Should James Cameron's Avatar Films Be Classified as Animated Movies?

[Winter]

These are films with CGI backgrounds, with characters that are CGI, with little to no real sets made and brought to life via computer. So, does this make Avatar by Cameron animated films, and by extension, should any film that uses a large amounts of CGI be counted as animated films? We called the 2019 Lion King film live-action even though there's only 2 or 3 shots in the whole film that were actually filmed on location which does mean it should be counted as an animated movie and NOT live-action because every character and most of the environment is animated via computer.

A comment from the directed of The Bad Guys said "The race for photorealism in the CG world is over," and he's right, we've gotten to the point where we can regress someone's age and make them look several decades younger and now animation is shifting towards more stylized looks like with Arcane, the Spider-Verse movies and others. So, if a film can make characters look real but are fully CG where do we draw the line between what is an animated film and what is live-action?

For me, I've always counted films that use a lot of CGI as animated films because not only is the environment not really there but some times many of the characters aren't. Let's take a look at a film that is often counted as Animated even though most of the film was shot with real sets and used animated characters and sets very sparingly, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Most of the film was shot with real actors and real sets and only a handful of characters in the first two acts are animated. We don't get to Toontown until the third act and even then we're still fallowing a person who is really there. The only difference between WFRR and, say, Guardians of the Galaxy is hand-drawn and the other is CG. If anything both GOTG films use MORE animation then WFRR does in it's entire runtime. The same is true of other MCU films like the upcoming Thor film or the Recently released Doctor Strange film.

So, should films like Avatar and others like be counted as animation and if not, why shouldn't they be counted as such?

[Deledrius]

It's all on a spectrum. At some point the question becomes "is more of this animated than not?" but really it's an academic one that doesn't really matter much once it's all blurred. Plenty of interesting technical discussions can be had, but a film is a film whether it's animated, live action, or some mix anywhere in between. The only reason it's mattered to mainstream audiences before, for a very long time, is because animation had been ghettoized, relegated to mostly a children's audience and eschewed as "non-serious" art (ironically both too commercial and not commercial enough, depending on the context). The threat of equal competition has always been there.

If we want to be pedantic about it, yeah I'd say the Avatar films are largely animated. So is the Live Action Lion King movie. So was TRON (but not TR2N). A good chunk of the Marvel films are animated, too, which suits a comic adaptation well.

Honestly, "how do I classify this movie?" is just not a question that matters to me, at least not on the animation axis. There are many more important questions to ask about the content itself.

[Riedquat]

Does it actually matter? People have a tendency to what to put things in neat little categories, and it's often convenient to do so, but it's only ever an approximation anyway. Categories recognise certain common features but there's no need to take the step to saying that things are wholly defined by the set of common features we've selected for convenience.

[Winter]

Does it actually matter? People have a tendency to what to put things in neat little categories, and it's often convenient to do so, but it's only ever an approximation anyway. Categories recognise certain common features but there's no need to take the step to saying that things are wholly defined by the set of common features we've selected for convenience.

I'm asking because, Western Culture, there's always been this stigma against Animation, often to the point that if someone is working on animation it's treated as if they've gone down in the world and if they manage to make a good story it's in-spite of the the fact that the film is animated and not because of it. That mentality has started to fade out over the years with many of these "Silly Cartoons" having great stories that rival or even surpass live-action works but it's not really gone away either.

So, I just wonder, if a film is mostly CGI and wins several awards and has a long standing rivalry with a 2D show (which many would argue is a greater story) that shares a name with it but little else and film series like the MCU using this form of animation for many characters and sets then shouldn't these films be counted as animated movies and as such shouldn't the stigma against animation just be tossed in the waste bin of history where it belongs?

[TGLS]

shouldn't the stigma against animation just be tossed in the waste bin of history where it belongs?

Just wait for the boomers to die and the millennials weaned on anime and modern to take over the entertainment biz.

[Winter]

shouldn't the stigma against animation just be tossed in the waste bin of history where it belongs?

Just wait for the boomers to die and the millennials weaned on anime and modern to take over the entertainment biz.

... Think it will be more gay?

[McAvoy]

shouldn't the stigma against animation just be tossed in the waste bin of history where it belongs?

Just wait for the boomers to die and the millennials weaned on anime and modern to take over the entertainment biz.

Poor Gen X. Always forgotten.

[Makeshift Python]

The first film won an Oscar for cinematography. I’m still conflicted about that, because it’s like if someone won awards for excellent photography, but the actual work is a painting.

[TGLS]

shouldn't the stigma against animation just be tossed in the waste bin of history where it belongs?

Just wait for the boomers to die and the millennials weaned on anime and modern to take over the entertainment biz.

... Think it will be more gay?

Hopefully; the reverse is too terrible to contemplate.

shouldn't the stigma against animation just be tossed in the waste bin of history where it belongs?

Just wait for the boomers to die and the millennials weaned on anime and modern to take over the entertainment biz.

Poor Gen X. Always forgotten.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
When the boomers are all dead there will be few early Gen Xers. When the Millenials are entering the top the late Gen Xers will be entrenched.

[Frustration]

I've never understood why animation is stigmatized in the West any more than I understand why puppetry is stigmatized despite Jim Henson's efforts to make art for grownups. You have to lean far into "adult" territory, a la Avenue Q, before grownups will pay any attention to puppetry drama.

I can't help but wonder if the generation of people raised with Sesame Street will be more openminded... but there still aren't any examples beyond AQ, I notice.

I guess most people are highly conventional, obedient to the preconceptions of their culture, and fairly prejudiced in general.