I thought it was pretty good. The voice acting, especially Bruce Campbell, was hysterical at many points. I thought the overall plot was pretty good too, and had a lot of subtext if you were paying enough attention to notice it. One could easily argue they were talking about America when, I think it was Hova, was saying something to the effect of 'but it's the differences in the colony that makes us stronger as a whole.'
Then again, one could easily compare it to socialism or communism when they talk about everyone working equally towards the same goal, no one ever being in it for themselves, all for the colony, all for Mother Russia, or whatever. You can draw whatever comparison you want, but I like it when the kid is looking out at the big city and they lament the fact that most people are just looking out for number one, and then they compare that to constant references to how the colony always works for the good of the whole. One could easily think they are trying to spread the message that we should all be more united and help society than being so selfish. Good message to send to kids.
Anyway, away from the subtext and into the movie itself. Nicholas Cage's character seems to be a little muddled throughout the movie. He starts off hilarious, and like a loving boyfriend to Hova. After they shrink the human down to ant size, he takes the opposite position to that of his girlfriend, and remains there for almost the whole of the movie. It's only later he realizes that his hatred is irrational, and he sees Lucas (the kid) for what he really is, and accepts that he has grown.
I think it's a great movie. I like how Zoc's character changes and grows in the movie, I like how passionate and committed Hova is to "reforming" Lucas, to the point of being willing to give up her life for him. Lucas transforms the most obviously throughout the movie, as he gains an understanding of the colony, and grows as a person as well. Almost reminds me of Gavroshe from Les Mis (see what little people can do?). My favorite useless character was Fugax, voiced by Bruce Campbell, who repeatedly cracked me up. I can't imagine this movie without him for the comedic backup, it was fantastic.
Here's where I don't understand OSC calling it "a miserable little piece of junk." His complaints don't really matter. His list of complaints include:
There's a wizard ant. There are primarily male ants when biologically, all worker, warrior, nursery tenders etc ants are females, with males being used only for breeding purposes. The ants do silly things.
I'm sorry but...if you want a fictional cartoon with fantasy like elements to be that realistic, shouldn't you be complaining that the ants are talking at all? Shouldn't you be complaining that they seem to be using their eyes, instead of constantly sniffing for pheremone trails? It's a FICTIONAL CARTOON for the love of god. And it's supposed to be a kid's flick. Who cares if there is a wizard?
I see his argument on the gender issues. It's too much like assigning gender roles to specific tasks, ones that it appears the movie claims can't be done by women. But come on, the movie doesn't work with an ALL female cast. It's a MOVIE.
The ants understand the human as well as humans used to understand Great White Sharks. We used to think of them as giant killing machines, homicidal maniacs a la Jaws. But marine biologists are now finding that really isn't the case at all. There's a shark psychology and behavior that we never knew about before, and we're starting to understand it upon closer scrutiny. The ants thought that Lucas was just a giant killing machine too, and upon closer scrutiny found that there was more to him. They assumed he'd be able to do things that they could do, that all creatures they know to exist can do, but he can't. They're learning as much about him as he is learning about them. They aren't stupid, just ignorant, just as Lucas was.
posted
I just read the blog of one of the animators who helped make it, Lyr.
He said that deep down, everyone involved knew it was prepackaged, derivative, average Hollywood mush. There was no true purpose to the story, no real vision for the characters...just the desire to sell Burger King Kids Meals and other lucrative tie-in toys.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: He said that deep down, everyone involved knew it was prepackaged, derivative, average Hollywood mush. There was no true purpose to the story, no real vision for the characters...just the desire to sell Burger King Kids Meals and other lucrative tie-in toys.
I find that oddly refreshing. I mean, its not since the 90s that filmakers were willing to admit they were making schlok to sell as happy meals. Today every movie is a revolution or a redefinition of the genre or something, and everything gets billed as this incredible experience, even though the quality is pretty static, if not less than.
Unfortunately we now reach the place where it doesn't necessarily cost too much to make a computer generated film without going ahead and investing time in really good writing and direction. The toy story days, when people knew they were making a big commitment to the technology and tried REALLY REALLY hard are all gone, and the business now has to support a lot of less talented people who are jumping on the band wagon.
Ironically, the demand destroys the quality of the supply. Hmmmm.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I've rarely read a movie review lately that doesn't either call something total crap, or a paragon of excellence. There seems to be no middle ground for a movie that just entertains. People's standards are, in my opinion, crazily high. Not every movie is going to be the Godfather, or the original Star Wars, or whatever movie you want to use as an example that changed the face of film. Sometimes you get a light little romp with some average acting and average writing, and average whatever. If I walk out of the movie feeling like I didn't just waste nine dollars, then I think it was a good movie.
Then again, maybe my standards are just too low. And maybe I read way, way too much into this movie, but I also don't really care if I did. If I saw it, it's there, and I liked it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I haven't read OSC's reveiw, (or seen the movie), but based on your list of his complaints, I probably wont see the movie because I'd likely agree with him.
There are tons of movies that are set in fictional non-human worlds. To me, the best of them are the ones where the characters and stories naturally develop out of the situations and characters of the alien (to us) world, not the ones that take a practically human world and populate it with aliens. For instance, A Bug's Life and Ants were both animated stories dealing with ants. However, in A Bug's Life I could let myself believe I was watching the plight of a group of ants struggling to stock food for the winter. In Ants I couldn't stop thinking I was watching a Woody Allen movie about the angst of being a cog in Corporate America - but get this, all the people are ants.
It's the same thing with Finding Nemo versus [/i]Shark Tale[/i]. In the former, the fact that the characters were fish was integral to the story. In the latter, the story could have been set in Harlem and not mentioned fish at all and the only thing it would have lost was the fish jokes.
I'm not saying the movies I didn't care for were bad per se, just that they weren't for me. This is probably just a simplified explanation of why I didn't care for them, and probably would have the same problems as OSC with Ant Bully. I do think, "It's just a kid's movie, for crying out loud" is a tacit admission of an inferior story idea, though. Any time you can OK an idea because, well, "it's just a kids' story", you've given up trying to tell a good story and just decided to show pretty colors for 90 minutes.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
My argument was less "who cares if there is fluff, it's a kid's story" and more "who cares if it doesn't represent a Discovery Channel documentary-like accuracy of ant life," argument.
Honestly, I've never seen Ants or A Bug's Life. They both looked unappealing to me at the time they came out, though I wouldn't rule out seeing them in the future.
As for Ant Bully, it isn't a story that could be told with humans, not that I could see.
Let me put it in these terms( SPOILERS ahead, as I warned in the thread title):
The ants in this story are plagued by a giant creature of unknown origin that contintually tries to kill them, they think it is unreasonable, and savage, a barbarian, and it floods their colony with water and does immense damage, especially to the nursery, which they protect the most. The point of the story ends up being to make the ants understand that humans are reasonable but ignorant, and to make the human actually BE less ignorant.
There's easy comparisons to make there to Ender and the Formics. He killed them all, whilst humans believed them to be unreasonable killing machines, which they later learned was not the case, and so he is labeled the Xenocide.
Sure it's a story about a kid who is bullied around by bigger kids, and takes out his anger on innocent ants. But it's also about a much greater learning experience, and character growth, despite whatever crap the writers and animators might have intended to create, there's something worthwhile to be gotten out of it.
So I can let go the fantastical elements of the story, such as a wizard, and the fact that for the love of god, they made some of the characters MALE, because those elements don't at all detract from the message that can be gotten from the story, and I think in fact they add to it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I saw the preview for The Ant Bully and I REALLY did not want to see it afterwards. I mean take the ants from The Ant Bully and compare them to Antz, its the hugest ripoff I have ever seen.
It just didnt seem to me that TAB is bringing anything new to the table, and yet its borrowing from so many other movies and plots.
Though I must confess the ant wizard is a new idea PSH!
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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The Jerry Seinfeld Bee Movie (working title) is in production as Dreamworks Animation as we speak. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote: I do think, "It's just a kid's movie, for crying out loud" is a tacit admission of an inferior story idea, though. Any time you can OK an idea because, well, "it's just a kids' story", you've given up trying to tell a good story and just decided to show pretty colors for 90 minutes.
posted
Which is what made the early pixar stuff so succesful. The genre was new, and they wanted to give people a reason to like it, so they didn't make "kids movies," they made movies.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I, for one, was thrilled to see OSC championing a more correct portrayal of insects. As an Insect Advocate, it completely ruins the fantasy for me when obvious elements of bug movies are fallacious, such as the gender of social insects. (For a more interesting story, what does the fact that most social insects are FEMALE have to say about successful societies?)
I enjoyed "A Bug's Life" because it was a good story, but not because the insects acted like insects. "Finding Nemo" was truly brilliant, because the animators got the sea life right. It was beautiful and funny at the same time. I'm not even interested in the movies where talking animals pretend to be animals but are very far from the reality. "Bambi" was lovely, because there are scenes in which a naturalist's sensibilities are present. But the talking mice in "Cinderella" were just silly. I find that the more believable animated animals are as animals, the better the story.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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More musings... It's an attention to detail thing. When storytellers care enough to know their subjects, to research the little things that make a made-up scenario believable, the audience finds it much easier to slip into that world. A horror story is much more horrifying if you can find realistic elements in it. Think of "Blair Witch" as contrasted with "Nightmare on Elm Street".
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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quote:He said that deep down, everyone involved knew it was prepackaged, derivative, average Hollywood mush. There was no true purpose to the story, no real vision for the characters...just the desire to sell Burger King Kids Meals and other lucrative tie-in toys.
Who's blog was this?
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Jenny Gardener: More musings... It's an attention to detail thing. When storytellers care enough to know their subjects, to research the little things that make a made-up scenario believable, the audience finds it much easier to slip into that world. A horror story is much more horrifying if you can find realistic elements in it. Think of "Blair Witch" as contrasted with "Nightmare on Elm Street".
The Blair Witch Project didn't scare me. Sitting in a pitch black theater when I'm supposed to be watching a movie did.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Hmmmm, it would have been a cool perk if they had made the worker ants female. I didn't know that fact before this thread, and doing that creates so much potetial for filling out the story. (Just like the ladybug in A Bug's Life, great comedic opportunity making him male. plus little kids will learn that just because it is called a ladybug, it is not necessarily female). I just think that's cool.
Anyway, I haven't seen The Ant Bully so I don't have anything to say about it. I do like the idea of little ants learning about humans.
Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:For a more interesting story, what does the fact that most social insects are FEMALE have to say about successful societies?
Because I con't care about the movie, I'm going to completely hijack the thread. What does the fact that most social insects brutally exploit their (female) workers, to the point of being denied reproduction, say about female-dominated societies?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Because I con't care about the movie, I'm going to completely hijack the thread. What does the fact that most social insects brutally exploit their (female) workers, to the point of being denied reproduction, say about female-dominated societies?
Err, it's a fact of their biology. It's not a choice the society has made.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Because I con't care about the movie, I'm going to completely hijack the thread. What does the fact that most social insects brutally exploit their (female) workers, to the point of being denied reproduction, say about female-dominated societies?
Err, it's a fact of their biology. It's not a choice the society has made.
Funny, why didn't you make that comment in response to the post I was quoting?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
True to insect life movies would involve creatures without free thought at all, exploring social issues at all would be a moot point.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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It's possible to have an animal fantasy in which the animal characters act more or less true to life, despite the addition of speech and human-like personalties.
Finding Nemo has already been mentioned. Other good examples include Watership Down and Clan Apis.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Actually, it's a fascinating balance in a beehive. The workers control the production of queens. The queen controls the reproductive potential of workers. It's very much a symbiosis.
Queens are always being produced to some extent by the workers - they feed the larvae royal jelly from their own bodies. But if a queen dies, they go into mass production. If no viable queen emerges in time, the workers will start laying unfertilized eggs, which hatch into drones (males). In this way, the colony has a chance of having its genetic material survive.
If a queen hatches, she stings all the other larval queens and flies off to mate. She meets the drones in the air, and mates with lots of them. Then she returns. All the fertilized eggs she lays become workers (females). She lays unfertilized eggs, too, which become drones. The queen's pheremones keep the workers from laying their own eggs.
posted
They should have used the species of African Fire Ants, that seek out the nests of their neighboring black ants. They storm the hill, run off with as much larvae as they can grab, raise the larvae until they pupate, and then raise the newly born black ants as slaves their entire lives.
Once all the black ants in the red hill die, they go back out again for more larvae.
Look its slavery in nature!
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I like African driver ants. The entire colony is made up of a shell of living ants, and every month or so they pick up the entire colony, create an armed escort to get to the new site, and create a whole new colony from scratch in a single day. They also create all ant bridges to cross ponds and other obstacles, and devastate the local insect population, which farmers looove.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:It's possible to have an animal fantasy in which the animal characters act more or less true to life, despite the addition of speech and human-like personalties.
Finding Nemo has already been mentioned. Other good examples include Watership Down and Clan Apis.
Right on, and I'd add pretty much everything Pixar's done by extending the category to "non-human fantasy". So, add in Toy Story 1 & 2, and Cars (I loved the tractor/cows.) Or, hitting another movie mentioned in that review, compare The Incredibles to My Super-Ex Girlfriend.
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