Anime better than real movies?

[GuidoHunter_Toki]

Originally Posted by Master_Yoma

Well anime is far better then any movie made now a days so much CG it just to much it make the story seem so useless. But now the old movies since the 50s to early 90s are good and you can go wrong with any Marx Bothers movie

There are just as many quality movies out there now as there was in decades past. CG may be more prominent, but it's not like every movie out there is trying to use that as there main focus and saying that anime is better than any movie released nowadays (while you are entitled to your opinion) is completely asinine as far as I'm concerned.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by GuidoHunter_Toki

There are just as many quality movies out there now as there was in decades past.

That's at least somewhat a matter of taste.

I personally find that there's ever fewer and fewer live-action movies with premises or plots that interest me, compared to in the past.

CG may be more prominent, but it's not like every movie out there is trying to use that as there main focus and saying that anime is better than any movie released nowadays (while you are entitled to your opinion) is completely asinine as far as I'm concerned.

No, it is not asinine, it is also a matter of taste. Also, this is a message board dedicated to anime. It certainly should not seem strange to anybody that there would be people here who prefer anime to live-action movies.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

That's at least somewhat a matter of taste.

I personally find that there's ever fewer and fewer live-action movies with premises or plots that interest me, compared to in the past.

You ought to tell me what's with this pink tinted view of the past that makes people think that cinema of today is somehow worse than what we have seen from Hollywood's Golden Age to the late 1990s.

This decade have seen abominations like Transformers, Dragon Ball, the horror movies that put too much cg or Saw-like trippy camera tricks, bad fantasy movies like Eragon, then Twilight.

But we did not have too?


Memento, Gladiator, Rec (the original spanish movie), Rec 2, Pan's Labyrinth, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, 300, the remake of Dawn of the Dead, The Pianist, Amélie Poulain, A Very Long Engagement, The Hangover, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, the new Batman movies, Time and Tide, Pitch Black, The Departed, Old Boy, No Country for Old Men and the list go on. Some are critics' favorites, others are b-movies with a cult following, but they are certainly no worse than those in past decades and I am not buying that you can NOT find at least a movie in this decade that grabbed you.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Sheba

You ought to tell me what's with this pink tinted view of the past that makes people think that cinema of today is somehow worse than what we have seen in from Hollywood's Golden Age to the late 1990s.

This decade have seen abominations like Transformers, Dragon Ball, the horror movies that put too much cg or Saw-like trippy camera tricks, bad fantasy movies like Eragon, then Twilight.

But we did not have too?


Memento, Gladiator, Rec (the original spanish movie), Rec 2, Pan's Labyrinth, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, 300, the remake of Dawn of the Dead, The Pianist, Amélie Poulain, A Very Long Engagement, The Hangover, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, the new Batman movies, Time and Tide, Pitch Black, The Departed, No Country for Old Men and the list go on. Some are critics' favorites, others are b-movies with a cult following, but they are certainly no worse than those in past decades and I am not buying that you can NOT find at least a movie in this decade that grabbed you.

I bolded the ones on that list that I myself liked. I also liked The Matrix trilogy, and some of the comic book adaptation movies (first two Spiderman movies, Iron Man, first two X-Men movies; I was disappointed by the Fantastic Four movies and the Hulk movies).

No Country for Old Men is genuinely a great movie from what I've heard, but from what I've heard, it's also not the sort of movie that I personally would want to watch.


I never said that I could not find a signal movie in the past decade that I liked. I said that I find that there's fewer and fewer live-action movies with premises or plots that interest me.

Now, part of this could simply be a matter of me getting older. A lot of the live-action movies in the 90s that I liked were aimed at teenagers, back when I was an actual teenager. Modern live-action movies geared for teenagers don't appeal to me, probably partly because I haven't been a teenager in a decade now.


Now, granted, anime is obviously loaded with youthful, teenage characters, usually in the core roles. But I just find that anime presents those characters in a way that I find amusing, or nostalgic. I don't really get that with most live-action Hollywood productions that are centered around teenaged characters. Again, that's just my personal taste.


I don't get why some live-action movie fans here have seemingly such a hard time accepting that some of us just aren't interested in a lot of the movies that Hollywood has made in recent years. Or that we have a basic aesthetic preference for anime over live-action.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I don't get why some live-action movie fans here have seemingly such a hard time accepting that some of us just aren't interested in a lot of the movies that Hollywood has made in recent years. Or that we have a basic aesthetic preference for anime over live-action.

You get it wrong. I think that I, as live action movies watcher, do enjoy both anime AND live action otherwise I would not be here. I refuse to discriminate a media based on its form or/and country of origin, I am not buying the belief that anime is some kind of mystical media that have the power to carry people out there better than live movies, if anything Lord of the Rings, Alien movies and more movies have been equally able to do it. Where a movie fails, an anime may succeed, but anime equally failed where movies have succeeded (case in point, war dramas, find me a critic proof anime equivalent of Platoon, Das Boot, Brotherhood of War, Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter).

So when I read this kind of topic, I can't help but think to myself, "Woah, suck to be you guys."

[james0246]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

" ...modern anime character design, whether the designers realize it or not, seems to be tuned towards being cute enough to evoke a supernormal response - one that outside the range normally provoked by natural stimuli." - 0utf0xZer0
...
The main benefit of animation is that its able to streamline imagery - remove even the slightest blemish or visual distraction, while using ideal inking and shading effects - to create a "supernormal" image of sorts. An image that leaves an immediate inspired impression.
...
Such supernormal imagery can really capture the imagination, in my view, and beckons the viewer into a Wonderland of sorts. The supernormal imagery is just real enough to be comprehensible and accessible, but is also different and fantastic enough to create a sense of awe and wonder.


That being said, it's not a matter of immersion for me so much as its a matter of the supernormal imagery itself often complimenting the strength of whatever conflicts, ideas, or themes lay within the animated work.

To put it simply: I very much doubt that a live-action version of Clannad would impact me as much as the actual anime Clannad did. The reason being that a lot of these characters, and the situations that they are in, would lose their "supernormal" appeal if played by real life (and hence realistic looking) actors.
.

Supernormal stimuli is littered across the entire filmscape, whether television or movie, or animated or live action. Any time you get scared at a horror film: that is supernormal stimuli. Anytime you laugh at an exaggerated comedic moment: that is supernormal stimuli. Anytime you weep at a tragic or happy moment: that is supernormal stimuli. Hell, anytime you want to "whip-it-out" after seeing a particularly "hot" guy or girl (doing something "sexy") on the screen: that is supernormal stimuli at work. Etc. Live-action does this just as much as any animated feature (and no, I do not think one does it better than the other, considering how easily it is to distort and change real images).

As for "moe", Clannad, Disney, etc, the style used to describe these various characteristics is based on an exaggerated stimulus for innocence (which is in turn seen as cute or endearing). Quite honestly, the "moe" emotional response is probably derived from the instinctual emotional response humans have for babies.

The problem with supernormal stimuli, though, is how it could be overrunning our own instinctual stimuli. What happens when you only find Mio to be cute anymore, and nothing in the physical world comes close? What happens when only the worst horrors imaginable (a "human centipede") evoke any emotional response? What happens when only the worst foods (KFC's Double Down...is there a shudder emoticon?) evoke hunger? These are the problems that over-stimulation, as driven by supernormal stimuli, can create.

---

As for the OP, the question is worded strangely, it should not be "anime" better/worse/equal to "film", but "anime" better/worse/equal to "live-action" (which already exists on this forum). Why? Because anime is film or television.

That being said, I do not think that anime, as a medium, is more "immersive". And to compare, it is far easier for live-action to be immersive than anime (obviously, this is a personal opinion).

[Neat Hedgehog]

As far as "immersion" goes, I'd actually have to give the victory to animation of all kinds (traditional animation, 3D, any other kinds there are). I have what is probably a rather twisted rational which leads me to this opinion which I will explain.

I once had someone ask me what I would rather see; an animated show about war where nothing was real, or a live-action movie with real people getting shot. I couldn't see his logic because obviously nobody in the live-action movie got shot.

That's the sort of thing that I can't get out of my head when watching real people on the screen. If someone dies, or gets shot, or has their arm cut off, or jumps through a wormhole, or demonstrates "super powers," I know that it didn't really happen. It was fake. The actor is still alive, was not dismembered, and is staring at a tennis ball in his hand which was edited out digitally instead of a floating ball of flame. Everything is cleverly done by props, or digital editing.

Now take an animated feature. Nothing in that show is real at all. But by the same measure, if an animated character loses his arm (take for example Buzz Lightyear in the original Toy Story) his arm is actually gone. He really doesn't have it. You're not going to see how they pinned up his coat in some clever way to hide the fact that his arm is still there, or used some kind of prosthetic stump. It's "really" gone. If an animated character dies, you are not going to see him / her making an appearance on The Tonight Show talking about their role. He / she was killed, and is not coming back. In that sense, animated films where nothing is "real" are more "real" than their "live-action" counterparts.

See? Told you it was weird logic.

Plus, for me, animated features have one big advantage. Everyone generally portrays their emotional ranges with all the subtly of a sledgehammer. I am absolutely horrible at estimating people's emotions from their facial expressions, and I often cannot work on anything while looking at people because it takes so much effort to read their faces that I have no spare brain power to think about anything else. This is something of a disadvantage, as I know that most people are able to do that as a background process with little to no effort. But with an animated character, reading their face is easy enough that even someone like me can follow what's going on.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have lots of live-action movies which I really like. Most of them are from 1920 - 1950's, though, before the days of extensive special effects. Because there are so few special effects (or in most cases, none at all), there are far fewer things to take me out of the show. I have a decent amount of more recent shows I like, too, even with all their special effects, but those are the ones which are done exceptionally well (or the more brainless action films, which I like, too). Plus, there are tons of comedy films I like that don't require "immersion" to enjoy, too. Of course, since most "serious" dramas require some level of immersion to make you care what happens, I mostly find them boring and tedious, since they are almost never done well enough to make me care, or forget that I'm essentially watching a play.

[janipani]

Some anime are better than most movies. Some movies are better than most anime. Some stories are better suited for anime than a movie or live action.

I think this depends on many things. You just can't compare best animes and best movies or best anime movies. Master pieces are priceless.

[GuidoHunter_Toki]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

No, it is not asinine, it is also a matter of taste. Also, this is a message board dedicated to anime. It certainly should not seem strange to anybody that there would be people here who prefer anime to live-action movies.

Indeed, but when people state it so matter of fact like it erks me.

Also I'd like to see any proof that there has been a lack of quality films in todays world. There is the old statement that 90% of everything is crap and the 10% is the good stuff. People who present all the classic films of the old days and pit them against the crap of today; So, you do know that there was just as much crap back then as well.

The good movies are the films that tend to live on and that is ultimately what gives these older eras a seemingly better appeal in the quality of their movies. People don't tend to remember the crap unless they lived through it and honestly I find that a lot of these comments about todays movies sucking are coming from the younger generation.

I like anime and live action, I like every type of medial entertainment; I treat anime as nothing more than another TV show or film because thats all it really is. Its not some magical medium that should be so seperated from the rest of animation as it is just nothing more than another animated product.

In my opinion I find live action to be superior in most regards from what it has thus far given us. However I don't disregard animation and say that live action movies of today are better than any anime movie or series being released today. That is simply not true since there will always be a gem out there (maybe one I haven't even seen yet) that will exceed something else. I'm always discovering new shows and films from today or years past that are great quality works. The fact of the matter is there is no top dog, it is all taste and opinion, yet just writing off anything else as inferior without no kind of basis is asinine as far as I'm concerned.

[Triple_R]

Ok, I think that I now see where folks here vouching for live-action movies are coming from.

Yes, the live-action medium certainly has its strengths.

But I find that, if anything, its the animation medium that doesn't get enough respect in the wider world. The live-action medium is already very widely accepted, of course. Its the animation medium that really needs some help in getting more people to see it as respectable, and good even for shows for adults.

The idea that live-action is automatically superior to animation is an idea that I think we, as anime fans, should combat if possible.

I also wouldn't say that live-action is inferior to animation; merely that I usually (but not always) have a preference for animated material. There are exceptions of course. A real life live-action sports event almost always looks better to me than any animated version of a sports event. I also would say that live-action scenes of warfare usually look more impressive than animated versions of warfare (there's a few reasons why I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Gladiator movie).

Where I prefer animation is with sitcom/slice of life material (I view sitcoms as being a close live-action approximation of anime's slice of life) and with superpowered action (the DBZ cartoon vs. the DBZ movie is a good example of this).

It may be fair to say that there's some things that live action tends to do better than animation, and some things that animation tends to do better than live action, but that neither is inherently better than the other in an overall sense.

[Master_Yoma]

Also I'd like to see any proof that there has been a lack of quality films in todays world. There is the old statement that 90% of everything is crap and the 10% is the good stuff. People who present all the classic films of the old days and pit them against the crap of today; So, you do know that there was just as much crap back then as well.

Well the amount of good movies is more like around 4% then 10%. But if you not talking about US films and going with bollywood and chinese films then there will be alot of good movies then

[Chrisjon]

Honestly I can be immersed in either one of the mediums be it live action or anime. To me it's less about what I see and more about a well written story. However I can completely understand if others could be more drawn to one of these two mediums.

[GuidoHunter_Toki]

Originally Posted by Master_Yoma

Well the amount of good movies is more like around 4% then 10%. But if you not talking about US films and going with bollywood and chinese films then there will be alot of good movies then

Unless you can give me an actual official chart that shows the ratio...you just give no basis to your opinion

There are always bad movies, and in todays world more movies are being produced, so yeah, one could say there are more bad movies than there were before. That said, that doesn't mean the numbers of good movies have decreased, if anything they have increased as the amount of movies being made each year has increased.

Bad movies are more heavily advertised and hyped usually than the good movies, thats how the market is right now. The bad movies get noticed more, but there are leaps and bounds of good films out there (not just foreign films, but in america as well). You just need to know where to find them and how to recognize them.

I get the impression you must not be aware of what films are out there outside the crap, because there is so much out there that is good that when you say that only 4% of it is good that blows my mind.

Now going back to the central concept of there being a lot of bad movies today, let's face it media has exploded in the last couple of decades and pretty much everyone with an idea can put it in some form and spread it to the masses. Because of this a lot of things get repetitious and people feel like they've seen it before.

So what constitutes a good movie? A lot of older movies are rated so highly because at the time when they came out they were something new and there was nothing like it. But if you took one of the movies that came out now and showed it in the blast you would've blown people's minds away and it would be a hit.

And because of all this movies are generally put under such a hard magnifying glass that there really is no "average" or "good" category. Most people seem to either shuffle movies into the "it sucks" or it was "amazing" category. You have to look at this middle ground to make any accurate spread on how many good films vs bad films there are.


Oh and in response to the bollywood/foreign film thing. I honestly find quality more frequently in American (and say british) filmmaking than I do from stuff out of bollywood or china. The casting/writing/production tends to be much better, due in large part to the size of the amrican film industry and it's resources. Of course this is just my own opinion and I still find plenty of films I like from bollywood. In general though I don't see many foreign films that break the threshold to becoming good films. This may have to do with many foreign films not being produced/distributed outside their own countries. You do however get those gems like City of God (one of my favorite films) that reach enough exposure and endorsment to be exposed to the rest of the world. I personally just cannot say that bollywood is better than hollywood simply for the fact I have not seen enough good bollywood films that have trumped some of the good american films I've seen.