 9:12am
Planet Hulk. Was badass.
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post #59 of 64
7/3/12 at 4:50pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by darthrsg View Post

Planet Hulk. Was badass.

It's apparent that alot of work went into this production just by the shear number of layouts and shots in the film. And the street price is very affordable. For those reasons alone, it's at least worth a look for Hulk/Marvel completists.

For me personally though, the film dragged in places, and the quality of the drawing did not seem quite up to the same level as some other recent DC/Marvel D2V features. So I can't give it as high a recommendation as some others.
Edited by ADU - 7/3/12 at 5:27pm
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post #60 of 64
7/3/12 at 6:29pm
Thread Starter 
WB has also added two other Alex Toth H-B action animation classics to it's one-off archive:

519ln03vqzL._AA115_.jpg

The Herculoids: Complete Original Animated Series, which covers the original 18 episodes (36 segments/stories?) made in the 1960's. And...

51A3psZlIlL._AA115_.jpg

Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor: The Complete Series.

As with the other Warner Archive collections, both of these sets are are made-to-order DVD-Rs, sourced from video-tape masters.
Edited by ADU - 7/9/12 at 6:54pm
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