Well, my first taste of Ralph Bakshi wasn't too good, though it had its interesting moments. But in truth, this wasn't Bakshi's original script for this movie; supposedly, his producer took his original script that had a subtext of a warning about casual sex and got it rewritten into the mess of a plot in the movie today.

Some of the plusses about Cool World include the smooth animation quality and an interesting soundtrack. I'm not a big fan of rotoscoping in animation, but it's not like I really consider it cheating1 and Bakshi seems to make good use of it here. The one-off gags that go on constantly in the background in cool world also provide entertainment.

1. 1. the modern equivalent would be to use motion capturing to animate 3D models

Kineska links to a neat thread on the AniPages forum where Peter Chung (of Aeon Flux and Animatrix fame) offers some very interesting details and perspectives from his experiences. I'm only half way through the thread myself, but I'll be finishing up the thread when I get time. I was probably a tween the last time I was actually interested in animation theory and process, though Makoto Shinkai's work has inspired me to look into it more in the past couple of years.

Check out the thread from the start.

The Anime News Network had a small mention of this, but it looks like Piers Anthony's Split Infinity is to become "an Anime movie", according to his newsletter. I enjoyed the few books I've read of Anthony's "Xanth" series, so I find this interesting. No details if it's going to be made by a Japanese studio or what, though.

This reminds me of the Dragonlance animated movie that's in production right now. Frankly, after reading Tolkein's classic, I remember enjoying the Dragonlance series of books much more. Sure, The Lord of the Rings had astounding world building and some wonderful made-up languages and word usage, but the story and characters created by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis were much more enjoyable, much more dramatic, and their inner turmoil was presented better.