Computer animated movies have come a long way since Toy Story, but now they seem to be in a rut. They're all just variations on the same formula. Kids movies, Disney imitators with talking animals and lessons to be learned. Pixar has tried to push the format with movies like Brad Bird's The Incredibles, but even as great as that movie is it's still a family film.
Attempts at CGI filmmaking further outside the norm have met with lukewarm reaction. Well, that's probably just because they haven't been very good. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within looked good, but come on it's pretty bad. Still, after all these years no one in America seems to have figured out that animation doesn't have to be geared towards kids. Brad Bird seems to be the only filmmaker at all aware that it's possible to make a great animated movie without talking animals in it.
So I always get excited when I hear about an animated movie like this. Variety says John Williams' Vanguard Animation is developing a CG animated sci-fi, action thriller called Citizen Siege. The movie presents a bleak future, created by extrapolating current global conditions to their logical, paranoid-liberal conclusion. In Citizen's dystopia, democracy has been demolished by global coporatism.
What really caught my eye about this project is that it's being developed by the creators of the rich and celebrated videogame franchise Oddworld, Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna. Of course the last time gamemakers got involved in computer animated moviemaking it resulted in the aforementioned horrible Final Fantasy movie, but this could be different. Oddworld already has a fairly cinematic feel, and part of its strength (besides great visuals) is rich, well-developed characters. Lansing says, "I'm a storyteller and solid stories transcend all mediums." Come on, you've got to like the sound of that.
