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Night On The Galactic Railroad



Sadly i couldn't find this with Subs so had to watch it Dubbed, won't hold this against the movie though and thankfully the Dub wasn't that bad. I'm actually fairly sure Giovanni's voice actor did some character in another dub i've watched, he sounded very familiar. Think i may have heard about this from one of Guaps animation lists but i knew nothing about it going in.

The first 35 minutes or whatever it was until the train appeared were really slow, i didn't think this part of the film was bad i actually gained some sympathy for Giovanni, got curious about his dads situation and enjoyed some of the imagery. Not going to lie though for large patches of this part i was largely disinterested and if it stayed the same for the full film i think i would've found this below average. It's not even that it picked up speed that much after this it's just that i found what was happening much more interesting. It became a weird and slightly creepy, meditative journey through odd places and situations and fantastic visuals. That's the thing that improved most: the visuals IMO. Not that the first part was bad or anything, it's just as the film got weirder so did the images and i think this was a positive for me. Scenes like the cat catching the birds looked excellent. The story greatly improved as well, not that it really had that much of a conventional plot or direction. I liked how the other people on the train just sat next to Giovanni and Campanella and started telling them random things, it gave the film such an eery tone. Amazingly it wasn't until the first human characters appeared and started talking about true happiness and god that i figured this was probably a train to the afterlife. Not even the scene before when it was mentioned Giovannis ticket goes to the true heaven did i tipple haha. As soon as i figured that was the case everything they had said and would say became alot more poignant and kind of depressing. It was an interesting way to go and was well handled. The fact that it took me so long to realize makes me want to rewatch this at a later time.

Loved the music, mostly because it reminded me of Final Fantasy. I've noticed quite a bit of Anime has similar music to Final Fantasy which makes sense obviously, FF music is one piece of nostalgia that i've found always improves my experience of whatever i'm watching so definite positive there. Coincidentally the town Giovanni is running through at the start is pretty similar to a town in FF9 Some great visuals as i said, there was nothing particularly good or bad about the character designs but they were pleasant enough. Speaking of the character designs did anyone notice how the cat characters noses and the line leading down to their mouths looked like a wine glass? The bottom half of their noses were even shaded in more which made it look like a half full wine glass, hahaha. Man that was so distracting at times. It wasn't a problem or anything though as it was only from certain angles, i mean i didn't even notice it until the scene when the train first appears.

Anyway good nom Jal. Don't think it will become a favourite but i enjoyed it and it felt like something different so i'm glad you nominated it. Madagascar 2 next for me i think.



Before I start watching the next movie I think I'll rewatch Wall-E and Treasure Planet Then I will watch Tokyo Godfathers that I'm getting a good feeling about this one. Also if I didn't know Cosmic gender, her pic would be kind of hillarious



Hey tat, you haven't been around this thread much so i don't know if you've missed this - http://www.movieforums.com/community...13#post1598613

All of the reviews so far are in that post it's my first one in the thread so you remember. It's just so they are all in the one place and you don't have to go through loads of pages once you've watched something.



Wall E.

To be honest I was about to nominate this movie, it really is amazing, I love the animation so much! I thought I wasn't going to enjoy so much rewatching it but I was wrong. As some of you did, I decided not to grade the movies of the HOF from 1 to 5 popcorns, since it might not matter and I can't really classify the movies by that, it would be easier to decide the order when I finished the all.

Things I didn't notice the first time:

The gigant towers made out of trashcubes that are bigger than the building themselves
That his pet is a cockroach, a bug that can survive a nuclear explotion (or something as dangerous I don't remember)
The scene of the ring, suggesting that the value is something we gave to things, but Wall-E has his own perspective of value
That WallE can dig and that he seems like a cat chasing the red dot
That EVA could talk, she said "Who are you?"
Well, also that one of the songs was La vie en Rose
The Mad House for Robots
MO
The captian standing up
The credits

I wonder, why does EVA has a gun? Is there a threat on Earth that she needs that? Anyway, Buy N Large seems like a stereotypical Wolrd Wide organization that sells something increadibly popular and is "in control of the wolrd" Like McDonnalds or Coke, or even Best Buy. The secretary robot is hilarious! Every minute in the movie, the only thing WallE wanted was to hold hands with EVA, in a moment he says "Pathetic" I almost cried . I would love to have half as perseverance as that cleaning robot. I LOVE THAT UMBRELLA ROBOT. Also how obedient is that cockroach? amazing, it waited all that time for Wall E. I can't believe I didn't stay to watch the credits cinematic! That was really gorgeous too. Funny enough like the end of All Dogs go to Heaven, all of the robots of the Mad House, go help Wall E at the end, I love that kind of scenes. John and the other one were amazing too.



Hey tat, you haven't been around this thread much so i don't know if you've missed this - http://www.movieforums.com/community...13#post1598613

All of the reviews so far are in that post it's my first one in the thread so you remember. It's just so they are all in the one place and you don't have to go through loads of pages once you've watched something.
Thanks! I think I did saw it earlier, but I think I will just read all the pages when I have the time. Does the HOF has an official end date yet? I'm having a month of exams now so I'm asking to see if I had to see them now or there is still plenty of time




Night on the Galactic Railroad/
銀河鉄道の夜 (1985)
Dir. Gisaburo Sugii
Starring: Mayumi Tanaka, Chika Sakamoto

This is a film which, at the start, I found to be infuriatingly slow. Not only because the shots lingered for longer than what I felt was necessary, but also because Giovanni moved at a snail's pace. It was unnaturally slow to me, but not in the calming manner that I think was intended. However as the film went on, I started to like it more and more, and since I mostly figured out what was going on pretty early*, I was able to spend most of the film picking out symbolism and just admiring the imagery.

While I also found the cat people to be a really strange choice at first, I eventually got used to it, even though it prevented Giovanni from displaying much emotion. However when human characters appeared as well, I found the disparity very unsettling. As I understand it, the main characters were supposed to be humans in the novel this film is based on, but were changed for the film. Changing some characters but not others is really bizarre, and I'm not sure what the intention there was.

I liked the film's sombre tone and themes (though I felt that the Christian connotations were a little heavy handed at times), and the soundtrack was really interesting and pleasant to listen to. This is a film where it's equally as enjoyable to watch as it is to dissect and to try and interpret meaning from.

*SPOILERS: I assumed that Giovanni would have been in the water as well (perhaps jumping in to save Campanella), but had not yet drowned. This was not the case.
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You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
Night On The Galactic Railroad


I liked how the other people on the train just sat next to Giovanni and Campanella and started telling them random things, it gave the film such an eery tone.

Maybe it comes from living in New York, and years of riding the LIRR, but I found it creepy when strangers sat right next to them and just started talking to them. People just don't do that around here.
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You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
Wall E.

To be honest I was about to nominate this movie, it really is amazing, I love the animation so much! I thought I wasn't going to enjoy so much rewatching it but I was wrong. .

I'm glad to see that so many people love Wall-E as much as I do. It was the first movie that I thought of for this HoF, and I hope that people remember it for the Sci-Fi Countdown too.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
Madagascar 2

It's been many years since I've watched the Madagascar movies, so I didn't remember much about them, but the characters' personalities were pretty clear in my mind. That made it pretty easy to just jump right into the second movie without having to rewatch the first movie.

I should mention that the voice cast in this movie is made up almost entirely of actors and actresses who I usually don't like, but as voice actors, they all did a great job. I thought this movie was a lot of fun from start to finish. I especially loved seeing the animals as children. They were so cute.

The penguins are so funny that they steal the movie, and even though I don't really care much for King Julien, I thought it was hysterical when he thought that he was responsible for filling the watering hole again. I also loved the nod to "The Twilight Zone" with Mort on the wing of the plane, (although the part with him and the shark was kind of dumb). I think the part that I liked the least was the stuff about Gloria with Moto Moto. It just seemed kind of average compared to what was going on with the rest of the characters.

Overall, I liked this movie a lot, and I'm glad it was nominated.



One other thought I had on Tokyo Godfathers. It seemed to me that this movie could have been set in any country. I think it's the first Japanese movie I've seen that didn't showcase their culture in some way. I don't think it helped or hurt my enjoyment, just an observation.
Actually it showcased their culture in the fact that it was animated. Such a movie script would have been live action if filmed in any other country.



Madagascar Escape 2 Africa



Not got that much to say about this. To my surprise i actually thought this was alright. No offence tat, it's just a sequel to a movie i remember not liking when it came out (to be fair i was 12 at the time and was past the point of watching these kinds of movies), that to me looks really generic is not something i expected to enjoy, but i did find it quite fun. There were quite a few problems i felt The animation was really boring i thought, not sure what else to say about it i just thought it looked the same as lots of animated films that were released around this time. The thing i did enjoy was some of the humour. I don't know what it was usually i find these type of jokes dumb and irritating but for whatever reason a decent portion of them worked, not that i was laughing out loud but i did find them entertaining for the most part. Of course there were still plenty i hated like the music and dancing jokes. The other thing i enjoyed was the voice acting, i think Chris Rock always had a strong chance of being good but to my surprise i really liked Stiller and Schwimmer too. The story was alright for the most part, my only complaint really is that it was a bit too silly most of the time for any of the conflicts or emotion to have any effect.

Anyway while i had problems with this i liked it more than i expected to so i'm glad you nominated it tat. Treasure Planet next for me.



Since i'm not going to rewatch and review WALL-E i thought i may as well post the short post i made about it here when i first watched it over two years ago, it's not very good but whatever. I've seen it three times since and i'd say i love it even more now. All i'd add is that i've came to enjoy the obese humans part more even though it's still the weakest part of the film IMO.

WALL-E



Complete masterpiece imo. I've put off watching this for years now, but thanks to the Animation List, i found a new favourite. The only reason it doesn't have a higher rating is because i found the obese humans part a little silly, even though it did work in general and i got what they were going for.

For an animated film that's largely silent for the first third of the film and a good chunk of the rest of it, it packs an immense emotional punch. The scene where WALL-E flys about with EVE with his fire extinguiser was beautiful (cheese but true). I did think it may have been partially inspired by the scene near the end of Spirited Away were Chihiro flys on the dragon version of Haku. I may be way off with that though.

Anyway i loved it and will no doubt be near the top of my Animation list!



Treasure Planet

I love this movie so much when I was a kid! Rewatching it after so long was amazing. I enter this HOF not only to watch some amazing animated movies, but also so I have the escuse to rewatch some of my favorites, thanks MM for nominating it!

I didn't realize back then how amazing the music of the movie is. Sometimes the animation of Jim remember me to Tarzan. I like also how it combines Future and Past characteristics and objects. When I start reading a book at school I was suprised that this movie was inspired in that exact book, which kinds of explains the Future Past combination of stuff. I love the animation about the cyborg parts, it's so cool. I also love the 2 scenes where there are going to die and then there is silence for a moment, just to reveal that at the end they are fine .
And I was wondering if the Cyborg isn't human, like the Professor and te Captain, because of his ear, it's kind of different, and maybe his nose it's too, or maybe not, who knows. I also notice a lot more tears that I remember. Amazing movie, I will now look up that song! It tears you appart the story of Jim and his father



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Night on the Galactic Railroad

Surely an interesting nomination. I toggled back and forth between being interested in what was going on and what wasn't. I will say that the second half of the film far triumphs the first half. I feel like I cared more about the characters once they were on the train. I will agree with Camo by saying I was most interested in what was going on with Giovanni's father and I am not sure that this is ever truly figured out, other than him coming home very soon.

I wish we could have seen more of what made Giovanni and Campanella truly connect with each other. Sometimes it was hard to see why they were friends if that makes any sense.

The visuals were pretty good and there were a few truly amazing scenes visually. I really liked the staircase scenes. The most bothersome thing in this film for me was the title cards in between the scenes, I would have liked better transitions to be honest. I also wish I would have cared about the two main characters sooner as when the end happened it felt a bit incomplete to me as far as how much I cared.

Still, a very interesting and a rather original nomination. I'm glad that people have grown to really like it. As far as imaginative fantasy's go, I've seen better, but it still wasn't half bad.




I actually forgot to say two things that you just reminded me of. I was also disappointed that there was no real resolution with Giovannis father, it was the only thing keeping me interested before the train arrived then there was just nothing about it afterwards. It actually manages to make the film that much weirder that they seemed to be building up an interesting story with his father.. then nothing. And yeah i didn't even think to mention the title cards but i agree those were distracting. I didn't mind at first but they just popped up so often and it felt like there was a shorter break each time.



I was also disappointed that there was no real resolution with Giovannis father, it was the only thing keeping me interested before the train arrived then there was just nothing about it afterwards. It actually manages to make the film that much weirder that they seemed to be building up an interesting story with his father.. then nothing.
Near the end that one cat does say his ship was supposed to have arrived by now. Were we meant to believe that he was on the Titanic ship that struck an iceberg? I guess we would've seen him if that were the case though.



Near the end that one cat does say his ship was supposed to have arrived by now. Were we meant to believe that he was on the Titanic ship that struck an iceberg? I guess we would've seen him if that were the case though.
That crossed my mind. Even if it was i don't think it was handled well though.



Nothing good comes from staying with normal people
I interpred the cards as the train stoping or pulling away from a station on the line, but you're right camo when you say that they came in too often. It felt wierd just to have a scene cut to black and a title header poping up. As far as Giovanni's father, I also had the feeling he was on the Titanic when it sank, but then Campanella's father tells Giovanni he got a letter from him only the day before and that he was on his way home. Although, seeing as they probably used standard delivery services, he could have sent the letter and then boarded the ship I guess.

Also, what was up with the little bastereds teasing Giovanni about the coat his dad was gonna get him? Are they mocking him cause they think it's wierd he's getting a fur coat or because they think he's dead and Giovanni's never gonna get it? Either way, they're a buch of @sshats.
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