First Look: “Happy Feet Two” teaser

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  • Sean P

    Oh, yay! Can hardly wait!

  • Klyph

    Oh good, all my favorite songs will be in it.

  • Clint H

    Looks about the same as the last one:

    Horrendous.

  • Dr. Ivo Robotnik

    A movie about singing, dancing penguins featuring something silly, like singing, dancing penguins? OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE IS GOING TO BLOW SO MUCH ASS.

  • http://beesbuzz.biz/ fluffy

    I am not sure how to feel about this.

  • GSW

    This is painfully awful, but so was the trailer for the first movie, which turned out to be bearable at least, so who knows.

  • http://dtoons.com/conroy Failing Art Student

    I’m curious as to know what the plot will be this time around. To my surprise I enjoyed the last film and can’t wait to see what’s in store this time around.

  • Ben

    I’m just wondering what the story is going to be. Surely they won’t retread the first one…right?

    • http://hunteachother.com Max W

      No, I think it will actually retard the first one.

  • CC

    I’m sure it will be a ‘fun’ movie (like the first), but… if there is any way to guarantee a film to age itself, it’s to use current pop music.
    I just hope Robin Williams’ character(s) are in it again.

  • http://www.damianosketchblog.com DamianoD

    I’m beside myself. When did terrible character design take charge? I mean really. Hell, this isn’t even character design. All they’re doing is rendering real life looking penguins, there is no creativity at all. Obviously this isn’t the animators fault, they’re just being paid to do their job, but Jesus, I’m beside myself. ‘Happy Feet’ isn’t the only one to do this but the fact that anyone thought the original warranted a sequel is mind-blowing. Thanks for taking animation away from the animators.

    /endrant

    • http://none Barry Rodges

      Finally, someone making some sense. Happy Feet is number 1 on the worst movies ever made. I saw absolutely no redeeming value in it & I get spitting mad when people tell me they thought it was “okay”. What an abysmal failure.

      • http://www.sexymecha.com Hal

        Its not Okay – its goddamn SPECTACULAR. Next to Ratatouille its probably among the most breathtaking cg imagery put onscreen – the imagery and filmmaking is VISCERAL. George Miller directed the hell out of Happy Feet. The opening title sequence alone is more ambitious than most cg features entirety – beginning film with the genesis of a penguin god/nebula, then a fly through the heat of the sun manifesting the main title, over the moon and around the earth to antartica isn’t just bold, its downright MYTHIC in establishing its tone, the cinematic level Miller operates on. Happy Feet didn’t have a cynical bone in its body, encouraged free thinking over establishment and archaic tradition and unity of different subcultures – finding no reedeming value in a film that loaded speaks volumes of you rather than the film. Happy Feet is also one of the few Western animated features that embraces actual timeless pop culture (music) in lieu of crass pop culture gags that are instantly dated. What a damn fine movie from the guy who gave us MAD MAX.

      • Lindsay

        I… really can’t tell whether you’re being sarcastic, Hal!

        …and that’s not sarcasm. I honestly can’t!

      • http://www.sexymecha.com Hal

        No sarcasm. Everything I said is in there; anyone who thinks Happy Feet is that bad seriously needs to get some perspective.

      • Manny

        Sorry i didn’t like it much. I also fell asleep in the middle of the movie due to bad sound mixing, and i HATED the live action humans in the end. I will be getting a new perspective duely. Thanks for the reminder.

      • Pete

        Hal I don’t know what movie you saw, but what I saw was pretty rubbish. It relied solely on pop music that bore no relevance to the story.

        It rehashed the same old cliche story lines, “I was born different”, “I’m a disappointment to my Dad”, “I need to go on a journey of self discovery”.

        Then ended with a very lazy and asinine conclusion relating to global warming.

        The fact that we’re unable to find anything redeeming features is due to the fact that it was completely vapid and void of anything real.

      • http://thefilmist.wordpress.com Henry J. Baugh

        I think I disagree with about everything you’ve said here – contrary to most other modern animated films in general, the use of music in Happy Feet is anything but arbitrary, and owes less to Moulin Rouge and more to Singin’ In the Rain and Bakshi’s American Pop, with its use of different genres of music as an externalization of the internal fears and conflicts of the individual characters, and the society at the heart of the story. They’re all woven in so tightly and carefully, and build up to such an emotional, hallucinatory crescendo with the use of “The End” at, well, the end of the film, that I’m left constantly in wonder, whenever I see it.

        There’s nothing weightless about it – neither in the use of the songs, nor in the organization of musical numbers, which simultaneously seem to harken back to the orchestral build-up of the Golden Age of Hollywood musicals, as well as introducing the visceral trademark of Miller’s filmmaking style, and never moving out of the realm of the distantly possible, even for penguins.

        The realistic design of the penguins along with its pretty explicit focus on cultural mythology, I feel, places the film more in the vein of something like “Watership Down” or “The Plague Dogs,” or even “Bambi,” than anything else that modern animation is doing, so far.

  • Some Girl

    As much as I enjoyed the first movie, I can’t help to say I am not a fan at all of today’s current music…but then again, I am a weird teenager.
    So..hopefully more trailers to come let will tell more.

  • Joe

    Come Thanksgiving, I hope “The Muppets” blows this awful looking sequel out of the water. I still can’t wrap my head around why the first one did so well.

    • Scarabim

      You’re rooting for a puppet movie to destroy an animated movie?

      Cold.

      Personally, I don’t think Happy Feet has much to worry about. At least *penguins* with legs don’t look creepy. >g<

  • Steven M.

    Just. No.

  • http://www.stringstornasunder.blogspot.com Chris Powell

    ummm………yeah……..

  • http://www.animateme.me.uk Jens

    Just plain awful, the first one was an insult to filmmaking and I guess the sequel will be no different… who goes and watches this crap? If I was a family man I would not take my children even if they’d pay me for it.

  • Donald C

    The novelty of dancing animals should have died off a very long time ago.

  • http://hunteachother.com Max W

    Well, it’s exactly what I expected it might be…

  • 2011 Adult

    Hmm. Tells me nothing the trailers for the original film did already. Will have to wait for next one.

  • http://www.sexymecha.com Hal

    I’m loving it – its cute, well choreographed and the cg looks even more impressive. Whoever designed the Main Title with the little knit sweater on TWO was inspired. But I’ll never understand the venom directed towards Happy Feet – its exceptional mainstream entertainment and outside the Brad Bird Pixar films there isn’t a cg film directed with the bravado and confidence of a real filmmaker as George Miller did. He infused HAPPY FEET with the same visceral energy that defined his MAD MAX films, LORENZO’S OIL, WITCHES OF EASTWICK and the disturbingly original BABE: PIG IN THE CITY. Watch the seal chase through underwater ice caverns, the orca attack shrouded in mist, the shot of Mumbles and co. striding across the harsh ice as icy winds push against them before a blood red arctic sunset or the confrontation before the giant ice breaker (which evokes Close Encounters more than anything else) to see a filmmaker pushing the cinematic possibilities of animation to exaggerate reality, in this case successfully immersing the audience in a world where everything human is positively ALIEN and everything natural is guided by a survival instinct. The singing/dancing thing was a MacGuffin to the real story about an outsider challenging his society’s worldview, and his heroic journey was satisfying and preached the value of artistic expression as the bridge between cultural barriers – something that all artists should relate to. On top of that, Miller USED pop culture as an influence instead of simply mocking it or passively referencing it – his accomplishment is channelling pop music’s essence to make the characters’ internal emotions external in a way that far surpasses Moulin Rouge (the closest equivalent). In the process HAPPY FEET reengaged the the musical animated feature in a way that’s contemporary instead of the same trite musical numbers Disney tosses in their features out of deference to tradition. If anything the Happy Feet films seem to defy the tradition of animation so many people in this community put on such a high pedestal, using the cute mislead for what will probably be a great bit of intelligent entertainment. One can only hope it pisses of the conservatives of this country as much as the first did.

    • Rain on Your Parade

      Wow. If you describe Happy Feet with this type of bravado I don’t think I could handle your reviews of say… 2001, Carpenter’s The Thing, Straw Dogs or Rear Window. I’m guessing all caps…

      “Disturbingly original”? I’m not even sure what that means… Did Babe: Pig in the Big City really make you feel uneasy?

      While I don’t recall hating the first Happy Feet I also don’t recall much else about it save for some penguins, some dancing and a lot of pop culture shenanigans, which if we learned anything from Doogal, should be avoided at all costs.

      • http://www.sexymecha.com Hal

        Everything that needs to be said about those mainstream classic has pretty much been said (though who isn’t up for a good Straw Dogs conversation?), but if you love art you discuss the good stuff with bravado. George Miller is one of those consistently wonderful directors never seems to get quite the recognition he deserves – he’s yet to make a bad film.
        Babe 2 occasionally DID make me uneasy, which is pretty magical these days (ditto Happy Feet). He taps into modern mythic imagery and indulges genuinely disturbing acts pretty casually, while still managing to anchor his fantastic worlds in genuine humanity. Its badass when he does it in Road Warrior but almost inconceivable in a kids’ flick, especially now that films are getting more and more conservative in their canvases.
        There’s a handful of directors really pushing feature-length animation, but I’d limit them to Miyazaki, Brad Bird, Chomet, Chris Sanders, the late Satoshi Kon and possibly Tom Moore (though time will tell if Secret of Kells was a one-off or the start of a great legacy). The rest are very talented but still making films that feel indistinguishable from the other studio films – without a distinct voice in there, its just well made product. Wes Anderson, George Miller, Richard Linklater and even Zack Snyder brought a different cinematic sensibility to animation than what the studio directors are doing.
        There are few lessons learned from Doogal, but I think you got the big one. Just don’t suffer Happy Feet the sins of that disaster.

      • J-Dawg

        What PR agency are you working for?

        I know quite a few people working on this film and, as is apparent from this trailer, they all say it’s a train-wreck.

      • http://thefilmist.wordpress.com Henry J. Baugh

        That’s funny, ’cause I know a few people who are working on this film, and they all say it’s – well, a hectic production, but that they’re doing things and going places even the first film didn’t go. Which makes me very excited.

  • http://toffany.blogspot.com tiffany

    masterpiece

  • JimBob

    How about let’s judge when we see it people? Yeesh… Anyhoo, I think I’ll give this one a shot. I enjoyed the first, so hopefully the second won’t be so bad either. But I’ll judge that for myself instead of assuming. :)

  • *Sigh*

    Oh Australia!
    You’re doing it all wrong!
    You’re not just upside-down, you’re back-to-front as well!

    You’ve got some great artists and creative people over there, you simply need to let THEM direct your films.

    There’s talent & potential a-plenty in OZ, but they’re always working on somebody else’s film. Stop being a service industry and drive yourself.

    • Simoni

      George Miller is Australian genius.

  • Cody S

    …Was I the only one who thought the baby penguin accidentally hung himself at the end there?

    • http://toonlets.com Chris Romano

      It wasn’t an accident.

  • http://toonlets.com Chris Romano

    I am obviously not in their target demo.

  • Scarabim

    I think the trailer’s cute as hell until the elephant seal shows up. It looks as if he eats the penguin. Kinda kills the mood.

    And shouldn’t it be “Novemberrrrrrr”?

  • Vzk

    I hope next year’s Oscars don’t become 2007 all over again:

    -Cars nominated
    -Happy Feet awarded
    -Satoshi Kon snubbed

  • Corrine

    Seriously, I get that the first one was global warming propaganda, but what is this? Rapping penguins and years late pop culture puns/references that are age-inappropriate?
    Why?

  • Mark

    Happy feet 2, cars 2 … I feel like is 2006 all over again

  • Zach Bellissimo

    No one….should ever…EVER…be meant to see this…

  • Mad dog

    NO! NO! STOP!

    Why is there a sequel to this?! Wasn’t the problem of the first story solved? What else can they do with the plot of the first movie.

    Why are they wasting money making this when they could be working on a sequel to the Legend of the Guardians: The owls of Ga’hoole?

    That was a movie with plot and great animation.

  • Scarabim

    Well, my sister went to the movies yesterday and she told me that the crowd in the theater went wild for this trailer, especially the kids. I think this flick is gonna kill.

  • Rashida

    I watched this trailer not thinking as an animator (is that even possible) so I had no problem with it. “Even though the story’s ending of the first one did bother me. (Shrugs)

    We’re bringing fluffy back.