Comparing 9, the short, and 9, the full-length movie

Short Film:

    The short film is a slightly blurry animation, with no dialogue. Hay sack dolls with numbers on their backs are the inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic world, that’s terrorized by a skeletal-like mechanical creature, who’s trying to get back its eye from the doll 9. 9 ends up cleverly killing the creature by tricking it and avenges his friend 5 and other dead dolls. The eye holds the souls of the dead dolls that the creature killed. The film is well done, while it lacks dialogue, it is clear what’s going on, and has non-diegetic and diegetic sound. The diegetic sound is mostly the characters moving throughout the settings and the noises they make as they move, such as a creaky hinge sound when the creature moves. The character 9 is at first cowardly and hides from the creature while his friend 5 is killed trying to fight the creature. He runs and hides from the creature several times after that, but eventually ends up tricking the creature and kills it. The editing within the film is very good, with a wide range of shots and clips. There’s an eye line match shot of the creature when it’s tracking 9, a bunch of jump cuts in the beginning to establish the set and characters, and the first scene ends up creating what will kill the creature in the end. It was a good foreshadowing to what will kill the creature and how the film will end. The short film didn’t end up following the normal convention of having a plot twist in the short film. The other common conventions of short films were followed, only 3 characters were introduced, but only 2 were followed throughout the film, the lack of dialogue is also common, but maybe not to the degree that 9 had. The film also contained the proairetic code, as the suspense was added through action and narrative.

Full-length:

    The full-length film is obvious and starts from the creation of 9. The setting is a post-apocalyptic world that is inhabited by rag dolls and a creature. The film has an unsettling feeling to it, but it's not necessarily creepy or off-putting. The plot starts with the kidnapping of 2 a newfound friend of 9, while 2 is taken 9 hides in a paint can. 9 is quickly shown to be defiant to what leader 1 wants of the dolls. 9 and 5 sought out the place where the beast takes 2 and quickly learned there is no turning back. There’s a scene that directly parallels the beginning of the short film with the light bulb creating light. There are several antagonists throughout the film and not just one beast. There's several plot lines that are followed and hoops that the characters have to jump through to kill the machine. The effects and animations are very well done. 5 is shown to be scared at first but he grows more confident through the film. Everything seems 3-D, well-designed, and thought-out. The settings are all purposeful and show how recent the apocalypse happened.  There’s a bunch of characters that are introduced and all of them have character arcs, which is a convention of a full-length film. The film is sound-effect heavy, 2 of the characters don’t talk and communicate by blinking their eyes. 

Comparison:

    The short-length film had a creepier feel to it. The lack of dialogue made the film more suspense full, because you could only hear the noises the characters made and the dark background music. The full-length film has dialogue which the short film lacks, it also gives more depth to the characters. It doesn’t just jump right into the story, it starts at the creation of 9 and the difference between each character as they’re made. Such as a knife in 8’s hand or the candle on 2’s head. 9 is the last doll made, so he’s the most modern character, which is taken note by the other dolls. The film also explains why 5 is missing an eye, while the short film leaves out the reason. The full-length film showed that the apocalypse just occurred and that it was the fault of the human race. The short film gives no explanation for the setting they’re in or if they’re even on Earth. The full-length film gives a name to the creature, which is called ‘the beast’. The piece of metal has much more depth in the full-length film than the short film and is much more powerful. The plot is more flushed out and convoluted in the full-length film, which makes sense because several plot lines can happen and several characters can have arcs.