Fantastic Mr. Fox vs Asteroid City

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Anderson and production designer Nelson Lowry built the entire Fox world in miniature. That covers every burrow room, every farmhouse window and every underground tunnel, with the textures of an actual place. Stop-motion gives you a level of control over the environment that live action can't.

Asteroid City

The town was built as a large desert diorama in Chinchon, Spain, with a train station, diner, garage and observatory. It feels complete enough to walk into, yet it keeps looking like a model.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

The film's autumn colors are amber, brown, rust and gold, and they make the English countryside one consistent world. The colors are warm enough to be inviting. They are also specific enough that it feels like a real landscape, which is fairly rare for an animated one.

Asteroid City

The play uses stylized color and the documentary uses black and white, so each layer has its own palette. The desert town looks like a postcard of 1955, and the color tells you you are inside the play.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Anderson presents the war between the foxes and the farmers as seriously as a conflict between nations, with maps, sieges and negotiations. The animals act out human-sized drama with total, straight-faced sincerity. That is where most of the film's comedy comes from.

Asteroid City

A UFO appears and an alien steals the meteorite that made the town's crater. The film treats it in a flat, matter-of-fact tone, and the military quarantine feels like a bureaucratic problem for a group of kids and parents.