Pearl Harbor: Best Animated Film?

[Maxie Zeus]

Over on Roger Ebert's "Movie Answer Man" page is the following exchange:


Q. With all of the computer animation in Pearl Harbor, why can't the movie be considered a cartoon? Roger Rabbit, Mary Poppins and Song Of The South all had humans in front of cartoon background and all of these movies had less animation than Pearl Harbor. At what point is a movie not considered live action and is considered animated? Could Pearl Harbor be considered for an Academy Award for best animation?

J. Gregory Keene, Irvine, Calif.

A. Animation is not a category. Otherwise, Pearl Harbor would be slugging it out with The Mummy
Returns and Driven. And as a general rule, animation that looks like cartoons is considered separately from animation that looks like special effects.

Leaving aside that I guess Ebert doesn't keep up with Jerry Beck and CartoonResearch (and the new animated film category), what do we think of the question? With CGI, where do we draw a line between "animated" and "live action"?

[James Harvey]

Nah. The CGI was used to enhance the scenes and add in some special effects. Those old flicks did have animated characters but they were that - characters. Pearl Harbor just uses Special FX (and pretty mediocre, I might add - I was unimpressed) to make some pretty explosions.

[The Mad Hatter]

Actually, the line has been drawn. According to the Academy, a film must have animated elements in 75% of the footage to qualify. So no, Pearl Harbor and the Mummy Returns wouldn't make the cut.

[Maxie Zeus]

I wasn't specifically asking about Pearl Harbor (like J. Gregory Keene). And the Academy can draw the line wherever it wants. I was wondering in general how this issue strikes people.

So, for instance, what about Phantom Menace? It has computer generated characters, and in the "through the planet's core" segment the live actors have the same relationship to the background (and to Jar Jar) as Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke have to the background in the "through the chalk painting" segment in Mary Poppins. Should that segment in TPM, for instance, count as "animated" in the same way as the segment in Mary Poppins? Tron, I guess, would qualify as an animated film; why wouldn't TPM?

Similarly, the Academy has to draw a line somewhere, though the exact spot is going to have to be arbitrary. (Why 75% and not 76%, or 80%, or 45%?) But should the difference between a "live action" film and an "animated" one be drawn in these quantitative terms, or do you think there is a qualitative difference?

(For that matter, with all the CGI work in TPM, I'm not sure TPM wouldn't qualify for the "best animated" category under the Academy's rules.)

[Calhoun07]

Ebert said that animation that LOOKS LIKE cartoons is considered animation, and animation added for special effects isn't considered animation. What about Shrek and the upcoming Final Fantasy movie? Both have quite advanced computer animation in them, and Final Fantasy especially looks like it is using the more advanced computer animation that they use in Mummy Returns and Pearl Harbor and Phantom Menace to make it look more realistic. So they are using animation to add special effects, and it doesn't look like a cartoon, by any stretch of the imagination. At least not what I think Ebert is referring to as a cartoon (ie, Disney). I might be in error in what he considers a cartoon.

The lines are obviously blurred, and I would agree that Pearl Harbor and Mummy Returns are expensive animated movies. The Academy may not agree, Ebert may not agree, but they are expensive over blown animated features with live action.

As far as Pearl Harbor goes, give me Tora Tora Tora any day.

[Vigo Sprax]

Well, its just like asking is this movie an action film or a sci-fi film? Star Wars has plenty of action, if it was done with samurai and/or jet fighters its labled as Action but since its setting is changed then its considered Sci-Fi because its more unique of the two.

I really don't think movies like Pearl Harbor, Mummy, etc... are cartoons because that isn't the thing that stands out the most (Well, the final special effects in Mummy 2 stand out - as an example of crappy CGI!).

Many movies are categorized under multiple things, a film liek Final Fantasy would be both Sci-Fi & Animated.