Estate Living Digital Publication Issue 9 September 2015 | Page 64

i-tune you

Animated films are growing in popularity,
yet many of today’s most successful ones
owe a huge debt to groundbreaking films of
the past eight decades. We highlight some of
these below:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
This was the world’s first English language, fulllength animated film and instantly established
Walt Disney as a force to reckon with in regard to
the newly created genre. The film was rapturously
received by audiences and reviewers alike and
earned Disney an Honorary Academy Award,
encouraging him to continue with classics such as
Bambi in 1942, Cinderella in 1950 and Peter Pan in
1953. Arguably one of the foremost purveyors of
animated fare, this was quite literally where it all
began for Walt Disney.

Toy Story (1995)
The first full-length theatrically released feature
film to be made entirely with computer-generated
imagery, the huge success of Toy Story essentially
killed traditional animation. The move received
universal critical acclaim since its release in 1995,
with the Online Film Critics Society ranking it ‘the
greatest animated movie of all time’ in 2003 and
famous movie director Terry Gilliam hailing the film
as ‘a work of genius’.

Akira (1988)
Adult-orientated Akira remains a landmark film
that effectively introduced the Japanese style of
animation known as anime to the rest of the world.
Prior to Akira’s release in 1988, anime was deemed
a fringe animation movement that held very little
sway over mainstream audiences, yet the movie’s
memorable visuals and post-apocalyptic storyline
immediately opened up the anime realm to
viewers and film industry professionals who were
heavily influenced by the styles in the Hollywood
production of The Matrix in 1999.