Friday, December 04, 2009

Animation fix.

I've been feeding a little bit of an animation hunger lately and had the opportunity to visit some nostalgia cartoons from my youth.



Both He-man & The Masters of the Universe and Thundercats were a little disappointing. I found the stories in both instances pretty lame. I don't know if I was expecting HBO quality stories- but just found the plots and resolution of way too lazy. I guess they WERE glorified ads for the toy-lines.
However the character designs were still AS exciting as when I was a kid. The Masters of the Universe especially have such a rich line-up of cool characters, it was fun just watching them on the screen (even though what they did and said was lame.)

On the other-hand, I also watched Hellboy: Blood and Iron.



I quite enjoyed this and found it a much better adaption then the live-action films. The plot, the characterisations, the humour and the performances were so much more palatable too.



Although it didn't seem sanitised for the kiddies (Still plenty of blood, fights, murders and scary bad-guys) it lacked the suspense and mystery of the comics. Both the films and animations seem to drop the ball on one of the major charms of Mignola's original stories- and thats the menacing weirdness of his stories and world that comes out in his artwork and the pacing/set-up.

3 comments:

retromancy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
retromancy said...

From what I read the guys who did the Hellboy cartoons weren't allowed to use Mignolas exact character designs and had to go with their own. They got the "feel" of Hellboy a lot better than the movies (which is a bit sad really) Have you seen "The Amazing Screw on Head"? - it's the best adaptation of Mignola stuff - I really wish it had been made into a series.

Tonia

The Frase said...

I just watched the trailer for Screw On Head, and will now go and hunt it down. Looks great!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svijoQp11TQ)

It's interesting that Mignola let Disney use his style (Atlantis), but he wouldn't let the Hellboy cartoon adopt his designs for his OWN creation.
(I'm sure there was more to it then that though?)