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DreamWorks Retrospective
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In this episode, Satsunami and Andrew take on one of the most prolific animation studios in the world! From their debut film Antz to The Last Wish, join the duo in this nostalgic journey as they discuss the prolific studio!
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Transcript
Introduction to Chatsunami and Hosts
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami. My name's Chatsunami, and joining me atop the moon to fish is none other than my very good friend, Andrew. Andrew, welcome back. Thanks for having me back. How are you doing today? Yeah, I'm good. The sun is finally shining over here. Winter seems to be at an end, and I'm going to discuss a film studio that is very close to my heart, so I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, I have to say, this is definitely a topic along in the discussion, isn't it, between us?
00:00:46
Speaker
Yeah, we were talking about discussing this for quite some time, so it's good that we're finally getting to it.
Exploring DreamWorks: Influence and Mystique
00:00:51
Speaker
Because, I mean, don't get me wrong, we could absolutely do a month on this particular topic we're going to be talking about today, but you know, never say never, but today we are indeed going to be talking about the animation studio Dreamworks.
00:01:05
Speaker
and I've got to say it is definitely a weird one because we were talking before we came on today and it's quite a hard one to pinpoint for ourselves because we were discussing essentially what was the first exposure, what was the patient zero of phaloms to actually get us into these phaloms but do you remember for yourself Andrew?
Personal Memories: 'The Prince of Egypt'
00:01:27
Speaker
I think I do. So my family was very interested in the film The Prince of Egypt. We had a lot of sort of inside jokes and references to that movie. I remember very distinctly my brother who's six years older than me, his 12th birthday, my older sisters signed a card who they are also older than him signed a card saying
00:01:46
Speaker
you're playing with the big boys now, which is, of course, a reference to the Prince of Egypt. And that was that's a very kind of distinct memory I have from when I was five turning six. So that I think was my first kind of introduction to DreamWorks Studios. And of course, I did watch the likes of Shrek growing up. And I did watch Ants and the Rotal Dorado and various other films. But the Prince of Egypt was very fundamental in my childhood. And it's one that I love to come back to each time.
DreamWorks vs. Disney: A Unique Approach
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, I honestly have no idea what Minds was in particular, because I always remember Ants, and you probably remember this as well, but when Ants came out, there was another small indie studio you might have heard of, a very small animation studio called Disney, who decided to release a similar, and I'm emphasizing this, a very similar problem called A Bug's Life.
00:02:33
Speaker
at the same time. And the reason for this, and this is something we will get into, but of course Dreamworks was a company that was established from, ironically enough, an ex-employee of Disney called Jeffrey Katzenberg. And honest to goodness, I cannot believe the people involved in establishing this company, and I was saying that to you. But you know, you've got Jeffrey Katzenberg, you've got Steven Spielberg, and then you've also got David Geffen, who I think originally it was called Dreamworks,
00:03:03
Speaker
SKG to represent all of their surnames. The fact that people weren't really challenging Disney. Before I go back in your talk about what was my first experience, do you remember many animation studios taking on Disney at the time?
Animation Industry Competition: Universal and Fox
00:03:19
Speaker
There certainly weren't many. Universal Studios did have an animation wing, and I think Fox Animation had an animation wing as well. You did have the likes of Old Dogs Go to Heaven, Balto, Anastasia. There were movies coming out around that time that were trying to compete with Disney, but very few would be able to
00:03:39
Speaker
hold up to what Disney was doing, especially in the 90s when Disney was having its real kind of renaissance of very strong films that were such a cultural touchstone. There was so much resonance with the world, with the likes of Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Lion King, Tarzan, Mulan, even Hercules. These films were so impactful to a generation of children. The very few others were able to kind of get through and stand out until
00:04:06
Speaker
outside the new millennium when Disney started not doing as well, certainly at the beginning of the new millennium. So there were studios competing, but they just weren't able to sort of hold up to the same kind of standard, I don't think. Coming from someone who's studied history, like you and I, you know, I'm not gonna say, oh, Anastasia's not, like, her own name, but, you know, you wouldn't hold that kind of film or auto or, you know, any of those kind of films to the same high standards as like,
00:04:34
Speaker
Aladdin or Mulan or you know all of the Disney Renaissance films that came out at the time. So the fact that Dreamworks came along and just rocked the book completely was, I mean obviously we were kids at the time so it wasn't really shocking to us you know we were just like oh new films yeah but it is actually shocking to think that they just came around and they were like oh we are going to come in and just
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah, establish yourselves. Almost a bit like what Illumination's done in recent years, like maybe over the last decade or so with their Despicable Me and Secret Life of Pets, you know all the ones. Yeah, I would say Illumination seems to be the new kind of dreamworks.
00:05:13
Speaker
in that regard. I think Sony Animation is also trying to kind of get a foothold and also Netflix Animation is trying to get a foothold in that but I would say Illumination seems to be the most successful of the new era. Because I mean considering they've got the foothold in the Mario Brothers film right now it's absolutely insane to think because a lot of people were saying oh they're not you know very good for the role and everything and you know that'll obviously be another episode for another day but it is amazing how studios nowadays are just
00:05:40
Speaker
coming up a lot easier and being able to challenge companies like Disney and Dreamworks. Don't get me wrong, those companies probably, and please don't quote me on this if I'm completely wrong in a couple of months, but they're not going to shift them. Disney's not going to go away for a long time in neither Dreamworks. But going back to that particular point where Dreamworks did challenge Disney, they came out with Ants in 1998, which was, it's not a
00:06:10
Speaker
carbon copy. I will say this, it's not a carbon copy of a bug's life. It's not the exact same story. It's not people saying, oh, we gotta fight against the grasshoppers and win. No, ants is very violent, I will say. It was kind of like a counter-culture thing where they were trying to do their spin on the fairy tale kind of retellings.
00:06:32
Speaker
You know, you've got ants, you've got the Rotel Dorado especially. That was very fantastical in the way that they portrayed that. You know, we obviously had Shrek, which we'll touch on. But going back to the very beginning, I don't know. I remember seeing ants, but I don't think I saw it in the cinema. I either saw it in VHS, which again, I'm aging myself there, or I must have seen it on TV and I just did not like it. Even today, I do not like ants, I thought.
00:06:58
Speaker
some of it's outright. You know, the animation doesn't hold up well and everything, so you kind of think with an entry like Ants. Neither does the stars, unfortunately. Oh really? Or Woody Allen. Oh god, I forgot he was in that. Yeah, he's like a main character. Oh of course he is. Yeah, so you would think with Ants, that would, I would say, kill the studio, but it's not exactly the strongest entry. But then of course, in the same year, about too much, I can't
00:07:23
Speaker
believe that actually it's two months apart from Anson, the Prince of Egypt, which I think you were saying that they must have been working on this simultaneously because the Prince of Egypt, even to this day, is one of my favourite films and I know obviously as you said you're very fond of it. It is like night and day, isn't it?
00:07:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's completely different. The animation style as well is very different. I was looking into that a little bit and they both do have a combination of hand-drawn and computer-generated animation. But I think the Ants one is much more uncanny valley, whereas Prince of Egypt seems to rely more on the 2D animation with minimal 3D animation. The only 3D animation I can really think of is during the plague scene where the fires are raining down kind of thing and maybe
00:08:10
Speaker
the burning bush or something might be like CG animation. Because it was definitely a transitional period in animation, I have to say. The only film I can remember off the top of my head, I think this was probably the first feature when, and correct me if I'm wrong, but was it not Toy Story that was like the first feature when 3D film, animation 3D film,
00:08:32
Speaker
I don't know that for a fact. That does seem right. I mean, that is what Pixar Studios, that's what they premiered with as a feature length film. And I don't think it was pretty extraordinary for the time period that it was created. It looks a little bit rough now if you go back and watch it, but it's still good. It's still a good watch. Yeah, I'm just double checking my notes here to make sure that I'm not.
00:08:50
Speaker
speaking out my dream works all year but yeah it seems to be like the first computer animated feature of Apple. It was not owned by Disney at that point though. That is true. I think it was owned by Apple at the time. They really missed a trick there didn't they? Oh then they sold Pixar to Disney a little bit but I mean they've not suffered too much so I don't think I don't think anyone will be crying over them. That's why they have to sell the phones.
00:09:13
Speaker
like I could have been selling woody merch but no selling phones but yeah in 1995, November 1995, that was when the first computer generated animation follow came out and it's amazing to think though how far obviously animations come since then so in a way you can kind of let them off a wee bit with the way the animation developed and the animation and
00:09:36
Speaker
these films definitely got a lot better but yeah going back to ants that was a rough start. I mean the bug's life didn't look as like it looked better maybe not overly so but yeah then you get Prince of Egypt and that's more traditional hand drawing animation and I think
00:09:53
Speaker
towards the early 2000s, that's when they were starting to move towards, you know, mode of a Pixar-centric thing. DreamWorks, I think, decided to copy that in a way, but see without any further ado, will we just jump in and talk about this journey, both the journey of DreamWorks and our journey as fans of this particular studio?
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. Let's hop into it. And as we try to catch some... I think it's Skyfish. Like, I don't know what that kid was trying to catch. You know, the Dreamworks. Oh, the Moonchild? The Moonchild, yeah. I don't even know if he's got a name, you know, Mini or something. Ooh, I'm going to look that up during the outbreak. Yeah, please do. And as Andrew looks that up, we will be right back after these messages.
00:10:35
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami, a variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime and journal interests. Previously on Chatsunami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises.
00:10:54
Speaker
Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Beyblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all big podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:11:17
Speaker
Hey, I'm Abi. Hi, I'm Fi, and together we are the Everything Coincidental podcast. We talk about all things paranormal, such as ghosties, cryptids, and aliens. We also like to talk about all things spirituality, which encourages us and others to live by their own rules. So if that's something that you relate to in our interest, then make sure you check us out at Everything Coincidental and all platforms, and also drop us a message. We'd love to chat to you at some point about it. Talk soon. Bye.
00:11:47
Speaker
This episode is sponsored by Zincaster. If you're a podcaster that records remotely like me, then you'll know how challenging it can be to create the podcast you've always wanted. That's where Zincaster comes in. Before I met Zincaster, I was put a naive podcaster, recording on low-quality, one-track audio waves.
00:12:22
Speaker
I want you to have the same easy experience I do for all my podcasting and content needs. It's time to share your story.
00:12:34
Speaker
So Andrew, I've got to ask before we go into talking about the good, the bad and the downright weird of this particular animation studio, is it safe to say that Dreamworks has played in terms of the film site of your life? Would you say it's played like a large part?
00:12:50
Speaker
I think so. I would say that as much as Disney Dreamworks has played a crucial role in my kind of appreciation of anime and film. Looking back at the film, my favourite films from Dreamworks, I would say that I've probably seen them as much as I've seen Disney films.
00:13:05
Speaker
we'll get into some of our favorites in a little bit but I would say that there's several films on here that kind of become kind of comfort films for me more so even than many Disney films and I absolutely adore Disney particularly 90s Disney as I've said before but some of these films just speak to me much more than
00:13:22
Speaker
even they do. So I think that often that the films in the list that we'll be talking about are very important to my development of me as a person. I think that it's shaped an element of who I am. Dreamworks is one of those animation studios that you kind of think, you know, I've seen the old film, you know, I've seen Shrek, I've seen an old boss baby on the back of a bus or something like
00:13:44
Speaker
But the more you think about it, especially for me, as I said, I knew about Ants. Again, was it a big fan? Then I saw Prince of Egypt because when I was younger, you all went to church and things and they talked about it and things like the Prince of Egypt being that they didn't show it. I'm going to point that out. They didn't show it in a big screen. This is cool, guys. Youth pastor voice. You know someone else who had a real tough time? Moses. Moses.
00:14:10
Speaker
Ah, those Egyptians. Those scallywags. I know, one day we genuinely should do an episode on The Prince of Egypt because it is such a fascinating film. And see as I get older, I'm not saying that in the depletion way of, oh my god I'm old, but the more I watch The Prince of Egypt, I even showed it to my
00:14:28
Speaker
partner who she hadn't seen it at all. You know that way when you have a film you absolutely love and you show it to someone for the first time and you're saying oh this is happening because of this blah blah blah blah. It was honestly such a cool feeling seeing it through their eyes and obviously the music is great, the animation is beautiful and then you go on about roughly just under two years later
00:14:54
Speaker
where we get to rotate El Dorado and there's a long road ahead for Dreamworks and personally I like it. I love the animation of the songs and things and you know there's a lot that they start to branch out with. It doesn't seem as if Dreamworks, they didn't really stay quite stagnant. Like obviously they have a little of either talking about historical events about like what the Anasasia film did with
00:15:20
Speaker
El Dorado and I'm not saying the road to El Dorado is historically accurate but you know it's based on the place and everything but then they branch off in the 2000s and they go to El Dorado and then the next film a couple of months later is and don't get me wrong I think it's more produced by them but it was Chicken Run which this is something I was saying to you as well but it's like actually really surprising how they produced a lot of Aardman and Nick Park films
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah, they seem to have had like a distribution deal with Audemars Animation for a variety of films, because you had the likes of Chicken Run, you had the likes of Waltz and Gromit, Curse of the Werer Rabbit, you had Flushed Away. Your favourite. Oh, god, yeah, I love Flushed Away, it's great. And yeah, there was, I think there might be another one coming soon. But I mean, it's interesting, because it wasn't like an exclusive deal, like there have been another Waltz and Gromit movie that came out not through Dreamworks. I think it was that one about baking. Yeah, I think because that was more through the BBC. So it was like more of an episode, yeah.
00:16:17
Speaker
you're right, it's more of an episode than a feature length album, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it seems like Dreamworks works with a variety of different animation studios, including Artman Animations. And Artman Animations kind of isn't exclusive to Dreamworks, they'll work on projects with other film studios. It is an interesting one, because I mean, I don't know this for a fact with Disney, but it does seem like Disney is a lot more like in house in a lot of the work that they do, whereas Dreamworks tends to be a lot more like third party and working with
00:16:44
Speaker
other animation studios to kind of create different looks. And you can tell based on a lot of their films, like which ones have certain looks or an Eldorado or a Spirit or a Sinbad, you have the DW Glendale Bardell Entertainment Studios kind of work on that 2D kind of look. Whereas for something like Shrek, you have like Pacific Data, who also worked on the Ants movie, who also worked
00:17:07
Speaker
on Shark Tale and Madagascar, these kind of films. There's certain studios they work with for certain looks, and there are certain ones that I prefer more than others. I typically prefer the work from D.W. Glendale more so than Pacific Data, but I mean, that's enough to say that they've also worked kind of together. So something like Shrek or Madagascar or D.W. Glendale work with Pacific Data, so they kind of have a combination there.
00:17:32
Speaker
And then I think P.W. Glendale then kind of moved over to just doing kind of 3D animation after a while. I guess maybe that was just kind of what was requested of them and kind of the R of 2D died after that, which to me is a big shame. But I don't know, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, there was definitely in terms of the landscape of animation and I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I'm an authority on animation or anything.
00:17:53
Speaker
I mean you've seen my stick figures Andrea, like they really should be held in a museum or something for what not to do in terms of drawing but yeah there was definitely a change and a shift from that kind of traditional animation to the 3D animation and I don't know if it's just because it was easier or as we were talking about before we had Pixar who were definitely dominating a lot more than
00:18:19
Speaker
the traditional side of Disney. And I'm just having a look at some of the films that weren't received very well. Like, for example, one of your favourite films, Andrew, being Treasure Planet, which is a really cool idea and everything, but... He's genuine and I obviously love Treasure Planet.
00:18:35
Speaker
yeah, sorry, I forgot I said that before. Yeah, for legal reasons that was a joke before, but yeah. Before I sue. Deformation. Looking at the red panel, I'm like, please get me out of this, please. But I think that kind of flopped when it came out. So then these still had animation films, but I mean, I'm going to be honest, like in terms of Disney, and I know I'll bring it back to Dreamworks, but
00:19:00
Speaker
You know, you had Finding Nemo, you had The Incredibles, you had all of these relatively good Pixar films. And don't get me wrong, they did move on to like real guff, like chicken little and things like that. In between that, you had Brother Bear, which was okay, and you had Home on the Range, which was, oh gee, the less said about that, the better. God, it was awful, home.
00:19:22
Speaker
Yeah, if anybody wants to pay me, either on Patreon or just in general, to review that film, I will, but I will never do it for free because that film was horrific. I think I watched that not intentionally, but I remember I ended up watching it in like a book leg of DVD once. Again, it wasn't mine, but I'm not saying it wasn't mine because it was a pirate to DVD. I'm saying that because I don't want to admit to ever owning home on the range.
00:19:49
Speaker
I don't think I ever owned it, but I think we must have rented it from like Blockbuster or something at some point, because I'm pretty sure I did watch it in that capacity. I don't even remember that it was awful, but when you look at Home on the Range and those kind of films were the kind of early 2000s, like 2003, 2004, but
00:20:08
Speaker
with DreamWorks from the year 2000 or even as far back as 1998. I mean, their films are going strong. You had The Prince of Egypt. Again, in the 2000s, you had Chicken Run. You had Joseph King of Dreams, which I'm going to be honest, probably. And I could be totally wrong on this. There might be a lot of, what do the cool kids say? Joseph stands out there, you know?
00:20:31
Speaker
Yeah, Bible drill drill exactly. Maybe there's fans out there, but I don't remember personally people raving about this film in comparison to The Prince of Egypt. But then of course in 2001 everything changed where we got Shrek, which I know it's gone through the memes and it's gone through the, or it's Ogre and everything, but
00:20:51
Speaker
I mean I liked this film when it came out. I'll tell you how old I am and again you'll probably relate to this but when I think it was the year after I remember getting two VHS tapes I think for Christmas and one of them was Shrek
00:21:07
Speaker
and the other was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. And I remember watching them and just not burning them out, I wasn't that big a fan of Shrek. Duality reminds me of, and this is me using the gaming analogy, but it's almost as if Disney were Nintendo and Dreamworks were like Sega, because both companies wanted to be the complete opposite of the competitor. They wanted to be, oh look at us, we're cool, we're edgy, and especially for Shrek.
00:21:34
Speaker
Because do you remember your first impressions of Shrek when it came out? I don't think I can remember my first impressions, but I do remember really enjoying it as a kid. I don't know whether I saw the cinema. It seems like I might have done, but I'm pretty sure I did go to the cinema in C-Shrek and I was very intrigued by it. I thought it was a fun telling of this rude fantasy story that you hadn't really seen before. And that was kind of something I was going to bring up with as well about DreamWorks, that DreamWorks feels
00:22:00
Speaker
is very much like a They Sent Your Daddy's Disney movie. Dreamworks films tend to be a lot more risky. They tend to have a lot more kind of rude jokes or violence in it. There's a lot of like innuendos present in there and like Shrek I feel was kind of the start of that. I think that there was kind of a real shift in the tone of Dreamworks films after that. You had elements of that through Chicken Run and
00:22:23
Speaker
No, I tell a lie. Rotel Dorado had a lot more of those kind of things first. So the Rotel Dorado, I'd say, was a really big moment. And you kind of get the feeling that in the Rotel Dorado, and also the development of it in the Prince of Egypt, that there's a certain level of horniness to the creation of it where the girls were always
00:22:39
Speaker
created to be a lot sort of sexier than you would see in the likes of Disney movies. You did get certain elements of that with Hercules, with Megara, but you really amped up how these kind of female figures were portrayed in these movies. And to an extent, like in Roger Aldrada, which I just watched yesterday, I think, very heavily implied that two of the characters have sex. And like, you would not ever get that in Disney. Even now, I don't think there's been any kind of suggestion of that in Disney movies. Yeah, because they keep coming off the page in some Destiny films.
00:23:07
Speaker
before it goes any further. It's like, oh, you're a parent. Well, who's it going to be? Is it going to be the dad, the mum? That and also like typically in Disney movies, the protagonists are quite young. It would feel weird to have a scene like that. Whereas Dreamworks often aren't afraid to be like, we don't need a child audience insert character.
00:23:27
Speaker
we're able to have a funny story where all the characters are adults. There are a few that have that, like Mr. Peabody in Sherman has Sherman as your audience-insert child. I mean you have midlife crisis films like Megamind, which although that is like a kind of kid-friendly film about this alien supervillain and oh it's comedy and things, see if you actually look at it from another perspective it's like it's quite, well obviously you know it's not the Citizen Kane of this kind of story telling bit, it's
00:23:56
Speaker
quite hard-hitting at times. You know, it's someone who wants to be better than themselves and they have an identity crisis of what they want to do but they're all good at eggs and they try to compensate in other ways and things. It's for kids anyway, the way they actually tell those stories, you're completely right. There's a lot more maturity
00:24:14
Speaker
on, the kind of storytelling that Disney, I was going to say perfected but then they kind of lost their way as well and don't get me wrong, I'm not going to suggest for one minute that Dreamworks didn't lose their way as well because we are going to go on to that at some point, but sorry before we go on, was there any others?
00:24:32
Speaker
There is a couple others, yeah, so I mean, an obvious one is How to Tune Your Dragon, that you have a young main character there, you have Boss Baby, you have Rise of the Guardians to an extent, you have the Croods, and then there's a film called Home, which I never watched, so I don't really clear on what situation is there, but yeah, those are the only ones that I think would also fit into that, which when you have like a filmography spanning dozens and dozens of films, being able to name on your hand the number of films where there is a audience insert child character,
00:25:01
Speaker
pretty extraordinary, pretty rare for an animated film studio. And again it's something that we talked about earlier but it's definitely interesting how diverse these stories are and these characters are because they'll get me wrong although obviously Disney does have
00:25:16
Speaker
different films and things. There's a lot of similar treads. This relates to the stereotype of the Disney princess. It's about a young woman who wants more out of life and the only thing that really changes around her is the setting and everything. But in these films in particular, there's definitely a
00:25:38
Speaker
conscious choice to almost reject that kind of idea. I don't remember how it still has its tropes and stereotypes and things like that, but again, especially with things like Shrek or any of the other kinds of songs that came out after that, they do make a conscious effort to try and
00:25:56
Speaker
well really just either poke fun at Disney, poke fun at those kind of tropes or distance themselves and don't get me wrong I think the early years because I feel as if and I don't know what you think about this Andrew but I feel as if DreamWorks went through a very similar thing with
00:26:14
Speaker
Disney in the sense that their early years were really good, really strong, and then they had this kind of awkward middle period that was just awful, you know, and then they kind of picked themselves up a wee bit more towards the kind of 2010s.
00:26:29
Speaker
I don't know. I feel like DreamWorks is not, it's, I don't think there is necessarily a period of lull. I think there would just be like a series of movies that are more of a lull. You can make an argument for some, and I love it's subjective. For example, the Star of the Ants, which I don't think was a very good movie, so poor star. Then they have Prince of Egypt and El Dorado and Chicken Run, all great. Joseph King of Dreams, from what we watched of it, we didn't see it all, was rubbish.
00:26:52
Speaker
Then you're Shrek, Spirit of Stylin, Cimarron, Sinbad, Shrek 2, all great. Sharktail and Madagascar, whilst I enjoyed them at the time, they don't age that well, I don't think. Madagascar more so, but Sharktail I think is rubbish now when I rewatched it. I don't think even at the time, Sharktail was gonna age this fuck.
00:27:10
Speaker
I mean, who ever thought in that studio they turned around and they said, so you know that mocap technology that they've got going on? Yeah, what if we use Walt Smith's face and slap it on a fish? And someone had to green like that, you know, say, let's go ahead with Walt Smith's face on a fish. But sorry, sorry for reintroducing a lot of nightmares for the lovely listeners at home there.
00:27:32
Speaker
No, I think that's probably okay. We have, like, Walsongromit, Curse of the Werer Rabbit, which I personally was not a big fan of. Walsongromit, for me, I kind of go back and forth on my enjoyment of it. It was very critically well received, Curse of the Werer Rabbit, and there were certainly elements that I liked, but I find it quite a boring film, to be honest. I totally agree with that. I think that it's too long. I don't know if that sounds weird, but the way that the old Walsongromit shorts worked, I think they were about maybe 30 to 45 minutes.
00:27:58
Speaker
That sounds about right. Yeah, they weren't like feature length films. So when they had their first feature length film, you're like, it's okay and everything. It had interesting ideas, but I don't think it worked personally. I think the one that came after that, A Matter of Open Death, was absolutely brilliant. But again, it's like trying to fit that into the mold of
00:28:21
Speaker
feature win for one, which don't worry, that'll be for Wallace and Gromit month. It'll be a fun one to do, actually. Then we have Over the Hedge, which I actually watched again recently for the first time after like probably about 10 plus years of not having seen it. It's a fun movie, like it works. There's elements of it that's quite, quite good. Flashed Away, as I already said, I despised that movie, I thought it was dreadful. Shrek the Third was where like it was a real kind of negative turn on the Shrek movies after the first two were very fun. I really don't like Shrek the Third. I don't know what your thoughts on that one.
00:28:51
Speaker
Oh, I hate it. I actually think this is horrific because, and again, I know we'll get on to Shrek. As the Shrek goes forth, the fourth Shrek film. The first two, I love the first film. Although some animation elements haven't aged well, I still think it's a good film and I think it's just such a great touchstone of the time of animation and things like that.
00:29:14
Speaker
I know it's a meme to hell and back now so it's kind of hard to look at it in a serious way without people going, oh it's all over now. I don't think it was ever meant to be reviewed in a serious way to be honest though. No no, it's a children's animation. If I put on my anime glasses here I was like, well actually the significance of Drake. But
00:29:33
Speaker
you know at the same time it was like the kind of counter Disney films, they were straight too. And both of them are very entertaining films that are like great to watch and then you get to check the third and it just becomes a parody of itself. It almost feels like one long SNL sketch where it's just like oh look he goes to high school and everything and oh it's so funny because they're taking Murr and a
00:29:57
Speaker
It's like some weird reference in a carriage or something. You know, it's just, it's not good. It's just, it's not a good problem at all. But yeah, totally agree. We then move on to B-movie, which speaking of memes is interesting in itself. I'm kind of all over the place about B-movie because there are elements of it that it's quite fun. Like it's a cute idea that some of the jokes are quite fun, but as a whole, it's not a good movie. You've clearly not answered one very important question here, which is, do you like jazz? Particularly a bit.
00:30:26
Speaker
So sorry, you were saying. Yeah, so we then go on to Kung Fu Panda, which I know is a personal favourite of yours and is something that I really enjoy as well, where we kind of have another start of a franchise. Here we've had the direct films kind of have two and three already. And we've had the first of both Madagascar and now we're kind of moving on to the kind of the Kung Fu Panda series, which I understand the fourth one's actually coming out in the near future. So there's gonna be four of those ones.
00:30:52
Speaker
Kung Fu Panda 1 and Kung Fu Panda 2, I really enjoy. I think both of them are fantastic. I've not seen the third one, so I can't discuss that one, but I would happily put just from the first two, I'd happily put out my top 10 Dreamworks films. I think it's wonderful. I would completely echo that. Kung Fu Panda is one of these surprise favourites for me, because the way I actually was introduced to this film, I
00:31:15
Speaker
cared a bit Kung Fu Panda, but I think I was just at that age where I was like, okay, Kung Fu Panda. Look, it's a fighting panda. You know, I was an 80s teenager. What can I say? You know, I wasn't really into it. I was like, okay, great, Kung Fu Panda. So I remember for some reason, and this is genuinely true, for one year, I think it was either for my birthday or for Christmas, I had got a... And I don't know if you remember this model, Andrew, but do you remember the old iPod? I think it was Nanos?
00:31:44
Speaker
Yes, I do remember the nano. So they had the small screen, so anyone who doesn't know, they had that and they had the scroll wheel. It was like you couldn't go up and down with it. You had to scroll your finger around the circle and then press the middle button to confirm. It was like a rotary phone walkman. That's exactly what it was. Yeah, but they had it in all different colours and at the time, you know, oh, this was cutting-edge technology, this was great. And I remember I
00:32:08
Speaker
my brother had got the film on the iPod. And I remember watching it thinking, right, Kung Fu Panda, I wonder what this is going to be about. And I absolutely fell in love with it. It was just such a shock about how good this film was because a lot of people say that they go, oh, Kung Fu Panda, how is that a good film? And you watch it and they tackle a lot of very serious themes about identity and
00:32:34
Speaker
and belonging and trying to better yourself. It is actually a really good film. I would go as far to say this is probably my favourite trilogy of Dreamworks as a whole. Shrek, the first two Shreks are good. I will say this, the first two Shreks are really good, but then the three and four just let it down.
00:32:54
Speaker
the third one was good, or the fourth one was a bit better than the end, I would probably put it up there, but the second one as well, and I will get onto it, but the second one is absolutely fantastic as well. And I actually watched the third one the other day. It's not as good as the other two, but you know what, for what it is, it's like really, again, it's interesting, the animation's beautiful, and I've never really felt disappointed with these kind of films.
00:33:18
Speaker
I would so heartedly say this is one of the best films and it always gets better from there because I think two years later I think we get the How to Train Your Dragon series. Yes, we have the second Madagascar movie which drizzled and Monsters vs. Aliens which I loved at the time and my partner still really likes Monsters vs. Aliens as far as I'm aware but
00:33:40
Speaker
rewatching it more recently, I realized like that's it's not a good movie. But then we do get How to Train Your Dragon, which How to Train Your Dragon is very important to me for many, many reasons. It was the moment I think where I truly appreciate animation that I was able to kind of distinguish like, wow, this looks beautiful.
00:33:57
Speaker
And when you look at it in comparison to more modern films of its type, you kind of like, oh, it looks a bit awkward now. Like if you look at it compared to even the second or third, Hey, Train Your Dragon and other movies that later came out, it does look a little bit awkward in its animation. But at the time, it was so beautiful that I just was completely blown away with it. It's also very important to me because it was the icebreaker I had with my current partner for us to like the first conversation we ever had was about how to train a dragon.
00:34:26
Speaker
I knew she enjoyed animated movies. And so I proposed the question of, okay, so like what kind of animated movies do you like? Are you like a hydrogen, a dragon person or like a minions kind of person? What a question. So I wanted to try and kind of find out what the bar was there. And she immediately responded.
00:34:42
Speaker
to me saying like, Oh my god, how to change dragon is my absolute favorite movie. I love it so much. If I suggested any other movie, it might not have progressed the conversation in a way to where we are now. But that movie is what was partly responsible for the relationship we have now. And so I'm so grateful for it for how wonderful of a movie it was. And by fate, it kind of bringing me and my partner together. So it's held a very kind of special place for me and for my partner.
00:35:08
Speaker
I can just imagine if he had suggested Shrek, though. I don't think it would have had the same emotional resonance. Yeah, I might have struggled to kind of keep the conversation going if that was the case. Well, I mean that and trying to hide rings within onions. Yeah, exactly. I was crying because of the onions. But actually speaking of onions, and apologies, that wasn't an intentional segue, by the way. First of all, sorry, that was a beautiful story. After that, we get a less than beautiful story with Shrek forever after, which
00:35:36
Speaker
In fact, I've actually got a funny story about this, and I think it was probably just shy. I think it was just a couple of weeks after my 18th birthday, and long story short, I was very violently ill. Not because of Shrike or anything, but I was violently ill coming back from holiday. I wouldn't have blamed you.
00:35:57
Speaker
I was just lying in bed being like oh god and my brother very nicely said oh we should go to the IMAX and go see a film when it was better and like a couple of days later after I was feeling a bit better we actually went to see Shrek for another after and don't get me wrong I don't think it's the best and the
00:36:14
Speaker
quadrology of Shrek albums but because of that reason they've got like a very soft spot for that album because that was a album that we went to see and you know it kind of felt a bit better and everything and again it's like it's not the best album but I feel as if it's a decent enough conclusion but then again they're bringing out like a fifth Shrek or a Shrek reboot or something which I don't know we'll get onto in a minute but but what were your thoughts?
00:36:38
Speaker
I'm not confident I ever actually watched the fourth Shrek film all the way through. I've seen bits of it and I kind of know the story of it. I know that like Ruppelstiltskin makes it so that Shrek doesn't exist, like a world where Shrek doesn't exist or something. And there's a whole like badass Ogre Legion led by Fiona. And that's kind of like all I really know about it.
00:36:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's all you need to know. Oh, funny enough, this is me brushing up my Shrek lore here, but apparently I think it's a third film or it's one of the other films where they actually introduce Rumpelstiltskin, but not as the character they would be in Shrek forever after. It's like some random guy who's just like, oh hey, I'm Rumpelstiltskin. I hope someone got fired for that blunder. I hope someone got fired for that blunder.
00:37:25
Speaker
But speaking of Megamind's clever segue, yeah, the next film after that was actually Megamind. Yeah, an interesting one. It came out around the same time, at least a very similar time to Illumination's Despicable Me, which both films focus on the bad guy redeeming himself and becoming
00:37:43
Speaker
was more like an anti-hero, I guess. And so it was interesting kind of seeing the reception to both of those that Despicable Me kind of got a lot more attention. It was much more of a box office success than Megamind. But of the two, I'd say I prefer Megamind. Yeah, that's actually a good point that Megamind and Despicable Me are both
00:38:01
Speaker
about super villains, which I never actually made the connection until there. It's like I'm a mental moment, I'm like oh my god. I mean they're both obviously different, like Megamind is more fantastical in their elements, you know it's more like the supermans versus aliens and kind of things like that whereas Despicable Me. I've still got a soft spot for Despicable Me, I really like Despicable Me, but yeah I feel as if Megamind's really underrated to be fair.
00:38:26
Speaker
like I don't think I mean you and I of course we had a mutual friend in university that we tried or rather you tried to show this for him too and I don't think he was really into it was it? No he didn't seem to like it very much there was that and something else we tried to show him and he just didn't like either of them.
00:38:42
Speaker
Yeah, Attack on Titan. That was the other one. Because he was like, this is terrifying. I think he was a bit drunk at the time. Yeah, he had been drinking, which probably didn't help the situation of Attack on Titan. But yeah, he didn't seem to be a fan of Megamind, unfortunately. Yeah, which is a shame because it does have a lot of funny jokes and everything. And it's not, again, it's not maybe the best of Dreamworks, but it's certainly not the worst. It's certainly above Shark Tail, for God's sake, and things like that.
00:39:07
Speaker
Yeah, oh, I just remembered something I was going to say, just about High Train Your Dragon quickly that it came out around the same time that Toy Story 3 did. And Toy Story 3 won the best animated picture at the Oscars that year. I was so mad because that was like one of the first times I felt like a real injustice had been made there because like it was something I was like invested in the film that I knew was incredible. So good. Like Toy Story 3 is a fun film, but I thought that High Train Your Dragon was much more interesting film. So I was annoyed when that happened. Well, funny enough,
00:39:35
Speaker
I think they're making a Toy Story 5 now. I don't know where they're gonna go with that, to be honest. I say that as I'm like, oh, they're making, you know, as you said, oh, they're making a Kung Fu Panda 4 and the Shrek reboot and things. And yeah, but speaking of like Kung Fu Panda again, yeah, you've got Kung Fu Panda 2 which came out in 2011. And then another film which I'm quite curious to hear if you've watched it, that of course being Puss in Boots.
00:40:00
Speaker
So I've not seen the first person boots, but I have seen the most recent one. So I looked, I looked into this a little bit. So I was like, Oh, do I need to watch the first one before I watch the second one? I found out that I don't. And I found out that the first person boots movie is like a prequel to Shrek films. Whereas the most recent one, The Last Wish, which was nominated for an Oscar, and I personally think it probably should have won said Oscar that took place after the events of the Shrek films that thus far come out.
00:40:29
Speaker
So they're very much separated in their stories. And I didn't really hear much good about Puss in Boots. I didn't really hear anything about it. I haven't heard good or bad, which is often much worse that there's no one talked about it. I actually did watch Puss in Boots a couple of months ago. I think it was because The Last Wish was coming out and this was free on UK Netflix. So I was like, oh, get my free quotation marks. But I was like, oh,
00:40:55
Speaker
OK, I'll check it out, see how bad it is because it's heard bad things about it, but I thought surely it can't be that bad. It's OK. Ironically enough, I haven't seen the last wish yet, but I have heard amazing things about that. It does seem as if they are going in a very particular direction, and I'm really happy for them. But for Puss in Boots, it is literally just Puss in Boots going back and discovering his roots with the Humpty Dumpty
00:41:20
Speaker
of all people, I'm gonna be honest, see the next couple of films, they are not that memorable. I mean, you've got Madagascar 3, you've got Rise of the Guardians, which I have to say Rise of the Guardians seems to have like a cult following. I quite like it, and my partner really likes it, partly because she has a bit of a crush on the main character. That seems to be the consensus, yeah.
00:41:43
Speaker
I'm like, it's a decent film, to be honest. And it's based on a book series, which I actually have a bunch of, because I was quite interested in kind of learning more. I haven't dived into that yet. But yeah, it was a book series by William Joyce, which this film is based off of. And so it seems like an interesting kind of world that I'd quite like to kind of explore more. But I do understand some people not finding it particularly interesting, because when it first came out, I wasn't really interested
00:42:04
Speaker
in it, which again we then have a bit of a couple of poopers for me I'd say in The Croods and Turbo. I had no interest in Turbo and I've seen bits of The Croods and just didn't really enjoy it so I can't really give much thought to that. Have you seen either of these films? All I know is Nicholas Cage apparently was in The Croods and the only reason I know that is because I watched the recent Nicholas Cage film, you know the one where he plays himself.
00:42:27
Speaker
There's these two CIA agents who recognise him as Nicholas Cage, and one of them recognises him as the guy from The Croods. And the other guy's like, The Croods? Of course I've not seen The Croods. I'm like 40 years old. I recognise him from Colin Ayer. That's quite funny. That's good. I want to upset film.
Highlight: 'How to Train Your Dragon 2' Excellence
00:42:45
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, so good.
00:42:46
Speaker
And then we have a film that you and I watched together. I remember us enjoying it was Mr. Peabody in Sherman. That was a fun one. I have not included my top 10 Dreamworks films, but I didn't, I was kind of back and forth on that and another one. In my top 10, I did kind of just kind of condense series. So I wouldn't have to list each one individually, which then brings us on to How to Train a Dragon 2, which is gorgeous.
00:43:06
Speaker
It is a beautiful film. It's a film that makes you cry. It's a film that is interesting and it's in its story and like it's expanding its previously kind of established universe. The music score as we haven't really touched on that, we will a little bit more later, but the music score by John Powell is brilliant. I think that they managed to take what was so fun and interesting and beautiful about the first film and managed to expand on it in the second one. So that was really, really impressive. I really enjoyed that. And then we followed that up. Sorry, have you seen How to Trade Dragon 2?
00:43:33
Speaker
Yeah, well bits and pieces. I do need to like sit down and just watch them all through. I'll probably include it in Dreamworks Month when we get round to it because I mean there's so much we could talk about but How to Train Your Dragon there's definitely a series that I do agree it does deserve to be talked about because I know I kind of didn't touch on that very much before but with films like Kung Fu Panda the animation does get a lot better and I feel as if
00:43:59
Speaker
the best animation in particular is with the second one as well, funny enough, but it just is springboard from something like Kung Fu Panda onto How to Train Your Dragon and the How to Train Your Dragon series, I completely agree. It does look absolutely gorgeous when you've got those sweeping shots of them going over the ocean and things like that, so no, I completely agree with you there. It is like a very visually stunning film on top of being a good film overall,
00:44:25
Speaker
We are then back on track with a couple more disappointing ones. I say that, again, I have not seen either of these two films. Penguins of Madagascar and Home. Have you seen either of these films? No. And I'm going to be honest, I am not a big fan of The Penguins of Madagascar. No. I have relatives who decided that the height of comedy was to quote the smiling wave. You know, when they say smiling wave, always smiling wave.
00:44:51
Speaker
I was guilty of quoting that when I was younger as well. It's okay when you quote it once or twice, you know, but this was constant. This was like a constant stream. So, you know, in games like Black Ops where they've got the conditioning that sends their brain back to a time where they're like, oh my God, what's going on? Yeah, that's my trigger phrase. How's me going? Oh my God, I don't want to go back. The Manchurian candidate from Penguin, Madagascar. I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to go back and watch it. Yeah, I'm going to be honest though, I haven't seen it.
00:45:21
Speaker
haven't seen Home. I've heard okay things about them. I've heard nothing about Home. There's no Rianna's in it and the guy that plays Sheldon, whose name I'm forgetting. No, yeah. I think that's kind of the pinnacle of an okay film, you know, if you don't hear anything about it. It's like it's not bad because people would be moaning about it, but neither is it. Good, yeah. Because, I mean, after that you get Kung Fu Panda 3, which
00:45:44
Speaker
as far as I know was received well and again I've only watched that recently and I liked it but it was a great film but I still have to watch it I've not seen it I would recommend it it is actually a lot of fun but then after that though we've got trolls I've actually seen trolls I watched it last summer because my nieces really love it and so they had it on and so like that was my first experience of it and it was
00:46:07
Speaker
was okay. It was just kind of one of those young kid kind of movies. It's kind of like everything's filled with songs and modern pop songs or say modern, just general kind of pop songs. Yeah, because it's Justin Timberlake, I think. Is he not like the main troll? Yeah, maybe just Timberlake and Anna Kendrick, maybe?
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think you're right. It's a strange mix, but I remember the song. Oh god, I can't remember the name of it back in. Remember the actual melody for it, where it's like you're in the main song in Trolls that they sing when they free everyone. I don't remember it, to be honest. It's just because I remember at the time I'd started a new job and I was in this room where they had the radio on.
00:46:45
Speaker
constantly. And that song was going every single hour. And I was like, oh my god. It's a good song, but after the fifth time of hearing it in the day, you're like, okay, this is getting ridiculous. But after that, though, speaking of ridiculous, you've got the boss, baby.
00:47:01
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen it now. I've watched it in its entirety. It's not as bad as you'd think it'd be, but it's not a good movie. I did not enjoy watching it. I will not watch it again. It's like I retell one of the Rugrats, but not as endearing. Not sure about that, but... Yeah, I know. I know that's an insult to Rugrats, but it's okay. Yeah, it's another one of these films that... It's a film that, again, I don't want to say this like for both, maybe, but it's a film that just won't go away.
00:47:27
Speaker
You know, it's one of these songs that, although it happened, you think, haha, Boss Baby, whatever will they think of next? And then they bring out a sequel in spin-off shows. It is okay. But I mean, then the next couple, you've got Captain Underpants, which I haven't seen yet. I've got no attachment. I knew about Captain Underpants growing up.
00:47:47
Speaker
But I was of the age to be reading Captain Underpants, but it just never interested me. And so like, I don't have that kind of nostalgia for it enough to watch that. But yeah, we then move on to the third and final How to Train Your Dragon movie, which it's not as good as the first two, I would say, but it does wrap up the story nicely. And
00:48:05
Speaker
There were many tears in the theatre when I went to see it with my partner, her sister, and generally in a theatre there were lots of tears being shed. Just because of how important the franchise was to my partner and I and also her sister, her sister for different reasons. We were all an absolute mess coming out and my partner works with children and happened to be some of the children she works with in the cinema and so they just like turned towards the end when the lights went up and they saw my partner just absolutely falling with tears.
00:48:32
Speaker
Yeah, no, I can see that though. But see after that though. This seems to be the worst turn for Dreamworks. I mean, I don't know what you're talking about, the Krits and New Age was just like a cinematic masterpiece. But yeah, going back, you've got
00:48:49
Speaker
Yeah, Bombin' the Ball, Trolls World Tour, The Croutes again, and Spirit Untamed, and The Boss baby. I'm gonna be honest, I have seen none of these, and I don't know whether they're decent. They probably are decent enough, but I mean have you seen any of them?
00:49:04
Speaker
Now, Spare On Tamed, I watched a bit of the TV series. I watched like the first episode and it was really awful. And like it wasn't the same spirit as the original movie. So I'm not going to really invest myself in this. So I didn't even know a movie had come out to be honest. But yeah, I was very, very underwhelmed by that one. But the final two of the most recent three most films to have come out, The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots The Last Wish.
00:49:28
Speaker
I have seen both of these films. I watched The Bad Guys actually on a plane journey and then Puss in Boots I watched recently and kind of build up to the Oscars. The Bad Guys is a good movie. I think honestly, it's a fun movie. It's not dissimilar to a mega mind kind of thing of you're sort of seeing someone who's always thought of and traditionally was like the villain having like kind of a turn and sort of becoming that that hero character.
00:49:50
Speaker
It's done in a fun kind of way where the world is kind of a hybrid of humans and animals that kind of interact with each other. And like the bad guys are all just different animals. It's a fun movie and I recommend checking it out if you've not seen it. Have you watched that one? No, but I have heard a lot about it. This is something I was talking about earlier when I was talking about the shift in animation style. Because I feel as if, and you'll be able to be more of an authority than I am on this, but I feel as if the bad guys and the last wish
00:50:18
Speaker
seem to be animated quite similar, just the way they move and everything. And I feel as if, you know, from a technical level, you know, I don't know if there is differences and I'm gonna get animation students kicking down my door tonight, but I do feel as if it's a very similar way that they're probably gonna adopt that style moving forward. Obviously not for everything, but it does seem quite interesting that's the way they're going with it.
00:50:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's very reminiscent of Sony Pictures sort of animation style when you saw Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse. More so Puss in Boots, I'd say, than the bad guys, but the bad guys does have that kind of look to it. It's very interesting how they're animated. More so, again, Puss in Boots. I think the animation is gorgeous.
00:51:01
Speaker
And it's not, it's not like they brought in like a new animation studio to work on these films. Like it's still DWA Greendale working on Person Boots and the kind of a combination of DW Greendale and Jellyfish Pictures. So Jellyfish Pictures is kind of a more recent studio that they started working with as well. And so kind of a combination of DW Greendale and Jellyfish Pictures working on these movies. So I guess that may be the influence that this new studio Jellyfish Pictures is having an influence, but Person Boots was not done by them. So it's curious why they kind of taken that stance of
00:51:30
Speaker
moving into that style of animation. I'm not complaining, I'd be interested to see more done in that kind of style because I think it is very, very beautiful. So I'm interested to see where we go from here with that. I do recommend both those films to watch, just kind of round out the Dreamworks movies.
DreamWorks' Surprising Depth
00:51:42
Speaker
I feel as if you could characterise Dreamworks overall, and this is kind of a summary point here, but I feel as if you
00:51:49
Speaker
could characterise Dreamworks as the don't judge a book by its cover company in the sense that there are a lot of films that they produce and you would think, oh how to train your dragon, Kung Fu Panda, Shrek or these all look good at all and then by the time you get to the end of them, especially with, I know I keep going back to Puss in Boots but it's
00:52:12
Speaker
especially for that because so many people are raving about it and saying, oh, it's a fantastic film. And it's weird to see that because especially with, as I said, Shrek is very much a massive meme at this point. You know, everybody knows the lines of put the shitpost online and everything. So you think, well, how can this be any better than, you know, what's preceded it?
00:52:33
Speaker
And the fact that it's got such critical acclaim, so much so that it got nominated for the Oscars, for good sake, next to another film that you and I talked about a couple of weeks ago, The Seabeast. But the fact that that was getting nominated and the fact that there was a lot of films that I would go as far to say are practically classics like children's classics that people still look back on today and like fond memories of.
00:52:59
Speaker
you know, I wouldn't say maybe to the same extent as Disney. I feel as if Disney still has their towns over childhood and memories and things like that, but no, I definitely think that they are definitely a don't judge a book by its cover company, but at the same time there are
00:53:17
Speaker
couple that do fall flat, like as we were saying, the turbos and the, oh god, the shark tails. But going back to yourself though, how would you summarise Dreamworks as a company, you know, from a viewer perspective? I think they are an animation studio that is much more willing to take chances, take risks than Disney is.
00:53:37
Speaker
I think they kind of are often trailblazers in animation. The 3D animation that we saw in Shrek, in Shark Tale even, and then kind of progressing into kind of later movies is a variation of it is kind of the standard now within Disney animation and Disney animation at large.
00:53:55
Speaker
The success of those films was almost a nail in the coffin of traditional 2D animation. And so I think they're very influential in the animation world for that. You kind of saw a huge impact from films like How to Change a Dragon in how other studios were presenting their animation. In addition to that, like what we've not really touched much on is music. Disney is very well known for their beautiful music scores, particularly I would say more so with songs.
00:54:22
Speaker
I think there are some wonderful scores in Disney of just kind of like orchestral background music. But in my opinion, I think the Dreamworks often has them beat. They have their go tos. Dreamworks, they have Hans Zimmer, John Powell, and Terry Gregson Williams, the three either on their own or kind of a combination of them working together.
00:54:40
Speaker
And then in like the early days of DreamWorks, you had kind of guest songwriters, composers kind of working with them, like Steven Schwartz, who is best known for sort of writing a lot of the music and Wicked wrote the music for Prince of Egypt. And you had Elton John working on Rotel Dorado, you had Brian Adams working on Spirit, but for the most part, you don't really have much songwriting.
00:55:02
Speaker
in DreamWorks movies, it's mostly just about the score behind the movie. And the work of John Powell did on How to Change a Dragon is gorgeous. You had John Powell also working on Chicken Run, which had some wonderful Great Escape inspired music. You had some great East Asian inspired music with Hans Zimmer and John Powell in the Kung Fu Panda films. And I think it's just a wonderful music score that you're getting from these movies.
00:55:25
Speaker
No, I completely agree with you. I sound like a broken record to you but genuinely the music is absolutely beautiful in these films and it is amazing how much talent is behind them. Again, I know I'm saying that when people like Jeffrey Katzenberg and
00:55:41
Speaker
Steven Spielberg especially, they're like some of the minds behind the initial inception of Dreamworks. But the fact that they've got so many people like, as you said, John Powell, Hans Zimmer, even Elton John, because I remember a couple of years ago re-watching The Road to El Dorado. In fact,
00:55:57
Speaker
think it might have been during the 2020 lockdown and oh my goodness I just remember listening to the music and not watching it for years and I was like oh that sounds an awful lot like Elton John and then I was like oh my god that is Elton John.
00:56:13
Speaker
I completely agree. The music, although obviously there's some exceptions, like when they overuse the pop songs and things like that, especially with Shrek, some of it's good. Like the second film, you've got your I Need A Hero and things, but that's more lifting it from pop culture and pop songs. It's not the original music, but you're completely right. Like the music for How To Train Your Dragon, Eastern Influence music for Kung Fu Panda. It's so beautiful.
00:56:43
Speaker
I know there's a one particular song you like in Spirit if I'm remembering correctly. There are as many songs I love in Spirit. I'm a big fan of Brian Adams' music in Spirit, but get off my back, which is the moment in the film where these cowboys are trying to tame the horse and make it sort of able to ride and it keeps kicking them off essentially. That is such a fun song, but you also have some absolutely brilliant ones. You have
00:57:07
Speaker
things like Here I Am, which was this kind of theme song for the film, which was kind of written by Brian Adams, Gretchen Peters and Hans Zimmer together is so, so just beautiful. Like it's really, really interesting. And there's a couple of songs which I think are stronger than others. But honestly, that film's soundtrack is so, so good that I purchased it. I thought it was absolutely wonderful that I had to have it.
00:57:29
Speaker
I didn't really get too much into it, but that is one of my main comfort Dreamworks movies, referenced a little bit earlier that I have these kind of comfort Dreamworks films. Whenever I'm feeling not very well, Spirit is one of the main films I'll put on just as like a relaxing kind of film that I'm so familiar with. There's no lines of dialogue or other, there's not very many lines of dialogue, and they're able to kind of represent so much with
00:57:51
Speaker
so little dialogue, which I thought was so interesting. What was sad that I saw was that it was very poorly received critically and like it was absolutely a box office bomb. So it's interesting then that they had these like spirit untamed and all these other things like 20 years later almost, considering it was not very well received, but it's one of my absolute favourites. One more film that I feel would be criminal to actually miss before we wrap up is The Prince of Egypt. They scored on that as I would probably put it on top just purely because
00:58:20
Speaker
And again, you were saying the songs were written or influenced anyway, or they were worked on by Steven Schwartz, so it's very much a musical feel. You know, the whole thing is a musical because you've got the dialogue and then you've got the big embossed songs, you've got the plague song, you're playing with the big boys now as you said, when you believe you've just got so many beautiful and emotional songs.
00:58:47
Speaker
bringing in Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey for When You Believe was just wonderful. It's such a beautiful, beautiful song. We definitely need to do an episode on The Prince of Egypt. I know I've said that before, but it is such an emotive film and it's just everything slots into place perfectly. And it just shows how competent Dreamworks can be, you know, with the music, with the animation. Well, they've got the celebrities, that's the whole thing. Most of them do a good job, but there's rather two you can
00:59:17
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's Jeff Goldblum, he's one of the slaves. Jokes aside, no offence to Jeff Goldblum, for all he honies and that's a joke, that's where to go. Yeah, no, it's absolutely beautiful.
Hits and Misses: DreamWorks' Filmography
00:59:27
Speaker
And I do think that this is what I was saying, this will be my final point, but I do believe that when Dreamworks get it right, they get it right.
00:59:35
Speaker
The Prince of Egypt with Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon. When they get these right, they knock it out of the park. They are some of the best that could rival or even surpass Disney, but like many other animation studios, absolutely. Especially with Disney, Disney have their bunch of stinkers, but especially with Disney, you've got these films that
00:59:56
Speaker
probably don't live up to the reputation. You've got your boss babies, your crudes, your, I don't know, homes, your shark tails, as I said before, but what are your final thoughts though? Yeah, I think Dreamworks has more of a mix, I'd say, of good films than Disney does. I think Disney is more consistent generally in its film quality, but Dreamworks has some films that has knocked out of the park so well that it rises to be on par for me with Disney.
01:00:25
Speaker
Yeah and that is like quite a weird thing to think about because obviously you and I grew up with the I mean not seeing it in cinemas for some of them but with the Disney Renaissance albums that had come out and moving on to like the early 2000s albums and the fact that a company, not that it came out of nowhere because obviously Jeffrey Katzenberg did work for Disney initially and then he moved on to Dreamworks and
01:00:52
Speaker
established basically a whole legacy of these absolutely amazing animated films, whether they were produced through Dreamworks, whether they were made through them. I feel as if he's done a fantastic job, but yeah, no, I see what you mean. It'll be interesting to see where they go from here, especially with Puss in Boots, whether they're gonna go the Disney route and bank on nostalgia. I know they're obviously not gonna go for the Prince of Egypt, like the Princes of Egypt,
01:01:42
Speaker
this time it's personal.
01:01:48
Speaker
wow that's amazing, what a great film. What happened next? Here's a strap. Yeah so it turns out that Moses went away, he chipped away at the Ten Commandments, he like made them out and then when they came back I think the Jewish people who came with them got so restless that they decided to build a, I think it was like a golden calf
01:02:10
Speaker
or something like that. Why? I don't know. It was something to do with they wanted crops or something. They wanted wealth and fertility. They were desperate and obviously they were in the middle of the desert. So he came out and he looked at these guys and he's like, what the bloody hell are you doing? And he actually smashes the tablets to the extent that he has to go up again and chip a bunch of new tablets. So it's probably good that they ended the film there. That's not what I'm saying.
01:02:37
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much. That would be a bit of a downer, to be fair. But then again, there's a lot of down moments in that film. And in that book. Well, yeah, true. Yeah, spoilers. Yeah, before we end the episode, first of all, Andrew, thank you so much for talking about this particular studio and, yeah, wax and pinnacle about your nostalgic memories on this.
01:02:57
Speaker
Thank you for having me, I was really looking forward to chatting about this and it was a good discussion that we had. Hopefully we'll be able to talk some more about DreamWorks films in more depth and maybe we'll do like a tier list or something sometime. But as we go away and definitely prepare for that episode, where can the lovely listeners at home find your particular content?
01:03:16
Speaker
Oh, I thought you'd never ask. You can find me on Twitter at GreenShield95. I do have a Twitch channel, also GreenShield95. I don't really use it much though, so you can mostly just find me here on the Chat Tsunami podcast. And also you'll be able to soon find us, hopefully, on the Let's Play channel, which we'll be working on pretty soon.
01:03:34
Speaker
So yeah, if you haven't checked out our Twitter at ChatsunamiPod, we have indeed launched a new Let's Play channel called Chatsu Plays where you'll be able to see Andrew and I and Adam and really a lot of friends of the channel go through certain games and
01:03:50
Speaker
Yeah, we will be getting into a lot of hygiene, so keep your eyes peeled for any future episodes there. If you want to check out our other episodes on Chat Tsunami, you can check us out on, of course, all good broadcast apps, but you can also check us out on our website, podpage.com.
01:04:08
Speaker
and we'll see you there. Last but not least, we of course have to thank our wonderful patrons, Robotic Battles hosting Sonya. Thank you so much for supporting the channel. But if you would like to become a Pandolorean patron, then you can join up at patreon.com forward slash chat tsunami and yeah, you'll be able to get some really cool exclusive content.
01:04:30
Speaker
But until then, thank you all so, so much for listening. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.