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I didn't really know where else to post this but I post it here. So this is gonna be a little rant on the animation film Sing coming out this christmas, which happens to come out from Illumination Entertainment, a animation company that I have lost hope for the past 3 years. So if you know me I am an aspiring animator and screenwriter. Ive been studying filmmaking and marketing so Im really into how companies sell their movies to the audience. Ok so yesterday a usual afternoon some tumblr users posted the new trailer for Illumination's Sing a movie focusing on anthropomorphic animals. I was not that interested but I decided to give it a shot. Then when I turned on the trailer I noticed a very strong resemblance to a character used in the trailer, The snail that appeared for like a few seconds seemed like a copy of an animation school's short film (and I know the people who made the short film) If you just take away the bow tie and change the texture color to green you have almost the exact same snail model from the short film(by a coincidence I don't think so. Since all the animals in the trailer look very cartoony while the snail has more realistic features to it) Sing's Snail Animation School's Short Film If the crew happened to work on the film then I would not care but when I hear that none of the crew members is working on the film I find this very suspicious, their short film became viral so it was by no means unknown by the public especially not in the animation industry. Another thing don't you find this Sing film has a very similar approach to Zootopia maybe not in plot but in world building. LET'S LOOK HOW LONG ZOOTOPIA WAS IN PRODUCTION I happened to be at the D23 last summer and there I met the crew from Zootopia and got to know how long it took for them to produce the film. Their film was announced in mid 2013 but they started as early as of late 2011 right after Winnie The Pooh had been released. So Zootopia was in production for at least 4-5 years. AND NOW ILLUMINATION'S SING So right after I saw the trailer for Sing I quickly looked up any information I could find on the production. Then I found out that they started production on the film as of mid 2014 with having the film announced late 2015 for the public. Enough time for Illumination to compete with Disney's marketing for this year I mean just look at what Illumination is releasing this year, The Secret Life Of Pets that looks like a complete copy of Toy Story and Garfield, and now Sing that competes with anthropomorphic animals that lives in peace and harmony (sounds familiar). Originally Sing was going to have 2017 summer release but they pushed it up to 2016, Hm I wonder why. IF THAT ISN'T ENOUGH All anthropomorphic animal movies that comes out in 2016 is pretty much because of Zootopia, if you don't trust me on this one then let me tell you that all the other animal movies were announced a year after Zootopia was announced. If you happen to work in media industry, a year gives you enough time work out something from another's story and steal ideas or use the same concept. Every Animation company is always competing with each other so it's no surprise that smaller animation companies look for bigger ones like Disney. If you ask me this sounds very similar to when Dreamworks stole ideas from Pixar with, A Bug's Life and made Ants. I find it funny that Illumination have the gut to put out the trailer before Zootopia is released around the world and even releases the film the same year. You might think that this is nice we have two anthropomorphic animal movies in a year but this is just a strategy for making fast money, This is all part of Illumination's campaign, they'll easily get kids and teens attention with using the (from the creators of Despicable me) and use the all star cast that is part of the film along with many modern pop songs. That's simply how it really works. I think you could get a clue from last year that Illumination's strength is marketing, they made a lot of money with minions thanks to their campaign. Illumination is however a very flawed industry when it comes to strong storytelling and often brings out cliched and one dimensional characters with famous actors to voice their characters instead of caring about the story. Enough of my rant but the fact that they release a trailer for their film that won't be up until christmas par with Zootopia is just a sign for someone that's hungry for attention. I am always open for new ideas and stories but when I see something that looks like it has been done too many times before or if it's stealing from others work on purpose for staying popular then I have no interest. Oh and to make sure you don't use the typical defense argument "It's just a kids movie" That's no excuse, these movies are made by full grown adults and despite if it's a kids movie you have every right to criticize a movie for it's approach and execution, as long as you keep it in a nice tone .