A controversial Bolt image has animation fans seeing red. I take you inside the controversy. BONUS: a new WALL-E image.

An initial screenshot from the upcoming Walt Disney animated film Bolt has fans in a fury.

Last Wednesday, Rope of Silicon posted a couple of images from the upcoming movie, including one featuring the titular character (a white Alsatian with a brown lightning bolt running down his body), alongside a nervous cat named Mittens and Rhino, a hamster in a ball.

Fans denounced the images as generic and unappealing, and felt the movie (due November 26th) was a stinker in the making.

"From a purely aesthetic point of view, the publicity still Disney has chosen to release is embarrassingly bland and uninteresting," commented Cartoon Brew's Amid Amidi. "I can’t imagine this exciting many people to want to see this film."

Original Director Chris Sanders Removed From Bolt

A lot of the furor over Bolt is rooted in the film's troubled history. Original director Chris Sanders conceived of the project as a follow-up to his successful 2003 film Lilo and Stitch. However, his vision (a pampered pooch named Henry gets lost in the Nevada desert) quickly clashed with WDAS creative directors John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, with Lasseter deciding the film was "too wacky for its own good."

Catmull and Lasseter eventually removed Sanders from the movie, and assigned Disney veteran Chris Williams (Mulan, The Emperor's New Groove) to take it over. Sanders went to DreamWorks Animation (run by former Disney animation guru Jeffrey Katzenberg), and is currently revamping John Cleese's script for the caveman comedy Crood Awakening.

At the time, many fans viewed this as a sign that Lasseter had lost the plot. By removing the director responsible for one of Disney's few animated hits between 1995 and 2006, many charged that the Cars director was not only incapable of working with non-Pixar personnel, but was becoming as narrow-minded and corporate as previous WDAS creative heads.

The news that John Travolta would voice the role of Bolt wasn't taken well, either. The actor has a very mixed reputation when it comes to movies, with roles in stinkers such as Battlefield Earth or Two of a Kind counterbalancing triumphs like Grease or Pulp Fiction. Bruce Greenwood, Woody Harrelson, and Susie Essman also have roles in the flick.

A Premature Decision?

Nevertheless, many are taking a wait-and-see attitude with Bolt, given that Pixar's Ratatouille was in a similar position at one point.

"I’ll concede that this publicity picture is not as attractive as some of Sander’s previously released preliminary paintings," writes Cartoon Brew's Jerry Beck. "However, I’ll trust Lasseter and Williams’ judgment in this matter and am willing to wait and see the final product next November. Lasseter made a similar directorial switch on Ratatouille - and I was certainly pleased with how that turned out."

Geri's Game director Jan Pinkava had conceived the idea for Ratatouille and had done a fair amount of pre-production, before Lasseter replaced him with Brad Bird (The Incredibles). The film made over $600 million in box office receipts, and is one of the favoured contenders for Best Animated Feature Film at this year's Oscars.

Jim Hill also defended Lasseter's decision, and urged fans to also take a wait-and-see attitude towards the film. He also praised Chris Williams' credentials as someone who is skilled at revitalizing troubled projects.

"Given that Williams earned his stripes at the Mouse House by first working on Mulan (Which was another WDAS production that really had to struggle before it finally found just the right mix of story elements) before joining the story crew assigned to The Emperor's New Groove," Hill writes. "This is a guy who actually knows how to turn lemons into lemonade, people. So please try and keep that in mind before you make up your mind about Bolt."

Bolt hits theatres on November 26th.

WALL-E Image

On the other hand, there is no such controversy about Andrew Stanton's next film, WALL-E. Pixar hasn't released a stinker yet, and WALL-E is already making several critics' lists as a movie to look forward to in 2008.

Rope of Silicon managed to get their hands on yet another screenshot from the movie, this time featuring our hero riding atop a space ship. It's similar to Slim Pickens' iconic image from Dr. Strangelove (the one where he's riding the nuclear bomb), minus the threat of impending death and destruction. Not sure how WALL-E would've survived the heat of leaving the atmosphere, but that's just quibbling. Check out the image below, or full-sized over here.