The Best Animated Film Characters. The second golden age of animation is well under way, with Aardman, Miyazaki, Disney Pixar and Dream. Works rolling out rather good stories on a fairly regular basis. But which characters of the stop motion, CG or hand drawn world really make the grade Which existing characters made the leap from short form to full length feature with their dignity intact How do the newcomers really compare to old hands of earlier eras Read on to find out. Mickey Mouse. Movies Fantasia 1. Fantasia 2. 00. 0 1. First Apperance Steamboat Willie 1. Voiced by Walt Disney, Jimmy Mac. Donald, Wayne Allwine. The most famous cartoon of all time, all the way down here Why yes, because Mickey Mouse has never been a big character in feature length animation, and his best performance was in a tiny segment of classical music oddity Fantasia. Here, hes the over enthusiastic but under disciplined assistant to a sorcerer, who tries to take a short cut when his master is out of town and ends up with hundreds of magical mops flooding his home and hes wonderful at it. The moral of the story is that its best to take pride in your work and do it properly, and also that you should just never clean house because itll only lead to trouble. Stroke of genius. The hangdog hangmouse expression on Mickeys face when his master comes back and discovers the flooded castle, full of enchanted mops. Antz is a 1998 American computeranimated adventure comedy film directed by Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson and written by Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz, and Todd Alcott. Buy Wallace Gromit The Complete Collection Read 3125 Movies TV Reviews Amazon. Animation is the process of making the illusion of motion and the illusion of change by means of the rapid succession of sequential images that minimally differ from. Comments are moderated. They may be edited for clarity and reprinting in whole or in part in Variety publications. Height=450&odnWidth=450&odnBg=FFFFFF' alt='Whole Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit Cartoon Online ' title='Whole Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit Cartoon Online ' />Fun fact. The raised eyebrow and disapproving stare with which the sorcerer greets the havoc his apprentice has caused was referred to as the Dirty Disney stare by the animators on Fantasia and modelled on Walt himself. ZMovies Antz 1. Directed by Nick Park. With Peter Sallis, Sally Lindsay, Melissa Collier, Sarah Laborde. Wallace and his dog, Gromit, open a bakery and get tied up with a murder mystery. The Made of Explodium trope as used in popular culture. Everything Is Better with Explosions, isnt it Well, if you spice it up to maximum, you have Stuff. The Trailers Always Spoil trope as used in popular culture. Movie trailers are known to mislead, but sometimes they go in the opposite direction, giving away. Empire lists the best animated characters, from CGI, hand drawn and stop motion films, from the masters at Dinesy Pixar, DreamWorks and Aardman. First Apperance Antz 1. Voiced by Woody Allen. Who the hell casts Woody Allen in a kids film, the debut film from the new Dream. Works at that Bloody geniuses, thats who. While the films been overshadowed by Pixar in the years since, Z himself is a distillation of every character Woody Allen ever played, a handy introduction to the director for kids. Hes also really, really funny the middle child of five million, barely able to lift ten times his own bodyweight. His performance makes this more than yer average, boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy changes the underlying social order story. Stroke of genius. The fact that, when hes praised for laughing in the face of death, Z explains that, Actually, I generally just make belittling comments and snicker behind deaths back. Fun fact. The story is very loosely based on Aldous Huxleys Brave New World. Literary 4. 8. Fiver. Movies Watership Down. First Apperance Watership Down, a 1. Richard Adams. Voiced by Richard Briers. How sweet and innocent is Fiver, the visionary rabbit hero of Watership Down Well, hes voiced by Richard Briers, perhaps the nicest man in the history of Planet Earth. And thats pretty much all you need to know about a character who somehow manages to retain its innocence through the heartbreaking slog of Watership Down, through the savage dog attacks, environmental destruction and perilous journey, and somehow through Art Garfunkels blinking Bright Eyes. Hazel John Hurt may be the nominal hero, but its Fivers visions of Watership Down that kickstart the story, and he remains the cutest and most fragile of the rabbits, even blaming himself for all the trouble the rabbits endure. Fiver, son, its not your fault. Stroke of genius. Imbuing Fiver with an indomitable spirit and an unshakeable belief in his brother, Hazel, that carries him through. Also, the ability to make our eyes all wet just thinking about him, and the movie. Damn those infernal rabbits Fun fact. His Lapine name is Hrairoo, which means Little five or Little thousand 4. Daffy Duck. Movies Who Framed Roger Rabbit 1. Space Jam 1. 99. Looney Tunes 2. First Apperance Porkys Duck Hunt 1. Voiced by Mel Blanc, Jeff Bergman, Greg Burson, Joe Alasky, Dee Bradley Baker. Tricky one, this. Based largely on his movie career, you cant include Daffy Duck arguably the greatest of all the Looney Tunes, with his scheming and his skiving and his suffering suckatash speech impediment on this list. But you cant not include Daffy Duck on this list, and you shouldnt hold it against the character that Warner Bros. Daffy to Bugs to Elmer to Wile E. Sylvester to Marvin and so on and so on and so on. The best we can do is to mention that hes pretty funny in Joe Dantes Looney Tunes Back In Action, and that hes on this list because hes Daffy Duck. And if anyone disagrees, we have an Acme Reader Pulveriser out back, just waiting to be fired up. Capisce Stroke of genius. Just to show how Warners have dropped the ball, Daffys greatest full length feature film moment comes in a Disney film. Notably the magnificent dualling pianos scene between him and Donald Duck in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which ends with the two ducks engaging in a spot of M. A. D. Have Your Say. Should Daffy Duck be higher or lower on our list Vote now Fun fact. Mel Blanc, the classic voice of Daffy, recorded a novelty single in the 5. Daffy Ducks Rhapsody. We have to hear this song. Bet Kim Newman has it. Toad. Movies Flushed Away. First Apperance Flushed Away 2. Voiced By Sir Ian Mc. Kellen. Criminally underrated, and implicated as the main cause of Aardmans acrimonious split from Dream. Works, Flushed Away is actually an enormously fun film, that may not have the soul or finesse of a Wallace Gromit flick, but which has a joke ratio thats up there with Zucker Abrahams Zucker. And it also has, in the megalomaniacal Toad, Ian Mc. Kellens most deliciously funny big screen performance. A pompous, pumped up buffoon who walks around making wild, grandiose speeches about ruling the sewers while remaining tragically unable to suppress his craving for flies, Toad is a spot on parody of Bond villains, with more than a hint of the craven idiocy of British politicians thrown in for good measure. Stroke of genius. Casting Mc. Kellen, who tackles Toads stiff upper plumminess with relish and elevates the character into Well, someone worthy of placing 4. They didnt make him a knight just for the fun of it, you know. Fun fact. In the grand tradition of excruciating puns begun by Nick Park, The books on Toads shelf are Warts and Peace by Leo Toadstool, Unfinished Verse by Long Tung, A Brief History of Slime, and his scrapbooks, The Tragic History of the Great Great Toad, Vol. I, followed by Volumes II through VI. Aisling. Movies The Secret of Kells 2. First Appearance The Secret of Kells 2. Voiced by Christen Mooney. Generally speaking when countries are embodied in the form of people, theyre big strong muscly men, or women who make up for in weaponry what they lack in coverage around the bosom region. Aisling represents the spirit of Ireland in this medieval adventure, but instead of being powerful or a bit slutty shes a tiny sprite, an impish younger sister who irritates Brendan as much as she helps him. Oh sure, shes also got magical abilities, but shes magical more in the way that Luna Lovegood is, rather than in the way that Gandalf is. Some might say that that fits Ireland rather well though, so maybe its for the best. Thumper. Movies Bambi 1. Bambi 2 2. 00. 6. First Appearance Bambi 1. Voiced by Peter Behn, Tim Davis, Sam Edwards, Brandon Baerg. The thing about Thumper is that hes so cute he almost helps you to forget that Bambis mum has, um, sob died. The scene where the rabbit and the young faun venture out on the ice during their first winter, slipping and sliding around, remains one of the happiest things youll ever see, guaranteed to raise a smile even if youve just eaten venison before watching the movie and are feeling horrendously guilty. A sage advisor to Bambi himself, more or less, and a more streetwise forest wise character, hes a good friend and fellow adolescent in the big, bad woods. Stroke of genius. Animation Wikipedia. The bouncing ball animation below consists of these six frames. This animation moves at 1. Animation is the process of making the illusion of motion and the illusion of changeNote 1 by means of the rapid succession of sequential images that minimally differ from each other. The illusionas in motion pictures in generalis thought to rely on the phi phenomenon and beta movement, but the exact causes are still unclear. There are some forms of animation that do not feature a rapid succession of sequential images, but these are usually not considered true or full animation. For instance, the physical movement of image parts through simple mechanics in magic lantern slides and the movement of the projector the magic lantern in phantasmagoria provided popular moving picture shows. Animators are artists who specialize in the creation of animation. Animation can be recorded with either analogue media, a flip book, motion picture film, video tape, digital media, including formats with animated GIF, Flash animation, and digital video. To display animation, a digital camera, computer, or projector are used along with new technologies that are produced. Animation methods include traditional animation, and methods that use stop motion animation of two and three dimensional objects, paper cutouts, puppets, and clay figures. Images display in a rapid succession, usually 2. Computer animation processes generating animated images with the general term computer generated imagery CGI. D animation uses computer graphics, while 2. D animation is used for stylistic, low bandwidth and faster real time renderings. HistoryeditEarly examples of attempts to capture the phenomenon of motion into a still drawing can be found in paleolithiccave paintings, where animals are often depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion. A 5,2. 00 year old pottery bowl discovered in Shahr e Sukhteh, Iran has five sequential images painted around it that seem to show phases of a Persian Desert Ibex leaping up to nip at a tree. Ancient Chinese records contain several mentions of devices that were said to give an impression of movement to human or animal figures, these accounts are unclear and may only refer to the actual movement of the figures through space. They may, of course, refer to Chinese shadow puppets. In the 1. 9th century, the phenakistoscope 1. Watch Rugrats Go Wild! Online. A thaumatrope 1. The phenakistoscope was invented simultaneously by Belgian Joseph Plateau and Austrian Simon von Stampfer in 1. The phenakistoscope consists of a disk with a series of images, drawn on radi evenly space around the center of the disk. John Barnes Linnett patented the first flip book in 1. The common flip book were early animation devices that produced an illusion of movement from a series of sequential drawings, animation did not develop further until the advent of motion picture film and cinematography in the 1. The cinmatographe was a projector, printer, and camera in one machine that successfully showed moving pictures on a screen. It was invented by two of historys earliest filmmakers, Auguste and Louis Lumire, in 1. The first animated projection screening was created in France, by Charles mile Reynaud, who was a French science teacher. Reynaud created the Praxinoscope in 1. Thtre Optique in December 1. On 2. 8 October 1. Pauvre Pierrot, at the Muse Grvin in Paris. This film is also notable as the first known instance of film perforations being used. His films were not photographed, they were drawn directly onto the transparent strip. In 1. 90. 0, more than 5. A projecting praxinoscope, 1. The first known film recorded on standard picture film that included animated sequences was the 1. Enchanted Drawing, which was followed by the first entirely animated filmthe 1. Humorous Phases of Funny Faces by J. Stuart Blackton, who, because of that, is considered the father of American animation. In Europe, the French artist, mile Cohl, created the first animated film using what became known as traditional animation creation methods the 1. Fantasmagorie. The film largely consisted of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There were also sections of live action in which the animators hands would enter the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look. The author of the first puppet animated film The Beautiful Lukanida 1. Russian born ethnically Polish director Wladyslaw Starewicz, known as Ladislas Starevich. More detailed hand drawn animation, requiring a team of animators drawing each frame manually with detailed backgrounds and characters, were those directed by Winsor Mc. Cay, a successful newspaper cartoonist, including the 1. Little Nemo, the 1. Gertie the Dinosaur, and the 1. The Sinking of the Lusitania. Gertie the Dinosaur was an early example of the character development in drawn animation. During the 1. 91. The most successful producer at the time was John Randolph Bray, who, along with animator Earl Hurd, patented the cel animation process that dominated the animation industry for the rest of the decade. Italian Argentine cartoonist Quirino Cristiani showing the cut and articulated figure of his satirical character El Peludo based on President Yrigoyen patented in 1. El Apstol. El Apstol Spanish The Apostle was a 1. Argentine animated film utilizing cutout animation, and the worlds first animated feature film. Unfortunately, a fire that destroyed producer Federico Valles film studio incinerated the only known copy of El Apstol, and it is now considered a lost film. In 1. 95. 8, Hanna Barbera released The Huckleberry Hound Show, the first half hour television program to feature only in animation. Terrytoons released Tom Terrific that same year. Television significantly decreased public attention to the animated shorts being shown in theaters. Computer animation has become popular since Toy Story 1. In 2. 00. 8, the animation market was worth US6. Animation as an art and industry continues to thrive as of the mid 2. Animated feature length films returned the highest gross margins around 5. TechniqueseditTraditional animationeditTraditional animation also called cel animation or hand drawn animation was the process used for most animated films of the 2. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one by one against a painted background by a rostrum camera onto motion picture film. The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 2. Today, animators drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 3. The look of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators work has remained essentially the same over the past 7. Some animation producers have used the term tradigital a play on the words traditional and digital to describe cel animation that uses significant computer technology. Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio United States, 1. Animal Farm United Kingdom, 1. The Illusionist British French, 2. Traditionally animated films produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King US, 1. The Prince of Egypt US, 1.