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The Incredibles' animation has made me scared to rewatch older Pixar titles

CloseTalker

CloseTalker

Member
Oct 25, 2017
30,686
My partner and I are going to see The Incredibles 2 in the next few days. He has never seen the original, and I haven't seen it in at least ten years, maybe more, so we sat down to watch it last night to get caught up. I was immediately taken aback by how poorly the movie's look has aged. There were moments that looked downright awful, with simple geometry, stiff animation, and lack of environmental detail. Beyond that, the lighting and color palette was just very flat, other than a couple really pretty sunset shots that added some much needed vibrancy to the film.

It was so baffling that I had to question my memory of Finding Nemo, which came out a year earlier and is a movie I've seen multiple times. Sure enough, I popped that in and it looks much better. I suppose it's a case of the art direction in the movie just lending itself better to aging, because it looked like it could have come out three eyars after The Incredibles.

But now I'm all wary to rewatch older Pixar films. As much as I'd like to pretend I could push it aside and just watch the movie, the animation in The Incredibles was a consistent distration to me, like I was watching a video game cutscene. I haven't seen Up or Wall-E in a good number of years either, I wonder if they might have a similar effect on me.

Did anyone else notice this when recently rewatching The Incredibles?
 

Deleted member 2809

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
25,478
I rewatched it like a month ago. Yeah some textures are rough, and some effects too, namely explosions I think ? And vegetation is meh.
Worst part is when the rocket launches and goes to the big city. That looked like hot trash.
 
hey it's that dog

hey it's that dog

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,107
The Incredibles was Pixar's first feature film focused entirely on human characters so I can understand why they went for a very stylized approach given the level of technology available at the time. The characters were not super detailed so perhaps that drove the decision to keep the backgrounds less detailed as well?
 

Deleted member 19626

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,732
I love watching old pixar movies, but my daughter is an age where I can introduce her to them. I watched monsters Inc the other day and the eyes on the humans weirds me out, but otherwise you just use it as an opportunity to show how much we have improved over the years
 
PhoncipleBone

PhoncipleBone

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Oct 25, 2017
11,340
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I was too distracted by it being a great film that is well written and well directed than to worry about textures and models in the animation.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,954
I think the Incredibles has it particularly bad because it's focused on humans. The hair is really rough. Luckily everything but the visuals has aged like wine.
 
Ghos

Ghos

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,986
i'm confused. you barely said anything about the animation in your op.
 

lidmat

Banned
Jun 18, 2018
502
I re-watched Toy Story 2 last month... SHEESH! The animation and textures were awful. Not to mention how rudimentary the story was. No depth. I watched the first scene of the original Toy Story and turned it off.
 
Xiaomi

Xiaomi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,237
There's a shot when Mr. Incredible looks to see the robot's claw lying on the ground, near the end of the final city battle, that I swear just straight up wasn't fully rendered. It looks like a preview shot from Maya. It's here at 3:15:

 
chrisPjelly

chrisPjelly

Avenger
Oct 29, 2017
10,497
The CGI work in the final city is just straight up bad, even at the time. They bit off more than they could chew with how much production time they could dedicates towards a full blown city, and it REALLY shows. Compare the first scene with the final act; Yeeesh so much detail and lighting was axed. Glad to see urban destruction more fully realized with the sequel. Aside from that, most of the movie holds up fine for me.
 
Bitanator

Bitanator

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Oct 27, 2017
10,056
lidmat said:
I re-watched Toy Story 2 last month... SHEESH! The animation and textures were awful. Not to mention how rudimentary the story was. No depth. I watched the first scene of the original Toy Story and turned it off.
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I just assume anyone who badmouth toy story 2 is blind and deaf
 
wbloop

wbloop

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,273
Germany
I watched it on Netflix last month after not seeing it since I was 12. And yeah, since then the animation didn't hold up in a lot of places. I mean, the story and especially the soundtrack (GOD, IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD) still hold up, but those 14 years were not kind to this movie in terms of its looks.

Interestingly enough, this was the most technologically advanced CGI movie ever at that time. I watched the making-of a few years ago and the amount of effects they did that were never done before in any CGI movie (like the type of hair rendering, especially in combination with underwater scenes) made producing this film a complete hellstorm. This stuff was next-gen in 2004. How times have changed.
 
SweetVermouth

SweetVermouth

Banned
Mar 5, 2018
4,272
Yeah all the Pixar movies before like Toy Story 3 look rough.
Regulus Tera said:
You will be saying the same thing about The Incredibles 2 in about fifteen years.
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I doubt it. Brave, Frozen, Zootopia, Moana they all look really good because the shaders are miles better and there is finally enough processing power to create great looking hair and water effects. There is no limitation anymore and the tools used are so much better you can barely improve.
 
jett

jett

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Oct 25, 2017
44,663
Ratatouille is the first Pixar movie that stands the test of time.

107_8_large.jpg


Everything else before it is a mixed bag at best.
 
Ghos

Ghos

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Oct 25, 2017
3,986
Xiaomi said:
There's a shot when Mr. Incredible looks to see the robot's claw lying on the ground, near the end of the final city battle, that I swear just straight up wasn't fully rendered. It looks like a preview shot from Maya. It's here at 3:15:

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the abysmal resolution kills all the subtle details

 
Sub Boss

Sub Boss

Banned
Nov 14, 2017
13,441
Regulus Tera said:
You will be saying the same thing about The Incredibles 2 in about fifteen years.
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Movie technology will keep improving but good animation (and lightning and textures) is good animation.
I don't see CoCo or Incredibles 2 aging as badly as the first 5-6 CG movies ever made by Pixar, they were the pioneer in the industry, like comparing a N64 game to Xbox.

For example hand drawn Disney movies of the 90s still look good and are beautifully animated
 
Soap

Soap

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,207
It took a while for Pixar to master convincing human animations, hence why none of their films focused exclusively on the human form prior to The Incredibles.
 
Lord Error

Lord Error

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Oct 27, 2017
4,372
Regulus Tera said:
You will be saying the same thing about The Incredibles 2 in about fifteen years.
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Nah. There's a point where things started to look good enough that there isn't much to complain about, much like it was with 2D animation. For Pixar, that point was Ratatouille. It's 11 years old now, and I can't find anything to complain about in it visually, nor I think there really will ever be. In fact, I can even say it looks great even by today's standards.
 
ascii42

ascii42

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Oct 25, 2017
5,798
It can be a little jarring at first, but I've found I'm generally able to settle into them pretty quickly. Same when I go back to older generations of 3D video games.
 
Alice

Alice

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
5,867
And this is why hand drawn animation will always be superior. CG animation is just too limited by the technology bottleneck.

Have you tried rewatching Toy Story 1 recently?
 
ZeoVGM

ZeoVGM

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
76,219
Providence, RI
The Incredibles still looks fine. Yes, it has aged but it's not as if it makes the film any less fantastic or harder to watch.

I recently saw it again right in front of The Incredibles 2 as part of a double feature, which made the difference even more noticeable. But it was still just fine.
 
Hobbesian Thudercat

Hobbesian Thudercat

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Nov 2, 2017
3,723
I haven't seen I2 yet, but this is one of the first things I thought of when I considered watching the film. I've experienced this watching the original Toy Story in segments I've seen posted around the net, so I've been reluctant to watch old Pixar films for that reason. I want their Golden Age to stay perfect in my mind.
 
Bor Gullet

Bor Gullet

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
12,399
It's a great film but yeah some of the textures look rough these days. Most of the CG animated films from the early 2000's are like this.

I don't mind it though.
 
PSqueak

PSqueak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,464
Disagree, other than the much more improved models in the new movie (like Violet's boyfriend), Incredibles 1 still holds, sure it looks a bit dated compared to modern pixar, but hardly unwatchable, there is a lot of hyperbole in this thread.

I think the only thing that has visually aged badly in pixar movies are the humans and the dog in Toy Story 1.
 
Wogan

Wogan

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,071
Context is important. If you can't get past that these films were on the razor's edge and so naturally will age then how can you enjoy anything? The writing is as sharp as ever even if the visuals aren't.

Kids won't know the difference and people who can see the strengths that remain will be impressed that so much was done with so little.
 
GreenMamba

GreenMamba

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Oct 25, 2017
10,321
I really can't imagine ever being so jaded that I can't lose myself in well written and directed movies because of dated animation.
 
Crossing Eden

Crossing Eden

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Oct 26, 2017
53,401
Alice said:
CG animation is just too limited by the technology bottleneck.
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There are multiple CG films that stand the test of time and I genuinely can't think of modern films from big studios that look bad. Hell even lower budget films can look incredible in this day and age as long as there's a talented team.
 
Gentlemen

Gentlemen

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,533
Dream Machine said:
On a revisit 15 years later? You didn't notice the textures and animations aging at all?

Wow, you were really swept up in the magic of storytelling.
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To notice them is one thing.
To be such a fragile creature that the artifacts of older rendering tech worry you to the point of being "scared" to rewatch some of the best american animated films of the last 20 years is another thing entirely. There's a middle ground here between blind fear and uncritical praise and bridging that gap is not helped by being condescending.
 
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