“Disney’s ‘Chicken Little’ begins with a ‘Lion King’ sight gag, quickly followed by a ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ sight gag, followed by… well, let me assure you that the gagging animated children’s tale is bite-size fun, not really a main-course meal,” Craig Outhier writes for The Arizona Tribune.
Outhier writes, “Evidently moved by the success of Dreamworks’ ‘Shrek,’ the Disney brain trust is going for something similar here: A vividly animated postmodern nursery rhyme crammed with as many snarky pop culture references as their animators and writers can manage over the movie’s brief 77-minute running time. It makes for a pleasant — albeit cannibalistic — blend of the classic and modern, less feast than well-choreographed routine.”
“Director Mark Dindal also seems to have gleaned a few sci-fi style tips from rival animator Brad Bird of ‘The Incredibles,'” Outhier writes. “Wink-wink digression is fine in moderation, but by calling attention to itself as a movie about movies, ‘Chicken Little’ loses touch with itself. When the time comes for the hero to reconcile with his father, the filmmakers are ill-equipped to treat it as anything but a joke, just another movie cliché to kick around. It’s this sort of falseness that one rarely sees in really good animated films — for instance, the movies of Pixar (‘Finding Nemo,’ ‘The Incredibles’). Unfortunately, Pixar and Disney are no longer friends, and ‘Chicken Little’ proves that the latter has some serious issues to work out.”
Full article here.
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If “Chicken Little” is a hit, Disney’s and Steve Jobs’ Pixar’s negotiating positions will be affected to some degree. Pixar films have a soul of goodness that all non-Pixar animated CG films seem to lack, including the successful “Shrek” and “Shark Tales.” It sounds like “Chicken Little” also attempts to replace its lack of a soul with a load of pop culture references designed keep parents awake during matinee showings. The film will probably be a hit, but it remains to be seen how much it will affect the Disney – Pixar dance.
I’ma watch lovely ladies critique internation travel locations over at Zoom and Go, instead. Check out this hottie, eh?
http://www.zoomandgo.com/placestostay/PopUp.asp?ak=80535644&size=2
MDN take is right on. Pixar’s movies have warmth and humanity– the others feel empty. They offer nothing but visuals and sitcom-ish humor.
Wonder what Cars is going to be like.
I think George Lucas needs to work for the Pixar crew that made the Incredibles for some tips on “soul-full” movie making…
Pixar movies are essentially about being lost in the world and finding your way back to home – which is what the majority of Speilberg’s best movies are about. It’s a classic tale and is honestly told in Monsters, Toy Story 1 and 2, Nemo, and Incredibles. I hope Cars continues the streak!
Please don’t let George Lucas near the Pixar studios.
That guy lost the skill on how to tell a story a long long time ago…..
actually, lucas started pixar. he sold it to jobs, and that is how we got to here.
that being said, while i like pixar movies (saw all in theatre, own all on dvd) i just don’t watch them as much as disney movies
here, let’s take aladin for example. why? because it is FILLED with pop-culture referances. does that diminish the movie? not in the least. making camel jokes that would have been in-period would just not have worked.
and come on, toy story is a pop-culture reference. the star wars part at the begining of two? all of the toys in general?
Sorry, but the guy didn’t have skill to begin with. Virtually none of his ideas were original, having jacked them from previous sci-fi writers like Asimov. He was just in the right place at the right time.
Did Lucas ever have the skill? He only directed one of the three original StarWars – a New Hope – which was, in my opinion, the worst of the original 3…
What is this, Pixar Daily News now?
Latest DIS Quote:
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The stock is falling! The stock is falling!
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(sorry, couldn’t resist)
Actually, pixardailynews.com would be pretty cool. Something to while away the many months between blockbusters. Cars seems to be on the same development timeline track as Duke Nukem Forever.
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I’m reserving my judgement until I see the Chickens myself. Pixar has proven, by far, that their quality on all levels especially writing.
Jb
Check out this hottie, eh?
my new flat mate reckons fire fly is better than star wars. ………what a stupid GIMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i just cant comprehend it. needs a bashing, needs a bashing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
I’ll grant you that George Lucas isn’t the best director, but to say he has no talent is just ridiculous. The success of the Star Wars movies were much more than “being at the right place at the right time”. Lucas created an incredibly complex universe and took science fiction to a new level that no one has been able to come close to since.
That being said, I wish he would have turned the directing over to someone else for all of the movies. He’s a great visionary and producer, but his dialogue and direction of people leave a little to be desired. He said that he’s not going to do anymore with Star Wars himself but will turn it over to select others for TV shows, etc. I think there’s real promise in that. I’d like to see Joss Whedon do something Star Wars related.
what’s with that?
mw – “STOP”
as in STOP with the pornspam…
and this Disney news is in MDN, beacause?
I guess, we need a iPoddailynews and a Pixar daily news…let’s just call this place, SteveJobsdailynews.com?
This is one of the most pointless, tangential stories I’ve ever read on MDN–and that’s really saying something!
I can’t wait to read your review of Mona Simpson’s next novel (with Amazon.com associate links, of course).
“my new flat mate reckons fire fly is better than star wars. ………what a stupid GIMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Ummm . . . your “gimp” flatmate is correct. At least, IMHO. When compared to the last three Star Wars productions, Serenity is a far, far superior film in almost every category. Firefly is (was) a television show, and that makes it a different animal. Many think it’s superior to it’s big screen brother Serenity, but still . . . I’ll take either one over that dreck that was the prequel trilogy. Lucas should be embarrassed.
Here’s to Firefly returning to television someday soon!
(BTW, for a hilarious review of Sith, go here:
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=episode3
less is more:
Yeah, but .. Shana don’t have no link in the lower right corner of the page that says ‘download the video of this darlin’ to my iPod’.
“and come on, toy story is a pop-culture reference.”
The point is that Toy Story wasn’t obsessed with its pop culture references. It actually had a story that you could care about. It seems the featured review is portraying this Disney fare as going overboard.
I think Nemo was the best Pixar will ever do. If Cars doesn’t bring anything more to this plot formula Pixar uses, they’re only going to get worse. Better animation won’t help.
Nevertheless, Disney seems to be stuck in the same kind of megacorporation malaise as Microsoft and Sony. They are overly entrenched and invested. They need more than competent management, they need visionary management. The kind of people entrenched management tends to avoid.
The problem with pop-culture references is that they get stale. When Aladdin’s genie did an Arsenio Hall impersonation, it was funny back then. These days, it’s more like “‘Woof woof woof’? I don’t get it. Who the hell is that supposed to be?”
MDN — you should link to AO Scott’s review in the NY Times, which calls it a “terrible movie”.
When a company gives up innovation and worries about being safe, that is the end of their best years. Disney had it long ago when money became more important than people.
Pixar hasn’t lost it yet. Maybe it never will.
Oh, and George Lucas? He’s a singular genius and does it his own way. Mabye some day he’ll get where he’s lacking. But no talent?
Go watch THX-1138 before you say he has no talent.
“here, let’s take aladin for example. why? because it is FILLED with pop-culture referances. does that diminish the movie? not in the least. making camel jokes that would have been in-period would just not have worked. “
ha!,
You actually used the example (“Aladdin”) that I was going to cite. While “Aladdin” was certainly a good movie, not the least for Robin Williams’ typically manic performance as the genie, it won’t take a spot in the pantheon of immortal films precisely because the plethora of pop culture references dates it to a certain time and place (early 90’s U.S.). The greatest films transcend time and place, and tell a story that would have been just as intriguing had it been played out with cardboard cutouts on hastily daubed watercolor backdrops. Pixar gets what Disney does not, at least not since Jeffrey Katzenberg left in a snit: The story is everything.
This review (as well as the one in the New York Times) of “Chicken Little” doesn’t bode well for Disney. It will gain some seats at the cineplex, but I think it’ll fade fairly quickly. I just hope that Jobs has sense enough not to gloat too much when Disney comes crawling back to Pixar in humiliation.