Iron Giant (DVD)

This is one of my all-time favorite animated movies.



The colors are vibrant, and even on my 31" non-HD TV, this almost looks 3D with the depth the animators gave it. It does have some jaggies, but I would expect that from an older release.



A boy and his robot, not the traditional coming of age story, but Iron Giant's astute observations of single-parenthood, a boy's longing for a father figure, societal stereotypes, and the possible adverse effects of military and nationalist fanaticism are rendered extremely well.



Besides, what guy doesn't want to be Superman?



Sean (Go ahead and laugh, but this movie chokes me up every time.)

I too think of this film as one of my all time favorites in the animation genre. I still watch it from time to time with my kid, and I'm still delighted every time.



Some of the animation does appear to be 3D, mainly because the animators use 3D graphics programs to accomplish certain visuals. Once they have rendered the 3D model they map it to the 2D environment. The blends can appear seemless because they use the same color styles on the 3D models. This trick has been done for quite a while now and one of the first I've seen it used is in "Beauty and the Beast". I don't know if you watch "Futurama", but the opening sequence is all 3D graphics colored like a 2D cartoon. It looks very clean and very traditional at the same time.

Painting 3D stuff in 2D is called cel shading or painting. There's even a commercially available program that does this (can't remember the name, sorry).



I too love this movie. I think it speaks to children, but on a much more intelligent level than they're used to. I mean, there's all kinds of undercurrents going on here (the military, single Mom, Red Scare), and I think that kids really do appreciate it even if they don't walk away with everything. The final choice for the robot also chokes me up, when he refuses to be just the sum of him parts and chooses to be Superman.