Hi guys! Welcome to the Christmas edition
of the Pie Chart.
Today's category is animated Christmas movies.
Please excuse my voice if it goes nasal
or scratchy, I've been getting over a cold
I decided to limit this list to animated
movies that had a theatrical release.
Partly because this
is a top 5 movie list, but
mostly because I really want to watch
Klaus on Christmas Eve and I knew that
I'd have to watch it before then if I
included TV specials. So I didn't!
Although it turns out that there are
hardly any animated Christmas movies, so
the top 5 is actually whittled down from
the 7 or 8 that exist.
As you can probably already tell number 5 is the
Grinch from 2018. The Grinch and his dog,
Max, decide to end Christmas in Whoville
once and for all by posing his old Saint
Nick and stealing Christmas. Benedict
Cumberbatch stars as the Grinch in the
third screen adaptation of the Dr. Seuss
classic. Personally I like the Jim Carrey
version from 2000. I was probably a
little bit older than the target
audience when I finally saw it, but I
really liked it. So I'm probably a little
bit less sold on the 2018 version than I
could be. The animation is really good, it
looks incredibly crisp and the colors
are beautiful, even if a little bit
bright for some. The score is by Danny
Elfman, whose work I adore, and who will
make another appearance on this list
shortly. The 2018 version of the movie is
much sweeter than its predecessors and,
although it's not my favorite version,
it's the only one that actually fits
into the category I imposed on myself.
So it's on the list! I haven't tried it
on my boy yet, but I hear this version is
very popular with kids so that's another
selling point. This movie didn't break
the mold, but it's a decent thing to
watch at Christmas.
Number 4 is The Polar Express,
the 2004 live-action
motion capture animation.
It's about a boy who's lost his faith in Christmas,
and the journey he goes on to get it back.
This movie was co-written and directed by Robert Zemeckis,
who directed a serious home-run
of movies between 1985 and 95.
He did all the Back to the Futures,
Who Framed Roger Rabbit,
Death Becomes Her and Forrest Gump.
Tom Hanks stars in 
this movie in a number of roles,
which is always a selling point. But I'm
completely torn on this movie.
I've watched it a good few times and I
can't tell if I love it or hate it.
I love the Tom Hanksiness of it. 
I like the plot.
I love old trains. The animation is
incredible.. in a way. But I just can't get
past the uncanny valley feel of the
characters. I find myself oddly
disconnected from them. Some seem to
have more humanity than others, which is
funny, considering that so many of them
are based on Tom Hanks's face.
I found the song of the train to be
really quite painful to watch.
Sad children singing can absolutely break my
heart, or it can make me want to curl up
into a ball. And this one got me right in
the cringe receptors. I still have a good
cry at the end of the movie (as any over
emotional person would). But I don't feel
swept away by it, as I do by most
Christmas movies. So this one doesn't
really come close, in my opinion, to the
top three which all hit me right in the feels.
Number three is Rise of the
Guardians, a 3d computer-animated film
from 2012. We're introduced to all of the
Guardians: Father Christmas, the Tooth
Fairy, the Easter Bunny, the Sandman, and
the new Guardian
Jack Frost. They get attacked by Pitch
Black, who wants to turn the world into a
dark and horrible place overrun with
nightmares. With the help of Jack Frost
they need to band together to get the
children to believe again.
If you ignore the fact that it's set at Easter, 
it's a perfect Christmas movie.
It's voiced by Jude Law, Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Hugh
Hugh Jackman and Isla Fisher.
I've watched this movie more times than I'd like to admit
in the last couple of weeks.
It's on UK Netflix, so it's really easy to just
stick it on. The fact that the studio
lost money on this film still baffles me.
I think it's a lovely movie. And it only
came out in 2012, so obviously it isn't
one that I love just because I watched
it when I was a kid. And my son only
watched it for the first time last week,
so I don't only love it because he does.
I just think it's a genuinely sweet
movie. It makes my eyes misty a few times
and I do at least one real cry during
the run. The fight scenes are truly
beautiful to watch, like a lovely
fireworks display. Despite never
saying a word, Sandy may well be my
favorite character. And I clearly think
the elves are very cute. I feel like this
is gonna be on my Christmas watchlist
for years to come
as it has been since I first saw it. With so
few animated Christmas movies out there
I feel that people really need to
elevate this gem to their holiday
viewing list. There was a truly hard
fight between this and the other two
contenders, but it got edged out by a
real classic.
Number 2 is one of my favorite movies, and
one that I've discussed before.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a
stop-motion animation from 1993.
and just a ridiculously beautiful movie.
Jack, the pumpkin King,
discovers Christmas town when on a walk
with his dog. He decides that the
inhabitants of Halloweentown deserve to
experience the wonders of Christmas for
themselves. So he captures Sandy Claws
and sets about making his own
spooktacular plans for Christmas.
I absolutely loved the music, again
provided by the wonderful Danny Elfman.
Who not only wrote the score, but 10 of
the songs, and was the singing voice of
Jack Skellington. It all came from the
beautifully twisty mind of Tim Burton,
who has created so many masterpieces. He
originally came up with the idea in 1982
and wrote a 3-page poem whilst working
at Disney. They attempted to develop it
at the time, but it fell through.
Luckily, nearly a decade later, they
revisited the project and made one of
the greatest animated movies that exists.
Henry Selick took the reins as director,
as Tim Burton was busy filming Batman
Returns. But he also wasn't keen on
shooting the painstakingly slow process
of stop-motion. And it was quite the
process, with 190,440
frames being shot for the film.
The plot does what most good Christmas movies do. 
It messes up Christmas, but (spoiler) fixes it
at the last minute. It has real heart to
it, which overrides the Halloween themes
and makes it a wonderful film for this
time of year. As I said in my Halloween
Pie Chart, I don't limit this film to
once a year. If it wants to be watched on
all appropriate festive occasions, who am
I to stop it? But the mix of both
holidays has prevented this absolute
classic from reaching my top spot yet again.
The number one spot goes to Arthur
Christmas. The 3d computer-animated film
from 2011 beat some seriously stiff
competition to gain my top spot. Despite
my intense love of Nightmare, this
relatively new classic has found its way
into my heart and onto the top of my
list. When a present gets left behind on
Christmas Eve, Arthur Claus (Father
Christmas's youngest son)
sets out on a mission to deliver it.
I'm not sure if it's because
it's British, but everything about this
movie speaks to me. It's so heartwarming
and funny, truly the perfect thing to
watch at Christmas. James McAvoy plays
Arthur, a clumsy lovable sort who's kept
out of the way in the mailroom.
Jim Broadbent plays Malcolm Claus (or Santa)
he's on the edge of retirement and he's
become detached from the magic of
Christmas as the process has become more
streamlined and efficient. His oldest son
Steven, played by Hugh Laurie, is next in
line for the job. He's very capable and
organized, but quite cynical. Bill Nighy
plays Grandsanta, the slightly wild
former Santa who can't quite get to
grips with the modern technology. Imelda
Staunton is wonderful (as usual) in her
role as Margaret Claus. She plays the
role of British mother just right with
the balance of love, capability and
disappointment in her husband and
children. And Ashley Jetson plays the
fantastic Scottish elf called Bryony,
who lives to wrap. When the lost present
is discovered by Bryony, Steve doubts
that can be delivered in time for Christmas
morning and he's unwilling to try.
Santa accepts that he won't be able
to fix the situation and heads to bed.
Arthur is the only person left who feels
the need to make sure the gift arrives
before sunrise, to preserve the magic of
Christmas. So he sets off with
Grandsanta in the original sleigh, Evie, to get
the bike to Gwen before the night is over.
They tried to address all the
questions that are generally asked by
children about Father Christmas, and they
do so in some quite interesting and
amusing ways. The early scenes of the
present delivery drop were fabulous.
The technology used in the film still has
magic behind it, as I can't explain how
the naughty/nice scanner would work, but
the addition of tech makes the magic
easier to explain to kids in this age of
computers.
Made by Aardman Animations it
was a departure from their usual style
of stop-motion into the world of
computer animation, but a very successful
one. The visuals are really crisp and the
colors are warm and homey. The gift
wrapping scene towards the end of the
movie is another example of how
brilliantly it was animated. This movie
didn't just gain my top spot because
it's one of the only movies on the list
to be entirely about Christmas. It got
there because it's funny, sweet,
beautifully made and smartly thought out.
Perhaps most importantly
it fills me with joy. Which
is something I'm looking for in a
Christmas movie. But I like it so much
that I've watched this movie in the
summer. And I'm pretty sure that that
makes me quite unusual, but I've worked
as an elf, did a summer as a Christmas
tree decorator and nowadays I spend all
my time making gingerbread.So I'm
probably more accepting of year-round
Christmas than most people are. So that
was my top 5, I know that I'm releasing
this incredibly late yet again, despite
saying I'd be more organized at the end
of my Halloween video. Turns out I wasn't,
oh well! Anyway, have a wonderful
Christmas. Subscribe if you want to see
more top 5 movie lists, with pies of
course. Or check out my TV Theory video
series Let's Theorise with Pies.
Have a great holiday! Bye!
you
