Puzzling it out with Dreamworks

by Nathaniel R

During quarantine my roommate and I spent hours doing this 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle from Dreamworks. Part of some swag box for their anniversary I believe...

It proved exceptionally hard to do since a) some of the characters were microscopic b) a lot of the animation styles and color palettes are very uniform from film to film and c) some of the characters are downright hideous and thus hard to look at for lengthy periods of time -- *cough*  entire Shrek franchise. It occurred to us while doing it that we dont have a ton of affection for the company's output. Well, apart from deep devotion to Wallace and Gromit though we give the credit to Aardman Animations fully. Nevertheless let's do a list.

Best Dreamworks Animated Releases

1. Chicken Run (2000)
2. Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
3. How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
   (top three are classics!)
4. The Prince of Egypt (1998)
5. The Boss Baby (2017)
6. Kung Fu Panda (2008)
7. How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)
8. Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
9. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017)
10. Abominable (2019)

Do you share our semi-indifference? Or are you secretly harboring Shrek or Bee Movie or Madagascar fandom? 

Comments

[TayTayHoliday]

Curse of the Were-Rabbit is so damn funny. It’s moves at a clip and there are lots of sight gags that still make me laugh. Still love the scene when the villain’s toupee get sucked into Wallace’s vacuum.

[Ryan T.]

I am still pissed that TOY STORY as a franchise has 2 Oscars and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON has 0.

[Owen]

I’ve only seen the first two - which i liked! The rest don’t look appealing to me.

[Editor]

Pretty good ranking of the films you mentioned, though I might bump Boss Baby down a couple. Is there a reason you left out the good couple of Shrek films, and the underrated Monsters Vs. Aliens and Puss In Boots?

Now enough jigsaw puzzles young man, you have Seasons of Bette, Smackdowns, or if you need an easy return to form the Reader's Choice which have brought back the Nathaniel of yore. Maybe one of your great sketches can be utilised? Then again with all the Claudio dominance I can't imagine any reader is complaining.

[César Gaytán]

I share your semi-indifference with Dreamworks Animated releases, (I haven't seen any of How to Train Your Dragon films)

My top 10 would it be like that

1. Chicken Run
2. Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
3. Megamind
(I'm deeply in love with this three and the rest are just fun or entertaining but Im not a fan of any)

4. Trolls
5. Over the Edge
6. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie
7. Shrek
8. The Boss Baby
9. Flushed Away
10. The Penguins of Madagasacar (just because i like the TV series and the acting voice in latinamerica is fantastic in cartoons)

[Jonathan]

I haven't seen most of them. But "Shrek 2" is quite good.

[LadyEdith]

Aardman Studios is a treasure, and so are both it's entries. I might put Curse of the Were Rabbit in first place and Chicken Run in second. But having them hold down the top 2 spots is perfectly correct. These 2 films alone have given me so much pleasure, especially on rainy weekend afternoons.

[adri]

We finished doing a 1000 piece puzzle too.
Pictures of 56 Nancy Drew book covers, from the classic mystery series.

First we did the edge pieces, then the letters in the book titles, then the cover illustration, then the final weird pieces. It seemed every cover had a tiny face or figure that was a lurker, stalker, or spy. Kind of unnerving.

Now we’re doing an easier 500 piece LOTR: Return of the King, which is strangely soothing.

[Abe]

I love Bee Movie! Really liked it when I saw it back in 2007 and didn’t understand why people weren’t all for it.