We kick off our animation arc with Ratatouille. We take some great listener calls. And we run down the week in geek, including new Fable III DLC, a bunch of awesome new shows coming to TV this year, a discussion of the top downloaded shows of 2010, quantitative analysis of the #LessAmbitionsMovies Twitter meme, new information on upcoming Batman and Superman flicks, a funny take on Star Trek TNG porn, Stoltz’ sour-grapes comments re: Caprica’s cancellation, Star Wars’ BluRay release, new guest stars for Chuck, Red Dead Redemption’s general awesomeness of play, and Dragon Age II’s release date.
Of all that, “Star Trek TNG porn” was the thing that caught my eye right off the bat. 
Sounds awesome (all that other stuff, too) can’t wait to listen!
Let the d/ling begin!
sounds like a fantastic cast to listen to at work tomorrow. i’ve got some strong opinions about the pre-order scam EA is running with DA2 so i can’t wait to listen and comment!
Animation Arc?!!! Nice!
Part 1 out of how many? I: Ratatouille, II: Secret of NIMH, III: What?
NIMH is surprising but worthy. Also can lead into other Bluth discussion: Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace, Titan A.E.
Additional animation suggestions:
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First and foremost… Brad Bird’s magnificent The Iron Giant.
Still my favorite animated feature of all time. Sci-Fi, period piece, kid’s POV. Amazing story, animation, voice work, art direction, score. Huge heart with a great message. Epically mis-marketed by WB, so under-viewed. Would make for a nice lead-in to Bird’s The Incredibles. -
Akira. Super influential cross-over anime. Tripy dystopian sci-fi beautifully animated. Fantastic score. Would be a gateway to bring up Ghost in the Shell and a lot of other anime.
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Star Wars, Clone Wars. This acclaimed series is sometimes argued to be a better extrapolation of the SW universe than the prequel trilogy. Stylized 3D. Fun intro bits. Interesting new characters, fleshed out instead of short-handed. Could lead into discussions of how other film properties have been animated, such as The Animatrix, Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles, Highlander the Animated Series, Stargate Infinity and Star Trek the Animated Series.
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The Ratatouille discussions should at least also bring up Pixar’s Wall-E and Up. Sean already has mentioned his dog-love for Up, and Wall-E has the Sci-Fi and lots of pure wordless animation storytelling.
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Heavy Metal. Okay, I know it’s a longshot with not much love found on the forum, but I have a soft spot for the crazy air-brush animated planetfall opening, and Wrightson’s Captain Stern bit (and much of the music).
Thanks guys for the arc, and I hope this little list helps to spark some more GWC animation love/discussion on the forum.
Just a thought I had while listening to the podcast. I am thrilled about the amount of things I learned while evesdroping on my friends conversations.
I am going to have to rewatch Ratatouille with all the new infomation I have rolling around in my head thanks to the podcast. I love learning new things, I love finding new things in a world I already seen.
Excelent podcast guys and gal. Please keep up the great work, and I hope you enjoy doing the podcast as much as I do listening to it.
If doing an animation arc, how on Earth was not either Fantasia or Fantasia 2000 included?
Just for a memory jog…
Fantasia - Night On Bald Mountain
Fantasia 2000 - The Firebird Suite
Great podcast as always. You guys mentioned how the animators spent all that time in the kitchens to get the feel for it, and you touched on this when you talked about the fish movie. I was listening to the commentary track for the lost fish movie and they said that everyone who worked on that movie had to spend something like 6 hours underwater to work on the movie and they were all certified as scuba divers.
Lol, it’s not a comprehensive list for sure. We could do a cast a week on the subject of animation starting now till hell becomes chilly and still not be done as far as I’m concerned 
I for one look upon this animation series as a look at animation in general with illustrated highlights in the form of movie material that punctuates some of the points we’d like to convey in a concise way.
Fantasia is indeed one of the greatest achievements in early animation history and I believe most folks have both heard of it and know how good it is or have been told by media or other outlets that its a classic piece of art. So with that in mind, I like to steer towards pieces that are perhaps lesser known or unfairly marginalized - in they’re respective ways they are just as good but less accepted in the mainstream’s eye as quality art.
However, Chuck and Audra’s outlook on this same subject may be different but that’s just my 2 cents.
I’ve never really taken to Ratatouille, at least it’s way way down on my list of Pixar movies and never really desired to watch it again. That said I can admire the production, repeating what’s been said but the atmosphere they generated in the countryside and level of realism in the kitchens was beautiful but you can’t get hung up on the pretty pictures.
I guess I’ll give the movie another go, it’s rare for anything Pixar does not to be worth at least a second view:)
I haven’t listened yet, but I tried to watch Ratatouille once with my nephews. Had to turn it off due to my extreme rodent phobia. Other than that it looked really cool.
Re: The Eric Stolz quote. Frist of all, love Eric Stolz, I love Caprica, and his performance on the show…amazing, incredible and awesome. Episode he directed was wonderful too. (And Graystone was one of my GWC FSL Black Ops characters so I had fun getting into his head).
…but, I gotta say I disagree with his statement that Caprica may have had a better chance for success had it not been so tied to Battlestar Galactica.
Caprica is inseparable from BSG. It’s silly to speculate otherwise, in my opinion.
Maybe it would have had better success if it were on another channel, but eh…hindsight is always 20/20.
(sigh)…Anyway. I miss you Caprica.
Not watched “Flushed Away” either then:)
Absolutely. I rented it for my son awhile back and was surprised at how good it was, and that I hadn’t heard of it before.
Random anecdote, but when I was visiting LA, I did the audio-tour of the Walt Disney Concert Hall (which if you have a spare hour or 2 downtown, is really awesome). The Frank Gehry-designed building is absolutely gorgeous, and the curves and angles, for whatever reason, actually made me think of a visual-architectural analogue to the visual-film representation of music in Fantasia. Like I said, really cool!
Oh I’m not complaining on the choices to be honest. I love both films that were selected man I had to throw out Fantasia for if nothing else the first use of the multi-planar camera, and Fantasia 2000 for doing some of the most innovative CGI work prior to Pixar hitting the stage.
Secret Of NIHM is one of my absolute fave animated films, and can’t wait to hear what you guys have to say about it.
I had no idea that “Iron Giant” was done by Brad Bird. I saw that movie years ago, before I even had kids. It is wonderful! I would love to hear this movie discusses in an arc sometime.
not listened to it all yet as i reached my destination before the cast finished
just twopoints really
- in relation to rt vs story, I*entirely agree, i went to see the original toy story because it was cgi and i wanted to see how it was done, literally 5 mins in i forgot it was CG as the story so enraptured me.
- loved the sean discussion re the mathm rendering and detail behind how such movies are done, wonderful insight and I must pin him down at the meetup for a detaield discussion on the art/tech aspects.
Phaze
on the “saw tron legacy in 3D today, not much 3D but i still thought it rocked” ID
I loved the discussion of animation technical breakthroughs. I am weirdly both a complete neophyte when it comes to appreciating awesome animation and a long-time connoisseur. I don’t usually think about what it is that the animation actually is but I have always loved animated movies that are special, the way that Ratatouille is. It takes Sean to help me understand exactly what is going on that makes it so good. One exception to this you actually discussed in the cast–I saw the Final Fantasy movie after seeing a preview in the theater that featured about 30 straight seconds of the girl’s amazing hair. That’s all I needed. And it was an awesome movie!
And great picks, Crew. I love Ratatouille and The Secret of NIMH. Seriously looking forward to next week!
Sean is my tour guide in the uncanny valley.