I’d imagine the “evidence” is in the fact that, other than the CG format, you can’t tell these flicks apart from a Walt Disney, Don Bluth, or Chuck Jones or Bob Clampett cartoon.

“Films like Kung Fu Panda and Ratatouille would have been practically impossible to shoot in live action. ”

Actually, even though he’s only in tiny rat form, the LA TMNT had “baby” Splinter doing martial arts. So a panda wouldn’t be that much harder to pull off, either. As for Ratatouille, well, they’ve been merging live-action with animation since Mary Poppins, so a talking rat might not that be far-fetched, either.

“Films including Stuart Little, Ratatouille, and The Tale of Desperaeux demonstrate that real rats aren’t appealing on screen.”

Well, again, the L.A. TMNT…

“While Up could have been shot in live action, I don’t have any sense that it’s the film’s animation, rather than its characters and story, that have made it popular.”

Would anyone really want to see the real Ed Asner in a balloon? The cartoon version of him makes him more endearing.

“In the same way that Ghibli’s animated movies are popular in Japan even among viewers that normally don’t watch anime, CG animated family films have become attractive to mainstream American viewers that normally wouldn’t watch animation. The reason is the same in both cases. While animation fans and film critics praise the technical achievements of Ghibli and Pixar movies, mainstream viewers see only enjoyable movies. Japanese viewers perceive Ghibli films as movies, not as anime. Likewise, American film goers perceive movies like Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda as movies and productions ”

But the initial success of Ghibli and Pixar movies is owed to anime and animation fans, since they were the ones who were willing to give them a chance first.

“Despite its excellent advance reviews, no one expects Ponyo to earn blockbuster returns in America.”

Spirited Away did pretty well in limited release, but Di$ney pulled it out of theaters early, because it wanted the Miyazaki rip-off Treasure Planet and Pokemon to make money. [Plus, it enjoyed sabotaging Ghibli movies until one of them got an Oscar, thus forcing the company to acknowledge the studio's work.] Howl didn’t do as well, but I think the marketing on that one was a mess. So if Ponyo’s marketing is effective enough , it might as least do as well as the American remake of Spirited Away, er, Coraline.

“The Evangelion 1.0 movie will be screening in a mere ten American venues, and two of those are fan conventions.”

Eva’s never really been as big in the U.S. as it has been in Japan, though.
Otakus talked about it a lot, but the mech anime which ended up getting the most attention among casual fans were Gundam Wing and The Big O.
However, things might change if that LA Eva movie gets off the ground. Or it could just “bomb” like Watchmen.

“Disney’s upcoming Princess and the Frog is a new attempt at vintage Disney hand drawn animation, but I don’t see it generating significant audience anticipation outside of the hardcore animation fan community.”

You don’t think it’ll resonate with people already excited about the “first black President”? At least that’s what I assume Disney’s cashing in on, even though the project was long in development even before the campaign.

“Thanks to the development of 3D CG animation, traditional 2D animation now seems inescapably associated with outdated techniques and productions for cult audiences.”

If that’s the case, how come Family Guy and Futurama were brought back on the air? They must do a helluva lot better than Whedon’s post-Buffy stuff, anyway.