6 ms·

This is just an animated movie cartoon right, is it really that deep?

by colesantiago 5y ago

Ducki 5y ago
Who says cartoons/animations can't go deep? Take a look at Bojack Horseman.
- andi999 5y ago
  too deep
- kgwxd 5y ago
  After watching it, just reading the name "Bojack" turns my current mood 3 shades greyer.
  - andi999 5y ago
    Doesnt it make you feel good you didnt pursue the Hollywood dream?
- thorin 5y ago
  Or Rick and Morty, The Midnight Gospel, Studio Ghibli?
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Rick and Morty fakes a lot of its depth with nonsense technobabble, akin to Evangeleon's biblical references which are largely nonsense. The good bits of Rick and Morty are very short, maybe 1-minute sections of episodes. Morty's relationship with Planetina was one of the deeper moments of all of season 5, except it is summarized in maybe 90-seconds of story at the most. And its really not much deeper than "some eco-friendly people turn out to be eco-terrorists", and that's enough to ruin a relationship. Yeah, sucks for Morty, but... its not exactly a particularly deep message (deep in the context of the rest of the show, yes. And I definitely enjoy those kinds of moments. But something needs to be longer than 90-seconds of story for me to call it "deep", especially compared to other things I've seen) ---------- I dunno, as far as technobabble / nonsense words go, I prefer Evangeleon from that perspective. There's a lot to be said about Shinji's exploration of his depression (caused by Gendo, his father's, obsession over the Human Instrumentality Project). Rick is just a toxic asshole that the show forces you to watch. Someone like Morty should have run away / cut Rick out of his life a long long time ago. At least in Evangelion, Shinji is actively trying to cut out the entire mecha-project out of his life (running away multiple times), but since Shinji is one of the few candidates who can pilot the mech, he's forced back into the job over-and-over again (unlike Morty who seems to just be this passive guy who is needlessly picked on by Rick for 5 seasons). If nothing really matters, then Morty could just leave and that's that (and the fact that this hasn't been explored across ~5 seasons shows the limitations of the relatively shallow, episodic format... forcing Rick and Morty to be friends again by the start of the next episode to keep things serialized). What makes Shinji's situation unique is that Shinji's worth as a pilot is more than he gives credit for, and each time he tries to leave, a disaster occurs. Each time Shinji does fight, a disaster also occurs by his hands. So Shinji's confusion and depression is far more understanding. Ex: Shinji's relationship with Toji evolves over a few episodes, and is deeper than all 5 season's of Morty's development. Shinji is forced to pilot the mech in episode 1. Shinji's inexperience with the mech causes collateral damage, and Toji's sister gets trapped in the rubble. Toji bullies Shinji until Shinji saves him in the next fight, as Toji didn't realize the issues of being a pilot. The arc culminates as Toji himself becomes a pilot, and Shinji is forced by his father to destroy Toji's mech. Shinji is being forced to follow Gendo (his father's) plans as scripted out by "The Dead Sea Scrolls" (aka: technobabble), but the important thing is that Gendo's ambition for the project is so great, he's willing to traumatize his own son over it. Shinji x Toji's relationship is just one sacrifice Gendo makes, and Shinji's depression goes even deeper because of it.
    - zhynn 5y ago
      Plug for CJ the X's excellent video essay on the dialectics of Rick and Morty. Given the thought you put into your breakdowns of both R&M and NGE, I think you might like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm4dxUIRZso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm4dxUIRZso
    - Zababa 5y ago
      Note that Gendo has always been focused on getting his wife back, the Human Instrumentality Project was just a means to his ends. In both timelines/stories, the original series Neon Genesis Evangelion and the Rebuilds, he doesn't follow the plan.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        Well yes but I'm trying to avoid unnecessary spoilers, in case the readers haven't seen the ending yet. The Toji sub-plot is all wrapped up before the 10th episode, and is a side-story at best. Its barely a spoiler IMO. What makes Evangelion great is that its filled with these interactions: Misato's interactions with Ritsuko, Ritsuko interacting with Rei, Rei interacting with Asuka, etc. etc. Its filled to the brim, not all of the interactions are depressing, some are ridiculously over-the-top / campy (especially the excuses for fanservice scenes), but the "serious story" that's told over the 26 episodes (or 4 OVA movies for the new timeline) is pretty good. Albeit heavily laden with long-winded dialogs about Selee, Three Magi computer system, Dead Sea Scrolls, AT Fields, the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th impact events and Hedgehog's Paradox (Okay, Hedgehog's Paradox actually is relevant and the running theme between all of these characters. But a lot of the other stuff doesn't matter, lol).
    - thorin 5y ago
      Thanks for the reply, I'm only about 6 episodes into R&M so my view might change. What is "deep" is probably a better question, The Simpsons is pretty deep if you choose to look at it that way. I'm sure many people have written PHD thesis on this kind of thing. Personally I found the Midnight Gospel pretty deep as it basically rehashes a lot of Buddhist philosophies which Duncan Trussell is very fond of.
  - Zircom 5y ago
    I wouldn't say Midnight Gospel is really deep, isn't it basically just his podcast set to a aesthetically stimulating background animation that's tangentially related to what their talking about?
    - kgwxd 5y ago
      Did you watch all the episodes?
      - Zircom 5y ago
        I'm not saying it's bad, just that "deep" to my understanding is when a piece of art has more to it than what it appears to at first glance. Midnight Gospel is about a guy doing a "spacecast" where he interviews random aliens he finds. But when you look "deeper', it's really....a guy doing a podcast where he interviews people. Not a lot going on under the surface, just reskinning the interviews into a different format and adding a small bit of sci-fi world building.
        kgwxd 5y ago
        Yeah, I guess that's true, but that doesn't make them any less "deep" for me. All the episodes got me thinking about things in a general sense, which is what I'm looking for from what I'd call "deep". However, the last episode was on a different level than anything I've ever viewed before. It does have more to it that what it appears to at first glance, at least it did to me. Are you aware of the background of that episode? Maybe that one episode causes me to attribute a deeper deepness to the show as a whole.
- Melatonic 5y ago
  They can definitely go very deep - it is just a very western (or maybe even specifically American) thing where people think "Cartoons are just for kids". Grave of the Fireflies is depressing as fuck and definitely does not skip the serious stuff.
dragontamer 5y ago
Good animated movies / cartoons can be more deep and existential than live-action, much like how a Picasso painting can more deeply reveal the secrets of shapes than many photographs. I don't think Kung Fu Panda is particularly deep, but probably is deeper than a lot of other Hollywood films. I'd say the deeper animated films I've seen are Secret of Kells (largely an adventure story, but very in depth with regards to dark-age Irish history/legends/mythology). There are a lot of in-depth Anime movies, hard to pick anything in particular that stands out. Tokyo Godfathers, and Wolf Children, probably affected me emotionally the most (despite being mostly mundane situations). I think a lot of the more sci-fi / dream / supernatural stuff loses points due to technobabble (Ghost in a Shell, Evangelion, Paprika), but these are also deeper movies than typical. Tokyo Godfathers / Wolf children manage to be deep about a relatively mundane subject. Homeless people for Tokyo Godfathers, and Wolf Children is basically a simple "raising a young girl / young boy" story, with the wolf-myth just largely representing the uncertainty that all mothers face when raising kids for the first time. Despite being about mundane subjects with only the barest of myth/sci-fi/fantasy in it, these movies seem to discuss the human condition better than many other films (even contrasted to other anime films, like Evangeleon)
- Zababa 5y ago
  > I think a lot of the more sci-fi / dream / supernatural stuff loses points due to technobabble I think you can mostly ignore the technobabble without issues, most of the time it's here for the setting but not necessary. For example, Akagi and Ten (mangas by Nobuyuki Fukumoto) feature a lot of mahjong, but mahjong is secondary to what's really happening, which is a clash of multiple personalities/ways of life. You can usually see this because the important moments don't usually feature the technoblabble part. The gambling house arc in Akagi doesn't feature any mahjong, yet is the point that defines Akagi as a character. The last three volumes of Ten also don't feature any mahjong, and are in my opinion the most beautiful manga chapters ever written. Evangelion is so loved because the characters are flawed humans trying to go through life, the setting is almost secondary. Patlabor 2 features large robots in a sci-fi world but the politics are the same as ever. All of these stories are stories about humans before everything else, which is why they are so good.
wodenokoto 5y ago
There are many ways to look at it. Deep, insightful sayings are easy to come by. There are books of wise, buddhist and dao sayings. The real depth, in anything insightful said, is created by the listener and how they choose to take the words to heart.
- moviewise 5y ago
  > The real depth, in anything insightful said, is created by the listener and how they choose to take the words to heart. This is what life all is about.
Zababa 5y ago
I don't really understand your point. It is an animated movie, but why "just" and why would that prevent it from being "deep"? I'll also add that wisdom doesn't need to be "deep". The article focuses mostly on explaining quotes which aren't really deep. But that doesn't prevent them from being wise.
- travisgriggs 5y ago
  My guess is that the OPs thinking went something like: cartoons are primarily geared towards young people, right? And younger people haven’t had as much life experience to appreciate some of the more complicated nuances of life. Ergo, this movie cannot succeed at topics deep. It’s a pretty reasonable/straightforward conclusion to reach. Even if it’s not as simple as that.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    Sure, but Pixar / Disney make their movies in a way that the kids have what to giggle at and adults are given some food for thought (or emotions). I find that formula to have worked with crushing success in Kung Fu Panda parts 1 and 2 in particular. Also Megamind.
    - marlowe221 5y ago
      That's right - these animation studios are aware that kids are watching these movies... with their parents!
  - Zababa 5y ago
    There is, at least for me, a big difference between "most things in this category tend to be this way", and "this thing is in that category, therefore it can't be that way". The first statement is a often useful heuristic, the second statement is an expression of close mindedness. Note that by categories here I mean vague human categories like "animated movie" and "deep".
lordnacho 5y ago
Crime & Punishment is just ink on paper, right? There's nothing about the medium that says how good the message is. If anything not having to work with human actors and real world physics should give a bit of flexibility in the storytelling.
croes 5y ago
Ever seen "When the Wind Blows"? The way it is made does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about its depth.
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  Or "Hotaru no Haka".
pdimitar 5y ago
Let's hear your take on what you consider deep?

This is just an animated movie cartoon right, is it really that deep?

Ducki 5y ago

Who says cartoons/animations can't go deep? Take a look at Bojack Horseman.

andi999 5y ago
too deep
kgwxd 5y ago
After watching it, just reading the name "Bojack" turns my current mood 3 shades greyer.
- andi999 5y ago
  Doesnt it make you feel good you didnt pursue the Hollywood dream?
thorin 5y ago
Or Rick and Morty, The Midnight Gospel, Studio Ghibli?
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Rick and Morty fakes a lot of its depth with nonsense technobabble, akin to Evangeleon's biblical references which are largely nonsense. The good bits of Rick and Morty are very short, maybe 1-minute sections of episodes. Morty's relationship with Planetina was one of the deeper moments of all of season 5, except it is summarized in maybe 90-seconds of story at the most. And its really not much deeper than "some eco-friendly people turn out to be eco-terrorists", and that's enough to ruin a relationship. Yeah, sucks for Morty, but... its not exactly a particularly deep message (deep in the context of the rest of the show, yes. And I definitely enjoy those kinds of moments. But something needs to be longer than 90-seconds of story for me to call it "deep", especially compared to other things I've seen) ---------- I dunno, as far as technobabble / nonsense words go, I prefer Evangeleon from that perspective. There's a lot to be said about Shinji's exploration of his depression (caused by Gendo, his father's, obsession over the Human Instrumentality Project). Rick is just a toxic asshole that the show forces you to watch. Someone like Morty should have run away / cut Rick out of his life a long long time ago. At least in Evangelion, Shinji is actively trying to cut out the entire mecha-project out of his life (running away multiple times), but since Shinji is one of the few candidates who can pilot the mech, he's forced back into the job over-and-over again (unlike Morty who seems to just be this passive guy who is needlessly picked on by Rick for 5 seasons). If nothing really matters, then Morty could just leave and that's that (and the fact that this hasn't been explored across ~5 seasons shows the limitations of the relatively shallow, episodic format... forcing Rick and Morty to be friends again by the start of the next episode to keep things serialized). What makes Shinji's situation unique is that Shinji's worth as a pilot is more than he gives credit for, and each time he tries to leave, a disaster occurs. Each time Shinji does fight, a disaster also occurs by his hands. So Shinji's confusion and depression is far more understanding. Ex: Shinji's relationship with Toji evolves over a few episodes, and is deeper than all 5 season's of Morty's development. Shinji is forced to pilot the mech in episode 1. Shinji's inexperience with the mech causes collateral damage, and Toji's sister gets trapped in the rubble. Toji bullies Shinji until Shinji saves him in the next fight, as Toji didn't realize the issues of being a pilot. The arc culminates as Toji himself becomes a pilot, and Shinji is forced by his father to destroy Toji's mech. Shinji is being forced to follow Gendo (his father's) plans as scripted out by "The Dead Sea Scrolls" (aka: technobabble), but the important thing is that Gendo's ambition for the project is so great, he's willing to traumatize his own son over it. Shinji x Toji's relationship is just one sacrifice Gendo makes, and Shinji's depression goes even deeper because of it.
  - zhynn 5y ago
    Plug for CJ the X's excellent video essay on the dialectics of Rick and Morty. Given the thought you put into your breakdowns of both R&M and NGE, I think you might like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm4dxUIRZso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm4dxUIRZso
  - Zababa 5y ago
    Note that Gendo has always been focused on getting his wife back, the Human Instrumentality Project was just a means to his ends. In both timelines/stories, the original series Neon Genesis Evangelion and the Rebuilds, he doesn't follow the plan.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      Well yes but I'm trying to avoid unnecessary spoilers, in case the readers haven't seen the ending yet. The Toji sub-plot is all wrapped up before the 10th episode, and is a side-story at best. Its barely a spoiler IMO. What makes Evangelion great is that its filled with these interactions: Misato's interactions with Ritsuko, Ritsuko interacting with Rei, Rei interacting with Asuka, etc. etc. Its filled to the brim, not all of the interactions are depressing, some are ridiculously over-the-top / campy (especially the excuses for fanservice scenes), but the "serious story" that's told over the 26 episodes (or 4 OVA movies for the new timeline) is pretty good. Albeit heavily laden with long-winded dialogs about Selee, Three Magi computer system, Dead Sea Scrolls, AT Fields, the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th impact events and Hedgehog's Paradox (Okay, Hedgehog's Paradox actually is relevant and the running theme between all of these characters. But a lot of the other stuff doesn't matter, lol).
  - thorin 5y ago
    Thanks for the reply, I'm only about 6 episodes into R&M so my view might change. What is "deep" is probably a better question, The Simpsons is pretty deep if you choose to look at it that way. I'm sure many people have written PHD thesis on this kind of thing. Personally I found the Midnight Gospel pretty deep as it basically rehashes a lot of Buddhist philosophies which Duncan Trussell is very fond of.
- Zircom 5y ago
  I wouldn't say Midnight Gospel is really deep, isn't it basically just his podcast set to a aesthetically stimulating background animation that's tangentially related to what their talking about?
  - kgwxd 5y ago
    Did you watch all the episodes?
    - Zircom 5y ago
      I'm not saying it's bad, just that "deep" to my understanding is when a piece of art has more to it than what it appears to at first glance. Midnight Gospel is about a guy doing a "spacecast" where he interviews random aliens he finds. But when you look "deeper', it's really....a guy doing a podcast where he interviews people. Not a lot going on under the surface, just reskinning the interviews into a different format and adding a small bit of sci-fi world building.
      - kgwxd 5y ago
        Yeah, I guess that's true, but that doesn't make them any less "deep" for me. All the episodes got me thinking about things in a general sense, which is what I'm looking for from what I'd call "deep". However, the last episode was on a different level than anything I've ever viewed before. It does have more to it that what it appears to at first glance, at least it did to me. Are you aware of the background of that episode? Maybe that one episode causes me to attribute a deeper deepness to the show as a whole.
Melatonic 5y ago
They can definitely go very deep - it is just a very western (or maybe even specifically American) thing where people think "Cartoons are just for kids". Grave of the Fireflies is depressing as fuck and definitely does not skip the serious stuff.

dragontamer 5y ago

Good animated movies / cartoons can be more deep and existential than live-action, much like how a Picasso painting can more deeply reveal the secrets of shapes than many photographs. I don't think Kung Fu Panda is particularly deep, but probably is deeper than a lot of other Hollywood films. I'd say the deeper animated films I've seen are Secret of Kells (largely an adventure story, but very in depth with regards to dark-age Irish history/legends/mythology). There are a lot of in-depth Anime movies, hard to pick anything in particular that stands out. Tokyo Godfathers, and Wolf Children, probably affected me emotionally the most (despite being mostly mundane situations). I think a lot of the more sci-fi / dream / supernatural stuff loses points due to technobabble (Ghost in a Shell, Evangelion, Paprika), but these are also deeper movies than typical. Tokyo Godfathers / Wolf children manage to be deep about a relatively mundane subject. Homeless people for Tokyo Godfathers, and Wolf Children is basically a simple "raising a young girl / young boy" story, with the wolf-myth just largely representing the uncertainty that all mothers face when raising kids for the first time. Despite being about mundane subjects with only the barest of myth/sci-fi/fantasy in it, these movies seem to discuss the human condition better than many other films (even contrasted to other anime films, like Evangeleon)

Zababa 5y ago
> I think a lot of the more sci-fi / dream / supernatural stuff loses points due to technobabble I think you can mostly ignore the technobabble without issues, most of the time it's here for the setting but not necessary. For example, Akagi and Ten (mangas by Nobuyuki Fukumoto) feature a lot of mahjong, but mahjong is secondary to what's really happening, which is a clash of multiple personalities/ways of life. You can usually see this because the important moments don't usually feature the technoblabble part. The gambling house arc in Akagi doesn't feature any mahjong, yet is the point that defines Akagi as a character. The last three volumes of Ten also don't feature any mahjong, and are in my opinion the most beautiful manga chapters ever written. Evangelion is so loved because the characters are flawed humans trying to go through life, the setting is almost secondary. Patlabor 2 features large robots in a sci-fi world but the politics are the same as ever. All of these stories are stories about humans before everything else, which is why they are so good.

wodenokoto 5y ago

There are many ways to look at it. Deep, insightful sayings are easy to come by. There are books of wise, buddhist and dao sayings. The real depth, in anything insightful said, is created by the listener and how they choose to take the words to heart.

moviewise 5y ago
> The real depth, in anything insightful said, is created by the listener and how they choose to take the words to heart. This is what life all is about.

Zababa 5y ago

I don't really understand your point. It is an animated movie, but why "just" and why would that prevent it from being "deep"? I'll also add that wisdom doesn't need to be "deep". The article focuses mostly on explaining quotes which aren't really deep. But that doesn't prevent them from being wise.

travisgriggs 5y ago
My guess is that the OPs thinking went something like: cartoons are primarily geared towards young people, right? And younger people haven’t had as much life experience to appreciate some of the more complicated nuances of life. Ergo, this movie cannot succeed at topics deep. It’s a pretty reasonable/straightforward conclusion to reach. Even if it’s not as simple as that.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  Sure, but Pixar / Disney make their movies in a way that the kids have what to giggle at and adults are given some food for thought (or emotions). I find that formula to have worked with crushing success in Kung Fu Panda parts 1 and 2 in particular. Also Megamind.
  - marlowe221 5y ago
    That's right - these animation studios are aware that kids are watching these movies... with their parents!
- Zababa 5y ago
  There is, at least for me, a big difference between "most things in this category tend to be this way", and "this thing is in that category, therefore it can't be that way". The first statement is a often useful heuristic, the second statement is an expression of close mindedness. Note that by categories here I mean vague human categories like "animated movie" and "deep".

lordnacho 5y ago

Crime & Punishment is just ink on paper, right? There's nothing about the medium that says how good the message is. If anything not having to work with human actors and real world physics should give a bit of flexibility in the storytelling.

croes 5y ago

Ever seen "When the Wind Blows"? The way it is made does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about its depth.

DocTomoe 5y ago
Or "Hotaru no Haka".

pdimitar 5y ago

Let's hear your take on what you consider deep?