CK's Cartoon Corner

[Cmdr_King]

Beauty and the Beast

It's that time again.

LET'S SING!!

Belle- God, this is one of the most singable songs ever.  AND IT'S NOT THE MOST SINGABLE IN THIS MOVIE.  Okay maybe that's nostalgia, but I'm doubtful.  It has a very common folk vibe (duh, it's the villagers), and there's a lot of subjects in there since they're basically establishing the entire premise in these, what, five minutes?  Something like.  But of the Renaissance films, this one is probably the most overtly Broadway and I think that's another big part of it.  Clearly I need to study musical structure.

Belle (Reprise)- Man I remember this being so much longer.  Also so very close to being literally the I Want song (in that I had to go look up the proper title of it and almost right I Want as the title of this segment).  Is what it is, moving on.

Gaston- NO OOOOOOONNNEEE inspires like Gaston, gets the audience to sing along like Gaston.  So technically the bits before and after Maurice comes into the bar are marked as two songs, but yeah, we'll talk both here.  Anyway, Gaston's one of the funnest Disney villains and that's almost entirely this song and how efficient it is.  We know exactly the sort of scum he is and why he's that way.

Be Our Guest- Y'know, this is the most famous song from the film (for example, on this bluray it's the song that's used on the menu), but in a lot of ways it's probably the least relevant.  The plot just sorta stops to have some fun.  Which isn't a bad thing, but by comparison it's sorta odd.  It's mostly down to having such a cool visual style (come to think of it, Little Mermaid lacked any of the acid trip visuals so sheer novelty is probably a factor here) and being the only time Lumiere gets a chance to show off, which considering half the cast is basically Broadway Powerhouses, of course you let Orbach show off the pipes.

Something There- So I remember thinking, as a kid, that this montage took place over, like, a couple months.  Y'know, most of the winter.  But no!  This is obviously about THREE DAYS.  So close to not having obvious love at first sight romance Disney.  So close.    Anyway as with most of the songs major plot advances are told in song (because this is probably the most musical Disney Musical) so I dunno, just don't get super huge vibes off a lot of them for whatever reason.

Beauty and the Beast- This is such a strange movie.  It doesn't usually do spectacle.  It's shooting for being simultaneously intimate (as fits a story that's romance at the core) and... grand.  Large spaces with lots of detail.  We're the only people in the whole world, and the world bends to keep it true.
Come to think of it I don't think any other Disney film does that.  Wonder if that's why it remains, in terms of decorative hardware, the most accomplished Disney film.  (Yes, I'd put a Best Film nomination over a Best Animated win.)

Mob Song- Y'know, I should go and rewatch the Sleepy Hollow half of its movie.  It just occurred to me that there seems to be huge amounts of visual reference between it and the mob here.  Hell, Gaston definitely looks more than a little bit like Brom Bones, so further similarities shouldn't be surprising at all.  Anyway this song plays a lot differently from most of them.  Most of them are expository, while this is very definitely narrative.  Really effective too, I keep saying "This is the catchiest song!" forgetting the next song will be even catchier!  KILL THE BEAST.  KILL THE BEAST.  Y'know.

I dunno what it is, but the color pallet of this movie seems amazingly vivid.  I dunno if it's because the backgrounds are more muted (and for a lot of the movie take place at night or are basically gothic architecture) of if Disney muted their pallet as time went on or what.  I should probably watch forward and see if there's a noticeable shift but I only have about half those movies.

What really works about the movie is its sheer simplicity.  Not too much really happens, and they put real effort into getting you up to speed quickly and just letting you drink in the visuals and music.  I suppose a Tale as Old as Time probably should be that way.

Rating- 8/10.

[Luther Lansfeld]

As a specimen yes I'm intiiiiiimidating

[DjinnAndTonic]

I once dated a guy who played Gaston in the stage version of Beauty and the Beast. It was surreal. We were out one time, drinking with some friends and he managed to work in the punchline "I'm especially good at ex-PECTorating~!" So now Grefter/Zenny/whoever doesn't need to make that joke.

Gaston is basically the best. Movie should get a 10/10 just for best villain.

[Cotigo]

This prompted me to listen to Gaston last night now all day i've been singing

No one fucks like your mom
No one sucks like your mom,
No one shits day old cum like your mom.
Etc etc etc.

I'm surprised thats not already a parody.

[DjinnAndTonic]

That last one doesn't fit the rhythm of the song at all.

[Grefter]

Who can keep iambic pentameter while they orgasm? (Urmom)

Edit - also implying I can quote/reference Disney stuff.  Who do you think I am.

[Cmdr_King]

Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion

Y'know the pilot movie thinger.

So it is easy to forget that I know like all of the things about Star Wars.  Okay not so much now because I haven't been keeping up with the new wave of novels but anyway I go into this knowing nothing about Clone Wars (which Rebels is fundamentally a sequel/successor series to).  Except nothing from Clone Wars is really necessary for me because like hell I don't recognize a Jedi Holocron or obvious Force-sensitive luck when I see it.  And there's certainly a large amount of pandering for the sort of audience that would actually get stuff like that, and a lot of the set pieces are very note for note with previous Star Wars media.

Also it carries on the proud tradition of Star Wars dialog being soooo bad.  Like not the story, the spoken words, they are not quite working.  While the VA crew for this has a lot of veterans, they just aren't familiar enough with the characters (shocking, the cast doesn't have a feel for the characters in the pilot) to make those lines work even a little bit.

Everything else is pretty good though.  (except the slingshot seriously guys slingshot?).  The characters could easily have gone, they have that feel of "we've assembled a Team of Experts in Their Fields" like a heist movie based on the designs, bad but largely I do find myself interested in seeing more of them.  Ezra has some potential and I'll admit "Aladdin but in Star Wars" is something I'd give at least an episode or two just to see if how that worked out.  The rest of the team have a good humor about them and you get to see just enough even in this pilot to suspect they some backstory we an delve into later.  Just on the whole everything a pilot like this needs to accomplish, despite some hiccups.

Rating- 7/10.

[Cmdr_King]

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Season 2)

So this might be my favorite season?  Would not have called that.  Main contributing factors:
- The endcap episodes are probably the best ones, so there's the strongest tie between the good episodes and the relevant ones.
- A lot of the aesops trend towards "you can mean well and still fuck it up", which I can dig and works really well with the show.
- There's a bunch of random episodes about Equestia history which I am just a sucker for, sorry.
- All the CMC episodes are actually, uh, good.

And honestly... I guess I don't have much to say about the season as a whole.  It's very much a continuation of season 1 in terms of overall style and tone, except they've got everything working properly so there's no issue with half the season feeling incomplete or rough draft-y.

Weakest Episode- I actually discussed this one a bit while watching (I'm a bit behind on writeups actually >.>) and immediately was pointed towards two other contenders, both the Spike episodes.  And yeah I'd definitely call those the bottom three, but... both those episodes have moments I enjoy a lot even if a lot of stupid stuff gets in the way of it.  The Mysterious Mare Do Well is... more even than both of those, but on the whole everyone's just kinda an asshole in it.  Actually, come to think of it Ponyville has this total Marvel Universe vibe at points where the citizens only remember the absolute last thing a hero did and turn on them for no real reason because what've you done for me lately and shit.  But more than that the way the reveal is handled sits poorly with me; Yes, Rainbow needed to be knocked down a peg to focus on what's important, but frankly it comes across as "you all just wanted to rub her face in doing better than her" which... is out of character for everyone 'cept Applejack.  And even then Applejack has to be pretty into a competition to reach the point of jackassery, but it's there and I'm okay with her being a bit smug sometimes.  Rest of y'all know better.

Best Episode: A scene from the writers room for MLP:FiM Season 2
<MALarson> So y'know Star Trek: The Next Generation?
<McCarthy> Off course.
<MALarson> So I kinda wanted to do an episode where Q was the villain.
<McCarthy> Brilliant!  Quick, someone find a John de Lancie sound-alike!
<Secretary> Actually ma'am we have John de Lancie on the line...
<Faust> MWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA
I lean towards the second episode as better, the Discordified Ponyville is pretty danged great and there's plenty of good lines (Rarity in particular stands out), although part 1 does have Discord splitting the fellowship.  Eh, either way.

Rating- Mmmm.  8/10?  Yeah probably.

[Cmdr_King]

Wonder Woman

Strange movie.  It doesn't hew all that closely to her post-Crisis debut, but I don't know enough of her history to know if they were mix and matching versions of her backstory or just making things up with appropriate Greek Myth material.  In the end though this feels more like a comedy than anything else, which stands out from the other DC direct to videos I've seen.  That or casting Nathan Fillion in a leading role just inevitably causes that.  I'd believe either.

It does kinda work because the main thrust ends up being that everyone is manipulating everyone, except thanks to Diana's main power she can cut through it and even the playing field.  THe movie ends up with a flow of... snark, snark, joke, decapitation.  And somehow it never really kicks you out of the story with it.

On the whole I think a more direct adaptation of her post-crisis origin would've made a stronger movie, but what's there is entertaining enough.

Rating- 6/10

[Cmdr_King]

Superman: Doomsday

Probably the last one of these for a while (mostly since there's only one more in the set of "DC Animated films packed in with appropriate comic" and Justice League WAR doesn't look that good, and I really think covering All-Star Superman would be hella redundant).  Which is good because god I feel like there's hardly ever anything to say with them.

Although it does make for fast and easy content to keep the thread moving...

Anyways!  So this movie covers the full Death and Return of Superman arc, and the first half is a very good adaptation thereof.  There's some key changes, but the battle between Supes and Doomsday hits a lot of the notes of the original and the changes are either necessary (trimming out the JLI and condensing the supermans down to one clone) or to the good (Lex Luthor inadvertently releasing Doomsday and being behind the aforementioned clone).

The middle parts are actually shockingly good though.  There's this scene where Lois just kinda shows up in Smallville and just starts babbling to Martha Kent because she's the only other person on earth who's grieving the way she is, because nobody else loved Superman as a man and not just as Superman and it's pretty great. 
Also this scene where Adam Baldwin has you damn near convinced he's going to kill an old lady with her cat but actually just pets the cat for 2 minutes.

On the whole it feels very... efficient, which in a way is too bad because I feel like a lot of the movie never gets a chance to settle before something else happens.  Probably inevitable when adapting a... god, 12 comic arc?  15?  Something like.  Still, everything actually here is good.

Rating- 7/10

[Cmdr_King]

Over the Garden Wall

So it's not often you see cartoons that feel designed to win awards, but I think this one is.  Turns out I'm pretty okay with that.

So this is an art project stuffed with high end voice talent that was completed before it started airing, because it's actually 10 shorts originally aired as a miniseries.  Meaning it just oozes style, has a very unique and consistent tone, almost all its choices are extremely deliberate, so on.  It surprisingly doesn't go too heavy on continuity, most of the series being a basically individual stories that paint an emotional, rather than chronological, progression, though about once an episode something permanent happens before moving on.

The main take though is how charming most of the cast is.  Wirt and Beatrice are obviously flawed people but the story sets them up nicely so you want them to overcome.  Gregory could be irritating as hell in that way small children are, but his obviously good heart always comes through strongest before you can hold his more immature actions against him.  The way the Beast subplot is resolved is pretty brilliant, both in story and allegorically (though just how that plays out depends on what exactly you want to attribute to the Beast and the nature of the setting which... eh, I'd rather let people watch and make their own conclusions there.)

Just... yeah.  The show is smart, emotionally resonant, and very sincere.  It's great to see things like it crop up.

Weakest Episode: Schooltown Follies.  Mostly just the most fillery of the episodes.  The core plot, while certainly adorable, just wasn't terribly interesting for me, and the story arc aspects are somewhat limited to light tension between Wirt and Beatrice that would... make a lot more sense if they were supposed to be an item which isn't really true.  Not not a lot of substance to it.

Best Episode:  Not callling it The Unknown feels a bit dishonest, but I gotta admit I'm liking Babes in the Woods more.  The animation really lets it all hang out here, and Gregory is of course at his best here.  It also speaks more to the central truth of the show than the finale.  They aren't trapped by the world, or the people here that seem to want to harm them, they're fighting with themselves and their own weaknesses.  It gels so well with the sort of story this really is, even though you wouldn't think of it before this point.

Rating- 9/10

[Cmdr_King]

Star Wars: Rebels (Season 1)

As hoped, the season proper shored up the biggest weakness of the pilot, although unexpectedly this happened from both ends.  The more awkward dialog became considerably less common, and the cast definitely found their footing.  And it of course continues to be super duper Star Wars, so basically all the awesome on that front.

The surprising this is how well it's done making me care about the cast and drawn me into this new corner of the Galaxy.  Like a couple episodes in they work in that one of the major villains (it slipped past me on a watch, but reading up on the show later it turns out he's with the Imperial Security Bureau, meaning a) he's basically an SS thug and b) holy crap they brought Isard's dad back into canon, meaning COMPNOR beats out things like Thrawn.  Huh.) personally ordered the slaughter of Zeb's people, which dovetails a bunch of things quite nicely.  They actually pretty subtly build up why this nothing world on the Rim is important, and why enough crap happens there to entertain a ship full of very skilled rebels.

The show's overall tendency is to introduce new characters as fairly one dimensional then adding layers as they progress which is not usually how you do nuanced characters, but works really well in context of Star Wars (for more or less the same reason Bioware's thug/saint morality system actually kinda works in KotOR).  The exception there is the Inquisitor, but he's basically equivalent to Darth Maul (or at least, Darth Maul in Phantom Menace), there to present a physical threat to our heroes.  And he works well enough in that roll, enough at least that when Ezra does a Dark Side Cave Vision Quest and the Inquisitor keeps popping up and killing everyone I believe he's legitimately that scared of the man.  Something about the inter-character dynamic absolutely screams of Greg Weissman to me as well (he is indeed a credited creator/writer here of course) but I can't put my finger on what it is exactly.  Something about the way the crew has tiny feedback loops of building trust.

Sabine is great.

The season actually does include Spark of Rebellion as episodes 1 and 2 (darn, coulda saved $10) buuuuut fortunately they aren't either of the focus episodes anyway so that works out.

Weakest Episode- Fighter Flight.  It's a fun enough concept but the immaturity of everyone involved is a bit much at times.

Best Episode- Rebel Resolve.  While the following episode is of course more climatic, it's also mostly action scenes.  This one is where we get that sense of "and everyone really is a team now and they are not going to leave one of their own to rot" etc etc.  Cliche enough, but I'm down.

Rating- 8/10.

[Cmdr_King]

The Nightmare Before Christmas

What's this?

This is Halloween- In my memory this song is a lot more forceful than it actually is.  They're kinda going for a low crawling creepiness I think, but the tune's too upbeat to quite match the lyrics.  Of course I think the point of the sequence is actually to show off all the models and sets they made in the stop motion, on which count holy crap this works.  Creepy, sexy, heartrending.

Jack's Lament- It's easy to forget this song is the core of the whole movie.  Like, all the most iconic imagery of Nightmare Before Christmas is Jack on the swirly hill, the moon huge upon him.  Unlike the last this one is a very complete package, but so understated I honestly forgot it was a full song and not a line or two of sung dialog.  It does highlight how strange a concept Nightmare Before Christmas really is though; the core emotion here is the feeling that something something comes so easily to you that you lose all sense of achievement from it.  I mean they do play it more as "appreciate what you've got!" in the end which is bigger on the wide appeal scale but... that's not where they start and I'm surprised to see such a... mature emotion at the center of a movie.

What's This- !!!!!!!!! the song.  Realistically an answer to the last song, or rather it's presented as one while actually setting up for reprises later on, but anyways.  Works quite well for its context, not super memorable beyond the final line I feel though.

Town Meeting Song- Exposition!  Not much to say, it's a very function-driven song.

Jack's Obsession- I got nothing here either.  See above!

Kidnap the Sandy Claws- I love how sadistic this song is.  After a lot of very Hamlet-esque navel gazing, something to sorta jolt the audience with the reminder that not every gruesome thing about Halloween is a mask over a smile, but ancient evils and vice buried deep. 

Making Christmas-  Great visuals again.  Nobody really gets to show off musically though sooooo not too much to say.

Oogie Boogie's Song- HOLY CRAP A SINGER BESIDES DANNY ELFMAN.   Man, this reminds me bunches of Friends on the  Other Side, both in the style of singing (though of course Keith David is infinite sexy where Ken Page is infinite smug) and the visuals.  It's just FUN, though, which is a good breather for the film.  'specially since...

Sally's Song- "Hello Viewer.  In case you forgot, we are currently entering the Tragedy portion of our horror-comedy-tragedy.  Thank you for your consideration."

Poor Jack- Y'know, this song is awesome in its prescience.  You can't tell me that "Well what the heck I went and did my best![...] and at least I left some stories they can tell, I did!" isn't basically Tim Burton's career, ~1999-Present.
Anyway the latter part is my favorite bit of Danny Elfman singing in the whole movie, probably the bit I actually remember best.  'cept maybe Kidnap the Sandy Claws.

Finale- <3!  <3 every one!

IN some ways this movie is less than the sum of its parts; the environments are creative, the plot unusual and generally conveyed well, the characters simple but understandable, music memorable and very tailored to the movie, but a lot of times it all just passes by before you can fully drink it in, and the different phases of the movie don't always mesh.  It's got a bit of the Bizarro problem, where the anti-logic can get the audience overthinking things in ways the movie doesn't quite hold up to.

But y'know, all that stuff is REALLY good.  Being a bit prone to the ol' fridge logic doesn't dock it that much.

Rating- 7/10.

[DjinnAndTonic]

One of the things I always picked up from Jack's songs was the idea that his entire existence is founded on being a creator, but the only thing he's capable of creating is horrifying. Sometimes that's how I feel when I try to draw and the only thing that comes out is anime moe blobs. Truly horrifying.

[Cmdr_King]

Mulan

Pre-viewing looking up of titles suggests there's fewer songs in this than average for Disney of the era, so we may have to intersperse singing with other analysis.  Let's find out!

Honor to Us All- Feels hardcore stereotypical.  That said ignoring the cultural notes I'm not wholly qualified to evaluate, to a large extent that's the intent anyway; the song gives you a good sense of how rigid and backwards her family's/society's expectations feel to Mulan.  Musically it doesn't really grab me, but as with the stereotypical nature of it that could be part of the intent. 

Reflection- I'm a sucker for power vocals like this.  Otherwise fairly standard I Want song.  Much shorter in the movie than in my memory though!  Actually though in keeping with the lower song count, Mulan highly front-loads most of the content that's not War Stuff (although!  Songs concentrating sooner in the movie is common for Disney) so it's probably just mentally expanding the front to even things out.  Or mixing it up for the Pop Ballad Version.  That's always possible.

Unlike every other Disney-affiliated music covered so far, Mulan actually puts its most significant scene AFTER a song, not during one.  That being Mulan's decision to leave.  This hits just... every style note for how momentous, dangerous, and desperate the whole endeavor is, and also manages to give you the sense that in spite of it all, Mulan's actually.... what's the right word.  Comfortable?  No.  Confident.  This IS the right thing to do, and this IS who she is.  Everything's hidden in drapes, a storm builds, everything must be accomplished quickly and decisively, full of sudden sharp movements.  So perfect.

Okay, back to the movie.

I'll Make a Man Out of You- Montage!  The best word in storytelling!!  Okay this one is just kinda fun.  Not really super deep but it's here to advance the story and does that well.  And with weirdly large amounts of Donny Osmond. 

So Hercules, Hunchback, and Mulan all have a very similar structure in terms of cast and plot progression.  Or maybe the similar horse designs is making me read too much into it.  Anyways the sidekicks are all built along the lines of Genie from Aladdin, but it doesn't... work as well.  That said, Mushu at least makes sense in the plot and there's a good reason for him to be here. But without that sorta Merlin-esque "I exist outside time and can make pop references from THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, what of it" it's still kinda distracting to see Mushu outright pull out a toothbrush.  Nothing major but distracting.

A Girl Worth Fighting For- I guess there's three main intents here.  a) demonstrate that Mulan isn't really that much more at home with men than treated as a woman (which was already accomplished in the previous bathing scene), b) because we need another song and hey, this makes sense as a marching song (uh... sure I guess?)  c) we are t minus length of song from the heavy bits of the story, better do something light and fluffy.  Because "I ain't biting no more butts" wasn't light and fluffy enough?  Yeah, this is pointless.  Or at least needed to be replaced by a BETTER marching song.  I may be biased because the male cast aren't any good at singing though.

Broadly though I think Mulan excels in the critical moments, but it's the in-between where you can see Disney had gotten comfortable and formulaic.  The elements of Aladdin that worked because Robin Williams, or of Lion King that worked because a segment of the movie stars children, are carried over here with an incomplete understanding of why they were working.  Eddie Murphy is fucking hilarious, but not because he's a living cartoon character who's unnaturally talented at impressions.  One plays off animators better than the other.  I do kinda wish I'd covered Hunchback before Mulan, because a lot of the strengths and weaknesses are the same, but extremely exaggerated.  Mushu is distracting but doesn't quite kick you out of the movie entirely.

Rating- 7/10.  But really that's the summary in general.  Mulan is a brilliant movie that has a lot of mediocre content in the center.  This feels right as the final score as a result.

[Veryslightlymad]

The Nightmare Before Christmas

You nonetheless give this a much higher rating than I would. Tim Burton is a director that I almost want to like, and sometimes I think that's just because lots of people I kind of like do.

Case in point, I will say that a song you skipped over also has the BEST COVER VERSION of a Disney song.
BEHOLD

At any rate, Nightmare is just another one of those movies that doesn't GRAB me, and almost no Burton film has. If you held a gun to my head, I'd say the best one is... Beetlejuice, maybe? It's tough, man. It's tough. I know there's one I tend to forget and a lot that are well-liked cult films that I just can't get into.

[Cmdr_King]

My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Friendship Games

What's this... oh yeah.

MUSICAL OF NON-DISNEY ORIGINS.

(No I don't plan to go back and cover the other MLP films in this format.)

Friendship Games- Sorta feels like it was intended for later in the movie, maybe a sort of duelling song with both teams having to travel to a neutral location (unlike the games being set at CHS as actually happens).  The credits themselves try to build up each main character having a rival from the Shadowbolts but that doesn't really ever plan out.  They just don't get enough focus time to make being the negative aspect of each Element really relevant (brutal honest, mocking laughter, so on) and only noticeable if you go in primed looking for it.  So I guess it kinda serves that purpose?  Eh.

CHS Rally Song- Honestly a pretty weak song.  I really like the idea of it really; hey, guys, think about it, we're AWESOME.  We fought literal monsters!  The fuck can a bunch of high school kids do to us!  But it's just kinda generic as an actual song.

What More Is Out There- Actually, wait.
What More Is Out There (Deleted Duet Version)- This is a WAY better version, in basically every sense.  See, they extended the Twilight lines to keep it a full song about just her, and it comes across as... whiny and short sighted.  Which kinda works for human Twilight but isn't what the scene calls for.  The staging is supposed to be more "this is what any normal person would want, why isn't it enough for me."  Sunset's lines much more ably capture this sentiment, reinforced by her being a much more rounded and worldly character to start with. 
Also most of Twilight's new lines sound incredibly lame and having a second singer to contrast Twilight's singer is a big boon to the entire song.

ACADECA- Reasonably fun montage song.  Granted this ends up meaning that 90% of the titular games takes place in just under 3 minutes of film time but eh, happens.  Not much else to say about it.

Unleash the Magic- Probably the best song actually, setting aside the one that's not in the film.  They do a great job selling the temptation here, love it.  Especially because Twi herself doesn't even sing until the ending line, it's all just watching her expression shift from abject terror to grim determination.

Right There In Front of Me- Mmm.  Actually scratch that, it's not really part of the movie, credits song and all.

I dunno, not a huge amount to say honestly?  I think everything relevant I covered in the deleted song, they don't quite hit the mark they were probably going for on this one because they tweaked the plot a bit.

Not making a separate category for the shots this time.  There's one I really enjoyed (All's Fair in Love and Friendship Games) but they're more separate from this one than Rainbow Rocks' were.  Aside from Science of Magic, anyway, but anyways.

Rating- 7/10.

[AndrewRogue]

At some point, I feel they are going to need to stop cutting Sunset Shimmer's content out of EQG stuff.

Seriously, both this and Rainbow Rocks would've been a lot better with more Shimmer focus.

[Grefter]

r u a drug dealer

[AndrewRogue]

Oh. Also. Principal Sombra was a missed opportunity.

[Cmdr_King]

Oddly the show seems generally reluctant to bring back villains (indeed, the opener and closer of Season 5 sharing a villain is pretty surprising thinking on it).  Hell, Princess Luna wasn't actually a villain after the second episode but we didn't see her again until season 2.  'sides, Sombra was basically characterized as hitlersatan so making him work in the EG setting might have caused problems?  Seems like it'd be tricky anyway.

[Cmdr_King]

Aladdin

Oh I come from a... hold up.

Arabian Nights- Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place~
So a casual look at the production of the movie tells you this is a bit of a holdover from an earlier version of the script in which the Peddler is in fact Genie.  This doesn't fully jive with the finish product, although you could make the argument of course.  So in the final film this is mostly an extension of the framing device, which never fully closes at the end.  It feels a bit out of place as a result, but y'know... damn I love Robin Williams (fake edit: apparently they got a sound alike, but ANYWAY) on this song.  And while it doesn't quite fit narratively due to orphaning the framing device, it's a nice little microcosm of the film in general so hey, works.

One Jump Ahead- So the opening of Aladdin's story is really pretty heavy if you present it naturally.  Kid has to steal to eat, is surrounded by people even worse off who lack the talent and physical health to do even that, and you can tell in the scenes right after this he actually has some pretty deep self-loathing problems; a puffed up princeling fires off a pretty cheap insult, and it SERIOUSLY gets to him.  But by presenting this as comedy then sorta lifting the curtain on the tragedy, we keep the tone from becoming completely depressing.  Also just a great chance to see Al in action, both physically and mentally, which is pretty important to the film as a whole of course.

On Jump Ahead (Reprise)- more just a sung line.  See above.

Actually quite a long song drought here.  Okay so the scene where Jasmine and Aladdin meet is great.  You can see why these kids would be so smitten with each other right off, and I love how the crowd at the end of the scene is just in awe at the con they and Abu pull off.  Everyone looks VERY entertained by the spectacle of it when Abu gives away the game at the end.  Granted, Aladdin's presumably been living like this for years so if people didn't like him for SOME reason he'd probably have been given up by now.

Frank Welker remains god tier.  We all knew that but he gets to really show off in this one.

Friend Like Me- "Guys we got ROBIN WILLIAMS, let him rock it out man."  Honestly I... don't wanna talk too much about this one just because...

Hold that thought.  God the physical acting in this one is great.  Like, Abu's just gone through a full cycle of rapidfire transformations, then gets a brief reprieve while Genie conjures up the Elephant form, and the way he retreats is so great.  Okay back to the songs.

Prince Ali- Okay, the sheer size and bombast of this song is amazing.  It's really nothing more than an extended boast, but it's a great fit for this part of the movie and the imagination of Ali's feats and possessions really sells the thing.  And for the most part Friend Like Me is basically the same song, except without those amazing little details.  The visuals in Friend Like Me are, well, WACKIER but honestly this one is a lot more impressive overall.  It's so busy and the rapidfire cycling of all Ali's stuff always makes me smile.  Especially that little bit at the end where Jaffar is literally shoving the entire retinue out the door.  Details man.

A Whole New World- Hello award bait song.  Unsurprisingly I actually like the earlier scene for setting up the romance, but there's certainly good plot stuff in this one.  As a song it's memorable but not something I'm in love with.

Prince Ali (Reprise)- So now let's talk about Jaffar.  The sheer joy he takes in his evil is definitely a big part of the movie, especially since most of the plot is actually driven by his machinations.  Hell, he basically makes a point of humiliating the Sultan and Aladdin for... fairly minor slights on the whole, because why not.  The song captures the whole of the character pretty well.  Just a lot of fun.

So before this new blu-ray release, I hadn't seen Aladdin in like 10 years, and I'd kinda thought that I was probably overestimating it in memory because it had the better follow up series and sequel movies.  And... actually no, there's tons going on in this movie that's easy to forget over time.  I was a little reluctant to talk it up against Mulan in particular, but rewatching it... nah, there's definitely a reason that Aladdin's basic structure is the one the latter Renaissance films copied.  Genie works so damn well, because Robin Williams can dial from comedy to heartwarming on a dime because he could do that, not because it was necessarily a good film-making formula. 

Rating- 9/10.  ;_;

[DjinnAndTonic]

Where are you finding cut/unedited versions of pony movies that you can even make the comparison? Didn't it -just- come out?

[Cmdr_King]

It's about three weeks removed from a direct-to-video production, video came out last week, special feature is the song I commented on (plus the animated shorts, although those are also on youtube)

[Cmdr_King]

How to Train Your Dragon 2

God, is this really our first Dreamworks film?  [note to self: you need to shuffle those posts to do the table of contents you doofus]

So I know there's a bit of a thing in the fandom here of this film versus the first, and let's get out of the way that I don't think this film does as much for me as the first.  I think the spectacle bits of the first were more memorable, and more substantially the long stretches of naturalist stuff in the first was very cool, and on the whole this movie is trying to substitute that with the mom plotline and I actually don't get quite as much out of that.  I think after a whole film about building trust a film about loyalty is a bit redundant I guess, so the plot doesn't have the same oomph.

Not to say this movie is bad or it is bad at what it is doing.  Most of Stoic's stuff is great and shores up what could so easily have been retreads.  Actually that's probably the best way I can put it, in a lot of ways this is more his movie than Hiccup's.  There's a lot of other stuff going on in this film which is probably an equal partner in it feeling weaker overall; Hiccup's story is more compelling, and Stoic's story has to share what seems like more time with comic sidekick subplots.  Still, it's more that I wish he'd been given more chances for scenes like him seeing Valka for the first time and less moments of whatsherface pining over that loser dude.

As I understand it, How to Train Your Dragon was a book, and actually this movie is covering the second half of said book.  I'm more or less writing off the overarching plot about the dragon alphas or whatever as "things that made more sense in the book", especially given the whole naturalist bent in the first film.  I'm entirely willing to believe that a lot more about dragon behavior and socialization was there and just couldn't find a home in the film in between everything else.  I hope so because otherwise the whole Toothless plot is REALLY silly come the end.  I mean it's sweet and all but yeah.

Just not a film that left a huge impression.  It's good.

Rating- 6/10.