Because it's been a whole day since we invoked Smashmouth.

January 4, 2017 4:46 AM

Why are animated dance-party endings so goddamn annoying? (SLAVClub)
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI (54 comments total)

We are still paying for the sins of Shrek.

History will never forgive us.
posted by unsupervised at 5:44 AM on January 4, 2017 [10 favorites]

We are still paying for the sins of Shrek.

History will never forgive us.

One of the reasons I posted this was the incredible serendipity of reading this one day after watching Mulan with my daughter. It was her first time watching it and only my second time after seeing it in the theater in 1998. The movie was great, and then at the end an animal puts on raybans, a bunch of characters start dancing like Travolta in Pulp Fiction, and, whadaya know, Eddie Murphy is involved.

So I'm left wondering that, given all the nods Shrek pays to other Disney films like Beauty and the Beast, was the dance party ending in Shrek actually a nod to the dance party ending in Mulan?
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:00 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh god, I am dreading the day we come across a clip from Sing on YouTube and toddlerozzy decides it's her favorite thing ever. It's bad enough that I made the mistake of putting Shrek 2 on the Plex server (Shrek, on the other hand, is a perfectly decent movie to watch 50 times). But I don't think I could deal with Sing.

The dance-party endings of the Dreamworks movies really are obnoxious, largely for the reasons given. I like "Can't Stop the Feeling" (don't judge), but god help me if Trolls ever shows up in our house.

I don't particularly mind the ending of Zootopia (especially since it's jokey in its own way and ties up pieces of the story -- Bellwether in jail with the rams, Clawhauser bonding with Bogo over their shared love of Gazelle -- and is also the start of the credits).
posted by uncleozzy at 6:15 AM on January 4, 2017

Uggggh Sing had so many issues, especially in the first half, that the end very much felt undeserved. It had some redeeming qualities, but you've been barraged by so man pop song snippets by that point, it didn't feel like a release.
I didn't like how Zootopia ended in a dance scene (especially since we've already heard that song earlier in the film,) but at the very least it felt earned.

I am so glad Moana didn't end with a credits group dance scene.
posted by Theta States at 6:17 AM on January 4, 2017

Why are animated dance-party endings so goddamn annoying?

Primarily because it's one of the laziest ways to end a movie? As if the writers got one scene away from the end and went home?
posted by Thorzdad at 6:26 AM on January 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

and is also the start of the credits).

The end credits is where Disney goes to commit its most awful crimes, like "True to Your Heart" from Mulan or that Demi Lovato cover of "Let It Go." Even Lilo and Stitch transitions into an A*Teens version of "Can't Help Falling in Love" after a bit.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:32 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

that Demi Lovato cover of "Let It Go."

Ohhh no. But at least that one doesn't actually start until it's just scrolling credits.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:36 AM on January 4, 2017

I blame Caddyshack.
posted by cmfletcher at 6:39 AM on January 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

The annoyance to me is mostly that it's jarring, because the movies spend so much time reaching out to broaden the audience and then the big animated dance party slams it back to "hey, this is a kid's movie." A large part of the success of Pixar and Dreamworks is that they realized right off the bat what the audiences needed to be to make the movies successful. So yes, they're animated fantasy kids movies but they're written so that adults will enjoy them as well. After all, it's a lot easier to get dad to take the kids out to see a movie if it's not going to be two hours of Barney The Dinosaur level hell. The difference really shows in how Pixar and Dreamworks accomplish the same thing. They both do it quite well. Shrek was a masterwork as far as making a kid's movie hilarious for adults, with the Farquaad jokes and the "compensating for something" jokes that went right over most kids' heads, and the older crowd was absolutely dying laughing at the interrogation scene. Pixar simply tells a good story with animated characters. But Pixar doesn't do the dance party at the end, and rightly so since it would wreck the movie. The Dreamworks movies just can't resist. I think this is a large part of why Pixar movies are held in higher regard by many, because they don't have that "hey kids!" hammer at the end.
posted by azpenguin at 6:46 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's not exactly the same thing, but the musical march offs at the end of Buckaroo Banzai and The Life Aquatic are both excellent closing scenes.
posted by mattamatic at 6:49 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Just like the practice of using a slowed-down or child-sung version of a well known song in an action movie trailer, it may have been successful once or twice but now they all just blend together.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 6:52 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

The good news is that if your tots clamor for repeat viewings of Sing or Trolls, you can probably just distract them by showing Kubo and the Two Strings instead, which is the absolute greatest.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:57 AM on January 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

The thing that really struck me about Sing was how many, many hit songs were featured in it. Some were for just a couple of seconds. Does anyone know what the music licensing cost them? It seemed like well over a million dollars, maybe twice that. I've never seen anything like it, even in musicals built around a soundtrack.
posted by Mchelly at 6:59 AM on January 4, 2017

Does anyone know what the music licensing cost them?

I haven't seen it (thankfully), but they're covers, aren't they? It generally costs a hell of a lot more to license a master recording than to license a composition. It might not have been cheap, but syncing a bunch of covers is always going to be cheaper than syncing the original masters.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:05 AM on January 4, 2017

I'll just drop this here.
posted by lagomorphius at 7:07 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yep. Caddyshack nailed it first and forever. That is all.
posted by Liquidwolf at 7:28 AM on January 4, 2017

Animated dance party endings (and, indeed, many other pop culture tropes) often grow in the weird, dank soil of that uncanny valley between irony and sincerity, where subtlety is such a rare thing.
posted by Bob Regular at 7:30 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

It's a combination. Lots of covers, but a really noticeable number of real songs mixed in. The only cite I've been able to find is this, which doesn't give a number but says there are 65 clearances, which to me sounds really, really high.
posted by Mchelly at 7:30 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

The only cite I've been able to find is this, which doesn't give a number but says there are 65 clearances, which to me sounds really, really high.

Christ, we could have an unadulterated Season One DVD of "WKRP in Cincinnati" with that many song clearances. Priorities!
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:33 AM on January 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

...I made the mistake of putting Shrek 2 on the Plex server...

Plex Server: A wise decision. I run one as well, and have converted nearly all our DVDs. It provides so much flexibility, with different accounts for everyone in the family and compatibility on every device, that I have made Plex converts out of many friends.

Shrek 2 on Plex Server: I agree, a very unwise decision. There's a reason I said I converted *nearly* all of the DVDs. I have a NAS with >8TB storage, but merely having sufficient available bits doesn't mean they should be wasted...
posted by mystyk at 7:49 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Does anyone know what the music licensing cost them?

By some strange coincidence, all of the music in Sing is published by Universal Music Group, Inc..
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:50 AM on January 4, 2017 [5 favorites]

But Pixar doesn't do the dance party at the end, and rightly so since it would wreck the movie.

I vastly prefer the Monsters Inc. "fake blooper reel" conceit-- it is so much funnier to me than HEY NOW WE ARE DANCING CARTOONS. Pretending that the set is falling apart or the camera is drifting out of frame in a CGI movie is hilarious to me, as is the notion that there is a hidden movie crew of other CGI characters.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 7:56 AM on January 4, 2017 [12 favorites]

Shrek 2 on Plex Server: I agree, a very unwise decision

Well, what happened is that HBO had Shrek for a while, and it became a favorite, and then they didn't have it anymore. And the library didn't have Shrek, but they did have Shrek 2. So you can see how the mistake happened.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:56 AM on January 4, 2017

So... in that AVClub piece, there is a link to another AVClub piece discussing an animated movie called Strange Magic. This is said to be a George Lucas production, based loosely on A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which a bunch of animated faeries start messing around with love potions and things get really out of hand. It featured the voices of Evan Rachel Wood and Alan Cumming, among others, and came out around January of 2015, the article tells me.

So did that... um... happen?
posted by Naberius at 8:01 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Agree that it's a cliche that usually sucks and that Zootopia completely earned it, because there are some pretty dark and relevant parts of that movie and the scene kind of helps release some of that tension. Besides, fuck me is that song catchy. (Plus, it's not just a refried cover of some done-to-death old Top 40 number.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:03 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yes, Strange Magic happened. I don't know whether it spend any time in the theaters, but it's been on a couple of the cable movie channels.
posted by Karmakaze at 8:07 AM on January 4, 2017

I blame It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (1984).
posted by Iridic at 8:10 AM on January 4, 2017 [5 favorites]

Just watched part of a clip from Strange Magic, and I have to agree with AVC: the "creepy" critters (such as are on the poster) aren't as creepy as the fairy-folk.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:16 AM on January 4, 2017

Trolls. Geeze, Trolls. That movie just came and went, didn't it? There was some vague perfunctory promotional campaign, and then it was just gone. Was it good? Was it bad? All of one person I know saw it, and they had one 'huh this was pretty okay' tweet.
posted by egypturnash at 8:29 AM on January 4, 2017

The greatest dance party ending is still Always look on the bright side of life from The Life of Brian, though the dancing is a bit confined.
posted by sapagan at 8:29 AM on January 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

The Simpsons have perhaps one of the earlier animated dance party endings.
posted by codacorolla at 8:30 AM on January 4, 2017

But Pixar doesn't do the dance party at the end, and rightly so since it would wreck the movie.

The article does briefly mention that Pixar kinda had a dance party ending at the end of Toy Story 2, but the difference with Pixar is that only they would have a dance party that featured Robert Goulet.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:45 AM on January 4, 2017

Even Lilo and Stitch transitions into an A*Teens version of "Can't Help Falling in Love" after a bit.

At first I read this as The Rock*A*Teens, and I was thinking I really need to see this movie!
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:55 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Shrek seemed to introduce the idea (related to the pop-music dance party) that a pop reference is in itself entertaining, simply because you recognize it. The girl goblin spinning around Matrix-style was super timely then, but contributes to Shrek having a shorter shelf life.
posted by kurumi at 9:01 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Simpsons have perhaps one of the earlier animated dance party endings.

Which is, of course, a parody of the previously mentioned dance party ending of Caddyshack.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:01 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

We saw Trolls - it wasn't as bad as I was afraid of, and while I can't say I actively enjoyed it, visually it more than paid for the ticket price. Everywhere you looked, something was fuzzy or velvety or sparkly - there was just texture on texture in a lot of fun unexpected ways I haven't seen in CGI before. As a craftsy/Ravelry/Pinterest-y -type person, I felt very pandered to (in a good way).
posted by Mchelly at 9:17 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

The girl goblin spinning around Matrix-style was super timely then

God, was it just a measure of how *mindblowing* that first Matrix spin was that it ended up parodied in literally *everything* for about three years?
posted by ominous_paws at 9:23 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Part of the reasons I hate these dance sequences is left over from when my kids were younger, and I had to take them to the latest Disney/Dreamworks offerings. Most of the time, especially with the latter, I was so very ready to leave by the denouement, and now I have to sit through this pandering crap? I just want to go home and lie in a dark room with wine.

Plus I know the DVD of the film is going to appear in my house, somehow, in the next couple of months, and then I'm going to hear that song every goddamn morning. And people tend to frown on dark rooms and wine in the morning.
posted by bibliowench at 9:38 AM on January 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

This is why How To Train Your Dragon is still the best Dreamworks movie by a mile.
posted by kmz at 9:43 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

I wish that movie was actually bad so that anytime someone mentioned the title I would be justified in saying:
"How to Train Your Dragon? Pfft! More like: Time to Drain Your Dragon!"
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:56 AM on January 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

Caddyshack was just ripping off the ending of 8 1/2.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 10:06 AM on January 4, 2017

The Life Aquatic

On the other hand, Fantastic Mr. Fox has a by-the-numbers dance party closer. The lead-up is funny, though; and on the whole, I'm still confused as to who, exactly, the audience of that movie even was. It can't have really been just "me," surely?
posted by byanyothername at 10:46 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

It can't have really been just "me," surely?

Me, my nephew, my cranky Hollywood talent executive ex, and my current holy-crap-am-I-maybe-going-to-be-a-stepparent-at-my-advanced-age four-year-old princess and her new-to-gayness dad are all fans of Fantastic Mr. Fox, so I'd say that it does well in the ten-year-old boy, cranky old gay man, new-to-gayness divorced dads, and four-year-old princess demographics.
posted by sonascope at 11:29 AM on January 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

why do you all hate fun
posted by poffin boffin at 12:20 PM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

God, this article really enforces my gut-level, instinctual contempt for the forced jollity of animated movies made by studios other than Disney or Pixar. Last night I went to see Rogue One and was subjected to the trailer for Boss Baby, a heretical abomination in the shape of a mountain of shit and blood, straight from the deepest uncanny valley of your nightmares, operating under the tragic misapprehension that babies are cute and not freakish, upsettingly featuring the music of Missy Elliott (!) and a baby's bare ass farting directly into the camera and thereby your face. It made me want to get sterilized.
posted by zeusianfog at 12:47 PM on January 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

Boss Baby looks like easily the worst movie I've ever seen a trailer for. Maybe it won't be. Maybe it will surprise us all and be only the fifth or sixth worst event in human history which in no actual people died.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:50 PM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

We were drinking giant beers before Rogue One and walked in just as the previews were ending. Now I realize that we dodged a terrible bullet. A baby's-ass bullet.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:06 PM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

I respectfully submit the ending of Zatoichi as the best dance party ending.
posted by goatdog at 1:58 PM on January 4, 2017 [7 favorites]

Best dance party ending is Grease and I will fight any of you if you say otherwise.
posted by Mchelly at 2:17 PM on January 4, 2017

It is obviously Needledrop.
posted by mubba at 2:54 PM on January 4, 2017

upsettingly featuring the music of Missy Elliott (!) and a baby's bare ass farting directly into the camera and thereby your face.

Also not missing the opportunity to leverage Alec Baldwin's voice acting by throwing in another "coffee is for closers" parody bone for adult viewers.
posted by AndrewInDC at 2:57 PM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Goatdog, that was what I thought of, too. Almost utterly unconnected to the movie, but it gives such a positive, warm feeling after a pretty dark, bleak story. And it's genuinely fun, not forced. It's not a bunch of actors being told to be silly to music as credits begin to roll, it's incredibly well choreographed.

I guess what I detest about dance scene endings is how lazy they are. It's a crutch for filmmakers who aren't sure how to end the story, so "let's just have a dance party" rather than work at honestly resolving our story. Zatoichi works because the story is resolved honestly, and then, hey, we've got some money in the budget, you know what we don't see enough of these days? Tap dancing!
posted by Ghidorah at 5:15 PM on January 4, 2017

You know, I really disliked the dance-party end of Zootopia because it felt waaaaaaaaaay too long. I guess it's what the article mentioned about how seeing something animated dance is not as fun as seeing real people dance. Like, you're happy, you're at a concert, look, here's everyone from the movie. I get it. Stop now.
posted by chainsofreedom at 5:35 AM on January 5, 2017

In a pretty stark contrast, I took my 11-year old to see Moana last night and enjoyed all the musical numbers instead of feeling insulted by them (although my family might hurt me if I don't stop singing "We Know the Way"). And during the credits, when my son turned to me and started drawing comparisons to the songs from Hamilton - stuff like that is what I was hoping for when I decided to have kids.

So music in kids' movies can be great when there's some skill behind them, but slapping some past earworm onto the end is much easier to do.
posted by bibliowench at 7:06 AM on January 5, 2017