Animation, as a medium of art, has been popular ever since the release of the very first fully animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Disney pioneered the genre for the majority of the twentieth century, with classics like Pinocchio, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Fantasia coming out of the Disney Studios at Burbank. Disney had their ups and downs, then a resurgence in the late 80s and early-mid 90s. The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and The Lion King sparked renewed interest in animation.
In 1995 the whole field changed. Pixar released Toy Story, a brand new way of doing things. The animation was more realistic and the visual style was world's away from the traditional animation coming from Disney. As a result, the public went to see Toy Story in their droves, making it the highest grossing film of 1995. This led to Dreamworks expanding to computer animation with Antz and Shrek (their successes resulting in the complete closure of the Dreamworks hand-drawn department). Pixar and Dreamworks continued to succeed both critically and commercially - especially the former. Other companies saw the potential too, in 2002 Blue Sky studios released Ice Age and in 2006 Sony Animation released Open Season. Ever since, computer animation has dominated the market place, with only one traditionally animated film - from Hollywood - entering wide release.
During all of this, Stop-Motion Animation has enjoyed moderate success. Aardman had great success (particularly in the United Kingdom) with Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run (they later teamed up with Dreamworks to create The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Flushed Away). Tim Burton used the medium to produce James and the Giant Peach, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride and, more recently, Frankenweenie. Also, Laika have had success with Coraline and Paranorman. Despite the limits that the technology has compared to computer animation, it remains popular.
All this begs the question: is there one type of medium superior to the others? Certainly, studios at the minute seem to believe that computer animation will garner the most commercial success. I myself find all three to have their own individual merits.
Traditional Animation
When I watched The Princess and the Frog in 2009, I realised how much warmer traditional animation is. It's visual style is lovely to look at and if done right it can be a real joy, although, it's success depends greatly on the skill of it's animators. Sometimes I prefer to watch a classic Disney animation rather than something like Tangled or Wreck-it Ralph. The techniques used in this form are great to look at and I hope Disney produce traditionally animated films much more often.
Computer Animation
My favourite form of animation is the most common in modern theatres. None of the big animation studios make fully hand-drawn features these days, due to the success of Pixar in the 90s and 00s. This comes with good reason. Computer animation brings meticulous detail and much more realism to animation, particularly when creating landscapes and humans. A new, emerging branch of computer animation is Photorealistic animation, shown in Rango and The Polar Express. Whilst it still needs some work, it shows that there are still things to be discovered on the technical side of the world of animation.
Stop Motion
Probably my least favourite, only because it's the least realistic and generally the least appealing to look at. Saying that, I love Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit and Coraline and the technology behind it is steadily improving, as exhibited in Paranorman and Frankenweenie.
Overall, all three are sturdy art forms, each popular and advanced in their own right. Whilst traditional animation has had it's day and computer animation is the form of animation right now, stop motion has been less successful commercially. This can of course be attributed to the stories behind each individual medium, but all three deserve their chance in the limelight.
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