#Pac man 80s cartoon movie

Sure, most still know Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. And Looney Tunes, at this present time, teeters between the two extremes. The latter are left, at best, to niche aficionados who strive to keep their flames alive. The former are still beloved or at least retain some fragment of the public zeitgeist. The golden age of animation is no different for every Mickey Mouse or Tom and Jerry, there’s a Betty Boop or Felix the Cat. Howdy Doody, Gumby, Max Headroom, Eureka’s Castle, even Ronald McDonald…these once widely-recognized properties are now specters of a bygone time, clinging to dwindling nostalgia as future generations shrug with indifference. A bug rising above them all.-DĬommercial art rarely transcends its era, created more for quick consumption than endless, timeless appeal. And yet, for those willing to see the irony, Antz remains a tiny triumph.

Even those “cultured” folk, after years of watching flaxen princesses and goofy minions and talking ponies, might struggle to appreciate the film’s darker humor and garish characters. Like giving a copy of Animal Farm to a kindergartner, not every child will enjoy Antz or understand its satirical significance. Indeed, despite looking like an early-CGI production, the film’s pro- freedom and independence themes-coupled with a respect for communal responsibility-imbues it with a timeless sophistication many films, no matter the era, fail to embody. What it lacks, perhaps, in pure artistic panache (compared to, say, the more commercial A Bug’s Life), it fixes with an impressive script that spans political corruption, coups, and even genocide, all to deliver a still (somehow) amusing fairy tale about an ant finding happiness.

#Pac man 80s cartoon movie

Obviously, despite being about bugs, this is a movie about ideas. Autonomy! Self-actualization! Yet no one, not even his best friends, can understand why he’s so miserable. He’s tired of shifting dirt as a “soil relocation engineer.” He wants more from life. But Z-4195, or “Z” for short, is not like his comrades. Which makes sense, perhaps, when you’re an insect living in a literal hive. The “one” is nothing when compared to the whole. The colony, not the ant, is the reason for being. Most would say the former is clearly superior to the latter, but in the world of Antz, collectivism is the rule. Individualism versus the souless hive mind.