Movie Review: Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers

Movie Review: Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers                                                            1-19-23

WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR CHIP N DALE: RESCUE RANGERS!

It has been over thirty years since Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers ended. Chip now works as an insurance salesman and has won many Employee of the Month awards. Dale has gone through CGI surgery and now works at FanCon. When former cast-member Monterey Jack goes missing, Chip and Dale have to reunite in spite of their differences to find Monty and solve a caper bigger than they’ve ever known.

While it obviously doesn’t hold an ACME-brand candle to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers is still a worthy successor with the most creative animation combinations since The Amazing World of Gumball, jokes that will appeal to diehard animation fans , tons of cameos from all sorts of Toons, top-notch voice acting, and strong messages how you shouldn’t hold grudges for so long, forgive friends for whatever they’ve done, and friends and family are more important than business.

This shot alone has 2D, 3D, stop motion, and sock puppet characters all in one scene.

Sweet Pete, a literal middle-aged Peter Pan, is also a fun villain. He captures old Toons, surgically alters them to get past the copyright law, and forces them to Star in crumby knockoffs.

I’m aware that some people don’t like how Sweet Pete parallels child actors who outlived their usefulness, but Illumination did something similar with Despicable Me 3. The film’s villain, Balthazar Brat, was the star of an 80s TV show, but got fired once he hit puberty. Now, Brat wants to get revenge on Hollywood by blowing them up with bubblegum. Brat’s attire, weaponry, and fighting styles are also all reminders of how corny the 80s were at times. For an otherwise disappointing film, Balthazar Brat is one of the better aspects of Despicable Me 3.

Anyway, another thing to appreciate about ‘Rescue Rangers’ is how the film shows how Hollywood is becoming creatively bankrupt and is trying to squeeze every last penny out of everything they can find. Some of the films showcased in this universe include ideas that would never get green lit in a million years, such as Fast and Furious Babies, Mr. Doubtfire starring Meryl Streep (even though Streep is getting old), Waze (a mobile navigation app): The Movie, and the craziest of them all, Batman vs. ET.

Another problem I noticed people have with the movie is how Chip n Dale are remembered from Rescue Rangers (the TV series), but not the original shorts. If you’ve seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit, you’ll notice that two Toons absent from the movie are Chip n Dale, even though they were around for decades by the time the film was released. This makes sense because, if Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers takes place in the same universe as ‘Roger Rabbit’, then that means the old shorts don’t exist either. As enjoyable as those old shorts are, Chip and Dale in those cartoons were basically Jerry Mouse squared. Besides, I think that would make the movie even more meta if there were two Chips and two Dales.

Chip and Dale as they appeared in the Donald Duck cartoon 'Three For Breakfast'.

In conclusion, Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers is a worthy successor to Roger Rabbit that will delight the whole family. In fact, I liked the story so much that I have plans for writing a sequel, this one with a message on how hand-drawn Toons and CG Toons can coexist in the same society. This story, Chip n Dale 2: Wrath of Pickles, will come out some time this summer.

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

Plus four pieces of super-stinky cheese 

History of Warner Animation Group Part 2

 

WAG’s next feature film, as well as their final LEGO movie, was The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. In the long-awaited sequel to The LEGO Movie, a war has raged on against the Master Builders and the Duplo aliens. A mysterious figure in pink captures Emmet's friends and brings them back to her home planet, and now it's up to Emmet, along with a new face named Rex Dangervest, to save them.

There have been rumors about a LEGO Movie sequel ever since the first one was released. This time, the film had a female-eccentric story and tackled gender issues while still appealing to all genders. Chris McKay was going to direct the film, but then he got busy with The LEGO Batman Movie, so the job was given to Rob Schrab, who previously worked on episodes of the hit TV series ‘Community’.

However, it didn’t seem that Rob was the best pick for LEGO 2. As well as several rewrites that had to be done with Lord, Miller, and a few other writers brought on board, Schrab continuously butted heads with the team about the movie. Eventually, in early 2017, he left production because of creative differences, and directing duties for the film would go to Mike Mitchell, whose previous credits include Sky High (2005), Shrek Forever After (2010), and Trolls (2016), as well as live-action sequences for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015).

Also, producer Dan Lin wanted to change things up with the tone by adding in some musical numbers, since Disney was making a comeback with their animated musicals with Tangled (2010), Frozen (2013), and Moana (2016).

When The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part premiered February 8th, 2019, it unfortunately crumbled at the box-office, earning only 192 million dollars on a 99-million-dollar budget. As well as competing against How To Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World, Captain Marvel, and Sha-Zam, fans didn’t really want any more LEGO movies after being bombarded with two spinoffs in 2017. Not to mention that there was also a Unikitty TV series on Cartoon Network. However, the film still got good reviews from critics, with 84% on Rotten Tomatoes. The failure of The LEGO Movie 2 forced WAG to scrap more LEGO movie ideas, including a LEGO Batman sequel and an original spinoff called ‘Billion Brick Race’. To make matters worse, LEGO abandoned Warner Bros and eventually signed a contract with Universal to make more LEGO movies.

This baffles me at how poorly The LEGO Movie 2 did at the box-office. This is kind of a hot take, but I actually like ‘LEGO 2’ more than How To Train Your Dragon 3! I know I gave this movie a perfect rating when it first came out, but looking back, I feel that it suffers from a slow plot, a weaker villain, returning characters that do more harm than help (like Snotlout trying to woo Hiccup’s mom Valka), and an ending that retcons the message of the whole franchise. Here’s a video that backs up my opinion.

Why the Hidden World was a Slightly Massive Disappointment - YouTube

For those parents at home, make sure to watch the video first to make sure it’s okay for your kids.

WAG’s next feature film, as well as their first movie to not have involvement of Lord, Miller, or Nicholas Stoller, was Scoob! Based on one of the most popular cartoons of all time, this movie tells the story of how Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) and Shaggy Rogers (Will Forte) first met and how they joined with young detectives Freddie Jones (Zac Efron), Velma Dinkley (Gina Rodriguez), and Daphne Blake (Amanda Seyfried) to form Mystery Inc. Now, with hundreds of cases solved and adventures shared, Scooby and the gang face their biggest, most challenging mystery ever: A plot to unleash the ghost dog Cerberus upon the world. As they race to stop the global 'Dogpocalypse', the gang discovers that Scooby has a secret legacy and an epic destiny greater than anyone imagined.

Scoob! is set to be the first of a planned cinematic universe of Hanna-Barbera characters, in the same fashion as Marvel’s films. This is why characters from other Hanna-Barbera shows, like Captain Caveman, the Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, and Dick Dastardly from Wacky Races, appear in the movie.

The animation for the movie was done at Reel FX, whose previous credits include Free Birds (2013), The Book of Life (2014), and Uglydolls (2019). Scoob! was going to be released theatrically on May 15th, 2020, but when COVID-19 broke out, Warner Bros decided to release the movie on VOD (Video On Demand), instead, available from websites like Amazon Prime, Fandango Now, YouTube, and Vudu. However, the film would be released theatrically in some countries like Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands, Singapore, Hungary, Iceland, Vietnam, and Greece.

Polish theatrical poster for Scoob!

As for critical reception, Scoob! got mostly negative reviews, with 48% on Rotten Tomatoes, and I have to agree with them. Instead of treating itself like a mystery like the cartoon, Scoob! treats itself like a superhero movie, which doesn’t really fit the franchise. That’s like trying to make a murder mystery out of Bubble Guppies. To make matters worse, Scoob! only earned back 28 million dollars worldwide at the box-office on a 90-million-dollar budget. It’s said that the film did well in rentals, however, but I don’t have the numbers to back it up. There was going to be a midquel called Scoob! Holiday Haunt, and it would've been an HBO-Max exclusive, but it was eventually scrapped, despite being 95% complete.

In 2021, WAG released two movies in the same year, both of which combined animation with live-action. First up in February is Tom and Jerry, from Fantastic Four director Tim Story. When a mouse named Jerry moves into a fine hotel on the eve of an important society wedding, the event planner hires a cat named Tom to get rid of him. Unfortunately, the battle which follows is big enough to destroy the wedding, her career, and possibly the hotel -- so the sworn enemies decide to work together to save it all.

Much like Scoob!, Tom and Jerry served as an origin story for the famous cat and mouse duo. In a similar fashion to Alvin and the Chipmunks and The Smurfs, Tom and Jerry mixed computer animation with live-action. However, for this film, the filmmakers went for a 2.5D look that would stay true to the source material. To top it all off, no live-action animals, other than humans, appear in the film.

The animation for the film was done at Framestore, whose previous works include Beauty and the Beast (the 2017 film), Detective Pikachu, and the original Walking With Dinosaurs. Much like The Croods 2: A New Age, Raya and the Last Dragon, Vivo, and Luca, the animation was done at the filmmakers’ homes.

When Tom and Jerry premiered, the film got rather negative reviews, but managed to earn back 133 million dollars on a 79-million-dollar budget. It practically did better than Raya and the Last Dragon! Say what you want about this film, but WAG did a better job at making a Tom & Jerry movie than Phil Roman did nearly 30 years earlier.

Their second film for the year was Space Jam 2: A New Legacy. In the sequel to the cult favorite 1996 film Space Jam, Lebron James is a legendary basketball player, but his son Dominic wants to design video games. One day, while visiting the Warner Bros Studio to learn about the upcoming VR website WB 3000, Lebron thinks it’s a stupid idea, which infuriates super-intelligent AI Al G Rhythm. Al transports both Dom and Lebron into the Server-Verse, which is inspired by Ready Player One’s OASIS, and the only way Lebron can get Dom back is to beat him at a basketball game. When Lebron gets dumped into the Looney Tunes world (which is one of the many worlds in the Server-Verse), he has no choice but to team up with Bugs Bunny and reunite the Tune Squad for the basketball event of the century.

There have been rumors about there being a Space Jam sequel ever since the first one was released. An early draft of the film would’ve been about Michael Jordan and the Tune Squad facing off against a new alien villain named Berserk-O!, who would’ve been voiced by Mel Brooks. However, this was scrapped because Jordan didn’t want to work on the project.

Concept art for Berserk-O!

The filmmakers tried, instead, making a sequel to Space Jam that would have a different star, like Jackie Chan, Tiger Woods, and Jeff Gordon, and would’ve focused on different sports and genres. However, all of these were canceled when Warner Bros Feature Animation closed down after the box-office failure of Looney Tunes: Back in Action. The idea for a Space Jam sequel would resurface in 2014, and Justin Lin, best known for working on some of the Fast and the Furious movies, was hired to direct the project. However, Lin left the project in 2018 to direct Fast and the Furious 9, and he was replaced with Terrence Nash. However, Nash left the project due to creative differences and was replaced yet again with Malcom D Lee, best known for directing adult films like The Best Man, Undercover Brother, and Soul Men. Since Michael Jordan officially retired from basketball in 2003, younger basketball star LeBron James would star in the film, instead.

Much like the first film, Space Jam 2: A New Legacy mixed 2D animation, CGI, and live-action, while also redesigning the Tune Squad in 3D and making Lola less sensual. The CG animation and effects were done at Industrial Lights and Magic, a renowned visual effects studio who worked on hit live-action films like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ET, and Jurassic Park, as well as the full-length animated films Rango (2011), Strange Magic (2015), and Wish Dragon (2021). The 2D animation for the film was done in-house (in more ways than one) by the likes of Tony Bancroft, Dan Haskett, Spike Brandt, and Ole Loken.

Bugs Bunny after hijacking Marvin's spaceship.

In a similar fashion to Ralph Breaks the Internet, the Server-Verse, where Space Jam 2 takes place, showcases many, and I mean MANY Warner Bros intellectual properties, like Hanna-Barbera, DC comics, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, The Matrix, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, King Kong, and many more. There’s even a cameo of the Warner Siblings from Animaniacs!

When the movie premiered July 16th, 2021, Space Jam 2: A New Legacy got rather harsh reviews from critics, with a rather low rating of 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie also flopped at the box-office, earning only 162 million dollars on a hefty 150-million-dollar budget. As well as COVID-19 scaring away moviegoers, the film also competed against Free Guy, Fast and Furious 9, Black Widow, and embarrassingly, PAW Patrol: The Movie. I’m personally baffled at how low the score the movie has on Rotten Tomatoes and iMDb, and while the movie is by no means best of the year, there are still things to appreciate about Space Jam 2. You’re saying that this movie is worse than Shark Tale, which has creepy character designs, mean-spirited and offensive jokes, and a downright unlikable protagonist? You’re saying this movie is worse than Chicken Little, which has a messy story, a mean-spirited tone that is very un-Disney, pop-culture references that do more harm than help, and the worst Disney dad ever? You’re saying that this movie is worse than Maleficent, which butchered the original story of Sleeping Beauty and turned Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, the true heroes of the original film, into idiots?

WAG’s 10th feature film, and their second attempt at making a DC movie, is DC League of Super-Pets. In this film, Krypto is Superman’s best friend, but one day, he proposes to news reporter Lois Lane, turning Krypto’s life upside-down. He also faces danger when Lulu, a genetically enhanced Guinea pig, captures Superman and drains Krypto of his powers! Now Krypto has to team up with a ragtag team of super-powered shelter pets, including a cynical dog named Ace, PB, a pig who loves Wonder Woman, a neurotic squirrel named Chip, and a near-sighted and foul-mouthed turtle named Merton, to rescue the Justice League and save the world.

‘Super-Pets’ was the first animated movie to be directed by Jared Stern, who previously created the ingenious Netflix series Green Eggs and Ham. When he was hired, Stern visited an animal shelter and asked himself “What if pets had super-powers?”

In a similar fashion to The LEGO Batman Movie, ‘Super-Pets’ uses lots of characters from the DC Universe, some of whom you’ve probably never heard of. For example, Merton actually existed in the comic books, but she looked more like Jose Carioca, Donald Duck’s Brazilian parrot friend from The Three Caballeros. Also, Merton was a dude, just like Ms. Tarantula in The Bad Guys books.

The animation for this movie was done at Animal Logic’s Canada Unit, which was set up during production of The LEGO Movie 2. ‘Super-Pets’ was supposed to be released May 20th, 2022, but then it would have to compete against Sonic the Hedgehog 2, The Bad Guys, and Top Gun: Maverick! So instead, it was switched to July 28th, in which it instead competed against Lightyear, Minions: The Rise of Gru, and Thor: Love and Thunder. When the film was finally released, critics were much better on this film than they were with WAG’s previous three efforts. In fact, it has a higher rating on iMDb than Lightyear!

And luckily for the company, DC League of Super-Pets managed to double its budget, earning a worldwide total of 207 million dollars on a 90-million-dollar budget! And the icing on the cake is that this movie did better on opening weekend than Disney's feature that year, Strange World!

As for what’s next for the company, the next film from WAG will be Toto, a Wizard of Oz spinoff starring Dorothy Gale’s dog, set for release in 2024. The movie will be directed by Alex Timbers, best known for directing several acclaimed stage musicals. Once again, Animal Logic will provide the animation for the movie.

There are also lots of films in development from the studio, such as a Flintstones movie, a Cat in the Hat movie, a Funko Pops movie to take the place of the LEGO franchise, two collaborations with Locksmith Animation (the company behind Ron’s Gone Wrong), and a feature-film adaption of the book The Ice Dragon by George R. R. Martin.

In conclusion, while they obviously aren't as beloved, popular, or successful as other animation studios like Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, and Illumination, WAG is willing to try something different with each film, whether it's making a film about toys that might sound more like a feature-length commercial or casting directors who've never worked on a film before.

As for what's next on my schedule, I'll be reviewing Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers later in January, Imagine That in February, The Kid Who Would Be King in March, and The Super Mario Bros Movie in April. Stay tuned, everyone!

History of Warner Animation Group Part 1

In the wake of the closure of Blue Sky Studios, there has been a new animation studio to fill in their niche: Warner Animation Group (WAG for short), whose credits over the years include The LEGO Movie, Storks, and Smallfoot. What makes WAG similar to Blue Sky is that while they're not as successful as the likes of Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks, WAG is willing to be more experimental than, say, Illumination. For the next two days, in honor of WAG's 10th anniversary, I will talk about all ten of their films and talk about what happened behind the scenes.

Before all that, however, I’ll do a brief recap of Warner Bros Feature Animation. Since the Looney Tunes are so iconic, and many, and I mean MANY, people already talked about the old Looney Tunes cartoons, I will, instead, put a link to a book that kids might be interested in: What Is the Story of Looney Tunes? by Steve Korte.

What Is the Story of Looney Tunes?: Korte, Steve, Who HQ, Hinderliter, John: 9781524788360: Amazon.com: Books

During the 90s, after the success of Tiny Toon Adventures, Batman: The Animated Series, and Animaniacs, Warner Bros decided to jump on the animated feature train to compete against Disney, who were releasing hit after hit with Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. Warner Bros Feature Animation was founded in 1994, and they produced five movies: Space Jam (1996), Quest for Camelot (1998), The Iron Giant (1999), Osmosis Jones (2001), and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003). Unfortunately, all these films, except for Space Jam, were box-office failures. Here’s a more detailed link about WBFA and their films below.

The Fascinating World of Warner Bros. Feature Animation - Immortallium's Blog (immortalliumblog.com)

After the failure of Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Warner Bros decided to shut down the studio. From there, they decided to save their animation energy onto television and the direct-to-video market, mainly using the properties of Hanna-Barbera and the DC Superheroes. However, they’d still distribute animated films from other studios such as Corpse Bride (2005), The Ant Bully (2006), Happy Feet (2006), and even the anime epic Summer Wars (2009).

In 2008, Dan Lin suggested an action-packed movie starring LEGOs. When Warner Bros first heard of the idea, they thought it would be too similar to Michael Bay’s Transformers movies, but after looking at the LEGO Star Wars video games of the time, they figured out that it COULD be possible to make a full-length LEGO movie. This idea would turn into The LEGO Movie.

Released February 7th, 2014, The LEGO Movie tells the story of an ordinary construction worker named Emmet Brickowski, who simply agrees with what everyone else says. One day, Emmet falls into a pit and touches a red rectangular object named The Piece of Resistance. After meeting the punk girl Wyldstyle and wise wizard Vitruvious, Emmet gets involved with a wacky adventure to save the LEGO universe from being frozen with Kragle.

While it wouldn’t be until late 2011 for The LEGO Movie to be greenlit, Lin was already at work to create a team for the movie and map out the plan for what a LEGO movie would be about by writing the script with Kevin Hageman. In Summer 2010, Warner Brothers brought on Phil Lord and Chistopher Miller, who previously worked on Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs for Sony, to direct the film and write the screenplay. Chris McKay, who previously worked on the hit [adult swim] series Robot Chicken, was also hired to co-direct the film and bring back Animal Logic, the same studio who worked on Happy Feet, to animate the movie. While the film was without a doubt CGI, the filmmakers wanted it to emulate stop-motion films that would use LEGOs as their medium. As well as animating by 2s (12 frames per second) rather than 1s (24 frames per second), having the articulations be restricted to how a real LEGO figure could move, and examining real LEGO toys, the effects in the film, like fire, water, and smoke, were also all made from LEGO bricks, as were the backgrounds. Animal Logic achieved this by creating a software called LEGO Digital Designer, which allowed the animators to build their sets before they turn it into files for their own animation software.

Those blue round things are, in fact, water.

In January 2013, Warner Bros decided to reenter the animated film race by creating a Think Tank, which is similar to Pixar’s Braintrust, to have a group of filmmakers come together to think of ideas and give feedback on their movies. Along with Lord and Miller, the Think Tank consisted of Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, and Nicholas Stoller, and thus rebooting their animated feature division as Warner Animation Group.

When The LEGO Movie was released, it did very well at the box-office, earning over 468 million dollars at the box-office on a small 60-million-dollar budget, and got great reviews from critics and audiences. When the Oscars for 2015 were announced, fans were enraged that it didn’t get the Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, though it did get nominated for Best Original Song. Phil Lord, however, didn’t really care, as he admitted on Twitter that he made his own Oscar out of LEGOs.

In September 2016, WAG released their second film, Storks. In this film, a big question is answered: What would happen if babies were really delivered by storks? Well, in this movie, storks used to deliver babies, but they stopped because babies are too precious and annoying. Now, they’ve repurposed their headquarters into an Amazon-esque website called Cornerstore. However, one human baby left behind was now 18 years old, and her name was Tulip (Katie Crown). Junior (Andy Samburg), son of Cornerstore boss Hunter (Kelsey Grammer), has been assigned to fire Tulip so he can be promoted to boss of the company. However, Tulip accidentally turns on the baby-making machine (in this movie, babies are made from letters) and creates a pink-haired baby girl! Now it’s up to Junior and Tulip to return the baby to her parents without Hunter or his assistant Pigeon Toady (Stephen Kramer Glickman) finding out.

Production for Storks began shortly after WAG was founded, and Think Tank alumni Nicholas Stoller and Pixar veteran Doug Sweetland, who was an animator on their first seven films and directed the short film ‘Presto’, were put on board as directors. Stoller was inspired by the 1987 live-action comedy ‘Raising Arizona’, starring Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter, and noticed that in the movie, every character wanted to keep the baby for themselves. He and Sweetland incorporated that element into the movie, as well as adding crazy cartoony antics reminiscent of the old Looney Tunes cartoons. This is Warner Animation Group, after all.

The wolf pack forming a car, which they can’t do in real life.

Since Animal Logic was busy with a LEGO spinoff starring Batman, the animation for Storks was done at Sony Pictures Imageworks, best known for working on the majority of Sony Pictures Animation’s films.

When Storks premiered, it got mixed reviews from critics and audiences, and only did modestly at the box-office: It earned back 183 million dollars on a 70-million-dollar budget, perhaps because it had to compete against Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. However, Storks would win the Heartland Award for Truly Moving Picture, while other eligible films like Zootopia, Finding Dory, and even Kubo and the Two Strings got snubbed!

WAG’s next film was The LEGO Batman Movie, released February 2017. In this film, Batman’s butler and caretaker Alfred discovers that the Caped Crusader’s biggest fear isn’t snakes, clowns, or even snake-clowns, but is, in fact, being alone. For Batman’s sake, Alfred adopts a young Batman fan named Dick Greyson, much to the Dark Knight’s dismay. Meanwhile, the Joker schemes up the ultimate plan to get rid of Batman for good and take over Gotham City.

In The LEGO Movie 1, part of its humor is the heavy use of pop-culture references, so it would make sense for Batman to become a prominent side character who’s an egomaniac that satirizes the dark and gritty side of him that his movies often portray him as. As an idea for a spinoff, they decided to give this Batman his own movie, as it would still retain the style and tone of the original film. Chris McKay, who was both a story and animation supervisor for The LEGO Movie, was director for this film. The pop-culture aspect would turn into a massive homage to the entire franchise, highlighting many of Batman’s moments from the comics, shows, and movies.

For McKay, his first job as a director was a tough one, especially when the schedule was limited to about 2 ½ years to develop an entire animated movie. He even had a hard time to develop his own ideas for the picture, including how he wanted to portray both Batman and his sidekick Robin, who are, simply put, as different as night and day.

When The LEGO Batman Movie premiered, it did very well at the box-office, earning over 312 million dollars on an 80-million-dollar budget. It also got great reviews from critics, and some fans even consider this movie a predecessor to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Much like The LEGO Movie, fans were outraged when ‘LEGO Batman’ got snubbed for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and instead, The Boss Baby was nominated that year.

Also released in 2017 was another LEGO spinoff, The LEGO Ninjago Movie, which premiered September 22nd of that year. Set in the Japan-inspired city of Ninjago, The LEGO Ninjago Movie tells the story of Lloyd, son of Ninjago’s arch-nemesis Lord Garmadon. Lloyd is also the leader of a group of ninja warriors with elemental powers (except for Lloyd): Cole, Jay, Zane, Nia, and Kai. When Garmadon summons a giant live-action cat to wreak havoc among Ninjago, it’s up to the ninja team, along with Master Wu and Garmadon, to find an artifact that will deter the cat away from the city.

Boy, this has got to be one of the most convoluted plots for an animated movie since Chicken Little! The reason for this was because of the film’s rather troubled production history: While there was a popular LEGO Ninjago series running on Cartoon Network during production, two of the show’s writers, Dan and Kevin Hageman, came on board to work on the script. However, instead of having this be based on the TV series, the movie decided to go with a new take on the toy line with a tone that stays closer to The LEGO Movie so the film itself could count as a ‘LEGO Movie’. As for directing duties, it was left in the hands of Tron: Uprising director Charlie Bean. While there are no official reports about it, word has it that production for ‘LEGO Ninjago’ was completely chaotic, with three credited directors and nine screenwriters. Not to mention that Master Wu being voiced by Jackie Chan doesn’t really fit the character.

When The LEGO Ninjago Movie premiered, critics didn’t really like it, and the film only earned back 123 million dollars on a 70-million-dollar budget. For the people at LEGO, this was the first sign that there were some cracks on the LEGO Movie empire.

In September 2018, WAG released their fifth feature film, Smallfoot, based on the unpublished book ‘Yeti Tracks’ by Sergio Pablos. On the top of Mt. Everest lies a village of yetis. They live by strict rules and rituals written on stones. Migo is destined to be the next gong-ringer, as it's said that the sun (which they think is a giant snail) will rise once the gong has rung. After being launched over the gong and over the village by mistake, Migo discovers a human that crashed on the mountain, which he calls a Smallfoot. When Migo tells the other yetis that he saw a Smallfoot, the Stone-Maker banishes him, as one of the stones says that there's no such thing as Smallfoot. Migo meets a group of yetis called SES (Smallfoot Evidentiary Society), who have found evidence of this legendary creature, and Migo sets off on a quest to prove that Smallfoot exists.

Karey Kirkpatrick, who previously directed the DreamWorks film Over the Hedge (2006) and the overlooked live-action Nickelodeon film Imagine That (2009), was director for Smallfoot, and you can see his imprint from Over the Hedge on this film. 

Migo stuck in between two cliffs.

Much like Storks, the animation for Smallfoot was done at Sony Pictures Imageworks. This time, it is more evident with the character designs looking no different than those from Hotel Transylvania. This is also evident in the fact that Natalia Freitas and Karl Herbst, who have both worked on the Hotel Transylvania films, also worked on Smallfoot.

For Imageworks, Smallfoot represented a technological challenge because the Yetis had lots of hair, and hair is the hardest thing to animate in computer animation. Herbst stated that for Smallfoot, the Imageworks crew created a new hair shader that used true multiple scattering within the hair. They then extended that hair shading model to add control over the distribution around the hair fiber to model the effect of animal hair, which tends to scatter differently than human hair. This gave artists the ability to create lots of different hair looks, which were not based on human hair, as was the case with their older models. Stonekeeper was the most technologically complex character on the project, as he had long braided hair on his head, a beard, shaggy arms, and a cloak made of stones. The studios’ in-house tool, Kami, built all of the hair at render time and also allowed them to add procedurals to the hair at that point.

As for what critics thought of Smallfoot, it got mixed reviews like Storks, but this time better, with 76% on Rotten Tomatoes compared to 65%. As for the box-office, Smallfoot earned over 214 million dollars on an 80-million-dollar budget. Smallfoot was also notable for being the only animated movie from 2018 to win the Heartland Award for Truly Moving Picture.

To be continued in Part 2.

2023 in Animated Features

2022 is over, and 2023 has begun! Warner Animation Group, the company behind The LEGO Movie, Storks, Smallfoot, and DC League of Super-Pets, won't release a new film this year, as they will be taking a break. Their next film is slated to be Toto, a Wizard of Oz prequel that will be released next year.

With all that said, let's have a look at what animated movies are coming in 2023!

In April, Illumination will release their first original film since The Grinch, The Super Mario Bros Movie. I loved both Trailers so far, and I'm hoping that this movie will pay a whole homage to the Mario franchise in the same fashion as The LEGO Batman Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. For the first time in years, I'm actually excited for an Illumination film.

There will be two films coming in June. First up on June 2nd is the long-awaited Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. This movie was supposed to be released back in October, but Phil Lord and Christopher Miller pushed it to June so they can make it the best movie it can be. Instead of Peter Ramsey returning to direct, this movie will be in the hands of Soul co-director Kemp Powers, Joaquim Dos Santos of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra fame, and Cartoon Network and Sony veteran Justin K Thompson.

Next on June 16th comes the next film from Pixar, Elemental. In a city where fire, water, plant, and air residents live together, a fiery young woman named Ember and a go-with-the-flow guy named Wade are about to discover something elemental: How much they actually have in common. Peter Sohn, director of The Good Dinosaur and the short Partly Cloudy, will direct the movie. Something tells me, however, that this will also be changed to a Disney+ exclusive just like Soul, Luca, and Turning Red.

In July in France, Marinette and Adrienne will appear in their first-ever feature film, Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie. Fans of the French CGI series Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir are sure to be excited about this film, even if some of them have to book trips to France themselves.

In August, the popular pizza-loving reptiles will return to the big screen for the first time in 7 years with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Mitchells vs the Machines co-director Jeff Rowe will helm the project, and maybe it'll be a success.

In October, the famous preschool pups will return in an all-new movie with Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie. When a meteor crashes into Adventure City, the pups are given superpowers, turning them into the Mighty Pups. The first Paw Patrol film managed to outgross Raya and the Last Dragon, and who knows? Maybe this one might earn more money than some of the other films discussed here!

There will be two new movies coming in November. First, on November 17th, Poppy and Branch will return for an all-new adventure with Trolls 3: Band Together. With the critical acclaim both The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish are getting, DreamWorks might be entering a new golden age, and perhaps Trolls: Band Together will be the best Trolls yet.

Next, on November 22nd comes the next film from WDAS, Wish! From Tarzan and Frozen director Chris Buck, this movie will tell the story of the legend of the wishing star. And this will be on Disney's (the company, not the man) 100th anniversary to boot!

And finally, in December, comes another film from Illumination, Migration. In this film, a family of ducks try to convince their overprotective father to go on the vacation of a lifetime. As I'm typing this, there's no Trailer for the movie yet, but already, it sounds similar to The Croods and Finding Nemo.

Of all the new animated movies coming out this year, I'm most excited for The Super Mario Bros Movie and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, as well as Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget, which doesn't have a release date yet.

Once again, there will be more films than the ones listed here, but these were the ones I wanted to cover.

I'm sorry that there are no posters for Trolls: Band Together or Migration. As I am typing this, there are no posters or trailers for those movies yet.

On January 7th, WAG will be turning 10 years old, and on that day, I'll be talking about all 10 of their films so far and their production histories.