Favorite animated films that aren't from Disney

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*spoilers ahead*

I haven't read the book, but in all the sources I've read the book has a deus ex machina ending whereby the dogs are rescued and returned to their previous owner.

Watership Down may be marginally more violent in terms of the level of blood shed, but watching it as an adult I found it more to be a brutally "real" than just dark. It's sort of like, these are vulnerable mortal characters, they can be killed. The Plague Dogs had that, but the dogs also had severe disadvantages of their own and no pack to go to and no prospective family or legends to immortalise them unlike some of the characters in Watership Down. For me it was, all-in-all, darker and more depressing, but I think by the time that film came out the director had earned a sort of notoriety that ensured that parents would be warned - the book was also not quite as well-known and wouldn't have created the same audience.

Watership Down was sort of the exception to the rule in adaptations of children's literature. Many books that were read by children and young adults were violent, but children reading them would be less affected by their own mental impression of the violence than what would happen if it was explicitly reproduced on screen. Something like Pinocchio would be highly tamed down (I still found it disturbing as a child, but for other reasons) but Watership Down was faithful and I think that took people by surprise.

Some of my favorites :
-- Shrek (the first one)
-- Ghost in the Shell
-- Castle in the Sky
-- Watership Down
-- A Scanner Darkly
-- Who Framed Roger Rabbit
-- Cowboy Bebop : the movie
-- Wallace & Gromit (the first three)

Aw, that's really sweet . . . but wasn't his former owner dead? I guess Adams changed that, too. It seems it would make for a completely different book with even a bit of a different message about vivisection because of the softer ending.



But you see the island at the end . . . . ? Or am I having a false memory or mixing it up with another movie?

Get hold of a copy of the book that was published in the 1970s. That ending isn't there. It was added in later, just like the later ending of Clockwork Orange. The novel Clockwork Orange has two different endings (the other was added for the American release because someone (publisher?) decided the original ending was inappropriate. The added ending completely changed the meaning of the book.) I don't like it when artists change their original work, like what has been done with E.T. and Star Wars. I think if an artist is unhappy with what they did, they should make another work of art (book, movie, whatever) instead of changing their original vision. A piece of art created by one's younger self is really a piece of art created by a different person in a sense and I think it's better to move on and make more, different, art.

But that's just me.



Yes, most people expect something like Bambi where the brutality of nature was sweetened considerably in the film. I read the book Bambi in my 30s and found it deeply moving and a bit too disturbing to give to the average twelve-year-old to read.

Also, there was a tradition in the States at the time that said that cartoons are for children and live-action is for adults. Cartoons used to be for the whole family up until somewhere after WWII when they began more and more to be associated with children only. So people tended to assume that animated=child-friendly. Animations like Watership Down and Heavy Metal were a big shift in target audiences. If no one's done a book yet about the shifting culture and expectations of animation over the years in the U.S., that would be a good thesis or book for someone to write. There's a LOT going on there.

It's not just Watership Down and Heavy Metal but Eurasian animation in general that elevated animation to the level of mature adults, although these two films probably were pioneers. Do note, though, that Heavy Metal itself followed a trend in Franco-Belgian comics/graphic novels as it was based on the comic series "Heavy Metal" (Fr: Métal Hurlant) which was one of the first in a long line of comic/graphic novel series focused on adults and mature teenagers with a range of genres at least as varied than the American film industry. I find it really disappointing the Franco-Belgian comic/graphic novel scene is so very unknown in most of the rest of the world.


Some examples of recent Franco-Belgian comics/graphic novels :

They try to swim to an imaginary island. You never see it though, I think Rowf says there is an island onyl to keep Snitter's morale up. Rowf just says that there is an island out there and tells Snitter to not give up hope.

Go to 5:00 in this video. Isn't that an island??

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufLrBDVEXMo[/youtube]

Off the top of my head...

--How to Train your Dragon
--Shrek and Shrek 2
--The Wallace and Gromit Quintilogy
--Ben 10: Secret of the Omnitrix
--Rock-a-Doodle
--Pokemon: The FIRST Movie
--The Phantom Tollbooth (The Chuck Jones version)
--How the Grinch Stole Christmas (The Chuck Jones version)
--The Cat in the Hat (The Chuck Jones version)
--The Thief and The Cobbler
--The DBZ films series (excluding Bojack Unbound, Bio-Broly, Wrath of the Dragon, and the 14th film)

I didn't think we were allowed to name CGI movies.
In that case=
How To Train Your Dragon(The best dragon movie ever)
Wall-E
Finding Nemo
A Scanner Darkly
Beowulf

The Simpsons Movie

South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Cool World

To anyone that said, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", it was made by Disney:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Framed_Roger_Rabbit

It's Touchstone Pictures which is Disney under a different name, so a "Disney film" in one sense but not in another.

My Neighbor Totoro (the original Fox dub; hate the Disney dub)
Spirited Away
Pom Poko
Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Castle in the Sky
The Cat Returns
Watership Down
Balto
Balto 2: Wolf Quest
The Prince of Egypt
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
Kung Fu Panda
The Last Unicorn
South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut
Happy Feet
Roadside Romeo (okay I actually obsessed with the soundtrack, the film's ok)

Fire and Ice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz-yLWGaIxM

Next Do yourself a favor and watch this! PLEASE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3dQFR8oWb4

9.99
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44lh-RvV4NM

Achillies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jpax3l19zw

James and the Giant Peach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73ax6ZrcUx4

Nightmare Before Christmas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qrB9I3DM80

The Corpse Bride
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-akimwGclk

Coraline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js7wxoqeVK0

Fantastic Mr. Fox
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2igjYFojUo

Mad Monster Party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89sL4R50Z6E&feature=fvst

Peter and the Wolf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnPrTEKibJI

Madame Tutli-Putli
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcdzdHoDvkg

Oh! If we're including stop-motion animation, then I vote for ANYTHING by Jan Svankmejer!! !

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuBwXfg3Mr4[/youtube]

I love the work of Moebius (French), Ortiz (Spanish), Richard Corben (USA) from Heavy Metal. My favorite stories are with Arzach, Den, and Hombre