cross-posted from: https://ani.social/post/5213837

From what I hear the leaked episodes aren't fully complete yet so obvious the quality isn't great. Better to watch it when it's officially out.

“An animated film presenting a man who anticipates enjoying his new swimming pool, only to be thwarted at every turn“

"I am not a gun."

The Iron Giant (1999) is an animated sci-fi film directed by Brad Bird in his directorial debut, released on August 6, 1999.

After the success of Disney's The Lion King (1994), Warner Bros. hastily founded their own animation studio to try and compete. All of their attempts to compete against Disney were failures (their only box-office success was Space Jam). Among those string of flops was The Iron Giant, and to say it deserved better is a huge understatement.

The Iron Giant was based on the 1968 book The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, who wrote it to help himself cope with his wife's suicide. Upon learning about this, director Brad Bird decided to change the story into an anti-gun allegory to cope with his sister's murder at gunpoint ten years earlier.

Because WB's previous animated film, Quest for Camelot (1999), bombed at the box office, the budget for The Iron Giant was cut heavily, and they were only given a production time of 2½ years (most animated films take 5 years to make). But thanks to Brad Bird's resilience and experience in television animation, the film actually got completed ahead of schedule.

Again, because of their previous string of flops, Warner Bros. had very little faith in the film, so they decided not to spend much money on marketing and advertising. But this would end up coming back to bite them, as The Iron Giant turned out to be critically acclaimed, even getting Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes! By the time they realized their mistake and spent more money on marketing, it was too late. The Iron Giant bombed at the box office, grossing only $31.3 million against a $50 million budget.

To atone for their grave mistake, Warner Bros. decided to air a 24-hour marathon of the film on Cartoon Network during Thanksgiving weekend (at the insistence of Ted Turner, who saw the movie on a plane and declared it one of the best movies he'd seen). This helped the film gain a cult following, which is probably how many of you experienced the film for the first time. It seems that Warner Bros. has publicly apologized for the mistreatment of the film, and has even commisioned an extended cut of The Iron Giant called the "Signature Edition", which was released on Blu-ray in 2016.

This film is an instant classic that for too long has not gotten the respect it deserves. If you haven't seen it yet, there's no time like the present.

I just finished the season and I hate to break it to anyone who was excited to check it out, I thought it was very meh...

The writing is very predictable in most cases. There are few good moments Most characters feel like a rehash of what they were in TAS, but worse. At most they raceswap/genderswap a character and call it a day. For example, The Penguin is now a woman called Oswalda. How creative.

The animation is not great. Most fight scenes are awkward and stilted, and a lot of the thoughtful lighting and atmosphere from the old animated series is not here.

After finishing it I feel like I already forgot most of the episodes. The worst part of Caped Crusader is that it tries hard to emulate Batman TAS that it doesn't even have its own identity. Yet another reboot that's worse than the original in every way.

Anyone else watch it? Thoughts?

“we are developing an animated version, like a series…I’ll do that. I’ll do Ash’s voice all day long because my voice hasn’t aged as much as I have.”

Sadly no information as to what stage this project is in. Fingers crossed though, I'd love to see this!

With this community surpassing 300 subscribers and some decent engagement happening I'm curious if there are specific things people want. So far a lot of the content here has been news related and I'm trying to think of ways to help facilitate more conversation and discussion. So far I have a few ideas:

1. A regular discussion/recommendation thread. A lot of media related Lemmy communities and subreddits tend of have weekly threads where users can share what they've watched over the past week and have conversations about it. They can also seek out recommendations for new shows/movies. I think weekly might be best in order for people to be more active, but monthly might be more realistic given the size of this community.

2. Movie club. Perhaps once a month we can do something like a movie club, where people vote on a film to watch by a certain time and then we make a thread to discuss it. It might help people find some lesser known films that they love. Maybe we can have a specific theme for each month.

3. Feedback threads. Basically a regular thread kind of like this one where I look for community feedback on suggestions for improvement and moderation.

4. Animation challenges. I don't know if we have any actual animators here but if so, I'd be interested in setting up some sort of challenge system where users create short animations or concepts based on a prompt. And then share submissions for feedback and votes. Admittedly I think this is least likely to happen in the short term because we'd need a decent number of actual animators here interested in participating. Maybe even once every 6 months could work.

Anyway let me know what you would be most interested in. Or if you have any other ideas (new or a variant of one of mine). If you hate these ideas let me know too. 😅

Adult Swim‘s mini-series “Uzumaki,” based on the supernatural horror manga by legendary author Junji Ito, was announced way back in 2019, and has since faced many delays. Thankfully, fans won’t have to wait much longer: Adult Swim revealed the Uzumaki premiere date during San Diego Comic Con 2024.

Prepare to get dizzy over spirals when “Uzumaki” debuts September 28 on Adult Swim, followed by next day streaming on Max.