Thomas The Tank

I agree. Having characters speak patronisingly to the viewers and ask for responses, as in Dora the Explorer, has spread to Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and others. Thankfully my 5-year-old grandson now prefers the old Looney Toons and Popeye shows, which are just entertainment and maybe not so PC or "educational" as some spoilsports would like. They are shown in Canada on "Toon Retro", rather than the kiddie channels such as Family and Treehouse.

MartinS wrote: [...]

Your grandson understands the difference between a story and a sermon. Good for him.

I used to wonder why well-educated people believe that writing stories with obvious messages would teach anyone anything. Not anymore: there are people who just don't understand how the imagination works, perhaps they suffer from limited imaginations themselves. These are often also the people who want to ban books with bad words etc in them. They believe in a kind of verbal magic: expose a kid to a bad word, and the kid will be infected forever. Literalists of all religious and non-religious persuasions suffer from this odd quirk of the mind.

Now someone will think, "Yes, but Jesus used parables to teach his lessons." He did. But he was careful to a) use examples from everyday life; and b) preface his stories with the subject of his moral. Why did he do this? Because his parables aren't obviously "educational". In fact, people have argued about their "real" meaning for about 2,000 years. ;-)

HTH wolf k.

Agree with what you say there, especially about the patronising bit, most important is the requirement to entertain after which some sort of message can be inserted. however the US sitcom method of sit and talk for 2 minutes solves all problems doesnt quite work. We've just started to let our son watch the Simpsons but are very careful to stamp out any attempt at emulation - got to teach the difference between that and reality as he will be exposed to unsavery charachters throughout life, cannot protect from that. Plus there are some amusing bits in it (now am forced to watch as well).

Main difference notice between original modelled Thomas and more recent CGI (shugsomething) is the script must be of high enough quality to keep attention, CGI appear to depend more on dancing images and exciting sounds. Doesnt have to be that way - look at original Star Wars.

cheers, Simon

Homer, my hero and role model.

2001 and the original Star Wars didn't use CGI. They used mechanically or computer controlled models and tracking cameras, and sophisticated matting techniques for backgrounds and views through windows. All the spacecraft were physical scale models (as was DS9). The weightless scenes in 2001 were simulated by hanging the actors upside down and filming from below, so you couldn't see the support wires.

Doh!

A bit like the US reporter who asked Nelson Mandela what it was like to be an African American..........

Cheers Richard

explains a lot :-)

cheers, Simon

then am even more impressed by Star Wars, some films would have depended on those expensive effects and left it at that, but these have a good script as well.

Cheers, Simon

If you want to watch films with no CGI, good effects and wonderful scripts then I would recommend Wallace and Gromit.

Not against CGI, just that it seems to make them lazy with rest of film content. Have enjoyed the absurd but gentle humour of W&G. However, for me the best of all is Flash Gordon. the story, the script, the characters, the actors, the music and the wow Princess .....Dare I say unbeatable.

Cheers, Simon

I believe the first three were pre-CGI, aside from the obvious fakes, e.g., Jabba the Hutt as inserted in the later "enhanced" version.

I agree, but it took Nick Park years to make them with Plasticine stop- motion. His later work done in partnership with animation studios, e.g. Creature Comforts, does use some CGI and other shortcuts. I think the first character done entirely in CGI was Brian the Amoeba.

I wouldn't mind a dog like Grommit. He even does the washing up.

:-)

wolf k.

There's also the fact that Sir Topham Hatt couldn't be considered to be fat in the USA.

Chris