Author Topic: CK's Cartoon Corner (Read 43340 times)

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #175 on:** December 17, 2015, 05:17:35 AM »

Ooh, what a useful review! I'd been pondering seeing it, but all the review snippets were sounding extremely negative. Glad to see it's just 'bad for Pixar' not actually 'bad' (like Cars).

Excal · « **Reply #176 on:** December 17, 2015, 06:06:27 AM »

Did somebody just badmouth the animated, motorized, Doc Hollywood? That description alone provides the entertainment value of glorious cheese!

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #177 on:** December 22, 2015, 05:22:19 AM »

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods

So the release of The Force Awakens has of course generated a lot of talk about Star Wars, and on comment I've run into, phrased differently in various places, is the prequels being basically the unchained id of George Lucas. One dude made every creative decision and had full rights to do whatever the fuck he wanted, and it's fascinating to pick apart even the very very flawed products of that effort and see how he ticks.

I feel like Battle of Gods is basically the unchained id of Akira Toriyama. The end result: weird, puts jokes and off-tempo heartwarming in completely inappropriate spots and makes it work, flashy, generally makes you question how these people function, and just generally utterly joyous about everything it does.

It's pretty great, is what I'm saying here.

Honestly I wish there was just a whole movie of Beerus and Whis lounging around their timeroom or something. They could order take-out sushi. It'd be awesome. But hey, then after a brief interlude of Establishing the Threat, we then proceed to spend most of the movie actually just kinda fucking around at Bulma's birthday party which involves Vegeta singing to distract Beerus. And fights about pudding. With special appearance by THE GREAT SAIYAMAN. Yeah this movie is really funny and likeable and it's almost a shame when the fighting starts because while the fighting is done well it means we don't get amazing Pilaf shenanigans.

Really I said it best in chat. This was like watching Dragon Ball Z Abridged at times. It's nuts. although funny enough, I think I like the DBZA crew better overall as a voice cast. Goku and Piccolo are basically the same, but everyone else is actually better in DBZA for my money. Well, of the established cast. Beerus and Whis are awesome in this dub.

Rating- 8/10. Not a lasting, life-altering favorite by any stretch, but damn entertaining on every level.

Meeplelard · « **Reply #178 on:** December 22, 2015, 10:51:12 PM »

What makes Battle of Gods work unlike the Star Wars prequels is that Toriyama has actual experience at doing this stuff in the past and making it work; Battle of Gods was him going back to the series original routes...as in, Dragon Ball, where it was primarily very silly until a fight scene started and that would range between either 'pretty cool' or 'gimmicky and silly.' Raditz's appearance is when the franchise took a huge shift into being far more action oriented which is why it became DBZ there.

In fact, it's not just in the tone and the focus from quirky silliness to bad-ass action (the latter you could see slowly evolving over the course of the series. The Piccolo Saga feels very Proto-DBZ in many ways, honestly; the one thing reminding you it's Dragon Ball is Goku is still a kid), but also Dragon Ball had a far more fantasy, mystical feel to everything. Goku was a monkey boy who transforms at the moon because...he's a magical kid. Oolong is a pig who can transform because screw you, he went to school to learn how! Piccolo is an ancient evil green demon because he's suppose to be the devil, and Kami by extension is suppose to be God (hence his name!)
Then Raditz shows up, and suddenly we have Aliens, Androids and you get the idea. Buu felt like an attempt to shift things back into the fanciful silliness, unfortunately it tried too hard to balance Dragon Ball's quirkiness with DBZ's high-octane action and kind of fell flat on it's face.

Battle of Gods felt like the Buu Saga done right. Won't go into details, but I think it's safe to say what makes the movie work above all else is Beerus just being a fantastic villain to compliment the tone the movie wanted, and Whis being a great side-kick to bounce off him.
Battle of Gods definitely felt like it was also trying to sort of mix the sci-fi and fantasy sides of DBZ. It still had the mythos and universal lore involved but also by calling them "Gods" and working around legends again, it harkens back to the more fantasy roots.

Basically, what I'm saying is Battle of Gods is a movie that embraced not only Dragon Ball Z at it's finest, but also Dragon Ball. It was a huge nod to the entire series, and not just "Raditz through Buu" like most things do. Having Pilaf in the movie felt like Toriyama's way of saying "yeah, we remembered those days too, don't worry!"

But yeah, it's a pretty fantastic movie and as I said, it worked contrast to the Star Wars prequels because it's less Toriyama being unrestrained for the first time and more just him going back to his roots and having fun again. And frankly, Beerus and Whis are basically the best thing to happen to the DBZ universe like...ever. Resurrection F even solidifies this further as while the movie is fun enough, those two basically just make every scene they're in so much better. Further proof those two are awesome?
Brad Jones, the cinema snob, actually saw Resurrection F not knowing anything about DBZ whatsoever and actually highlighted those two as standing out and being fun characters, who he wanted to see more of (he also said the movie was surprisingly fine for something he knew absolutely nothing about as he was entertained even if he was confused and the completely wrong demographic so kudos?)

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #179 on:** December 25, 2015, 04:02:13 AM »

And now, to boldly go where this topic has not gone before: to a time before 1983.

Star Trek: The Animated Series

If I were being lazy I could probably just post this:

I mean, that sums it up pretty damn well. Good, bad, or other, it's always fascinating. Because they didn't try to make a Star Trek-themed kids show. They made more episodes of Star Trek. Except:
- Half as long
- Only 8 cast members
- No extras
- Guest stars happened like once ever (wisely, it was Mark Leonard as Sarek)
- 70s era animation. You may not have watched as much early-day Cartoon Network as I, but 70s cartoons looked like hot garbage. And those were Hanna Barbara. Filmation was largely worse.

And the compromises they make to get the episodes to fit all those limits are often times not nearly as painful as you'd expect. There's one or two duds in the series, but on the whole they are very solidly Star Trek and while it doesn't have a lot of oomph, it presents interesting sci-fi plots in an engaging way.

The flip side of this though is the bit about guest stars, because... okay, the main strength of original flavor Star Trek is the main trio, yeah? Kirk, Spock, and McCoy form a particular dynamic that covers a full range of emotion, temperament, etc etc. It's the foundation of every episode. The trouble is, this means that in order for an episode to especially stand out, you have to introduce something new for them to react to. And while disrupting some portion of the trinity in a substantial way can work, the Original Series covered a lot of that ground and the Animated Series seems loath to retread it too much. The other way is to throw a new character at them and use that sort of complete humanity dynamic to thoroughly examine this new character and the situations they create. And while they can make up new characters, because of the limited cast and lack of cash to pay guest stars it pretty well has to be James Doohan or Marjel Barret doing a weird cartoon voice, which kinda undercuts the concept a bit.

But this isn't to say the show is bland. It just sorta maintains a steady 6 range in 90% of episodes. There's about three episodes meaningfully below par, and two of them are just the animation failing to back up the story. It looks goofy and jerks you out of the moment.

Weakest Episode- Bem. The planet-side stuff and Bem himself are two completely disparate ideas that shouldn't have gone together. Maybe if Bem was secretly a part of the lady-God on the planet, it miiiiiight have been okay, or at least okay in theory, but as presented just... it's annoying and has no reason to be there.

And there's similarly three stand-out episodes. Tribbles are gonna tribble so I don't have to explain further. As noted earlier they actually sprung for Mark Leonard in one episode, and it's good. But... surprisingly...

Best Episode- The Time Trap. Y'know what? I'm just kinda a sucker for this particular Trek plot. But I feel like this is the best example of it because the Space Wedgie they're stuck in isn't really that bad. No roaming bands of raiders, no meaningful supply shortages, and you're borderline immortal. And the ruling council just acknowledging that hey, people still miss home and have to at least try to get out is honestly very nice. So the drama actually stays on "Okay, we can't trust a Klingon. But can we trust them just far enough to make this work?" which is just kinda refreshing because that's all the drama we actually need. These guys are established enemies with both mutual respect and mutual animosity. They know the greatest harm they can do their enemies is to kill their opposite number, but they can't, and in their own way would miss them if they did. I think the simplification of the plot to fit in the runtime is helping out a lot here.

Rating- 6/10. It's not really spectacular, but it's still a pretty damn interesting watch and I feel like I'd recommend it a lot more than the rating suggests.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #180 on:** December 25, 2015, 09:15:29 AM »

The Iron Giant

I feel like there's two movies here. The core narrative of Hogarth and how he sparks the Giant's growth, and the story told by context (which is also the story of about 15 minutes of runtime riiight before the climax but anyways). There's a lot of density here for this sort of film, but I'd probably blame that on Brad Bird. But actually I feel like I missed huge chunks of the film the last time I went through it because there's a couple bits I don't actually remember. Hogarth's rundown to Dean of his life in particular. Sorta like "oh, they DO explain why the kid is so offbeat and likes hanging out with a beatnik, okay".

Okay, back to the two movie thing. The trouble there is that the contextual movie is a lot more interesting than the narrative one, because the film practically stops dead a lot of times just to have kid and his robot shenanigans. Not that they're bad shenanigans but earlier bits of the movie put cues to keep you in the context plot while the middle parts are just shenanigans for their own sake. A lot of them don't really contribute a lot to... well, Superman either, so it's just kinda... a thing that happens.

So context. Okay, probably not the best word for it, although I'm not sure how else to describe it. There's a very tangible sense through the whole movie that the adults are living their own 1950s lives and it's only sporadically intersecting with Hogarth's best buddy robot movie. But the cues about Sputnik, the duck and cover video, the emphasis on the witnesses being working folk, on and on lets you as a viewer know what aspects of the half-scene adult life movie are influenced by the current events of the time period. And from there you can fill in the parts you don't see from basic knowledge of history; what they worry about, what things are actually like, the gap between the two, the cultural undercurrents and early rumblings of later counter-culture shifts. A whole other movie that's partly displayed in the movie, but can be completed easily but adding outside knowledge of the cultural context it's set in.

When you have both the movies side by side, I can kinda see why they wanted the shenanigans stuff, to try and emphasize that off-beat or not, Hogarth is a kid and has the naivete of one, and using that to set up why he's better equipped to figure out how the Giant works. But even knowing why it's there, I don't think it quite works. You get the same emotional/thematic beats from the meatier scenes like the train crash, or the deer. Dragging out the walking hand bit or the trip to the lake... not so much.

I don't think there's anything so clever to say about the last bit of the movie. The conflict with the army briefly shoves the second movie to the forefront. Superman is Superman. The sole advantage of being a WB Animation movie of the time period, they can bloody well call Superman Superman. You are better than you think you are. Er, who you choose to be.

Rating- 8/10.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #181 on:** December 30, 2015, 09:13:57 AM »

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Write-up of Disney's 34th Animated Feature.

The Bells of Notre Dame- The rhythm of the song is kinda wonky in places (a lot of Clopin's lines are pretty awkward mostly), which does sorta remind you of how overwrought the whole situation is. But damn, David Odgen Stiers is on point here and sells the whole thing well. And it sticks the landing in fine form but that's true of most of the songs. Otherwise you see one of the better uses of the sharp contrasts in lighting the movie adores, it's a bit reminiscent of the nightmare chase in Snow White come to think of it.

Out There- This one's in two parts, one from Frollo and the other from Quasi. Quasi's bit is pretty average for an 'I Want', but damn does it feel a lot more earned contrasted against Frollo's manipulation. Or I just love me some Tony Jay in this movie.

Topsy Turvy- Certainly plenty of fun. Although the best bit is "Look at that disgusting display!" "Yes Sir!" Although watching again for the first time in a while, I'm noticing that damn does Esmeralda look like she's from another movie. Beyond being about the only character drawn as attractive, she has a lot more detail (both in her face and in this outfit here) than everyone else, even other main characters. Although it should be said that kinda works in its way, I think having a sort of otherworldliness to her is appropriate. Sensual but alien, out of place, y'know? Heck...

God Help the Outcast- One line from this has ALWAYS stuck out to me. "I ask for nothing, I can get by. But I know so many less lucky than I." Downright bloody saintly here. So... To the people of Paris Esmeralda is exotic, an other to be leered at but never accepted. To Quasimodo, she's an angel from heaven sent to deliver him his loneliness.

Heaven's Light- This shares a slot with the next song on the soundtrack but... yeah that gets its own thing for obvious reasons. Anyway, damn man, I forgot he literally calls her an angel here. Silly of me really. Uh otherwise it's a very short song without much impact, more of a montage to move into the next scene.

Hellfire- Ooooooooooh. Okay. Okay. So let's set aside the obvious appeal here. We just had a villain song about how he wants to rape and murder the heroine, in some order he has no idea about. DARKNESSSSSSS. Okay. Also yet more excellent use of lighting and overall heaven/hell imagery. We also have him basically calling Esmeralda a demon sent from Hell to tempt him. And... this all works because, unlike a lot of other scenes, we really feel Frollo's sincerity here. He really is as pious as he presents himself. He really thinks the Roma are devils sent to tempt righteous men from God. He really has no idea how to deal with deep seated lust, because he's never felt it before. It's what makes him both interesting and, well, dangerous.

A Guy Like You- Dammit movie.

Dammit.

Ugh. Okay. Jason Alexander can sing at least. But no. No movie. It is ENTIRELY too late for a mood lightener. Move this song up where Heaven's Light is and we can work with it, for all the gargoyles are still almost a pure negative to the movie. But here? After we've seen a dude get shot, most of the city harassed and large portions set on fire? No. We can't be pausing for comic relief right now. And really not for the rest of the movie. The late Renaissance films all suffer somewhat from using Aladdin as a template and not quite doing it right. But where Mulan, Hercules, Pocahontas and Tarzan just don't quite integrate their comedy, drama, and heartwarming in a seamless way, here... here it's... just derailing the entire movie. Like we have a dramatic confrontation with Frollo and a conflict of loyalty for Quasi due to his mistrust of Phoebus and y'know what, I'm still sitting here babbling about how stupid the damn gargoyle song is! And this would happen if I wasn't typing while watching (look, I can't remember one song in enough detail to write about it if I don't do it right away, it has to compete with other Disney songs!). The fucking fuck. And they come back in the climax and it's just as dumb there.

The Court of Miracles- Y'know what, this is a bit light for this point in the story, and it's Clopin going to hang the damn heroes! This is what I'm talking about here. This song? It's okay, it's a good way to ease us through the necessary scenes of "Why the fuck should we trust these assholes" in a speedy way. It's really not bad at all. And if we hadn't had that distracting stupid other comedy song we could appreciate it a lot more.

So some parts of the movie like to imply that the gargoyles are just Quasimodo's imaginary friends, while the ending has them interacting with the soldier's assaulting the cathedral, and it's yet more jarring stupid for a movie where jarring stupid is about the only thing WRONG with it. and y'know. The actual ending and a few other scenes imply basically that Notre Dame itself is alive and aiding the heroes. So why not play that up a little more? It would really solve the problem handily.

The other bit of the ending of course is hooking up Esmeralda and Phoebus. And at first this feels like "oh hey we're being EDGEY and not letting the main character get the girl!" But it's... a lot more than that. Like, I was just kinda thinking about it on this watch-through. Townsfolk exoticize Esmeralda. Quasimodo deifies her. Frollo treats her as an object of temptation and lust, a demon he must conquer. What's Phoebus' main interaction with her? Engaging with her as an equal and mostly just wanting to know her name. He's the only character in the whole story who treats her like a human being! Huh. Practically ahead of its time it is.

Rating- 7/10. But yeah. This... this should have been the best movie. It really should. But they didn't have the balls to let it stand on its own. What a pity.

Captain K · « **Reply #182 on:** December 30, 2015, 01:35:36 PM »

I took the ending as "Quasi learns that pretty people should be together and ugly people don't get no pussy."

Grefter · « **Reply #183 on:** December 30, 2015, 09:15:00 PM »

It is okay if you are ugly and alone forever, you are a beautiful awesome person that everyone likes but no one loves.

Yayyyyyyyy!

Cotigo · « **Reply #184 on:** December 30, 2015, 09:54:20 PM »

Quote from: Grefter on December 30, 2015, 09:15:00 PM

It is okay if you are ugly and alone forever, you are a beautiful awesome person that everyone likes but no one loves.

Yayyyyyyyy!

I thought I told you to stop following me around and commenting on my life.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #185 on:** December 31, 2015, 03:37:59 AM »

Tangled

Something about the opening needs comment but I can't figure out what I want to say. Having Flynn narrate it doesn't quite work for me, I think because they go in a slightly different direction with him in the movie itself where the melodrama feels a bit off I think. Still, making the sun a prominent motif throughout the movie was a good move and helps keep things fairly cohesive in its way.

When Will My Life Begin- Mm. It's competent. Optimistic and upbeat but utterly consumed with mundanity, gives us a pretty good first view of Rapunzel. It's kinda hard to get excited about it mind, but hey, there's nothing wrong with it.

Mother Knows Best- I was trying to form thoughts but then the bit where Rapunzel is hiding in her hair all curled up like it's a mole hole popped up and distracted all of them. Such a lovely little image. um. I dunno. It has a feel more like... like a Hammerstein musical, y'know? Which isn't too far removed from some of the work of the Sherman brothers which is very very Disney so it works for a milestone work like this actually, but I don't think any of the ones I've covered had a song in this style to it.

When Will My Life Begin (Reprise)- Oh Rapunzel you're such a dork~

I've Got a Dream- Mmm. Y'know, cute of them to have the obligatory reality bending song actually matter to the plot. "Oh hey Flynn's a scheming dickhead but it's gotten him in over his head! However will we get out?! Let's use the power of trust to sway the crowd into a dance number! And then they just let us go." Very nice. It's a somewhat stock idea for a fairytale story nowadays but the execution, especially compared against Disney itself, is pretty alright.

Mother Knows Best (Reprise)- Damn. This is some wicked witch shit and it's amazing. I think I have underestimated Gothel as a villain. She's pretty meh for most of the movie but she sells the hell outta this song and it's too perfect.

Mmm. So this exchange happens before the last song.
"What if it's not everything I dreamed it would be?"
"It will be."
"and... what if it is?"
"That's the best part. You get to go find a new dream"
I think we should just kinda file this away as Disney.txt.

I See the Light- Man, forgot this was a song over rather than singing in characters. Of course it's from the voices of the leads so same difference mostly. And really I could have been hitting harder on how many Renaissance notes this hits, since this one is probably the most direct transfer of that formula, but really I don't think I'd be considering it in that light except I'm doing these writeups, so I hate to bring it up too much. Otherwise, it's effect at what it needs to be. But like a few other song it doesn't wow me either.

Rating- 7/10. There's not quite so many highs in this movie as its contemporaries, but it's extremely even and complete as a film, which I think is why it succeeded where Princess and the Frog in particular did not. It's not a huge favorite even then, but there's certainly a lot to be said for that.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #186 on:** December 31, 2015, 04:06:05 AM »

Mother Gothel is the most disappointing part of that movie. There was sooooo much potential for Disney to make her a genuinely nuanced villain but they just went the overly safe direction of straight up evil. She literally lived with and raised Rapunzel, posed as her mother, seemed genuinely interested in Rapunzel's happiness and wellbeing, but with the fatal flaw of being dangerously overprotective. A parental trait that's incredibly relatable and yet scary in extremes. It seemed like such a perfect fit for the kind of drama and tension the movie needed. Even her song is literally setting her up as "overprotective mother going too far" and they built in a reason for her to be that way due to literally needing Rapunzel to stay alive.

And there was a genuine chance for them to show Gothel as concerned about Rapunzel as a person. Gothel may have stolen Rapunzel out of necessity but she easily could have enjoyed the familial bond that she formed with her. And then been genuinely concerned about Rapunzel's reaction to finding out she's not her mother not just because it means it ruins that familial bond but because Gothel's life is on the line and THAT is what puts them in conflict as antagonist and protagonist. It's melodramatic but at least it has substance which is more than just "stock evil witch" villain that we got.

Perhaps I'm explaining it poorly, but I was so excited about the possible ramifications of Gothel's song but the movie was just a total letdown after seeing that potential.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #187 on:** December 31, 2015, 04:48:51 AM »

Oh no, absolutely. I basically remembered her as a complete non-entity, but the song there is... the character she could have been, yeah? I forgot she even had such a thing in the movie. So more props than I had previously given were in order, even if she still suffers from not living up to that potential.

Excal · « **Reply #188 on:** December 31, 2015, 05:08:46 PM »

Eh, I disagree. I always got the impression that Gothel didn't want a familial connection to Rapunzel beyond what was necessary. Rapunzel, after all, was not a person, she was just her flower of eternal life having annoyingly gained sentience and become much harder to retain ownership of, since it foolishly thought it belonged to itself. And so we get the psychological mind games and the various strings to keep Rapunzel under control so that the flower will always be there for Gothel.

Seeing that dynamic, Rapunzel trying to grow while Gothel wants to diminish and control her, limit her to simply being a tool, is the heart of the movie. And to try and sell "Oh noes, she may find out I'm not her real mother" as something Gothel would care about when her primary concern is depersoning Rapunzel, they just don't feel like two concerns likely to go together.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #189 on:** January 02, 2016, 01:33:59 PM »

Yeah, that's kind of what I was saying. Instead of being nuanced, she was just evil, what with the whole depersoning thing.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #190 on:** January 11, 2016, 09:56:50 AM »

Wall-E

The Best Pixar Movie.

Okay so, way back in Inside Out, I noted that "feels like Pixar" included '- Uplifting humanist messaging without talking down to the audience.' That was always meant first and foremost in reference to Wall-E. In particular, the scene where Wall-E meets Mary. She's babbling away over her headset to some unidentified person about bad dates, and desperate to get past her, Wall-E turns her chair off when she fails to respond to anything else. Her first reaction is... utter awe and really seeing the Axiom and the world around her, quite possibly for the first time in her life. If you want a visualization of Pixar and what they believe in, those three or four seconds are hard to beat.

So the visual brilliance of the movie is pretty obvious. They spent a lot of time creating what I'm pretty sure are the ruins of New York, complete with a completely drained harbor, and the design of the Axiom tech, and the detailing of Wall-E's bunker and giant stacks of trash and etc. 'Define Dancing' is one of the more iconic moments of the entire 2000s. It's interesting to me that they went out on a limb like this, considering their previous work was very talky and focused on character building through direct dialog. But hey, they pulled it off.

The really fantastic part though is we have a movie that is so blunt about its themes people actually started finding extra ones because they had to use other overt themes to get across their original overt themes, I never felt like they were sacrificing the integrity of the movie to do it. Knocking people out of their complacency feels natural to Wall-E as a character. The relationship between EVE and Wall-E makes sense. The Captain's lethargy in the beginning sells me on his declaration of "I don't want to survive, I want to LIVE".
And hey. Basically the entire main cast are a pack of dorks. Wall-E is a collector, EVE is a wanna be action heroine, the Captain does an on-screen wiki-walk. So I think they may have had a damn good idea of their target audience, y'know.

Rating- 9/10

Captain K · « **Reply #191 on:** January 11, 2016, 12:33:36 PM »

My problem with Wall-E is that it is really fucking depressing. Not really enjoyable to watch because the future it paints is so bleak.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #192 on:** January 15, 2016, 06:33:42 AM »

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Season 2)

A lot of this season feels like background noise to me. There's a seeming reluctance to put the main characters in the same place too much, so they're having to juggle a lot of plotlines all at once to keep everyone in the loop as it were, and I think the show overall suffers for it.
It also has a lot of stuff that feels like it was there for homage or fanservice that I don't think will go much of anywhere. Boba Fett, the Zillo Beast, so on.
Although at least one of the straight homage episodes was cute. Seven Samurai in Star Wars? The devil you say.

Weakest Episode- Weapon's Factory. Ah good, teenage girls bickering.

Best Episode- The Mandalorian episodes are strong in general, and of them Voyage of Temptation stands out a bit for having a few moments that scratch fanboy itches. "You won't shoot me Duchess, you can't give up your precious pacifism! And you Jedi, you are weak before your love!! AAHHH AHAHAHAHA*grk*" *IMPERIAL MARCH* "What? He was going to blow up the ship."
But no, I think they just go a great job of implying just enough of a connection between Obi-Wan and Satine that we believe they might have become star crossed lovers, but instead chose the path of duty. And that this decision does hurt them. It's especially the sort of thing you can imagine of the younger Obi-Wan, and why I actually think of Ewan McGregor as definitive in the role rather than Alec Guiness.

Yeah. I honestly at one point watching this season put in a disc and got through half an episode before realizing crap, I'd watched this one and forgotten it. I dunno what it is, since there's certainly a good episode or three here but... I dunno.

Rating- 6/10.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #193 on:** January 16, 2016, 06:52:05 AM »

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

In some ways this is a bundle of ideas that doesn't quite tie itself together. Bruce's former lover loses her family and goes down the dark path he himself oh so narrowly avoids. A new Batman-like villain squares off between Bats and the Joker in a tragic three way. Bruce's crusade to protect the knight almost ended before it truly began.
But to large extent I find myself wondering... what's so special about her? It's not that Andrea lacks personality really, but I guess they just failed to capture any real spark between her and Bruce, and without that to push past the sheer coincidences demanded of the story it just doesn't flow as a single coherent plot.

But god damn does the movie sparkle when you take any individual scene or transition and look at it in isolation. The placement of the flashbacks is led into quite nicely, the framing of the major dramatic moments is amazing (in particular: Bruce at the Wayne's tombstone, begging their permission to be happy, storm raging all around). The movie drifted a little more PG-13 than the show could, to generally solid effect. It certainly enhanced the dark mirror aspect of the Phantasm anyway. The bit where the Joker toys with the old gangster is probably on my list of definitive Joker moments now. Alfred has a particular line that's reused in this fan-made Batman vs Superman trialer that seems... just perfect for Batman, and I didn't realize it was actually from this movie.

I overall like the idea of this movie a lot more than the movie as it exist I think. What's there is fine, but this is something that could with just the right chemistry have been the pinnacle of the DCAU. Still, as a collection of moments, it's still reasonably impressive.

Rating- 8/10. Waffling a little but I'll err high today.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #194 on:** January 16, 2016, 09:14:27 AM »

Batman and Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero

Basically a two-parter padded out to the length of a three-parter.

Well that was easy.

That really does sum it up, but obviously we should break down what I really mean by that.

So Mr. Freeze kidnapping one of the gang like this is obviously a bit higher in stakes than usual, and there is a sense of closing off his overall story arc, which is nice. But where the previous movie felt like it was trying to go a new place with the characters and be an event (I don't think it quite succeeded, but that was the intent), this is more just putting a nice bow on one of the show's story arcs.

The larger problem is the sense of padding. The climax mostly falters here; yes, I get it, the thing is exploding. Exploding it more does not really make it be any more on fire or deadly than it was. We have to save the invalids and run away, that's great, please focus and stop showing me yet more explosions. The repeated escape attempts by Barbara also drag on, but at least that does serve some purpose (hey guys, you fucked up and picked the superheroine to kidnap! She's not gonna let you steal her organs uncontested!) They probably could have gotten away with shortening the initial escape a little bit, especially considering it just leads up to "oh fuck we're on an ocean" and maybe just left some of the shooting gallery portion to our imaginations or something.

Actually I think some of the point of all this was as a Batgirl showcase, and while that's not remotely what they promised with the, y'know, title and packaging, if you knew that and signed on for it, hey, you're gonna get a good show. There's also a pretty decent chase sequence between Mr. Freeze and Robin! Not very much Batman though. This is another reason it feels a bit more like an episode, because if I'm remembering it's placement in the release order, it came out while the show was on hiatus before returning as the New Batman Adventures or whatever, and the episodes of the series right before that did focus a lot more on Batgirl and Robin than Batman himself as a rule.

Rating- 6/10. Enjoyable enough, but not a lot of meat to it.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #195 on:** January 18, 2016, 08:04:13 AM »

Kung-Fu Panda

My biggest thought here is the movie wants to sound way more profound than it can actually back up. I suppose that might just be a consequence of being a the sort of kung-fu movie that it is, but yeah. It wants to be philosophical and inspiring and generally rings hollow. There's a few things going wrong here I think.

- There's too much cast and not enough bonding between them to sell me on the "be yourself!" theme. There's like a scene and a half showing the furious five warming up to Po before devolving to a pack of extras. All the interaction between him and Shifu that's not Shifu fucking with him is in one montage. The scene with Oogway works... because the character tropes Oogway falls under means that one scene between him and the hero is what the audience should expect. They wanted to have their star-studded cast but also keep the movie kiddy cartoon paced and something had to give.
- Po's got obvious self-loathing problems and the other characters picking at them is uncomfortable. I mean, these dudes are already local heroes, defenders of the peace and all that. Picking on the fat kid is a bit beneath you isn't it?
- They go back and forth a lot on what the heck Destiny is supposed to be, and wrapping it in pithy sayings just makes it sound like you're trying to pull a fast one on me.
- Similarly, why DOES Po stay? He gives several different answers and none of them feel true.

But y'know? That sounds more damning than it is. The movie puts on airs of being mystical and kung-fuey, when at heart it's another light-hearted but very faithful take on a genre as Dreamworks is wont to do. And when it's just doing that, being a comedy kung-fu flick staring Jack Black as a panda, it's fine. Some of the humor at Po's expense does have a bit of punching down to it, but for the most part a lot of it is him being infectiously excited about everything and it's pretty fun to watch. I adore the opening sequence in particular. It has juuuuuust enough of a "Fanboy's First Bad Fanfic" styling to get the idea across without being annoying about it, and the art style lacks that same-y feel a lot of Dreamworks of that era had (and indeed like the actual movie has).

I really don't have that much to say about the plot. The movie puts a lot of comedy in between the scenes of course, but it takes elements from across all sorts of kung-fu movies and plays them pretty straight. The sincerity of Po makes it work better than it could, but it's still very predictable and stock in a lot of places.
The fight on the bridge is pretty cool though.

Rating- 6/10. Fluffy popcorn fun. Just don't let it try to pretend it isn't that.

dunie · « **Reply #196 on:** January 18, 2016, 11:45:27 PM »

I've always thought Kung Fu Panda spoofed profoundness, and when serious, leveled at the same maturity of other animation films.

Man.

I'll still see the newest one!

Edit* BECAUSE PANDAS ARE SO CUTE

Dark Holy Elf · « **Reply #197 on:** January 19, 2016, 01:16:00 AM »

I did not like that movie much.

It's probably best to sum up why with the sequence in which Po is able to become a great kung fu master, not through hard work but through... some hand-wavy nonsense about a love of food. And just to prove it's no accident he then goes and solos the final boss who just beat up all of his friends who have been training at this stuff for years. (Incidentally I had zero problem with them initially resenting him, although yeah they could have been less mean-spirited about it.)

It's well-animated and entertaining enough, so it's quite functional if all you're looking for is to have a good time with Jack Black voicing an adorably animated panda and doing cheesy kung fu stuff, but I feel like it sends all the wrong messages, and that's pretty unforgivable to me given its target audience.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #198 on:** January 30, 2016, 09:26:51 AM »

Ratatouille

Y'know how when you know a lot about a subject stories about it usually become hard to watch because it turns out writers don't usually know shit about shit and get everything wrong?

Yeah Ratatouille isn't that movie. That is actually pretty close to a what a brigade kitchen looks like and that is actually a lot of the little tips you're supposed to learn and cooks actually are, in fact, all insane.

It's the little timers going off in your head all the time.

It's actually a strange sort of family movie though, because if we're being blunt most of the movie is every character using the other characters. I meant yeah nobody goes out of their way to be an asshole but it's not something you see a lot: there's a lot of acknowledgement of everyone's own personal hangups and selfishness. Some of it is probably just the really out of whack power dynamics between any two main characters, where the lead is a literal rodent and each subsequent character is the direct subordinate of the next most prominent character.

Honestly though while I do like Remy as a character I don't feel like his stuff with his family later in the movie really adds anything. I guess you need a sort of breaking point so that both he and Linguini have wronged the other? But I guess that I felt like his arc reached a reasonable enough conclusion in the pretty early going and you really didn't need more than maybe one scene later on for him to kinda go "no, I was right, and I can't let rejection keep me down". It could also be just that I care more about the human cast.

In general though Ratatouille is known to have had some production issues, along the lines of "we had to replace the director and Brad Bird had to redo chunks of script when he jumped into the project", and you can see some of those seams. Linguini's and Remy's stories don't always feel like they go in the same movie, even though the two of them do make sense as a unit. It's not wholly jarring because they do try to make the culture clash part of the story, but you can still tell.

Still, it's cute, and actually more or less knows it's stuff which is nice.

Rating- 7/10

SnowFire · « **Reply #199 on:** January 31, 2016, 05:32:40 AM »

I dunno, I consider Ratatouille a 9/10 and up there with WALL-E in the Pixar pantheon, and I don't know or care much about food. Can't really defend that or anything, it's just a movie that does nothing wrong and tons of stuff right and had me smiling the whole time. Felt like an unusually cheerful Roald Dahl work.

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