by Jared Logan, voice of Booker the Badger in Dreamworks’ A Wild Tail

We, the people of earth, as one community, must make a resolution now to stop the production of computer animated talking animal movies.  Please.  We’ve hit critical mass.  It’s time to stop.

It started out innocently enough with Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, an semi-entertaining little piece of papp funded by Walt Disney and his Thought Police.  This movie was completely unoriginal but at least it was bugs that were doing the talking instead of the assorted 2-D mammals we were accustomed to from decades of Disney brainwashing, and some of the 3-D visual sequences in this film were distracting enough.  Of course, it continued the time-honored travesty of recruiting a smorgasboard of B-level celebrities to do the voice chores: Dave Foley, Julia Louis Dreyfuss, David Hyde Pierce — but hey, at least those people are funny, and the dialogue wasn’t complete shit.

Still, the plot of A Bug’s Life was so trodden-over that you could see footmarks on the film.  In A Bug’s Life, a group of actor bugs are mistaken for hero bugs and hired by a village of peasant bugs to stop a group of bandit bugs who steal their harvest every year.  This is, obviously, the plot of The Three Amigos.   Which was the plot of the Magnificent Seven.  Which was the plot of The Seven Samurai.  And so, in this way, we trace the plot of A Bug’s Life back to Japanese folklore.  Completely unoriginal.  Sure, kids haven’t seen it, but should we let our kids accept mediocrity just because they don’t know any better?  I submit that we should not. 

Then Dreamworks released a movie called Antz starring the voice characterizations of Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, and Sylvester Stallone, of all people.  It was about, you guessed it, ants.  This 3-D insectraganza was as boring as it was long and it was ‘very’ in both categories.  Half a kudos to the writers for attempting some social criticism (Woody Allen’s everyant character muses ‘why should we all work as mindless drones until we die? what about free will?) but the edge of their wit got dulled somewhere in between the fast food collector cup tie-in marketing and the their need to have characters spout soundbyte-worthy catchphrases that combine common colloquialisms with references to the movies titular phylum.  “You da ant!” Sylvester Stallone’s character bellows, and an image of Sylvester standing behind a microphone in a sound studio with a Starbucks latte in his hand, pretending to be a talking insect enters our heads and we are saddened and dismayed.  Not because we thought Stallone was some great thespian, but because we thought that even he was better than this.

Finding Nemo hit and it was huge and the craze started to snowball.  Once again, Pixar was the culprit, but Pixar can never be totally panned because they always have clever writing.  Still, the need to wedge cultural stereotypes into animated animals and give them voice was displayed in full force.  Although the first time I saw the film I was amused, I now find that the ’surfer dude’ seaturtles in this film grate on my nerves in the extreme.  “Whoah! Gnarly wave!” they exclaim, “Totally Tubular,” and other such phrases that I’m quite certain have never actually been uttered without irony by any living surfer.  Does the stereotype of the ’surfer dude’ actually exist naturally out in the real world?  I’ve never met a ’surfer dude’ myself, but I’ve generally been landlocked all my life. 

 Finding Nemo begat A Shark’s Tale. Will Smith did a voice in that one, firmly cementing the notion in my mind that his entire film career is an outrageously elaborate attempt to annoy me.  Robert DeNiro and Jack Black were on hand, along with Martin Scorsese, to lend their voices to various talking sharks.  I’m a fan of the work of all three gentlemen and I’m sure I know what went through their head, “Hey, what the hell? It’s for kids!  It’ll be fun.  Nobody will even notice it’s me!  It’s just a voice job!” 

 No, gentlemen, it’s not okay that you did this.  It’s not okay to take a side in a bizarre studio battle over who can build the biggest talking fish home video toy tv trash-food put-our-characters-on-a-kids-comforter super-franchise. 

After a Shark’s Tale, it was all over.  The possum shit truly hit the fan and it was Open Season for any studio with a couple gazillion dollars and a bank of high-tech computers that would make NASA blush.  We were subjected to Madagascar, in which Ben Stiller does the voice of a lion, who, although I have not seen the film, I’m absolutely positive is named Leo.  Of course Ben Stiller would sign up for that. “It’s just a voice role,” he said to himself, “at least people can’t talk about how they’re sick of seeing my face after this one.”

  In Madagascar, a group of New York zoo animals accidentally find themselves in Africa!  Hijinks ensue. 

 This movie was quickly followed up by Disney’s The Wild.  In The Wild, a group of New York zoo animals find themselves in Africa!  Hijinks ensue.  Both movies have the EXACT same plot.  The EXACT SAME FUCKING PLOT.  At this point, even six-year-olds have to be going “You’ve got to be kidding me with this shit.  At least write a different plot!”

Incidentally, the video case for the DVD release of The Wild says “NEW!” on it in big red letters, just so you don’t get it confused with the other 26 talking animal movies released in the last 2 and a half months.

  Ice Age was in there somewhere.  Ray Romano voiced Manfred the Mastodon.  It sucked.  There was Over the Hedge in which Bruce Willis played RJ the Raccoon.  In this story, kooky forest critters turn the tables on a villanous exterminator.  Then came Open Season with the voice talents of Martin “I’ve sold out so much I’m not even black anymore” Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher.  In that film, kooky forest critters turn the tables on a villanous hunter.  There was Ice Age 2: The Meltdown and, at this point, speaking of meltdown, what about the brains of our children? 

There was Barnyard, about kooky barnyard animals who undoubtedly turn the tables on someone or something.  Probably a farmer.  And it looked–for a brief shining moment–like the craze was about to die out.  It looked like Barnyard would be the last one.  I mean, top billing in this expensively animated pile of cow dung was Kevin James.  The King of Queens, for Christ’s sake.   Nobody saw Barnyard.  It looked like we might finally be done with this shit.  No more talking animal computer animated movies.

Then Happy Feet debuted, hit number one at the box office for a weekend, raked in a ton of dough, and here we are back in the heat of it.

Happy Feet is about a penguin who loves to dance.  It was a story that had to be told.

There are more coming.  The tide of CGI talking animal movies is relentless and unending.  And, as with any fad, the more it permeates the fabric of our culture, the more it gets diluted.  I am a grown man that loves cartoons, but these cartoons are shit.  The plots are re-warmed left-over stories that wouldn’t be fit for an episode of Ducktales.  The performances of the ‘voice actors’ in these roles are half-assed and phoned in, (perhaps literally.)  These movies are little more than colorful babysitters designed-and this is all they’re designed to do- to hypnotize a 6-year old into relative silence for an hour and a half.

We’ve got to try to do more than that if we’re going to go to the trouble of making a gazillion dollar major motion picture.  If all we’re trying to do is hypnotize a six year old then lets design some kind of flashing light that makes them go into an epileptic trance.  That’ll be the computer animated kids’ movie I direct.  Come see The Flashing Light.  Two hours of a light that flashes on and off, putting anyone under the age of twelve into a braindead zombie-like state!

But you know what might be a better idea?  Somebody- anybody - could get the money together and start making GOOD animation again.  Something without talking animals in it, for the love of God.  Something that isn’t a bright, innocuous pastiche of fart jokes uttered by friendly zoo critters.  Some of the old Disney movies had moments that were scary, moments that were sad.  What was wrong with that?  Kids SHOULD experience that stuff in their entertainment.

And some of them were about human beings with human problems.  Not a bad idea.  Just for the sake of variety.

In the meantime, I beg of you, do not take your son/daughter/niece/nephew/friend’s kid to see any more CGI talking animal movies.  We need to send the message to the animation studios - thanks, but you’ve given us a horrible migraine.  Please take the time and create something watchable that adults and children can enjoy together and we may come back.  Until then, shove it up your blowhole.  Blow it out your shell.  Whatever.

07/05/2007
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