"We call this making the best out of what we can control!" - Thoughts on "Frozen 2"

Note that this review will contain some spoilers for both "Frozen", "Frozen 2", and their various spin-offs.  For now, just know that "Frozen 2" is awesome, and may even be that rare sequel that not only equals but exceeds the original.  I really can't wait to do a deep-dive into it for the Princess Project when it hits home media.  Go see it.

Back when I first reviewed "Frozen", I dedicated an entire paragraph to Olaf.  As you might recall, most of the marketing for the first film centered around him and suggested he'd be a Jar Jar Binks-esque annoyance.  And then it turned out this weird little snowman was in fact a good emotional support buddy who is trying his best.  I'd go right ahead and consider Olaf a top ten Disney Sidekick.

And that status is pretty much sealed by the end of "Frozen 2", because our dear little ugly-cute snowman friend goes through an entire existential crisis.  Seriously.  To the point where Olaf's solo song has a bridge (I guess?) that is just him screaming in blind terror.  Having the cute little sidekick character suffer from extremely relatable anxiety is, if you will excuse me, a bold f-ing choice.

Especially when you consider, and I'm not the first Disney fan to make this joke, that back in the day, "Frozen 2" would've been direct to video with dodgy animation, only one good song if even that, and at least one wrong-sounding character and probably two.  The plot would be maybe Hans has magical powers and is back for revenge, or Anna and Kristoff have kids and they go on their own adventure that feels very familiar somehow, or, I don't know, Sven wants to join an all-deer country band but that'd mean leaving all his friends so he doesn't.  The best scene, unintentionally and by a long shot, would be when Kristoff yeets his entire self out a window.

Instead, "Frozen 2" is a story about getting older, dealing with change, suffering with grief, learning of the ecological and political nightmares caused long ago by your foolish ancestors and finally atoning for them, and ultimately finding the place your heart wants to be in.  It's an intense journey; "Frozen" was already pretty dark and complex, and I think that's the reason for it's enduring popularity.  But once the plot of "Frozen 2" kicks in, all our old friends are -as the young people say- Going Through A Lot.  I was half-expecting the end credits gag (which is cute, to be sure) to be Anna in group trauma therapy.  Her solo song late in the picture; man...

Speaking of, the songs!  I've more or less sold this movie to skeptics by simply stating, "This time, Elsa gets two big solo numbers."  They're both excellent, I love them both, and they're destined to be anthems.  That said, the very best song might be the haunting folk ballad lullaby we hear throughout the film that's full of spooky Fairy Tale imagery (and that, if you're like me and are inclined to notice such things, sneakily foreshadows the whole movie.)  I love that they've brought back "Vuelie" as a theme, and... I'm guessing you've already heard about Kristoff's big number...

Most of all, my very favorite aspect of "Frozen 2" is Elsa's journey, which is really the one thing I needed them to not screw up.  I will not spoil it but it is beautiful.  And not just for the fact that a long time ago I argued that while political powers are awesome, magic powers are objectively better and having both is The Best, and I'm astonished and delighted that this movie agrees with me, so there.

For more posts in this ongoing series, go here, or click the Chronological Disney Animated Canon tag below.

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Art of the Day!

Here's a question posed by a little kid I know and... I did not know how to answer.  I mean, I couldn't, because I haven't seen "Ugly Dolls" (and I probably will not; I'm betting most of you completely forgot there was an "Ugly Dolls" movie too).  But now I'm wondering what would've happened if we could've watched "Frozen 2", where the one very definitely a villain/bad guy character is long gone and the antagonistic forces at work are more internal and abstract.

I'm also wondering what they'd think of "Wreck-It Ralph"...

"I've been singing you songs all day! I'm not a bloody jukebox!?!" - Thoughts on "Mary Poppins Returns"

By all means, I shouldn't like "Mary Poppins Returns."

I was really dreading this one.  The whole idea of a decades after the fact "Mary Poppins" sequel left a sour feeling in my gut.  This was intensified by the fact that we got "Saving Mr. Banks" a few years ago, and in hindsight, doesn't it feel like the Disney studio was testing the waters for interest in more Mary Poppins?  A lot more Mary Poppins.  Not as much more Mary Poppins as more Star Wars but still, more Mary Poppins.

(Side note that "Saving Mr. Banks" is also, just as a reminder, an almost completely fictionalized and, so help me God, masturbatory depiction of historical events.  Where it turns out the Disney Studios version of P.L. Travers' stories is just the best and wasn't Walt Disney right all along and Travers was wrong and it's very good and right that Disney ignored all her criticisms and did his own thing despite her reservations, and by golly Travers even ended up loving the movie -she loved, loved, LOVED it!  This is true because the Disney studios say so in their movie about the making of "Mary Poppins" and that's now the version of events everyone is going to assume is true and there's nothing you can do about it!  I am not for even half of a second going to pretend that "Saving Mr. Banks" isn't gross.)

So anyway here we are with "Mary Poppins Returns".  And it's... good!  Look it was never going to be able to hold a candle (or gas lamp) to the original, but it is, all things considered, pretty good.  I'll never understand why Rob Marshall is The Musical Guy at Disney (I mean I know why, it's cause of that one weird year "Chicago" swept the Oscars, but I'll never understand why), and I cannot fathom why you'd hire Lin-Manuel Miranda and not have him write a single song (and the songs are fine, mind, they got me laughing and crying and humming along and everything), but it's all good.

For sure the reason all of this works is Emily Blunt.  The key is that her version of Mary Poppins is not different from Julie Andrews'; it's different from how everyone remembers Julie Andrews.  Even in the original film, Mary Poppins was a bit of a trickster, gently sarcastic, mischievous, magical, and terribly mysterious.  Chaotic Good, if you will.  "I never explain anything," she says.  Blunt's Poppins has a bit more of an edge though, and I can't help but wonder if it's because the adult Banks children don't seem to remember any of their wondrous whimsical adventures.  (Which is a plot point that sticks in my craw.  I don't think a tea party on the ceiling or a day out in an animated painting is something you just forget about.)

So how about the traditionally animated sequence then?  It's absolutely wonderful!  It's got a whole theater full of excellent character designs, a couple terrific songs, and it's over way, way too soon.  It left me yearning for more.  Man, some day some American studio's going to be brave enough to do a traditionally animated feature, I can only hope.

For more posts in this ongoing series, go here, or click the Chronological Disney Animated Canon tag below.

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Art!

Random 90's Animation - "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West!" (1991)

Today we begin what I shall be referring to in full as the Strange Animated Films from the 1990's Made By Random Studios Marathon.  I needed to watch some good -or at least decent- animation after My Summer of Sequels, so I filled my Netflix queue with all the 90's animation I can find.  It seems as though shortly after the Bronze Age of Disney animation got into full swing, every studio suddenly wanted their own animated features to release, and the situation got even crazier when "The Lion King" owned the box office like no other animated feature before it.

The films I'll be reviewing will be kind of, duh, random.  And yes, we will creep into the early 2000's for a couple of them.  But they are all interesting and strange in some way or other and worth revisiting and discussing... I hope...  Sadly, a number of intriguing films were not available through Netflix, but then again, I am a little pressed for time (I am doing this for-fun project concurrently with -and I might as well spill the beans- a sudden influx of commissions I need to finish).  Finally, before you cry, "But what about 'Ferngully'/'Pagemaster'/etc.?!?", try searching Nessie's. 

It looks like we're getting the most tedious and aggravating films out of the way quickly.  (You may notice a lack of "Space Jam" in the above list.  This is due to the fact that I have nerd-raged enough about it as both a Looney Tunes fan and basketball enthusiast in the past.  And, more importantly, I can already tell without even having seen it that "We're Back" will provide me with more than enough nerd rage-worthiness for one movie marathon.) On that note, with our first film, I will be washing off the stink of all those terrible ill-conceived shameless cash-grabs of sequels with... a terrible ill-conceived shameless cash-grab of a sequel!  It's "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West".  Oh joy.

For those of you who were mad at me for not doing any Don Bluth sequels during My Summer of Sequels, (a) chill the eff out, I said I was only doing Disney sequels right from the beginning; (b) I really hope you're happy now, since this is the only one I'll be even acknowledging.  Now, to be fair, it was not surprising that Universal's newly-formed Amblimation unit would wish to make a sequel to "An American Tail" for it's very first foray into animated features.  After all, it was up until a certain point the highest-grossing animated film of all time.  What is surprising is everything else about "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West", starting with the fact that it's title is so inane, I just have to refer to it in full through the whole review.

A bit of poking around the Internet reveals that there are a surprising number of otherwise reasonable adults who have nostalgia for "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West", and there are a few who even prefer it over the original "An American Tail".  These people are objectively wrong and they should feel bad.  (I strongly suggest you watch it again as an adult before you argue with me here.)  As I said during Don Bluth Month, I was never a big fan of "An American Tail", but I have since grown to appreciate it's darkness and it's willingness to stick with that weird, dark tone and frankly strange overall premise.  And of course it also has that lovely James Horner music and gorgeous Don Bluth character and effects animation.

"An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" has got none of this.  Well, that's not entirely accurate.  James Horner is still around to contribute his themes from the first movie and to resurrect a song deleted from the first film.  Speaking of the songs, all you really need to know about "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" is that yes, we do get to hear a character sing "Somewhere Out There" again.

And the song is quickly interrupted by people jeering and complaining and throwing fruit until the character gives up singing it.  This is immediately followed by Poppa making a long and astonishing speech that completely undermines the whole conceit of the original film.  And this happens:



After seeing this gag, I started to imagine that everything happening in the film had to be the result of Fievel innocently stumbling onto a cache of the 19'th Century equivalent of powerful hallucinogenics.  Oh, and as for the hopeful-signature song from this film, the aforementioned "new" song, it... well, it deserves better than the slightly creeptastic scene it's sung in here.

Don Bluth (I could only imagine him drinking heavily during the entirety of "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West") and Steven Spielberg parted ways some time after "The Land Before Time".  So Bluth is not at all involved in this film.  And although he was supposedly the head of Amblimation, Spielberg apparently was only involved to personally direct James Stewart.  (Oh yeah, Jimmy Stewart's very last IMDB film credit ever = "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West".  God's honest truth.  *Sigh...*)  I say this because the thing that struck me about "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" is that what you see onscreen constantly throughout the film are all the very worst impulses of the people behind the original "An American Tail".  Not only that, but it's louder, sillier, and throws the characters in a new situation that does not really suit them at all ("Fievel in Space" would have only been a little more ridiculous, given that this is already a movie where a character living in 1890's New York City idolizes Western icons that weren't popular on the east coast until well into the 1920's).

"An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" also feels an awful lot like a television cartoon.  It has a TV series plot and TV series pacing; hell, it's only about 75 minutes long but you feel every second of it.  "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" in fact was followed by a Saturday morning series that, from the looks of it, is now largely forgotten and perhaps deservedly so. 

One thing I'm not entirely sure I've gotten across effectively is just how deeply bizarre "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West" is, especially as a sequel, but really just as a thing that exists and that was released on -again, honest truth- the very same weekend as "Beauty and the Beast".  There's a spider character who *pukes* webs at people.  There's a highly uncomfortable scene where Tiger the cat is worshiped as a god by old-timey "Injun" stereotype desert critters.  There's another highly uncomfortable scene where the lead antagonist is squished against the gigantic breasts of a woman who constantly screeches "Oh, pussy!  My PUSSY!!!"  This last gag was apparently so funny and edgy and mature to the filmmakers that they had to repeat it near the end.

Like I said, the whole thing has to have been a hallucination.  Along with the aforementioned terrible Saturday morning series, Universal also produced two direct-to-video sequels long after the fact which both sport headache-inducing subtitles and a total disregard for the fact that these characters were ever out West at all, so my theory is as good as confirmed as far as I care.

Next up, another early 90's film that is weird as f***, but for very different reasons.

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Sketch of the Day!

Apropos of nothing, here are some live studies of a female Mallard.

My Summer of Sequels Review Index

The full list of reviews from My Summer of Sequels.

During a time period roughly stretching between 1994 to 2008, Walt Disney Television Animation created nearly thirty dubious sequels to popular (or not) Disney Animated Canon features, nearly all of which went straight to video.  No, I did not watch each and every one of them, just the ones available via Netflix that are supposedly not terrible.  (And strictly speaking, I didn't have to watch any of them.)

This was a deeply strange and mostly regretful period in animation history.  Here are eight reasons why I call it the Dork Age:

* - "Pooh's Grand Adventure: the Search for Christopher Robin"

* - "Return to Neverland"

* - "The Jungle Book 2"

* - "The Lion King 1.5"

* - "Bambi 2"

* - "Brother Bear 2"

* - "Cinderella 3: A Twist in Time"

* - "The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning"

More -and far, far better- Animation Marathons

* - The Chronological Disney Animated Canon

* - Don Bluth Month

* - Dreamworks' "Tradigitals"

* - The Short Animation Blogathon

* - My Summer of Sequels

* - Random 90's Animation

* - The Princess Project

My Summer of Sequels: "Bambi 2" (2006)

We're in the home stretch now.  After this, there are only three movies left.

And if anything, "Bambi 2" reminded me that the smartest thing I did before launching My Summer of Sequels was to prune a few titles off the queue and only concentrate on the Disney DTV sequels that are supposedly not so terrible.  (Though it turns out that they are, in fact, pretty terrible anyway.)  The DVD for "Bambi 2" includes trailers for *both* "Beauty and the Beast" sequels (along with another DTV sequel I've already forgotten about), and given the eye-bleeding animation and "yeah, f**k this" voice acting, I saved myself a lot of misery.

Honestly, the special features included in the "Bambi 2" DVD are more interesting than the movie itself.  Out of curiosity, I checked something called "Disney Sketch Book" and was flabbergasted to see that it was a very brief interview with Andreas Deja.  Yes, Andreas "If animators are actors with pencils, he is the Robert DeNiro of Disney" Deja is interviewed in a special feature on the "Bambi 2" DVD.  (It is a feature that is clearly for young children, and he briefly talks about the importance of drawing all the time if you want to be a good artist.)  It's... jarring.  Apparently, Deja was brought into DisneyToon studios to give the animators there a crash course in animal anatomy.  As a result, the character animation in "Bambi 2" is pretty lush compared to that of most other sequels I've seen. So it has that going for it; which is nice.

So.  "Bambi 2".  It's the Disney sequel that was rather remarkably in hindsight predicted by this (slightly NSFW) memorable "Saturday Night Live" animated short from 2001.  And that short is especially impressive for it correctly predicts two significant things about "Bambi 2".

First, "Bambi 2" isn't really a sequel at all.  It has the dubious honor of being the Disney DTV sequel that introduced the terms "interquel" and "midquel" into the world; sequels that take place during the original movie.  Now to be fair, this concept is not new to Disney DTV sequels.  "The Lion King 1.5" takes place during the original story.  So do the aforementioned "Beauty and the Beast" sequels.  But somehow setting the sequel to "Bambi" during the original story is especially irritating and almost insulting.

Maybe it's because there was a good 64 years in-between "Bambi" and it's midquel and it's hard to think of what deep unanswered questions people may have had about the events of the film in all those decades.  Maybe it's because there's a sequel to the original printed-page Felix Stalton Bambi, Bambi's Children, so there's the question of why, if they felt the need to do a "Bambi" sequel, they didn't just make an adaptation of that.  And maybe especially, it's because as with the "Beauty and the Beast" midquels, it's crystal clear how shameless these DTV sequels are.  The most obvious reason why they are set during the original story is so that they can show major characters in their much more marketable forms (the servants as Enchanted Objects, Bambi as a cute little fawn, etc.)

Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, the SNL short predicted when "Bambi 2" would take place during the original story: right after That One Scene.  You know, That One Scene that comes up anytime you try to talk about "Bambi" as arguably the most significant and game-changing early Walt Disney animated feature with adults who, it quickly turns out, have not watched it in a while.  Specifically, they have most likely not watched it since the one time they saw the film in childhood, when their well-meaning parents shut the tape off after That One Scene.  (Major tangent from the child psychology minor: Although your deep-seated instinct tells you to take your child away from whatever is making them cry, and although I will be the first to admit that the situation would be very different in a crowded theater, surely the best way to deal with a sad/scary moment upsetting your child in a work of fiction is to have your child stop experiencing that work of fiction right there, during the sad/scary moment, making that moment the last thing they'll ever remember from it and not getting to see the subsequent resolution and happy ending.  Yes I have thought about this a lot.  Yes it really bothers me.)

Anyway, "Bambi 2" begins immediately after, as so wonderfully cynically worded in "Friends", "The guy stopped drawing the deer".  And it's only discernible reason to exist is, I guess, to show us that Bambi was not immediately abandoned by his father after they both walk away in the snow.  As far as the other deep unanswered questions addressed by "Bambi 2", we learn that somehow wild forest animals are aware of Groundhog Day (just... what?), that the California Quail are still hanging out in the implicitly Maine woods (an admittedly nice continuity nod), and that Bambi and Faline met Ronno the rival stag as a fawn, which actually makes their encounter as adults in "Bambi" more awkward.

Now if I had it in me, I'd talk a little about how the characters in "Bambi 2" are suddenly very like their rough equivalents in the original "The Land Before Time" (which is funny as "LBT" was dismissed in many negative reviews as "a prehistoric 'Bambi'") to the point of paraphrasing or even directly quoting them.  Speaking of, if I had it in me I'd talk about how the original "Bambi" famously had less than 1,000 words of dialogue in it's entirety while the characters in the midquel never shut up ever.  And oh, if I had it in me, I wish I could get into the long long and fascinating discussion of how, given that there are sixty four years of animation history and technological advancements between them, it's not even fair to compare the animation in "Bambi 2" to that in it's predecessor, where everything was done by hand by a team of people who did not have the luxury of sixty-four years of animation history and technological advancements behind them, and were basically flying by the seats of their pants.

I... don't have it in me.  To busy bracing myself for the next sequel.

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Sketch of the Day!

Oh, deer.

"You Gotta DEAL With It!" - Thoughts on "The Legend of Korra"

Today we're going to talk at length about a television series that serves as a sequel to a very well-loved cult hit that was set in a richly imagined fantasy universe and benefited from excellent characters and intelligent writing.  In its three seasons, it also did everything it could to school people who were skeptical about the kinds of things you could do in a series like this.  So the sequel series had a lot to live up to.

Set many, many decades after the original series, the sequel explores how the imagined world of the original had changed in all that time, and how those changes affect the various fictional peoples - including a few relatives and descendants of the characters in the original series.  Meanwhile, the series focuses on a whole new and, in many ways, very different cast of heroes and villains.  During the production, the creators of this sequel series must have felt like Odysseus sailing between Scylla and Charybdis -- except all of Scylla's horrible heads are screaming, "IT'S TOO DIFFERENT FROM THE ORIGINAL!!!"  And there are equally angry voices calling out from the giant Charybdis whirlpool, "NO, IT'S TOO SIMILAR!!!"  Fortunately, almost all of those voices shut up once the series found its groove.

So yes of course I am talking about "Star Trek: The Next Generation".

But I am extremely happy to report that the same can all be said for "The Legend of Korra".  Yes, even the part about the series finding its groove.  Because here we are only four episodes in and this series is already off the chain, as the kids say.

I will try to describe a few specific reasons why without spoilers, but the point is that both "Avatar" series are excellent and you should watch them.  Like right now.  Like, instead of reading this.  There isn't a new episode scheduled for this weekend so you have time.  Do it!  (Let's not acknowledge the live-action movie, except for the fact that it so conveniently serves as the best-ever argument against live-action adaptations of animation.)

The first episode (hopefully still available streaming on Nickelodeon's fantastic homepage for the series by the time you read this) was preceded with a prologue that gave out just the very minimal amount of information for kids new to the "Avatar" universe to catch up.  After that's over with, the series proceeds to do exactly zero hand-holding, which is incredibly refreshing.  As it happens, this is indeed a sequel series in the "Star Trek" sense: it is set in the same world and a few of the characters from the first series show up here and there, but they mostly give the new main characters a lot of room.

And Korra is a hell of a character.  I've seen her described over and over as essentially the exact opposite of Aang in every meaningful way.  From the beginning, Aang was the kind of character you expect as your protagonist in an Epic Hero's Journey (TM); brave and enthusiastic, but also apprehensive and not exactly excited to confront the main villain anytime soon.  Korra could have very easily have been "Aang with a uterus", but thank the spirits she is very definitely not.   She's feisty, overconfident, and relishes in her God-tier powers.  She's in way over her head but she's still absolutely ready to save the world... except that the world of "Avatar" is technologically complicated now.  As a consequence, it has lost its mysticism and finesse.  Mastering the elements isn't such a huge deal as it once was.

This is essentially the story of a person who is an incarnation of God born into a world that is simply not impressed and it it airing before Noon on Saturday mornings and that is awesome.  (It's also a very interesting theme given that "Avatar" takes place in a world where spirits are absolutely real.  Huh.)

While enough digital ink (and spit and sweat and blood) has been spilled on this point on the message boards I frequent (sometimes admittedly to the point of tedium) it is also well worth mentioning that this is a Saturday morning cartoon set in a world where maybe one out of every ten humans is capable of manipulating part of nature.  There hadn't been much exploration in the original series of how much it would genuinely suck to be a person with no powers in a world where people can chuck mountains and lightning at each-other.  Well, to put it succinctly, that there is the main conflict of this series.

And without ruining a major plot point, I also love, love, love how the writers take something that a lot of fans decreed as a silly Deus ex Machina in the finale of the original series and make it the reason the main antagonist is so threatening in this one.  Fantastic.

The animation is gorgeous, absolutely breathtaking in the action scenes we've seen so far.  There are moments that remind me of both "Cowboy Beebop" and "Tokyo Godfathers".  And, of course, there is this, which is as good a note to end on as any:



Honestly, if you don't want to watch just to find out the context of this scene I do not understand you.

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Sketch of the Day!

Okapiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!

Try Looking Michael Eisner in the Face After Watching These Disney Sequel Teasers

I have sometimes been asked why, during the Chronological Disney Animated Canon, I refer to the late-90's through early-2000's as the "Dork Age" of Disney. Now I have a very simple way to answer that question. Boy do I ever.

This thing right here is the trailer to "Dumbo 2". This one (of much poorer quality) is for "The Fox and the Hound 2". Gaze upon them in despair.

You see, this time period not only contained a string of rather dubious films from the Disney animated canon, this was also the Age of the Unnecessary Disney Sequel. Let us never forget that, fellow Disney geeks.

(My favorite part?  "The ostrich is jealous of Dumbo because he's an elephant that can fly!  She's a BIRD!  She CAN'T fly!"

This is like saying that I am jealous of sloths.  Because they are Xenarthrans that can brachiate.  I am a HOMINOID!  I CAN'T brachiate!)

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Older Sketch of the Day!

Just because it's adorable (not because I haven't uploaded anything lately). It's also essentially my reaction to the linked videos.

"You'd be surprised there's so much to be done..." - Thoughts on "Winnie the Pooh" (2011)

Movie # 64: "Winnie the Pooh" (2011)

"Winnie the Pooh" is adorable and sweet and, miraculously, completely and utterly unironic, unsarcastic, and unhip (ie, it's not the bad sort of hip; more on this in a bit). It features terrific character animation by such Disney legends as Andreas Deja, Eric Goldberg, and Mark Henn and some cute songs by Zooey Deschanel and -heh- one of the songwriting minds behind "Avenue Q" and "The Book of Mormon". The animation is digital (using the ToonBoom software) but beautifully simulates the look of the beloved "Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" from back in the late 70's and the use of straight-up CGI is kept to the very barest minimum.

And "Winnie the Pooh" is also very definitely for young children (and their attendant adults of course). And it is short. Really, REALLY short. Like, barely qualifying as a theatrical-length film short. Like, were it not for the prologue and opening credits, it'd just make it to one hour short. That short.

Now, as we have seen, short animated films are not a bad thing, especially because they tend to be tight as heck and leave little room to screw things up. So every minute in "Winnie the Pooh" is dedicated to fun character moments and furthering the refreshingly basic plot (Pooh is hungry, he and the gang get caught up in searching for Eeyore's tail, a note left by Christopher Robin gets misinterpreted and this sparks another adventure, etc.)

And I probably don't even have to explain why an animated film for children that does not include any instances whatsoever of gross-out humor, sexual innuendos, cute animals singing catchy songs with horribly inappropriate lyrics, cute animals begging to eat at Chain Restaurant You Must Beg Your Parents To Take You To After The Movie, coprophagy, or Happy Madison alumnae is a freaking Godsend. (Side Note: You used to not have to worry about these things so much but we live in strange times.)

If there is anything negative I have to say about "Winnie the Pooh" it is that it is not *quite* as good as "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh". (In particular, the Backson song ain't got nothin' on the Hephalumps and Woozles number.) It more closely recalls a particularly lavish episode of the Saturday morning cartoon. It is however much closer to the original Disney Pooh shorts and anthology film, and the way the characters get to play with the text again is wonderful.

There is also a fantastic gag involving Owl, Piglet, and a pit trap that is way too fun to spoil here and appears as though it was written just for kids who think the way I did at that age (and still do, of course).

For more posts in this ongoing series, go here, or click the Chronological Disney Animated Canon tag below.

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Picture of the Day!

I hope everyone had a lovely Halloween. In lieu of a drawing, I bring you this lovely autumn market scene:

The Cyber-Dude Cyber-Abides. - Thoughts on "TRON: Legacy"

Movie #63: "TRON: Legacy"

Well first off, because this just occurred to me, let's marvel at the fact that an early 80's flop with a modest but very loyal cult following has been given a gigantic, ambitious, big-budget sequel (the first of a hopeful long-running franchise) by a massive mainstream studio. Whether or not you think the movie is good, that is pretty amazing.

And all things considered, I rather liked "TRON: Legacy". I've got a soft spot for the original and given how long this film has been in development and how much Disney has been crapping itself over the film promoting it, it's much better than I expected it would be.

Of course, what I mean by this is that "Legacy" is a worthy sequel to the original "TRON". And that is to say, it's basically CGI eye-candy. It has a few interesting ideas here and there and it bothered me a little in hindsight that it didn't really play around with the interesting sci-fi concepts it easily could have. But to be honest, I didn't really expect it to (then again, it is very sad that I'm conditioned to not expect interesting sci-fi from big franchise sci-fi movies). The film takes a little bit to find it's footing, the villain's evil plan is incomprehensible, and there is an early scene that rivals Jim Hawking sky-sailboarding in "Treasure Planet" in it's hamfisted attempt to show the kids in the audience how awesome the hero is. All things considered, those weren't the things that I disliked most about this movie. If you've read this blog for a long time you probably know already what I'm going to rant about in the whole next paragraph.

There are three characters in this movie who are brought to animated life via motion capture. Two of them are little virtual TRON people, so it isn't too distracting. And of these, one of them is seen only briefly and the other is the villain so it's fine that he creeps you out a little (but oh ye Gods, when he shouts near the end... ) 

The third character is a person from the real world at a younger age. He looks fine at first when he faces away from us and when he is completely obscured by shadows and such. When he finally faces us, he looks terrible. Completely terrible. Like, in the same year we got the Winkelvoss twins in "The Social Network", he looks like something out of "Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within". No, worse than that. He looks like he was animated by somebody who had only the most vague idea of how human cheek muscles and jawbones work but has never ever actually watched someone talk before.

But other than this, the movie is really neat. Like the original, it's got a production design that doesn't really look like anything else that has come out of Disney, and I liked it for the sheer fact that the animation in the updated TRON universe is *really* pretty (hot dang, the new lightcycle transformation sequence!) Where the first "TRON" was basically, "Look at what we can do with computer animation!", this movie is, "Look at what we can do with computer animation NOW!" I'm genuinely sad that I didn't get to see this in IMAX.

I would be remiss if I did not mention Castor. I wouldn't dream of ruining the fun by explaining who he is or what to expect from him. Just know that Michael Sheen knew exactly what kind of movie "TRON: Legacy" should have been (a big retro cheesy meal). He comes in at just the right moment (after the movie almost grinds to a halt and nearly reaches a "9" level of Young Newbie: "Let's go actually do something" Old Fart: "No, everything must stay the same" wallbangery). And he steals the show right out from under Not Sam Worthington. Remember when we first saw Jack Sparrow in the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" and wondered, "how the hell did Disney let this fly?" Yep, same deal here.

Quorra's another fun character and I like how she takes the old Cute Girl Who Saves the Boring Hero meme in some different directions and the little flashes of the "things humans take for granted that an alien wouldn't quite 'get'" part of her personality. The music is amazing and overall the movie is a fun ride for fans of the original. I am actually pretty curious as to where Disney's going to take this franchise from here.

ADDENDUM: As this just hit me, months later: The weirdest thing about me reviewing "TRON: Legacy" as part of the Disney Animated Canon is the fact that CGI eye-candy is EVERYWHERE these days. So why consider "TRON" part of the Canon and not, say, "Pirates of the Caribbean"? "G-Force"? "Sorcerer's Apprentice"? You cannot deny that all these films include computer animated characters.

Well, the reason why "Legacy" (and any possible future "TRON" movies although the future looks a bit dim there right now) makes the cut is simply because it's parent did. And the one and only reason "TRON" made the cut is because Disney considered it one of their animated films in the early 80's, back when it was the most impressive recent thing they had to brag about. I don't suppose anyone is going to necessarily complain that I am not reviewing "G-Force" et al, but I supposed I ought to say something about it to cover myself.

For more posts in this ongoing series, go here, or click the Chronological Disney Animated Canon tag below.

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Sketch of the Day! It's a raptor! How exciting!

Don Bluth Month: Out with a whimper - Thoughts on "Bartok the Magnificent!"

So here's the last feature-length Don Bluth movie ever released (in some markets [I have been informed that others got it before "Titan A.E."] and last feature to date; let's be optimistic here). Let's pause for a minute or two and let that sink in.

Depressed? Yeah, so am I. It's hard to imagine a quieter whimper to go out on. But that's not the only reason why "Bartok" is a very strange animal.

Records disagree as to whether it's the last feature Don Bluth ever made. It certainly is the last most of us ever heard of him. Whenever it was made, Fox shoved it onto DVD after "Titan" imploded at the box office. (Currently, it can only be found as a special feature on the two-disk edition of "Anastasia", a fact I learned just in time by chance.) You might not be a Don Bluth fan, but you do have to agree that it is very sad to see someone like him go out like a fart in the wind.

This is supposedly a sequel to "Anastasia". As such, it barely qualifies. The only things connecting this film and it's predecessor are one character and the country it is set in.

And that leads to the sauropod in the room I mentioned a long while back: All those gorram sequels. It must suck in ways none of us can imagine to make all these beloved movies and then not be able to say what the studios who own the rights to said movies can and cannot do with them. And so we live in a world where there are, at last count, fourteen "Land Before Time" movies. (For the record, there are about ten "Halloween" movies. I mention them because that is possibly the only other movie whose reputation has been so badly ruined by it's own not-original-director-involving sequels. It took years for the original "Halloween" to be appreciated.)

So this is why "Bartok" is one of the strangest movies I've watched during this project: Of all the Bluth-derived sequels, this is the ONE movie sequel he directed.

"Better" is a subjective word. I can't rightly say if this is indeed "better" than any of the sequels Bluth was not involved with. But I can pretty much guarantee that if it isn't better, it is at least *stranger* than any other sequel to a Don Bluth film.

It feels more like one of the Dark Age Disney movies than any Don Bluth film. There were a lot of scenes and characters that gave me bad "Sword in the Stone" flashbacks. There were other scenes that felt like something out of "Dragon's Lair: Time Warp". In all, the whole movie is very confusing and, at times, damn creepy in a way that's hard to explain (ie, the big, perverted-looking dragon who shows up at the end.)

Thus ends Don Bluth Month.

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Art of the Day?



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