Animated colors that nauseate me

After all the to-ing and fro-ing about no one in my family wanting to see The Croods: A New Age (including me, I should say, but I would have gone in order to visit the little town theater in Mansfield, where we stayed between Christmas and New Year's), my wife ended up taking both my kids on Monday, the hottest day of the year so far and one of the last before they return to school tomorrow.

They liked it, of course. I'd say perhaps my wife especially, except that the younger one declared it one of the best movies he'd ever seen. The older one, the one more prone to movie-related hyberole (declaring a half-dozen movies the best he'd ever seen in the past year alone), said it was "okay" but then immediately upgraded that to "pretty good," as you could see him thinking he had been uncharitable, and trying to reconcile his disinterest in seeing it with the fact he'd actually liked it.

It got me thinking about my own negative preconceived notions about the movie that prevented me from wanting to see it, and it's put me on to a larger theory of why I do or do not anticipate certain animated movies. It's a phenomenon common to second-banana animated studios like Dreamworks and Sony, and has to do with the color palettes.

Simply put, when was the last time you saw these colors in a Disney or Pixar movie?

Answer: Never, because Disney and Pixar intuitively realize there's something unpleasant about those pinks and purples, especially when mashed up next to each other.

Oh, Pixar used pinks and purples in Soul, but please note the difference in shade:

Those are lighter, friendlier, more digestible pinks and purples. They don't slap you in the face like those colors used in Dreamworks' The Croods: A New Age or Sony's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, the two images selected above.

I think it was the latter movie, which I really despised after loving the original, that first planted the seed of these pinks and purples nauseating me. My memory of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is that every scene is a gross mishmash of these colors, assaulting my corneas and turning my stomach in a metaphorical if not literal way. 

Sure, it's easy to find these pinks and purples in one shot of The Croods. But is that all you got, Vance?

Nope.

I better stop posting these images or I just might vomit.

Yes, I do find these colors displeasing, but this is not just me hating on pink and purple. You can do pink and purple right. It's the aggressive pink and purple, almost neon in its intensity, that makes me feel assaulted. 

It's a whole aesthetic approach to this and a number of other of what I would consider lesser animated films. These colors are prevalent in the Trolls movies as well, for example. And the thing that really sticks out about them is the extent to which they don't exist in nature. Yes, there are pinks and purples in nature, but not these pinks and purples.

See that sloth in the picture above? That sloth is pink. Have you ever seen a pink sloth in nature?

Now, the evidence of The Croods: A New Age -- as least as far as my family's opinons constitute evidence -- demonstrates that this color scheme is not fatal to the effectiveness of the movie. And my wife usually hates pink, like with a passion. She wasn't bothered by it here, which just goes to show you how caught up she was in the story. She really appreciated the female empowerment message of it.

But it's going to keep people like me away, unable to experience that storytelling for ourselves. And it's not because I'm a boy and I don't like pink. It's because something about that mashup of pink and purple has the effect on me that a strobe light has on an epileptic. 

You're stealing everything else from Disney -- or trying to, anyway -- so take a lesson from them and figure out how to employ a more muted color palette. 

Personal growth

Never let it be said that an old dog can't learn any new tricks.

In past times, my "trick" on a five-night trip to a small country town that had its own movie theater would have been to get to that theater, at least once if not twice. With five nights at your disposal, it's not even a hindrance on any of your fellow travelers. Just this past summer -- winter in Australia -- I went to the local cinema in Lakes Entrance to see both Sonic the Hedgehog, and a repertory screening of Mary Poppins, which I had never seen.

This past week, I made it to the Mansfield Armchair Cinema, pictured above, exactly zero times.

Oh, it had been my intention to go. I had not yet seen any of the films playing there, which at different times during our stay included Wonder Woman 1984, The Croods: A New Age, The Dry and Words on Bathroom Walls. And I got as far as the lobby on our second-to-last full day, when I asked about whether the next day's shows were in danger of selling out. They were, so if we were to buy tickets, we probably ought to do it today. 

But when it didn't work out, I let it go without further comment, and that's the part that encourages me about my own ability to surprise myself.

It wasn't that we didn't have the time, but that we, collectively, did not have the inclination. 

I had expected to take my younger son, who turned seven on January 1st, to The Croods on his birthday. We had known it was going to rain that day. My wife was even planning a concurrent viewing of The Dry for her, her sister and her mother -- an escape to The Dry to get out of the wet, you could say. I guess we figured we'd force my older son along to The Croods.

But then it was revealed that not only did my older son not want to see The Croods -- which we already knew -- but neither did his brother. Forcing one would have been achievable, but not both -- especially if the second one we were forcing was having a birthday. (Incidentally, I sort of blame myself, for making a dismissive comment about this movie sometime in mid-December, when I did not know this scenario would arise.)

Wonder Woman was my next best hope, but my wife was uncertain whether it would be too adult for the seven-year-old. He's watched a handful of Marvel movies, but my wife was not willing to extend that logic to exposing him to this movie. The fact that she wanted to see it on a bigger screen -- we have that option in Australia, at least for now -- also factored into her thinking.

I still could have seen one of the other movies, but this small community theater plays its last show each day by about 6:40. I just couldn't see my way to skipping out on a whole night's dinner just to scratch my itch to visit small theaters in small towns. 

To be sure, my wife would have still helped me work it out. Our trip was long enough that I could have gotten away in one of the afternoons, especially since our kids are accustomed to some afternoon downtime -- meaning time playing video games. 

But instead I just decided to let it go. 

And part of letting it go was never mentioning it again once it was clear it was not going to happen. In the past, had I been thwarted in such an attempt, I might have made solemn, regretful comments which would have let my wife know I had not really let it go. This time, I just decided that what was done was done, and it would never get mentioned again.

Besides, I think we'll be back to Mansfield. If this place is great in the summer, it's even better in the winter, where it serves Mt. Buller, a rare Australian spot with the elevation to support skiing. Which, incidentally, has its own theater, where we saw Aladdin on a visit in 2019. 

And if for some reason we don't get back here, life will go on. 

I can't visit every small theater in every small town, and knowing that is a part of growing up as an evolved human being.