Animation Source Forums

Reverse! What animated films/series do you love that everyone else seems to hate?

Movies:

All Dogs Go to Heaven 2: I guess I can see why a lot of people would dislike it, especially those who saw the first one. This one was actually the first ADGTH movie I viewed, and I loved it. Even with all the animation flaws and character flaws. This was the version I fell in love with. I like the first, but this one still remains my favorite out of the two.

The Fox and the Hound 2: It wasn't really a sequel, but I liked this movie anyways. For those who know me well enough or have an idea of my taste in music, you'd know I dislike country with a passion, but this happened to be an exception for me. I liked the songs, animation style. I guess the reason I didn't have a problem with this movie was because I wasn't holding it up to the first one in comparison. I also liked the voices they chose.

Lady and the Tramp 2: I was actually pleased with this one. The animation was very nice (I saw it playing again this past friday on a hi-def screen and it was stunning). My favorite character was Angel being the moral compass for Scamp. The songs were pretty good to me. The mirrored spaghetti scene obviously wasn't the same, it just had a more playful feel to it. I do wish Lady would have been in it more though, she had like what ten lines? Lol, Tramp vs Buster was also cool, and I was quite amused with the ending.

Series: Can't think of any right now D: If I do I'll add it later.

Fantasia

This is by far one of the best animated films I've ever seen - and many people I've read about in books or on Internet critic sites seem to agree with me. However, many people I personally know don't enjoy Fantasia. "It's too boring" is the usual reason.

Why do I love Fantasia? For so many reasons! Speaking from a technical standpoint, it was the very first film to ever include surround sound, as well as the first one in which the music was written before the movie was shot - causing it to become one of the most impressive feats ever made.

Now, why do I enjoy the movie itself? The animation is SPECTACULAR, even considering how much it's improved in the last 70 years. The details are amazing, the colors are awesome, and by far it is quite the enjoyable experience. The music matches the picture PERFECTLY. The characters seem to really come to life in front of you. The list goes on and on and on.

Lion King 2
Many people seem to hate the sequel, but I think it was really good. Maybe the story wasn't as epic as the first movie, but I liked it and I think that characters were interesting and well-done.

I got one: All Dogs Go to Heaven the Series: I actually liked this even though I was a bit upset at some of the plot points they changed from the second movie (Sasha and Charlie for instance). I was glad Itchy was back, and the other guy Steven Weber didn't do such a bad job as Charlie either in my opinion. My primary interest in it was humor and I did like the addition of Belladonna to contrast Annabelle. Was it perfect? Nah, but for what it was worth, I didn't think it was so bad.

I only have to mention movies at the moment... and though I have a love/hate relationship with many of these choices, I still love them more than I probably should.

The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea
Okay, it's a totally terrible movie... but I love it, if only for Ariel's daughter. Melody is a fun character, albeit a naive yet stubborn princess like her mother once was 12 years prior. I have many gripes about the sequel, but I hate the third movie [Ariel's Beginning] for all its continuity wrongs and completely love this one, flaws and all.

The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride
LOVE IT. I don't think it's all that canon, given the lack of the real cub from the end of the first movie, the lack of more details about Zira's lion pride and the possibly that the star-crossed lovers should be related [but Disney would never reveal the obvious fact that Kovu is Scar's cub, would they?], but I do love the movie. It's beautiful and I like how our female lead, Kiara, is set up. She's not strong, but she is a gender-flipped version of her father, who is perfectly overprotective and trying too hard to be his own father. It works like WQ does to me... and speaking of which....

Balto 2: Wolf Quest
I hear a lot of people hate it, but it is, in my opinion, the strongest movie in the series. Our lead is flawed, his daughter is typical 'angry teenager', and the journey they take together is something amazing. It's spiritual, adventurous, and just beautiful, despite the animation/story/character flaws. Deal with it - WQ is the best Balto movie.

The Rescuers
I think most Disney fans don't like this film because of how boring it is, but I enjoy the development of Bernard and Miss Bianca's relationship and personalities. It's slow to set up but once it gets going towards the climax, it's a fun adventure. The actual sequel to this movie ["The Rescuers Down Under"] will never be on this list, as it's an amazing film, visually and story/character-wise.... but I digress.

The Black Cauldron
LOVE THIS MOVIE. It's weak story-wise, but the interactions are cute and memorable to me, and the Horned King is like... one of the creepiest villains in Disney [though he's one of the weakest]. I can't help but to laugh at the lead, Taran, and how terrible he is as a lead character, but the animation and other stuff just win me over.

If I have any more things, I'll add them!

- Juuchan17

I'm surprised you would mention The Rescuers. I honestly had no clue there was any significant amount of dislike for the movie. To me it's one of the best Disney movies (and one of the rare occasions where the sequel was even better than the first in my opinion). The girl Penny isn't one of my favorite characters, but Medusa and Snoops along with the alligators and hillbilly mice, are hilarious to watch! I guess I wouldn't know there was negativity (although every movie has some people who don't like it) because the general reception on rotten tomatoes is positive, but that's an interesting mention.

Bambi 2 - People hate it for being sequel, but I think it was really great movie and definitely the best sequel I watched.

I only saw that one once, but I saw nothing wrong with it. I thought it was cute and the interaction between him and his dad was nice to see.

Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness

This is a bit of a love/hate for me. Because I want to like this one and I do, but there are other things that make me cringe in some cases. Usually if I don't have a problem with the story, it's the characters being OOC, or vice versa. My main issue is how they keep changing Tigress' character around. She's almost bipolar Lol, which is too bad because she's my favorite character. Although flaws in writing and characters aside, I still like it, and it's entertaining enough to where I would rate it somewhere around a seven or eight. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for me to keep watching.

I'll probably have to do television series as a separate posting, because this is going to have several images which will bulk up the post.


MOVIES

The Lion King 1½ - It's endlessly puzzling to me why so many Lion King fans hate this movie. I found it to be scripted very well, with great comedic timing and a nice, amusing little side-story. It was nice to see the writers focus on Timon and Puumba for a change, and the voice actors did their usual great job, in this third installment, in bringing them to comic life. Granted, the story is a comic take on the events of The Lion King largely from Timon's point of view (lesser so from Puumba's), but I think it makes the story all that more amusing. And the addition of Timon's mother and Uncle Max was great story design and also great voice casting! And yet, I've seen many die-hard Lion King fans deride this movie. I don't get it. I just don't. As far as I am concerned, it was well-written, well-directed, well-drawn, well-animated and well-acted. A great "midquel" (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Midquel).


Bambi II - I also happened to find this a great movie. It was touching, engaging, and amazingly-well produced. The voice acting was stellar (especially the kid who played Thumper, who seemed to grasp the 1930s-style kid colloquialisms and pacing extraordinarily-well, which was so evident in the first movie); the animation and artistry were beautiful (especially in as much as they decided to go with traditional pen and brush artistry primarily, instead of computer animation, in order to give it a more classic feel); the story was very touching and sweet; the directing was spot-on. The new characters (especially the Groundhog and the Porcupine) were amusing additions and, again, well-acted; the augmentation of existing characters (such as The Great Prince, Faline, Ronno, and Thumper's sisters) provided some great character interplay and moments of good comic relief in some cases; and I think the story paid ample tribute to the first movie, and did not contradict it at all. I also found the notion of making this a midquel (as in the case of the previous movie I listed) a great way of filling in a lot of gaps left hanging by the first movie. And, unlike so many Bambi fans, I thought the Great Prince did not suffer at all, as a character, in this movie, either in his scripting or his great voice acting (by classically-trained Shakespearean actor, and former Star Trek captain, Patrick Stewart).


Balto 3: Wings of Change - Okay, here's where I'm gonna throw in the images.

I realize that there are plenty of Balto fans who, like me, like this movie, but there are also plenty who don't. And most of that revolves around the very stupid notion of simply being blindly loyal to the first movie over any possible sequel. SOME of it comes from the far more sensible issues pertaining to bad scripting, BAD art and animation, and bad use of recurring characters (all of which I get and partly agree with...even though I though the artistry and animation in Balto 3 did improve over Balto 2: Wolf Quest and, in a few instances, was actually BETTER and more physically accurate than that of the first movie). And then SOME of it comes down to a confusing, perplexing and silly hatred of the Stella character. Now, I KNOW the reasons given: "she's too buxom" and/or "she has no real purpose in the story" and/or "she's too sexed-up for a kid's movie". Those are the three biggies. But before I get into Stella, I must point out that I happen to LIKE the overall story in the third Balto movie. As I have said many times before, it is closer to what was happening in Alaska during that time period than most people realize, and it just is nice to see the franchise return to the dog sledding foundations set in the first movie.

Whenever anyone throws out the Stella hate arguments, I ALWAYS point back to the perplexing pass that these same people give to the Dixie character from Balto. Dixie is a floozy...a sexed-up, shameless and self-absorbed flirt and tease. And yet, not so much as a single person who castigates Stella raises even a single eyebrow at Dixie. Ironic...and patently stupid. Frankly, Dixie has even less to do, as a character, than Stella did - if you analyze the two characters, and their situations, logically. DIXIE'S whole purpose in Balto is to be a flirt, a tease and a gossip-monger...and she doesn't even have much in the way of a part even then. But that is the whole of her part. STELLA, on the other hand, is not only a love interest for Boris (as a sub-plot), to broaden the experiences of that character, but she also ends up serving as a participant in the efforts to rescue both Duke and Boris when the plane goes down in the wilderness. She is actively engaged in the rescue effort, and does not simply hang around to deliver a throw-away line or two.

Then we take into account the buxom nature of Stella, and the sexed-up nature of both she AND Dixie. Look at the probable foundations. Stella is clearly based upon the real-world actress Mae West, pictured below ("mmm...come on up and see me sometime, big boy") as well as the many dancer/show girl/vaudeville girls of the Alaskan and Yukon gold rushes of the early 1900s (such as the well-known "Klondike Kate", pictured below). And as to her bosom? Granted, it's a bit exaggerated. But it definitely is meant to pay equal homage to the character influences I mentioned, I am sure. As well, OCCASIONALLY (though this is just a supposition with regard to any influences in the development of the Stella character), you can see real geese stand tall, spread their wings, and show "chest", as also pictured below. I can believe that, as with the other "animals" seen in the Balto movies, the artists drew at least some influence from real animals and perhaps pictures of them. XD

Mae West and Klondike Kate:




A strutting, showy goose (note the "chest"):




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And Dixie? Dixie is easily as sexed-up as Stella is...flirty too. Much more of a tease than Stella is, but definitely as flirty. I see Dixie as a dog version not only of Betty Boop (pictured below), but of the real-world flapper and actress of the 1920s and 30s who was the inspiration for the Betty Boop character, Helen Kane (also pictured below).


Betty Boop and Helen Kane:




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Honestly. It is my estimation that MOST children would not get the sexuality of either Stella OR Dixie. I think this question of Stella's sexuality and buxom nature is just a pecadillo for the teens and young adults who have been fans of the Balto franchise, and again express some idiotic blind loyalty to just the first movie. Because hating on Stella has little to do with artistry or animation of the third movie...it comes down to just really hating on the character for the very same things (though such people would never be able to either recognize it or admit it) that are evident in the Dixie character. And that hardly makes the movie bad. Stella's a more developed character than Dixie, a bit more realistic in design (especially coloration), and has a full sub-plot to play out with Boris. Dixie is just an extraneous character who really DOESN'T move the Balto movie forward in any way, shape or form. Overall, in a fair analysis, she's less of a character than Stella is.

All Dogs Go To Heaven 2: After I saw the first movie, I was thinking the sequel was going to absolutely suck because I hated the first one. (I'll post my reasons as to why in the other topic later) But I decided to suck up my pride and watch it anyway. Needless to say, I was very surprised. Charlie Sheen did a great job at voicing Charlie, plus aside from the same name, I would see why they would pick him. Their personalities are just so similar. I also liked the fact that David wasn't an annoying whiny brat like Anne-Marie. He didn't constantly ask what was happening and why and he had ambitions for himself. I thought the story line had a pretty interesting concept as well. Sure there were some errors at several points, but I typically tend to overlook those kinds of things

Alpha and Omega: Oh boy, I sure am gonna get some heat for this won't I? When I first saw the trailer for it on TV, I thought it was going to be another little kids' movie that will just stupify any teen or adult that would see it. But one day, for no reason at all, I decided to search the full trailer on YouTube and watch it. I don't know what possessed me to do this, but after I did watch it, I had changed feelings about it. I guess the main hook for me was the love story of it. I used to be sort of a sucker for cartoon love stories I guess, as corny as that sounds. Yes some of the jokes were lame and the parts with the "omegas" sledding was pretty...... yeah, but after watching it a few times, I got a little used to it. After all, it's a movie for little kids. What little kid movie doesn't have instances like that? I didn't think the animation was bad either. If you ask me, it looked great for being a first animated film. They also did an amazing job at having the howling sound like real music. Heck it sounded better than some of the music I listen to regularly! People also said that the story line was predictable, but there were plenty of instances where I was wondering what would happen next, especially in the last half hour! Unlike some people, I'm actually looking forward to the supposed sequel that Lionsgate said they would make. (At this point however, I'm now starting to think it won't happen.)

I've got a couple others, but I got homework I need to start working on, so those will have to come another day.

Balto II: Wolf Quest Man, that movie is a symbol of my childhood, love it since I was 7 and at that age I don't cared too much (and i'm still don't) about the plot, the animation, or other aspects from WQ that everyone dislikes.

I agree Bambi 2 wasn't that bad at all. It helped they put a plausible budget into the whole thing. It was never going to compare to the iconic original, but it at least managed to be a worthy addition.

Would it be really heinous for me to say I enjoyed some points of Yo Yogi, the series that allegedly killed Hanna Barbara's use of their classic characters? Yeah the 'modernized' 90s image was cringeworthy, but at least the main cast mostly kept to their usual shtick and mannerisms rather than yelling 'tubular' and 'radical' perpetually (I don't mind Yogi in ridiculous 80s gear so long as he acts like Yogi) and some of the episodes were actually rather fun (usually the Huckleberry-centric ones).

Lion king 2: Simba's Pride :
I don't get why so many TLK fans hate this movie. :/ It was one of the better Disney Sequals, The plot was Ok, Some of the charecters were Likeable, and The songs were great. I think Many people hate it because It's not the Sequal that they wanted to see. *coughKopacough* Many people hate Kiara because of the whole she Replaced Kopa, Which she Had'nt. Personality, If they used Kopa, The story would mainly be a repeat, and highly boring.