2015 Golden Globes

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Re: 2015 Golden Globes

Post by Dan » January 11th, 2015, 11:56 pm

It's probable that the voters believe it's just a great film, you know. :wink:

Awards folks also tend to be sucker for heavily dramatic films and HTTYD2 certainly fits the bill.

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Re: 2015 Golden Globes

Post by Jpcase » January 12th, 2015, 11:17 am

Yeah, I know. Still, it strikes me as odd. I've seen about 15 films from 2014, none of them bad, but Dragon would probably fall dead last for me. I tend to enjoy heavily dramatic films myself, and it frustrates me that they're so scarce in today's animation scene, but Dragon's tone felt all over the map. One moment had solid dramatic storytelling, the next moment was marred by goofy, anachronistic humor that - unlike say, Mushu in Mulan - fell flat. It felt like the directors desperately wanted to make an intense, PG-13-style action film, but kept having to remind themselves at the last minute that they were, after all, making it at DreamWorks. Dragon could have been great had it been done by another country or in live-action, but there are just too many rules that you have to play by when doing animation in the US.

I have to say, I also remember there being something really off about the story pacing. My impression after seeing the film wasn't dissimilar to how I felt about Man of Steel; just - too much action in the latter half.

All that having been said, I should reiterate, I don't dislike the film. It's just that looking back on the Oscar's picks for Best Animated Feature, all of them made sense to me on some level. I mean, I'm not a die-hard Happy Feet fan or anything, but I can't think of anything else from that year that stands out in a major way. Brave was worse than Dragon IMHO, but I can buy into the theory that voters were blindly going with Pixar that year. If Dragon wins, then it will be the first time that I'll feel like the voters just flat-out saw a different movie than I did.

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Re: 2015 Golden Globes

Post by Jpcase » January 12th, 2015, 11:54 am

Dragon would probably fall dead last for me.
Strike that - The Hobbit was worse; much much worse. :(

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Re: 2015 Golden Globes

Post by Randall » January 12th, 2015, 9:58 pm

The pacing felt "off" to me in Dragon 2 as well. Too much would happen in too quick a time, and then suddenly the film was over. Pretty major story beats or revelations had little time to "breathe." Even though it ran over 90 minutes, it felt much quicker to me, and I felt unsatisfied at the end (despite enjoying it). So much worked well in it, yet so much got glossed over too quickly, that it felt like another director could have milked the emotion more and made it more satisfying.

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