30+ great mainstream animated films (+ 3 bonuses) without the "road trip adventure" formula
In Mr. Enter's 60th and final Admirable Animations video for Soul, Mr. Enter mentioned more of what he said in The Animation Genre...over half of our mainstream modern animated movies have either a princess who wants more, or a character on the top or the bottom of society who goes on a "hero's journey" sort of road trip. Some of them are about what your [whatever] does when you are not looking, and it wasn't even original when Toy Story did it. When he can not find an animated film with a completely different template, it is a breath of fresh air when some parts of the formula are different, like Fa Mulan being on the common middle ground of society with her family and not actually being a princess, or A Bug's Life only spending 1/5 of the story on Flik leaving Ant Island and coming back with a new team of warriors to defend their colony. Most animated movies based on a TV show have characters going on a grand-scale adventure to save their home, which is why the Friendship is Magic movie was the most stereotypical film in the animation genre, while Teen Titans Go To The Movies was ironically very creative and became his 58th Admirable Animation 1 year before our lockdown. It is a breath of fresh air for Mr. Enter when one big part of this formula is even a little bit different, like...a character who starts off in the middle of society (my idea), or spending most of the plot at the destination instead of the journey (also my idea). Animated movies have done glorified road trips or constant adventures from one point to the next for longer than Mr. Enter has been alive, even dating back to the 1960s with The Jungle Book and The Phantom Tollbooth.
Having so many animated films like this, from Toy Story to Wreck-it Ralph is what gave Sony license to make the most unoriginal execution of it in The Emoji Movie. This is why I believe Ralph Breaks the Internet should be admirable, because it flipped many of The Emoji Movie's cliches on their backs and succeeded in spite of all the product placements, because it knew how to integrate them into the plot instead of a distraction to pad out the runtime of an otherwise short story. On March 17, 2021, in response to Mr. Enter's talk about glorified road trip movies, and Onward is literally a road trip movie while Martin Acuna said "GLORIFIED ROAD TRIP movie...yep, I love Onward 'cause of the characters, but...almost all mainstream animated movies from North America in the last 3 decades do that." Movies that take place roughly at the same place do exist, like How to Train Your Dragon or Coraline, and they tend to be a breath of fresh air for this exact reason. Earlier that day, I expressed my love for Sponge Out of Water because "it was interesting to see Spongebob and Plankton travel through time and meet that dolphin wizard, and then they go on land with the other main characters to become superheroes and fight Burger Beard, and overall it had a lot of creativity to not follow the road trip formula as closely as the other two Spongebob movies did."
I realized we put so much focus on the animated films about road trips and long journeys, it is easy to overlook animated films in our time which DON'T have a storyline about a character on the top or the bottom of society. The rules are: All 30 of these films need to have a theatrical release, but I also added 2 bonus TV movies and a prequel origin story movie to a TV series to surprise you. I will not count in sequels, but I can do a prequel because they are technically a new beginning, and I can also count adaptations if they are faithful and great enough on their own. So here are 30 decent animated films from the 30 years predating Onward and Soul which do not have a big road trip, a character who starts life at the top or the bottom of their society, a princess who wants more out of life, or what your appliances, toys, gnomes, video games, emotions, pets, emojis or sausages. Most of these films I talk about only take place in mainly a few locations, or recognize that the main action in a narrative happens at the destination, not the journey.
Having so many animated films like this, from Toy Story to Wreck-it Ralph is what gave Sony license to make the most unoriginal execution of it in The Emoji Movie. This is why I believe Ralph Breaks the Internet should be admirable, because it flipped many of The Emoji Movie's cliches on their backs and succeeded in spite of all the product placements, because it knew how to integrate them into the plot instead of a distraction to pad out the runtime of an otherwise short story. On March 17, 2021, in response to Mr. Enter's talk about glorified road trip movies, and Onward is literally a road trip movie while Martin Acuna said "GLORIFIED ROAD TRIP movie...yep, I love Onward 'cause of the characters, but...almost all mainstream animated movies from North America in the last 3 decades do that." Movies that take place roughly at the same place do exist, like How to Train Your Dragon or Coraline, and they tend to be a breath of fresh air for this exact reason. Earlier that day, I expressed my love for Sponge Out of Water because "it was interesting to see Spongebob and Plankton travel through time and meet that dolphin wizard, and then they go on land with the other main characters to become superheroes and fight Burger Beard, and overall it had a lot of creativity to not follow the road trip formula as closely as the other two Spongebob movies did."
I realized we put so much focus on the animated films about road trips and long journeys, it is easy to overlook animated films in our time which DON'T have a storyline about a character on the top or the bottom of society. The rules are: All 30 of these films need to have a theatrical release, but I also added 2 bonus TV movies and a prequel origin story movie to a TV series to surprise you. I will not count in sequels, but I can do a prequel because they are technically a new beginning, and I can also count adaptations if they are faithful and great enough on their own. So here are 30 decent animated films from the 30 years predating Onward and Soul which do not have a big road trip, a character who starts life at the top or the bottom of their society, a princess who wants more out of life, or what your appliances, toys, gnomes, video games, emotions, pets, emojis or sausages. Most of these films I talk about only take place in mainly a few locations, or recognize that the main action in a narrative happens at the destination, not the journey.
List activity
324 views
• 5 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
40 titles