AN
Now you mention ITV1... I loved their emotions idents. Gorgeous music, and something about the way they were shot to me felt very warm.
JL
I liked them as well. The only problem for me was, at least 50% of the time, it was always seemed to be the same two idents shown. There were lesser seen idents in that era, which were superior (such as the one ending with the man in the cinema, that should have had more rotation)
I very much preferred them to the "Alive with Colour" set, which weren't terrible, but felt rather samey, and tbh, the music from that set annoyed me.
Now you mention ITV1... I loved their emotions idents. Gorgeous music, and something about the way they were shot to me felt very warm.
I liked them as well. The only problem for me was, at least 50% of the time, it was always seemed to be the same two idents shown. There were lesser seen idents in that era, which were superior (such as the one ending with the man in the cinema, that should have had more rotation)
I very much preferred them to the "Alive with Colour" set, which weren't terrible, but felt rather samey, and tbh, the music from that set annoyed me.
GL
I don't hate the Rhythm and Movement idents as much as when they first launched in 2002. In fact, the launch pretty much motivated me into researching TV presentation in the first place. But I still don't like them that much and still think that they don't work as idents.
In terms of filming, they're very well shot and choreographed, but as idents, they don't work because an ident really need a unifying symbol. If you didn't have the BBC One box logo, you wouldn't necessarily know it was BBC One; it's just a bit of film that could easily be a trailer sting or something similar. You could potentially stretch this to say that it's the colour red that signifies the channel, but that's a big stretch. It didn't help that, unlike in 1997 when there was a smaller BBC One logo in the trailers than in the idents (plus the logo faded up in the ident), you couldn't easily separate the two out.
Of course it didn't help that they replaced the balloon, largely because "it's not the balloon" but also because the balloon still had a lot of mileage in it and was a wasted opportunity. We could've had so many more great special idents with it.
My other problem is that both it and the Personality 2s on BBC Two marked a decline in the unified branding that Lambie-Nairn so carefully thought through in 1997. Apparently, the bosses wanted "proper logos like proper channels", even though they had a clear, central one at the bottom of the screen already. They were probably more upset that it wasn't coloured red or purple, despite this being more costly on letterheads and the like for printing purposes. Plus the BBC logo ended up very squashed and unreadable on screen, and there was no BBC Two clock. And also the BBC One dancers had to introduce the Queen Mother's death which made them look a bit under prepared.
They're still better than some "people" idents we've had, and considering that 2002 was a pretty dire year for new "people" idents (the ITV1 celebrity idents, Channel 5 changing to five, UK Gold's ones etc.), they were probably the best of a bad batch.
In terms of filming, they're very well shot and choreographed, but as idents, they don't work because an ident really need a unifying symbol. If you didn't have the BBC One box logo, you wouldn't necessarily know it was BBC One; it's just a bit of film that could easily be a trailer sting or something similar. You could potentially stretch this to say that it's the colour red that signifies the channel, but that's a big stretch. It didn't help that, unlike in 1997 when there was a smaller BBC One logo in the trailers than in the idents (plus the logo faded up in the ident), you couldn't easily separate the two out.
Of course it didn't help that they replaced the balloon, largely because "it's not the balloon" but also because the balloon still had a lot of mileage in it and was a wasted opportunity. We could've had so many more great special idents with it.
My other problem is that both it and the Personality 2s on BBC Two marked a decline in the unified branding that Lambie-Nairn so carefully thought through in 1997. Apparently, the bosses wanted "proper logos like proper channels", even though they had a clear, central one at the bottom of the screen already. They were probably more upset that it wasn't coloured red or purple, despite this being more costly on letterheads and the like for printing purposes. Plus the BBC logo ended up very squashed and unreadable on screen, and there was no BBC Two clock. And also the BBC One dancers had to introduce the Queen Mother's death which made them look a bit under prepared.
They're still better than some "people" idents we've had, and considering that 2002 was a pretty dire year for new "people" idents (the ITV1 celebrity idents, Channel 5 changing to five, UK Gold's ones etc.), they were probably the best of a bad batch.
ET
To wade in to the 'Rhythm and Movement' debate, I never really disliked them even when it was acknowledged that was the rule. They're well-shot, they have a unifying tune (albeit a completely unremarkable one), and the people involved are clearly extremely talented. My favourites were always the most frivolous ones - 'Festival', 'Hip Hop', 'Haka' (which was filmed fairly close to me, albeit still quite far away) and the late-introduced 'Music Video'. Obviously they were going to be a downgrade on the balloon, but in a way they were actually an improvement, as it meant the BBC didn't have to continuously rely on the globe as a symbol every single time they rebranded. I did like BBC Northern Ireland's take on 'Skateboarders' after they beat England 1-0, however 
ITV1's 'Emotions' idents, on the other hand, were dreadful. I'm sorry, but they felt like adverts, not idents, and you could almost smell the marketing agency scent behind them. The only one I thought was decent was the Sport one, but that obviously didn't get played as much as the others. In fact, they look suspiciously like the sort of thing you'd watch before being rendered into a food substance a la Soylent Green, only more boring. Their replacements were much better, but then again I loved the 2013 rebrand so I think I'm quite out of step.
My wildcard is Channel 5/Five/FIVE/five/C5's look between 2008 and 2010. They weren't thought of as particularly imaginative at the time, but there was a lot of creativity in them, and they were generally just quite fun and interesting to look at. There's not many other ident packages I've seen that could have a town made of jelly, or a man playing the accordion with some trollies, or two invisible people fighting each other, or a chair eating a fish, or gasometers being played as drums, or someone playing the guitar with traffic. They were genuinely good idents in my view, and although C5 have gone up and down since - the look that replaced them only included one sodding ident anyway - I don't think they've had a look as good as this.
https://theident.gallery/five-2008.php
ITV1's 'Emotions' idents, on the other hand, were dreadful. I'm sorry, but they felt like adverts, not idents, and you could almost smell the marketing agency scent behind them. The only one I thought was decent was the Sport one, but that obviously didn't get played as much as the others. In fact, they look suspiciously like the sort of thing you'd watch before being rendered into a food substance a la Soylent Green, only more boring. Their replacements were much better, but then again I loved the 2013 rebrand so I think I'm quite out of step.
My wildcard is Channel 5/Five/FIVE/five/C5's look between 2008 and 2010. They weren't thought of as particularly imaginative at the time, but there was a lot of creativity in them, and they were generally just quite fun and interesting to look at. There's not many other ident packages I've seen that could have a town made of jelly, or a man playing the accordion with some trollies, or two invisible people fighting each other, or a chair eating a fish, or gasometers being played as drums, or someone playing the guitar with traffic. They were genuinely good idents in my view, and although C5 have gone up and down since - the look that replaced them only included one sodding ident anyway - I don't think they've had a look as good as this.
https://theident.gallery/five-2008.php
CO
Best. Analogy. Ever.
ITV1's 'Emotions' idents, on the other hand, were dreadful. I'm sorry, but they felt like adverts, not idents, and you could almost smell the marketing agency scent behind them. The only one I thought was decent was the Sport one, but that obviously didn't get played as much as the others. In fact,
they look suspiciously like the sort of thing you'd watch before being rendered into a food substance a la Soylent Green
, only more boring. Their replacements were much better, but then again I loved the 2013 rebrand so I think I'm quite out of step.
Best. Analogy. Ever.
TO
I'm probably going to get hated on here but I always quite liked ITV's alive with colour series. Ok the music got annoying but the actual idents themselves I liked, how they mixed real world visuals with CGI worked really well, until they started messing with them that is. I loved how the logo was part of the scene and would disappear behind certain objects as the camera or objects moved.
When it came to the 2010 refresh, I loved the different style music that was used on the new additions and was so disappointed they didn't also create new music for the rest of the set as it would have breathed much needed new life into the whole set.
The thing that let it all down for me was the surrounding pres, mainly the endboards and end credits. So much black everywhere! To say the theme was 'alive with colour' there wasn't much colour to be seen.
When it came to the 2010 refresh, I loved the different style music that was used on the new additions and was so disappointed they didn't also create new music for the rest of the set as it would have breathed much needed new life into the whole set.
The thing that let it all down for me was the surrounding pres, mainly the endboards and end credits. So much black everywhere! To say the theme was 'alive with colour' there wasn't much colour to be seen.
NW
I always found the dodgem version of the theme to be the best one:
Lanterns also had a nice soundtrack, but that wasn’t in use for too long before they withdrew it due to complaints from farmers for the damage they cause.
The music on the 2010 ITV1 idents was really good, but you never heard any of it as they would always dip the music volume to about 5% when the announcer came in.
I always found the dodgem version of the theme to be the best one:
Lanterns also had a nice soundtrack, but that wasn’t in use for too long before they withdrew it due to complaints from farmers for the damage they cause.