Slightly late to the party on this but I just watched it and shit man, it feels like it had no right to be this good. I watched the first Puss in Boots beforehand, it was okay, I knew this would be a step up but I didn't expect something so fantastically executed in almost all respects.
Heck knows how they managed to make a sequel so many years later that not only justifies its existence, but is a fantastic tale in its own right.
As someone who doesn't know much about animation though, can anyone break down to me what it is that they did differently here in the action scenes to give it that almost comic-y effect? It's something that seemed to work quite well but I don't get what it actually was. Is it just animating at half the framerate? Can't be that simple surely.
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Watch more cartoons.
OK. Which cartoons?
anon?
Actually good ones.
Name them. You're not scared of your taste being judged are you?
>When you’re quick to contradict someone but also don’t know what you’re talking about
We don't spoonfeed here.
As for the film itself, as much as I liked the film, I feel it falters in a few areas to make it shy from perfection. Interested to hear thoughts.
I wish the storytelling was a little more subtle. I rarely feel its fair to call an animated movie predictable, but I wish the film played some cards closer to its chest. Wolf being Death might have been cooler if he actually came across as just another bounty hunter, Goldie's character arc is spelt out to you far before it happens which kind of cheapens the wish forgoing, and then there's the dog character whose schtick for the film is immediately obvious from the first bits of dialogue. Stuff like that.
I liked Goldie a lot, I'd have liked to have seen her character just a little more fleshed out. She sort of betrays all 3 bears by filling their minds with fake dreams and they all just don't seem to care. If she's using them then it becomes harder to believe she really loved them.
Wolf is a top tier character, but I also think he fails to live up to his first appearance in subsequent ones. I wonder if it'd have been cool if he tore up some more shit at some point. As for the final fight, do you think it'd have worked better if Puss kinda got his ass beat but kept getting up and fighting, showing his desire to keep THIS life? Him beating up Death itself feels a bit weird given he's, well, Death.
Minor criticisms though. On the whole, funny, good action, great characters and a worthy premise to keep things flowing. Very good, very very good indded. Be interested if anyone has any concept art or general art/wallpapers for this.
I think the Wolf should of been the climax of the movie. Have Puss and Kitty have a finale against the others, Goldielocks realises she doesn't need the wish, Jack gets BTFO and just because Puss can get his wish, Death shows up, they do their fight.
Puss doesn't beat up Death. I think he gets one or two hits in, but otherwise they just clash blades. The whole thing of it is that Death concedes when Puss demonstrates that he is neither diminishing him or fearing him, but respectfully confronting him.
Beat up was a strong way of putting it, but he absolutely gets the upper hand on him. Breaks his scythe in half, and makes him drop his weapons.
Puss was winning the battle before Death conceded, which is why I wonder if maybe it would have worked better if he was actually losing.
Death is built up as really imposing, no one has beaten him and no one can. But outside of his first scene, he never gets a chance to show this whatsoever. I feel like you shouldn't be able to challenge Death. For Puss to show he wanted to fight for this life, would it have worked better if Death was tearing him up but he just kept getting up and continuing to fight instead of fleeing? It would show Death Puss has turned the corner while also not having Puss overcome Death slightly
I really wish Goldi's ending wasn't so telegraphed since I loved her character.
I do think Death being the climax would work, but it would also need the fight to be even bigger. Bonus points if Death lays out every other member there before focusing in on Puss. It'd show when he's not messing he's truly unstoppable, but Puss is his plaything. I just don't think Death manages to match up to his first appearance in the subsequent ones.
I mostly agree, but I will add my 2 cents regarding Goldie: I think the whole point was that the Bears really loved her as much as if she were their real child (and she was, really) and this was basically made explicit in the ending, so it's not that "she filled their minds with fake dreams", it's much more simple than that: they would do everything to make their daughter happy, no matter what, even if that meant following a dumb, not-very-well thought out dream
Appreciate the discussion.
I do agree with what you're saying, their love for their daughter outweighed the crushing heartbreak of realising she didn't want to be with them.
But Goldie did tell them they'd be rich and have everything they wanted with their wish. She specified the gold, rather than just saying it will fix everything, which makes it kind of a blatant lie. Then,, given she's using them in that manner, it slightly brings into question if she loves them at all, right? I dunno. Isn't it a little at odds?
As for her dream being dumb and not very well thought out, I saw it similarly but then you've got to consider it's a world of fairy tales where they actually exist. So her dream kind of fits perfectly in that context.
What was the deal with these 2? They must have been skilled to get the map, but then they just get fall for the easiest tricks in the book and leave?
Fast movements on video have motion blur. Try pausing an action scene in a movie and go over it frame-by-frame. You can see how fast movements end up blurry and out-of-focus.
2D animation accomplishes fast movements and emulates motion blur by using smear frames. These frames look odd and distorted if you pause the movie, but the movement flows nicely when the video plays.
Some recent 3D animations are mimicking 2D smear frames as an artistic/stylized choice. "The Last Wish" action scenes had them.
The movie also used comicbook/cartoon effects such as speed lines or impact flashes.
Along with those tricks, there was framerate modulation going on too. In some of the action scenes, the characters got 12 frames of animation per second while the backgrounds got 24 frames.
The use of the smear effect creates smooth animation, but the decreased framerate and temporary lack of motion blur makes movements look choppy in a similar way as stop-motion. This makes the footage look different from usual 3D animation.
Some more smears and other effects from the fight with the wolf.
nice
I'm so glad that technology has advanced to the point where, for the cost of millions, we can now approximate what was possible with a pencil and paper at a cost of cents.
I don't think we have reached that point yet. This style doesn't really mimic the traditional hand-drawn 2D style stroke-for-stroke, but it borrows elementd from it and adapts it into something new. And although it is cheaper, unfortunately it is still very expensive as any high-quality animation style and it looks like it will stay that way for now.
Thanks for the explanation anon, I really appreciate it.
So smear frames are specifically drawn to look odd but to help the flow? How would an artist know the right level of distortion to make the movement still flow nicely? I think I have seen this effect before, but I didn't really consider it could be done in 3D. Does Spiderverse also do this?
>the characters got 12 frames of animation per second while the backgrounds got 24 frames.
I see. Why is this done though? What's the purpose of it? Just to look different, or is it trying to emulate for example, a comic book effect? Wondering where this idea came about from and why it's starting to see some spread.
I guess using 12 frames for the characters means scenes like these are actually easier to animate, right? Though there are additional smear frames perhaps
It's been a while and I can't check right now if Spiderverse used smear frames. It used a ton of little tricks that made it look unique (such as halftone shading, written sound effects or reduced framerate), but I feel like smear frames were probably not one of them. It's possible I could remember wrong, though.
Some other 3D animations that I can remember using smear frames include for example Hotel Transylvania, The Peanuts Movie and The Lego Movie.
Animators figure out how to use smear frames by drawing and practicing. Smears can only appear in one frame. If the smear is held for more than one frame, the audience will notice the distortion and it's gonna look weird.
If I had to guess, maybe the reason for the 12 frames per second action was to make the action scenes look kinda like anime. A lot of anime is animated on twos or threes (=every 2nd/3rd frame is a new drawing, which means 12 or 8 frames per second). While anime usually has a higher framerate in action scenes, choppy-looking animation is associated with anime anyway.
Or perhaps they thought the framerate effect in Spiderverse was cool and they wanted to copy it in "The Last Wish", too.
I don't know enough about 3D to be able to tell whether the framerate gimmick affects the amount of work or the rendering times. But I think there's a possibility that doing things in such an unusual way might actually give the animators some extra work.
Oh, the Peanuts movie uses it? I guess that's how they sort of replicated some of the classic Peanuts look but within CG? I remember being very impressed at how well it seems to have transferred over and how they nailed the look. That makes sense now.
It's really interesting learning about smears so I'm glad you informed. Honestly in the past when I've seen it, I never really knew what it actually was or why it occured, and I never gave it much thought. I kind of just figured I paused at an inopportune time that I wasn't supposed to, rather than thinking about how that's an intentional frame.
>look kinda like anime
That's a good theory actually. Anime fight scenes generally do look quite impressive even when they're just on twos, and with how popular anime is, it doesn't seem far fetched to want to mimic some of the style. Or maybe it was just as simple as Spiderverse good so we do good kek.
I would have thought animating on twos meant less work since there's fewer poses, but maybe it's not that simple.
The most important thing that allowed The Peanuts Movie to replicate the look of the comic was the fact they gave up on trying to create a singular CG model of all the characters. Due to the way the comic was drawn, you can't make a Charlie Brown or Snoopy CG model that looks comic-accurate from all possible angles. It might look nice from one angle, but it'll look horrifying and unrecognizable from another angle.
For example, look at pic related and imagine turning it into a CG model. Then imagine rotating the model and looking at it from different angles. You'd have mouth, nose and eyes on one side of Snoopy's head, while the other side would have nothing.
So instead of the normal way to do CG movies, each Peanuts character had multiple separate head models. Like one head for the profile view, and a totally different head for the 3/4 view. They kept swapping the heads from shot to shot depending on the angle they needed.
Since the eyes of the characters look a bit different from different angles, they have the characters blink their eyes whenever the head model gets swapped. The blink hides the transition and the audience doesn't notice anything odd happening.
Aside from that, they did plenty of other little tricks too. This article is an interesting read that details the problems they were struggling with and the cheats they came up with:
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/charlie-brown-and-snoopy-the-peanuts-movie-animation-cheats/
Also, a random trailer scene with some smears and multiples.
Thank you very much for the explanation.
That's again, really interesting and quite cool to know. Exactly as you said, I didn't notice this whatsoever and I've seen the movie 2 or 3 times now. If I ever watch it again I'll try to remember to look out for this.
Thanks for the article too. You seem to know a fair bit about this stuff, do you animate yourself or just follow the process quite well?
Loved Jack
Quest for Camelot was going to have a scene like that at the beginning to show how unfit to rule Ruber was, but they decided to be more subtle I guess.
Literally the only good part of the movie. Every other character was pure cringe.
Great insight anon
I loved Jack but I especially loved his dynamic with Jiminy Cricket. The calls to other tales was also superb too in his bottomless bag. I'd have liked more of both
You'd think they would have done something with him hating Pinocchio and having Jiminy around but it never happened
That's a good point actually, though I'm not sure this Jiminy is ever confirmed to even know Pinocchio.
Red Shoes and the 7 Dwarves had a similar joke, I liked it then too. Now that I think about it I'd imagine the joke's been made a few times across different media but it's still funny
furry movie
Did this movie have a higher age rating than typical animated films? The blood + some of the language surprised me
It's still PG. But they pushed it pretty far for its rating.
Surprised, I can't recall many animated films lately that went this far. I thought perhaps they pushed for a higher rating and got it
Spaceballs is PG and Darth Helmet screams "frick" at one point in the movie.
Shouldn't it be PG-13 then at least?
Anything tamer than this should just be G honestly. That's not the way it is, but that's the way it WAS in the not so distant past.
Also abolish the PG-13 rating.
i can fix him
One thing I don't get, why is Humpty not mentioned at all in Puss 2? Forget mentioning him, not even a brief cameo?
The film is happy to call back to the first one, but for some reason this dude is just completely missing despite being Puss's supposed blood brother. I know you don't want people who didn't see the first one to feel left out, but he doesn't get a single second
TLW is so disrespectful to the original the latter might as well not exist
>TLW is so disrespectful to the original
In what way? I know it throws away Puss/Kitty's relationship but other than that it seems sort of in line. Well, other than Humpty just not existing anymore.
Kitty is back to being a cynical c**t despite turning into a sunflower at the end of the original, Puss is suddenly a manchild idiot and doesn't act anything like before
This kitty is a vast improvement from the first movie just like anything else. Puss and kitty's relationship actually has a purpose in the movie since they fell apart because of their respective weaknesses. Stay mad.
have a nice day
>Kitty's a c**t because Puss left her stand.
And she betrayed him once, it's hard to take her trust issues thing seriously when she acts like she's a saint
>And she betrayed him once
Right, that was in her c**t phase. But then she turns a corner and saves him twice to make up for it. there's a point in the first film where Puss specifically tell her they're not even, then she helps Puss go save the town and that makes them even.
From that point on, they care for each other and some of her trust issues fall by the wayside. Until Puss leaves her at the altar. The one person she grew to half trust backstabbed her again, so she falls back to petty crime and trusting no one. She's not a turbo c**t though. She doesn't trust people but it's not like she's hurting them. I don't think she acts as a Saint, she knows she's a thief in a life of crime and it's why she seeks the wish. It's an easy way out of actually building a relationship by having things magically appear.
She was hurt again by Puss thinking he didn't care for her which is why she got angry for him at the end. It can definitely be argued her goals are just as selfish as Puss's, but she's willing to forgo them as the journey goes on, whereas Puss is not until he meets death right at the very end
Kinda feels like they didn't know what to do with her and just had her undergo the same character arc again
Yeah it is a similar character arc, but this time it works in tandem with Puss's arc and creates a fun journey I think. Their dynamic is quite good without being overbearing on the viewer and Puss's actions are what led her to regressing back to no trust state.
I don't feel like her character completely regressed though. I feel like before meeting Puss she was a trust no one in a sort of, screw everyone and everything sort of way, whereas post Puss in Boots 1 she's more considerate of others. Even when she sees Puss the first time in The Last Wish, she helps him and is playful with him, despite her words of not trusting anyone. It's a strong exterior but a softer interior.
I feel like her arc in this one was more specific to trusting Puss which is why it makes the film work. I also don't think relearning the same lesson is necessarily a bad thing, especially when the film addresses it.
Because of the direction they went with Puss with him being an egomaniac, they couldn't really write her as any other way. She had to get tossed aside by Puss for his own self worth, while also becoming valuable to him.
Kitty's a c**t because Puss left her stand. Puss brought her out of c**tdom then put her back into it when he ditched her.
Puss does become an airheaded idiot but it's because his legend grew from the 1st film to now to where he became all encompassed by it. He's not really a hero in 1 iirc but is loved universally come 2
TLW' Puss is an Einstein compared to the TV Show series.
If that's true, then I think the continuity is arguably perfect
Puss 1 is a prequel, before Puss becomes a certified legend.
The TV show is him living the legend, which is him living like an idiot and inflating his ego to out of control proportions
Puss 2 is then him reigning that in and having to use his brain for once
So arrogance makes you dumb
Makes you do dumb things, sure.
He was in a flashback scene.
Was he? I don't remember him at all. I think at one point Puss even says he never had anybody he could trust
He's name is in the book Goldie was reading
Oh, where and in reference to what? I paused during the book Goldie was reading and only saw a generic tale about a happy family
It was easy to miss. Humpty had loaned the same book from the library.
Oh thanks for the share
I did see that but I couldn't make out what name it was supposed to be
An anon earlier said Humpty is a cameo in one of the flashbacks, is he?
It just seemed weird to me, like they actively made the choice to not include him. Almost like they were forced to retcon his existence for some reason
>An anon earlier said Humpty is a cameo in one of the flashbacks, is he?
No, I don't think he was. Anon probably remembers wrong, or he watched a Youtube video where some fan added Humpty into that scene.
Are they making a new Shrek?
Was this a big budget Dreamworks release or a small one? I never really keep up with stuff like that but I don't remember seeing much hype for this one at all
I'm convinced this is a shill post no real person talks like this
why would I shill a film over a year after release you dumb homosexual
Cause disney still bad so shill the cat
As long as you're rage screencapping my posts, can you photoshop in a tiny TF2 Scout in the bottom right corner?
i don't give a shit about any of that
>Autists cannot feel empathy: The Post
Think you need to work on basic comprehension.
You'll get there some day.
>to give it that almost comic-y effect
it lowers the frame rate so the key frames are more obvious and thus have more impact. It's a very hard technique to do well, but it pays off.
and is the reason why every 4k 60fps video of this movie should be torpedoed into the sun
Cinemaphile is still talking about this?
no this thread is just a hallucination you're experiencing
Puss in Boots 2's one shortcoming was not having at least one frickable female character.
No, she doesn't count.
Anyone have any good concept art or such from the film?
Was hoping to use pic related as a wallpaper but the text ruins it
I haven't saved wallpaper-like background art, but I think this one's kinda interesting. He's wearing a badge that has the kanji for "death" in it.
He's got nine tails in one of these pictures, like a kitsune. It looks like he was more Eastern-inspired and a bit of a weeaboo in some earlier plans.
Thanks for these! I'm interested in any concept art to be honest.
I think I would have liked Death more if in his first appearance, he didn't have his cloak. The second panel looks like a fun design. It'd have been less obvious he was actually Death himself and maybe manage to give the impression he was simply a bounty hunter.
Then in his later appearance, he could have the cloak where it could click to the viewer and Puss too
And then they go and frick up their next movie Ruby something.
It's like they themselves don't understand what makes a good movie and created it on accident or something.
Wouldn't it have been wildly different teams?
I think the reception to Puss will have surprised them probably. No team sets out to make a shit film, but once it gets released, that's when you find out what people think of your end product.
I was planning to watch Ruby though, haven't yet. I would guess that one was bigger budget than Puss, I actually saw marketing for that but I didn't for Puss
What happened to Dulcinea?
She's dead straight up
Is she really? The ending is kinda confusing and I honestly wonder what would happen if she ever meets Puss again after let's say TLW
Either she died or went missing, there's no way in hell these two would break up
It'll never happen but a third film to complete a trilogy which ends with Puss meeting Death for the final time would be absolute kino.
>Puss meeting Death for the final time
That's better off as a short or epilogue with Puss in his old age.
Shorts are never really considered canon or thought out as well.
If it tied to a larger part of a movie, which explored Puss in an older age, before putting the nail in his coffin, I think it would be far more impactful and a beautiful end to a trilogy.
But they're not exactly going to kill a popularcat off so it's a bit moot, but fun to think about
More like an extended movie where they deal with each and every one's challenges in the map.
I really wanted to see Puss and Kitty's fears the map brought.
The little doggie's fears could have also been fricked up, especially the river, if the writers didn't decide that he already conquered his fears.
I feel like he didn't have a hard path because he was selfless. Every other person who grabbed the map was selfish, and so if they wanted something for themselves, had to face themselves on the journey there. For Goldie, her path seemed to show her she didn't actually need the wish at all. Nostalgic Pines was one of her locations, so it was just revisiting her memories. Puss had to face his past lives and sort of come to realise he's moved on from them. Can't remember Horner's path, and Kitty would probably face a similar problem to Puss where she'd realise it's her lack of trust in the first place that's preventing her wish from coming true. Her path included something to do with loneliness.
If I think about it now, it's almost as if all the map's paths were an attempt to convince the bearer they don't need the wish.
Did they make any merch for this film?
Not much
damn, I think some little figurines would have been cool
It's no Trolls or Frozen.
True, but I kind of thought it was just customary to throw out merch when your film is releasing. At least, it seems like it used to be. This is barebones.
I wanted to see if they had anything for Goldie, I liked her design
Also at your local Spencer’s/Hot Topic. Also I can’t believe that DW didn’t capitalize on Death more.
Go watch Into the Spider-Verse, the first one. That's basically where they stole the action scenes from, and it does a better job.
yeah I know they lifted the style, I just wanted to understand more about it
I haven't actually seen Spiderverse but I do know it was highly praised for those reasons. I wouldn't expect Puss to have better action scenes, but I think the ones it did have were fairly decent
Spiderverse has rap shit in it though. And it's set in israelite York, terrible combination.
The one thing i dislike about the plot is that they didn't tied up a single death to previous movies despite some suitable situations (like when Puss crashed on a ship or when Jack and Jill knocked him out) and instead went with ridiculous and honestly uncharacteristic deaths (like shellfish for example)
I liked the baking death just because gingy was there.
Anyone got a translation of the spanish bits in the film?
It bothers me when films do this but then don't put subs in the native language the film is in
Death says "why must the devil play with his food?!" when he pulls away from Puss, i think.
Huh, that's actually a good line thanks. Do wonder why they wouldn't just show the translation.
There's a few other moments, Kitty when Goldie steals the map, the first encounter with Death he leaves off saying something when Puss runs away. Just felt like I was missing out.
After Puss runs away, death says "Corre corre gatito" which means "Run run little cat".
Couldn't make out what Kitty said, but I think it was something something del bagno (... of bathroom)? My Italian is too shitty to help me here.
I think that they purposefully didn't provide the translations because they wanted to preserve that Spanish vibe when they talk, it just would not be as impactful if they provided the translations imo. It's like providing translations for a nice song in foreign language, but it turns out the lyrics are not that interesting in your native tongue, it just doesn't hit as hard.
>it just would not be as impactful if they provided the translations imo.
I guess I can see the benefit in keeping some things a mystery, but surely that's lost on anyone who does speak Spanish&English? Just feels like you create uneven viewing experiences. If you've written the lines, let people understand them. Is it really that impactful to not know the brief spanish sentences? I dunno
For Kitty, it sounds something like
>voy a [sera?] todos al fombras de bagno
My spanish is only good enough to pick out "I'm going to" and "you all" and the rest I'm freestyling.
Thanks for the translations though, death saying run is about what I guessed but I never heard the gatito
You are right about inconsistent viewing experiences, but they are unavoidable for most cartoons because they are translated and lip-synced for every language cartoon is shown in, thus giving slightly different interpretations of the original every time. Also, I'd argue that majority of the english-speaking demographic that has seen the movie (predominantly kids) doesn't speak spanish at all or at least at the level high enough to understand what they were saying. And if they did -- it really is not *that* big of a deal.
>And if they did -- it really is not *that* big of a deal
It's not but it's still annoying to me because it just means having to take an extra step to find out what was actually said. I don't know if putting subs would really break the Spanish illusion.