Animation

Editors note: Are you a Transformers fan? This is for you. Going from the inception in 1984, to the underrated Transformers One in 2024.

Editors note: this piece is a personal perspective on the significant decisions that The Mitchells vs. The Machines takes on characterizing its out-and-proud protagonist.

“Create a world without malice, and full of beauty.”

Much has been said about the works of Hayo Miyazaki. In 1985, Miyazaki co-founded Studio Ghibli with Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki, establishing one of the most celebrated animation studios in the world. In 2002, Miyazaki won his first Academy Award for Spirited Away and was the first non-English film to win in the best animated feature category. He was nominated in the same category twice thereafter but did not win again till his fourth nomination for The Boy and the Heron in 2024.

Puss in Boots has significantly grown from his small beginnings as a side character introduced during Shrek 2. Now with his own trilogy, we have seen many different iterations of him, but the best by far is in his newest film, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. With an Oscar nomination under its belt, it is hard to disagree with the charisma and star power the film possesses. However, what makes the movie truly impactful is not the vocal performances by the star-studded cast, although that doesn’t hurt, but is instead what is at the core of the film, found family. 

Being scared is its own kind of fun, and over the decades, many children’s animated television shows understood this. What separates comedic cartoons from most horror animation is monsters. For the purpose of this list, monsters are nonhuman creatures meant to scare the characters and ideally the audience, even if the scare is played off for laughs. Animated monsters are all horrifying in their own world, and as of late, in our world too.

Do you ever sit down to watch a classic Disney movie you loved as a child only to find out it is not nearly as great as you remembered? Do the jokes no longer hit now that you’re above the age of thirteen? Do the life lessons now seem like common sense to you? Luckily, you will experience none of those kinds of feelings or somewhat upsetting sensations if you choose to rewatch Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove.

As most children’s Halloween movies go, Paranorman’s plot centers around a witch’s
curse on a small town. And, of course, a kind of weird, recluse, pre-teen boy. Norman, ironically, does not have a very normal gift for boys his age. Instead of being a child prodigy or a baseball hotshot, Norman can see the dead. And due to a 200-something-year-old curse that an old witch placed on his town, these ‘dead’ people don’t stay ‘dead’ for very long.

“I am not bad, I'm just drawn that way,” Jessica Rabbit seductively says. Ironically, she wasn’t always supposed to have her famous figure; instead, she looked more like your average princess. The change to her appearance came when Jessica’s voice actress, Kathleen Turner, saw the design and realized the character was “pretty, not sexy.” She started to tease the animators about adding her long legs to the character and said, “wouldn’t it be funny to have big you-know-what’s on her?”