Editorial: Netflix has low standards

 

It's no big news story to many that Netflix has become one of the dominant names in the entertainment industry. It helped usher in the era of streaming, it features many originals and has been the home for many movies and shows that could not, or would not, be put into theatres or on TV. Netflix has pretty much replaced cable for many people and has a wide selection of shows, movies and specials. Quite frankly, Netflix is to movies and TV as Steam is to gaming... and there in lies the problem.

For those of you who aren't big into gaming, Steam is an online distribution platform run by video game company Valve, and is host to many games ranging from the Triple A titles to the small indie developers. It has been host to many games like The Stanley Parable, Ark: Survival Evolved and other well known indie titles. It has also been the home of such games as The Slaughtering Grounds, a first-person shooter that used prebuilt assets to cobble together a barely functioning game made by developers who tried to sue a Youtuber for libel and defamation because they didn't think his coverage of their game was fair. Steam was also the home of Day One: Gary's Incident, Air Control, Operation: Caucasus, Fur Fun and so many other badly made games made by egomaniac developers with easily damaged pride. Steam has become a dumpster fire of a service because of it's low standards and lack of will to police their storefront, and if you want more about that topic, just go to YouTube and type in "Jim Sterling Steam", you'll get enough videos to fill you in. Jim Sterling was the YouTuber that the developers of The Slaughtering Grounds tried to sue by the way.

I mention all of that because, much like Steam, Netflix seems to having similar issues. Netflix, has low standards when it comes to what they call a "Netflix Original", giving that title to anything that might give them an edge over other streaming services no matter how dreadful.

While Steam has had their titles like Air Control, or Day One: Gary's Incident, or anything published by Digital Homicide or any of the endless asset flippers who try to sell base games as their own work (Cough UnitZ Cough), and to suggest that Netflix has titles similar to that level of quality is... honestly kind of accurate.

What does Netflix have as an original from this year? Well, they have released Animal Crackers; a movie that, God bless everyone who worked on it, really, but desperately needed a rewrite.

They released The Larva Island Movie; A painful kid's movie with lousy animation and predictable jokes and situation outcomes.

They released Pets United; which I think is a generic kids movie that showcases just how low the standards Netflix has are.

They released Fe@rLeSS_; the latest turd given to us by Vanguard Entertainment, which if you anything about that studio you would know not to be proud of having their movies on your service.

Oh yeah, they also released Cuties; a movie that gained a lot of controversy because of it's subject matter which was not advertised as a commentary.

Before 2020, they released stinkers like Duck Duck Goose, Gnome Alone (Another Vanguard disaster) and Next Gen which was not a good movie so don't @ me!

Yes, they did release Klaus, which was a good movie, and they did release The Willoughbys which... I didn't really like, but it seems people enjoyed it so... However, Steam also had good games, a lot of good games, but we're not talking about those good games because Steam has a reputation of being overly generous to bad game developers. Now, I'm not saying Netflix is as bad as Steam is, Netflix hasn't decided to allow just any independent creator pick a company name and upload a movie onto their service, however, that doesn't mean Netflix isn't getting there.

At the very least, Valve doesn't seem to encourage games like The Slaughtering Grounds or Day One: Gary's Incident beyond just letting them take up shelf space on their store. They don't advertise them, they don't mark them as "Steam Originals" and they don't even seem to be really proud of them, they just have them on their service. So, maybe comparing Netflix to Steam isn't really apt, it may be more apt to compare them to Sony.

The PlayStation 4 Storefront is a mess of games that, just like Steam, are made by developers with little talent or effort and just take away views from good and more promising games. Games like Life of Black Tiger, Flowers Are Dead, Cat-lateral Damage, and Skylight Freerange 2 Gachduine (No I did not make that one up) are not only on the PS4 storefront, but also advertised on the official PlayStation YouTube Channel, meaning that Sony is proud in some capacity to have these games on their service. In a similar way, Netflix has branded movies like Cuties, like Pets United, like Duck Duck Goose and whatever Vanguard put up as "Netflix Originals", again, meaning that in some capacity, Netflix is proud to host these.

Now, I am not saying that Netflix is going to become as bad as Steam or the PS4 Storefront, it really does seem like Netflix won't let any random nobody make a movie or show for them. However, so far, it really does seem like they are already the Steam of the Streaming Services. They have a lot of good stuff but some really bad stuff they are pretty much exclusive too, they don't seem to really care about the quality of what is on the service, and the only thing that makes them not like Steam is that they actually seem proud to host a movie like Cuties or Gnome Alone. Yes, they have The Witcher, they have She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, they have Glitch Techs, and Steam has Ark: Survival Evolved, Team Fortress 2 and Passpartout, that doesn't change the games they have let pollute their storefront.

Netflix is going down a path that, if they are not careful, will lead them directly to the same end result as Steam, once a well-beloved and sacred storefront, now a punchline and one of the last places actual people making games want to end up in. If Netflix continues to put the "Netflix Originals" name on crap movies, they will be in the same place, a punchline to many people who are making their own movies, I can already hear someone saying "I'm going to put my movie on Netflix, and than I'm going to release it to the public" or something like that, and I don't want that, nobody wants that. Nobody wanted that for Steam, but that is what Steam is now, and they really only have themselves to blame.

The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Cut (2013): A much better film than what was officially released

In my last review I looked at the officially released, highly edited version of The Thief and the Cobbler. I said it was one worth avoiding because there was an alternate version that was more in line with the late Richard Williams' vision. This is the Recobbled Cut, and is it overall a better film than the Miramax release?

The plot is the same, a young cobbler named Tack gets in trouble with the grand vizier named Zigzag after scuffling with a thief, which gets him taken to the palace where he meets the Princess Yum-Yum. After the thief takes some magical balls that protect the Golden City in which they live, the king panics, especially after hearing that the evil King One-Eye is coming to conquer their city. Now, Tack and the Princess must find a way to protect their city and defeat the evil King One-Eye, but the vizier Zigzag has his own plans to wed the princess and rule the city. Again, the plot is solid, nothing special but I gotta say, the inclusion of some deleted scenes make the plot so much better than a B, definite A- grade. We actually get to see the villain's demise, see what Zigzag was planning to do with the imprisoned Tack, and the Witch in the desert even tells the group what they need to do to defeat the villain. Again, this plot is nothing special, but including these scenes took the plot from a B to an A- in grade.

The characters have been improved a little bit too. First off, the narration is gone! That's right, the re-edit removed Tack's narration, in fact, the film removes Mathew Broderick completely, and now Tack no longer comes off as a generic hopeless romantic, it's really funny how removing a character's dialogue can actually improve them. Speaking of which, they also cut out Jonathan Winters from the film, and trust me when I say that makes this film a lot better. There is no more annoying dialogue that shoe-horns in modernisms and references, and so much of the Thief's thoughts are communicated through his body language, which is so much more interesting than having someone narrate everything he thinks. The other characters don't have too much drastic changes from them, but I don't think they're too bad. The characters no longer come off as generic tropes, which is a drastic improvement. While they still are not the best characters, they stand out a bit more from the Miramax version.

In some other good news, this film has no songs! Hooray! The songs really were the worst part of the Miramax cut, since they tried way too hard to be a Disney movie and it really showed in the songs, which were weak and forgettable. That being said, not everything I didn't like about the Miramax cut has been removed, the "Night on Bald Mountain" reference is still there, and some of the editing I mentioned is still here. In the case of the latter, I'm going to assume the film was going to be like that in the first place, probably not how I'd do it, but it is what it is. In the case of the former, I'm going to assume that because "Night on Bald Mountain" is a public domain piece, it really didn't matter. Oh well.

The animation is, again, superb, beyond excellent. It's so smooth and fluid and even surreal at times. The Recobbled Cut also includes some unfinished test animation, storyboards and deleted scenes, and the flux in visual quality can be a bit distracting, I never thought it was too much. There are times they cut to an unused shot that is only about half-a second long which got a bit distracting, but other than that I was not too bothered by it. I suppose it will depend on the viewer, so if the constant cutting from completed footage to incomplete storyboards will bother you, I get it, but if you can let it slide, well then I'd recommend checking out this version.

Yeah, I think this is a much better cut of the film than the Miramax cut. I'd go as far to say that this is the only version that anyone should view. The characters are better, the plot is better, it feels less like it's trying to be a Disney film. It's funny how slight improvements to the elements make this a much better film. Overall, while I can't say it's incredible or that great, it is definitely worth checking out. You can find it online if you're curious, though depending on where you live that might not be very easy to find. Still, if you're willing to search, I'd recommend it, it's a fascinating and beautiful film and a great way to honour the legacy of the late Richard Williams.

The Thief and the Cobbler (AKA: Arabian Knight) (1993) - A poor attempt at Disney-fication while tearing apart an artist's vision

If I were to bring up the name Richard Williams to any of you, what would you know that name for? Richard Williams was a British-Canadian animator whose work is highly regarded by film critics and animation fans. He is most known for being the animation director of the 1988 classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but he has also done a 1971 adaptation of A Christmas Carol alongside Chuck Jones, directed and animated the 1977 Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure, and did title animation for films like 1967's Casino Royale and 1975's The Return of the Pink Panther. In 1964, Richard Williams began production on what was to be his crowning achievement, the film would be released just shy of three decades later. Remember when I talked about Animal Crackers and its troubled history? The Thief and the Cobbler is a history lesson in and of itself, I do not have the time to go through the entire production of this movie, but in the end, the film was taken from Richard Williams and was re-edited and turned into something different. This is the version many people know of today, and it was released by Miramax Films. Was this movie worth the troubled production-no it wasn't... kinda sorta... let's take a look!

The plot follows a lowly cobbler named Tack in the city of Baghdad, who falls in love with the beautiful princess Yum-Yum, however, a thief steals three magical golden balls from the top of a tower, and thus plunges Baghdad into peril. The great wizard Zigzag offers to trade the balls for the princess' hand in marriage, but after the king refuses point blank, he offers them to the powerful villain King One-Eye, who lays siege upon the golden city. Tack and the princess must find a way to defeat One-Eye and save the city. Plotwise, the movie is mostly solid, it has some filler moments, some moments that drag on too long, but no real major plotholes. That being said you can see where the plot is going and which character is which and yeah, the large character dressed in black and voiced by Vincent Price is the bad guy? You don't say </sarcasm>. That being said, I can give this movie a solid B for plot, maybe an A- on a good day.

Characters are not the films strongest point, though these aren't the worst characters I've ever seen, Tack is your standard protagonist, humble, do what is right, brave, not very interesting, except that he has the worst narration I've seen in any movie yet, it never goes away and feels the need to explain everything going on in the film. To give some comparison, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, kept the narration silent during big emotional scenes, and The Muppet Christmas Carol got rid of the narrators during the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come segment, this movie does not do anything of the sort. The thief has an inner monologue that is Jonathan Winters trying to be the Robin Williams' Genie character, with the modern references and that stuff. It was charming with the Genie because it was Robin Williams and his energy is just the right level of enjoying to watch. Jonathan Winters is not as energetic, and his references come off less like Robin Williams ad libbing for comedy and more like Gex. Remember Gex? Really, none of the characters are that interesting, I'm struggling to think of one nice thing to say, the princess is bland, the villain gets no screen time, the wizard suffers from the Unicron problem of only being interesting because of the voice actor. The only character I find has anything really interesting to say is the King, who does have some moments that make him better than other father characters. Yeah, the characters were not very memorable in this movie.

The biggest problem with this film though is just how hard it tries to be a Disney movie. I know that Miramax was a subsidiary of Disney at this time, but they did distribute some other films like... Freddie as F.R.O.7... um... Bionicle: The Movie - Mask of Light?... Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys? Oh forget it. My point is that this movie fails the hardest when it does try to be a traditional Disney film. Especially in the songs category, oh goodness the songs in this movie were dreadful. They had bad lyrics and forgettable melodies, give Playmobil: The Movie some credit, that movie had one song I remembered. Not that the rest of the audio is anything special, the background music was mostly ignorable, and they at one point played a snippet of "Night on Bald Mountain", all I can say is... Rocko did the parody better.

The one thing I can praise this film for though is the animation. I mean, it is smooth, surreal and one of the trippiest visual rides I've seen since Yellow Submarine. Again, this is a case where simply explaining how good it is would do the film a disservice. In fact, the animation is so good, that I would almost recommend the film just for the animation alone. It is a very surreal and very visually pleasing style, lots of the camera work is smooth and flows with the scenes. In fact, I think the only problem I have with the animation is sometimes the editing does not work in the animations favor. There is one scene where the Thief is bouncing off of awnings, but instead of following him on every bounce the camera cuts to a new awning and only follows him on small occasions. It's kind of distracting how different the editing makes the scenes feel, and that isn't the only problem with the editing. They also removed a lot of scenes, including the end battle climax, and the villain One-Eye's demise, in fact the film does have quite a few editing issues, scenes that don't gel together, reused animation. Individually, it isn't frequent, but you do notice it when it happens.

I... don't know how to really rank this movie. On the one hand, no, it is not a very good movie. In fact it's rather bad, but the incredibly good animation really does make this film worth watching. I guess it is a good compromise since we'll never get to see Richard William's true vision for the film, since he passed away in 2019, so... wait... there is a way we can see a film closer to his true vision. Yeah, I remember now, some fans have pulled together some cut scenes, scraps of test animation and more to make a version that is closer to the version that Richard Williams was hoping for... so yeah, I guess because of this films uninteresting characters, bad attempts to ape Disney and some really poor editing choices, I guess this film really isn't worth watching in the first place. In fact, this film probably isn't worth the curiosity of checking out for the animation... Yeah, if you want to see the animation, check out the Recobbled Cut of the film, or even just watch some scenes on YouTube, you can probably find the Thief and Cobbler chase pretty easily, so... yeah, I'd recommend avoiding this film, check out the Recobbled Cut instead.