Plot-driven animated film
In actuality the film was, most likely, the right length for a feature. Perhaps the filmmakers didn’t go far enough with the plot.
You see, this is the way that I feel with most animated films of today. Not enough potential is being milked out of a meaty subject. It’s almost as if the filmmakers decided beforehand that the story just has to be a certain length, else it won’t get distributed/aired. Then, that could be the fault of the writers, who focus too much on developing a situation instead of an actual, active plot for the characters. This happens way too many times in today’s animation.
Like, in the seven-minute short cartoons. The characters get a situation. The characters devise plans to get out of it. The characters have either triumphantly succeeded or triumphantly failed. The End.
This leads to redundancy in motion. Too many times have we seen the story set up that way. It is almost getting as repetitive as the Three-Act Structure of stories. This has me saying, “Thank God for the ‘Net!” It is, perhaps, only on the Internet that we can experience tales told in a fiercely diverse style.
Being that I am an armchair deconstructionist, let me analyze for a paragraph or two, Hayao Miyazaki’s “Princess Mononoke”. (I know that referencing “Princess Mononoke” endlessly doesn’t serve to convey my point effectively–it only serves to contrast it, and label my stance “hypocritical”. I can’t help that.)
“Princess Mononoke” is a 135-minute film. Okay, so that would amount up to about two hours and fifteen minutes. We know that most (if not, all) of Disney or Dreamworks or Warner Bros. animated films are under two hours. Half are under ninety minutes. What animator can tell an epic story, under ninety minutes? And that assumes that each character is fleshed out, and the maximum dramatic value of the story has been used to its potential.
Truth is, I don’t think that any animator can–tell a story under ninety minutes and retain the above qualities–without sacrificing its potential. So what you end up with, is a movie that “coulda been a contendah” but wasn’t, due to restrictions of various sorts (budget, upper management complaints, etc.). Hayao Miyazaki was interested in telling a compelling tale, with multi-dimensional characters.
I haven’t heard of a tale involving a compelling “situation”. I suppose that an argument can be made for keeping the story short and the characters appealing, but unless if we’re talking to two-year-olds there is no excuse for simplifying the material. We’d only be supporting the maxim that “animation is for kids”. Which, as I have argued in articles past, is not true.
For storytellers, implementing a situation seems to serve the story better. After all, a situation really does allow for possibilities to enter the viewer’s mind. In a plot-driven story, the viewer is often left entangled in unresolved, unexplained occurrences (loose ends), and it would take a “deus ex machina” to conclude the story coherently.
Or, not coherently. A plot-driven story is still, unless proven otherwise, the most effective means of communicating with the audience, without losing the trajectory of the narrative. The “trajectory”, meaning the pace, speed, and order of the occurrences. In a situation-propelled story, all that the audience has to do, in order to disconnect themselves from the proceedings, is ignore the situation that the characters are in. And the story ceases to matter to them. In a plot-propelled story, it would be more difficult for the audience to disconnect themselves from the movie–there are several aspects of the narrative that may hold their attention. You ever see Adam Sandler’s earlier movies, where a barrage of gags and jokes are thrown at you, and you feel like the filmmakers have the perception that their core audiences consist of ADD-inflicted individuals? That’s how you can tell whether a film is propelled by plot or situation.
In a plot-driven animated film, the sum of the circumstances adds up to a more rounded, fulfilling film. In films propelled by situation, only one circumstance is needed to fulfill the objective. I like plot-driven animated films better. How ’bout you?