The Hero of Color City (2014) - Why Do I Do This?

Well, we're getting there, it's almost the end of the year and burnout is setting in, among a bunch of other things because the second half of this year was to put it mildly, not very good for me, so if it seems like I just picked this no name, no audience, no anything movie because it was available on Tubi, looked like a bad movie, and is less than an hour and a half, you'd be right. Usually I try to have some kind of reason I chose a movie to review, but I'm gonna be honest I am very much looking forward to that January off of movie reviews so forgive me if I need something that looks like an easy target. I have reviewed a couple movies that were available on Tubi, some good, some not, let's see where this one falls.

The plot of this movie is Foodfight, and I am only half-kidding when I say that. The movie follows a bunch of crayons as they enter the world of Color City during the night time when their owner falls asleep. Two of the young kid's sketches enters the world and begins to cause trouble by blocking the rainbow waterfall that gives all the crayons their colour, and a few of the crayons, including the timid and afraid of everything Yellow, because fear and anxiety are the colours I associate with Yellow, but I digress, must travel through dangerous lands to reach the top of the waterfall and stop all the crayons from losing their colours. Straight up, this movie is boring, it doesn't tell it's story in an interesting or creative way, and there are a couple scenes that just drag on for an unnecessarily long time. I don't mind movies with unoriginal plots, but you got to have some kind of hook or twist, Klaus had great character arcs, this movie has the bare basics.

The animation of this movie is ugly, it's kind of got that Garfield Gets Real quality to it where it just looks really off, but I would actually argue this movie as being worse looking, because how do you make crayons look ugly? The whole movie has that cheap CG look to it that looks gummy, like those gummy candies of like Krabby Patties and stuff, or like a cross between plasticine and gummy bears, I dunno it just never looked good to me. It doesn't help that lip sync is only about half-synced to the dialogue, it's synced in a way that you can almost pretend that it's properly synced but if you're paying any kind of attention you can tell it isn't. I will say that it is bright and colourful, and on some level I guess I should be less critical of movies that are obviously made under a tight budget, except first-off, I can't find a budget for this movie so I can't definitively state if it is a budget movie, and secondly a limited budget does not excuse the fact that they made tipped cylinders look absolutely awful, I'm sure most studios can make an animated anthropomorphic crayon that isn't completely ugly.

I have to assume that this movie had a decent budget because the voice cast has some fairly recognizable names, okay they aren't the most expensive names in the industry but Christina Ricci, Owen Wilson and Wayne Brady aren't nobodies, plus veteran voice actors like Jess Harnell, E.G. Daily, David Kaye, Craig Ferguson and Tara Strong among others, then again I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't much out of this movie either. I'm gonna be honest, Christina Ricci is terrible in this movie, she's done some voice acting prior and since, so I'm going to assume that she was not given the best direction, but she just doesn't give good reads at all. She voices the main character so she is the main voice we hear, though her singing voice is done by Tara Strong, pretty obviously to be honest, it sounds exactly like Twilight Sparkle.

It doesn't help much that the characters aren't that interesting. Like I said before, the choice to make Yellow the timid and anxious one is, not entirely out of keeping with colour theory, but I mostly equate yellow with cheer and excitement. Other than that, you have your standard geeky nerd, your doom and gloom fun-sponge, your hot-headed and sarcastic jerk with a soft spot, and hey, a geeky know-it-all professor who sounds like Jerry Lewis? Umm... Simpsons did it? They do give some of the characters arcs, but they're very basic, and in some cases it doesn't even seem like they had any kind of change in character. I think the only thing that would have made this movie worse is if this was theatrically released in any capacity, because apparently it was given a limited theatrical release.

Sometimes, to get back on track, you gotta hit an easy target, and frankly I almost feel bad for criticizing this movie, it's such an easy target. It almost feels like I'm punching down, like this movie is not something attached to a massive multi-media franchise, it's not from a major animation or film studio, it's not an independent project that is overly confused and tries to be something more than the creator is capable of, but by the same token, it really isn't anything. It's a bland story with bland characters and ugly animation, like come on, I couldn't have picked an easier target if I tried, outside of some of those knock-off animated movies from Vídeo Brinquedo or WowNow Entertainment. Is this movie one of the worst? Well... I guess it's ultimately harmless, I can't see this being really offensive to anyone outside of those who think animation is more than a tool for keeping little kids quiet, and honestly even at that level I can't muster that much ire towards this movie, there just isn't anything to get mad at. I don't recommend this movie, but at the same time, if you desperately need something to keep your little ones quiet, well I can think of worse movies.

What is the Case with 2024's Animated Line-up?

There has been something really nagging at me as of late, and if you've read some of my previous First Impressions posts this year, you'd know what it is. The animated line-up of 2024 has been, in my opinion anyway, severely mediocre at best... at least for the first half or so of the year. Something about the releases has just made me question, "Am I becoming a jaded snob?", like there really is nothing I can get really upset about with movies like Saving Bikini Bottom or The Garfield Movie, I haven't really watched anything that I felt was an insult to animation, to be fair that notion is a bit of hyperbole, but you get the idea right? To me, the majority of the "Bad" animated films this year have been more on the "Mediocre" side of bad, which wouldn't be an issue, except that until recently, similar could be said about the good movies too. Ultraman: Rising and Thelma the Unicorn are not bad movies in and of themselves, but are they really that good?

I think I know what the ultimate problem is, 2022 absolutely spoiled me. There was just something magical about that year, the good movies were really good, and even the bad movies were interesting to talk about. Off the top of my head, 2022 was just filled with releases like Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, The Bad Guys, The Sea Beast, Apollo 10½, Wendell & Wild, and honestly I'll even throw a bone to stuff like Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Paws of Fury, even Luck. 2022 was not a dull or empty year for animation fans, but why? Well, I think it's partly for two main reasons, firstly, this was 2022. In 2020, there was a global pandemic that basically shut everything down, and in that time, people got to do something they almost never did in this hustle and bustle work culture we've created, they got to relax for a couple days. Being a creative type, I know just how good the power of relaxing can be for your creativity, so finally getting that chance to properly relax must have been so relieving to a lot of these writers and directors, so throughout 2020 and 2021 they got to work and polish up these ideas of theirs and then voila, 2022 came around.

I think the other big thing to keep in mind is, this is the 2020s. I write for a living, I'm really good at this! Okay, so the 2010s were a big game changing decade for animation, there was a new movie studio coming in that was gonna rival Disney and DreamWorks, Cartoon Network released two major cartoons that changed the landscape, Adventure Time and Regular Show, there was this itty bitty minor show that completely blew up called Friendship is Magic, and through the 2010s it was very clear that the animation landscape was changing. Shows like Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, The Amazing World of Gumball, Over the Garden Wall, Sonic Boom, Teen Titans Go!, Rick and Morty, BoJack Horseman, Bob's Burgers, Dan Vs., OK K.O.!, Ultimate Spider-Man, DuckTales, this was a new era of animation, and it began with the new decade. On top of that, internet animation was becoming bigger, streaming was becoming bigger, and there was this little movie that released at towards tail-end of the decade, a movie that would become one of the most influential pieces of animation of all time; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. So it would make absolute sense that the influence of the animation from the 2010s would seep into the projects of the 2020s.

The 2020s has the potential to be an amazing decade for animation, and as of now we're still pretty early in the decade so it still does, so... why aren't we reaching that potential? I think a lot of people will make the same arguments, "We're gonna get peaks and valleys", "It takes time to make a movie", "Not every year is gonna be golden", and I understand those points, I do, but they explain nothing. Yes, it does take plenty of time to make an animated movie, but as we have learned with The Thief and the Cobbler, time does not make a good movie automatically, so what is ultimately the reason? Why aren't films like Thelma the Unicorn or Orion and the Dark really reaching those heights? Again, it is easy for me to say "2022 was a big year and it gave me a lot of expectations", but I think there is a little bit more to it than that.

There has been a massive problem that goes beyond animation. When Technology becomes better, more possibilities are open, meaning more trends are started, the problem is that it is easy in the moment to call something a "Trend Setter", something that is wholly different and unique, but art trends and business trends are not the same thing, when something like Into the Spider-Verse comes out, artists see it as something grand, the way the stylization brings the characters and world to life, thus breathing new life into the story. Businessmen however, they tend to view it differently, they see that this popular character got a movie that is making big bucks and getting a lot of attention, so they want to see how far this trend will go, why do you think The Minecraft Movie is live action? are we really shocked they decided to do that after all the attention that the Sonic the Hedgehog movie got?

Simply put, I believe we're in something of a transitionary period, 2022 was kind of an outlier of perfect, and not so perfect, ideas that were being thought at the perfect time, looking back, I should not have been surprised that the best movies were coming from Netflix of all places. I think the big problem is that nobody is quite sure where exactly to go from here, the world of stylized animation is a great place to explore, but it might be emptier than we'd like it to be. I remember watching Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and noting that the action scenes were definitely influenced by the stylized look of movies like Spider-Verse or The Bad Guys, but I wouldn't say that Puss in Boots is a heavily stylized movie, it looks like any other DreamWorks production. I do think we'll be seeing a lot more movies with stylized CG animation in the future, but I think a lot more of them will be Puss in Boots instead of Spider-Verse, and it's because we're at a point where the artists have to figure out the "how" of it, and that is always the difficult part.

To be absolutely fair, Transformers One, The Wild Robot and Piece by Piece, that Lego Pharrell Williams documentary, have been pretty good, so I think we are getting back on track. We are seeing the influence of the 2010s and of 2022 starting to really take form. Piece by Piece, a documentary told via Lego animation is a unique idea, we don't see many animated documentaries out there. The Wild Robot was a stylized movie, and Transformers One, well it was just really good, and that's great too. I'm really hoping that 2024 is the last really dry spell of animated features, I hope 2025 begins to really shape a new era of animation in theatres. We can argue about whether the 2020s have been a good decade for animation, but I hope it will be as interesting as the 2010s.

Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998) - A Perfect Halloween Feature

Scooby-Doo Movies are pretty much a dime a dozen, wow that line feels familiar. Back all the way in December of 2018, I had the itching to watch a couple movies that I was nostalgic about, that is what pretty much started this blog. The second movie I ever reviewed here was Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School, a charming, if a little sloppy Television Film. However, it wasn't until the late 1990s and early 2000s that Scooby-Doo movies would become dominating, all starting with Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island in 1998, I'm actually not that much older than this movie. I think it's about time that I give a Scooby-Doo movie a better written review, and it should be perfect for Halloween.

The movie actually takes place in a bit of a time jump, if the Mystery Gang is high-school age in the original show, here they're all adults. Daphne, being fed up with how every mystery they solve ended up being a guy in a mask, takes on a different job as a TV Reporter, with Fred being her cameraman. While Daphne desires to find a real ghost, Fred gets the old gang back together as they explore the hauntings of New Orleans. After a montage of duds, they get a tip from a woman named Lena that a local island holds a real haunted house. I like that the plot is not too out of the ordinary for a Scooby-Doo episode, there is still a mystery and still a bunch of ghouls, only this time, they aren't guys in masks this time... well by some technicality the bad guys are people in a mask, but spoilers. The movie really is asking, "What would happen if the Mystery Gang was up against real monsters?" and I think they nailed it.

None of the characters feel out of character here, Velma is still the inquisitive one, Fred has a thing where he always tries to find logical explanations to everything, which is fitting since he's seen all of this before, so, being one of the more logical of the crew, he would try to find logic in everything. Shaggy and Scooby are still Shaggy and Scooby, and Daphne had a bit of an upgrade, going back to the original 1969 series (Yes, Scooby-Doo is that old) I really do struggle to think of what Daphne offers to the group, but in this movie she is very much taking charge, you could say that she's slipped into the leader role of the gang, it's actually kind of refreshing, and it makes sense given the trajectory of the character arcs. Daphne, going into TV hosting, would be taking more a lead role in this case. On top of that, we have some new characters, and I like that they throw red herrings our way with them, though I can't spill too much here, again spoilers.

One thing I also want to comment on is the voice cast, because this is probably as good of a voice cast for the Mystery Gang as possible, Frank Welker being the only person to reprise his role from the original show, and most of the other cast being replaced for one reason or another. Billy West steps in as Shaggy, B. J. Ward steps in as Velma, and Mary Kay Bergman might be my favourite Daphne, I'll have to do a lot of comparisons, but she is currently at the top for me. Don Messick, the original voice of Scooby-Doo, passed away in 1997, so he was the only original actor they couldn't bring back with Casey Kasem refusing to reprise the role unless they made some changes to Shaggy's character (Honestly, it sounds like he was being a bit of a diva), Heather North being replaced after only a day of recording, and Nicole Jaffe being in retirement at this period of time. Anyway, Scott Innes steps in as Scooby-Doo in this movie, and he's pretty good, I grew up with Frank Welker being Scooby, but Scott does a good job. Other voice actors like Adrienne Barbeau, Tara Strong, Cam Clarke and Jim Cummings all do great jobs, and a Mark Hamill cameo is always admired.

What is also worth admiring is the animation, done by Japanese Studio Mook Animation. I have said before that going Direct-to-Video or DVD is usually a better option for movies based on cartoons, because it allows them to keep the style they have without having to give it that "Cinematic Shine", I think this movie is a good balance of the two. It definitely looks better than any other Scooby-Doo product prior, and that is a bit of a curse as much as a blessing. The animation looks great, the zombies look wonderfully decayed, but, and I am fully aware this may just be because I've been reading Uzumaki lately, there were some scenes that did squick me out a little. I wouldn't say this movie is entirely on par with the work of Junji Ito, but there is some light body-horror in here. There were multiple times throughout this movie I just had to squirm and go "Ick!", but in this case I am willing to say that it is a good thing.

And because I know some people will be shocked if I don't mention it, the music in this movie is pretty great. Everyone goes crazy for the song "It's Terror Time Again" by Skycycle, and yeah, it is a pretty great song, though I also quite like "The Ghost Is Here", I think that one should also be put on some Halloween Playlists.

Honestly, I can list Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island as another movie that I am absolutely shocked was as good as it was, I always heard it was good, but I just figured it was good " by Scooby-Doo standards" which by this point has gotten pretty abysmal, but I'll be damned this one was actually good. A solid mystery, great animation, good amount of light-horrors, a rocking soundtrack, and the delightful characters that we've all grown to... well tolerate at this point, but loved back then. I really do think this is a great movie to put alongside stuff like Hocus Pocus or Coraline for a solid Halloween movie night. I'd say it's not as creepy as Coraline, but I'm not a good judge for that considering. Still, if you are tired of the Hocus Pocus and Corpse Bride and you haven't given this movie a chance, put it on, I think you'll be shockingly surprised.

Re-Evaluating Zootopia in a Post ACAB Climate

Earlier this year, I did a review of the movie Zootopia, largely because I wanted to analyze its connections and differences between the movie Elemental. I mention this because, there has been an interesting kind of shift in how some people look at the movie this decade. I stand by what I said in the review, but there is one aspect I didn't really touch upon, and that is largely due to me not thinking about it while writing the review. See, in the 2020s, a movement was started to highlight the many flaws of the police force, largely centered on the United States, but as a Canadian I can also ask where the Hell is the RCMP on all the missing First Nations women? This particular movement has been nothing new, we've been saying similar things for ages, but now it had a real name behind it, ACAB, which is an abbreviation which I would love to share, but you probably already know what it means and frankly I still have my no swearing rule. This movement has also made some people change the way they look at media, and Zootopia, starring a police officer, has been one of those things people have started to look at differently, and I think the first thing I want to say is, I get it.

The perception of art changes for many reasons. I remember on my side Tumblr, I do a thing called the "Bad Album Cover Advent Calendar", which is where I share a bunch of hilarious, ugly or weird album covers. One of the covers was David Crosby's If Only I Could Remember My Name, a ridiculously cheesy album cover that I began to see in a different light because, not too long after I planned the selection that year, David Crosby passed away. This is something that a lot of critics tend not to discuss, because our jobs are to talk about movies, and we have to watch a lot of them, so we don't really get the chance to re-watch a movie and re-evaluate it. You really do learn the hard way plenty of times that your initial impressions usually don't hold up, and what influences these factors can be a lot of things, including major events, a death of someone involved in the work or in your life, and yes, the current political climate can also be a major factor in how a movie is perceived.

I think the reason the ACAB movement didn't occur to me while writing my review is largely because the movie is about prejudice, and not just the prejudice that Judy faces, but also about Judy facing her own prejudices. Something I did neglect to mention in my initial review was that Judy did have to face her own prejudice towards, and I really hate that the movie uses this term, predators, particularly Foxes. I do want to state that a movie where a cop realizes and deals with their own prejudices would probably be very much appreciated in a political environment where we're trying to make the police force admit to and deal with their own prejudices, however, I think the reason people aren't seeing it this way is largely tied into my biggest criticism towards the movie, the world-building really sucked.

To quote myself; "I think the problem is that they wanted to portray Zootopia as an ideal and not a metaphor, so places where they could easily show prejudices being prominent are not really there."
I say this because throughout Zootopia, the movie, they constantly want us to believe that characters like Nick, Finnick and Duke need to be conmen because the rest of the world doesn't trust them, but because these are the only three characters we see as conmen types, it hurts the main theme of the movie. Because they wanted to portray Zootopia, the world, as an ideal, a Zoo Utopia if you will, they didn't include any background details or off-hand dialogue or any other kind of hint that this kind of prejudice was really happening, like how we see the kind of prejudice that Judy faces or the kind that Bellwether faces. Ultimately, Nick is the only character we really see how the prejudice he faced really affected him, how he decided to play into the stereotypes rather than how Judy chose to fight the stereotype everyone saw her as.

This also brings up another point, which group really was the oppressed in Zootopia? Because we're lead to believe it's the prey being oppressed, with Bellwether's villain reveal and motivation being the biggest clue, but again, because the movie's worldbuilding is lacking, we don't see many cases of rabbits or sheep or mice or whatever being dismissed, being denied anything, or anything that could be seen as discrimination. Even the prejudice Judy faces, it's not like she's really facing that much. Like, she is allowed in the academy to start with, and sure the place is not built for her or others like her, but it's more likely that this was an oversight rather than specifically targeting a group of people, like you can easily believe that Judy was the first to not only make it through the academy, but even apply in the first place, and her instructor genuinely seems happy that Judy passed, like yeah she was hard on her, but I can imagine she would be equally hard on other recruits in training, so while Judy did face some prejudice, it really isn't enough to tip the scales.

To bring it up again, Maus did this idea much better, as Art Spiegelman specifically made the Jewish people mice and the Nazi's cats, this made it clear in our minds who was who, which was which, and what side we, as the reader, should be on. Zootopia doesn't really have that, it's kind of difficult to see Judy or Nick as minority figures because the mix of animals in the world kind of dissuades the viewer from thinking about it all in terms of human racism. Is Nick meant to be a minority? If he is, what minority is he specifically? If he was a desert Fox like Finnick, or had a POC voice-actor, it might have been easier to identify the struggle. Zootopia kind of wants to have its cake and eat it too in this regard, it wants us to identify with the world and characters, but it also doesn't want us to see it in terms of the real-world. It wants us to identify with the struggle and connect it to prejudice, without really connecting it to any one prejudice in particular.

To be fair, it isn't like police prejudice is the only prejudice out there, or even represented in the movie, so it could be very easy for anyone to imagine Nick as any another distrusted minority, like a Middle Eastern or Trans person. I think the idea that Nick, and all the characters of Zootopia, have to specifically stand in for one group of people is stupid, but the problem ultimately is that on some level, Zootopia does want us to think of it in these kind of terms, and it isn't good at doing it. With the whole, mistrusted dynamic, Nick could easily be seen as "The Minority Character" while Judy could be "The White Character", but with the whole predator/prey dynamic the movie implements, the roles very well could and should be reversed. Which is a problem because the police force was predominately filled with prey type animals, while the big criminals and con-artists are predator type animals.

One argument I did think about while proofreading this article was, "It's not that the movie wants you to think about it terms of predators and prey, but more of big animals with all the power and small animals with none of it." I thought about it, and I have to come to the conclusion that everybody understood the point they wanted to make, but nobody understood how they wanted to make it. In terms of Big animals vs Small animals, you could view the movie in those terms, but again, we don't see any ways that small animals are being discriminated against, they seem perfectly accommodated in Zootopia, and if they did try to do a "big animals vs small animals" thing, they really didn't do a good job of it when you consider that Bellwether was targeting predator animals indiscriminately, usage of that word being ironic.

I do want to stress that I don't hate Zootopia, but the worldbuilding is flawed and that leads to the message being flawed. I think lumping Zootopia alongside with other quote "Cop-aganda" is missing the point a little, the movie is about prejudice, I don't think it's spreading any message beyond that. With all that being said, I do have to think that the message being relatively weak is why Zootopia gets considered "Cop-aganda", it is confused in how it wants to get its message across. I said in my review of the movie that the more effective a story about prejudice is, the more adult it has to be. I said that because when you aim for an audience that isn't sheltered and impressionable, you have a lot more tools at your disposal, in keeping with this metaphor, it feels like Zootopia had some tools, but not enough of the right tools for the job. Should we keep giving the side eye to Zootopia in our ACAB climate? I'm not gonna answer that because honestly I don't really care, it's Zootopia, not Birth of a Nation.

Small tangent, but can we also stop that meme with Nick Wilde and Robin Hood, please? Yes, Nick became a cop, but Robin Hood was a royalist, so unless you want to convince people that Monarchies are good, stop it.

Lightyear (2022) - A Standard Action/Science-Fiction Flick For Better and For Worse

Thankfully this time I don't have anyone I owe an apology to. It really does surprise me just how bad of a year Disney had in 2022, not all of their cinematic releases were bad, but many had some sort of baggage attached to them, Turning Red and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers being the most notable examples, and most of the movies just had terrible advertising, looking at you Bob's Burger's Movie and Strange World. I will admit, 2023 and 2024 have kind of forced me to re-evaluate how I saw 2022's animated feature line-up, and since their has been some ramblings about Lightyear again, I figured, even though I would like to wait five years before reviewing a movie I did a First Impressions blog on, that now would be a good opportunity to give Lightyear another look, and see if my initial impressions hold up.

Lightyear is the origin movie of the beloved Pixar character, Buzz Lightyear, and follows he and his crew as they become stranded on an alien planet. Thanks to some time dilation brought on by FTL Travel, Buzz finds himself years ahead in the future, and his crew decided to stay on the planet instead of leaving. After one more test for hyperspace travel, Buzz finds himself further into the future and leading a small junior troop of trainees to take down the invading robot army from Zurg. So... itty bitty thing, some people may view this plot as a bit complicated, and to be fair I may have put more description into it than necessary, but I kind of followed it decently fine. I grew up with science-fiction, Star Wars was the big one, but I also knew Red Dwarf, Stargate SG-1, and knew of Star Trek, though I wouldn't get into it until at least Young Adulthood. I don't find much of this all that confusing, if anything, it's kind of plain and standard for science-fiction.

I think some people might have expected, or even wanted, this movie to evoke the vibes of 90s Science-Fiction movies, to which I have to reply... why? Like what was big in sci-fi in 1995? Congo, Johnny Mnemonic, Judge Dredd, Species, Tank Girl, Waterworld, did you really want Lightyear to be reminiscent of those movies? Like 1990s Sci-Fi was actually pretty lousy when you look at what was actually released, yes there was lots of good stuff, but your Jurassic Park's and Freaked's were few and far between. Then again, it isn't also like they were really trying to evoke the feelings on 90s Sci-Fi, a lot of the writing and cinematography is very much 2010s sci-fi. Whether or not this is a bad thing I think is perfectly fine to argue about, personally, I can see both sides of the argument, this is meant to be a movie from the 1990s, the opening text straight up says this is the movie that Andy saw in the theatres, so a more 90s style would have given this movie more of an identity. However, once again, science-fiction movies in the 1990s sucked, at least sucks by today's standards, so I honestly don't think it would have made the movie that much better.

What would have made the movie better is a change in plot, because I really liked the relationship Buzz had with Commander Hawthorne at the start of the movie. I could tell they were friends for a long time and it did hurt Buzz to see how much of his friend's life he was missing out on. That montage in the first third of the movie, I would have loved to see that get fleshed out into the entire movie. Not that the other characters are bad, but they are kind of standard. You have your cowardly character, your gruff character that's just done with everything, your character that has high aspirations and needs to learn to overcome those few things that hold them back. Of course, you also have your twist villain, I'm not gonna bother hiding any spoilers here because, most people already know this, but Zurg is actually a future Buzz Lightyear. I think this irritates a lot of people because it means we have to put the relationship between Zurg and Buzz in previous iterations (most notably the Star Command TV Show) into a different light. I don't really mind it, but then again I never watched Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. So, on the one hand it's not a terrible twist villain, but on the other hand, there had to have been a better option here, right?

Speaking of better options, the animation in this movie is lacking. Not the animation itself, it's pretty solid, it's Pixar standard, no I'm talking more about the colour palette. It is largely brown and yellow, and it's just no pleasant to look at. Thankfully, when the palette does change, like the bright colours of hyperspace or the blues of the night, it doesn't look too bad. I feel like everything about this movie is just a one to three steps short of everyone's expectations, and I get it, after Soul and Luca we were kind of expecting something great, right? Well... I wasn't, I don't want to come off as saying "I knew better" because frankly, I didn't watch Soul or Luca, so obviously I didn't, but I did expect a decently entertaining movie to welcome one of the best animation studios back onto the big screen. This is a very, temper your expectations kind of movie.

I think therein lies the crux of why I don't hate Lightyear, if you're anticipating a half-way decent action/sci-fi flick, you're gonna find it here. I think the biggest problem is that people expect a lot of Pixar, and also have a lot of emotional ties to the Toy Story franchise. It really doesn't help that as far as canon is concerned, we're actually getting the Buzz Lightyear story in reverse, like we got the Star Command series first, then this movie, plus four Toy Story movies, so we can't really separate Toy Story or Buzz Lightyear of Star Command from this movie. I think if this wasn't tied to Toy Story, and was just a dumb sci-fi popcorn flick, people would have reacted much better, so I really don't know what to suggest here. Overall, I don't think it's a bad movie, trust me, I've seen much worse, but it definitely isn't one of Pixar's best. I'll go Slight Recommendation because I think, in the right mindset you can enjoy this movie, but even then, there is probably a better option for you out there.