20 years ago I was saying this about video games. However, when I go back and look at video games from 20 years ago, I now see why they kept pushing things forward. Graphics were serviceable, but they're so much better now. That said, the game (or movie) still needs to be the most important thing. When a studio tries to lean on graphics as the selling point, it always ends up poorly.

Is that true though? Most quality animated features included quality animation. The visuals of the beautifully hand painted early Disney movies were part of the art form. Toy story looks basic to us now but it being the first totally computer animated movie and the visual style that came with that was part of it. Movies are a visual medium, so I guess saying that the visual part of the movie doesn't matter much to you is like saying that the words a writer uses doesn't matter much to your enjoyment of a book.

For the art I suppose.