I realize that Bug's Life, for all that, still has the more realistic characters, the ones that feel real, and so Ants's clever and detailed world falls apart at that one big seam.
Do you know why that is? It's actually a fairly simple answer and one you might not have realised visually.
Antz tried to make characters more realistic, IE 6 limbs (2 arms, 4 legs), whereas A Bugs Life anthromorphised their characters and gave them 4 limbs, 2 arms and legs. This is so that people watching could identify with the characters more readily, even though it was technically unrealistic.
They also did this with Finding Nemo to an extent, giving the characters mostly forward facing eyes and eyebrows which fish don't have but allowed for more expression. In fact, the characters were heavily influenced by Dog facial features as that is something people would be relatively familiar with.
EDIT - I also figured I'd argue another point unalone made :)
Froo and I argued Kung Fu Panda versus Wall-E on IRC, if I recall correctly, and while I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about the animation world as he is, it's pretty hard to say that Jack Black in KFP is a more relatable character than Wall-E.
Well it really depends on your perspective. One can relate to WALL-E as an adult audience more easily than to Po (Jack Black's character). This is why when we were arguing, it's difficult to argue one in favour of the other as the stories have two seperate markets.
Po's story arc is essentially this: He loves Kung Fu, He learns he is the Dragon Warrior, He learns kung fu while learning to believe he IS the dragon warrior, he defeats Tai Lung - it's simple and linear.
WALL-E's story arc is a little more complex. He first struggles with becoming self aware of his environment and learning about it (the first scene where he's collecting objects). The story then goes ahead and emphasises his need to be loved and his loneliness (the guys and dolls TV scene where he holds his own hand). His daily grind (when he wakes up and struggles to put his tracks on which adults relate too and after being curious (the landing marker) he learns of eve and starts to fall in love. He then goes on a voyage of discovery and then goes through a back and forth process between love and bravery (saving eve and the plant) in which he ends up saving humanity and getting the girl.
So WALL-E has a more complex story arc and has elements with which adults relate to more readily. But both have eye candy, so kids enjoy them both too.
From a visual standpoint, Andrew Stanton and his team discovered early in the process that WALL-E's binocular-like eyes and the little eyebrow things (which have no actual use except for expression) were all they needed to articulate emotion. Ben Burtt's sound effects reinforced that. In fact, during WALL-E, sound was a part of the production process and not an afterthought in post production like it normally would be.
Po's character really didn't break much ground in this respect. KFP's biggest thing was how they managed to do so much cloth on fur which is fairly computationally intensive.
I believe one of the things that helps make WALL-E appeal more to the adult market is that the story tows a very narrow line between Comedy and Tragedy. It wouldn't have taken a big change in the script for WALL-E to have been a tragic love story.
Do you know why that is? It's actually a fairly simple answer and one you might not have realised visually.
Antz tried to make characters more realistic, IE 6 limbs (2 arms, 4 legs), whereas A Bugs Life anthromorphised their characters and gave them 4 limbs, 2 arms and legs. This is so that people watching could identify with the characters more readily, even though it was technically unrealistic.
They also did this with Finding Nemo to an extent, giving the characters mostly forward facing eyes and eyebrows which fish don't have but allowed for more expression. In fact, the characters were heavily influenced by Dog facial features as that is something people would be relatively familiar with.
EDIT - I also figured I'd argue another point unalone made :)
Froo and I argued Kung Fu Panda versus Wall-E on IRC, if I recall correctly, and while I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about the animation world as he is, it's pretty hard to say that Jack Black in KFP is a more relatable character than Wall-E.
Well it really depends on your perspective. One can relate to WALL-E as an adult audience more easily than to Po (Jack Black's character). This is why when we were arguing, it's difficult to argue one in favour of the other as the stories have two seperate markets.
Po's story arc is essentially this: He loves Kung Fu, He learns he is the Dragon Warrior, He learns kung fu while learning to believe he IS the dragon warrior, he defeats Tai Lung - it's simple and linear.
WALL-E's story arc is a little more complex. He first struggles with becoming self aware of his environment and learning about it (the first scene where he's collecting objects). The story then goes ahead and emphasises his need to be loved and his loneliness (the guys and dolls TV scene where he holds his own hand). His daily grind (when he wakes up and struggles to put his tracks on which adults relate too and after being curious (the landing marker) he learns of eve and starts to fall in love. He then goes on a voyage of discovery and then goes through a back and forth process between love and bravery (saving eve and the plant) in which he ends up saving humanity and getting the girl.
So WALL-E has a more complex story arc and has elements with which adults relate to more readily. But both have eye candy, so kids enjoy them both too.
From a visual standpoint, Andrew Stanton and his team discovered early in the process that WALL-E's binocular-like eyes and the little eyebrow things (which have no actual use except for expression) were all they needed to articulate emotion. Ben Burtt's sound effects reinforced that. In fact, during WALL-E, sound was a part of the production process and not an afterthought in post production like it normally would be.
Po's character really didn't break much ground in this respect. KFP's biggest thing was how they managed to do so much cloth on fur which is fairly computationally intensive.