Sunday, 4 October 2015

Danger Mouse, new series review -- OUAN403, Animation Skills, Identify

Danger mouse has been rebooted, the latest in a long list of remakes, franchises and superhero movies proving that there are no longer any new ideas left in the world (or at least no producers or studios willing to risk making a loss on an unproven story). On top of this, the once warm and lovely hand drawn animation has been replaced by cold lifeless digital drawings, and all the characters slightly redesigned (Baron Greenback suffers the worst here). The original series was famous for cutting costs at every turn - reusing clips across multiple episodes, and setting whole storylines in the North Pole to save on background art - but these days money is saved by using cheap and visually offensive digital animation, and the overall product suffers.
It is a shame because the first episode did make me laugh, the impressive cast (including Stephen Fry and Alexander Armstrong) read from a smart script, with many meta and self referential jokes (Fry’s Colonel K mentions the special effects budget, and even communicates with The Narrator). The story of the first episode is a well-worn trope, but one that won’t get old - Greenback has stopped being evil, and is manufacturing robotic bodyguards for every head of state in the world, and everybody but Danger Mouse and Penfold believe in his innocence. Of course it turns out that the bodyguards are in fact kidnapping machines, poised to capture every world leader and leave Greenback in charge and DM has to swoop in at the last minute to save everyone. I understand that the target audience of CBBC viewers probably aren't particularly worried about any facet of the cartoons they watch, be that storylines, visuals or script, but it seems like a shame to me that the look of many of today's kids' cartoons has taken such a hit, even compared to what I was watching as a child only a few years ago.

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