Animation: How beautiful visuals tell a story

Art has been around since the beginning of humanity, a form of storytelling and expression that often outweighs all other forms of communication. It can make you cry tears of joy or have you bending over in laughter; the arts inflict emotions stronger than any other medium. Music, writing, performance, drawings, paintings, and most of all, animation. Animation has been evolving from the old rubber hose style of the 1950s Disney cartoons, to the most recent addition of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

When Computer-Generated Images animation was first introduced with the critically acclaimed Toy Story way back in 1995, the goal has always been to gain realism with computer animated puppets and backgrounds to tell a story. Even during the time of the Disney Renaissance from 1989 to 1999 with movies such as The Little Mermaid or The Lion King, 3D animation was slowly pushing itself to the top as technology evolved. It wasn’t until the late 2010’s where that genre of computerized art was truly able to spread its wings and fly. CGI continued on to become mainstream, as almost every movie now has included some sort of computer generated imagery, making beautiful wonders such as Avatar (2009) to the simple backdrops and magic items one couldn’t make out of models.

However, something in animation changed with the release of Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse back in 2018.

Spiderverse changed the ways we look at animation, with its digital comic book style and it’s wonderous 3D models with 2D details, not to mention colors that felt as though they were painted by hand. Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse  brought out a different side of a creative medium that audiences have never seen before, and the people LOVED it. Audiences were quick to fawn and rave over this unique breath of fresh air. With hand drawn frames, the most intense actions scenes and effects, and most dramatic and hear throbbing moments; it was as if one of Stan Lee’s creations come to life in the palm of your hand.

Arcane (2021) and Mitchells vs the Machines (2021), also adapted this expressive and beautiful style; as if watching paintings and notebook scribbles dance on the pages they were drawn on, they continued to express beautiful storytelling with even more gorgeous visuals. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) released just last month, and it was easily the best movie of a dreadful year for animation thanks to its hand painted models, amazing details, and a heart-wrenching storyline about how life should be valued. It’s not about a fear a death, it’s about the want to live.

With Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse (2023) and season two of Arcane (2024) one can only hope that animation will continue to evolve into something beautiful.