This movie featuring the Looney Tunes called...well Looney Tunes: Back in Action I've been interested in why it was a box office bomb and still got mixed reception(at least better than Space Jam). So what I'd like to know is: what did you like about Looney Tunes: Back in Action and what didn't you like about it? What made it good and what made it bad? What exactly were the problems with the film? I'm wondering because it was one of my favorite movies and growing up and I'm not sure why it did bad because it was more "classic Looney Tunes" than what Space Jam gave us(although they were okay more the most part on characterization with some errors).
Re: Pros and Cons of "Looney Tunes: Back in Action"
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One thing that I liked about Looney Tunes: Back in Action was the plot actually revolved around the Looney Tunes characters and the human co-stars were mostly supporting players. I also liked how the main plot revolved around Daffy Duck, my favorite LT character, and also that Daffy wasn't wrongly portrayed as the villain of the piece. Daffy's not a villain. If anything, he's an anti-hero.
Also, I liked how the films' main plot only focused around Daffy and Bugs alone and not all of the LT characters as a group (the other LT characters only made cameos or sudden funny appearances). That latter formula doesn't work because the original shorts were never like that. The shorts typically only centered on a couple of characters, like Bugs, Elmer and Daffy, or just Bugs and Elmer or just Bugs and Daffy, or Daffy & Porky, etc. The only way that one can have the entire cast involved in the main plot would be to have to characters put on a show or take part in some kind of group competition, like a sport. That (debateably) worked in Space Jam, but re-hashing that same formula over and over again would get old fast.
The main problem with LT:BiA are the same problems that all LT feature films are faced with; the fact that the LT characters were created for shorts, not features and don't have deep enough personalities to sustain an audience's attention for over and hour.
In features, the main characters typically have to undergo an ordeal and be then be forever changed as a result of said ordeal at the end of the film. Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny don't have this ability because their fans don't don't want to see them change. They have to remain the Bugs and Daffy that we know and love so that they can continue entertaining us by making the same mistakes and undertaking the same wacky antics over and over in their cartoons. And sure, you could give the main plot to the human co-stars and have them experience the life changing event(s), but the problem there is that no one goes to a LT movie to see some them. They go to see the toon characters.
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Procrastinators unite....tomorrow.
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Jan 31, 2013, 4:03 PM)
Re: Pros and Cons of "Looney Tunes: Back in Action"
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Another problem was that the movie was produced and released at a bad time. It was a time when 2D animation was starting to be phased out in favor of 3D CGI animated films. The wild successes of DreamWorks's "Shrek" and Pixar's films (especially "Finding Nemo," which cost us our Annie Awards ) seemed to make audiences be more interested in CGI than traditional animation, and public interest in Looney Tunes was starting to dwindle. (Though at the time, 2D wasn't always the reason an animated film would bomb, there would also be the matter of story and cliches, which was the case with "Home on the Range," a forgettable out-the-door job by Disney about farm animals.)
When the movie bombed, it looked like it would be all over for us Looney Tunes. One could argue that the movie destroyed Warner's feature animation division, like "Heaven's Gate" ruining United Artists or "Cutthroat Island" to Carloco. In 2004, Sander Schwartz pulled the plug on the planned theatrical Looney Tunes shorts in pre-production (I was supposed to be in one more short, titled "Full Metal Jack-$$.") Then after my "What's New Scooby-Doo" cameo (I was desparate!), Warner laid off all of us Looney Tunes characters, and then Cartoon Network canceled our shorts in favor of rerunning lame episodes of "Dexter's Laboratory" (particularly the later ones, suffering the same treatment as our 2003 shorts did.) It looked like we were about to fade into obscurity, at least until 2009-2010!
So I derailed a train (in the film) for all THAT? They should never underestimate my genius
Re: Pros and Cons of "Looney Tunes: Back in Action"
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This movie was such a disappointment because of how good it could have been more than how bad it actually was, if that makes any sense. There were so many good things in the movie but they got overshadowed by the garbage actors and additional useless storylines. They took Daffy's and Bug's relationship to task which is something I've been waiting on for a long time. Daffy was his old self and Bugs just rolled with it like always, and when it looked like Daffy was gone Bugs made them bring him back. They could have made the greatest movie ever out of that.
The fact that all of those things were in place leads me to believe that Joe Dante was going just for that. Then the suits butchered it and LT: BIA is what we got. I could just hear them going "hmmmmmmm get a few more cameos for Goldberg...we're paying him $12,000,000 ya know. And axe this scene and give Taz some more time. They want Taz. And I'm not really feeling this whole Daffy Duck thing. Make the dance scene longer instead."
Re: Pros and Cons of "Looney Tunes: Back in Action"
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In Reply To
The main problem with LT:BiA are the same problems that all LT feature films are faced with; the fact that the LT characters were created for shorts, not features and don't have deep enough personalities to sustain an audience's attention for over and hour.
I wouldn't quite say it like that. Sure their original films lasted about 7 minutes at a time. However, the characters were moreso designed to have enough depth for many possible cartoon ideas, most ideally a never-ending slew of ideas. Characters in movies, on the other hand, most often only have enough depth to last for just that movie. Sure, the characters from let's say Beauty and the Beast enchanted everyone initially, but try to put them into a long running series and the ideas would run dry pretty quickly.
So again I say, the Looney Tunes have plenty of depth. It's just a depth that is less suited to one big movie.
) seemed to make audiences be more interested in CGI than traditional animation, and public interest in Looney Tunes was starting to dwindle. (Though at the time, 2D wasn't always the reason an animated film would bomb, there would also be the matter of story and cliches, which was the case with "Home on the Range," a forgettable out-the-door job by Disney about farm animals.) 
