The timing of the animation is really bad. The characters are moving, but they are not alive. It's like robots pre-programmed to move on certain paths. The camera is merely moving back and forth like it's stuck on a dolly. I assume Directors Jay Oliva and Ethan Spaulding wanted the wobbling of the camera to generated some sort of life? If so, they failed horribly. It's a surface-layer application of the camera, rather than a genuine charging of the cut. The great thing about animation is that you can put the camera anywhere and using a pen to generation a sense of motion. It's no use having so many drawings if those drawings don't have meaning, love, or freedom to them.

I agree with the robotic comment. But this sequence also reminds me a lot of poorly choreographed stunt scenes in live action films. I wonder if the action here was referenced from something they shot with cheap stunt actors. If you look at Batman's motion especially, it doesn't look like his evasion is reactive, but rather predictive. He already knows what the other character is going to do and he moves out of the way on cue. That sort of action is much less exciting to watch. Ultimately, this is a direction flaw I feel. The animators were probably just doing what they were told.

Unfortunately, that's true for not just DC's films, but for a lot of non-Japanese-made shows (or web content) nowadays. Everything just seems sterile and not that well timed. Hell, sometimes this can be applied to some Japanese productions

Yeah that's why i uploaded it. Thought it be interesting to get your opinions on this. I still like it somewhat but it does give of the feeling of being based on bad reference footage. Its the only action scene that looks this way in the movie so i don't understand why only this short cut was done this way. Nothing else in the movie looks this way.

The only korean studio that uses reference footage well is Studio Mir imho.

duckroll said:
I agree with the robotic comment. But this sequence also reminds me a lot of poorly choreographed stunt scenes in live action films. I wonder if the action here was referenced from something they shot with cheap stunt actors. If you look at Batman's motion especially, it doesn't look like his evasion is reactive, but rather predictive. He already knows what the other character is going to do and he moves out of the way on cue. That sort of action is much less exciting to watch. Ultimately, this is a direction flaw I feel. The animators were probably just doing what they were told.

Yeah, 'predictive' is exactly what I was thinking. I swear I thought I saw Batman looking for his opponent to make a move he knew was already coming, like a bad stuntman in a live action film.

JacobYBM said:
Yeah, 'predictive' is exactly what I was thinking. I swear I thought I saw Batman looking for his opponent to make a move he knew was already coming, like a bad stuntman in a live action film.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was their intention from the get go. Though even if it was, it failed to convey that point.

Anihunter said:
I wouldn't be surprised if that was their intention from the get go. Though even if it was, it failed to convey that point.

Jay Oliva directed DC fair tends to always have decent direction even if the animation is iffy. Ethan Spaulding's DC work so far i think has only been co-direction on this movie and direction on Son of Batman which was aweful on the story and animation front. Not to be too harsh on the guy but it wouldn't surprise me if he was more in charge here than Oliva was.

SakugaDaichi said:
Jay Oliva directed DC fair tends to always have decent direction even if the animation is iffy. Ethan Spaulding's DC work so far i think has only been co-direction on this movie and direction on Son of Batman which was aweful on the story and animation front. Not to be too harsh on the guy but it wouldn't surprise me if he was more in charge here than Oliva was.

Seems likely that might have been the case. I mean the rest of the film has decent (though not really booru-worthy) animation like some of the other films. But this scene sticks out like a sore thumb.

Sometimes fluidity is less important than timing, I guess.

This looks like a great example of bad full animation. I think I'll take some well done limited animation over this.

neshru said:
This looks like a great example of bad full animation. I think I'll take some well done limited animation over this.

It's cool how composition and perspective can make a huge impact on animation. I should really study those fundamentals sometime.

Just to throw in here, it does look very dull. The fact that it loops makes it feel like these two have been doing this forever and are sick of it. I think it always helps to first animate the aggressor as he attacks, that way you can focus more on the killer's intent, then animate the person evading the moves with a stronger foundation to build on. This can be complicated with counter-attacks but easy if you split up right.

RolandToke said:
Just to throw in here, it does look very dull. The fact that it loops makes it feel like these two have been doing this forever and are sick of it. I think it always helps to first animate the aggressor as he attacks, that way you can focus more on the killer's intent, then animate the person evading the moves with a stronger foundation to build on. This can be complicated with counter-attacks but easy if you split up right.

I can definitely see it now that you mention it. I can't tell if that's slightly amusing, very sad, or both.