Actually, Rise of the Guardians Should Have Won the Oscar

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Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed the disclaimer in my last article. While I was busy making my case that Brave deserved the Oscar statue over Wreck-It Ralph, I had to confess the whole debate was taking place with me in ignorance of Rise of the Guardians. Since then, I’ve managed to give it a look.

So, of course, I have to print a retraction now.

My favorite animated movie of 2012 didn’t even make the cut as a nomination. Nor did it make a whole lot of money (relatively speaking). But it definitely deserved the attention of critics and viewers. Yes, this means you.

Rise of the Guardians, in case the abysmal title doesn’t jog your memory, is the movie where all the myths of childhood form a team known as The Guardians. The other big “team-up” movie of the year was, obviously, The Avengers. Rise of the Guardians functions in much the same way.

Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Sandman answer to the silent watcher of The Man in the Moon. At his behest, they fight as a unit to protect the children of the world from whatever evil might come their way.

pitch

This time, evil comes in the form of the nightmare-spreading Bogeyman, here known as Pitch Black. To combat the threat of Pitch, the Man in the Moon brings the Guardians a new member: fun-loving Jack Frost.

This premise creates a minefield of cliche narrative hiccups. Indeed, parts of the movie can start to feel rather rote. We’ve all seen plenty of stories where a promising upstart gets called up to the big leagues and has to prove himself. The requisite beats are all there (spoilers?): the initial rejection and jealousy of other members, the villain who spins a web of lies, the breakup right before the climax… etcetera.

What’s remarkable is how propulsive and engaging the movie is, despite hewing so closely to a familiar template. The reason, naturally, is that the movie takes time to build its structure around theme and character, instead of simply building it around structure.

The main theme of the movie is explicit: You must find your “center,” or your purpose in the world.  Trite? Maybe, but Rise of the Guardians actually does find the purpose of its characters — Bunny is hope, Santa is wonder, Tooth is memory, etc. — and builds the whole narrative around it. This is quality writing. To distill Santa Claus’s purpose as a Guardian (or myth) to a single word? And then to do it with five other characters? And then to make it the crux of the movie’s conflict? THAT’S HOW YOU MOVIE.

A second sub-theme, essentially the importance of belief, rides shotgun. While a bit shopworn, this theme works like gangbusters here because it is borne naturally from the central premise of the movie. To wit, only a movie about these kinds of legends could deal with it in this way.

lair

If you’ll pardon a quick aside, this is also a theme that MATTERS. Not necessarily in the context of children’s myths, but in the context of storytelling itself.

Santa Claus and his gang are, in the end, just stories. But they’re stories with a clear and important purpose. It’s not so much about whether or not we believe in Santa Claus, it’s whether or not we believe in wonder. That’s what the movie is truly getting at, and why its message should matter just as much to adults as to children.

In short, Rise of the Guardians finds a reason to exist. A good reason that informs the whole rest of the movie. Every conflict in the story is founded on some version of these ideas. The villain wants to squash belief so his own terror will reign, Jack Frost has to find his personal center so he can contribute, and the other Guardians have to appreciate Frost’s contributions in order for him to deliver on his appointment to the group.

Now, a theme isn’t a movie. Narrative juggling is certainly required afterwards, and this is a hard narrative to crack. Fortunately, Rise of the Guardians wasn’t content to simply slap a theme on a movie and populate it with a bunch of flat, nonspecific characters.* While their names may be familiar, it’s highly unlikely you’ve seen any of these characters like this before.

jackbunny

Santa (“North”) and the Easter Bunny are both macho fighters; North a Russian soldier, and Bunny an Australian mercenary. Tooth Fairy is more motherly and earnest, so much so that she tends to lose focus from time to time. Sandman might be the best of all, portrayed as a calm, silent master of imagination. Think Green Lantern.

And then there’s Jack Frost, the fun-loving young guy who gets called up to the big leagues but doesn’t understand why. I usually don’t care about these kinds of stories, but Jack Frost’s works surprisingly well.

Last time, I mentioned that Ralph’s character story in Wreck-It Ralph didn’t really register with me because self-acceptance isn’t all that interesting a concept. Rise of the Guardians is making me take that bit back, or at least clarify it, as the struggle Jack Frost faces with himself falls along similar lines.

However, Jack doesn’t just need to accept himself; he has no idea who he is or why he exists. This is real “existential crisis” territory, as opposed to a simple lack of self-esteem.

And the difference between those characters brings me to the third thing I love about Rise of the Guardians: It has actual threats in it. There’s real darkness in this movie. Fantasy darkness, to be sure, but the Guardians encounter a level of threat that’s rarely seen in family movies these days.** Pitch Black isn’t just the big bad, he’s malicious and sadistic. He’s motivated.

RISE OF THE GUARDIANS

Truthfully, I was a little surprised at the darkness the movie opened with. Jack rises from a frozen lake, called forth by the light of the moon. He doesn’t know who he is or why he was granted superhuman powers… or why nobody in the entire world can see him.

Cut to 300 years later. THAT’S HOW YOU MOVIE.

Ahem… moving on.

My point is that this approach is far superior to the way most contemporary animated movies seem to do this. Specifically, that they seem to put humor as their first priority, character and story be damned.

Any of the Guardians could have easily read as a joke. “Ha! Wouldn’t it be funny if the Easter Bunny was a badass tough guy? With boomerangs!” The Dreamworks of ten years ago likely would have presented them this way, and would have delivered something akin to another Monsters vs. Aliens.

tooth

Instead, someone along the line made the decision to simply take these guys seriously. To pit them against a scary, memorable villain. To put their lives in danger. To let them be alone and unloved.

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t jokes. The movie has an uncanny sense of comic timing, slipping in a few big laughs and more than a few little ones as the story moves along.

And heck, while I’m at it I might as well praise the visual design and animation. This is one of the most outright kinetic American animated features I’ve seen since The Incredibles. The character design looks a little goofy in some of the promo materials, but wait ’til you see it in action. The animation on this movie is superb, with the main highlights being Pitch Black’s wraithlike menace and Jack Frost’s faerie agility.

sandman
And holy crap, THIS GUY.

Plus, the visual design of the different mythological worlds is brilliant. Bunny’s home in particular is worthy of its own movie, and I never thought I’d see a fresh take on the North Pole again. Guillermo del Toro is credited as a creative consultant for the movie, and its visuals (as well as all that character/theme stuff up there) seem very much cut from the same cloth as some of his projects.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that you guys should really, really watch this movie. Sure, the other animated movies of 2012 had heart, great messages, gorgeous animation, and promising worlds to offer. Rise of the Guardians, however, is the only one I saw that delivered on all fronts, and it made it look easy. It may not be a truly great animated movie like Pixar’s finest, but it’s easily my favorite from last year.

FOOTNOTES:

*Ahem… Brave.

**Though in fairness, there are moments in both Brave and ParaNorman that get pretty dang threatening… and appropriately so. The start of a trend? One can only hope so.

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7 Comments

  1. I think that this year we saw quite an impressive field of animated movies. From Paperman, Brave, Wreck it Ralph and the Guardians … it was a pretty great year for some animation studios.

    Now, do I think that Guardians got dissed by not being at least a nomination for the Oscars – yes. (it was quite atrocious, at least to me, that ParaNorman and Frankenweenie were noms) Though, I still don’t think they would’ve won. You have to look at the story as a “whole” and not dissect it as you have. Not only that, but on a technical merit – it does a good job – but not as good as Pixar’s Brave. Also, Brave get’s yet another nod in that it had an original story and original characters to drive it. I think Guardians had a great story and great characters, but we’ve seen them before. Maybe not in this light – but they weren’t “new”.

    I understand your argument and I sympathize with most of it, but an Oscar is awarded to the supposed “cream of the crop” and this year I don’t think Guardians was it.

    (if it had gone up against some of the past released from other years it would have been nominated and won for sure)

  2. I have to say, Wreck It Ralph, Guardians, Parnorman, and Brave made for a great damn year of top-shelf animation with excellent themes that appeal to all generations. Bravo to all involved with those films. Now we get the atrocious-looking Monsters University, so thanks to all the critics of Brave…you broke Pixar. Epic looks promising (moronic talking snail aside) and The Croods was much better than expected so it’s still not too late to usher in a new golden age of animated cinema. This was a great review, David. Keep it up.

  3. To each his own, of course, but in my opinion RotG was on okay movie (7/10), not great, and not as good as WIR (8/10). It didn’t engage me fully, often fell on trite cliches, and in the end it’s just so much harmless fluff, rather like that other movie based on a William Joyce book, Meet the Robinsons. I don’t HATE it, mind you–I don’t even dislike it–I just don’t think it’s All That. (Haven’t seen Brave yet.)

  4. This movie is actually based on a series of books called Guardians of Childhood by William Joyce. There is so much more going on with these characters than is let on in the movie. Especially Pitch Black. He’s not “malicious and sadistic”. He was actually a good guy (an Army general, actually) and he has a daughter. He was possessed by dark spirits called Dream Pirates and Fearlings who feed off fear, which is why Pitch is so motivated (as you put it) to cloak the world in fear and darkness. And that scene with Jack in Antarctica, most people see Pitch as being manipulative in it, but he actually means what he says to Jack. His wife and daughter are gone, no one can see him and the people who can see him hate him. He’s lonely and he isn’t evil by choice. If you liked the movie, you should definitely read the books. I agree with pretty much everything else you said, though.

  5. I thought Pitch Black was one of the better villains I’ve seen in years. He really is the hero of his own story, forced into terrible conditions by others, and Jude Law did a fantastic job with the voice acting.

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