CATS Film Adaptation Thread — Page 12

Impossible2 said: "While it is true the best way to do it would've either been with traditional hand drawn animation or CGI cats as far as the story, music and visuals go, there is no way to do it in either of those formats and retain the iconic choreography, just like there is no way to make photo realistic animals emote like humans in The Lion King. Fully CGI'd or animated cats in their original scales doing that choreography would've looked 100 times more ridiculous than this does."

I don't think this is true. The original Disney animators improved their skills for decades working to draw emoting animals with realistic features and readable expressions. And adapting body language and, yes, choreography, to four-legged animals was another discipline that took years to develop. The difference now is that these photorealistic characters are being rushed into films before anyone has had time to work out how to animate their acting. Or maybe the animators are asked not to make them move with personality in the same way, or maybe the skills of character animators just aren't being transferred over to the big visual effects studios doing 'live action' CGI. (Full disclaimer: I don't actually know the industry, this is all from what I've read and seen.)

Gillian Lynne isn't credited as a choreographer on the film, so if they're adapting the choreography anyway they could have tried making it work on actually catlike bodies. I mean, in Fantasia you have ostriches and hippos doing ballet and dancing mushrooms. And in The Aristocats the cats play instruments and dance on two and four legs. Come on, choreographers, take a risk!

CarlosAlberto said: "In what world is a knife and fork bigger than a cat?!? The perspective is just way off...I take that back. EVERYTHING about this film is way off!



"

I completely agree with this, and this is my main issue with the trailer. The perspective is all over the place, and this is a perfect example.

Some of the other issues people are bringing up for me are minor quibbles in my opinion (e.g. why are some of the cats wearing clothes and not others, who makes the cat shoes, etc.). But it feels like much of the fundamental issues such as perspective and the cat design have not been thought through thoroughly.

I have so many questions: Did any of the actors wear makeup at all? Why are so many people saying the only way to do this movie would have been via traditional animation or CGI? I know we have the filmed stage version, but like any filmed stage version, it's bound to the limited location of the stage.

I don't understand why there wasn't a third (or fourth) option: Just take the way the cats were originally portrayed on stage w/ the orginal costumes and makeup, and then place them in an opened-up version of their world, exactly as it is in Hooper's version? Then we get everything we want: the beautiful choreography, the beautiful (now opened-up sets), the gorgeous cinematography. Why do we need CGI at all? I don't get it.

They look like the stage costumes in the sense that they look like bipedal humans in unitards. Morphing the faces to look more catlike or utilizing specific contrivances from the stage costumes like the wigs still would not work because that still doesn't solve the main problem with this whole thing, which is that it doesn't work on film to have a bunch of cat-human hybrids prancing around on two feet. The 1998 version had the excuse that it was merely a studio film of the stage production, but this is meant to be a traditional film. This just doesn't work as a film in any way.

To me, personally, it is. The standard for realistic effects in sci-fi or fantasy films is very high these days. One of the most important parts of sci-fi, both in written and film/television form, is world-building. There has to be a plausible explanation for the laws of the universe in which the characters operate. As for musical films, I don't really know of a musical that would be analogous to this. Most musicals are about humans. Those that aren't are usually animated, like Disney's films. This just doesn't work for me. It's hard for me to take the stage-bound elements of humans-as-cats in film form. I think the sort of film you're talking about -- a version of the stage show shot on location -- might work for PBS or one of those live musical broadcasts, but I think people go into cinema with a completely different level of suspension of disbelief.

I'd say Beauty and the Beast is different because they had an explanation: those characters were human beings turned into household objects by a witch's spell. If they have a similar explanation for why these cats look so much like humans in this movie, maybe that might work. (I don't know what explanation that would be. Are they aliens? Mutants? Is this a cult of cat-obsessed humans who dress up as casts and sacrifice one member every year?) But, from what I can tell, these are supposed to be actual cats. I'm guessing The Little Mermaid will either cut the animals or make them look realistic, ala Favreau's recent version of The Jungle Book, which combined a human actor and animal characters.

MikeInTheDistrict said: "I don't know what explanation that would be. Are they aliens? Mutants? Is this a cult of cat-obsessed humans who dress up as casts and sacrifice one member every year?) But, from what I can tell, these are supposed to be actual cats. I'm guessing The Little Mermaid will either cut the animals or make them look realistic, ala Favreau's recent version of The Jungle Book, which combined a human actor and animal characters. "

Because the whole tone of the trailer is kind of creepy, as a way to somehow explain the horror I had seen I pondered if maybe Hooper put a new spin to the story and sort of set it as a Grimm’s tale in which naughty children get transformed into half-cats and only when they really regret their choices get to be transformed into humans again. But don’t really think he did that.

Hudson's "Grizabella" looks like she was run over by a garbage truck and left for road kill. GRIZZLY!

This was a laugh-filled read. I agree with so much of it but especially:

65. If the buildings are called things like Royal Claws Hotel and Grand Feral Hotel, clearly the buildings were built by cats. So why is the furniture still so big? Can’t they just build all the furniture to fit their size?

Updated On: 7/21/19 at 08:51 AM

I feel like this trailer speaks volumes on the state of the US/world right now. Everyone is so cynical of seeing something new and/or different. I'm not saying it's going to be the best movie ever or all of the visuals are appealing. I'm sure in some ways the first time audiences saw an animated animal speak or sing on screen it was unusual and took a bit of getting used to. I've always been interested in art (of any form) that makes me feel uncomfortable.

The other thing I keep thinking about, is that I'm not sure why people think it's such an awful thing that there is an element of fear in Cats. I always found elements of the musical to be creepy and I believed that was intended.

At any rate I'm kind of sick of movies just trying to make things look as 'real' as possible (the new Lion King) that I'm honestly just going to support this movie for going for a different approach.

I just have one question before I exit this thread. Universal Pictures' marketing team has opted to go with "You Will Believe" as the film's tag line. What is it exactly that we are supposed to be believing in? That cats have human noses? That cats sport threaded eyebrows? That cats live on a completely separate planet all of their own with a milk bar and oversized objects or are they really asking us to suspend belief or disbelief and truly love and embrace this movie.

I'm asking for a friend....

MEOW!

Yes, and the internet also hated Sonic the Hedgehog so much that Sony pulled it and delayed the release date to next year so that Sonic could be completely redesigned and reanimated.

That old adage of "even bad publicity is good publicity" is complete bullish*t. No movie studio or star wants to be ripped apart the way that this trailer has been. Yes, it may have been viewed seven million times on YouTube, but how many of those views are coming from the trailer being embedded into negative articles? I would venture that it's a good proportion of those seven million views.

I do hope they have a cat sitting on a shelf casually swapping things off with an unconcerned look!

One question that's been on my mind for years: Has the cat who gets chosen to go to the Heavyside Layer (Grizabella) expended all of his or her nine lives and so then goes into permanent retirement, never to be seen again? And what happens to the other cats who are not chosen? Or is the Heavyside Layer a regenerative limbo between each of a cat's nine lives? Why is the Heavyside Layer a desirable place to be?

Updated On: 7/21/19 at 06:11 PM