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The hit Disney movie "Moana" features stunning visual effects, including the animation of water to such a degree that it becomes a distinct character in the film.
UCLA mathematics professor Joseph Teran, a Walt Disney consultant on animated movies since 2007, is under no illusion that artists want lengthy mathematics lessons, but many of them realize that the success of animated movies often depends on advanced mathematics.
"In general, the animators and artists at the studios want as little to do with mathematics and physics as possible, but the demands for realism in animated movies are so high," Teran said. "Things are going to look fake if you don't at least start with the correct physics and mathematics for many materials, such as water and snow. If the physics and mathematics are not simulated accurately, it will be very glaring that something is wrong with the animation of the material."
Teran and his research team have helped infuse realism into several Disney movies, including "Frozen," where they used science to animate snow scenes. Most recently, they applied their knowledge of math, physics and computer science to enliven the new 3-D computer-animated hit, "Moana," a tale about an adventurous teenage girl who is drawn to the ocean and is inspired to leave the safety of her island on a daring journey to save her people.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:07PM
Disney really does have a girl first agenda.
Just about all their TV series have girls (always Hispanic girls) as the lead character. Males are sidekicks or if it is the rare show with a male lead, he is a goofball.
Disney movies are the same. For the most egregious example, see "Frozen".
You may accuse me of being overly concerned with children's entertainment, but I am the father of 3 small boys. Girls deserve good role models, but so do boys. Disney has left boys behind.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:41PM
The impression I get is that Disney has now divided itself in to the "Frozen Corporation" to cater for girls, and the "Marvel & Star Wars" corporation to appeal to the boys. All their other properties, characters & franchises seem to have been almost completely forgotten. I'm almost surprised to see them come out with a new property instead of just more Frozen shite.
I say this as someone who absolutely hated Disney for years, but have recently had to grudgingly accept that they do make good films. Much as I would like to hate Frozen and the newer Tinkerbell films I find them very hard to fault, and IMO "Tangled" is just brilliant. The new Marvel and SW stuff is very enjoyable in my opinion too, especially considering how bad we feared it would be.
I'm not so enamoured of the so called "disney classics" though. I know they are products of an older age but some of them are just awful even considering that. Ever watched the 1953 Peter Pan? Bizarre, confusing, disjointed and not to mention borderline racist. I had a lot of awkward questions to answer from my five year old after watching that one.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:49PM
as per usual, i was the only stick-in-the-mud who didn't lerv frozen... formulaic disney with all the rough edges sanded blandly smooth... one of the major problems i had with it (as with many simplistic, glossed-over disney films), is that there were -ultimately- no consequences for stupid behaviors/decisions... EVERYTHING was eventually solved by -literally- a wave of the magic wand... cheap, easy, no muss, no fuss... what a crock...
for an example of a childrens animated movie i thought was great (and it obviously had a lot of commercial appeal), despicable me was 10 times better than mindless frozen...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:30PM
Disney alternates between a boy-movie year and a girl-movie year, because Disney is an equal opportunity money-taking company.
Between Frozen and Moana, there was Big Hero 6. It just didn't have the same "princess dresses everywhere" visibility.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:41PM
Also, it wasn't very good. The inflatable robot thing was quite appealing, but the story didn't hang together at all - first it's about a genius kid roboticist and his brother, then [SPOILER] [SPOILER] and he's all [SPOILER] and then suddenly it morphs unexpectedly into a lame superhero team up. WTF?
(Score: 3, Funny) by fishybell on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:50PM
Ah yes, the [SPOILER] scene. It really made the movie.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday January 04 2017, @08:41PM
On the other hand, the bad guy really didn't need to [SPOILER], since he already [SPOILER].
And that ruined it for me, given how that's the central thing which causes [SPOILER].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 04 2017, @07:01PM
2016 Disney Theatrical releases
Feature films
January 29 - The Finest Hours
March 4 - Zootopia
April 15 - The Jungle Book
May 6 - Captain America: Civil War
May 27 - Alice Through the Looking Glass
June 17 - Finding Dory
July 1 - The BFG
August 12 - Pete's Dragon
September 2 - The Light Between Oceans
September 23 - Queen of Katwe
November 4 - Doctor Strange
November 23 - Moana
December 16 - Rogue One: A Star Wars Story