Troop Deployment: An Unusual Moment in Art History

The animated short “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” won the Oscar for Best Animated Short recently.

This is a high-budget short, funded by Apple and produced by the BBC + JJ Abrams. It is a lot of fun to watch, if you can make it all the way through! But for it to have won an Oscar is fascinating to me. It implies that a style of art I personally really enjoy is coming back into style. It also means a lot of people did an exceptionally good job at… doing a thing that I consider it very hard for a large group of people to do!

I hate being this vague, but there’s no way to say what I want to say without giving massive spoilers, and being non-spoiled is pretty important for this piece. So all I can really say is I think everyone should watch this. Because if you don’t watch it, you aren’t just missing out on a fun piece of animation. You are missing out on observing a very unusual event in art history as it is unfolding. I won’t say it is unique, I think things like this have happened before. But they are rare, and I did not expect the academy that gives out the Oscars to do this.

It’s streaming on Apple TV, go watch it if you have that. Perhaps find a friend with access to this video if you don’t have Apple TV. Heck, make a viewing party of it, so you can discuss the piece afterwards.

And maybe, if we’re ever in the same space sometime this year, we can discuss it as well. :)

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Why is this post titled “Troop Deployment?” I’m on a podcast with a regular Random Opinion segment, called “Troop Deployments.” Figured if I’m writing them out for the podcast, I’ma double-dip and put it on my blog. This way there’s an easily-searchable text record as well.