Stuart Wilson of hoopla pointed me to this post at FlickFilosopher, and asked my view on the suggestion that this the best year ever for animated films.
The short answer is “no, that’s silly.” Even the author of the original article talks about it mainly in terms of volume of good films. It’s true, the animation industry is humming along, and we can give bonus points for the return of hand-drawn theatrical animation in the US with The Princess and the Frog, but looking at it by volume just changes the rules so much the notion of a “best year ever” becomes meaningless.
To justify such a claim you surely should be able to point to some really landmark works, or at least a field of such enduring excellence it makes the year special, in much the same way 1939 is often talked about in the live action context. I can’t see anything of that quality about, despite all the good releases this year.