Better Animated Feature: 2012

A unique set of nominees for a unique year. Did the right one win?

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Eli: I have a special fondness for the year 2012. The entire year seemed like a meme of some sort.

Random forces of nature dominated the pop charts all year, as “Call Me Maybe”, “We Are Young”, and “Somebody That I Used to Know” all reached #1 in the US and “Gangnam Style” reached #2¹ on its quest to become the first video on YouTube to notch a billion views. It achieved this goal on December 21: the same day that the world was purportedly supposed to end because it was the last day recorded on the Mayan calendar created centuries earlier. (People refused to shut up about this for the whole year.)

It was an election year, but Barack Obama was such a lock that he ended up winning a majority of the popular vote as a sitting Democratic president, which is basically impossible. Mitt Romney was such an unserious threat that the most culturally relevant thing to result from this election cycle was the Epic Rap Battles of History episode which, at 161 million views, is the most viewed video in the history of the channel still today.

This distinctly 2012 brand of silliness also extended to the year’s Best Animated Feature nominees, as we got a whopping three stop-motion finalists for this year’s award. The other two nominees, which featured more contemporary 3D animation, were also pretty distinctive in their own rights, as Brave was the first Pixar joint in which the protagonist would be named a Disney Princess, while Disney’s own Wreck-It Ralph was an extremely geeky movie overloaded with cameos from and references to classic video games.

It was a weird year, in the best way. Let’s talk about it.

The Nominees

Brave (won Best Animated Feature)
Frankenweenie (nominated)
ParaNorman (nominated)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (nominated)
Wreck-It Ralph (nominated)
From Up on Poppy Hill (snubbed)

The “Best” Animated Feature: Brave

Leah: After a year off from winning (or even getting a nomination), Pixar returns to form in 2012, snagging the Best Animated Feature win with Brave. This film is notable as the first Pixar film with a female director (Brenda Chapman), the first Pixar film with a female main character, and the first Pixar film to feature a Disney Princess.

It’s also notable that Brenda Chapman was told to leave the project before it had finished, handing the director role over to Mark Andrews. Chapman was devastated that such a personal story (one inspired by her own daughter) had been taken from her. While it’s great to finally see a female director on a Pixar film, the circumstances sour some of the encouragement women may have taken from this first.  

As far as the narrative and characters, Brave didn’t quite reach the unanimous adoration that Pixar’s previous Oscar-nominated films had achieved. That isn’t to say that Brave is bad, but it clearly didn’t resonate with viewers like some of their previous films. This makes it stand out a bit amongst other Pixar winners. Could it be that this film is less deserving?

Not to say that the narrative or characters in Brave are bad. Merida is a compelling character, and it is really touching to watch her relationship with her mother develop throughout the film. Brave’s brand of coming of age isn’t necessarily a new concept (a young woman wants to flee the oppressive expectations placed on her, instead being allowed to choose who she marries and how she spends her life), but it’s a good framework to tell a story about overcoming familial conflict and mending a mother-daughter relationship. Add in some classic Disney Princess fantasy elements, and there’s a compelling narrative.

There’s no doubt Brave has its high points as well. It is no exception to the high visual standards Pixar has set for their movies. Watching Brave, the viewer is treated to a gorgeous Celtic setting with fantastic visual effects. The animation quality is excellent (have you seen Merida’s hair?), and it’s pretty clear this is an Oscar-worthy contender just by looking at it.

I enjoyed Brave when revisiting it for Pixar Pints, in spite of not being super impressed when it originally came out in 2012. The fantastic visuals, beautiful Celtic aesthetic, and the touching story of a mother and daughter reconciling their differences within a culture that places sexist expectations on young women are all enough to sell me on it. But just because Pixar put out an arguably good film in 2012 doesn’t mean that the other animated films of 2012 don’t have anything to offer. Could this be a case of Brave’s win obscuring a more deserving film? Let’s find out!

The Other Animated Features

Frankenweenie — Leah

Nominated

A movie where you know the dog is going to die is always going to be a hard sell for some people. But maybe knowing the dog will come back to life à la Frankenstein softens the blow? Frankenstein has been inspiring animation for a long time, and Tim Burton is the master of spooky animated movies, so it must be a match made in heaven, right?

Frankenweenie follows Victor Frankenstein and his best friend and dog, Sparky. Victor is a bit different, preferring his dog’s company over that of other kids. His father makes him play baseball out of concern for his lack of interest in socializing with other kids, but Victor just wants to enter the science fair. However, when Victor plays baseball and hits a home run, Sparky chases after it and gets hit by a car. Heartbroken, Victor’s grief is inconsolable. Inspired by a lesson in science class, he devises a way to use lightning to bring Sparky back to life, giving a canine take on Frankenstein’s monster. Of course, things get messy when his classmates learn about his experiment and try resurrecting animals of their own so they can win the science fair.

If you like Tim Burton movies, you’ll probably enjoy this aesthetic. It’s a black and white film, which is a nice touch and evokes classic movies. It has that trademark Tim Burton creepiness, with stylistic elements similar to The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride, while also taking plenty of visual inspiration from Frankenstein. If any of those aesthetics appeal to you, or you like spooky vibes in general, Frankenweenie is for you.

As far as the story goes, it pays homage to Frankenstein, so you’ll probably find bits of it familiar or recognizable due to cultural osmosis, even if you aren’t steeped in Frankenstein lore. (For example, Edgar “E” Gore is a pretty clear reference to Igor from the original.) The movie has a lot to say about science and how it can be used for good and bad purposes, and how the love of an experiment affects its outcome. It offers an interesting perspective on science and its impact.

I do have a few complaints about Frankenweenie. Spoiler alert if you haven’t watched this movie, but it feels a bit absurd that the dog dies and comes back to life twice. The dog dying is one of the saddest tropes in cinema and it just happens and is undone not once but twice. I get that the resurrection is integral to the Frankenstein story, but watching this happen a second time just didn’t move me the way the movie wanted it to. I think this is due in part due to some of the absurdities in the story leading up to it making it harder to take anything seriously.

For instance, I couldn’t take the townspeople seriously after they wanted to run the science teacher out because one of the kids did a dangerous experiment for the science fair (that the teacher didn’t encourage or tell the kid to do), but it was also hard to take the science teacher seriously when he got up and blatantly insulted everyone, ensuring he wouldn’t keep his job. Not taking the townspeople seriously makes it harder to feel moved by them rallying together to help Sparky.

Another issue I had with the film was the lack of character development with Victor’s dad, Edward Frankenstein. The beginning of the movie has him showing concern for his son’s lack of socialization with other children and basically forcing Victor to play baseball if he wants to enter the science fair. I wish we’d seen more of Victor’s feelings about being forced to play baseball after Sparky had died. Did he resent his dad for it? Did Edward regret making his son play baseball? Edward also defends the science teacher later in the movie, when the townspeople all want him to be fired, by saying Victor really likes him and enjoys science class. I wanted to know more about how he got that impression and what caused him to go against the grain. Giving more attention to Edward would have made this a more compelling movie.

When I compare this movie to Brave and consider what case it may have, the aesthetic and the care that was put into making this movie into a Frankenstein homage are top of mind. I also appreciate the ideas the movie presents about the science and the overall development of its themes (even if I have some criticisms of the execution). If someone were to vote for this movie over Brave, I think it would be these qualities that would draw them to Frankenweenie.

But is that enough to make it a better film than Brave? I would argue that it is not. I didn’t stop and think about the absurd aspects of Brave’s story while watching it, and I didn’t feel nearly as emotionally disconnected from the ending. While I admire the craft of Tim Burton’s style, I also admire the craft of Pixar’s style. Brave is a good-looking movie that really shows how far Pixar has come in animating human characters. Both styles have artistic merit, so a lot of it does come down to personal preference. I give the edge to Pixar based on my own taste, but I respect differing opinions. Brave wins out over Frankenweenie for me with a more compelling narrative and a world I could more easily become immersed in. 

Verdict: Not a better animated feature

ParaNorman — Eli

Nominated

Spooky movies aren’t usually my cup of tea outside the month of October. I’m not scared of them or anything; they’re just a very autumnal activity and it’s hard for me to get in the spirit when all the trees are a deep, verdant green while it’s 85 and sunny out as I’m writing this in mid-June. So, despite ParaNorman coming from reliably excellent stop-motion studio LAIKA and being generally well loved, I wasn’t that excited to watch it for this project.

Thankfully, I know how to admit when I’m wrong: as it would turn out, the well loved film from the reliably excellent studio is excellent and worthy of love.

In case you’re unfamiliar, ParaNorman follows middle-schooler Norman Babcock of Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts, a fictionalized version of Salem. Norman can see and interact with the spirits of the dead, which looks to everyone else like he’s just hallucinating, so everyone (even his family) bullies him to no end. Then an old witch’s curse causes the dead to rise in Blithe Hollow and Norman is the only one who can stop it.

2012 is right around the time public acceptance for gay rights really started to gain steam in the United States. It hadn’t yet become completely unobjectionable to support them—Obergefell v. Hodges was still three years away, and that was still just the tip of the iceberg—but one by one, the pillars of the heteronormative regime were beginning to fall. “Don’t ask; don’t tell” was eliminated the previous year, eight states and DC had already legalized same-sex marriage, and—most outstandingly—Barack Obama became the first U.S. President to publicly express his support for same-sex marriage…and he did it in May of a re-election year.²

When ParaNorman released three months later in August, another pillar fell: ParaNorman became the first mainstream animated film to feature an openly gay character. Mitch Downe was a supporting character, and his homosexuality wasn’t revealed until an innocuous twist at the very end, but he was unambiguously gay, which was a huge deal.

More importantly, the inclusion of an openly gay character made sense within the context of the message the film was trying to relate. As one might expect of a movie about a social outcast, the central tenet is to love and accept people for who they are. Many movies with this theme are—intentionally or otherwise—allegories for the queer experience, as struggling to fit in is an all-too-common hardship for LGBTQ+ folks. In ParaNorman’s case, the revelation that Mitch is gay not only confirms the intention, but also drives the point home even harder. In the words of writer and co-director Chris Butler: “If we’re saying to anyone that watches this movie, ‘don’t judge other people,’ then we’ve got to have the strength of our convictions.”

And those strong convictions are on display throughout the film. ParaNorman is an outstanding tale of empathy, forgiveness, and learning to fit into a world that thinks you’re a freak. It’s a spooky adventure I’d feel comfortable watching any month of the year.

In the other corner, we’ve got Brave, which should appeal to me significantly more than ParaNorman as a classically gorgeous Pixar film that isn’t conceptually pigeonholed into a short time of year. And it does appeal to me quite a bit; while Brave is generally considered one of the least impressive Best Animated Feature winners of all time—and certainly Pixar’s worst—I’ve always been higher on it than the general consensus.

But it’s clear which of these two is the better film. Beautiful as Brave is, it hides no tricks up its sleeve. The story is a weird mix of magical, nonsensical, and rote all at once; there are a hundred other films just like it. ParaNorman, though, was legitimately groundbreaking in an unquestionably positive way.

Verdict: Better Animated Feature

The Pirates! Band of Misfits — Preston

Nominated

I’m gonna be up front here and say: in my book, The Pirates! Band of Misfits (released in its native United Kingdom as The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!) beats Brave by a country mile. This is partly because I really don’t think much of Brave, for reasons I’ll get into later in this section, but also partly because The Pirates! is just a great movie. Where Brave is inconsistent in animation, voice acting, pacing, writing, music, and so on, this film is solidly good at all of those points the whole way through, and exceptional at a few. (It might be the funniest work Aardman Animations has ever put out, and the voice cast is absolutely exceptional, highlighted by David Tennant’s excellent performance as Charles Darwin, one of his earliest roles in animated media.)

As it happens, though, where The Pirates! most prominently falls short is also where Brave’s biggest problems lie, which makes for quite an interesting comparison. Both movies struggle to properly show character development, but they’re missing opposite pieces of the puzzle. And when push comes to shove, I’m honestly not sure which I would value more if these films were closer in quality outside this fundamental flaw.

Brave’s character arcs fall short in a way that’s probably a bit more obvious: the actual development itself just doesn’t happen convincingly. To their credit, Pixar tackled a really interesting conflict between Merida and her mother with this story—a child who wants to be free-spirited and chose who (or if) she wants to marry, and a parent who wants to protect her family by upholding traditions of decorum and arranged marriages. After the relatively light thematic fare of Toy Story 3 and Cars 2, and even Up before them to some extent, it’s worth appreciating that the studio went for a more mature approach amid debate over whether topics like this were appropriate for the medium.

Unfortunately, it really feels like the writer’s room didn’t have a firm enough handle on these themes to incorporate them into the story properly. There are passing attempts to show Queen Elinor learning that there’s more to life than being uptight, but every other part of this conflict is pretty much handwaved away. I’m not convinced that Merida learns responsibility from having to take care of her mother, given that she remains as reckless as ever right up until the moment the story needs her to be mature. I’m especially not convinced that Elinor changes her mind about Merida’s arranged marriage, also at exactly the moment the story needs her to do so. The foundation is interesting and the end of the arc has obvious potential to be heartwarming, but the film’s second act is too busy doing “hey she’s a bear now” jokes to show more than a few seconds of the character development it direly needs.

The Pirates!, on the other hand, actually pulls off a pretty convincing character arc. It’s not a very big one, and tonally I think it could easily have fit the runtime of one of Aardman’s short films, but it’s a step up from The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in my book. The Pirate Captain makes a bad decision, reaps the initial rewards, then loses it all and realizes his crew are more important to him than fame and glory, whereupon he sets out to make things right. It’s definitely the most cliché part of this film, which is saying a lot given that it leans into every pirate trope in the book, but it’s executed perfectly fine. It’s definitely a more serviceable arc than Brave’s.

But where Brave shows a change in the characters and doesn’t convince the viewer that they’ve actually developed to that point, The Pirates! convinces us that the Pirate Captain has learned his lesson, and then just…goes back to the plot with minimal reference to it afterward. There’s a touching scene where he reconciles with his crew, but it does all feel just a little undertuned to me; while it’s more exciting for the story (if a little contrived) that everyone converges on the site of the finale separately, it feels like an odd resolution to the Pirate Captain’s arc. If he’s learned that his crew is what matters most, why does he then immediately set off to set things right with nobody but a scientist he met last week?

Ultimately, this doesn’t matter too much to the question of which film is better. The Pirates! is a great movie that runs into a bit of a sticking point where its plot and character arcs don’t quite gel; Brave fails for me in many more ways, not least of which is that a good 20% of it feels like a blatant How to Train Your Dragon ripoff. But both studios’ shortcomings in character development here provide a fascinating glimpse into the near future of their filmographies. As Aardman fades from serious Oscar consideration and Pixar loses its stranglehold on Best Animated Feature going forward, the faults demonstrated by both in 2012 won’t necessarily disappear anytime soon.

Verdict: Better Animated Feature

Wreck-It Ralph — Eli

Nominated

I somehow went into this movie more or less completely blind. Not only had I never seen Wreck-It Ralph, I had no idea what it was even about (aside from that Ralph is a video game character whose catchphrase is “I’m gonna wreck it!”). How I kept myself this insulated from the most iconic animated films of my adolescence, I can only guess.

As it turns out, I probably could have used this movie in high school. It’s a well conceived, visually pleasing, and heartwarming story of accepting flaws—of yourself and of others. The video game aesthetic does an excellent job of appealing both to the children the movie is marketed toward (because it looks cool) and to the adults watching alongside them (out of fondness for retro video games, characters, and arcades). In every aspect, it feels almost Pixar-esque in its universality.

What surprised me the most after sitting through a bunch of uninspired schlock from this studio in the aughts (and also Meet the Robinsons) was just how much effort Walt Disney Animation Studios put into making this a good video game movie. You ever watch a movie based on a video game character and come away thinking the creators had no idea what they were doing and completely wasted the intellectual property?³ Judging by how universally negative reviews for video game movies are, it’s a common pitfall, but Disney managed to avoid it while also still including several beloved icons of the arcade. All major characters and video games in Wreck-It Ralph are fictional, allowing the creative team to build their own universe as they saw fit, but Disney also got the rights to quite a few real IPs and played their cards just about perfectly—from Sonic getting a speaking cameo as a public service announcement to Q*bert being used both for laughs and to help the story progress.

The voice acting is also phenomenal. Alan Tudyk as the Mad Hatter-esque King Candy steals the show and really makes the world of Sugar Rush his own. I’m not even really a fan of Sarah Silverman, but her performance as Vanellope von Schweetz shows just the right mix of childlike obnoxiousness and touching despair. Jack McBrayer basically plays himself as Fix-It Felix, Jr., but dammit if he’s not good at it. And John C. Reilly lends a dynamic, understanding voice to the titular Ralph.

Movies also get extra points with me if I don’t see the twist coming, and I admittedly didn’t see this one coming. (Spoilers for the remainder of this paragraph.) In the back of my mind, I knew the movie was going to end with Vanellope overcoming her glitchiness and becoming able to race, but King Candy’s monologue to Ralph sold me so hard that I thought the primary antagonist was going to end up being the Cy-Bugs, with King Candy relegated to a misinformed secondary antagonist acting out of some warped ideals of tradition and overbearing protection. But nope! He’s the bad guy. You win, Disney.

All in all, Wreck-It Ralph is great fun for all ages. I think it’s a better movie than Brave—which, again, is a movie I actually like—primarily because that movie’s plot seems to be forwarded by magic more often than not, whereas this one gives all characters agency at all times. Everyone’s actions have consequences, and it’s dealing with those consequences, however difficult that may be, that resolves the issues at hand. I might have ignored Wreck-It Ralph at 14, but I’m glad I finally watched it at 26.

I will not be watching the sequel everyone says is horrendous.

…wait, it was nominated for Best Animated Feature? Seriously? They’re gonna make me watch it, aren’t they?

Verdict: Better Animated Feature

From Up on Poppy Hill — Preston

Snubbed

I don’t think From Up on Poppy Hill, released in mid-2011 in Japan, could’ve conceivably taken inspiration from Summer Wars, released in mid-2009. It’s possible that some of the low-level themes and story arcs made their way from Madhouse to Studio Ghibli and influenced the latter film, but the actual plots aren’t all that similar. And yet, it’s remarkable how much these two have in common. Both feature a schoolgirl with a large, messy family, involved in a somewhat melodramatic relationship that overshadows a much more interesting story about community, friendship, and protecting the people you love. I also think they’re both excellent films, underrated works that are hard to find but well worth seeking out, that have a great deal to say.

Both films also, in their efforts to portray the complicated realities of life with imperfect people and adverse circumstances, touch on the taboo topic of incest. It’s a fairly minor character detail in Summer Wars—Natsuki is implied by some of her relatives to have been infatuated with her uncle as a child, to her immense embarrassment; in Poppy Hill, though, it’s more integral to the plot and the themes of the story. The film is set in postwar Japan, a time and place when children often didn’t know that they’d been adopted following their biological parents’ death during World War II, and uncertainty over their parentage plagues protagonists Umi and Shun throughout most of the story as the two become romantically interested in each other. It all gets resolved in the end, but I think it’s a pretty widely held opinion that the plotline could’ve been executed better and detracts from the movie.

It’s a shame, because the rest of the film is about as good as Ghibli ever gets, in my opinion. I have a soft spot for the studio’s more down-to-earth films—Whisper of the Heart is another favorite of mine from the pre-BAF era—and the messages (and execution thereof) throughout the rest of Poppy Hill are simply beautiful. Alongside the messy romantic plotline, Umi and Shun also end up working side-by-side to restore and save the dilapidated Latin Quarter, an old clubhouse scheduled for demolition that hosts a colorful collection of their school’s oddest students. The cliquiness and gender divide that are common in high schools show up frequently in Ghibli films, but this movie deconstructs and builds on those tropes to get at the importance of community in a rather beautiful way. It’s pretty transparent what the story is trying to get you to believe—everybody has to work together to make the world a better place—but when it’s presented this well, it’s hard not to love it.

Poppy Hill is not the best possible version of itself. Umi and Shun’s relationship is well-written in a lot of ways—Ghibli is great at making sure their love interests are also just genuinely good friends who care about each other, and this is a great example of that—but the “cheap melodrama”, as Shun himself describes it, is disappointing and unnecessary. It’s true to life in some ways, but there were better options for exploring the lasting effects of conflict on postwar Japan, as so many other aspects about the film aptly demonstrate. The resulting plot is undeniably uncomfortable at times, and it’s hard to blame people for being put off from the movie because of it.

But this is still a great movie, one easily worth giving a try in my opinion, and I’ve personally found that what it has to say about community and friendship has only become more meaningful to me with age. I could go on and on about the little things that make Poppy Hill so good, from Satoshi Takebe’s delightfully jazzy score to the sheer visual beauty of every Ghibli frame to the obvious care for the setting of 1960s Yokohama, but that’s all secondary. What I love this film for, and what easily puts it over Brave in my opinion, is the story at its core on what it means to care deeply about friends, family, and the world around you. It’s hard to beat that.

Verdict: Better Animated Feature

Running Tally

2001: 2 better (2 nominated; 3 snubbed)
2002: 1 better (4 nominated; 0 snubbed)
2003: 1 better (2 nominated; 2 snubbed)
2004: 0 better (2 nominated; 1 snubbed)
2005: 2 better (2 nominated; 2 snubbed)
2006: 3 better (2 nominated; 2 snubbed)
2007: 3 better (2 nominated; 1 snubbed)
2008: 0 better (2 nominated; 0 snubbed)
2009: 2 better (4 nominated; 2 snubbed)
2010: 3 better (2 nominated; 4 snubbed)
2011: 1 better (4 nominated; 0 snubbed)
2012: 4 better (4 nominated; 1 snubbed)
TOTAL: 22 better (32 nominated; 18 snubbed)

Join us in two weeks when Grug just can’t let it go in The Croods and, for the first time in forever, Studio Ghibli gets a nominee: The Wind Rises. You’ll never guess what these movies lost to.

Next: 2013 (4 nominated; 0 snubbed)

1. It was blocked from #1 by Maroon 5’s “One More Night”. Seriously.

2. We probably have Biden to thank for this. While Obama was still mulling over the political pros and cons of expressing his support for same-sex marriage, Biden came out publicly in support before Obama was ready, causing Obama to echo that support just days later, mostly as a matter of damage control.

3. Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) is one of the most baffling products I have ever consumed.