Friday, August 21, 2009

OUTRAGE:
Disney to Remake Yellow Submarine

Original artwork by designer Heinz Edelmann
for "Inside the Yellow Submarine"

Article

I just found out that Robert Zemeckis is going to create a 3-D remake of Yellow Submarine in the style of his new Jim Carrey animated film, A Christmas Carol, via Disney. I have a diatribe ready to burst forth from my lips, but the outrage keeps it from doing so. Therefore, I will keep this brief. As a huge Beatles fan, I will say that this is commercial perversion at it's most absolute perverse. The original film was purposefully made in a style of animation called "limited animation," and as a partial snub to the cinematically "realistic" and commercially dominant Disney style of animation at the time (hence, the Mickey Mouse ears on some of the Blue Meanies). It was also a piece of American art history with its roots firmly planted in the Pop Art, Op Art, and Psychedelic Art movements, as well as certain graphic design groups at the time (e.g. Push Pin Studio). Its content decried hate, authoritarianism, commercialism, and the lack of imagination; and, praised values like love, freedom, community, spirituality, and imagination. Disney is about as commercial and authoritarian as it can get (constantly suing for every slight copyright infringement--particularly artists [See artist Roger Shimomura, for one example]; and designing soundtracks and merchandise well before films are released). I could go on and on, but I won't. 3-D animation defeats the whole point of the style of the film. Maybe Zemeckis will cast Jim Carrey as the voice of the head Blue Meanie to help meet the tastes of an progressively numb public that requires more and more stimuli just to accept a movie's story. Outrageous.

Here's what Yellow Submarine might look like in the near future:

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