Some of visionary director Zack Snyder's best and most popular movies include Watchmen and Man of Steel, but arguably, neither of these are his best. Instead, that honor goes to his most overlooked film: Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.
Snyder’s body of work includes many iconic big screen productions, and with so many popular titles in his catalogue, such as Dawn of the Dead and 300, it can be easy to overlook his somewhat random animated family movie. However, filmmaking isn't always about creating the next blockbuster -- it's about creating a work of art and bringing to life a creator's vision. Whether it's in live-action or animation, Snyder does this superbly.
Snyder's brand of filmmaking is uniquely his own, and Legend of the Guardians bears all the hallmarks of one of his films. It’s the little details easily missed that really put his movies over the top. Snyder’s meticulously constructed films help enrich the tapestry of the fantastical worlds he creates, and Legend of the Guardians is no different. The movie had everything it needed to be a success, yet it is largely overlooked due to the fact that animated family movies are not Snyder's niche. However, this is the heart of what makes this his best film -- the audience it was made for.
Ask someone to describe a Zack Snyder film and family friendly is probably not what comes to mind. Ever. Snyder makes mostly adult themed, often R-rated entertainment. So when he makes a film for a whole new audience, in an entirely new genre, suddenly the movie magic inside his go-to bag of tricks for making Spartans, Superman and Zombies isn’t as helpful. But, he was still able to somehow reach deeper and find new wizardry to bring this storybook tale to life.
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Restraint is essential when making a family picture. Directors can’t lose sight of the audience the movie is for and the impressions it will leave. Snyder showed he was capable of making a movie that had to be constructed from entirely new set of kid-friendly ingredients than his usual films. He was able to lean into his experience to create exciting, dramatic and sometimes violent scenes without being gratuitous, especially since audiences would have likely forgiven him for doing so, accepting it as a nod his signature style.
Since it was his first animated film, imperfections are to be expected, and his newness most likely contributed to the awkward storytelling at times. But that can also be due to a mix of multiple factors, including the source material. Snyder could have done better avoiding worn-out gender stereotypes, but his competition inside the animation world isn’t much better.
Films made by Pixar and Disney become wildly popular because the films have all of the formulaic components that audiences expect from an animated feature. Legend of the Guardians does not. Which is another major accolade for Snyder. There was already a tried and true road map he could have followed from Pixar or Disney, but he didn’t. As a new director to animation, it’s a risky and daring move, with massive financial and career risks. But Snyder clearly had a vision of making something different, and he stuck to it.
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Disney and Pixar are skilled at peppering the films they make with cute, simple characters. Legend of the Guardians has beautiful, realistic looking owls, which deviate from the conventional mainstream animation style, likely limiting their appeal for marketing as a result. Again, Snyder could have given his birds a doe-eyed face-lift to be more in line with the big studio norm and audience expectations, but he didn’t. That would have changed the tone and tenor of this film, arguably to its detriment. That takes guts. It also helps put in perspective why a fun family film such as this one can get lost in the in the shuffle.
The fact that Legend of the Guardians didn't appeal to fans that he'd acquired through his previous movies is another reason why it's easily overlooked. His usual audiences prefers adult-theme live action films, and probably weren't drawn to an animated movie about owls. The second demographic, family audiences, most likely associated his name with his more violent films, and probably didn't want to take their children to a movie they thought wouldn't be appropriate. For these two reasons, Legend of the Guardians didn’t garner the normal level of attention a film in the family genre typically does. The stigma of not being a financial blockbuster helps fuel the impression it is a lesser film in Snyder’s catalogue, which is a shame and totally inaccurate.
For a popular filmmaker like Zack Snyder, it can be difficult to make a film that meets the high expectations that audiences have come to demand. Viewers expect directors like Snyder who have their own niche method of storytelling to deliver movies they want to see. When that doesn’t happen, some can turn away out of frustration or disinterest. In doing so, it robs them of the possibility of experiencing a great film such as Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.