Hacker Cinema
Zootopia
2016 · Film · 109 min
Part of Zootopia Collection
Directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore
AnimationAdventureFamilyComedy
Determined to prove herself, Officer Judy Hopps, the first bunny on Zootopia's police force, jumps at the chance to crack her first case - even if it means partnering with scam-artist fox Nick Wilde to solve the mystery.
11 positive3 negative2 mixed28 neutralfrom 44 commenters
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51 comments on Hacker News
We watch the Big Bear eagle camera. (I should say it plays in the background.)
And some of the fun of it is listening to just the "nature" sounds, mostly birds. But, specifically, the coyotes. We have a snippet of them going for I think 5-10 minutes, just non stop yipping and howling. A small pack of them out there, somewhere, in the forest. It's like a scene out of the movie "Zootopia".
Every single Hollywood movie has authoritarian apologia, you don't have to go to Christopher Nolan or Forrest Gump. The most recent example is One battle after another.
"Wait, There’s Torture in Zootopia?" DOI:10.1017/S1537592719005012
> I would always describe Overwatch (to take a gaming example) and Zootopia as "simple" graphics.
I think an art director would describe them as "readable". When there's a lot of detail and quick motion, it's important that the audience can very quickly recognize what they're looking at and what's happen. Otherwise, it just turns into a big jumble of chaos that the viewer can't follow, like in Michael Bay's Transformer movies.
A big part of the art of movie making is telegraphic a sense of rich realism and complexity while still having everything clearly visually parsable. Doing that when cuts and action are fast is quite difficult.
Doing it well affects every level of the production: the colors assigned to characters so they are separated from the background, wardrobe choices to also keep characters distinct, lighting, set design, texture, animation, focus, the way the camera moves. It all works together to produce one coherent readable scene.
Yeah, I often cite Big Hero 6 (from 2014) as the place where as an animation fan I felt Hyperion (Disney's renderer) very visibly in the end product out-paced Renderman (Pixar's more mature renderer). Big Hero 6's wide shots get truly wide and the scale of its San Fransokyo is almost palpable in many sequences, showing off especially Hyperion's focus on being able to do dynamic crowd work and large crowd scenes and plenty of architecture surrounding that. (Zootopia in 2016 further cemented that Hyperion was great at crowd work.) It was one of my complaints with Pixar's Soul in 2020 that its New Orleans felt almost claustrophobic and isolated, no truly wide establishing shots, no real crowds to speak of, mostly just shots of one or two characters in close up on city streets that in the real world New Orleans would be bustling and busy. Real New Orleans has a different kind of claustrophia from big crowds and never feels isolating or as lonely. Some of that may have been the intended vibe for that particular movie, but some of that seems technical at this point from the different focuses Hyperion and Renderman have been given and how much I think Hyperion shows technical improvement and mastery of somethings that Renderman cannot seem to do.
It somewhat suggests that Disney is correct in having the two studios compete in renderers rather than share one (even as they unify other parts of the process, such as this article mentions moving to Pixar's Presto tool as one of the things that happened in Zootopia 2's production).
For me it's also the style of animation.
For some reason, if I don't think about it, instinctual I would always describe Overwatch (to take a gaming example) and Zootopia as "simple" graphics. My mind recalls big swathes of primary colours in relatively flat yet cheerful lighting, rounded/smoothed shapes, relatively little complex texturing or surface detail.
It's when I pause overwatch that I start realizing 1. how much detail there is, and 2. How quickly and flawlessly it's rendered on relatively slow computers. And then I start truly appreciating the relentless optimizing work to make it "seem simple and fast" :).
Same thing with Zootopia - I've enjoyed the movies (doesn't hurt that I have two young kids), but they would not come to mind if I were asked to name breakthrough or particularly well animated movies. Yet the detail and work is clearly there once you pause and examine :)
> Some shows and movies seem harmless, initially, but then we noticed in so many kids movies (e.g., Zootopia, Sing), they're always yelling at each other, expressing anger, frustration, and hostility towards one another.
My kids are similar. Years ago I actually just unplugged the TV and put it behind some furniture for 3 months because I was so fed up. It calmed them down a lot (this was after Covid lockdowns, when we'd just given them too much TV) but still - it flares up.
I do think a lot of kids tv is either straight addictive (e.g. Cocomelon) or depicts how kids would like to behave, e.g. in how they talk to adults rudely (e.g. how they talk to the dad in Peppa Pig), or they're always right and the adults are wrong (too may examples to name). Bluey is the saving grace there, as it depicts healthy and respectful relationships, but it's very unusual.
You know, your comment reminds me of something my wife and I were talking about. We have been starting to let our child have a little more screen time and choose what he wants to watch (within the parameters we set).
Some shows and movies seem harmless, initially, but then we noticed in so many kids movies (e.g., Zootopia, Sing), they're always yelling at each other, expressing anger, frustration, and hostility towards one another.
Then we wonder why kids adopt those attitudes. It's simply because mimic what they see. And worse yet, when they see it in movie/show form, they think those attitudes are cool and relatable.
Flow is good filmmaking expressed through low-tech production, which is totally valid, but it doing a lot with a little isn't going to stop Disney from one-upping themselves with the next Zootopia movie so Blender needs to handle that angle too if it's going to become a catch-all solution for all kinds of production.
Article is three years old, and the fungi are not talking to us! I imagine the communication being a bit slow like the scene in the kids animated movie, Zootopia, where sloths work at the DMV..."P....L....E....A....S....E-------" don't tread on me! However, if like German 1 word can cover a whole concept, then 50 words may be sufficient to communicate in a reasonable time scale ;)
I mean, do you want Zootopia, or do you want that weird (strangely enjoyable) Jamie Foxx Netflix movie? Because one might be mundane, but at least you don't have to worry about some guy blowing you across the block with his shrimp powers.
They recently broke YouTube search even more. Go to a channel and do a search within that channel using the search field that is on the far right of the options below the channel information. You may have to click the ">" on the right to make it visible.
What is supposed to happen when you search using that is that it shows you just results for that channel. It still does that for some searches, but for other searches it seems to be doing a normal site wide search.
Whether or not a given search term works correctly seems to be a function of the search term, not a function of the channel being searched.
For example, let's say you are on a channel that reviews movies, and you want to see if they have reviews of some family friendly animated moves.
Search for "zootopia", "trolls", "cars", "coco", "dragon", "stitch", or "panda" and it gives just results from that channel, or tells you the channel has no matching content.
Search for "luca", "soul", "moana", "puss", "megamind", "ratatouille", "rio", "croods", or "lilo" and you get site wide results.
For multi-word searches order matters: "lilo & stitch" gives site wide results and "stitch & lilo" gives results for the channel so it is not the case that certain words trigger the problem.
I assume this is a bug, since I can't see any connection between the words that break out of channel search. They were all movies in my examples, but similar things happen with words from other categories. Example: "soprano", "tenor", "countertenor", "mezzo-soprano", and "bass-baritone" work correctly, and "baritone", "alto", "base", and "contralto" do not.
Staggered how? They have averaged a movie a year for the last 40 years. The Disney live action movies have almost nothing to do with the release schedule of Disney Animation movies, nor have they impacted how many get made. They are completely different studios.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walt_Disney_Animation_Studios_films
Their 3D movies in order are Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, Bolt, Tangled, (Pooh), Wreck it Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Frozen II, Raya, Encanto, Strange Worlds. That’s 15 movies in 17 years, and Princess and the Frog makes 16.
Bolt, Tangled, Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana was an excellent run. (Disney acquired Pixar during production of Meet the Robinsons, and about 60% of the movie was remade, every movie since was produced by Pixar descendants.)
And Tangled is better than Frozen, even if it didn’t have the zeitgeist. (Tangled is the highest rated of any movie I listed on Letterboxd, followed by Big Hero 6, Moana, and Zootopia, so I’m not unique in that opinion. Not sure what the Letterboxd community has against Bolt.) Outside of Chicken Little, there’s really not a bad movie on that list (I haven’t seen Strange World yet.)
If anything, acquiring Pixar doubled their animation output.
Huh?
Disney Animation Studios (not Pixar) has made three movies in the last ten years that are among the highest grossing movies of all time (Frozen, Zootopia, and Frozen II).
In terms of quality, anecdotally two of my personal favorite Disney movies ever were done by them within that timespan as well (Moana and Encanto).
My impression has been that the gap between Disney Animation Studios and Pixar has drastically narrowed.
Disney Animation Studios rarely get a mention next to Pixar, but their 3D films are equally as good. Bolt, Tangled, Wreck-it Ralph, Big Hero 6, Zootopia...
That was my frustration with the discourse around Zootopia when it released—people complained that the predator / prey distinction mapped badly onto US racial issues. But that was just people wanting the movie to be a thing which it wasn't, and then complaining that it didn't work.
Abstract stories about emotions is good though. Soul was a perfectly good movie.
And if you go over to the anime community, the kids are explicitly liking it because of the random emotional tangents (I'm looking at you Demon Slayer).
And a lot of the reason why people liked Puss in Boots: the last wish, was because of the existential crisis the protagonist faces upon confronting his last life.
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I don't think a movie like Elemental would hit very hard after Zootopia locked down the concept near perfectly. It seems ill-timed, we need a few more years to forget Zootopia before giving another rural vs urban different people's city romance with subtle nods to racism story.
I'm actually in the midst of a Reddit argument about what the anime "BNA" is about, which really comes down to the premises of what justifies suspension of disbelief. It's a Studio Trigger show, and they are known for adding in a lot of over the top elements with subtextual justifications that give love-it-or-hate-it reactions.
But with this one, it seems like audiences had no idea how to read the subtext and took it to be "Zootopia racism allegory." So the reading of the rest of the text was completely thrown off and ability to suspend disbelief was lost. Most reviews, even from critics who should have the necessary cultural background, say the writing makes no sense or is contradictory.
The actual subtext is "Modern Japan's History". Which, if you know Trigger shows well, you know they've done before in Kill La Kill. And with this reading, and a little knowledge of the various events, it makes perfect sense what is going on, even if the specifics are pretty tangled: the use of traditional mythical creatures, re-opening to the West, the coming of Christian missionaries, etc. There's a main plot, but it discusses these things mostly in episodic fashion, loosely repurposing various symbolic elements to suit the scene. The way in which this repurposing occurs has a nice way of merging otherwise disparate themes into a tapestry of resemblances. That's the centerpiece of the storytelling, and I think they did a marvelous job of weaving it all together and still maintaining a character-driven surface text in a 12 episode series. It's rewatchable, and you can spot new readings in it each time. Nothing is being wasted in the writing.
But...it's also clearly inaccessible, going by the reviews. Nobody who wanted another Zootopia wants to be told that actually, there was one episode roughly about that, but also ones about disenfranchised war veterans, exploitation of the poor, the influence of cults on politics, etc. The way in which it rushes through all of those things without time to add a lot of "narrative arrows" for every theme ensured that people were never going to follow along well, especially not foreign audiences.
Realism, in the end, comes down to what you believe reality is supposed to be, and that tends to be something an audience older than about 8 years of age is burdened with when they try to experience a story: they can't read it as anything but what they know is normal. So adding magic or magic-indistinguishable technology as a symbolic component - a "wish away the problem" - often does work better than most other strategies of discussing reality. The extra indirection allows profundities to slip into the viewer's mind.
But when the premises are unclear to the audience, magic and other fantastical elements also tends to get the reactions BNA got - "I don't know what this is about, and also, why isn't it doing the thing it is about." And from there the nitpicking about how it's unrealistic or "forced" writing sets in.
> You can look at all the Disney movies for kids: all men are stupid, liars, stealer, and when you hit them it’s funny. On the opposite the feminine is often perfect, manage it all on the first try.
A few counterexamples: Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Zootopia, Raya and the Last Dragon, Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatoullie, Up, The Good Dinosaur, Onward, Soul, and Luca.
I'm sure Disney was disappointed in Lightyear's performance given its marketing push and brand appeal, but I don't think you're listing the movies that are central to Disney's strategy anymore. Ever since COVID, Disney has pretty much banished Pixar to Disney+, not as "premium" releases that cost extra, but just included day one on the service. If they had theater runs, they were limited or international-only. That includes such films as Soul, Luca and Turning Red, whereas Encanto from their other animation company (Walt Disney Animation Studios) got a wide and successful theatrical run. Turning Red's box office returns are irrelevant because of this. However, due in part to people going back to theaters and (largely) to the film's brand recognition, Lightyear became the first Pixar film since 2019 to be given a real theatrical release. And the main reason it bombed was, I believe, because everyone and most importantly families had gotten used to being able to watch those movies on Disney+ for a lot cheaper. Even if that one waited two months to come to the service.
As for Strange World, it was widely observed that Disney didn't give it any marketing push and a majority of people weren't even aware of its existence. To me, the main reason is that Disney doesn't bother to hype up movies that they don't really believe in. Strange World was one such film, a WDAS movie that isn't a fairytale or a musical (and isn't safe from the kind of conservative hate campaigns that Disney tends to avoid). Disney has a long history of letting their studios make films outside of the cookie cutter but release them with little fanfare. They can now easily be written off as Disney+ fodder.
Disney absolutely still relies on their animation studios for blockbusters, but they've noticed which formula works best for each. Pixar is never as successful as when it does sequels. WDAS routinely hits the 1 billion mark when it makes new additions to their fairytale canon, or bombastic musicals (see Encanto's massive success). It's no surprise then that they're now pushing WDAS, a notoriously sequel-adverse studio, into making a third Frozen and a second Zootopia, and that a _fifth_ Toy Story is suddenly in the works at Pixar alongside... Inside Out 2. Any other project is bound to get buried in the release schedule or dumped on Disney+.
So what kind of movies are core to Disney's strategy? Star Wars is on a kind of hiatus and lives on Disney+. We have Marvel of course, which isn't in the healthiest state but still produces frequent hits. Avatar is now a big one. Any animated movie that fits their preferred formula. And of course, the depressing string of live-action remakes which, if they're all quickly forgotten, often hit the 1 billion mark, and I've no doubt that their lifeless Little Mermaid clone will do the same. I think Disney is now suffering from the same "we grew too big, too quick" realization as every other tech and entertainment giant, and they're definitely reeling from a few recent failures, but I wouldn't use Strange World or Turning Red as the poster children of their troubles; they never bet much on those anyway.
Unfortunately, when Disney makes the most bland and forgettable nostalgia bait, they still make the "movies people want to see".
Yup. Even if you only look within a relatively small category of films one per year can miss a bunch. For example, consider the category of animated feature length films released after 2000 in the US, and pick one per year by picking the winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
In 2001 you'd miss Monsters, Inc. because of Shrek.
In 2002 you'd miss Lilo & Stitch because of Spirited Away.
In 2004 you'd miss Shrek 2 because of The Incredibles.
In 2005 you'd miss Howl's Moving Castle and Corpse Bride because of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
In 2008, no Kung Fu Panda because of WALL-E.
In 2009, no Coraline or Fantastic Mr. Fox because of Up.
In 2010 you'd miss How to Train Your Dragon because of Toy Story 3.
In 2011 no Kung Fu Panda 2 because of Rango.
In 2012 no Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, or Wreck-it Ralph because of Brave.
In 2014 no How to Train Your Dragon 2 because of Big Hero 6.
2015 no Shaun the Sheep Movie because of Inside Out.
2016 you miss Kubo and the Two Strings and Moana because of Zootopia.
2019 No How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World because of Toy Story 4.
2021 you'd miss Raya and the Last Dragon and Luca because of Encanto.
Most of the winners are good...but if you just put all the above mentioned films in a pool and asked most people to pick their top 14, most would have a lot of films on their list that were not among the winners of the aforementioned years.
How long until what is currently photography is either full length video or 3d navigable worlds?
These Star Wars galleries are just phenomenal. I can't imagine it is long until you can apply filters to movies, for example taking Rogue One and applying a Fritz Lang or Stanley Kubrick filter.
Or akin to Cars being a remake of Doc Hollywood with anthropomorphized Cars, being able to say something like "I want to see a remake of the 2013 movie Rush, in the world of Zootopia, with 15% styling from Speed Racker, set in the 70's, with flying animals, and the main two rival protagonists being flying squirrels, one of which has a birth defect and a prosthetic wing."
https://www.facebook.com/groups/395755276049376/?multi_permalinks=457335126558057
https://www.facebook.com/groups/395755276049376/?multi_permalinks=456534189971484
Zootopia was also rewritten. https://lostmediawiki.com/Zootopia_(partially_found_pre-rewrite_version_of_CGI_animated_film;_early_2010s)
> This decision came fairly late in the process, as animators had been working on the film for almost a year with only 17 months until it needed to be completed.
i read an article about a month ago about how disney animation has steadily migrated away from a villain, to the self (or some other internal conflict) as the primary antagonist.
frozen moana frozen 2 encanto
during that time there were also traditional "villain" types: big hero 6 zootopia ralph breaks the internet raya and the last drago
agree or disagree, it's an interesting read: https://screenrant.com/encanto-movie-villain-disney-pixar-copy-good/
I've linked to it in the past but I think it's relevant again.
"Wait, There's Torture in Zootopia?: Examining the Prevalence of Torture in Popular Movies", 2019. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3342908
10 years is a lot of time, and "worth saving" is a very low barrier.
I'd classify Kubo And The Two Strings, and Inside Out as must-watch films. Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse set new boundaries for what's possible with animation.
Moana, Zootopia, Big Hero 6, Wreck-it Ralph, The Incredibles 2 and Finding Dory are all pretty good films, and definitely tick all the boxes you listed.
I'm not even looking at Anomalisa, Isle of Dogs, and other such more adult-oriented animated films.
This one looks almost straight up from the movie: https://thisfursonadoesnotexist.com/v2/jpgs/seed10592.jpg
I guess training on the source that has a massive crush on Zootopia wasn't the best choice for ‘doesn't exist’.
Also, those Sonics are apparently sourced from the gender-swap category.
Link to the study, "Wait, There's Torture in Zootopia?: Examining the Prevalence of Torture in Popular Movies"[1].
[1]https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3342908
I think this study is misleading. They are classifying a huge variety of situations as "torture".
From their paper, they describe one example in Zootopia:
Officer Hopps needs to find the drop-off location for "night howler" flowers (a poisonous flower that has been weaponized to turn animals "feral"). She turns to an organized crime boss to extract information from a lackey of the antagonists. The crime boss's polar bear enforcers hold the lackey over a hole in iced-over water, threatening to throw him in (and ostensibly kill him) if he doesn't give up the location. "Ice him," says the crime boss. The lackey quickly gives up the desired information and our heroes go on to (spoiler alert) save the day.
Cartoon animals were threatening to throw someone into the water. Is that really "torture"?
Later in the paper, they describe that they include any "threat of pain" to be torture, as long as it isn't self-defense. So a schoolyard bully saying "I'll punch you unless you give me your lunch money" is considered to be torture.
Naturally, with this sort of definition of torture, they discover that most movies contain torture.
I believe something like this was done for Zootopia. The news reporter characters were specific to the language regions where the movie played.
> NVDA is similar to the sloths from Zootopia's DMV anytime you're doing anything on a network
Do I understand this reference correctly? Are you saying NVDA is really slow when you're doing anything on a network, even when that network activity is in the background? Can you give an example? I've never experienced this nor heard of it. But maybe I'm missing some specific detail of the Zootopia reference. I watched that movie once, or rather listened to it without audio description (with my family), and I don't remember the DMV scene that well.
> Narrator's settings regularly get reset by updates, and will re-enable itself at random and unexpected times).
Have you reported this through Feedback Hub? I haven't experienced or heard of the problem with settings being reset by updates.
A lot of it has evolved into including a single strong woman who demonstrates her skills, often in fighting, early on but doesn’t actually add much to the plot.
I’ve been pretty pleased with the last several years of children’s content though. A lot of it feels respectable of kids intellect and aware of where we’re trying to get culturally. Inside Out and Zootopia come to mind.
Frozen is an interesting one in that I felt it was mostly in line with previous Disney film tropes but it had a lot of plot points that allowed them to say, technically, it wasn’t.
Quote: "One could quibble about creativity, but it’s generally thought in Hollywood that the last great comedy franchise to launch was The Hangover, created in 2009. There have been a few others, like Pitch Perfect and 21 Jump Street, but those both came out around the same time, in 2012. There effectively have been no comedy smash hits in for nearly a decade."</endquote>
Are you kidding me? Last great comedy was The Hangover? Does the author of the article ever heard of Toy Story 4 (now in theaters), Secret life of pets 1 & 2, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Zootopia etc etc? Granted, they are animated movies versus live action like The Hangover but they are movies, big ones, made by Hollywood, with a plethora of A list actors voicing the characters. The fact that they are animated is irrelevant, because the taste of the public always evolves. That's why action flicks of the '80s are no longer enough to entertain us, and they seem a cliche instead. We, the consumers, became more sophisticated, our taste evolved and demanding better quality for our money. Therefore the creativity went where was required, where the public demand it, not to be stuck in the same style of movies. Otherwise John Wayne's style of Western movies would still roll on big screen. Tell me, when was the last time such a Western made it big on box office? I tell you instead that HBO's Westworld is very much a Western style show that I deeply enjoy. That's where the creativity went! To be in the same pace as our modern, more subtle, taste.
I always love when English movie titles are translated for the German market into different-but-still-English movie titles.
My favorite example is Zootopia, which got changed into Zoomania for the German market.
Also, some of their animated movies are original, including “Lilo & Stitch” and “Zootopia”.
> Rotten Tomatoes is good and predicting a movie I (or others) like, but not really at "ranking". Zootopia, one of their top movies of 2016 and a 98% rating, is a good movie, but one I'm unlikely to pursue again
It feels like you're mixing together two different arguments. Rotten Tomatoes is good at predicting whether someone will like a movie. What is "ranking"? That is a very undefined concept. Ranking of what? It's clearly not ranking of likelyhood of a person liking a movie because rotten tomatoes already does that.
Later you mention likelihood of repeat watchings of a movie. Rotten Tomatoes thumbs up or down based on whether someone liked a movie, as a result it produces a metric on likelihood of someone liking of movie. Instead if rotten tomatoes immediately after watching a movie, asking "Did you like this movie?", asked "Would you watch this movie again?" then it would produce an indicator of re-watchability.
Up/down doesn't matter - it's the question that's being asked.
note the caveat RT obviously doesn't actually ask critics these questions, they read and judge their reviews and interpret them as answering those questions.
Also you just aren't the demographic for zootopia. If you have kids then it probably is worth buying and they will watch it many times. There are so many genres of films, it's best to compare within a single genre and not between.
Rotten Tomatoes is good and predicting a movie I (or others) like, but not really at "ranking". Zootopia, one of their top movies of 2016 and a 98% rating, is a good movie, but one I'm unlikely to pursue again. The Godfather (with a 99%) rating, is a movie I will pick up on Blu Ray and revisit many times. It's far more than 1% better than Zootopia.
So RT is good at predicting "should I watch this movie I haven't watched before", but bad at predicting more sophisticated habits or preferences. I wouldn't buy the Blu Ray off a RT prediction, but I would rent.
So it becomes a question of what are you trying to accomplish? For some issues up/down is a good way to solve a problem, for others it isn't.
People forget that Disney owns a lot of must-see content:
For example, here is the list of top grossing movies of 2016 http://www.imdb.com/list/ls074920894/
Disney had the following films
1. Captain America: Civil War
2. Rogue One
3. Finding Dory
4. Zootopia
5. The Jungle Book
11. Doctor Strange
12. Moana
19. Alice Through the Looking Glass
For 2017 so far (http://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/domestic/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-2017)
Disney has
1. Beauty and the Beast
3. Guardians of the Galaxy V2
11. Pirates of the Caribbean
13. Cars 3
They own the Marvel franchise, the Star Wars, as well as some of the most loved children's movies in history. They also have a ton of children's TV programs.
If Disney really had a subscription service with all their movies and TV shows, I would choose them over Netflix.
Yeah, there's no real story here, is there? Pixar is now a Disney brand, charged with keeping its existing properties chugging along happily. Meanwhile, the original Pixar team has spread out and created stuff like Tomorrowland (far from perfect, but way more interesting than the average movie) and Frozen (which it's fashionable to hate on but is actually as good as its receipts). Wreck It Ralph and Zootopia _are_ Pixar movies, they just don't have the brand.
The proposal: "Premium video rental", at $30 - $50. Right. When VHS first came out, the movie industry thought that a video rental should cost about as much as a theater show for a family of 4, including popcorn. That didn't work, although the reason was the First Sale Doctrine, which allowed video rental without payments to studios and forced prices down. That doesn't apply online, and all the players are now huge near-monopolies. They can push prices up, but can't make people watch.
3D was supposed to save theaters. It didn't. (Incidentally, while "Ghost in the Shell" is reasonably good, don't see it in 3D. The director likes blurry backgrounds. 3D has negative value for blurry backgrounds.)
Lack of originality remains a big problem. "Four of the top 10 highest grossing films last year were based on Marvel or DC Comics characters." In theaters now, the Lego Batman movie. There are currently 69 more comic book movies in the pipeline.[1] Even the duds, such as Ant-Man, are getting sequels. Variety says consumers may be getting tired of comic book movies.
Some original ideas do make big money. Last year, "The Secret Life of Pets" — $875.4 million, "Zootopia" — $1.023 billion, "Finding Dory" — $1.027 billion, were in the top 10. They're all animated. Not one of the top 10 highest grossing movies of 2016 was a live-action non-sequel/remake. Maybe originality now requires a longer format than the one-off film. Consider Game of Thrones.
Meanwhile, I'm watching Korean drama and Japanese anime.
[1] http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/comic-book-adaptations/32829/69-upcoming-comic-book-movies-and-when-to-expect-them
I'm amazed how many people on HN complain about the content on Netflix. Especially compared to any other streaming service, such as Amazon or Hulu, they continue to provide much higher-end content for my dollar, as well as a (far) superior UI experience.
For me, the stand-up specials like Dave Chapelle and Louis CK alone are huge and welcome additions, never mind the many, very good lesser known comedy specials on there.
Their agreement with Dreamworks has only helped, allowing me to enjoy surprisingly good films like Zootopia.
Even great cable channels like FX (The Americans, Legion) and AMC (Mad Men, Better Call Saul) are not available for any reasonable price as standalone cable packages, so I'm not sure what the comparison is in terms of quality. HBO at 15/month?
But even HBO shows are hit-or-miss. And while their movie selection is generally pretty great, I still find myself not watching it all that much.
It seems to me that Netflix provides a pretty high level of content at their price point.
Consider 8 had a $306,000,000 budget, 9 had a $200,000,000 budget. I have no problem saying it was profitable, but so was The Land Before Time 9. When a movie pulls in ~1/2 has much as the previous film it's a sign.
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2016/top-grossing-movies
Just looking domestically we have Finding Dory (squeal), Rogue One (franchise), Captain America: Civil War (squeal), The Secret Life of Pets (kids movie), The Jungle Book (kids movie), Deadpool (franchise), Zootopia (kids movie), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (franchise), Suicide Squad (franchise), Doctor Strange (franchise), Moana (kids movie) etc. Down at #14 The Revenant was at least nominally an original movie, though very similar to several other films.
I don't think any of these where bad for what they where, but there was nothing new for the 14-40 group. 2015 had #6 American Sniper, #9 The Martian, but was again mostly rehashed movies until #17.
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We're looking for interns for a bunch of interesting Summer 2017 projects. Overview of the program is here: https://www.disneyanimation.com/careers/interns-apprentices
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I agree that it most likely is some sort of licensing issue which prevents the same content. But Netflix isn't paying for Cinema Paradiso, or Braveheart, or Zootopia, or … in Sweden. In fact the Swedish library is less than half the size of the US library[1]. Yet Swedish consumers pay just as much as US consumers. There is a large discrepancy in the value given for customers' money here which Netflix does not address.
[1] http://cordcutting.com/how-many-titles-are-available-on-netflix-in-your-country/
And of these 31 remaining almost half are missing in the Swedish Netflix:
5. Back to the Future 6. Gladiator 7. Sunset Boulevard 8. Cinema Paradiso 9. Django Unchained 12. Reservoir Dogs 13. Braveheart 17. Amadeus 21. Trainspotting 24. There Will Be Blood 25. Spotlight 26. The Princess Bride 27. Zootopia 29. Jaws 31. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
And yet Netflix want the same monthly cost for less of a service. Why?
I wonder if there's somewhere that lists line counts in films so we can compare? I've seen both Zootopia and Civil War and they both felt dialogue-dense (and good!).
With the exception of Star Wars: The Force Awaken, I haven't seen any of the blockbusters mentioned, though I wonder how much this article cherry-picks, given that the 2 top grossing movies this year (Civil War, Zootopia) [0] seem dialogue-dense based on their trailers despite being summer entertainment. Also, I would have attributed the disappearing of dialogue to our increasingly dumbed-down short attention spans, something that has been evident in Jerry Bruckheimer films. Also, Avatar, which had such shit dialogue that I found it hard to believe until I looked it up that James Cameron had written the screenplay for his Aliens, which has timeless (if brief) dialogue.
That said, it's completely believable to me that the cost of making universally clever dialogue is much harder than just doing it in one language, and will be the easiest line-item to justify cutting with international audiences being increasingly prized. I've always been OK with reading subtitles but it wasn't until Inglourious Basterds did I realize how jarring and unusual it is to have foreign languages hold equal screentime to your own native language (which makes me respect IB even more for its artistic achievement).
It'll definitely be a shame if plots themselves become increasingly dumbed down for international reasons. One thing the OP didn't mention in terms of the Chinese-market effect on Americans is the seemingly higher frequency of Chinese locales making cameos...though this is something I welcome, as the Chinese-based set pieces in movies such as Skyfall as Pacific Rim have usually been spectacular.
Doom was the last video game I played regularly. Obviously, I am not a gamer. Strange, but I have spent more time with If (interactive fiction) these past few years, and any games that have more 'artsy' or abstract visuals. Hell, I even like the demo Breakout clone on the Pythonista app more than realistic games. I was into viewing Machinima at one time, and I think there the realism works better than in games, although there were some really cool Machinima works done in a zany forced-perspective, or cartoon style that were fantastic.
I think the point is that we have focused too much on high frame rates and realism, and drifted away from the creative, storytelling side. I think that's why the animated movies, like The Incredibles, or Despicable Me and Zootopia do well. They use the old animation tricks that don't actually mimic real physics, but our cultured sense of movement. I don't have much interest in the second wave of VR either; I am trying to continue to find awe in the real world around me, and would prefer to be in an immersive world of crazy Bugs Bunny and Jessica Rabbit!
> CiPHPerCoder listed four things he enjoys doing over his weekends. I would love to have a conversation about those things with him because it also adds to the variety of conversations I get to have.
Sorry, would have responded sooner but HN's rate-limits kicked in.
> If you don't like watching movies or playing video games, then it's very difficult to have a fun conversation about those things.
I do enjoy those activities, but I accepted a lot of responsibility (especially with making secure PHP code-- a feat some infosec folks claim is inherently impossible) and intend to finish what I started. That means missing out on a lot of great movies (Warcraft, Zootopia) and video games (OverWatch) that my friends are all able to enjoy.
Ultimately, I believe the work I'm doing today will make a difference tomorrow. Whether I'll be able to capture any of that value for myself remains to be seen.
Here's how I envision that use case with a bot called JEEVES.
ME: Hey have you guys watched Zootopia yet?
FRIEND 1: Nah I want to but didn't have the time. I'm free tonight if you want to go.
FRIEND 2: Yeah count me in too
ME: JEEVES find us a movie theater close to us that's playing Zootopia tonight.
JEEVES: There are 3 theaters close to all of you that's playing Zootopia tonight. Theater 1 at (map)Location 1 is playing it at 9PM, Theater 2 at (map)Location 2 is playing it at 8:30PM, Theater 3 at (map)Location 3 is playing it at 10:PM
ME: you guys wanna get dinner before the movie?
FRIEND 1: Sure
FRIEND 2: Nah having dinner with GF's parents today.
ME: JEEVES find us some chinese restaurants near Theater 3.
so on and so on.
JEEVES can then book tickets, make a reservation, put the event on calendars, send restaurant location to just the 2 people who agreed to have dinner, send reminder in the group chat, etc.
Bot A finds bot B via (marketplace search, keyword search, published functionality search or manual settings?) This is very difficult to do accurately especially when there are 100 other bots that provide same functionality as Bot B.
Let's assume user selected Bot B to be added as friend for Bot A.
Bot A asks Bot B for a list of commands > This is essentially making an API call or Bot A sending a chat message to Bot B "Please send me all your public commands" (which is a simplified NLP API call)
However Bot B might not want to expose all its NLP command keywords (that is after all their Intellectual property) or it is too complex to send all commands because of myriad of ways an NLP query can be structured.
I like your idea of a conversational API. Maybe there is a better way to do that and definitely something worth thinking about.
Regarding the future of chat, the problem is these chat apps are trying to become task help apps. What is the purpose of chat/group chat? Communication, discussion, planning, sharing between "friends/contacts" (not between me and a bot) Communication with a friend or contact does not require a bot. Discussion with a friend, group of friends or contacts does not require a bot Sharing content with a friend, group of friends or contacts does not require a bot.
The only thing that requires a bot is planning an outing, trip, dinner, etc. with a friend or group of friends or contacts. For that I think it is better to have a general purpose bot. Here's how I envision that use case with a bot called JEEVES.
ME: Hey have you guys watched Zootopia yet?
FRIEND 1: Nah I want to but didn't have the time. I'm free tonight if you want to go.
FRIEND 2: Yeah count me in too
ME: JEEVES find us a movie theater close to us that's playing Zootopia tonight.
JEEVES: There are 3 theaters close to all of you that's playing Zootopia tonight. Theater 1 at (map)Location 1 is playing it at 9PM, Theater 2 at (map)Location 2 is playing it at 8:30PM, Theater 3 at (map)Location 3 is playing it at 10:PM
ME: you guys wanna get dinner before the movie?
FRIEND 1: Sure
FRIEND 2: Nah having dinner with GF's parents today.
ME: JEEVES find us some chinese restaurants near Theater 3.
so on and so on.
JEEVES can then book tickets, make a reservation, put the event on calendars, send restaurant location to just the 2 people who agreed to have dinner, etc.