REGION 4: ANIMATION AROUND THE WORLD — ROUND 1, PART 2
(4) FLOW vs. (5) JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH
This may be one of our trickier first-round matchups.
James and the Giant Peach has had decades to become an animation favorite, while Flow is a much newer film that some of us—including me—haven't had the chance to see yet.
So for this matchup, I'm especially interested in hearing from those who have seen both. Does the newer, nearly dialogue-free visual storytelling of Flow stand up against the strange, imaginative stop-motion world and enduring appeal of James and the Giant Peach?
As always, we're voting on the stronger animated story, not simply the movie we grew up with.
Think about character and emotional journey, visual storytelling, worldbuilding, theme, imagination, use of animation, and lasting impact.
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I would give Flow the edge. Telling an emotionally engaging story with almost no dialogue shows how powerful animation can be. James and the Giant Peach offers wonderful imagination and a memorable fantasy world, but Flow’s emphasis on visual storytelling makes it the more compelling choice for me.
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Flow was definitely an outlier. It was mostly fascinating by how quickly they made it and, of course, with quickness comes inexpensive. Other than technically fascinating, I did not find the viewing experience that grand. My thoughts were most of the viewing were people like me and you that watched it on the internet. James and the Giant Peach much better for a young audience
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I think just for how easy it was to watch compared to the other, it would have to be James and the Giant Peach but... as for the story and emotion? Flow wins hands down..
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James and the Giant Peach was an adaptation from a novel written by Roald Dahl (the same author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and Flow was an original story for the movie. I read the Roald Dahl novel and saw the movie. I also saw Flow and I actually liked Flow better because the story incorporated very realistic movements and concepts like the cat stretching and the dog mimicking the stretch on the boat into the story.
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Flow still has me reeling, and I've seen it four times. It tackles life's big questions, and it's so beautiful and painful at the end to watch the animals make their decision to stop running from an inevitable fate. The visuals are also stunning; the hand of a statue (humanity) reaching above the rising water is brilliant.