I won't lie. I grew up during the Golden Age of cartoons, back when
animated Disney movies were still good and overgrown mouse ears weren't
synonymous with commercialized satanism.
Sure there was a fair share of schlock and drivel back then (I don't need to dwell on the the Thudercats, do I?), just as there is now
(Adult Swim's in-house animation come to mind). There there were
also serious animated films (SAMs?); I'm thinking in particular of
such classics as The Hobbit, The Last Unicorn, Flight of Dragons, The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Phantom Tollbooth (just to name a few), all of which used the medium's fluidity and versatility to great effect.
Instead we start with a unicorn in a forest who
overhears two hunters saying that she's the last one and off she goes
to find the rest. And just like that, we're in the story. Why?
Because animation, like the paintings in Lascaux and the visual koans
of the Zen masters, is a medium of the imagination. As such it was an
ideal environment, from the 60s onward, for magic and marvels alike.
Coming up: CGI, Animation's Second Advent...



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