Oh God, that makes me want to cry. Maybe its my lack of sleep due to final papers but watching what could have been done is utterly thrilling and depressing at the same time.

All in all it just goes to show what a sham the cheap animation techniques in America are when compared to everything that has been done in Japan. I mean this was made in 1984 and looks amazing!

While I do enjoy the final releases version of Little Nemo there’s nothing in it that truly made me feel the trill that this little short piece just did - and it came out almost ten years later.

I don’t want to even think about the place that 2D animation could be at right now if it wasn’t for people simply squishing all animation into one little box where only one dominant form (i.e. 3D) can exist. Gah. Hope I don’t sound like a snob, I just have imagination.

I think that’s an unfair assumption to say American animation techniques are a sham compared to Japan’s. American animation has wonderful traits and characteristics that Japanese animation doesn’t have. I agree with you about the 3d thing, it’s a shame people view it as an evolution instead of an alternative.

I thought the clip was a technical marvel, but incredibly boring. Hooray, another Miyazaki film with a drawn-out flying sequence. I think the problem is that it wasn’t Little Nemo’s world. McCay’s Little Nemo was wonderfully surrealistic and it’s main ‘hook’ was playing with proportions, perspectives, all sugarcoated in a delightful fantasy realm. The thing that made me saddest about the cartoonbrew post was learning all the animation talent that could have been utilized more. How awesome would a Chuck Jones version of Nemo had been!?

I agree that not all films should be 3-D. Why does Disney think this way, anyhow?

To be fair, TMS (the studio mentioned at the end) was once Miyazaki’s employer and his relationship with them grants him Telecom Animation Film (a TMS subsidary, arguably the driving force to their overseas works for Disney and Warner Bros. as well as CyberSix at a later point).

I think he left a whole lot earlier to found his own studio. Think it had something to do with TMS being preoccupied with co-productions and only gathering attention from that point. Maybe he was disgusted with Tiny Toons or something.

Chris Colombus (Galaxy High School, Home Alone and the Harry Potter movies) took charge in writing the finished product. I assume his work in Galaxy High made him more familiar in working with the people at TMS for any possible choices.

Though I’d say with the pilot people gone from TMS, it’s not too hard to see where the movie went.

Still enjoyed it nonetheless, and it’s a shame TMS doesn’t do animation like this anymore unless Telecom goes off to subcontract for another Ghibli project.

The Japanese are generally far better at traditional animation that the US, but their live action is still mostly horrible, it’s kinda a trade off.

Personally I thought the Little Nemo film was great and I see no need for a new one unless it goes in a completely different direction. The series it was based on certainly leaves some room for interpretation, but

As for the rest of the “debate”, I think it’s open to interpretation. But personally I will never agree that US animation is worse than Japanese animation on average. I don’t personally think it matters if its CGI, traditional or clay. Even on that level it’s more diversified in the US, not to mention some of the amazing stuff that comes out of other countries (although usually it’s small and you’re stuck seeing it in things like The Animation Show).

I don’t think that the Japanese are “far better” as much as their culture demands far more releases and so there’s far more to compare against.

If I were to judge overall animation quality in terms of major releases, I’d have to far and away point to the major Disney films as superior. There’s things in older films even as ancient as Snow White that I’ve yet to see a single anime film do. Hunchback of Notre Dame is another one with some absolutely amazing techniques that I almost never see anyone reference in these discussions. I’m pretty convinced they’re using recent impressions of anime films against fading memories of US work. Miyazaki’s work is excellent, but honestly it’s almost as rare as Disney films in general… when comparing them directly I don’t see Miyazaki’s work, in terms of animation, winning hands down.

Moving on to shows, anime cuts a lot of corners that sometimes even the crappiest of American shows don’t. It’s extremely rare that anime even animates a tongue in a mouth when speaking, let alone actual lip movements…. something that’s extremely common in US animation.

I think for most people it comes down to aesthetics, but in terms of technique and “skill” they’re far closer to each other than most anime fans would want to admit.

Either way, Disney’s next film is traditionally animated so we’ll see where that ends up.

Personally I thought the Little Nemo film was great. The comic strip series it was based on certainly leaves some room for interpretation, but I was never under the impression that any of the decisions were so far out of left field as to be “not good”.

I’m not really convinced it would have been any better with Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata to begin with. They left the project of the own will because they couldn’t agree on what to do with it. Certainly what’s shown here doesn’t make me go nuts thinking of possibilities, but apparently Cartoon Brew disagrees lol.

As for the rest of the discussion here, are there honestly people who believe major film studios here doing animation weren’t of this quality in 1984? Have you EVER seen a Disney film? Christ, there’s things happening in films as ancient as Snow White that, at least in terms of technique and skill, are beyond what any company has done since, including Disney.

I don’t think that the Japanese are “far better” as much as their culture demands far more releases and so there’s far more to compare against. I also don’t think that many anime fans give a fair shake to what else is out there, generally comparing recent impressions of anime films against fading memories of US work. Miyazaki’s work is excellent, but honestly it’s almost as rare as Disney films in general… when comparing them directly I don’t see Miyazaki’s work, in terms of animation, winning hands down. If anything, they’re comparable.

Obviously if you’re comparing that to a low budget film or a weekday series there’s going to be some major differences, but that’s true in Japan as well.

Moving on to shows, anime cuts a lot of corners that sometimes even the crappiest of American shows don’t. It’s extremely rare that anime even animates a tongue in a mouth when speaking, let alone actual lip movements…. something that’s extremely common in US animation.

I think for most people it comes down to aesthetics, but in terms of technique and “skill” (which are incredibly different things) they’re far closer to each other than most fans of either would want to admit.

Either way, Disney’s next film is traditionally animated so we’ll see where that ends up.

Sorry I thought I stopped the first one from going through, read the second one lol.

Sidetracked a little…
I absolutely loved the Little Nemo in Dreamland game for the NES. Like SMB it was a pretty non-violent game. You had to throw candy at the monsters, and also the animals that you could “morph” with, they would fall asleep first and then you had to jump on them. A very fun platformer to play.

Wow, I had always been sad that Miyazaki gave up on Little Nemo. Now I’m mortified. As decent as Little Nemo ended up being, there’s no way to express how much better it could have been. I’d be very interested in a Ghibli remake, but I’m sure Miyazaki has bigger things in mind at the moment. We have Ponyo on the way, as well as a new, probably depressing Takahata movie.

read the linked post to the other page, miyazaki had nothing to do with this film.

anyway, this thing is eye candy. delicious eye candy, given, but nothing beyond that. also, the voice acting kills it utterly. no one giggles that much, ever.

anyway, it looks pretty. i will enjoy it for that, and not revile it for what it is not/could have been/’should’ have been. it’s a chunk of animation that looks good.

ps - the comic that it is based on has some of the most miserable dialogue ever, but the art is awesome. you should all look it up if you want to look at pretty pictures and marvel at how someone could write so poorly.

Wow thats great stuff… in response to a couple of comments on here about anime techniques versus western techniques, i think both sides of this argument wreaks of generalization and stereotyping.

Historically alot of what we call anime techniques were actually pioneered by chuck jones, on the other hand japanese excel in doing action animation (for the most part), they understand extremes and camera angles or they just have the guts to do them right (not sure which). The heroic pose can invoke just as much emotion as an over animated disney clip (and usually does)… good western action animation is far and few in between (rarely coming out of america), I can only think of clone wars, e-surance commercials and gorillas off hand. Western animation studios do seem to focus on lip synch above everything else which to me is the opposite of action, I want to say incredible dynamics, amazing body poses, explosive hit reactions, but we seem to focus on how well the lips move… something that I and most people can live with out but still an incredible achievement i guess, just not my cup of tea.

A studio like Ghibli and Satoshi Kon’s do a great job with both action sequence and acting sequences though.

I don’t think it’s a question of talent it s just a question of opportunity - there are just far more action-oriented properties in japan that make it to animation i mean look at us in the west, we’d rather do live action super hero stories then animated features… while in japan its just the opposite.

what is crazy is that i watched this movie maybe 2 months ago and before that, i hadn’t talked to anyone who knew what the hell this movie was.

I think this didn’t happened because Hollywood was going thru a slump due the VHS, so everyone was getting attached to projects without even knowing and they fucked up the japanese side of production. The same thing was happening to Batman and Dick Tracy around the same time. And thanks to piracy and really bad world economy it’s happening again.

9th Sage:

I agree. It ticks me off that the beauty of 2D is no-where to be seen in Disney anymore. But 2D might be coming back… have you seen National Treasure: Book of Secrets in theaters? They had one of those shorts before the movie (much like most Pixar films) that was a fully 2D animated toon of Goofy old school style. It cracked me up. Such hilarity that I remember as a kid through the style the only 2D can capture…

Yeah… and National Treasure sucked. I’m just glad I went to catch the tune.

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Goofy-Returns-To-Movie-Theate rs-7264.html

Yoshifumi Kondo directed Whisper of the Heart - one of my favourite animated films. It’s a shame he passed away at such a young age. He only ever directed one film.

Yeah, everyone should give it a watch.

I wrote about the 1984 Nemo pilot on the Conversations on Ghibli blog some time ago. You can head over there to read about it and watch the entire four-minute version.

And, just for the sake of repeating myself, Miyazaki had nothing to do with this. This is not Miyazaki. Okay? Great.