The award-winning (interesting choice for a pretty prestigious sound award) "Santa vs. The Snowman 3D" is a half-hour animated short from the year 2002, so for the 2017 holidays this year, it has its 15th anniversary. The writer and director is John A. Davis and he got help from his buddy Steve Oedekerk. Both of them are Oscar nominees (in the animation category of course) and this one we have here exists in a 2D version as well from several years earlier. That one was about 10 minutes shorter and Davis made it as well and Oedekerk was "only" credited as a producer there and here he is also credited as a writer. Anyway, I have not yet seen that older version, so let's get back to this one here. I think the overall idea was fairly decent as we have a snowman who is not scared of doing bad things in order to become as popular as Santa. But he is not a bad guy (even if, also with his resilient silence, he has a bit of a creepy thing going for him), just lonely and the scene near the end with the girl and the doll was fine, kinda touching too. But even there, the maybe biggest problem is visible, namely the animation that I did not enjoy too much sadly. The girl's look's are an issue here. Another issue you could say in terms of the visual side are the elves that look like rhinos pretty much. However, I liked the way they were talking like men basically, also how they rant on about women like construction workers or so. Or they need for speed almost on these modern vehicales when they are chasing the intruder feels like it could be part of an action movie. The two title characters are okay in terms of looks, Santa I even liked quite a bit. Visually, he is probably the best thing about this movie. Still, there are many other scenes that had a negative impact on me because of the looks. In terms of the story, there is less. One example would be how they not only make up at the end, but become close friends because it felt incredibly rushed and the massive conflict before that was forgotten immediately all out of nowhere.
On a more uplifting side, I was nicely entertained for the most part. It was also the small moments where the film delivered. One really small, but interesting inclusion was the alarm system at Santa's headquarters including red-nosed reindeers who started to flash and make noise once the alarm was triggered. There is also a funny Easter Bunny reference in here. And the big, almost epic battle mentioned in the title was also not shabby at all and certainly one of the highlights. Not just in terms of what happened, but also in terms of all the characters they got in. Such as the Abominable Snowman and his fight against Santa almost had a touch of Transformers to it. Or also take the gingerbread soldiers whose heat was dangerous to the snowmen. Or the grenade thingey with the bow. It was all kept kids-friendly of course. For me personally as a tennis fan, the Billie Jean King reference was also interesting towards the end. Not gonna lie. It is a bit of a close call and you can debate if this extended version of the already pretty good film from five years earlier was really necessary, but eventually I think the good moments here are more frequent than the worse moments. Let's ignore for a second the introduction where we are told that the snowman is so alone and that's why he cannot speak and in the second half, he just creates an army basically of other snowmen. This Christmas special is not a failure by any means and somewhat worth checking out during the holidays, maybe also during the rest of the year, even if I am not super enthusiastic about it. You can watch it. Or go for the original, which most likely isn't worse. Of course, this is especially recommended to fans of the Golden Globe-nominated actor Jonathan Winters, the biggest name attached to this project and his voice is included constantly from beginning to end.
On a more uplifting side, I was nicely entertained for the most part. It was also the small moments where the film delivered. One really small, but interesting inclusion was the alarm system at Santa's headquarters including red-nosed reindeers who started to flash and make noise once the alarm was triggered. There is also a funny Easter Bunny reference in here. And the big, almost epic battle mentioned in the title was also not shabby at all and certainly one of the highlights. Not just in terms of what happened, but also in terms of all the characters they got in. Such as the Abominable Snowman and his fight against Santa almost had a touch of Transformers to it. Or also take the gingerbread soldiers whose heat was dangerous to the snowmen. Or the grenade thingey with the bow. It was all kept kids-friendly of course. For me personally as a tennis fan, the Billie Jean King reference was also interesting towards the end. Not gonna lie. It is a bit of a close call and you can debate if this extended version of the already pretty good film from five years earlier was really necessary, but eventually I think the good moments here are more frequent than the worse moments. Let's ignore for a second the introduction where we are told that the snowman is so alone and that's why he cannot speak and in the second half, he just creates an army basically of other snowmen. This Christmas special is not a failure by any means and somewhat worth checking out during the holidays, maybe also during the rest of the year, even if I am not super enthusiastic about it. You can watch it. Or go for the original, which most likely isn't worse. Of course, this is especially recommended to fans of the Golden Globe-nominated actor Jonathan Winters, the biggest name attached to this project and his voice is included constantly from beginning to end.
