“The Lorax” trailer

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Here’s the final version of a trailer we leaked a few months ago, Illumination’s adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax:

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  • http://www.rhodesinternational.com Protogenes

    Infinitely better, as Jim Carrey or Mike Myers are no where to be seen…or heard.

  • http://www.arielvillaverde.com Ariel

    Ughh.. 3D movies all look like “plastic” to me.

    No matter how well acted they are, 3D characters remind me how WE’RE going to look like it the not too distant future, when scientists make clones and human-like robots(*which they’re all ready there)

    I personally prefer Dr. Seuss’s hand-drawn styled books to this. This just screams commercialism and toys(*which I know people need to make a living)

    Just me.

    • Matthew Koh

      You’re not going to dissapoint Animation Mentor, are you?

  • http://beesbuzz.biz/ fluffy

    Kind of weird to hear that Polyphonic Spree song being used, as it is indelibly associated with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for me. Still, looks like an interesting treatment.

  • Elliot

    Yeah…. no…

    I’m not liking the look of this. Part of the allure of the book is the style of drawing and the rhymes!

  • http://www.oddballcomics.com Scott Shaw!

    None of the humans bear the stylist stamp of Dr. Seuss. Say what you will about its shortcomings, Blue Sky’s HORTON HEARS A WHO actually looks truly Seussian!

    Most folks have never seen it, but Bakshi’s adaptation of Seuss’ THE BUTTER BATTLE BOOK is possibly the most faithful least annoying animated adaption of the Good Doctor’s books.

    • Bud

      Ugh! The better battle book is better in “stills” than in motion. It’s unwatchable. The direction, in particular, is extremely weak.

      • 2011 Senior Citizen

        Seriously? You expect an animated version of a Dr. Seuss story to be exactly like the original?! Really, People…

      • Chris Sobieniak

        Umm, that’s Butter Battle Book, and I thought Bakshi did a good job not deviating from the book too much the way that special was handled (and one of the last Ted Geisel had been a part of).

      • http://www.arielvillaverde.com Ariel

        Thats a pretty pessimistic view of what CAN be done in animation, Mr. SENIOR CITIZEN :(

    • Kyan O

      No way, the most faithful is Chuck Jones’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas!

  • Rebecca

    If the trailer is any indication of what the full feature will be, this looks like it has the depth of a puddle on a sidewalk in Las Vegas. It doesn’t really have any of the Dr. Seuss spirit. The tone of it is just out of whack. It’s a blasé story wearing a Lorax mask. Just really not liking the looks of this so far. I think the lighting looks really good, but other than that, no real draw for me. The choice of the cast also very disappointing (I’m on the fence about Danny Devito), it doesn’t meld with the characters on the screen. I can only hope that this is just a very misleading trailer.

    • Funkybat

      Good:

      -The rendering of the Truffula Trees, really makes them “feel” like they would in a three-dimensional world.

      - I don’t mind the more fleshed-out background for the boy who goes in search of “what happened to the trees?” The added stuff isn’t necessary per se, but if you have to flush it out to an 80 minute film, you could do worse.

      Bad:

      -Danny Devito is NOT in any way who I would picture for the Lorax. Just because he’s short and brusque doesn’t mean he’s similar in attitude/spirit to that character. The Lorax didn’t need to have the exact voice or attitude he had int he animated special, but the attitude shown here is all wrong.

      -Too many “awkward humor” jokes. The ax gag, the whole bit about how the Lorax can’t open the door to leave after giving his warning, that stuff would be funny in another context. For the Lorax, it just feels out of place.

      -I would hope that the vast majority of the story takes place before the trees are all cut down, but it seems like there is a lot of footage of the “wraparound characters” as opposed to the Onceler vs. the Lorax.

      This looks more interesting that the Jim Carrey/Mike Myers messes, but it’s not really getting me psyched either….

  • http://www.flipandroll.com Jason Campbell

    My kids were handed an invite to one of those free overbooked screenings of this at the mall for this weekend. We’re going to give it a go and see if we get in. I’m looking forward to seeing what they have so far.

    J.

    • http://exclusive-cheese.deviantart.com/ Taco Wiz

      You lucky bastard.

  • dbenson

    Does everybody see the same commercial before the trailer? The one where a Snickers bar makes Richard Lewis a happy lumberjack? I thought it was some sort of environmentalist intro to Lorax, but it turned out to be about the joy of massive logging with a sugar buzz . . . Strange juxtaposition to say the least.

    • http://www.segaltoons.com Steve Segal

      Yes, I saw that. And it was a strange juxtaposition, though I enjoyed the commercial more than the trailer. And hey…isn’t a trailer a commercial? Now please watch this commercial before you can watch the other commercial.

  • http://elblogderg.blogspot.com Roberto

    Looks like Horton. Good visuals, but the story is kept to a minimum, the morals were probably be pretty obvious and there is a gag in every scene, no matter if it’s a good or a bad gag. And most of the gags in this trailer are …well, mediocre at best.

    And yeah, I kinda agree with Scott Shaw, the visuals in Horton were a little better.

  • Justin Delbert

    Once again they’re using celebreties as voices. Everyone’s heard of Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Betty White, and Danny Devito. Taylor Swift is NOT a voice actor. Danny Devito has played all types of characters (both live action and animation). If you don’t like what you see (even though I kinda do) buy The Lorax Deluxe Edition (the classic 1972 special) when it comes out in Febuary.

    • Chelsea

      While I too get frustrated with too many celebrity voice actors and am not exactly a fan of Taylor Swift’s music… asserting that she is ‘NOT’ a voice actress is kind of odd, because as a singer I think she WOULD have skill for other voice work. I didn’t hear enough in the trailer to judge, but I’ll give her a chance. People who can sing are probably more in tune with their voice than people who only act.

  • Keegan

    They totally lost the point of the book when they show how happy the future looks.

    Seriously, who the hell was put in charge of this adaptation… did anyone on the team read the friggin’ book?

    • tedzey

      It’s not happy, it’s all fake. The world’s probably more scary than in the book cause people are living in a world of lies.

      • 2011 Senior Citizen

        The trees and bushes and flowers ARE FAKE. Yeah, that wasn’t too clear in the compressed leaked trailer we saw earlier!

      • Keegan

        It’s supposed to look dark, dingy, and polluted.

        This future looks clean, happy, and shiny. It doesn’t get hte message across, especially if a child is watching.

      • tedzey

        Maybe you should try reading Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to fully understand what i’m talking about. Or “The Matrix,” it might be easier for you to comprehend.

  • http://popyea.deviantart.com/ nick

    i think it looks okay. it seems way less obnoxious than the other seuss remakes. and the story reminds me of miyazaki for some reason. though that might be because the characters are more subdued.

  • Ethan

    Oh noes! It’s not exactly perfectly like the book!

    • joe

      Yeah, let’s NOT respect the source material and add crappy designs, crappy acting, no talent tween stars, anti-humor jokes and a whine-core soundtrack! THIS is what Dr. Seuss wanted!

      Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

      • Ethan

        The voice acting and the soundtrack of the trailer were not like in the book?

      • joe

        Of course not. I said that they’ve ADDED bad voice acting, among other things.

  • Jeffers

    Sorry in advance for my harsh negativity but I don’t think this could look like any more of a blatant bastardization of the source material. I can’t comprehend what they were thinking when they put this together. The choices in designs, the music, the dialogue, and actors make me cringe. With the exception of Chuck Jones it doesn’t seem that anyone can do Seuss justice.

  • DonaldC

    Pretty.

    Jokes kind of fall flat with me. but I’ll probably check it out.

    Those fluff effects man.

  • E. Nygma

    I hope no one really thought a CGI Animated film by a huge movie studio was going to really capture those classic heavily stylized Seuss illustrations. Heck no! It’s just going to look like most other animated 3D CGI Movies…they want people to see “Familiar” not something edgy & stylized! As a HUGE Seuss fan, I wish it was…but this shouldn’t be shocking to us by now.

    I actually liked Horton…I sort of just look at it as somebody’s interpretation…not would Seuss would do.

    • Funkybat

      I was hoping for something more given how great “Despicable Me” was. I suppose it’s a tall order to expect anything that really captures the spirit of Dr. Seuss from a major production aiming for “modern mass market appeal.”

      It’s getting to the point that Dr. Seuss will join Stephen King in the “largest number of mangled film adaptations” club.

  • joe

    I’m sorry, but this looks terrible. Well, the actual visuals are nice, but the acting and jokes are pretty lackluster. I hate the music in the trailer and I really hope that doesn’t play throughout the film. The character designs are pretty generic and unmemorable and don’t scream Seuss to me at all. The voice acting is pretty bland to, and it sounds like the actors don’t care about what they’re doing.

    I know it’s just a trailer, but I don’t see how the film can be any better than it’s represented here-except for the artwork.

  • http://kaycie-kcd.blogspot.com Kaycie

    Well, I really enjoyed the “Horton” adaptation so I will reserve judgment on the film. But the one thing I will say about the trailer is that I was majorly confused about the age of Zac Efron’s character. He looks about 10 years old in the first shot and I was really thrown for a loop when he started speaking in that deep(ish) voice… am I alone here??

    • Gobo

      Those are two different characters. One is Zac Efron, the other is Ed Helms. Both with generic Seussian faces.

  • Gobo

    Personally, I thought Danny DeVito sounded great as The Lorax.

  • http://www.paulbadilla.blogspot.com Paul Badilla

    Horrible
    Don’t Like it
    The same thing again

  • http://www.hobsonanimation.com Kevin Hobson

    Like I said before in the other post (FIRST LOOK: The Lorax), the television cartoon special is WAY better and accurate to what Dr. Seuss intended.

    Are we supposed to expect that the environment in this CGI version is more powerful than the gloomy hazed setting from the book?

  • Zach Bellissimo

    STOP MAKING DR. SEUSS BLAND! STOP IT! IT IS NOT COOL. Not cool…

  • http://exclusive-cheese.deviantart.com/ Taco Wiz

    The vision of the future here is too happy. That’s what angers me.

    I can’t believe Seuss’ wife authorized this.

    • Chuck R

      Seriously? Audrey Geisel authorized “the Cat in the Hat” and then had the audacity to blame it’s colossal failure on Mike Myers when it flopped. No one who has read a bio of Dr. Seuss really believes she’s a worthy protector of his wishes, his creations or his legacy.

      Stylistically, I don’t think this is on a par with Horton, but it’s light-years beyond the live-action Seuss films.

      • snip2354

        She didn’t just blame The Cat And The Hat on Mike Myers. She had a problem with the whole end result, and even prohibited any further Seuss films to be live-action ever again!

      • Brandon

        Which is problematic. A studio could easily make a Dr. Seuss adaptation in animation, filled with adult and gross-out humor, and they could tell Audrey, “Hey, said you only wanted animation! You said nothing about not putting any adult humor in it!”

      • snip2354

        ^ He was only talking about the animation technique, not any other aspect of production. I’m sure the studios were clearer to her than JUST tell her what animation technique they’d use!

  • Toonio

    It’s always sunny in the land of Dr. Seuss.

    • Chris Sobieniak

      I like dark bleakness myself, when can we have that again?

  • greg

    I think you have to really wait to watch the movie (and listen it) before having such a harsh opinion…

    • Matthew Koh

      Yeah, always remember, never judge a book by its cover.

  • tredlow

    As an adaptation, it might not look great, but then again, I never read The Lorax when I was a kid, so I can don’t really have problems with that. What I can see from the trailer is that the visuals look great, the voice acting is more “Celebrity Names” than, y’know, “Good Voice Actors”, though I like Danny DeVito, and the premise is okay. Definitely watching this, though not expecting anything groundbreaking.

    Also it looks better than the Grinch and Cat in The Hat live-action movies. But, then again, so does cancer.

  • Tedzey

    I like it! I’ve watched this trailer 4 times (2 with the original post), and there are things I really dig in this adaption. Having the oncler look like our main protagonist makes more sense since he’s going to give him the last tree seed he’s ever had to grow. There are other reasons this works since having him as a blanket bad guy out to destroy the world intentionally sounds more “cartoony” than what they’re attempting. I also like the dynamic between him and the lorax, since they were never out to kill each other. That and Danny devito! Maybe it’s because the last two cartoon characters he’s played was in the 90s (space jam and Hercules). Somebody will probably correct me, but I haven’t seen him do a voice over lately! It’s oddly refreshing!

    My only concern is if this movie will have a resolution, which is most likely why people are complaining. If Zach efrons character grows the tree, it would not only take a long time but not bring back the lorax immediately. Those are my two cents

  • Dave

    Oh no. Oh no. (Holding hands out in front of me and slowly backing away) Nonononononononono. . .

  • http://www.olivier-vuil.com Olivier Vuil

    I never read a book from Dr Seuss so I can’t compare this trailer to it. This looks very nice to me, more like a fairytale than a gag-cartoon, that’s why I feel some gags may be dispensable, like the 124058365th “main-characters-both-scared-and-screaming-together” gag.
    Also, thumb up for the long hairded girl. We almost never see long hair in 3D animation.

  • 2011 Senior Citizen

    The greenery in the city shots ARE MACHINES.

    What do you have to say NOW?!

  • AniCentric

    Awful.

    Just awful.

    The Lorax film looks to be a mindless, stupid, loud and obnoxious 2 1/2 hours of action film paste with absolutely 0 wit, warmth, charm, character, personality as the original Suess work.

    Turning the Lorax from a cautionary, and melancholy fable into a fake, plastic looking, obnoxious, action film, filled with all of the insultingly moronic typical paint-by-number beats, washing away any hint of charm or personality that Lorax ever had.

    Disrespectful, hideous, unrelentingly puke-inducing garbage. Will not watch and will urge everyone who respects Dr. Suess not to, either.

    • Gobo

      I think you’re reading way, way too much into a trailer. Trailers are made to sell movies, and a trailer for a kids’ movie is going to play up the fun, upbeat, sassy side of it.

      It’s clear you had fun going through the thesaurus to find lots of ugly words to describe a movie you haven’t seen, but let’s see what the actual film is, first, yes?

      • joe

        But those terrible jokes are from the actually film.

      • joe

        *actual

  • http://theanimatorproject.blogspot.com hiradot

    when will they stop making the same movie over and over again. I can’t stand this kinda anymore. and the trailers are the worst. indie like pop music, interrupted by sluggish joke scenes, it’s the same way sitcoms work. laughs in the background and you don’t need to think about when you have to laugh, the abrupt silence in such trailers indicates, ah there comes a joke again
    friggin money makers

  • http://a113animation.blogspot.com/ William Jardine

    It may not be a perfect image of the Dr. Seuss book, but, to me at least, it looks great. Wonderfully innocent, funny and fantastically animated.

    So long as it’s more like Despicable Me and less like Hop, I’m there.

  • Scott

    How horribly, horribly wrong. The entire message, the intent, the purpose is lost. It’s not just his style, but what he meant by writing it that is being destroyed just to make money… ironic, in a sick way.

  • http://www.elliotelliotelliot.com Elliot Cowan

    [Comment removed by editors. Per our commenting guidelines, "Be considerate and respectful of others in the discussion. Defamatory, rude, or unnecessarily antagonistic comments will be deleted." If you have a criticism, be constructive and mature."]

    • http://www.elliotelliotelliot.com Elliot Cowan

      Sorry, brewmasters…

  • http://www.classicparamountcartoons.blogspot.com ParamountCartoons

    This has this feel of Blue Sky’s “Horton Hears A Who”.

    Get the deluxe edition of the CBS/DFE special (and if you have a Blu-ray player get it on Blu-ray). I watched that in school, and it is fun special. However, like the movie this trailer’s advertising, it had to go through a few creative licesnes to fit the running time.

    I may see this movie, but I feel the same way about the Depatie-Freleng/CBS special being better than what this movie would probably turn out as you animation fans feel about the Chuck Jones/MGM adaptation of “Horton Hears A Who”.

  • BT

    I’m torn. I actually think it looks kind of good. It’s nice looking, the Lorax and Onceler look like themselves (even though you see part of the Onceler’s face), it looks like it is taking at least part of the message seriously although obviously expanding on it greatly, even the added love story angle appears more sincere than all the sitcom bullshit they put into Horton Hears a Who.

    But the very idea that they made this into a movie sort of offends me. Yeah yeah yeah, you can drag out all the extremist cliches about how either ALL adaptations are bad or NO criticisms of an adaptation are legitimate because the book still exists. Whatever. But the fact is that anybody who has read the Lorax can clearly see that Dr. Seuss, a unique and visionary American treasure of art and literature, poured his heart and soul into that story. He found a powerful way to say something that was unheard of at the time and still potent today. In fact the idea of chopping down trees and convincing people “You need a Thneed!” is, if anything, way more needed today than it was back then.

    So yes, the book is still there, but if the substance of the story is disrespected then that’s shitty, and it’s okay to point that out. And if the popular conception of The Lorax becomes a funny thing that Danny Devito said rather than the heartfelt message that Seuss dearly wanted to get across then that’s also shitty, that’s an immoral thing to do to the legacy and life’s work of a man you respect.

    With Horton Hears a Who they did a great job of imitating Seuss’s art in 3-dimensions, but only about 1% of that movie had anything to do with his stories or characters. The Horton in that movie didn’t even remotely resemble the great character from the two books – he was walking on two legs doing bad impressions! If the real Lorax is only a nugget of this movie, and then it’s used to sell dolls and keychains and iPhone apps and soft drink tie-ins and digital copies and shit – Thneeds, in other words – it’s pretty disgusting.

    So I want to see it but I don’t want to support it.

    • Gobo

      I’d say that if this movie gets across even 1% of the message of the book, then it was worth making.

    • joe

      Exactly my thoughts. I understand a perfect adaptation of a book to a movie or special is not possible, but damn it, at least respect the source material if you have to add something. A retarded b-plot about a douche-bag kid trying to impress the generic love interest in a happy, cherry suburbia in a story like the Lorax is criminal.

      I’m kinda tired of the “it’s for kids” excuse as if kids wouldn’t like a story that makes them think without being preachy about it.

      • Ronnie Lane

        “a story that makes them think without being preachy about it.”

        …That’d be great if that wasn’t, oh, I dunno, not what the Lorax is, re: preachy.

      • joe

        What? The Lorax is extremely subtle, and that’s what I like about it. It’s reflecting a issue in our world without pinning the blame on one person or giving the protagonist the “he is YOU! You must go save the trees!” treatment. It’s a story that isn’t self-aware in what it’s doing, just like most of the stories Seuss had done (and even some of his political cartoons). And there’s no aesop at the end either.

        So why do you think it’s preachy?

  • akira

    i hope it’s good but it sure aint Dr. Seuss, AT ALL. i think if you liked Where the Wild Things Are movie better than the book then you’ll maybe like this one… that’s how it seems from the trailer… ick

  • chipper

    Well, at least they seem to be giving the female lead a personality, which is more than I could say for the Spongebob movie (the mermaid girl, not Sandy). I was about to ramble on about the girl with no personality, but then I saw more of the clip! And she has one, sort of! I hope I averted making myself look dumb.

  • Randy

    Imbedded ads in front of any media on the internet MUST die!
    ENOUGH!

    • Chris Sobieniak

      I feel we brought that on ourselves that it happened at all.

  • Sorgs

    Since this is CGI, I instantly hate it, with no hope of turning me around. Even if it turns out to be a good movie, I’ll still hate it, griping and nitpicking at the tiniest things if I have to!

    Because I’m on Cartoon Brew. We can’t enjoy CGI here. That’s heresy.

    • joe

      Nice fail at a snarky comment. I would’ve talked about how we hate adaptations instead of CG, but whatever.

  • http://cjdoodles.blogspot.com CJ

    The Good Vibes was soooo horrible…The look of the show isn’t horrible. Has a weird pseudo mix of Family Guy and those weird grunge toys you see for little boys.

    But the comedy, timing, and pacing was so fast that I could get a sense of the joke or appreciate it; the few of them that were funny…

    Maybe the show has to find itself still, but for a start – it was horrible.

  • huston

    Boring animation, horrible song, horrible voices, What in the hell does this have to do with Seuss, other than a slight resemblance to the original story??

  • Snagglepuss

    Wait, so this isn’t as good as Blue Sky’s “Horton Hears a Who”? Didn’t we LOATHE that film here on the Brew? Consistency, readers! Consistency!

    • joe

      They’re talking about how the film looked, jerk. And I have to agree, the character design was better in that movie, but I still didn’t like it too much.

      • snip2354

        He called him a jerk? I should report this.

  • http://cameronmcmanus.tumblr.com Cameron M

    As a 16 yr old who thought “Despicable Me” was only so-so and can’t remember reading The Lorax, I enjoyed this trailer. I Like the premise and characters(again, with no context to the actual story.)

    I’m interested in this.

  • http://www.frankpanucci.com Frank Panucci

    It suffers from looking like EVERYTHING ELSE. Of course it’s technically proficient, but the characters move exactly like stock characters in other Pixar/Disney/Dreamworks/etc movies. Same facial expressions, assigned by type. Same body language. No bold, evocative stylization that would do credit to the material.

  • Maya A.

    Why do they always do these remakes in CGI? Dr. Seuss would be turning in his grave if he saw this. A shame, The Lorax was one of my absolute favorite Dr. Seuss books too. And now seeing these awful remakes is just heartbreaking.

    • Funkybat

      I’m not a huge fan of re-making Seuss in CGI, but the truth is, the main problems with the recent Dr. Seuss adaptations are the injected “jokes” and dialogue, not the medium. Even the live-action ones could ahve been decent if the material were treated with more respect. They could have just as easily made a 2D hand-drawn adaptation with hyped up celeb voice actors, terrible “hip” jokes, and bodily function humor.

      “Horton” is probably the best of the recent bunch. I will reserve judgment of “The Lorax” until seeing the finished product. It’s important to remember trailers often portray the movie as something other than what it truly is. The marketing for “Tangled” was kind of obnoxious and not really in keeping with how I’d describe the final film, which was a lot better than the revised title and ads made it look initially.

  • Jim

    I saw the trailer for this and you guys are right about this. I rather stick with read the original book and watch the 1972 TV special. I know that this film is gonna be a sorry waste of mush.

  • http://frenziedmind.com Mark

    How hard can it be to celebrate the original gestalt without having to throw in all sorts of self-aggrandizing rubbish into a re-make?

  • Um

    Oh, the irony. Oh, the humanity. Poor Ted.

  • http://koochekoo.blogspot.com/ Miles

    uuuuh – great that Universal is creating jobs, and they couldn’t be “adapting” (read “killing it at the BOX OFFICE”) more “lovable” (read “marketable” or “accessible”) personalities and designs for the big (DOLLAR$) screen. the book speaks best for itself… this looks slick but shallow as can be, convoluted tween love meets enviro-what???

    “Despicable Me” was some kind of wonderful, and i think that men as creative as Chris M are more at home giving birth to original creations than they are re-make-believing and retelling stories that are already staples of childhood to generate BO #s. i’m more curious about what they can pull out of their hat than i am about what the marketing execs can pull out of their you know whats… we’ve all had enough of that

  • snip2354

    It’s being made in CGI because THAT’S WHAT STUDIOS HAVE BEEN DOING AGAIN AND AGAIN FOR YEARS! Why does this conversation keep popping up on the Brew again and again each and every time a First Look is posted?! This place is full of whiny children!