#wazards

[lubiebutyemu-blog]

Wizards of Waverly Place episode "Doll house"

[kingsnorthlobotomy]

Animation and Ralph Bakshi's Wizards

I have recently been trying to teach myself to animate. I am still not very good at it, but It's coming along. See:

Anyway, call it research or whatever, but I have bee trying to watch a lot more animation of late. Just to keep my eye in on techniques and stuff. Now I am never going to be able to make something that looks like Wall-e or Ice Age, so I have overlooked those and tried to watch the simple cell animated 2D stuff I liked as a kid.

The first Ralph Bakshi film I ever saw was Fitz the Cat. I watched it when I had just started college and loved it. It was crude in both content and form, but really funny, and pre-dated South Park by twenty-five years.

I have watched most of Bakshi's other films since then and have been largely indifferent to most of them, but I recently watched "WIZARDS" for the first time.

It is a really odd film, largely because I can't decide if its good or not. Or even who it's aimed at. Bakshi seems to think he's made a family film. Throughout the "Making of" documentary and the directors commentary he slaps himself on the back for making the best family film ever and keeps saying its "Better than a Disney film".

Though it is rated PG it surely isn't meant for kids. Look at the fairy in the picture above. Shes one of the main characters and spends the whole film in a bikini with her nipples poking through. Also there is heavy handed and repeated use of real Nazi war footage.

The story lurches from place to place too. We are often filled in on back story by a narrator whilst shown still images that I doubt they could afford to animate. It happens so frequently that it starts to feel like you are watching a season finally of show you've never seen before.

But that's not to say that it's all bad. Or even half bad. I personally really liked the shifts in tone as well as animation. I also thought a lot of the humor stood up and I was genuinely surprised by the ending.

So it's an interesting film that's rough around the edges. But I am not sure if it'll be better or worse with those rough edges removed.

You can watch the whole film (above) or on YouTube. It's only an hour and a twenty mins and worth seeing at least once.