Nothing looked fully rendered. Nothing. Especially the characters’ hair and fur. And don’t get me started on the terrible fire effects.
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Haven’t seen the movie yet, but I think that was an intentional stylistic choice. It’s reminiscent of Spiderverse’s animation
I like it, but to each their own ;)
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how are the fire effects terrible
this looks fine
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Here’s the problem: Puss In Boots 2 is the sixth movie in the franchise. The first five movies did not use this animation style. So to have this new installment suddenly adopt this downgraded animation is REALLY jarring.
Spider-Verse was a different situation, because it was the first movie in its franchise. It could be whatever it wanted, since it was laying the groundwork not just for itself, but for any future sequels it had. So there was nothing “jarring” about it using a different animation style.
They just look like blobs of orange/yellow.
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Calling the animation style a downgrade is definitely a hot take - this film followed in the footsteps of Bad Guys and copied a lot of its rulebook from that film, and most everyone agrees that both films did a fantastic job with their visual styles.
Not everything in the new Puss 'n Boots film is to my liking, as certain portions of the film and certain character appearances clashed hard with everything else there, but the Shrek films thrived on a jarring too-real visual style which made everything slightly unnerving - this was largely adjusted in the fourth Shrek film, but the whole off-putting nature of the visuals and approach to storytelling is so tied to the film property I can’t make myself imagine a Shrek in this style.
But this isn’t a Shrek film, it’s a spinoff film loosely based around an existing spinoff film which was absolute trash. So it’s more than free to play by its own rules, and being the first film in which Puss doesn’t look creepy definitely gives it ground imo.
But on topic:
I’m curious what you mean by this. Do you mean less character detail, a lighter weight to the dynamics of the world the characters live in, the exaggerated and snappy animation style, etc.?
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Would you like to continue to live in the Pixar-style Karzahni-scape we were living in prior?
I mean some aspects of it (the style introduced in Tangled and which has dominated ever since) were nice but I think it’s time cartoons actually brought back the exaggerated and artistic elements possible in such a medium rather than striving solely for realism.
But hey each to their own I suppose.
Some stuff was partially rendered I believe, it was done to make it look “painted” and personally I could still see the textures, in fact better than usual, I could imagine how coarse the bears fur was for one.
To be fair that gif has been crunched up.
It’s also been a hot minute since the last one. And as others said, it’s a spin-off.
When said like this, I am reminded of the flash animations of MNOG, snappy, simplified, exaggerated so on so forth. So to me the “Sony/Dreamworks new style” fits Bionicle in a nice throw back way. Although I still believe a show format would do it justice better… you know what…I think I know some clowns embarking on such a project 
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What I want to see is a faithful adaptation of the existing Bionicle story, and that can’t be done with a movie; I’d go for a multi-season show, possibly with a couple of spin-off seasons for the Toa Mangai running around the same time as the end of the Metru Nui arc and the beginning of the Voya Nui arc.
In a perfect world, any Bionicle adaptation would have super high quality animation, with all the little internal details fully rendered and entire anatomy designs planned out to show all the mechanical parts moving as they should.
Obviously, though, this is an unrealistic level of effort for any franchise. In a more realistic sphere, I’d honestly be fine with MNOG-level animation as long as the story is accurate. My one criteria, though, would be that the animation has enough detail to differentiate between mechanical and organic parts, both within individual characters and when comparing an artificial being to a Spherus Magnan.
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They hated thewimpykid because he told them the truth.
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Funny, I liked the animation in the new movie. I am not all too familiar with the Shrek franchise (I only really watched the Puss in Boots stuff and not even all of that), but I looked through the animation used until now and I honestly think that Puss in Boots now looks better than ever before. I really dig the stylized approach the movie took, and to be honest, a lot of the human characters in the prior movies looked somewhat uncanny. For me it was a definite visual step upwards from prior installments (since I didn’t see the original Shrek movies in their entirety I go off the clips that I’ve found on the Internet.)
I could imagine that the style would work with Bionicle.
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Didn’t see that one. Especially after the reviews seemed kind of…mixed.
Uh…it is not “loosely” based off of an existing spinoff film. It is a sequel to that film, explicitly set in the same universe. And even if we did disregard the first four Shrek movies, the first Puss In Boots did not use this weird stylized animation.
Yes, because that kind of animation is actually good.
But those were thoughts I had while watching the movie in the theater. Towards the end, when there was fire surrounding Puss and the death wolf during their showdown, I was muttering “That looks so bad!”
So? Toy Story 3 didn’t come till 11 years after the second one, and #4 came another nine years after that. But neither of those sequels changed up the animation or visual styles. They remained consistent with the previous installments.
Actually, if a new Bionicle movie used an animation style like the new Puss In Boots, then I’d be okay with it. Once again, a Bionicle reboot would be completely separate from G1 or G2, giving it room to do whatever it wants. It’s establishing a new universe, new characters, a new story-if it wants to go for a new, more stylized animation, then it can do that, too.
Of course, whether that style actually WORKS is a different matter altogether.
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None of the events in the prior film are acknowledged
It’s literally a Cars 3 Maneuver
The prior film may as well never have happened because of how little it is acknowledged by the film that followed
Heck, the one character who carries over is essentially given a new backstory
And it’s a good thing it didn’t, based on the reasons I already listed
A question since this was raised:
Many people have made fan animations that either mimic the Miramax style or disregard organic components entirely, with a few notable ones coming to mind (Vrahno made one - can’t link because profanity). How well do those work, in your opinion?
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I would say that all three of those things are at once.
Plus, a design language for the characters and their environment, which conveys & reflects the central aesthetic of the brand ( the balanced relationship between technology and nature), which can also be translated well into stylized animation like the Sony & Dreamworks styles.
Unfortunately, I cannot think of anything like this from pre-existing media, but TBH, I always liked to imagine the characters of G1 as the T-800 from the Terminator films.
Many of the parts used for the Toa Mata & their ancestors (Slizers
, Roboriders.) had shown a lot of visual core aspects with the Pre-T-1000 infiltration units of the T-franchise.
Maybe, they could share a few bits with those in some detail, like the pistons or the soft curvy plates & such, but with more organic tissues connecting to those and within a simplified animation style.
All I’ll going to add is this: Each their own. 
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I think I know which animation you’re talking about, but, on the topic of Vrahno, I’d say this Pohatu animation has a good balance, clearly showing the muscles under the armour:
The Miramax style does similar things with the muscles, but I’m not a fan of the way that those movies treat the masks as emotable faces.
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A live action bionicle movie would either go well or unspeakably horrible.
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Step 1. Get Will Arnett to play Makuta.
Step 2. Eh, I don’t know that’s all I got…
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whats odd is that obviously my first instinct, like many others, would be to focus it on the toa mata. but thinking about it. i think a more compelling movie would be the story of the inika’s journey from matoran to toa. this would lean heavily on the legend of the mata and the reverence/importance the matorna have for them and if the film were successful, go into the story of the mata themselves.
would prob make some creative choices in changing up the story a bit but mostly keep it true to how it canonically played out; toa go missing, matoran set out to save them, waylaid on Karzahni, transformed by the red star into toa, arrive on voya nui and whip up a matoran rebellion against the piraka, end on defeating the piraka who flee, rescuing the toa mata, who join in persuing the piraka and the dangling threat of a larger evil(makuta) manipulating events. just out of my own preference, i think i’d add a subplot of a vortixx bounty hunter menacing them the whole way.
maybe ill come back tomorrow and edit with some casting choices, though the only one i think i like is mark hamill as Karzahni
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