#blue sky studios

[nastiagarachtchenko]

yeah.. im never going to stop thinking about this easter egg in Nimona

[red-pencil]

Thanks for all the love on my Nimona dragon test. At BlueSky studios we would make expression sheets based off of the tests as reference for the production teams.

[dymitre]

My fav villians 💙

[techno-danger]

Guys...

"The people live in the embrace of Blue Skies, filling the good carts, harvesting the bounties of their animated labors...." ITS A FUCKIN BLUE SKY STUDIOS REFERENCE IN THE START OF NIMONA THATS SO CLEVER.

[ifwebefriends]

I think I know where one of the animators got inspiration

[cartoonico]

[nephilimbrute]

rushed humanizations of characters cuz i was tired of seeing anime guys and girls. I did shifu but i didn't like it as much so he's not here

[sallysurisue]

Ice age belongs to Disney now, so I did a crossover with Brother Bear.

[puccafangirl]

Nimona looks so pretty in 2D animation??? 🥺 Like of course the 3D animation we got in the final film is still absolutely gorgeous and incredible but omg do I love seeing what 3D characters look like in beautiful traditional animation. 🩷

[vhshistory]

September 27, 2005: Robots (2005) is released on DVD and VHS.

This is the last Blue Sky Studios film released on VHS and it is one of the only two films from the studio to be released on the format, the other being Ice Age.

Among the bonus features on the DVD include an exclusive short film, audio commentary, deleted scenes, an Xbox playable demo of the Robots video game, and more.

[zndr315-blog]

[red-pencil]

Of COURSE I gotta' share my Nimona test this #AniMonday ! While I was with BlueSky studios I got to play around with the dragon form she took. It's rough, but a lot of fun. So happy the movie is doing so well. You GOTTA' see it if you haven't yet.

[dymitre]

🤖🌈

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[superectojazzmage]

Watched the Nimona movie last night. Review I guess. It was pretty damn good. Definitely would’ve probably been regarded as Blue Sky’s magnum opus if they’d gotten to release it instead of being fucked over by Disney. Very cute, very funny, very powerful in the right moments. A thing that stuck out to me is that it’s really only an adaptation in the loosest sense of the word. It takes the core premise and beats of the comic but is functionally an entirely different kind of story that does its own thing. And given that ND Stevenson was heavily involved in production, I suspect that was intentional.

The comic was much darker and more downbeat in a lot of ways, plus it was significantly longer and thus could afford to be slower paced. But more than that, it was a lot more meaty in terms of themes and scope. The whole “LGBT allegory” element was there, but it wasn’t the sole focus, the comic was a story about a lot of different things; not just an LGBT experience, but also discussion of fantasy genre tropes and clichés, criticism of other fantasy deconstructions, character study, exploring what it means to be a hero or villain, critique of the glorification of crime and cruelty in underprivileged communities, corruption in governments, peer pressure, the senseless and self-perpetuating nature of violence, the worthlessness of revenge, etc.. And above all that, it was a story about trauma and people’s responses to it, with Ballister representing people who actually deal with their problems and move on while Nimona represented people who let their mistakes and suffering and grief consume their identity, or worse, use it as an excuse to indulge their worst qualities and take out their feelings on everyone around them.

The movie, by contrast, has a much more narrow focus. The LGBT allegory is front and center and basically the entire focal point of the movie, aside from a spattering of themes about the danger of zealotry and rigid fundamentalist thinking. This gives the movie a much tighter narrative and pacing that suits its inherently shorter runtime, but also leads to a ton of changes to the story either to convey a different kind of message or just work better in a different medium. Most obviously in how Nimona is vastly more sympathetic in the movie and essentially really is the silly gremlin the comic fakes you out into thinking she is, scrapping the comic’s twist that she was a genuinely bad person who was completely serious about wanting to be a villain, caring nothing for the lives she destroyed with her behavior and idolizing Ballister because she thought he was the same as her and would thus tell her what she wanted to hear (i.e., that she was justified in killing and destroying everything around her in the name of getting even). And in the changes to the Institution’s history and nature. And all sorts of other things.

All in all, I feel if you go in comparing and contrasting the movie and the comic, arguing which changes are for the better or worse, you’ll be setting yourself up for disappointment in either direction because they’re two different beasts and it’s like comparing apples and oranges. So keep that in mind if you’re a fan of the comic watching the movie or a fan of the movie wanting to look into the comic. I think ultimately I still like the comic better, but that’s purely my personal opinion and there’s plenty that I think the movie did better.

Some other observations:

Riz Ahmed my beloved, thank you Mr. Stevenson for this perfect casting. Literally perfect for Ballister.

Acting in general was very good. You can tell this was a passion project for a lot of people, not just Stevenson.

Only two changes that are objectively bad are Ambrosius losing his awesome Van Halen hairdo and changing Ballister’s last name — Blackheart is a way cooler name than Boldheart and it’s a pointless change, one that I’d argue even hurts the narrative since it makes it too obvious that Ballister isn’t actually a bad guy.

The animation is really great with fantastic expressions, stylish movement, and wonderful aesthetics that perfectly suit the story, but there’s times where it feels a little off. But there are parts where it looks less “movie” and more “cheap mid-2000s CGI-and-Flash cartoon show from France”.

The humor can be a hit and miss, in a “going through the motions of a Hollywood animated comedy for kids” way. The movie excels when it’s either imitating the comic’s Old Internet sense of humor or going hard on the drama, but there’s bits where it seemingly slams on the brakes to do Illumination-esque Twitter humor and those bits definitely throw off the vibe.

Having an actual straight up attempted suicide in the climax was shockingly ballsy. I genuinely can’t believe they went there, but I’m glad they did because the film wouldn’t have felt nearly as raw without it.

I don’t know how they managed to make the Director even more of an asshole than in the comics, but they did.

[hedgypipes]

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