In 1995, a movie came out that changed the way we look at the medium. It was fresh, funny, original and it looked amazing. That movie: Toy Story, and even now, 10+ years later, we still remember it and it has lost none of its appeal. The graphics are slightly dated, but what other CGI films have in graphical superiority, Toy Story makes up for with wit, charm and that hard to pin down sense of wonder.

    An all CGI animated film. It was a thing of fanfare ten years ago. If we were a good audience, Pixar, the best, and only, CGI studio would grace us with a new movie once every year or so. Toys came out, all manner of merchandising was licensed and the public knew that, because of the time needed to complete a CGI animated film, the film-makers took extra care in ensuring they created the best story possible. We remember Woody and Buzz, Mike Wazowski and Boo, Nemo and Dory, Shrek and Donkey. These are eternal characters that have become a part of the cultural subconscious, a sure sign of a lasting and well-made film.

    The CGI was one of the main draws. For years, CGI had been relegated to the land of action/adventure and science fiction. It was, in theory, supposed to be used to heighten a movie visually, but as we know, the film-makers used it to the neglect of story and character. But CGI films! Those were lovingly crafted, 4 year endeavors in the early days. Not to mention, it was EXPENSIVE to make, because technology kept advancing and studios wanted their animated films to look better and better, creating a market for new technology and so on and so on.

Then, much like the initial jump between the last XBOX games and the next generation XBOX 360, we came to a point where the graphical leap in new technology was barely detectable. Sure, we had ‘Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within’, which looked amazing, but it cost too damn much and did not make it back at all. Soon, the technology to create gorgeous looking images became normalized and, as such, with many different manufacturers, the price dropped.

And the result: more CGI films than we can shake a stick at.

Pixar lost its hold on the CGI monopoly, and then every studio was coming out with pretty looking children’s films. But something was different, these films did not feel as polished, their stories lacked something: the film-makers had stopped caring. Like the new technologies before them, sound, color, widescreen, once it was given to the masses, the masses did what it always did: dumbed it down and went for the easy buck.

Do you remember ‘Everybody’s Hero’? ‘The Ant Bully’? ‘Ice Age 2: The Meltdown’ (and not just because the first Ice Age was a fun movie)? No? These were all CGI films released this year. And that is not even all of them, we have ‘Over the Hedge’, ‘Flushed Away’, ‘Monster House’, ‘Open Season’, ‘Happy Feet’ and ‘Cars’.

    All these movies are well made, but how many are on par with the trailblazers of the old days? These are all safe movies: talking animals (or some other inanimate object, except Monster House), themes of friendship and belonging, along with a large sampling of pop culture references and jokes that go over the main audience’s (kids’) heads. In fact, we have such a catalogue of CGI films that they can be referenced in other films (Nemo in ‘Flushed Away’).

Perhaps the most tragic thing of all is that with so many 3D animated films coming out, we have lost our traditional 2D films. Disney, the studio which has created the most timeless and wonderful animated films EVER, has shut down its 2D animation department, instead favoring all 3D films. What little 2D fare is created, is relegated to the Direct to DVD bin or to television. The last traditionally animated film to be released wide was ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ a year ago, and even that was done by a Japanese studio.

    I love 3D CGI films, they can be wonderful, as evidenced by films such as Toy Story and The Incredibles (the best one), and so it saddens me to see them being churned out like some factory. And, like with the Industrial Revolution itself, we lose that ‘specialness’ that made the first offerings so great. Would you rather see a soulless, pretty looking engineered film with a nine month turnaround, or a well crafted, intimately drawn animated film that consumed years because the film-makers believed in it?

The stories are simple, yes, but the best of these movies can bring about something far beyond our familiarity with the events: they can give us magic. And what is CGI if not about making us stare in awe at the impossible?