Blog Post #6: Madagascar 2 vs. The Lion King
Many animated films and shorts from the beginning of animation have given human characteristics to animals. It simply makes the characters more interesting. Most of the time, it involves giving them voices and even putting clothing on them. More recently, they have even begun to give them characteristics similar to the actor doing the voice for that character. Despite this, these characters never seem out of place. While I was very used to characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Porky Pig standing on two legs and carrying selves like humans, it seems that lions, zebras, and giraffes did not fit into this same category.
When I saw Madagascar 2, I was very surprised to see these animals walking on two legs and sitting as humans do. The main reason I feel is probably connected to seeing The Lion King as a child. In The Lion King, the animals possess human facial expressions, gestures, and even voices, but these animals are still realistic in the sense that they walk on all four legs. In Madagascar 2, these same types of animals walk on two more often than anything. In the opening sequence the young lion cub, his father, and the nemesis are all standing and carrying themselves as humans. This characteristic immediately struck me as bazaar. It was not until I began to think of other animated lions that I realized why. Allowing this big of a departure from the animals actual mannerisms gives the movie a much more unrealistic feeling. The talking characters in The Lion King are not exactly realistic in a sense that we know animals don’t talk, and they certainly wouldn’t speak English living in the African savanna; however, in line with other Disney films and Walt Disney’s overall goal in his animation, the lions and other animals still have a very realistic feel because they are not so far changed from their natural state. They are simply given voices and character. In the end, it is really a stylized choice, and I do not believe either movie is better or worse because of this difference, I just found this interesting.
I commented on Ian Crawford and Kristina Wade’s blog
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Danyael, you made good points about animal realism in animation. In addition to four legged animals that animated walk on two legs, I have always found animated animals that wear clothing interesting. It is interesting watching animals experience human emotion and act out human themes. I think animators give animals human traits and mannerisms because it helps create realism in storylines where human themes are explored. I enjoy “talking animals” but some of my favorite animal animation consists of animals that don’t talk yet still express human emotion like in our class viewing of “The Ugly Duckling.” It is more challenging to relay emotion without dialogue but the animators of the ugly ducking did a very good job. Even without dialogue it was evident the class understood the domestic quarrel over the paternity of the “ugly duckling.”
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Animation does do wonders with animal realism. We have been reading tirelessly about all of the classic animal characters from Mickey the Mouse to Woody the Woodpecker. This push to use animals as characters opened up a whole new array of plot devices like dying resources and human encroachment. Its truly wonderful how we can relate to an animated animals human characteristics but also still comprehend that its an animal.
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When I watched Madagascar for the first time I felt the same way. It was odd to see the animals walking around like humans versus how they were in the Lion King. It is neat how animators have the power to choose how realistic their characters will be.
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I think that this is one of the great things about animation. All the different ways you can choose to depict your characters gives almost an endless amount of stylistic ways to tell your story. Though, often things will seem completely out of place. The biggest example is the fairly new trend of using computer graphics to animate a live-action animal’s mouth so it looks like it is talking (and then ad a voice track in post-production). I know I’ve seen commercials that do this, and there was that whole “Beverly Hills Chihuahua movie. Oh those things CREEP ME OUT!
I have to agree that I enjoyed The Lion King so much more than Madagascar because of the animal realism. I think that is why I have always preferred Disney animations over any other because they do their best to keep the animal’s characteristics while still giving them human qualities. There is just something about a hippo walking on two legs, swinging its hips back and forth, that I just can’t deal with.
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I have seen scenes from Madagascar 2 and definitely seen Lion King. I favor one movie over the other, because the both have their own style and uniqueness. I just wanted to point an interesting aspect of the differences between Madagascar and Lion King…(this is my interpretation). In Madagascar 2 the main animals (the ones from the first movie), were domesticated–meaning they lived among humans. So, these animals adopted human characterstics, like talking and wearing certain clothing. This is also the same thing in Lion King, the reason they lion, hyenas and giraffes are walking on four legst, is because they weren’t domesticated and couldn’t adopt human characterstics.
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I never really thought about comparing the Lion King and Madagascar 2. It is interesting how most Disney movies give realism to their characters without making them human. For example, Bambi is a very similar to Lion King in that it doesn’t have the animals walk on their legs. I think Madagascar does this because it is much more modern and when you make animals walk like that, it makes the audience feel more involved. However, the Lion King does a good job of this too without over-doing the characteristics. I think the Lion King is a better animation because it doesn’t need to resort to this in order to make the audience engaged in the film. A good animator doesn’t need to make everything exactly like a human in order for the audience to feel for the characters. Overall, this was an interesting difference to bring up to everyone.
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The approaches that both Disney and Dreamworks takes towards animals are quite interesting. On one hand, I do find it neat that the animals in The Lion King, while animated cartoons, still act, move, and pose like one would normally see them in their habitat. Dreamworks, however, does take the more cartoonish approach with Madagascar by adding/ over-doing their gestures and facial expressions. Truthfully, their movies are dealing with different storylines with different atmospheres, so I think the styles that both animation and style the studios do compliment them nicely.
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