Introduction
Hello there, fellow adventurers! Blaziker is here for another essay. Well, it has been quite a while since I voiced my own opinion on foreign CG animated movies the last time round, but this time, it is time I talked about some of my opinions that would rub some feathers.
Throughout my time on various social media sites, whether it is Bluesky, Instagram or Letterboxd, I had made some hot takes that would most likely be the opinion of the minority, or is just a fresh take few or no one has thought of.
Today, I will be explaining on five particular hot takes I have and justifying my opinions on these takes. After all, understanding and respecting each other’s opinions is how we can grow, although to be fair, some of these opinions might surprise you if you have followed me for some time.
With that said, let us get into my five animation hot takes. Hope you enjoy!
Hot Take 1: Photorealistic CG Animated Movies will Still Exist
In around the late 2000s, the boom of a particular type of computer-generated (CG) animation hits the theatres with photorealistic CG animation. In layman’s terms, this means that the texturing of the characters and backgrounds seek to mimic those of real life, be it humans or creatures, creating a style of CG animation that showcases the next step in CG animation.
With that said, this style of animation has its sets of drawbacks, mainly that thanks to this art-style, the animation styles in this animation medium began to look boring, as most of the character designs would feel too similar and safe, especially when compared to other animated movies. Other times, this style does bring out the level of ugliness and uncanniness in the characters and backgrounds, especially if the animators in charge did not properly render the characters properly.
However, with the boom in stylised CG animated movies since the mid-2010s with Blue Sky Animation and Sony Pictures Animation, where animators combine 3D animation with dynamic and exciting 2D animation to create exciting action and feel in the animation. As a result, more recent animated movies utilise that medium and more studios are willing to experiment on their take on this medium, which is easier to do when compared to photorealistic CG animation. This has resulted in the significant decrease in photorealistic CG animated movies, especially among mainstream animation studios.
With that said, I still believe photorealistic CG animated movies will still continue to exist and stay for the long term. This is because choosing an animation style is the preference for every animation studio. Every animation studio has their own style and no animation style is the same. Hence, animation studios that are comfortable with photorealistic CG animation or are more successful with it will continue to use this style until they found a style that suits their needs. In fact, a lot of the smaller, foreign animation studios do use this style with great success.
I have covered previous animated movies that uses the photorealistic CG animation style with some success, such as Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness in 2022 and Deep Sea last year year, but one more example I would add is Spycies. This is a Chinese-French animated movie released in early 2020 to success in China, but not much elsewhere. For a westernised Chinese animated movie, this is one of the better examples of that sub-genre. While a few story elements fell a bit flat, it was its messaging about climate change as well as its third act that makes it a surprisingly great movie to say the least.
However, it was the animation that stuck me in a different way. Spycies utilise a highly unusual style of photorealistic CG animation style by making it deliberately gritter and hyper-realistic in both the characters and background designs. It adds to the fun and exciting action sequences, and even though some of the character designs are pretty uncanny, the industrial-style animation makes it such a unique animated movie that I doubt we will see ever again. It is undoubtedly an acquired taste of an animated movie, but I, and other social media friends who covered this movie, were appreciative of what that movie was trying to achieve in showcasing the limitless boundaries of photorealistic CG animation.
Hot Take 2: The Lack of Animated Movies in Theatres is Due to Lack of Commitment from Movie Distributors
My second hot take pertains to theatrical releases of animated movies, whether by a world-renowned animation studio or a small, independent studio, and that goes to the attitude of the movie distributors in charge of bringing those movies into theatres.
Recently, I noticed that the quality of marketing for certain animated movies dropped significantly, both in terms of the volume and range of the marketing as well as the quality of the marketing content itself, be it the posters, the trailers and merchandise, among others. The contrast between the level of marketing and outright in bringing animated movies in theatres a few years ago before the pandemic and now is just shocking.
Perhaps one reason why there are not much animated movies in theatres (even in overseas markets where there are loads of animated movies to choose from, mainstream and non-mainstream, such as in Singapore) is the shifting perception of animated movies. There are just too many similar animated movies in terms of concept, writing and animation in recent years, which makes the animation scene, especially the mainstream one, less exciting. In addition, considering that not many families would want to go to theatres because of streaming services, they would simply wait until the movies is available on those services.
However, I would argue that the movie distributors are also at fault for the lack of animated movies in theatres. This is because these distributors, whether from within the company or through third-party distributors, simply do not put in enough effort to promote animated movies when they get released in theatres. This is especially since releasing movies in theatres is more expensive than bringing it in streaming services and considering that there is a great chance that these movies would bomb, especially for non-mainstream animated movies. As a result, animation studios lost faith in releasing their movies in theatres and would rather release their movies in streaming services, especially in certain countries where they knew they would not be able to attract moviegoers.
This was kind of the mentality of certain distributors, especially with Lionsgate and Viva Kids/Viva Pictures. Sure, they had been pretty notorious for bringing in smaller and worse foreign animated movies into theatres in North America, but the least they could do is to promote those movies extensively so that moviegoers are aware that these are coming to cinemas too.
However, similar issues can be found in other countries too. For instance, I got to watch Even Mice Belong in Heaven in theatres, but because there is a sheer lack of promotion of that movie, I watched that movie to myself in a very empty theatre. If only animation enthusiasts like me are watching these non-mainstream animated movies, are these still worth releasing it in theatres? In my opinion, yes, but more needs to be done from the distributors.
There was one movie in 2024 that caught my attention due to the extent of its marketing alone, and that was Out of the Nest. You might not have heard of this Thai-Chinese animated movie about a goat barber and his unexpected adventure involving seven royal hatchlings, but you might have heard from me talking about its marketing strategy in its native home of Thailand. Seriously, the marketing team went all out marketing the hell out of this movie there, from trailers to TV reels and even a song collaboration with a big Thai girl group, not to mention its huge gala premiere that resulted in it dominating the Thai box office for a few weeks, even ending up being number 1 in the Thai box office for some weeks.
So yeah, movie distributors also play a role in ensuring the success of an animated movie in movie theatres, and from the past few years, their performance has been rather disappointing, and they need to do much more for animation studios to be willing to let them market their movies for future theatrical releases, just like what the marketing team for Out of the Nest did.
Hot Take 3: A “Fine” Animated Movie is Better than a Terrible Animated Movie
My third hot take goes to how I feel about certain animated movies on certain ratings based on my Hot Sauce Movie Rating.
Besides publishing reviews of animated movies, I also interacted with others in the animation community, and too many times have I seen someone describing an animated movie as “mid”, as if it is considered a bad thing. In fact, I hate using overused words in my reviews, “mid” being a notorious example.
Let me end this debate: a “fine” or “mid” animated movie is more tolerable than a bad animated movie. Let me explain why that is the case.
Having an animated movie that felt just average or decent (which would be the higher end of “Medium” on my Hot Sauce Movie Rating scale of 10/20 to the middle of “Hot” on that Rating of 13.5/20, or 2.5 to 3/5 in translation) is honestly better because despite them being a bit more forgettable or had issues in certain elements, they are at least more tolerable than the mediocre to downright bad animated movies, which can be irritating to watch.
In fact, the average or decent animated movies can be easily treated as white noise where certain moviegoers can just treat it as it is. However, for bad animated movies, it is much more difficult to ignore, which can result in moviegoers not having a worse time with those movies. However, it all comes down to preference, so everyone has their opinion on their views towards the “mid” animated movies and “bad” animated movies.
For instance, if we were to take some of the 2023 animated movies, one example for each rating, if I had a choice between something like Rally Road Racers or The Monkey King, while both movies suffered from very bad writing, I would watch The Monkey King again simply because the animation is just way better and I enjoyed it way more. But again, personal preference, and if you disagree with this take, that is ok. Similarly in 2024, I rather see the likes of Hitpig than Gracie and Pedro: Pets to the Rescue.
Ultimately, this all comes down to each moviegoer’s preference, and you are allowed to make up your opinion about each and every movie. After all, this is what makes reviewing movies so special, because you get to see a wide variety of opinions from moviegoers and movie fans.
Hot Take 4: The Emoji Movie is Not the Worst Animated Movie Ever Made
My next take is a movie I had a chance to rewatch, and it is regarding one of the most infamous animated movies of all time: 2017’s The Emoji Movie.
The Emoji Movie is considered by many to be one of the worst theatrical animated movies, even going as far as almost sweeping the Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Picture (which is extremely rare for a bad animated movie to be nominated for the Razzies, let alone win, which is frustrating given the likes of Norm of the North and Arctic Dogs exist). Despite scoring at the box office, the movie put such a dent with Sony Pictures Animation, that since that movie, they would went to take a wildly different direction, producing hit after hit with the two Spider-Verse Movies, The Mitchells vs the Machines, Wish Dragon and Vivo, with them producing K-Pop Demon Hunters which I hope to see this year.
However, if you ask me, while I agree that The Emoji Movie is terrible, I don’t think it’s the worst theatrical animated movie out there, not by a long shot. For sure, if you compare it to mainstream animated movies, it is definitely near the worst theatrical mainstream animated movies list, but in terms of theatrical animated movies in general… Not so much.
You have to understand that there are smaller, foreign and more independent animated movies that came to theatres in the past, especially outside North America. However, a few of these will end up in North American theatres… only for some of them to be chewed by both the critics and the audience, probably no thanks to Viva Kids/Viva Pictures (which I might have an essay talking about them and their strategies down the road). While the quality of such movies are lower compared to the big Hollywood animated movies, there is also the continued stigmatisation of such movies in North America, where I noticed that moviegoers there are less accepting of those movies compared to those outside of North America. That said, I can say that the worst of them would fare even more badly compared to Emoji. Norm of the North, Arctic Dogs, Marmaduke 2022, the list goes on and on.
Overall, while The Emoji Movie has a lot of issues, it is ultimately not the worst animated movie I had covered of all time, not even close. It’s a movie that has a fine concept, but bad execution, but ultimately, there are movies that have even worse execution than Emoji.
Hot Take 5: There is no “Bad” Animation Studio… With Exceptions Of Course
My fifth and final hot take is a rift on one of the iconic political lines in Singapore politics about the education system here: “Every school is a good school” and that there are no “bad” animation studios out there.
Hear me out, I got to experience many animated movies from many countries outside of Hollywood and I found that with a few exceptions, each animation studio has its own animation style, its own flair and its own personality that makes it their own. Yeah, a lot of the foreign CG animation studios just do not have their own style and simply copy off what was trending at that time, but I see those studios as exceptions, rather than the norm.
As such, once you see more animated movies from foreign territories, you get to see the wonders of what each studio is capable of. From the dynamic and photorealistic CG style with fantastic action from China’s Light Chaser, to Cartoon Saloon’s iconic hand-drawn and simplistic animation style representing Ireland and so much more. Additionally, it’s exciting to see more animation studios finding their style and adapt it to become what they are known for.
With that said though, we still got a few bad apples out there, with a good number of animation studios that are not willing to change for the better, and instead churn out poor quality animated movies, with no personality or effort whatsoever, to make them stand out. I will not name those studios because that is not the point of the studio, but once you see movies from those bad studios, then you get the idea.
Overall, it is heartening to see animation studios at least trying to break out of their old style and find their own identity in this crowded market, and I hope this continues in the future, even if the threat of generative A/I animation works rises.
Conclusion
So yeah, these are 5 hot takes I have for the animated movie scene. This was an essay I put off for a long while, but I decided to revive it back and see whether my opinions on these hot takes have changed. Honestly, there are not much changes, but I have updated some examples for the 2024 and 2025 context.
Anyway, thank you for joining me on this journey. Tune in next time as we cover more exciting animated movies from across the world. Until next time, see you on the next adventure!
