AV's Best Of The Year Review

Post by **Daniel** » February 7th, 2009, 2:09 pm

Hence why it is under header "The Un-Mentionables: Worst Of 2007".

Post by **Ben** » February 7th, 2009, 3:30 pm

Tinker Bell we found so-so, hence no particular good or bad inclusion. We wanted to highlight a DTV release but Justice League was the natural choice here.

The Sword In The Stone release was not as good as had come before, swapping out good content for a lame game and was indicative of Disney's newer reissues, so it got a bad rap. Ariel's Beginning we did indeed find to be the most pointless, cheap and nasty DTV of the year, so it got lumped in with the rotten eggs.

Good catch, Dan...swapped 2007 for 2008 - the result of my using last year's template! Silly me - but no one else noticed!

February 7th, 2009, 3:57 pm

Oh,I see.
And Daniel,only now I noticed that title

.
Sword In The Stone does looks like a bad release but Ariel's Beginning is great,in any case it's not as awful as you described it,if you said that on Little Mermaid II then I whould think that you should say worse things.

Post by **Ben** » December 22nd, 2009, 12:07 pm

It's that time of year again, when we here at Animated Views present our rundown of the best and worst! Our Best Of 2009 is now up for your perusal:

http://animated-views.com/2009/the-best ... -personal/

Do you agree with the lists? What failed to make the cut that should have? Did we include something that you feel is overpraised?

WHAT ARE <I>YOUR</I> ANIMATED VIEWS?

Post by **Josh** » December 22nd, 2009, 8:50 pm

I greatly enjoyed the 'Best of 2009' report.

James, you've convinced me to see Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, since you placed it above Coraline and The Princess and the Frog. After being letdown by Meltdown, I had zero interest in another Ice Age movie. But I'm definitely going to check it out now.

Also, I agree with your pick for the worst title of 2009, Ben. I feel Koch Vision was very disrespectful toward Fleischer Studios, with its handling of the Gulliver's Travels Blu-ray.

Post by **Randall** » December 22nd, 2009, 9:49 pm

I saw Ice Age 3, and was still surprised at James' choice (I was lukewarm on it), but it is miles ahead on The Meltdown. (I did still purchase it on Blu-ray, as it was well worth the $9.99 Amazon was selling it for on Black Friday.) For myself, I loved Coraline, but James felt the plot too messy. One thing's certain--- it was a tremendous year for animated films. Even films like MVA and 9 have their merits and would have been discussed much more in any other year.

Post by **James** » December 22nd, 2009, 10:28 pm

I'm a pretty big stickler on story. I like it to be solid, crisp, and tight. Looser more freeform storytelling has to be extra good and not messy or muddled or it turns me off. Coraline was maybe one of the top two beautiful films of the year, but I thought the story was a little too sloppy and episodic. Princess and the Frog had some great musical numbers but outside of those it was a little slow and plodding, and it was just trying too hard. Ice Age 3, while maybe not possessing as much artistic merit as those two, just had a more consistent story. There's hardly a minute that isn't fun or exciting. The story has a solid goal and marches towards it with purpose. The characters and their motivations and actions seem realistic (for their world). And other than the Scrat storyline (which is great for so many other reasons) there is hardly any unnecessary fluff. IA3 had more going for it than that, but Coraline and Princess had a lot going for them too. It was mainly story that made this decision.

Post by **eddievalient** » December 22nd, 2009, 11:38 pm

Ben, one nitpick: Jim Henson produced Sam and Friends as a small, five-minute black-and-white show for a local Washington DC station years before Sesame Street was conceived. Just thought I'd point that out.

Also, I think that Battle For Terra ought to have gotten an honorable mention somewhere. Yes, it flopped, but I feel that that's because of the general public's resistance to sci-fi animation in general (case in point: Titan A.E. Entertaining film, but not a major success). I thought BFT actually had a decent story and the ending packed at least a little bit of an emotional punch.

Post by **Ben** » December 23rd, 2009, 6:51 am

Josh - you should have seen us going back and forth over P&TF vs IA3 for that third spot. It was actually much better than the second film (as my Blu-ray review also states) but interestingly it didn't make our disc-based top ten, though that's perhaps more for the lacklustre bonus package.

I agree with James on Coraline in that the story was a bit to and fro to the same elements all the time, though animation being a visual medium I might have gone for that too. Still, nice to see Mr Fox get a nod, since I did think that was one of the most original animated films of recent times, so yay for stop-motion!

Eddie - we can naturally only comment on what we've seen, so Terra wasn't an option. On Sam And Friends...oops!! I meant Land Of Gorch! Always getting those mixed up - thanks for the pointer, it's been changed!

Post by **William** » December 24th, 2009, 7:51 pm

Should have mentioned Ponyo, but that's just me as a Miyazaki fanatic...

Post by **Randall** » December 25th, 2009, 1:16 am

Again, I think it was mostly an issue that we hadn't seen Ponyo. I almost caught it in theatres here, but unfortunately missed it. We'll certainly be reviewing the Blu-ray, though.

American_dog_2008 · December 25th, 2009, 1:38 pm

I would had placed Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs on #1.

A shame those classic cartoons DVD ain't in my country.

Post by **Aaron_03** » December 27th, 2009, 4:17 am

Daniel wrote:I completely agree with Cinderella III: A Twist in Time's inclusion in to the top 10! Yay!

As for Cinderella II: Dreams Come True, well, it got what it deserved... Still like it, though!

Completely agree.

Post by **Ben** » December 29th, 2009, 9:37 am

Um...guys...those Cinderellas were in <I>last</I> year's lists!

Post by **Jafar** » January 27th, 2010, 10:10 am

I would've so loved to see "Mary and Max" in there. My most favourite of 2009.

Nice and interesting read, nevertheless.