When Walt Disney Productions released "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" in 1937, it was widely regarded
(and heavily marketed) as the first animated feature film, even though a number of pre-existing films had already existed in the prior decade. However, it was the first full-length to be presented in vivid Technicolor, a process that Disney bought the exclusive rights to, as well as the first to kickstart the often lucrative yet sometimes disastrous business of animated feature films. To that end, several competitors arose over the last century, seeking either to ride Disney's coattails to financial success or to knock them off of their comfortable pedestal as the undisputed face of the industry. Many of those have come and gone, not unlike the prehistoric creatures of Earth's ancient past who were destined for extinction through natural selection, or from having the audacity to challenge the studio decided by the people to be their superiors.
Still, a handful that emerged in later decades are still around and producing films to this day, even if technologies and trends have evolved. The public has gotten a little better at telling the difference between the output of different studios, and Disney has continued to maintain its dominance in the present day even after multiple eras of cultural decline and personnel downsizing. It's even gone as far as to contribute to collaborative projects, sign distribution deals with smaller companies,
or buy them wholesale and add their catalogues to their merchandising repertoire. Even when they don't win at the
Academy Awards, usually in favor of their subsidiary Pixar, they certainly succeed at the box office.
But one thing that has confused and confounded the mainstream movie-going audience have been the animated films that exist outside of Disney's conglomerate umbrella. As mentioned before, many of these were produced solely to profit on the wave of popularity generated whenever a Disney film enjoys an ungodly amount of praise and earnings, or even to push Disney out of its game and establish the respective studio as the new market leader. Either effort was usually in vain, as it would only serve to have the films labelled as "Disney" anyway, especially when the styles were made as painstakingly identical as possible or even when they managed to hire some of the former Disney artists themselves.
That, or it would result in an over-saturation of the market that would indeed harm the value of Disney's
movies themselves - and then bring the rest of the industry down with them.
However, such a "Great Animation Depression" hasn't occurred since the mid-2000s, and the business overall has done very well for all major studios involved, with the films breaking box-office records and gaining all new-respect as an art form. Traditional hand-drawn animation itself survives in the offerings of both Japanese and European studios, but it will be a cold day in a hot place before the vanguard of the format itself dares to risk a ballooned budget on a mildly successful film again.
This post is dedicated to the those aforementioned Non-Disney animated films, but with some...provisos. Obviously, none of these will be Walt Disney films, but I'll exclude Studio Ghibli as well for the sake of sticking to the smaller companies, as well as not filling the list up with the shear amount of feature-length anime. On top of that, this will also be strictly for traditionally-animated films, so no CGI from Pixar, DreamWorks, Blue Sky, Sony, or Illumination, or the various stop-motion works of Tim Burton, Henry Selick, Aardman, or Laika. Precedence will be given to to those with English-language versions, assuming they had a wide-enough release to warrant such. Short films will also be ignored, as well-made as they might be, but so will feature-length films that were released direct-to-video or made for television, for the sake of quality control.
I catered at first to those films released between the 70s and 90s, but I couldn't think of a non-arbitrary reason to do that, so this list will start at the medium's humble beginnings and end in its current state and the direction that it's headed in.
For those of you who remain nostalgic about that one cartoon movie that you just couldn't remember the name of,
this one's for you. Enjoy!
(and heavily marketed) as the first animated feature film, even though a number of pre-existing films had already existed in the prior decade. However, it was the first full-length to be presented in vivid Technicolor, a process that Disney bought the exclusive rights to, as well as the first to kickstart the often lucrative yet sometimes disastrous business of animated feature films. To that end, several competitors arose over the last century, seeking either to ride Disney's coattails to financial success or to knock them off of their comfortable pedestal as the undisputed face of the industry. Many of those have come and gone, not unlike the prehistoric creatures of Earth's ancient past who were destined for extinction through natural selection, or from having the audacity to challenge the studio decided by the people to be their superiors.
Still, a handful that emerged in later decades are still around and producing films to this day, even if technologies and trends have evolved. The public has gotten a little better at telling the difference between the output of different studios, and Disney has continued to maintain its dominance in the present day even after multiple eras of cultural decline and personnel downsizing. It's even gone as far as to contribute to collaborative projects, sign distribution deals with smaller companies,
or buy them wholesale and add their catalogues to their merchandising repertoire. Even when they don't win at the
Academy Awards, usually in favor of their subsidiary Pixar, they certainly succeed at the box office.
But one thing that has confused and confounded the mainstream movie-going audience have been the animated films that exist outside of Disney's conglomerate umbrella. As mentioned before, many of these were produced solely to profit on the wave of popularity generated whenever a Disney film enjoys an ungodly amount of praise and earnings, or even to push Disney out of its game and establish the respective studio as the new market leader. Either effort was usually in vain, as it would only serve to have the films labelled as "Disney" anyway, especially when the styles were made as painstakingly identical as possible or even when they managed to hire some of the former Disney artists themselves.
That, or it would result in an over-saturation of the market that would indeed harm the value of Disney's
movies themselves - and then bring the rest of the industry down with them.
However, such a "Great Animation Depression" hasn't occurred since the mid-2000s, and the business overall has done very well for all major studios involved, with the films breaking box-office records and gaining all new-respect as an art form. Traditional hand-drawn animation itself survives in the offerings of both Japanese and European studios, but it will be a cold day in a hot place before the vanguard of the format itself dares to risk a ballooned budget on a mildly successful film again.
This post is dedicated to the those aforementioned Non-Disney animated films, but with some...provisos. Obviously, none of these will be Walt Disney films, but I'll exclude Studio Ghibli as well for the sake of sticking to the smaller companies, as well as not filling the list up with the shear amount of feature-length anime. On top of that, this will also be strictly for traditionally-animated films, so no CGI from Pixar, DreamWorks, Blue Sky, Sony, or Illumination, or the various stop-motion works of Tim Burton, Henry Selick, Aardman, or Laika. Precedence will be given to to those with English-language versions, assuming they had a wide-enough release to warrant such. Short films will also be ignored, as well-made as they might be, but so will feature-length films that were released direct-to-video or made for television, for the sake of quality control.
I catered at first to those films released between the 70s and 90s, but I couldn't think of a non-arbitrary reason to do that, so this list will start at the medium's humble beginnings and end in its current state and the direction that it's headed in.
For those of you who remain nostalgic about that one cartoon movie that you just couldn't remember the name of,
this one's for you. Enjoy!
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