Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a big ol' update on the future of Disney Animation post-Pixar. I still hate the mandate to cut all traditional animation in favor for strictly CG animation, especially after watching Miyazaki's latest on the big screen Tuesday night. That wasn't 100% traditional cel animation, granted, but most of it was. There's a warmth to cel animation, an artistry that can't be mimicked by most CGI. Pixar movies are on another plane... I don't know... I just think it's ridiculous to put an out and out ban on cel animation, especially at Disney, a studio built on it.

Sorry... let me kick this soap box outta the way so you can get on to the news... I actually like the slate they have... I even like the story for TOY STORY 3, even if I have zero faith that Disney can pull it off without Pixar. Now what really intrigues me is project called AMERICAN DOG directed by Chris Sanders who directed LILO & STITCH, Disney's last truly great animated film (when I say Disney I mean non-Pixar Disney, of course). It sounds out there, in a great way... almost like a brainfart from Herman Merman from BAD SANTA, just missing the talking walnut and long eared donkey. A DAY WITH WILBUR ROBINSON sounds like it could be geeky cool, too. Thanks to Rav for the heads up... What do you folks think of the line-up?

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Walt Disney Feature Animation has made its first public recruiting pitch to the animation community in four years with executives from the studio unveiling five films on which they are working.

They also showed off the animation tools they are using as Disney makes the transition from traditional 2-D pen-and-ink animation to 3-D computer animated features.

A team of Disney executives on Tuesday made an impassioned plea for the Los Angeles Professional Chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH -- the area's premiere computer graphics artists -- to join the animation studio during a session at the ArcLight cinema complex in Hollywood.

With "Chicken Little," the studio's first 3-D animated film, set for release Nov. 4, Disney's animation division is undergoing a transformation in the wake of several unsettling developments. Last year, "Toy Story" producer Pixar Animation Studios ended talks about extending its deal with Disney. Internally, Disney issued a controversial corporate mandate to end all traditional animation processes in favor of computer animation. And over the past year, several key animation executives departed the studio.

The Disney team touted the company's new Glendale-based computer animation building, which is earmarked for "Toy Story 3" production, which Disney is proceeding with under its contractual right to produce sequels to the Pixar films. The story follows Buzz Lightyear as he is recalled to Taiwan after a series of malfunctions. Learning of a productwide recall, all the toys in Andy's room, under Woody's leadership, head to Taiwan to save Buzz from doom.

The program included preview material from five 3-D computer animated movies in the pipeline, which will comprise the studio's homegrown animation slate through 2008.

Nearly 10 minutes of scenes and set pieces from "Chicken Little" demonstrated how Disney is tackling such technical and artistic computer animation challenges as fluid simulations, chicken feathers and fur, subjected to sophisticated wind modules.

A second project, tentatively titled "A Day With Wilbur Robinson," based on the book by William Joyce, follows a time-traveling 12-year-old orphan who hooks up with a 13-year-old kid from the future in settings that recall 1930's "Metropolis" and the cartoon television series "The Jetsons." The project stars stylized young human protagonists and a mustachioed and bowler-capped villain.

Ten minutes of rough story boards, hand-drawn animatics, and raw computer animation were shown from the tentatively titled "American Dog," from director Chris Sanders ("Lilo & Stitch"), which is scheduled for release in 2007. Sanders' canine, a TV star, drinks martinis with starlets and showboats on sets until he is suddenly abandoned in his trailer in the Nevada desert where he meets up with a radioactive rabbit and a one-eyed cat who are trying to find new homes.

Also shown were brief test shots from "Rapunzel Unbraided," scheduled for release in 2008. Longtime Disney animator Glenn Keane, best known for animating the Beast in 1991's "Beauty and the Beast," is making his directorial debut with the movie starring a computer-animated princess.