My case for The Lion King having the best hand drawn animati

[Captain Cupcake]

[quote="Elton John"]I'm not trying to undermine the rest of Tarzans visual quality.

To me it's like, say there's this great tv show but it has one character that weighs down a bit all the other positive things about certain scenes he/she is in. There's another tv show that is not as great in most areas but has nothing that brings down the show. That to me is Tarzan compared to the lion king.

The rest of Tarzans visual quality is probably better than the lion king but there's one thing that keeps me from saying that it's better as a whole.[/quote]

Don't worry, I wasn't indicating that you were undermining the other visuals. What I was trying to say was that the specific flaw in question doesn't really hinder the rest of the work all that significantly.

If the use of jarring digitally painted 3D models was a consistent issue and was really poorly rendered all the way through, it most likely would bring down everything else a little bit. But only a small handful of shots showcasing a small clashing of styles doesn't really put a knife in a film's side when every other aspect of its animation trumps another film's in the same department, especially when the core discussion revolves around what has the best hand-drawn animation. A little bit questionable CG model work is of small consequence in the whole picture of comparing the general animation of those two films.

Are the visuals technically better than TLK as a whole? No, probably not. Like you said, it probably wouldn't be entirely accurate to say so due to one small aspect of the earlier film not showing its age as badly as the other's. However, when the majority of every other element(especially the hand-drawn work) revolving around the animation can potentially beat out TLK's on a technical level, the claim that "The Lion King has the best animation" becomes a subject of debate, as there are a good deal of worthy contenders(certain Golden Age features, Tarzan, those early DreamWorks films or some Don Bluth works) ready to challenge that.

[Elton John]

Well, I was also including everything in the animation, which is why I mentioned the wildebeast stampede in my original post. I was trying to talk about hand drawn animated movies as a whole, not just the hand drawn aspects.

It is my fault for not making that clear. I'm sorry for not doing that.

At the very least the cgi in Tarzan isn't as jarring as the clocktower scene in the great mouse detective.

[Captain Cupcake]

[quote="Elton John"]Well, I was also including everything in the animation, which is why I mentioned the wildebeast stampede in my original post. I was trying to talk about hand drawn animated movies as a whole, not just the hand drawn aspects.

It is my fault for not making that clear. I'm sorry for not doing that.[/quote]

Yes, I understood that, which is I why included mentions of the various effects and visual elements brought up before, and how Tarzan pretty much excels at each them. It isn't just the actual more sophisticated hand-drawn animation that may have TLK beat, but a lot of those other points brought up too, such as lighting, choreography, minor subtle effects, and so forth. Aside from the aforementioned use of 3D modeling comparisons, the only other thing that TLK's visuals may beat out Tarzan's are the general compositions of various shots. TLK has so many memorable moments and imagery throughout various scenes that stick a whole lot more in your mind thanks to the overall composition of many shots.

[quote]At the very least the cgi in Tarzan isn't as jarring as the clocktower scene in the great mouse detective.[/quote]

I personally don't really find The Great Mouse Detective's CGI all that jarring. They printed out the wire-framed computer work and then traced and colored over everything, so the final product sort of simulates three-dimensional structures instead of actually using any dated 3D models. If each frame of all of that were to be hand-drawn the exact same way, it'd actually look very similar to what they really used.

When I think of really shoddy mixes of CGI objects/creatures/etc. with drawn characters, I think of DreamWorks' last attempt at hand-drawn animated features, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Most of those gigantic creatures that appear in that film clashed with everything and didn't fit at all. It's all the more highlighted by the fact that Disney did it way better years earlier with Hercules, where the Hydra wound up being a far more convincing CGI creature. The hand-drawn animation is exceptionally well done, though. The DW films always had this unbelievable fluidity to them.

[Iberian]

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[sweetface]

I agree the animation is beautiful, especially considering they hired B-Lister animators for the movie and put the top animators to work on Pocahontas, because they weren't sure TLK would be a success but were positive Pocahontas would be.

I'm not sure which one I'd say has the best animation though. I like mostly all of the animation from the Disney renaissance movies, especially Tarzan and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

[Captain Cupcake]

[quote="sweetface"]I agree the animation is beautiful, especially considering they hired B-Lister animators for the movie and put the top animators to work on Pocahontas, because they weren't sure TLK would be a success but were positive Pocahontas would be.[/quote]

It's also fortunate that at least some of their top guys wanted to work on TLK instead everybody hopping onto the Pocahontas train. Andreas Deja and Mark Henn in particular come to mind. I would have liked to see what would have happened if Glen Keane worked as the supervising animator for one of the characters, though.

[Iberian]

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