Editor
— While animation (“Animation brightens our collective imagination,” Feb. 8) has its place in society, the thought that it will come to replace other forms of filmmaking boggles the mind. Sorry, but I want to see live human emotions on the screen, not their synthesized forms. I want to see real landscape and good acting, not an animator’s vision of what it should look like. Just like our obsession with plastic surgery and perfect bodies, if we animate everything we will end up losing individuality and the nuances that make life work, good or bad. We are already a nation stuck in infantilism (to a certain extent). We elected a president who can’t even speak the language properly and never traveled to see the world he was about to exert control over. Many distributors are not taking on good movies because there are animation counterparts in the works.
As an example of what is happening in this regard, there is a film being released in Europe, Canada and Asia next month, based on the old mythic poem and legend of Beowulf and Grendel starring Gerard Butler of “Phantom of the Opera” and the wonderful Stellan Skarsgard. We will probably not get to see it on the big screen in this country and will miss the beauty of the stark landscape, the scope of the battles and the nuances of the conflicted hero because someone is going to make an animated version of the story based on the feelings of the troll. There is a movement to try to get a distributor, but no one will touch it because of the animation counterpart that is in the planning stages.
How sick is that? How many more movies will fall victim to the same? At a time when we should be learning from history and getting to know our neighbors, we are indulging in our own fantasies so we can make the world the way we want it. A cartoon! Yes, I know there are many serious animation fanatics out there and that it has its niche market. Just please don’t let it be forced on the rest of us who still deal in human emotions and want to see humans on the screen, not their cleaned-up counterparts. Life is messy. Let’s embrace that.
TINA SAXE
Palos Verdes Estates (Los Angeles County)