I literally never felt bothered by blood in the movies as child, it felt completely natural to me. I don't get why Disney tries to "protect kids" so much, blood adds realism to those movies!

My respects to dreamworks

Dreamworks was formed by ex-Disney employees literally just to compete with them, by doing things their own way. That creative freedom is very much on purpose. Treating your audience like fellow intelligent human beings (even if they are young) rather than like endless cash cows that must be protected at all costs is pretty cool too. Never understood the obsession with Disney that some folks have. I am probably more of a Dreamworks fan tbh.

I want to point out that I really like that dreamworks keeps the blood minimal for the most part. When you use blood too often, your audience can become desensitized to it. It loses any sort of meaning in the story because it's just the status quo. By holding back on using blood, they are able to make sure that it keeps it's visual and narrative impact when it does get shown. Blood isn't just set dressing, it has a purpose.

Kinda depends on the mood you wanna set for the scene. For El Dorado and Puss in Boots the blood flowing gives that feeling of unease, while the Shrek scene’s supposed to be funny. Seeing blood on the arrow would feel a bit out of place.

Prince of Egypt is probably the bloodiest PG rated animated film I’ve seen, and it’s from that one scene alone! (Though technically the blood wasn’t coming from/out of anyone)

1:25 Girl just pulled out a clean dagger after stabbing him😂

3:00 It's subjective, but as a learning scriptwriter, i think that reflection actually more accurately to indicate that Puss's life IS the glass; in the wolf's hand, fragile, and has dried out.

Disney sucks when it comes to not putting blood in their movies honestly I really like how DreamWorks isn't afraid to show dark scenes and blood like how Disney does. All Disney does is being a sensitive company that is scared to show blood because they think kids will be terrified or confused.

Kids don't think blood is unnatural, if anything, I thought characters getting stabbed and the knife coming out clean was unnatural. I would even ask my parents why the knives were clean because the knife not being bloody felt unrealistic and I was a little nitpicker

While i understand Disney may want to keep it tame, it's a bit too tame. Kids will only be more frightened of blood if they don't get the point that cuts and blood happen. It doesn't have to be graphic, but it also doesn't have to be treated like "ow I got a paper cut, I need immediate medical attention!"

Blood is like the most inoffensive type of 'gore' there is. Like it's just a fluid, that kids see all the time anyways, like you know how often you get injured as a kid? It's nutty.

disney: noooooo! his blood needs to be already dry within 0.05 seconds!!!! dreamworks: okay so a chunk of his ear gets blown off

It's been mentioned once in the comments, but I'd like to elaborate. There's blood in the animated version of Mulan. The scene I'm referring to shows Mulan being slashed in the side. No it doesn't show that wound trickling, but later it shows Mulan touching the wound and her hand comes back covered in blood. Not enough to where it's dripping, of course. That would be unnecessary no matter what. But there's enough on her palm, at least according to memory, to where she could have made a handprint of she wanted. Her clothes are stained pretty good too. So there's another note worthy blood scene from a Disney film.

I think the way you use blood is a lot more important than actually showing blood. Not every scene where a character gets hurt needs to have blood, but blood can certainly go a long way to enhance a scene. In the Puss in Boots scene, the blood is an extremely important storytelling decision. It shows that Puss isn’t immortal, death is a real possibility for him. The blood strengthens his fear for the audience. The blood makes the scene stronger and the scene would lose a lot of gravity should the blood be removed. Alternatively, putting blood in the scene in Encanto where Mirabel cuts her hand wouldn’t really fit. The injury Mirabel receives isn’t exactly important or particularly painful. Putting blood there would make the injury appear worse than it actually is, which would tell the audience that this cut is important to the story, which wouldn’t be good visual storytelling as that cut really isn’t that important to story. Whenever Dreamworks has blood, it’s for a purpose that improves the story telling, removing the blood would detract from the scenes it’s in. Disney mostly does not use blood, but when they do (ex: in Tangled when Flynn gets stabbed and nearly killed) they do it to further the story (Flynn bleeding like that shows he’ll die if the wound isn’t healed). Overall, the companies use blood in similar ways, Dreamworks just uses it more often and effectively

1:55 Wow. I've seen Madagascar 2 many times but never noticed that.

The blood that runs down Puss' forehead after Death cuts him is one of those "Oh snap" moments, it just adds that brevity to the scene where it sets up the stakes right away. The fearless hero has met someone who could not only cut him, but kill him. It's such a good scene from such an incredible movie.

My observation is that they use blood incredibly thematically, and they make it impactful, in Disney movies they skim over it as quickly as possible to avoid eating issues, with dreamworks they dwell on it, they emphasize the weight of someone being injured, maimed, or nearly killed, which is exactly how it should be portrayed

With how Disney maintains its brand of family friendliness, I do believe Dreamworks, from time to time, is not afraid to take risks and open up to new ideas. Sure, they care about finding their next big franchise similar to Shrek or Kung Fu Panda, but it's worth noting how they give writers, directors, and even animators creative liberties to their films. Great video.

The weird thing about the Encanto example is that Disney have clearly gone out of their way to make that fresh cut look like it's been healing for days.

Disney: Naturally, we can't show blood in kid shoes DreamWorks: But blood is natural Disney: I know, but it's violent DreamWorks: violence is what the kids want, not your dump princesses with their awful voices

One pattern with DreamWorks' choice of visuals depends on the focus: When the emphasis is on the blood, it moves - yet, when the intent is on the events unfolding, the gore is absent - Less due censorship (Gory Discretion Shot) and closer toward Deliberate Value Dissonance/Artistic License

When I watched The Last Wish for the first time the scene where Puss gets cut shocked me completely because it just isn’t that regular of an occurrence to see dripping blood in modern animated movies. I love that scene so much, very impactful and sets the tone of fear throughout the wrest of the movie. I wish Disney had the balls to make more shocking stuff like that in their films.

I've met so many animators and writers from Dreamworks through internships and all of them switched from Disney for the freedom to create. Disney while has good animation never allows artists to go further and push the limits anymore. That's why I love Dreamworks and always have. Especially because of The Prince of Egypt. That movie is literally a work of art in my mind that makes me cry everytime I watch it.

As a person who grew up with disney im very...dissapointed its like seeing an old friend dissapear and become "toxic" "rude" or..just kind of painful to witness...now i just want the company to die but i dont at the same time and its just hurts. Part of me hopes that disney will make a good comeback and be the happy go lucky franchise i grew up with but the other half knows that will never happen and its just..best we let it die. Thank you for listening to my vent/rant type thing-

Movie director: Is that blood in the movie? Disney: It's jam. 😐 DreamWorks has entered the chat

4:49 I love the way that Donkey just faints at the sight of blood.

I think the lack of blood on the arrow helps the gag work better, that way the audience never notices the blood, it's a very small amount of blood that only Donkey notices and then immediately faints at. As a result, the shock of the realization that there's blood on the arrow comes with Donkey's delivery of the line, not with the sight of the arrow. If there was blood on the arrow, it'd have to be a barely perceptible dark stain on the arrowhead. Maybe they figured there was no point in adding the blood, or maybe they were worried that it'd look like poop or something.

I like how DreamWorks treats blood like it's you know just a fact of life

5:30 I assume he would bleed green. the main reason human skin is pink/red is because of our blood. that being said blood is red due to the presence of iron within it's enzymes. the relevance being that green blood would suggest the presence of copper (you can kind of think about the resulting color being the color of the present metal in an oxidized state, and since bloods main purpose in the body is to carry oxygen and other materials throughout the body it only makes sense that the metal would be oxidized).

I remember watching graffiti falls as a kid, and at the end of season Dipper had a nosebleed. That was the first time I’ve ever seen blood in a cartoon, this made the finale of season 1 so epic and special for me

It's interesting that even small amounts of blood are considered inappropriate for children. Children get little cuts and scrapes all the time. I remember in my primary school, there were often trails of blood drops leading up to the office from kids getting nose bleeds. I can understand not showing anything actually gory, but small amounts of blood should be fine.

You don't need blood to deliver good storytelling. With that being said, Dreamworks puts special emphasis on fluidity, i.e. the movement of liquids. Prince of Egypt took quite a while to finish in part because they wanted to animate the water as best as they could. If Dreamworks wants to use blood as a storytelling device or tone setter for a scene, then of course they're going to make damn sure that it looks amazing.

How come Nose-Bleeds are ok to show but when it’s a flesh wound it’s seen as taboo

6:53 am I the only one not seeing it ?

7:00 I'm pretty sure that's white fur, not blood

To be fair, I don't think most parents would be okay with the amount of blood in The Prince of Egypt in other circumstances. It's the fact that it's based off of a religious story, that's why it gets a pass from a lot of people. Those same parents would probably be furious if you put a river of blood in a fantasy setting. It would feel odd to tell the story of Moses and include the frog rain but exclude the blood river. It also shows a light going into homes and killing firstborn children, which definitely wouldn't bode well outside the context of a "historical" storytelling. Even though it was done pretty tastefully.

I like turtles. EDIT: I also like cats.

Don’t forget my favorite movie, Atlantis!! When Milo falls down the bridge with the rest of the crew and Kida finds him, he has a cut which is shown not only to be actively bleeding, but it’s on his hands after he touches it! Atlantis was already meant to be the “anti-Disney” movie anyways so it’s not surprising, but it is hands down my favorite movie of all time!

i have always appreciated Dreamworks and their movies as much if not more than disney. especially these days. Dreamworks knew what was needed to set a tone for each scene and what the entire industry needs to understand is that "TONE IS EVERYTHING". a lot of movies these days dont seem to want to make the scene feel real, as much as they want it to look real, and it is simply breaking a lot of narratives and what could have been good stories.

5:06 Their wasn’t any blood on Gothel’s blade when she stabbed Eugene either

Do you think he should have his own talk show? It would be really nice just talking about these random concepts.

Disney writes movies, Dreamworks writes characters and puts them together to make a movie.

something else i also think is interesting is that when blood is shown in dreamworks, it's almost always a turning point in said story: Miguel's blood sets about the undoing of their charade, when Hiccup bleeds as a baby it's that scar/moment more than anything else where he also loses his mother (and why she believes it's best to stay away). Most injuries or demonstrations of blood in disney seem to be there to enhance the moment or set up little healing scenes later (Flynn's hand is cut so Rapunzel can heal it, I think Mirabel's is healed by her mom later if I'm remembering quickly) but the blood itself doesn't really reveal any character changes/turning points or big plot progressions

I REALLY appreciate when there’s blood in kids movies. Speaking of blood in kids shows, I really wonder why it took so long for The dragon prince to get a higher age rating, for all of seasons 1-4 it was 7+ even tough there was so much violence and disturbing imagery, not much blood though- it was first in season five when it got 10+ instead. To be fair s5 was a big step up, 15+ people getting massacred, main character getting tortured, someone getting bitted and corrupted, A MAJOR CHARACTER GETTING THEIR LEG CUT OFF. It got dark real quick- Anyway, I hope more kids media gets more mature tbh, maybe a new age rating? Only time will tell.

"blood animations is not safe for kids" paper cut in real life: ...

In the black cauldron, seeing blood actually freaked me out because i was only allowed to watch newer Disney movies- so my first time seeing blood on a screen freaked me out

When it comes to seeing or not seeing blood or other things that were toned down to be less scary to kids or something, I gotta admit that the first few times when I saw Tarzan, as a kid, I completely missed the fact that the movie shows the corpses of Tarzan’s parents on screen for a moment, when Kala enters the treehouse to find the baby. I used to only get that they were killed by Sabor from the bloody pawprints on the floor, but that they actually showed dead bodies on screen, man. As far as I can remember there’s not a single “kids movie” that has pulled a move like that ever since.

5:11 Shrek’s blood is the exact same gray as the arrow. 100% no lie

The lack of blood in HtTYD annoys me actually, it's probably censorship as showing two main characters being amputated is huge deal, but... It gives other scenes less impact..!

Dreamworks definitely experiments with their movies showing more darker themes but you failed to mention how Disney has shown quite a bit of blood in some of their biggest films, Mulan when her entire had is covered in blood, TARZAN when Kayla finds Tarzan we see bloody paw prints all over the tree house and actually the dead and bloody bodies of his parents, then Tarzan himself getting the bloody scratch, and in Up (which I know is mainly Pixar but Disney bought Pixar before Up was released so it is also technically Disney as well) Carl actually hits one of the construction workers on the head with his cane, and we see blood and a gash on said workers head. Dreamworks pushes the limit when it comes to blood which is interesting and exciting even, but Disney doesn’t always back down when it comes to blood, they don’t always show it but they aren’t scared to either.

2:53 While I've not initially seen the detail, I think it really changes the visual image of Death holding Puss's life in his grasp. I think it definitely was right to include to add that visual story telling.

Interesting note on Disney and blood: In the previews for Aladdin and the Prince of thieves there’s a scene from the song “Welcome to the Forty Thieves” that clearly shows a bloodstain on Aladdin’s shoulder (from an earlier fight). But in the released movie, the blood is cut out entirely. I think Disney, at least back then, thought bloody violence wasn’t “on brand” because a few of their shows include blood. Gravity Falls for example has Dipper getting a nosebleed from a fight while I think they show blood and a healing wound on Stan over the course of a couple episodes. …And then there’s the “mounted animal head trophy” scene from Northwest Mansion Mystery.

5:06 the arrow doesn’t actually Pierce his skin. It is the reason he doesn’t bleed. Donkey doesn’t realize he isn’t bleeding. The reason he says ow is because it scrapes his skin.

I remember watching road to el dorado as a kid and was never bothered by the sight of blood. never even gave it a thought. but the way I see it, the inclusion of blood in an animated film is for certain reason. That being to either: set a mood/tone in a scene, to provide a level of realism, or to further portray danger in a specific scene. when used correctly, blood in animated movies is not a bad thing. Dreamworks understands this perfectly as well.

I was raised big time on Disney, my family went to Disneyland almost yearly for the majority of my childhood, and we went to see all their releases and still sometimes do. (Slowed up considerably lately for various reasons.) But deep down I think I've always been more of a DreamWorks fan, without even realizing it. HTTYD has always been my favorite franchise and probably always will be. It _is_ the more creatively inspired company. They care most about the stories they tell, when compared to Disney.

I personally think that blood no matter how big or small or how long the viewer can see it for should always be animated in serious or emotional moments. Because it really shows the impact or the importance of the scene, like Mirabel getting cut with the shards is a good example, it really showed how bad the house was being affected. The same with the Puss and Boots movie, they didn't have to animate the blood, they could've left it at that and it still would've been in a massive impact on Puss, but because they said that he's never been touched/cut by a blade, the slice on his head with the blood dripping affected Puss massively because his opponent wasn't playing around and was ready to kill him on the spot while invoking fear in him

1:20 that crazy drip 🧥

Beauty and the Beast was another example of Disney showing blood, and we do see Gaston removing the knife from Beast’s body before we see blood dripping from the wound as Belle pulls him onto the balcony. Dipper also bled in Gravity Falls with his fight with Gideon. Marcy got impaled in Amphibia, but I don’t think there was blood there (in fairness to that, it was through the chest with a hot sword, assuming I recall correctly). This still doesn’t compare to dreamworks and I agree where Disney films feels held back in some ways, but I wanted to put those on the table for consideration. Disney however did deal with a lot of heavy topics surrounding death, so in some aspects it may be balanced.

Won't lie, Puss in Boots shocked me...the blood... the kill count being as high as a John Wick movie, I mean someone died like every 5 minutes especially when Jack was on screen💀😂

Well PG does stand for Parental Guidance for any kids who would witness anything in a movie that may need comfort or minor explanation to ease. Guess Disney today wanted to be sure EVERYTHING they touch is marketable. Disney, Walt have said about how animation isn’t just for kids but to bring in the childhood within…. YOU USED TO GO EDGY ON OCCASIONS! Just look at the Brave Little Toaster, Tarzan, Great Mouse Detective, and your partnership with WB for Who Framed Rodger Rabbit.

There was a little bit of blood in Trolls World Tour, when one of the twins pricks her fingers. Tiny Diamond and Biggie even faint from the sight.

Honestly, respect to Dreamworks for making *that* Bewilderbeast scene and showing no blood. That would've traumatised the sh*t out of me

One thing that wasn't mentioned in the video is that even though you showed that Tarzan bled for a couple of seconds, those scratches are not seen again, even later in the fight, despite it looking somewhat severe. I learned this from a WhatCulture video and it was apparently intentional, not by mistake.

This uncomfortability. Writing outside the box. For once, taking off the plot armor for just long enough to show true emotion in a character who doesn't show it, pain in a character who's never felt it, a sense of harsh reality in a character who doesn't want to accept it. This is what our world needs. And coincidentally, the kind of themes I put into my writing.

There's an actual reason for Disney to be tamer with blood, and that's because they usually want to keep a G, or at worse PG rating in their movies. In Tangled, for instance, when Eugene gets stabbed, the knife originally was stained with blood, but that fact alone almost got them a PG-13 rating, so they erased the blood and just left stains on clothes and stuff to keep it PG. Also, there *is* an example of flowing blood in a Disney movie. In the animated Beauty and the Beast, you can see blood flowing from the beast's stab wound.

El Dorado no longer has that child innocence now that I'm years older and rewatched it. Things that you miss when you barely know the world.

I think the best uses, and the ones that really stick in your head, are the ones that use blood to remind the audience and especially the characters of their mortality - Tangled, Puss, El Dorado, all of them accompanied by death or a stark realization that the bleeding character CAN die.

1:45 If I had known any better, that scene would've had my entire body frozen still as a kid 💀💀💀

personally when I think of blood in animated movies is that what makes me feel the impact of it is the use of it in the story. comparing disney to dreamworks we see that the blood on flynn rider is because he got stabbed and will probably die or judy hops and mirabel got injured but they will be fine later. but when we see the blood in puss we think "he is not invencible" or when we see the blood in miguel we get the message from tzekel-kan that "he isn't a god because he bleeds" the writing in dreamworks movies usually give to blood the matter of a twist in the story and I think this is where the impact of blood comes from DW movies

3:57 wut💀💀

3:47 if you notice through out the movies he actually always had that scare if you look close enough love that attention to detail

Now I’m imagining some little kid getting hurt while playing and their parent being like: *”YuO cAn’T sEe ThAt, It’S tOo GrApHiC”* and running to cover the wound with their hand because god forbid that a kid sees blood

Although it's neither Dreamworks or Disney, the recent Nimona film had a funny scene where the main character's leg is bleeding

Fortunately I was a kid who grew up with both DreamWorks and Disney (and also anime!); my mum is amazing and she always showed me the best of movies. As time passed one of my favorite animated movies is still The Road to ElDorado even though it was not a story "for children".

blood can be shown on most shows because it doesnt show that someone died instead, it just shows that the character got injured

Why is it so good and satisfying to see the blood coming out like when the blood drips down it's like so satisfying they make good animations with this and i f****** love it

Tangled and shrek are my favs they caught my attention so well and i love this types of adveture movies 😏 but yeah disney is very much hides blood but that dosent mean the movies are bad i actually adore disney movies but dreamworks movies are iconic they are having great control over em tbh both companies did great job on story telling 🤩

You actually missed two big blood example from Disney's side. In Aladdin, when Aladdin stabs Snake Jafar, there's actually a good gush of blood for a second before it pulls away. the other is Sleeping Beauty, where you see blood seeping from the wound where dragon Maleficent was stabbed.

dreamworks has always made sure of making their movies entertaining for both kids and adults and as a result has much less “safety nets” as you put it in the video. throughout dreamworks there has been a mix of children’s and adult themes as well as intense scenes and more mature jokes. disney used to do this a bit more but i feel like cancel culture scared the writers and producers as dreamworks has yet to bow down to it

I think Dreamworks have blood down to an art. They know when to animate and show blood and when not to. The most animated and prominent blood tends to be for plot moments (like Puss in Boots or Prince of Egypt). But them also adding blood in fight scenes helps sell the brutality and the danger the characters are in. And where they don’t show blood may be a rating thing but it also works brilliantly. The arrow scene in Shrek for example. Without blood it’s ‘haha Shrek got shot in the butt) where blood indicates that he is really hurt. The donkey bit can also be put down to a ‘silly Donkey’ moment and keeps the lightheartedness off it. In How to Train Your Dragon, not really adding blood in the baby Hiccup bit is also cleaver. This is where Valka has her revelation about Dragons. Adding Blood to the scratch may undermine it a bit, because at the moment it says ‘Dragons are not really evil and dangerous, in fact even when it does hurt a child it’s accidental and nothing more than scratch’. Blood could give the impression that the Dragons were lying and wouldn’t sell Valka’s moment as well. Or at least in my opinion

Disney : We will never show blood on the camera at least naturally. DreamWorks : Girl have you heard of this thing called puberty. Disney : Yeah we did that but it’s not natural. DreamWorks : it kind of is though? Besides who doesn’t like a little stabby stab? *Studio Ghibli running by Disney and DreamWorks with body horror and fatal injuries* Disney : . . . DreamWorks : . . . Like that...

I think the reason there is a lack of blood in shrek is because 3D animation was still new then, blood flowing in 3D is quite a hard thing to do and especially when 3D animation was still new

9:27 What is the other thing you want me to do?

Ben Ten was a show that wasn't afraid to tell edgy stories within it's art styled atmospheric universe. Unless if it's the current show. Same thing with with the flow of the story, as Ben matures over time. HOW COME THIS KID AIN'T IN MULTIVERSUS?

I believe that the reason the arrow in shrek no blood on the tip is because shreks skin may be too thick for the arrow to surpass. I beleve this because if you go to 5:20 and look at shreks lip it is very thick compared to the human lip. So the skin on shreks leg must have been too thick for the arrow to surpass. Thank you for your time.

the first film you show " the road to el dorado" was easily my favourite animated film it just felt so nice

The blood on Puss made me realize that Death the Wolf is definitely not played for laughs

Reminds me of the time my 5th grade teacher got all up in arms about the movie I brought to class, Princess Mononoke, cuz I wanted to share how great the movie was. But the moment she saw blood, she got all upset saying it had "too much blood," and I was just standing there like "how is this a problem?-" She didn't let us continue watching the movie, which is a shame cuz it has such a valuable moral lesson, respect nature or nature will fight back. Glad we have our priorities straight. 🤦

Saw The Last Wish for the first time earlier this morning and that first scene between Death and Puss caught me off guard. If they were limited to just one scene of blood for the whole film, they used it masterfully.

I love Dreamworks so much. I hope they never get bought out or change

video was so good I didn't even notice it was by calobi for a sec

Thank you for posting this again!❤

Disney has completely shifted to a kid friendly g rated dynamic meanwhile Dreamworks is not afraid of making content that targets all ages of the audience

I think you may be glossing over the importance of when blood is shown. For Puss and El Dorado, the blood was a big important detail for each movie's plot. Of course they're going to really focus in on it when showing Puss discovering his fear of death or when Miguel unwittingly tips off the villain that he's not a god. Encanto's blood wasn't the important part. It was added flavoring for the more important issue of the magic fading. In that Tangled clip you keep showing in the cave the fact that Flynn is bleeding isn't the important part either. The narrative doesn't benefit from adding bleeding to the moment. You can definitely make an argument for the intentionality of what each studio chooses as significant. Disney no doubt has rules about avoiding blood when possible. There's plenty to dig into when looking at the safety measures that each company puts up for their target demographics, but simply comparing blood scenes is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison. What is each moment trying to convey and how does the bleeding factor into that message?

There most certainly is things animators and creators are told they can't show. I remember seeing some behind the scenes commentary for My Little Pony; Friendship is Magic - about a scene where a glass jar broke. That was apperantly a risky move! They were all like "cool that they let us show the glass breaking". When I was a kid in the good ol' 90's, no villain was ever going to "kill" the good guys. It was always sme other euphomism like "destroy" or "erradicate". I also recently thougt about how Spider-man (90's animated show) lived in a world filled with laser weapons that would only stun you if you got hit, but uncle Ben was shot with a gun with bullets?! 😅 That was of course because of the sensorship of that day. Disney not showing blood does not surprise me because Disney has certainly become a "strict brand company". It's all about the brand! Funny and cute animal side kicks, beautiful young big eyed princesses and apparently no trickeling blood.

Tarzan's opening scene scarred me as a kid, that leopard literally haunted my dreams but couldn’t be compared to Clayton's death… a literal hanging, accidental to top it off… makes it a lot more distressing

Disney’s Mulan has blood in it

4:55 i think that shrek’s skin is so thick that arrıw didn’t go all the way through

I grew up with both Disney and dreamworks. And surprisingly, little 5 - 11 year old me loved the movies that had blood, like Kung fu panda, Madagascar, tangled, etc