The Wild Robot Director Explains Why Old CG-Animated Movies Look the Same

They just don’t make ’em like they used to, goes the old saying. But when it comes to animation, that might be a good thing. Chris Sanders, the director of DreamWorks’ The Wild Robot (among many other animated classics) has revealed why most animated movies from the late ’90s and through the ’00s all look the same. As incredible as Toy Story, Shrek, Ice Age, and (the insanely underrated) Hoodwinked are as movies, their animation doesn’t necessarily hold up compared to later entries in their respective franchises, or newer 3D-animated films. While they are obviously a product of the technology available at the time, according to Sanders, it also has to do with studios desperately embracing “new” technology at the detriment of creative individuality.

Speaking to Vulture about The Wild Robot, Chris Sanders looked back at the animated movies of yesteryear, and explained why they all share a similar style. Before the CG revolution of the ’90s, hand-drawn animation allowed animators a nearly endless level of creative freedom with the style of their movies. However, when 3D animation technology was developed, Hollywood studios flocked to it like magpies to a shiny object, and animators were forced to conform to the tech’s limitations. Sanders explained:

“Back in the day, changing the style of your film was relatively easy and exciting. We would always have different styles, depending on the kind of film that we were making. But when CG came along, we were gravitationally obligated to this particular look, just because the technology wouldn’t let us escape. Everybody has struggled with that because we lost that ability to be as dynamic and as surprising visually as we used to be.”

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Revolutionized 3D Animation

While the visual quality of 3D animation has greatly improved over-time, there are still stylistic similarities between most 3D movies. However, according to Chris Sanders, this all changed when Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse revolutionized the medium. Sanders explained:

“When we saw Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, that was a revelation.
Somebody finally escaped that gravitational field, that gravitational pull!
And at DreamWorks, they followed up with Bad Guys and with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. So we’d already gone a certain distance down that amazing road leading away from CG looks. I was really asking, ‘How much further can we go?'”

While animation technology has greatly improved, the rise of Artificial Intelligence is likely to have a major impact on animation in the future. Despite being despised by the majority of the industry and audiences, studio executives will rarely ignore an opportunity to save money. In the case of The Wild Robot, a movie in which AI plays a central theme, Sanders ironically described the film as “more human-made than anything I’ve worked on since CG started.”

The Wild Robot stars Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Matt Berry, Catherine O’Hara, Mark Hamill, Stephanie Hsu, Ving Rhames, and more. Based on the novel by Peter Brown, the movie follows a shipwrecked robot who is forced to care for a young Gosling and prepare them to migrate with the rest of their species.

The Wild Robot
is currently playing in theaters nationwide.

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