The Flintstones movie, released 30 years ago, has aged strangely well for one simple reason

The Flintstones The film wasn't well-received by critics when it hit theaters in 1994, but 30 years later, it looks surprisingly great compared to today's soulless remakes of classic animation. Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, The Flintstones adapts Hanna-Barbera's iconic cartoon about suburban cavemen into live action. John Goodman stars as Fred Flintstone alongside Rick Moranis as his best friend Barney Rubble and Elizabeth Perkins as his wife Wilma. Although it was a huge box office success The Flintstones was met with mostly negative reviews from critics.

It has a dark appearance.”rotten” score of 23% on Rotten Tomatoes and publications such as The Washington Post, The New York Timesand Rolling Stone named it one of the worst films of 1994. At the time, The Flintstones it was considered a cinematic disgrace. Goodman begged Spielberg not to make a Flintstones sequel, despite the box office success of the first film, so he wouldn't have to play Fred again. But compared to modern live-action remakes, The Flintstones looks incredible.

The Flintstones movie embraced the cartoon aesthetic better than many live-action remakes

The Flintstones production design is impressive

The Flintstones the film is a pretty impressive cartoon adaptation compared to the soulless, CG-dependent live-action remakes being made today. Disney began remaking all of its old animated classics into live action and animated shows like Scooby-Doo!, Alvin and the Chipmunksand Avatar: The Last Airbender got underwhelming live-action film adaptations. No CGI to rely on, The Flintstones the film had to bring the prehistoric world of the cartoon to the big screen with old-school practical methods.

The production design in The Flintstones movie was incredible. The costumes worn by The Flintstones the film's cast looked like real, primitive clothing, not just cartoon cosplay. The props had the weight of iconic items like Bamm-Bamm's club. The settings felt like tangible places with genuine scopenot just scenarios fabricated on a soundstage. Everything felt alive and felt like it was taken straight from the cartoon and brought into the real world. It all seemed silly, but that's the point!

The Flintstones' production design is even more impressive compared to today's remakes

Today's live-action remakes are soulless and full of ugly CGI

Contemporary criticism of The Flintstones noted that it had a beautiful production design bringing the original cartoon to life, but that the production design looks even better in retrospect. There have been many horrible live-action remakes of cartoons in the years since. The live-action remake of The Lion King has photorealistic animals, removing all anthropomorphized personality the characters had in their original animated form. Now that Hollywood has come up with live-action remakes full of ugly CGI erasing the heart and soul of their animated source material, The Flintstones It's a diamond in the rough.