I wasn't going to use my next entry on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It's a fun film and all and shows director Robert Zemeckis' growing comfort with technology that will allow him to go on to make Forrest Gump before he stepped too far into the Uncanny Valley of motion-capture film making. Quite frankly, if you use your massive computer technology to create a character that looks exactly like Tom Hanks, but not quite, and is voiced by him, why not use the actual Tom Hanks and not a (not really) reasonable facsimile? Pixar and others have shown you can have good animation without motion capture, and modern CGI means you can put actors into anything, but the hybrid just does. Not. Work. Not as the whole feature. Creating a nonhuman thing like Gollum or various apes, or anything played by Andy Serkis, really, interacting with real people seems fine, but those things are not meant to look like the actor playing him/her/it. When Dr. Manhattan has more humanity about him than half the cast of Beowulf, then you have problems.
But I am digressing. I was originally considering writing about the old Vincent Price horror film The Last Man on Earth next, but then I was flipping channels and found good ol' Roger on the Cartoon Network. I'd seen the movie a few hundred times as a kid and knew it fairly well. I remember seeing it in theaters and hearing the closest it comes to real profanity (the gorilla bouncer at Jessica's toon review nightclub calls Eddie Valiant a "wiseass") then be tamed to a different word for the Disney Channel ("wiseguy"). So, basically, I know the movie. And for reasons unknown, Cartoon Network cut the hell out of it. And the choices were baffling.
Take this exchange: Eddie, Roger, and Benny the cab are making a getaway from a pair of motorcycle cops and Judge Doom's weasels. Benny drives a bit recklessly, to say the least, and shoots down an alleyway.
Roger: Benny, they're right behind us!
Benny: Not for long, Roger!
(Benny spins around and is going backwards, facing the cops)
Benny: Now they're right in front of us!
Is it funny? From any other movie, probably not. For a movie about 1940s cartoons, yeah, it works. Now imagine that exchange, everything above happens, but Benny's punchline is absent.
That's what Cartoon Network did, and this was hardly the only example.
It's not even an offensive line, unless someone thought it was too bad to include.
Meanwhile, Jessica Rabbit's attempts to seduce Eddie in his office, complete with boob humor, stays intact.
I turned the movie off shortly thereafter.
Roger Rabbit is a nice curio. Disney tried to make Roger a star at the time, alongside Mickey Mouse as often as possible. I haven't seen Roger outside the movie and the handful of shorts he made in a while, so I don't know if some poor "castmember" is still wandering around DisneyWorld dressed like him. The at-the-time cutting edge special effects mean Roger and co. tote real world stuff, despite being two-dimensional beings (which largely works). And given the major crime being revealed is the birth of the Los Angelos freeway system, I've heard and can easily see Roger's story is the unofficial sequel to Chinatown. Truth be told, not many directors can get the feel of 1940s crazy animation down right, but Zemeckis did. Now, so long as the rumored all-motion-capture sequel aren't true, and he can actually do something again with live actors, I think that would be a good thing.
Given all the cameos, and how this will probably be the only time Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse share a screen (to say nothing about a certain pair of ducks), the attention to detail (Eddie's cartoon gun has a thank you plaque from Yosemite Sam on the inside of the case), there's not much to not like about this movie.
Unless some TV network cuts a lot out of it for no discernible reason.
Two more things: I read a plot summary of the novel the movie was based on once. Winston Groom has been less than happy about the changes made to his novel for the movie (I've read that book, the changes are very noticeable), but that's nothing compared to the changes made to Roger's source novel to bring it to the big screen. Basically, there are toons, Roger, Jessica, and Eddie exist, and that's about it.
Second, I am wondering if the upcoming Wreck-It Ralph is going to do for videogames what this movie did for old cartoon characters.
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