The focus of these notes is the animated feature film, Strange Magic (Gary Rydstrom, 2015). Based upon a screen story by George Lucas, who also executive produced the film, it was the last of a group of narratively unconnected animated features that he had an involvement with since the 1980s: namely, Twice Upon A Time (John Korty & Charles Swenson, 1983), The Land Before Time (Don Bluth, 1988), and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Dave Filoni, 2008).
Read MoreJudging from both the pre-release marketing materials and industry narratives that have surrounded both Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (Christopher McQuarrie, 2023) and Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan, 2023), one would be forgiven for thinking that Hollywood still retains something of an aversion to digital VFX.
Read MoreI first met Tony when we were drawn together in the same class at middle school. He was always different, rubbing against the tyranny of ‘normality’. Yet, he never accepted being a square peg forced into a round hole. He was always full of energy, creativity and passion. It was clear that he had an extraordinary talent.
Read MoreOver the Garden Wall (2014) is a dark fantasy miniseries created by Patrick McHale and Katie Krentz and produced for the Cartoon Network in 2014 (Fig. 1). The series follows the adventures of two brothers, Wirt and Greg, who are trying to find their way home as they travel through a magical forest.
Read MoreThe Last Unicorn is a fantasy feature-length animation that studies the essence of mortality. Adapted from Peter S. Beagle’s 1968 novel of the same name, it was produced by Rankin and Bass Production in 1982 and animated by Topcraft, the Japanese studio that would later splinter to become Studio Ghibli. The film follows an immortal unicorn’s journey to find the rest of her species, and it is in representing her interactions and personal struggle with the other characters she encounters, The Last Unicorn weaves an allegorical tale about the nature of humanity and the framework of mortality. Throughout her journey, the unicorn encounters characters wrestling with their own brief lives, and after an eternity of eternal youth confronts what a mortal life truly means. As I will demonstrate in this blog post, The Last Unicorn is a complex piece of memento mori literature due to its profound and intricate explorations of death, immortality, and the essence of a transient life.
Read MoreNotable for its erotic tone and psychedelic imagery, Eiichi Yamamoto’s adult art film Belladonna of Sadness (1973) interrogates the depiction of sexual violence against its female protagonist. The film, set against the backdrop of feudal France, follows newlywed villager Jeanne after being raped by the town’s baron on her wedding night.
Read MoreHad Disney’s Strange World (2022) made more of an impact the internet might well be flooded with articles comparing Don Hall’s latest work with James Cameron’s behemoth sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). Both explore magnificent simulated environments, examine the complicated dynamics arising from father-son relationships, and tackle the destructive land-grabbing hunger associated with colonial sentiment.
Read MoreMission: Impossible II (John Woo, 2000) - the second feature in the evergreen Hollywood blockbuster franchise - is a film fascinated by the creative possibilities of Tom Cruise’s face. The film’s extended opening sequence (comprising ostensibly of two action set-pieces, see left) is structured from the start by the drama and jeopardy engendered by the star’s recognisable physiognomy.
Read MoreGhosts (BBC, 2019-) emerged from the creative troupe behind the award-winning British children’s programme Horrible Histories (2009-2014), which across multiple seasons used some of the best sketch comedy since Monty Python to explore both British and world history. Horrible Histories gently mocked attitudes in both the past and present, such as when a witchfinder (Jim Howick) touted his services in the manner of a modern-day injury lawyer’s TV commercial.
Read MoreAnimation marketing is a type of video marketing that uses various types of animated content to convey ideas and concepts to an audience while also increasing traffic and sales for businesses. When precisely tailored to your target demographic, animation brings the power of imagination and creativity to your marketing strategies and has grown to become an effective marketing tool.
Read MoreLike parody and nonsense, fantasy questions the basis of a known reality. Fantasy is a “flirtation with limits of sense-making” and – with a friendly wink to Alice in Wonderland – “the mirror that sucks the body in” (Shires 1988, 267-268). The effect produced by fantasy has also been described as a “wildly abandoning experience of viewing oneself in a distorting mirror at the circus funhouse for the first time” or, in other words, as ecstasis in sense of the Greek meaning of the term: as “standing outside oneself” (Shires 1988, 268).
Read MoreAt the height of the Covid pandemic, my father, co-director Noel Williams and I, together with scholars and students of Japanology here in Tokyo, had ample opportunity to study and research a range of Japanese films, including a number of short Japanese animations.
Read MoreIn the first act of Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto (2005), a tale of a young transgender woman growing up in small town Ireland during the height of the troubles in the 1970s, there is an extended fantasy sequence in which Kitten (Cillian Murphy) imagines her own conception by her parents. It is one of many fantasy sequences that are scattered throughout the film, and one that relies heavily on manifesting a fictional memory which most likely did not happen.
Read MoreAudiences around the world have long enjoyed the animated sitcom genre. However, the genre is rife with inaccurate neurodiverse representation. This extends as far back as The Simpsons (Matt Groening, 1989-), and as recent as Family Guy (Seth MacFarlane, 1999-).
Read More**This post contains spoilers for the first and second seasons of The Mandalorian**
I am not a Star Wars superfan. In fact, though I was born in 1979, my sister and I hadn’t seen the original Star Wars movies until the mid-90s, in high school, when our best friends Scott and Kent realized we had some cinematic deficiencies. They showed us E.T. (Steven Spielberg, 1982), the Star Wars movies, and Star Trek: The Next Generation (Gene Roddenberry, 1987-1994). I had watched the Star Wars prequels and sequels, but I was not obsessed with them, or with anything in the science fiction/fantasy genre, for a long time.
Read MoreRecently returned Disney CEO Bob Iger – reappointed to the company following the abrupt dismissal of his successor, Bob Chapek in November 2022 – confirmed late last week that the celebrated animation studio would be producing a slate of sequels to three of its blockbuster films. News of Zootopia 2 within Disney’s upcoming roster of features was a welcome, if not entirely unexpected, surprise given both the box office success of the 2016 original (the film took $1.02 billion and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature) and the recent arrival of spin-off web television series Zootopia+ (Trent Correy & Josie Trinidad 2022), which premiered on Disney+ the same month as Chapek’s acrimonious exit.
Read MoreChildren are frequently asked who or what they want to be when they grow up, and the possibilities can seem pretty endless. Racecar drivers and dolphin trainers, chefs, presidents, sometimes out and out supervillains – but also doctors and teachers, writers and artists. After my experience as a postdoctoral researcher with the European Research Council-funded research project Constructing Age for Young Readers (CAFYR) at the University of Antwerp, I have spent a lot of time wondering what we might hear if we were asked those same questions again while in our thirties, or even our forties. Who would we want to become? Who are we shown as inspiration for who we might be able to become?
Read MoreOn the evening of February 28th 2015 in an East Oakland neighborhood in northern California, Davon Malik Ellis was walking with a couple of his friends to the store from his football coach's home when he was stopped by a random stranger and shot to death. He was only 14 years old with a promising future in football. It was this random violent act that birthed the idea of the animated project Vonnworld: The Animated Series
Read MoreThe Snowman, produced by John Coates, turns forty this year. Remarkably, it has been a regular feature of Channel 4’s Christmas schedule since its first broadcast (an intriguing but important acquisition for the fledgling channel), taking its place within contemporary culture.
Read MoreAt the beginning of 2022, the film industry news reported that writer-director Robert Zemeckis was already preparing a follow up to his then-upcoming Pinocchio (2022) with another fantasy movie, albeit one that might be described as a little more ‘sombre’ in tone, being an adaptation of the graphic novel Here by Richard McGuire.
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