Quality Shows

Rating: Null/10 (3 October 2004)

Spoilers herein.
In all things that humans make, there are levels of expertise. A matter of necessary education is to be able to distinguish among these levels, and most particularly between the merely competent and the original on which it is based. This a way of saying that to be an educated, cine-literate viewer, you need to perceive the difference between this and 'Nemo.'
A cruel rule in business is that mature markets can stratify between those that define and redefine the market and those that must struggle to keep up. If you succeed in controlling a market this way, you'll always win in the long run in the most important ways.
In computers, its Steve Jobs who defines the market. Always has been. Bill Gates copies.
In film animation, its Steve Jobs again, with his Pixar. The guiding principle there is a matter of original excellence, to understand the underlying fabric of the thing. When Katzenberg was at Disney, he famously said that anyone could do what Pixar had (with 'Toy Story') and set out to prove it. Ultimately, Dreamworks animation was founded.
Pixar made a bug movie, Dreamworks made a bug movie (incidentally funded by Bill Gates). Pixar made a movie about bad guys behind the scenes, and so did Dreamworks ('Shrek'). Pixar made a fish movie, so it is to be expected that Dreamworks would follow.
Here are two indicators of why 'Nemo' worked and 'Shark' doesn't, in other words, why the former is the Tiffany and the latter the JC Penny's of animation.
Pixar works in 3D, and is concerned with _all_ the matters of 3D. Having mastered many of them in the earlier projects, they focused on one of the more difficult in 'Nemo,' the movement of the 'camera.' The reason Nemo is a fish story is so that the set can have movement in three dimensions, with the camera swooping around as if it were a fish ghostviewer.
(You have to understand that the original cameras were stationary at eye height. Most great advances in film have been accompanied by advances in the philosophy of how the camera moves. This is not a mere game, as it implies _who_ and _what_ the viewer is.)
So watch 'Nemo' and see that Pixar redefined the genre with the way the camera exists in and sees three dimensional movement. Now watch 'Shark' and be amazed at how they missed this. All the movement - even the fight scenes which many summer movies already make dimensional - are two D. That's one reason why this subliminally seems pale in comparison.
There are other reasons of course, mostly obvious and uninteresting. Except in the seriousness of the approach.
Pixar takes its stories seriously. They may have some fun from time to time with references to other films, or even stepping back from the story to make a joke about the story. But they never compromise the seriousness of the story. They care about whether Nemo gets lost.
Dreamworks doesn't take the story seriously at all. They decided to bring a bunch of pieces that they thought had value, and highlight those pieces. So instead of having a godfather shark, we have deNiro. It is not a character that grows out of the story that deNiro helps create. It is deNiro _as_ a character, down to that odd mole on the right of his face. And so with all the other characters.
And the songs too. They are wedged in, rather than growing out of the theatrical dynamics. And yes, so are all the references to other films. Sure, that was a gas with 'Van Helsing' but in that case, the picture itself was morphing from one genre to another just like the characters. Here, the references are pasted on as if the story were outlined and the story 'fluffers' brought in to add cute jokes for the adults.
Just doesn't work. At least for the immediate future, Pixar owns this genre, and Dreamworks will have to swim in their turbulent wake.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.