In the sprawling pantheon of animated cinema, 2012 was a year dominated by franchise giants. Brave saw Pixar tackle Scottish folklore, Wreck-It Ralph introduced the nostalgia-fueled "video game universe," and Madagascar 3 delivered its reliably manic box-office punch. Nestled between these titans was DreamWorks Animation’s Rise of the Guardians , a film that, upon release, was met with polite confusion and modest returns. It was too dark for very young children, too philosophical for the average Saturday-morning crowd, and too strange for audiences expecting a Shrek -style pop-culture parody.