It's hard to laugh at what used to be funny
abetriesagain.blogspot.com
abetriesagain.blogspot.com
Monsters vs Aliens was cute, timely, and throughly enjoyable. UP was downright brilliant and clearly timeless. Pixar consistently produces a form of the art that is simply higher than Dreamworks can even approach.
We see this in stand up as well. There are comedians who are topical, or who test social norms. And then there are comedians like Brian Regan who tell jokes which appeal to everyone and always will. And then there are comedians like George Carlin who tells jokes which are topical, test social norms, AND manage to age well.
There's nothing wrong with telling jokes which don't age well. It's easier. If you're going to do a show which runs every night, or every week, for many many seasons: for goodness sake, tell some jokes with short shelf life! You'll never make it otherwise.
If you make a great animated film, and people pay to come see it, and they walk out with a smile on their faces, and that's what you set out to do: you have succeeded. If you wanted to make sure they were still smiling, after the 100th viewing, 20 years from now... well... then you're going to produce fewer movies, and you're going to work harder to do it. And maybe you go home more fulfilled at the end of the day. Or maybe you don't. shrug
Ok here we go...
Pixar consistently produces a form of the art that is simply higher than Dreamworks can even approach.
The thing about that is, that the two studios produce films for completely different markets. Dreamworks focusses directly on producing films for children (with a few outliers) and Pixar focusses on producing films for everyone (with a few outliers)
Pixar's process is more story focussed than other studios, A typical Pixar film usually has a 4 year production cycle in which the first two of those are spent primarily on writing and rewriting the story to get the "feel" right. Even then, they have no problem with changing the story at the 11th hour.
Case in point - WALL-E's ending was originally very different with WALL-E originally saving EVE from the trash compactors (essentially larger versions of WALL-E for irony). After the film was complete and was screened in Portland, Andrew Stanton changed the ending to what it is today. The story flows better.
Compare that to something Dreamworks. Dreamworks focusses on making films which are more technically proficient and aimed at children (Kung Fu Panda was astounding from a technical standpoint and dominated the "Annies" last year, which is the animation industries version of the Emmys).
Dreamworks are more focussed on the business side, rather than the entertainment side of the process.
That's also why Dreamworks films are typically heavily backed by merchandising and advertising blitzes, because of this focus.
So it's difficult to compare the two, it would be like saying a Michael Bay film is comparable to a Tarantino film. The fact is, they have different markets and so approach the filmmaking process in different ways.
Nobody in their right mind would try and compare the two film styles.
Lastly, before you try and judge Dreamworks' animation pedigree, Jeffrey Katzenberg co-founded the studio and he was responsible for the classic Disney franchsies between 88 and 94 like The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast (which I might add is the ONLY animation film EVER to be nominated for best film at the Oscars).
From your first line I was expecting a rebuttal.
He's saying that Pixar films outpace Dreamworks films from an artistic point of view, because they both use the animation artform to tell their story.
I'm saying that both studios have different primary goals, one is squarely focussed on maximising profits while the other is more focussed on 3D animation as an artform (which is apparent given its catmull/lasseter pedigree).
That would be like trying to compare the artistic values of a Tarantino film to a Michael Bay film, which nobody in their right mind would - yet because the two studios use animation as an artform (instead of filming actors in the tarantino vs bay scenario which would be a classic apples vs oranges argument), people automatically lump them together... which is fundamentally wrong.
Now if you want to discuss two animation studios which have similar goals - Pixar vs Blue Sky Studios is definitely good for comparison, Pixar vs Dreamworks, however, is not.
"If you make a great animated film, and people pay to come see it, and they walk out with a smile on their faces, and that's what you set out to do: you have succeeded."
You simply rehashed what I said, added some angst, accused me of comparing apples to oranges. You then proceeded to compare the same apples to the same oranges. Evidently, you can compare them; we both drew the same comparison. So... I'm confused... what's the problem here?
The only way to accurately compare the two would be on a technical proficiency and currently, Dreamworks edges out Pixar in that department, but by such a small margin that it's almost negligible.
If we were to do a year by year comparison, UP and Monsters Vs Aliens were very similar (although some of the lighting in UP was fantastic, Jeremy Birn does some great stuff, I've read his book, fascinating stuff)
Last year though, Kung Fu Panda was simply astounding from a complexity issue. Fur + Cloth and having cloth interact with that fur, especially when you're considering the fact that the character rigs have to do very complex manouvers to perform the kung fu moves... that's simply astounding.
Even moreso when you consider that when the cloth was interacting with fur, it would flatten it when it would move over, with the fur springing back up afterwards (eg, master shifu) - Cloth + Fur are typically the hardest things to do in 3D, so having both work, plus on the scale that some of the scenes did (the revealing of the dragon warrior + the crowd) shows just how amazing the film was.
Comedy has to stay fresh and constantly reinvent itself. It has to run to stay at the same spot.
As social mores change, this kind of shock humor wears off, only to be outdone by the next generation.
But the classics, the Carlins and Pythons and such, they'll be funny a hundred years from now.
...they mentioned that FOX flagged their use of the word "groin" as being
potentially offensive. Imagining, in this post-Family Guy/South Park world,
that the word "groin" was problematic so recently really makes me marvel
at how quickly social mores can change.)[edit]: another example: Richard Pryor, vs most other standups from his era
Ditto Monty Python. For all the clever ideas, the execution often left something to be desired. Once you know the skits, you start to realize how poorly many of them are done. Monty Python has some exceptions, however: the Life of Brian has some excellent moments, and post-Python many of the team members did some great stuff.
In a way we can relate that to startups and design. If you have a brilliant new idea, then you're a gem up to the moment that somebody else does your idea better or goes further with it. If you take an old idea but polish it till it shines, you don't have the same novelty but you've got something that will last for a long time.
I can't think of much TV to compare to, however, because most television is so incredibly poor. Arrested Development, perhaps? I can see that one withstanding the test of time.
It'd be like suggesting Newton wasn't a genius because a 12-year-old can understand Newtonian mechanics.
There are those gems that survive the test of time and remain funny (for me: "Who's on First", "Caddyshack", "Office Space", "Dumb and Dumber"), but that doesn't minimize the landscape altering humor of such stuff as Austin Powers, South Park, Napoleon Dynamite, even if you're sick of hearing "Yeah Baby, Yeah!"
And yes, Arrested Development is bloody amazing.
That doesn't always happen, because if the end result is really labored away on, then it lasts the test of time, at least to some degree. South Park is actually a good example, where even as it's no longer the most offensive thing out there, you can still get a big kick out of Season 3 because they were putting in some genuinely brilliant jokes.
Back on Topic: But as you said, I don't think we disagree all that much, though I do feel that brilliance or genius can be attributed to something that is extremely funny at first, but may diminish in strength over time. Indeed, I have a feeling that perhaps the funniest stuff (laughing out loud and peeing your pants funny) is the stuff that eventually gets old, because it becomes overused.
I disagree with the premise of the article too. Great comedy is timeless. The stuff that wears off is the stuff that didn't go very deep to begin with.
At the same time, as you said, they were very unpolished. Sometimes they'd ruin good jokes with bad acting. When everything aligned, as it did in, say, the courtroom scene, or the parrot sketch, they were stunning.
The Simpsons very occasionally had moments like that, but returning to their earlier work I found that they too rarely were full-blown terrific. They faded with time not because good things fade, but because they weren't as good as we thought when we were younger and less experienced in comedy. Meanwhile, Shakespeare's comedies are still hilarious, and they've lasted for centuries.
Most of original comedy comes from the cheap early times when the team was on a low budget and nobody but them really believed in the show. Fame probably has a negative effect since once you got something you start worrying about losing it and then you're likely to stop being original.
I don't think how poorly a skit is done affects its quality.
There's a difference between idea and execution. You can have a good idea and pull it off shittily, or you can take a bad idea and make it work brilliantly.
Most of original comedy comes from the cheap early times when the team was on a low budget and nobody but them really believed in the show. Fame probably has a negative effect since once you got something you start worrying about losing it and then you're likely to stop being original.
Do your research a bit more. This is not at all a common trend. Comedians are like normal people: Most of them don't feel the need to innovate at all. But the ones that do tend to be unaffected by fame insofar as it affects their comedy. George Carlin, Ricky Gervais. Gervais especially, as he possibly outdid his original work in response to becoming famous.
I still laugh at many of them dating back 10-30 years but for some it's just plain obvious that they were never genuinely funny.