Hey guys

About "The Art Of Kung Fu Panda" again after having read through it more thoroughly, it's still my favourite art book. But I do want to point out there's more text than I initially thought there was when I flipped through it. But still, less text then in other art books. It really covers everything: characters, environments, etc. Not too much 3D renders, but I don't really care about that. I could say a lot more about the book but I'll let the images in the book do the talking Conclusion: go buy it!

My girlfriend and I went to see UP yesterday and I must say, quite the disappointment... It just wasn't up to par with previous Pixar movies in my opinion. Well it was, until the dogs came on the scene. Everything up to that point was right. The character designs, environment designs, the whole look and feel to it. Carl meeting his wife, growing older together, some dreams get shattered but in their turn they make room for new dreams. There was a nice story build-up. I really could feel for them. But then, the dogs.. My oh my the dogs *sigh* From there on, the movie went downhill for me. In my opinion the dog designs were just plain.. "plain"... And even kind of ugly. I'm not saying I could do a better job, but I expect Pixar to be able to I just really didn't like them at all. Everything about the dogs didn't strike me as funny, but more as ridiculous. Especially in the scene with the airplanes. Oh my God, the dogs in the airplanes... I didn't know whether to cry or just laugh about it because of its ridiculousness. Very weird feeling, very weird. I'm ok with dogs flying an airplane if it's an allround animal movie. But if there are humans involved I just can't seem to accept it. It would even have been ok for me if it was a movie targetted for kids, but it's not. It's not like Monsters Inc or Cars, which were the two movies in which they seem to have focused on a younger audience in my opinion. Carrying on. The whole thing with the bird, storywise I don't see it. It's basically to tie in with Charles Muntz being there, but I don't see the link with Carl and Russel besides leading to the zeppelin which ultimately gets them home. Other then that it doesn't add anything. In my opinion there was nothing more to it. Everything after the point they land in South America is about leading to a way for them to get home. Which wasn't the point of the movie. On the contrary, it was about getting away from home. I do realise they needed to get back eventually but I wouldn't really have cared about the how. I would have loved to see more interaction between Carl and Russel and see the relationship between them unfold while they go through the jungle. I really think the characters worked well together and the story was set for it too. Russel not having a father, Carl not having children. But maybe the people at Pixar thought it was too obvious, I don't know. I'm going to wrap it up I think. So, conclusion: I have the feeling they had a certain "click" during production which made them take the movie a different direction then first planned. I don't know, it just feels like that to me because it's as if I've seen two different movies. It's as if they were too focused on figuring out a way of how to get them home. I've read before that most Pixar movies go through the stage of "where the hell is this leading to?" and they turn things around. Even Wall-E had it. But those movies came out stronger than before. But not in the case of UP in my opinion. In the beginning it had the warm feeling of Ratatouille and the emotion of Wall-E but somehow they lost it... It's still a pretty good movie, though it's one of my least favourite Pixar movies. What struck me when leaving the theatre was that I didn't have an "I want to work there" moment. In almost every other Pixar film I had a moment like that. A certain shot or scene which made me sit in the chair thinking to myself "I want to work there" and be completely awestruck. Don't get me wrong, I still want to work there Oh, and what struck me too was that, for as far as a can remember, it was the first time I saw blood in a Pixar movie.

I'm still a big Pixar fan, and I'm not trying to start a discussion here or something. This is just how I see it and so it's just my opinion.

Hope you had a good weekend!


Kind regards and thanks for reading

Stijn