it's not a time capsule, I just want to make an episode of one of my made-up TV shows in which I make fun of the Minions and how they fucked up Despicable Me. And like I said earlier, they embody mainstream feature animation's artistic crisis, and absolutely deserve more mockery.
I just don't think it's a very deep well to draw from. There are better ways to lampoon an unsettling trend in marketing and media than parodying one well-known instance of a Bad Thing.
I'd argue that something like Osomatsu-san's first episode is an exception that proves the rule w/r/t parodies, since it's not really mean-spirited and there's a point to it besides the parodies.
Having a silly thing in a story that is a reference or a satire of a thing is fine. There is nothing wrong with satire, or parody. I'm just saying that this particular kind of send-up, particularly one rooted in bitterness, tends to be kind of shallow and unfunny.
i suppose i'd say minions seem to me like a manifestation of whatever phenomenon the rabbids were, albeit a more mainstream instance of it
Or any mascot-becomes-main-attraction situation, really. It's already a bit of a meta-cliché in itself.
true, but i'd say the rabbids and the minions have certain characteristics in common besides being ubiquitous and spotlight-stealing mascots
in both cases you have this whole species of very distinctive looking creatures which appear in a wide variety of circumstances and get dressed up in costumes and parody all kinds of things
the homestuck trolls are in some ways a similar phenomenon, i guess
and the G4 ponies once the internet got hold of them
No one seems to believe mainstream animated cinema has to do better except for me.
Now that is some serious bullshit. Don't act like other people don't care about animated film's backslide because they don't want to make angry parodies of the Minion marketing phenomenon.
Please, step back and listen to what you are saying.
well I mean better than all the stock plots and shit that run rampant too
:|
fine i'll stop using this thread to kvetch about that
It's just, when my stuff is done, give it a look, please? I get tired of people thinking "pop culture parodies" means Family Guy-level verbatim copying.
I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
alright, thanks
back on the original topic: I feel like I should be more perturbed by football's violence and long-term adverse health effects than I am. Like, I am perturbed by them, but when I see a football game I just think "oh there's football".
I take more issue with its omnipresence in American culture than that, but that ties in with it.
My thought on references in fiction is that they should ideally be subtle enough that, if the viewer isn't familiar with the object of the reference, then they don't notice that you're making a reference at all.
The one example that always comes to mind for me is a story where someone wakes up in a strange house, and the first words out of her mouth are "This is not my beautiful house. Well, how did I get here?" On the one hand, it's a nearly verbatim quote from the Talking Heads. On the other hand, it was something actually applicable to the situation, so it doesn't scream THIS IS A REFERENCE YOU GUYS to people who haven't heard "Once in a Lifetime".
My thought on references in fiction is that they should ideally be subtle enough that, if the viewer isn't familiar with the object of the reference, then they don't notice that you're making a reference at all.
The one example that always comes to mind for me is a story where someone wakes up in a strange house, and the first words out of her mouth are "This is not my beautiful house. Well, how did I get here?" On the one hand, it's a nearly verbatim quote from the Talking Heads. On the other hand, it was something actually applicable to the situation, so it doesn't scream THIS IS A REFERENCE YOU GUYS to people who haven't heard "Once in a Lifetime".
I do stuff like that all the time. I've worked things Cadpig said into my posts here, for instance.
To be honest, comedy that reflects on real-world phenomena in a universal way is much funnier to me than parodies of specific things that exist in the now.
FWIW, this is in part why Animaniacs and Freakazoid were good, and Meet the Spartans and Epic Movie are shit.
To be honest, comedy that reflects on real-world phenomena in a universal way is much funnier to me than parodies of specific things that exist in the now.
FWIW, this is in part why Animaniacs and Freakazoid were good, and Meet the Spartans and Epic Movie are shit.
i *do* remember distinctly feeling like a lot of the cartoons i watched as a kid were references i wasn't getting, though
sometimes i would ask my parents about those, sometimes they knew
it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the cartoons in question because there were enough jokes and funny situations that weren't reference-dependent to keep me entertained, but it did occasionally leave me feeling a bit inferior or stupid
too much of it and i would write the episode off as 'for grown-ups', and therefore boring (iirc this was my reaction to the PatB "Yes, Always" cartoon on first viewing)
Then please understand our concerns that an entire show dedicated to kvetching about Minions is far more similar to the latter in both structure and spirit.
i don't know what the writers thought of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, but Super Strong Warner Siblings certainly doesn't feel like 'ripping Power Rangers a new one'
there's some mockery there, for sure, but it feels much too gentle to come from a place of actual bitterness
I'm just going to ask how often you hear me complain about the wealth gap, and leave it at that.
Anyway, I'd at least give your stuff a look once it's finished, in part because I don't think pop culture humor to be as described above. Good luck and stuff.
What Crystal said. I don't have to say a thing is terrible all the time for me to feel strongly about it. It's there. It's with me. And that's how most people operate.
I mean, I think animation is an amazing medium and animated film in America is hugely important not only for its association with family entertainment—and I do not mean that as a buzzword; great family films should be equally entertaining for children and adults—but for its potential to bring the impossible and fantastical to the big screen. That it has slumped into a cash-grab lurch of epic proportions is horrendous. And I think it's untenable: Like New Hollywood, there must come a breaking point. Same with big-budget action schlock.
I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
thanks
also, I'm scared that once DreamWorks Animation dies (and it probably will sometime in the next two years), all non-Disney animation units will be put on notice
On the other hand, look at how many creative people are in TV and web animation right now here in the Anglosphere; and think of what some of the more ambitious animators let go from the likes of DW might do if let loose and fed up with subjugating themselves to corporate masters.
I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
I sure hope that comes to be. I've at times hoped a bunch of DWA refugees started their own studio to combat the biggies, but I don't know if that's possible or desirable. UPA went bust and ended up being reduced to third-rate even for the time Saturday morning cartoons. Don Bluth went broke. And the current Hollywood system appears to have, at most, 15 years left.
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it's not a bad use of one's time, in that all writing practice is a positive, it's just not necessarily something other people will find interesting
true, but i'd say the rabbids and the minions have certain characteristics in common besides being ubiquitous and spotlight-stealing mascots
in both cases you have this whole species of very distinctive looking creatures which appear in a wide variety of circumstances and get dressed up in costumes and parody all kinds of things
the homestuck trolls are in some ways a similar phenomenon, i guess
and the G4 ponies once the internet got hold of them
and Pikachu of course
i just don't necessarily think 'bitter parody of the minions' sounds like a recipe for a funny cartoon
but there's a lot that's kind of bad
link it me when you're done and i'll read it
sometimes i would ask my parents about those, sometimes they knew
it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the cartoons in question because there were enough jokes and funny situations that weren't reference-dependent to keep me entertained, but it did occasionally leave me feeling a bit inferior or stupid
too much of it and i would write the episode off as 'for grown-ups', and therefore boring (iirc this was my reaction to the PatB "Yes, Always" cartoon on first viewing)
there's some mockery there, for sure, but it feels much too gentle to come from a place of actual bitterness
more like light ribbing really