For the next few weeks, we will be counting down our 25 favorite blockbusters! Read all of the entries here.

**8. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1989)**

by Emily Maesar, Staff Writer

We’ve gone through a lot of blockbusters this month and it’s been cool to see all the articles with people’s thoughts and opinions on, inarguably, some of the biggest films of all time. And, as I look at the list of films we’ve still got left, it’s also incredibly interesting to see the divide in film eras of blockbusters–particularly in the technology used to make them. Since the advent of blockbusters, they have lived and died by their technology and special effects.

And what better film to talk about the pure integration of those two things than in Robert Zemeckis’s 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Because Who Framed Roger Rabbit? poses the ultimate question: Is every person who worked on this film a fucking wizard?

The short answer was, and remains, a resounding yes. I often rewatch this film and am still filled with childlike awe and wonder because it remains one of the most impressive feats... never repeated. And they did it all without computers.

In the documentary Behind the Ears: The True Story of Roger Rabbit, which appears on the special features of the film, Steven Spielberg (Zemeckis’s mentor during the formation of his career) said, “If done right… I don’t wanna say breakthrough, but it could be something that no one’s ever seen before.” And, Mr. Spielberg, I would argue since.

What’s a shame is that while Roger Rabbit’s filming techniques and animation were outrageous and well received (it’s the second highest grossing film of 1988, after all), we quickly moved right past this particular idea of how animation and live-action could come together. As the 1990s were ushered in, so was CGI that aimed for realism. The idea of hand animating four different images per frame of the film, and not using computers to put them together, became unheard of. In fact… It still seems a bit mad.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? has, by the estimations of the animators about 55 minutes of the flick where there’s animation of some kind on screen. That amounts to over half of the runtime, as the film clocks in at just over an hour and forty minutes. Which is bananas, all things considered. There’s a reason this film took them years to finish. However, the result is simply masterful. The animation is beyond reproach and the ways in which all departments on the film came together to create ways to sell the idea of toons in the real world… That’s Oscar worthy stuff.

Which is why they literally won four Academy Awards that year. Sound Effect Editing, Film Editing, Special Effects, and a Special Achievement Award for animation directing for Richard Williams were all lovingly given to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? during the 61st Academy Awards.

To that end… I’m always thinking about the idea of “Bumping the Lamp,” which was a phrase that the animation team coined while working on Roger Rabbit. It’s the idea that “seemingly superfluous details help sell the effect at a subconscious level.” Which, I think, is a big reason why the team won the very specific awards that they did. By “Bumping the Lamp” they certainly made more work for themselves, but they were able to show off in the most technically impressive ways imaginable.

So, what does “Bumping the Lamp” mean in Roger Rabbit? Well, it’s quite literal. Eddie bumps Roger into an overhead lamp during a scene. However, because the lamp was a physical object in live-action, and actually gave off light, it meant that Roger’s appearance and shadows had to change as the light moved around on the live-action plates. More than it normally would with locked down lighting.

It became a tangible object that forced the animators to be active in their style in order to sell Zemeckis’s illusion. The other elements in the film, like contraptions created to give physical objects to the toons (such as Baby Herman’s cigar or Roger spitting out actual water) were combined with things like dynamic lighting and figuring out how to rack focus from an animated character in the foreground to the background of a live-action plate. All the elements of which allow Roger Rabbit to feel grounded in a way that hybrid animation/live-action still doesn’t. Not like this, anyway.

Beyond the actual spectacle of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, though, is a truly great story that I’ve always loved, but never really got until I was an adult. The history of Los Angeles’s transportation is so beyond fascinating and while it seems mythological that the City of Angels once had one of the greatest public transportation in the country - it’s a very real conspiracy in the city to base a classic noir film against.

On a personal level, though, can I just say that there’s nothing quite like seeing a revival of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? at the El Capitan Theatre. It’s the theater Disney owns down on Hollywood Boulevard (across from the Chinese Theatre), and when I saw Roger Rabbit with some friends a few years back, I’d completely forgotten that Eddie and Roger hide out in the very balcony we were seated in. That’s a little special Los Angeles magic, though that always warms my heart when I think about this film.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is one of those films that, no matter how many behind-the-scenes and side-by-side comparisons you see, you never quite learn the magic trick. Especially when you learn that they did it all by hand and the film had more composite shots for ILM to work on then fucking Return of the Jedi. (It was slightly more than 3x the number of shots, by the way. Which is outrageous and I’ve never been so shocked and pleased by learning a random fact.)

Besides, when are you ever going to see Donald and Daffy together, battling on a set of pianos? Or Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny doing a wordplay bit while someone falls through the sky? That’s never happening again and that, plus the technological marvel that it is, makes Who Framed Roger Rabbit? the best kind of spectacle.