Oscarless Animated Films Part 2

Oscarless Animated Films Part 2: Rise of the Guardians (2012)

In this rather underappreciated DreamWorks film, a teenage boy named Jack (Chris Pine), who has the ability to create winter from thin air, teams up with Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), and the Sand Man. Together, they have to stop Pitch (Jude Law) from making the children stop believing in these childhood icons so he can make fear reign.

This film is based on a series of books called  'Guardians of Childhood' by William Joyce, who also served as co-Executive Producer. He wrote the book because he felt sad after seeing kids outgrowing childhood icons like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. Joyce decided to make a novel series about these icons called 'Guardians of Childhood'.

What makes this different from previous and later DreamWorks films is because the atmosphere is darker than usual. It harkens back to the days when DreamWorks did hand-drawn films. There's also lots of attention to world building, character design, and character development. 'Guardians' also focuses more on story than comedy, and there are no pop-culture references or licensed songs.

And if you were to visually compare this to the two other films Joyce worked on, Robots and Meet the Robinsons, you can see that 'Guardians' is radically different. Robots and Meet the Robinsons look rather cartoony, while 'Guardians' looks very realistic, almost motion-capture quality.

This is Robots...

This is Meet the Robinsons...

And THIS is Rise of the Guardians. That's almost as crazy as the nine year progression from Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!

We also get to see the very unique designs of the places Santa Claus (who now has a Russian accent), the Tooth Fairy (now known as Toothiana), and the Easter Bunny (who is now Australian) live. They all have different creatures as helpers. Santa has Sasquatches rather than elves...

Toothiana has smaller fairies to help her, with Baby Tooth being her favorite...

And the Easter Bunny has walking eggs waiting to be painted. Apparently, these eggs come from flowers rather than chickens, goannas, platypuses, or echidnas.

If you're wondering about the Sand Man, he has the power to create anything from sand that kids dream about. Anything can happen in dreams, you know.

This film was also dedicated to William Joyce's daughter, Mary Katherine Joyce. She passed away on May 2nd, 2010, at the age of 18. She suffered with a brain tumor. Rise of the Guardians was dedicated to her memory.

In William Joyce's next film, Epic, from Blue Sky Studios, the protagonist Mary Katherine was named after Joyce's late daughter.
Despite all the lavish care taken into making this film, Rise of the Guardians actually bombed at the box-office. It had to compete against Disney's feature that year, Wreck-it Ralph, as well as the Lord of the Rings spinoff The Hobbit.
That's all I have to say about this week's Oscarless Animated Film! Tune in next week when I talk about Disney's 50th animated feature, Tangled!