And thus, my friends, we turn to anime, where it is still alive and well.
And unfortunately, of much lower quality, on the whole, than traditional hand drawn animation in the states. When it comes to the
visual element (which is what this is all about) even Miyazaki's films seem as though they have yet to really catch up with Disney's earliest feature films--
Snow White,
Pinocchio, and
Fantasia. I also love the Disney Rennaisance. You can't watch a scene from
Beauty and the Beast or
Aladdin and not think it's a work of art. As far as anime films are concerned, there are few I can name that even come close. It's nice that it's around, but it's not enough, and I'm still not sure it will call companies into action on re-learning the kind of animation pioneered by Disney. Anime's certainly deviated from that, with mixed but often less impressive results.
As far as this side of the globe is concerned...CGI has lead to less interesting caricatures, on the whole. Stylization is certainly present, but seems to have lost something--that fluid, larger-than-life quality that traditional animation presented. That said, I don't think traditional animation will die out. If it's on a downturn now, it will certainly be rediscovered in the future, because it is so rich in a way that CGI never could be. Hell, even games, with cel-shading, are aping hand-drawn animation (though I agree, probably anime for the most part) rather than CGI. I wouldn't mind a mix of CGI and traditional animation in the future. Disney tried this during its rennaisance in films such as
The Lion King and it worked wonders.
There's a movie you should keep an eye on if you like traditional animation. It's called
The Princess and the Frog [
link] and it's being released by Disney this year. For all intents and purposes, it doesn't look like the half-baked junk they've been churning out (
Home on the Range, anyone?) but a full-fledged return to tradition in almost every way. I hope it's a rousing success. I'm going to do what I can to support it when it's released.
I don't wish the death of CGI either (hell, I love
Toy Story and I don't even think it would work with traditional animation), but if I had to choose, classic is better. It's not hard to see why.