Tim Burton's 9 (the animation movie)

dgiharris · Sep 15, 2009

Hmmm... (Non Spoiler comments)

So I just saw Tim Burton's 9. I saw a few previews a while ago and purposefully isolated myself from the trailers and what not recently.

Went in to see the movie 'fresh' with little foreknowledge of what it would be about...

Overall, i'm not sure how I feel about the movie. There are definitely some really cool elements and plotlines going, but overall it felt like the movie just didn't connect the dots properly with all the themes and the storyline it was going for.

Also, for me there were just a few plotholes (the size of the grand canyon) that I just couldn't get over.

Anyone else see this film?

Mel...

maestrowork · Sep 15, 2009

Technically, it's not Tim Burton's. He's Shane Acker's mentor, but Acker is the brain, heart and soul of the entire film. It was based on Acker's Oscar-nominated animated short. I wish people would stop saying it's Tim Burton's... yes, he produced it, and he used his name (as well as Timur Bekmembetov's) to sell the movie.

cray · Sep 15, 2009

i saw the previews for tim burton's 9 (the animation movie) just yesterday.
i would like to see it.

Kathleen42 · Sep 15, 2009

maestrowork said:
Technically, it's not Tim Burton's. He's Shane Acker's mentor, but Acker is the brain, heart and soul of the entire film. It was based on Acker's Oscar-nominated animated short. I wish people would stop saying it's Tim Burton's... yes, he produced it, and he used his name (as well as Timur Bekmembetov's) to sell the movie.

Same thing happened with Monkeybone. Only, in that case, I think they counted on it. Most of the trailers for monkey said "From the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas" and most people think Tim directed Nightmare.

maestrowork · Sep 15, 2009

To me, it's just setting up unnecessary expectations. Then they go to the movie and say, "Wait, this doesn't look like anything Tim Burton would make." I know Burton sells tickets, but it could also backfire.

Kathleen42 · Sep 15, 2009

maestrowork said:
To me, it's just setting up unnecessary expectations. Then they go to the movie and say, "Wait, this doesn't look like anything Tim Burton would make." I know Burton sells tickets, but it could also backfire.

I thought the trailers for 9 were pretty clear but, yeah, I don't think attaching Tim B's name to Monkeybone helped them any. I remember coming out of the theatre and hearing people say it was his worst movie ever. It also made me feel a bit sorry for Henry Selick (sp?), the director.

JoNightshade · Sep 15, 2009

I was SOOOOO excited about this movie when I saw the preview! I have been waiting for it to come out. But now that it IS out and it's getting mediocre reviews I am scared to see it because I'm afraid I'm going to be hideously disappointed.

Jcomp · Sep 15, 2009

dgiharris said:
Overall, i'm not sure how I feel about the movie. There are definitely some really cool elements and plotlines going, but overall it felt like the movie just didn't connect the dots properly with all the themes and the storyline it was going for.

This is basically how I felt about it, and I was really looking forward to it and hoping it would be excellent. It just seemed not quite to go the distance overall. There were some great moments but the sum total didn't amount to as much as it should have...

Kathleen42 · Sep 15, 2009

Jcomp said:
This is basically how I felt about it, and I was really looking forward to it and hoping it would be excellent. It just seemed not quite to go the distance overall. There were some great moments but the sum total didn't amount to as much as it should have...

And a week later I'm still being haunted by plot holes.

bethany · Sep 16, 2009

oh dear, I really wanted to take my kids to see it. They love stuff that people think Tim Burton directed.

Jcomp · Sep 16, 2009

Kathleen42 said:
And a week later I'm still being haunted by plot holes.

Me too. I really wanted to like it, but there are too many gaps...

I almost wish it had been an anime or something so I could just tell myself, "Well, something probably just got lost in the translation" like I usually do.

maestrowork · Sep 16, 2009

It's unfortunate. The clips look pretty good. And with all the money spent on animation, etc. it's a shame Shane Acker didn't spend more time smoothing out the story and filling out the holes.

BigWords · Sep 16, 2009

If Tim Burton is involved it's bound to have plot holes. That's been one of his defining directorial flourishes.

dgiharris · Sep 17, 2009

***Spoiler Alert****

I'm sorry, the biggest plot hole I just for the life of me can't get over is the fact that the puppets more or less use the same (or inferior weapons) in which to defeat the all power AI machine.

Ummm... Why couldn't the humans do better? Given that there were millions and billions of us?

then of course there are the time scales involved. Looking at the corpse of the dead guy, it obvious that no more than a year (two at most) had passed since he died. So what happened to all the robots machines of that war? A year seems a bit soon for the machines to have died off and for the AI to have hybernated.

Then there is the whole matter of the puppets. Given that they really don't eat or sleep. Why didn't they just go to another city somewhere thousands of miles away?

o.k. i'll stop there.

I think the writers saw WALL-E and then saw an Mech Anime and then thought to themselves "Hey, lets combine the two"

The overall story is just so lacking. Like a bunch of cool ideas that just were not enough by themselves upon which to write a really great story. Or rather, that the writers didn't really know what the hell the story really was.

Anyways, I think it could have been so much more.

Mel...

maestrowork · Sep 17, 2009

It's developed from a short, and I suspect that Acker didn't think it through. Sometimes a short story should stay short, instead of being made into a feature.

eveningstar · Sep 17, 2009

I saw it and found it disappointing as well. Visually it was gorgeous, but the narrative was flimsy and shallow and lacking in the sense department.

maestrowork said:
It's developed from a short, and I suspect that Acker didn't think it through. Sometimes a short story should stay short, instead of being made into a feature.

I thought this as well. I'd be curious to see the short. I also noticed that Acker didn't write the screenplay himself. I wonder if it's a case where he has a brilliant visual imagination (I loved some of the little details, like 3 & 4 being constructed from gardening gloves) but isn't as strong as a writer.

maestrowork · Sep 17, 2009

eveningstar said:
I thought this as well. I'd be curious to see the short. I also noticed that Acker didn't write the screenplay himself. I wonder if it's a case where he has a brilliant visual imagination (I loved some of the little details, like 3 & 4 being constructed from gardening gloves) but isn't as strong as a writer.

Could be. Acker is an artist first. Still, someone along the line should have gone through the story and say, "hey, it doesn't add up." It's a BIG movie.

Croik · Sep 17, 2009

****SPOILERS****

dgiharris said:
then of course there are the time scales involved. Looking at the corpse of the dead guy, it obvious that no more than a year (two at most) had passed since he died.

My brother speculated that the corpse didn't decay because the "life-killing gas" the robots used destroyed even the bacteria that normally aid in decomposition. But I have no idea if that's a viable theory.

Even if it is, that doesn't solve half the plot holes he and I chatted about after the movie. It was weird how once 9 learned the truth, we felt we knew what had to happen next, but then...something totally different and nonsensical happened instead! The ending came out of nowhere.

I enjoyed the art and the feel of the film so much though that I'll definitely give Acker's work another try, whatever he comes up with next.

brokenfingers · Sep 17, 2009

I haven't read the thread yet (avoiding spoilers) but I saw the short and thought it was fantastic.

But when I heard about it becoming a movie, I instantly thought it might be a bad idea. Some stories are better told in short format. Like a poem.

dgiharris · Sep 18, 2009

Croik said:
****SPOILERS****

My brother speculated that the corpse didn't decay because the "life-killing gas" the robots used destroyed even the bacteria that normally aid in decomposition. But I have no idea if that's a viable theory.
.

If all the bacteria were destroyed, then decay would be dramatically reduced by a factor of 20 if not more. But, gas adminstered in an open air environment wouldn't have the sufficient volume/density to destroy all bacteria. And since bacteria reproduces exponentially once the gas dispersed, it would be back to normal levels within days.

Mel...

Fridgecrisis · Sep 18, 2009

dgiharris said:
If all the bacteria were destroyed, then decay would be dramatically reduced by a factor of 20 if not more. But, gas adminstered in an open air environment wouldn't have the sufficient volume/density to destroy all bacteria. And since bacteria reproduces exponentially once the gas dispersed, it would be back to normal levels within days.

It was super gas. *nods*

To be honest, I loved the movie. The trailers looked cool, and like others, I thought Tim Burton had more of a hand in it. I decided to watch the short before I went. I loved it for its creativity and originality so I guess I went into the movie with that sort of fresh attitude. I appreciated that they essentially kept most of the material from the original (except 2 takes the place of 5 during the first encounter with the beast)... the final scene is even mostly silent, like the short is. Maybe they managed to distract me from the plot holes with all the action, because I really didn't notice them until reading through this thread. I really, really liked the designs for their weapons and other tools. I was just drooling over them the whole time.

I guess 9 is more of the kind of movie you just have to sit and enjoy, rather than think too much about. I admired it a lot for its originality. I suppose one could argue that it's not different from other animated movies out there, but I saw it as a very intriguing and original idea. It was worth my money to see it in the theatre.

Kathleen42 · Sep 18, 2009

maestrowork said:
It's developed from a short, and I suspect that Acker didn't think it through. Sometimes a short story should stay short, instead of being made into a feature.

This. I got the sense that, instead of saying: how can I expand on this to make an intriguing story they said: what can we add to stretch this to feature length.

Tim Burton's 9 (the animation movie)

Disgruntled Scientist

Fear the Death Ray

Superior Life form

crushing on fictional characters

Fear the Death Ray

crushing on fictional characters

has finally arrived

crushing on fictional characters

:)

Fear the Death Ray

Geekzilla

Disgruntled Scientist

Fear the Death Ray

circus girl without a safety net

Fear the Death Ray

Samurai buff

Walkin' That Road

Disgruntled Scientist

crushing on fictional characters