This is the one idea for a movie project that I, Timothy Robert McKenzie, had spent the most time on, and I am still working on it and thinking about it in my head in one form or another since probably 2006.
They often stand at isolated intervals, towering over the landscape of film history: the epic films.
More than simply the pictures casually dubbed “epics” by Hollywood publicists, these are the films that are truly epic in their vision in their sometimes heroic effort to push the art and craft of film to new heights.
Typically they are the work of visionary individuals, passionately pursuing their aesthetic goals past normal considerations of the box office.
D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), Erich Von Stroheim’s original version of Greed (1924) and Abel Gance’s Napoleon (1927) are but a few members of this select company.
More often than not, these films bankrupt their producers. But they still stand, forever after. as monuments to the filmmaker’s art.
Perhaps besides Disney’s Pinocchio (1940), if there may be one other animated film project that might be up there in the fraternity of true epics, that project may hopefully be my intended magnum opus, Dexter’s Odyssey, that is.
People who really know animation might know not only the sad story of Richard Williams’ failed magnum opus The Thief and the Cobbler (1964-1992; released 1993 and 1995) but also the story of my dream passion project , the aforementioned Dexter’s Odyssey.
I may still spend the next 21 or 31 years or more on this potentially epic animated film project, which, at one point, might probably find Dexter teaming up with his sister Dee Dee and her two clone-y ethnic friends Mee Mee and Lee Lee (along with other friends, allies, and helpers) to embark on this big, long, epic Lord of the Rings-style questing journey to stop Dexter’s Rival Mandark from launching a mighty war machine against the world. Or maybe something else. Who knows!
And it may contain some of the most complex animations ever attempted onscreen whether it’s traditionally hand drawn or digitally computer generated.
I may or I may not get full funding for the Dexter’s Odyssey project until I achieve success or even win an award or something, so for years or decades yet to come, I may just pick at it, in-between working on other things, for Dexter’s Odyssey can be the whetstone with which I could hone my talent, craft, skills, and ideas.
And my art style might keep improving and changing, becoming more and more complex. Sure, 2D hand drawn traditional animation is becoming largely out of style these days, replaced by digitally modeled and rendered 3D CGI animations such as Tangled, Wreck-it Ralph, Frozen and even Big Hero 6.
And you know, if I were to become a great animator, and if I were to hire many other animation hands–including the great animators of the 1980s and 1990s Disney Renaissance–to pass on their knowledge to a whole new generation of young animators, or else, all that knowledge and especially the 2d hand drawn traditional animation techniques will be completely lost forever, then Dexter’s Odyssey will be one of my ways to learn.
And if I do, I may set up my own studio to help train an entire new generation of young soon-to-be great animators and help make another revival in animation, one that will be very diverse especially in technique.
And sure, even more than just a footnote in animation history, Dexter’s Odyssey is gonna be a hugely influential animated movie project. And not to mention, a work of genius, pure and simple. I might even be a genius who may be difficult to work with or demand perfection from my diverse (i.e., race, gender, etc.) crew, but I may become an inspiration as well as a great teacher.
And sure, given my obsession over planning and making Dexter’s Odyssey, I might also create some of the most spectacular, beautifully lush, and intricately complex animations of all time, hand drawn or CGI or a mixture of both–for example, Mandark’s machine(s) of war, which is/are filled with every piece of weaponry and machinery imaginable–and some of the most delightfully subtle. Plus beautiful cinematography and lighting effects; every in-camera and/or digital trick in the book, and a hundred which aren’t
That being said, Dexter’s Odyssey will not technically be a Disney movie for it is something absolutely unique: a giant epic animated film project that may be as though it is designed somewhere in the 20th century more than just the 21st, using design trends from anywhere and from the 20th and 21st centuries, and all sorts of ideas, including a weird mash-up of different things that may seem unrelated to each other–probably anything from Dexter’s Laboratory cartoon characters to Samurai Jack cartoon characters to dinosaurs to Japanese samurai to even perhaps the Do Do Bird from the 1930s Warner Bros. Cartoon Short, Porky in Wackyland.
Sure, with the possible exception of the Do Do Bird from Porky in Wackyland, some of the characters (including Dexter’s Laboratory’s Dexter, Dee Dee, Mee Mee and Lee Lee as well as Mandark as well as Dexter’s parents) may look like they might come straight out of Genndy Tartakovsky’s 1990s work on Dexter’s Laboratory or his work on Samurai Jack, but they could still move with perfect fluidity whether it be realistic or stylized. It will be a dream on an epic scale and scope and with epic grandeur and sweep. And seriously, guys, the whole entire thing will be in the language of a great dream.
And seriously, guys, anything is possible in the world of the animation art-form.
Or as this sign above from the 1938 Warner Bros. Cartoon Porky in Wackyland says:
“IT CAN HAPPEN HERE”
And only through animation can it happen there.
((And animation is not a genre. It is a technique as well an art form as well as mostly a visual medium.))
Well, given my intention for Dexter’s Odyssey to be a really great epic masterpiece of animation art, of film or cinematic art, and of human art, it will be unsurprising that Dexter’s Odyssey will also not just be an animated cartoon movie or a Disney movie but it might really be a true epic event and epic experience.
And I always intend Dexter’s Odyssey to not be crappy like anything else these days–but rather good, great, or nothing short of breathtaking.
I hope that Dexter’s Odyssey, more than anything else about it, might become something of a truly epic masterpiece. Even in its whole, entire, fullest, and most complete, uncut, definitive director’s cut form, Dexter’s Odyssey might also contain some of the most stunning, intricate, complicated, dynamic, and carefully designed animations ever filmed, hand drawn, CG, or both.
Even with a look that may alternate between the look of the character designs and animation style for the 1997-1998 episodes of Dexter’s Lab or even the look of the character designs and animation style for Samurai Jack, and may also alternate between radically bizarre and foreign as well as realistic and highly stylized, a colossally sweeping epic story, and/or even a dollop of humor with the kind of lunacy native to the old gold Genndy Tartakovsky-involved original Dexter’s Lab shorts from Season 1 (1996-1997) and Season 2 (1997-1998) or classic Warner Bros. cartoons or even the Tex Avery and Tom and Jerry MGM cartoons or so, Dexter’s Odyssey is going to be one of those perfect things–an epic fulcrum between highbrow and lowbrow–a vibrant, personal project impractically done on a very epic scale, scope and with very epic sweep and grandeur.
It may want to do what has never been done before, but in a way that doesn’t call attention to itself, but more than that, as technically impressive and sweepingly epic as it is, it’ll be consistently and riotously funny as well!
Whether it is on the big movie theater screen or in IMAX or especially on an online website like YouTube in high quality and available for any curious parties at no cost, even in its whole, entire, fullest, and most complete, uncut, definitive director’s cut form, I wanted Dexter’s Odyssey to blow everyone away (especially if he or she is one who is a fan of Dexter’s Lab or Samurai Jack or the Old Cartoon Network or the animation work of Genndy Tartakovsky)–and it may be like realizing that there’s a whole half of a movie after Lawrence of Arabia’s intermission, or even that Adam isn’t just sticking his pointer finger at the sky on the Sistine Chapel (Adam, in fact, is sticking his pointer finger at the pointer Finger of God, who first created Man in His Image).
Anyway, I might be very interested and determined to animate or even realize my whole, entire, complete vision for Dexter’s Odyssey–and not just the bits and pieces deemed suitable for theatrical exhibition or mainstream family entertainment and viewing for mainstream family audiences or their children –but also more story, more action, more humor, more character development and more of Dexter’s Odyssey’s fictional world–but also blood splatters, sexual innuendos, or subtle asides that might always will be as un-Disney (and unfit for mainstream family entertainment or viewing) as something straight out of Cartoon Network’s sister channel, Adult Swim.
What I might cook up for Dexter’s Odyssey in the years and decades or more to come–set pieces, dynamite animation and special effects, or even perfectly conceived gags–might also include comedy bits, designs that range from Genndy Tartakovsky-inspired to Disney-inspired, sweeping camera movements, meticulously crafted and sweeping epic backgrounds, sweeping action/epic battle sequences, even wonderfully expressive character moments along the way.
Well, even if I could scale unheard-of heights of dazzling visuals–whether they be realistic or stylized–astonishing effects and epic storytelling for Dexter’s Odyssey, even if, like Disney’s Pinocchio, Dexter’s Odyssey might also be a film project stuffed to overflowing with artistic riches, or even celebrate the sheer joy of inspired creation with abandon, you and I can’t be the only one or two person(s) who would like to see such an epic kind of animated film project with such a very extravagant vision being realized or made in the foreseeable future, can we?
But anyway, what would you all think of all that?
