Animated movies and shows
Do any other Aspie/ASD people prefer animated movies and shows over live-action ones?
Personally, my love of animation originally stemmed out of my love for animals. As a very young child I was obsessed with horses specifically, so Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron was almost the only thing I would watch. (And I still love it to this day!) Over time, though, I began to appreciate animation as an art form even when it's about human characters. I prefer how it looks visually - how you can often tell a character's personality just by looking at their design, and how facial expressions and scenic lighting and such can be exaggerated for emotional effect - and how it has so much potential for extra creativity and fantasy compared to live-action. Oh, and I still especially love stories that are about animals, so that helps too since not as many live-action films focus on animal characters.
There is a common stigma that animation is "just for kids" but I disagree. For animated theatrical films in particular, most of them are intended to be enjoyable to all ages, so even many G or PG movies (with famous examples such as Spirited Away, The Prince of Egypt, The Lion King, How to Train Your Dragon, etc.) can still be enjoyable even if you are an adult. For some specific films (such as The Incredibles) there are even surprisingly mature themes, not in a way that makes them inappropriate for children, but you just don't understand the plot fully until you re-watch it when you're older. Not to mention, there is some animation made specifically for adults (such as Bojack Horseman, Isle of Dogs, etc.)
Personally, my love of animation originally stemmed out of my love for animals. As a very young child I was obsessed with horses specifically, so Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron was almost the only thing I would watch. (And I still love it to this day!) Over time, though, I began to appreciate animation as an art form even when it's about human characters. I prefer how it looks visually - how you can often tell a character's personality just by looking at their design, and how facial expressions and scenic lighting and such can be exaggerated for emotional effect - and how it has so much potential for extra creativity and fantasy compared to live-action. Oh, and I still especially love stories that are about animals, so that helps too since not as many live-action films focus on animal characters.
There is a common stigma that animation is "just for kids" but I disagree. For animated theatrical films in particular, most of them are intended to be enjoyable to all ages, so even many G or PG movies (with famous examples such as Spirited Away, The Prince of Egypt, The Lion King, How to Train Your Dragon, etc.) can still be enjoyable even if you are an adult. For some specific films (such as The Incredibles) there are even surprisingly mature themes, not in a way that makes them inappropriate for children, but you just don't understand the plot fully until you re-watch it when you're older. Not to mention, there is some animation made specifically for adults (such as Bojack Horseman, Isle of Dogs, etc.)
I work i animation, and once had hope of making mature works. But the truth is: there's one animated film with mature theme for every thousand films for kids.
To be fair: that's also true for live action, most films are just kids movies with sex and violence. There's just so much more live action films being produced.
You correctly pointed out Bojack Horseman, but I disagree on Isle of dogs. It's a bit creepy for kids maybe, but that's the only "adult" thing about it.
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AnonymousAnonymous
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Joined: 23 Nov 2006
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The animated classic film Akira, released in 1988,
became proof that animation was not "just for kids."
As for animated movies now, LAIKA Animation (based in Portland, Oregon) has
made excellent stop-motion animated films over the years.
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Silly NTs, I have Aspergers, and having Aspergers is gr-r-reat!
became proof that animation was not "just for kids."
As for animated movies now, LAIKA Animation (based in Portland, Oregon) has
made excellent stop-motion animated films over the years.
Akira is a great film, but not amazingly complex, at least if you disregard its historical context of Japanese sci fi media after the end of the Japanese red army faction (the last utopian movement, leading to the full embracement of a capitalist realism). It's more pf a young adult action film, really.
Ghost in the Shell, both movies, is significantly more complex and philosophically dense.
But there have been efforts in Japanese animation before to make it into an artistic, adult medium, like Belladonna of Sadness, for example.
Even Disney's Fantasia was meant to be aimed at adults, and initially a financial failure that doomed adult animation in the west for half a century.
And there's no evident reason why animation should not be able to talk about mature themes, it's an art form, not the message.
That said, it's an expensive art form to produce that only breaks even and gets cheaper than live action if it contains large amounts of stuff that would otherwise be expensive or impossible to create in live action. So, the economic aspects steer animation towards talking animals, and with that comes a tradition of fairy tales and fantastic stories aimed at kids, or amazing sci fi stuff, etc.
Most of this has been covered by live action cg now - yet the most mature sci fi film, Tarkovski's Solaris, made no particular effort to convince the viewer that the things on screen really existed, it relied solely on story and acting. That's still cheaper to produce in live action, and quite difficult in animation.
Which leads to the other aspect of nuance in the expressions of characters: it takes very good animators to produce subtlety. But you can create intense stylisation with mediocre animators, which are much more abundant than good animators.
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I can read facial expressions. I did the test.
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