First Impressions: The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild (2022)

Disney... We need to talk.

Look, I get it, movies get scrapped for a variety of reasons, it sucks but I can overlook the canning of Nimona if something super spectacular comes along to take its place. In Nimona's place, you gave us Raya and the Last Dragon, a movie that is just fine, and nothing else. You gave us Cruella, which did not need to exist. You gave us Encanto, which almost makes up for Nimona, but then you bring a Blue Sky property back to life for... why? Why are you bringing back Ice Age? Nobody is clamoring for the return of this franchise, because the franchise started going downhill with the second movie.

On principle I don't want to watch this, because let's look at the facts. Fact number one, Disney acquired Blue Sky during the Fox acquisition. Fact two, Disney closed down Blue Sky in 2021. Fact three; Blue Sky was working on an adaptation of the graphic novel "Nimona", which a lot of people were anticipating. Fact four; Disney decided to scrap the Nimona project, along with a bunch of other promising projects that Blue Sky was working on. Fact Five; The next thing we see from a Blue Sky property is a sequel to an Ice Age movie that goes directly to Disney+ in January. The facts show that Disney cut a movie that a lot of people were anticipating and gave us a movie for a franchise a lot of people wanted to stay dead. If I wasn't giving the benefit of the doubt, I would assume that Disney only greenlit this movie as a show, to say "See, we do care about this studio and their franchises", despite giving us a garbage movie and saying "well clearly you guys don't care about the franchises, I mean look at the viewer results".

I'm giving Disney the benefit of the doubt here, despite the fact that I highly doubt they've actually earned it. Companies operate on how much money a product could make, but I have doubts that Ice Age would make more money than a movie that a lot of people were vocally excited about. I can only assume Disney either did not know about the hype surrounding Nimona, or they were aware of the hype but were afraid of pissing off some bigoted market, and let's just say, Disney is no stranger to editing movies for said bigoted countries.

Oh and let's talk about other movies that Disney is planning on releasing, like that Snow White remake that Peter Dinklage has called out for dwarfism, and also could be a movie with the Snow White tag on it. Disney's also releasing another Rio movie, that'll be fun to talk about. Oh yeah, and Turning Red is gonna be Pixar's next movie to go directly to streaming. Which leaves me wondering if Pixar is gonna be the next Blue Sky and we're gonna get a Toy Story 5 out of it, but let's not dwell on that topic anymore. Disney has been making a lot of bad decisions, and the new Ice Age and Rio movies might just be the worst of them. Well, of their recent decisions, I mean their messing up of Copyright Law and the hiring of Eisner and Katzenburg might have been worse than this one, but that is talking with the added benefit of hindsight.

Why was all of that important? Because, screw Disney!

As a huge Disney fan, I can say without any hesitation, screw Disney, and I'm keeping it there because I do want to keep my swearing to a minimum with this blog. Disney represents the very worst of the entertainment industry, at least the entertainment industry that doesn't include video games, but we'll see which company they end up acquiring. Disney is devoid of creativity, almost discouraging creativity, does not listen to their audiences, and aren't even very good at pandering or virtue signaling. Disney makes great products, on occasion. I wasn't kidding when I said Encanto was Disney's best film in years, and it sadly might be Disney's best film for another few years. Disney has and can give us a lot of the best stuff, while representing the worst of it all. That is why I can say, screw Disney.

And screw this movie too, it's dull and boring and unfunny. No disrespect to the people who worked on it, but it really does feel like a TV show that was retooled into a movie, something Disney has a shocking amount of knowledge about. Did Michael Eisner really leave Disney? Because this seems like something he would suggest. It has all the failings of a movie that was meant to be a TV series, because this movie was meant to be a TV series. Quite frankly, I'd say don't watch this movie on principle, but it's not even worth breaking those principles for, and quite frankly, I think I should be paid to watch movies like this. Screw Disney, don't watch this movie.

First Impressions: The House (2022)

 

Netflix, Netflix, Netflix. I have made my thoughts on Netflix quite clear in the past, they peddle a lot of crap under the "Netflix Original" brand and if they don't shape up they are going to go down the same tube as Steam, with really the key difference being that Steam is a store-front, having Steam is free and buying your games is what costs you. Netflix is a service, you pay for the service of watching movies and TV "for free", which is a whole argument in and of itself but that is irrelevant. Netflix has released some good movies in the past, Klaus and Arlo the Alligator Boy were good movies and could have really meant something for Netflix, if they didn't share the same spotlight as trash like Pets United, Duck Duck Goose and Vanguard's dumpster fires of animated movies. It really does say something that a lot of the big animation reviewers I follow like Cellspex and Animated Antic, rarely even talk about these movies with a few exceptions. Netflix has gone from the king of the hill to desperately sticking its name to anything to stay on top.

So I consider myself obligated to look at The House, a brand new anthology film brought to us by Netflix and Nexus Studios, a studio that is most likely known for music videos and a couple short films under their belt. I can't really find a full list of their work, not even on their official website, but it does look like they aren't strangers in the industry. The House caught my eye from Cellspex, who tweeted about it and said she was glad to see another animated horror entry. On top of that, it was a stop-motion feature and an anthology film, both of which I am eager to talk more about on this blog. So we have another entry where I'll be asking the question, does this sink Netflix's reputation even lower? Or can it help save them?

As mentioned prior, The House is an anthology film, consisting of three stories that revolve around a peculiar house. I guess I'll give you my initial thoughts on each story and then give a more general overview of the movie.

Our first story follows a poor family of four as they are given the opportunity to move into this fantastic new house. However, things start to go strange as they spend their first night in the house. I do have to say that the atmosphere was delightfully unsettling, with all the little ways that we can tell the parents are getting a bit too sucked into this world. It's almost like a Twilight Zone episode in a way, I'd actually really be interested in seeing what an animated Twilight Zone series would be like, but regardless this was a good first story to the movie. I really can't go much more into it without spoiling it, so while I do have some nitpicks, those delve into the spoiler zone, and unlike Onward, my feelings about this segment do not hinge around one big reveal.

The second segment follows a developer, who is an anthropomorphic rat, as he preps the house for a showing. The atmosphere in this one is perfect, the white noise of the place is all that you will hear in the background for most of it. The hum of electronics and the sounds of the street perfectly give us the setting and the mood. Anxiety is the main mood of this segment, and it can make this a bit of an uncomfortable watch, and there is also a segment where the lighting is a rapidly flashing array of colours like a really bad rave. It also has a really strange musical dance sequence, which was actually kind of cool. The music was actually pretty good and stop-motion dancing is usually going to be a fun sight, especially for fans of this form of animation. I'll be honest, I sort of skimmed through this one, the anxiety was a bit too much for me, but still, this was a neat little segment with an end that I genuinely did not see coming.

Our final segment focuses on the house surrounded by a flood, while the landlady, who is an anthropomorphic cat, wishes to fix the place up for more tenants while the ones she has are unable to pay rent with money. Then a strange friend of one of the tenants arrives and completely upends her plans. This one is a lot more sad bleak than the other two. While the first one was more of an unsettling horror and the second one was more of an anxious one, this is more of a bleak one. Even the ending doesn't come off as a happy one. It is not really the unhappy ending of the last two, but not the happiest either.

You know, it's kind of amusing in a way that this is the first movie I see of the year. In the last bit of 2021, I was getting antsy, I wanted to move out and get a place of my own, and 2022 is the year I plan to start planning. I feel like this movie has the overall these of materialism, how the things we want can consume us. It's somewhat fitting that the final story has the happiest ending of them all, showing us there is a way, there is hope. There is hope. However, that is just my interpretation, so take that with a grain of salt.

I do have to say that the animation of the movie is excellent. I feel like Stop-Motion animation is getting more recognition now-a-days, with the popularity of Laika. That being said, stop-motion is often pigeon-holed into one of two categories; a stop motion movie is either a horror or horror adjacent movie, or falls into the realm of uncanny and unsettling visuals. I do like Laika because they did try other non-horror genres with Kubo and Missing Link. That being said, the directors of these segments definitely knew how to use the visuals to their advantage, with the first segment having a soft look to it that made the actual story a lot more unsettling.

Overall, I did enjoy The House. I can't say it is one of my favourites, and I'm not anticipating it to be one of my favourite films of the year, but it's a well made movie that I do think does deserve some recognition. I will give it the caveat that this is not a movie for kids, I hate that I have to give that caveat but it is what it is. I think my only point of contention is that every article I've looked at said this film was a dark comedy, and I really don't see it, but that may just be me. I don't think this movie will bring up Netflix's reputation for myself, but I don't think I'll be too bent out of shape over people giving it tons of praise and acclaim. It's no Klaus, but it's in the same boat as Arlo the Alligator Boy, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you want a good, unsettling movie, I give this one a recommendation.

TV Impressions: Gravity Falls

 

My first impressions of the 2017 DuckTales series seemed to do well, (At least well enough for me) so I thought I'd try talking about another show that I have just finished recently; Gravity Falls.

Gravity Falls was, and kind of still is, a much different show from Disney. They've never really done a show that was part fantasy, part mystery, part comedy and part horror before. Sure they've had episodes of some shows that delved into darker aspects of the concept or characters, but nothing to the extent of Gravity Falls, at least, not to my knowledge. This show was kind of a big risk, and like a lot of risks, it seemed to not pay off very well in the initial responses, anyone else remember WatchMojo putting it on their most hated Disney shows list? However, it's become a fan favourite, and even NoMojo said to forget that list ever happened (Never!), so in the end, what do I think about the show?

Gravity Falls follows the Summer vacation of twins Dipper and Mabel Pines as they are sent to live with their Great Uncle at his tourist trap, "The Mystery Shack", in the titular town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. While their they uncover a large mystery about a strange Journal that Dipper finds in the forest, and all of the strange and peculiar goings on in the area. Being a mystery series, I don't want to spoil the reveals, but if you are invested in the plot and characters, the reveals are going to be exciting. This is a very serialized series, you can afford to miss an episode or two, but you are going to miss callbacks if you do, and you can not watch this series out of order. I brought up serialization in the DuckTales blog, and I still stand by that it is a good balance of serialized and episodic, Gravity Falls definitely leans towards the serialized in this regard, but in the end Gravity Falls has one major advantage that a lot of other serialized shows (Like anime) don't have; Length!

Gravity Falls is only two seasons long and each season is twenty episodes long, give or take an episode. This gives it a huge advantage over other shows because, if you go at a pace of five episodes per week, you can finish the series in four weeks, so the serialization is not really a deal breaker since the entire show can be binged in a decent amount of time.

On top of that, I really did enjoy the characters. Dipper and Mabel have a kind of idealized, but also sort of realistic sibling relationship, though I may be biased because my own sibling relationship was... turbulent to say the least. Still, it is nice to see that they aren't at each others throats all the time, but they do get on each others nerves. The characters around them are fun, Stan is a really slimy conman, but a bit more on the fun side than the slimy side. He'd make a fun villain if he was the antagonist. Then we have the other two employees at the Mystery Shack, Soos and Wendy. Both of them are loyal friends to our leads. Wendy is laid back and calm, but does show her emotional side, and Soos... Well, Soos is the man! He is a bit dim, but not to the point where he is unaware of what is going on around him. The rest of the townsfolk are fun, and they're used sporadically so they never wear out their welcome. This brings us to Bill Cipher, who is a good mix of entertaining and frightening, maybe leaning a bit more on the threatening side. After a while his more humourous side became a lot more unsettling.

Much like DuckTales, there are a lot of hidden secrets in this show. Unlike Ducktales, the secrets are ciphers, puzzles that lead to... something. Look, I wasn't a part of that whole Gravity Falls treasure hunt thing that happened, but it is a very interesting part of this show's history. Really, the show kind of revels in the cryptic and conspiracy, right down to the main baddie being, essentially the illuminati symbol. I can see how Alex Hirsch ended up working on Inside Job.

So, why was the initial reaction so off? Well, was it really? What you got to remember is WatchMojo is often a fan-voted list, and a lot of people might have just been put-off by it because it was a departure from the usual Disney show, and because it was, at the time, a modern cartoon. People really tend to prefer the cartoons of their generation and not the ones that come after. I think it was simply the effect that a lot of cartoons get when they're new and shiny, someone is going to dislike it simply because it's new and shiny, only in this show's case, it wasn't 1999 and someone on a message board, it was 2014 and the internet has changed a lot since the 1990s. Other than that, reception of the show has been fairly well positive, so I don't think the show's initial reception was really that negative. Yeah, I know that seems odd coming from the writer that just published a blogpost that expresses worry over how Disney is treating Pixar, but this one comes mostly from hindsight.

Overall, I really enjoyed Gravity Falls. I was really invested in the mystery angle, I enjoyed the characters and I thought the reveals were really good. Of course, the entire show was built around the mystery, so those things had to work. I think the show also hit a good balance of horror and humour, and was over an enjoyable time. If I had to pick my favourite episodes; Land Before Swine, Society of the Blind Eye, Not What He Seems and of course the Weirdmageddon finale. As for least favourites, Roadside Attraction and The Love God, were just a bit awkward for me to get into. As a whole, I definitely recommend this show, if you like mysteries and spooks, this may be the show for you.

Editorial: Is Pixar being treated fairly?

 

So, we got some big news about the new Pixar animated feature, Turning Red. We got the news that it is going directly to Disney+ this March, skipping a theatrical release. This is keeping in line with what Disney has been doing with Pixar's releases since the pandemic hit. This however, does make me raise the question; Is Pixar being treated fairly by Disney?

On the one hand, it's hard to say yes because, well it is not exactly like pulling a film from theatres in this time is a bad idea, and it was said that Turning Red would not be put behind premier access. On top of that, they are still getting a good push and it is not like Pixar is going to be the next Blue Sky Studios. It's not hard to see this is less as mistreatment and more of a case of circumstance, in fact I raised this question to Animated Antic on Twitter and he replied that it was most likely a matter of bad timing, and I can definitely see that side of the argument. Plus it really is not like premier access has that great of a reputation really, so the answer is no, right? Disney is just taking safety precautions towards Pixar's films, yes?

Maybe, this is a big "Me feeling" I'll grant, but I can't shake it. Theatres are open, and this is not an argument about whether or not they should be, but the fact is that a lot of theatres are open, and what movies are they playing? Spider-Man: No Way Home, Encanto, West Side Story, as of Wednesday, January 12th 2022, those movies are playing in select theatres near me. Why are these movies still getting theatrical releases, and are still playing in theatres, but Turning Red does not?

It most likely is a money issue. The last Pixar movie to be given a theatrical release was Onward, which was a fine movie, but a bit of a predictable one. It was also a bit of a flop. According to Variety, Pixar films typically cost 175 to 200 Million dollars to make, Onward only made about 62 Million domestically, and 81 Million internationally [Source], I am being generous with the numbers here, but even with accurate data the total profit does not break even. The information does not lie, Onward was not a theatrically successful theatrical outing, and why this is, quite frankly it should be obvious, it was because it was released early in 2020, in that little period of time where we were aware of the pandemic but were hopeful that it wouldn't last for nearly three years. It can't even be argued that Pixar has been on a downward spiral these last few years because the previous movies before Onward were Toy Story 4 and Incredibles 2, and say what you want about those movies, they were very successful. [Source]

Onward's failure can mostly be blamed on the pandemic, yet for whatever reason, Disney seems to not understand that, because guess what animated feature got a theatrical release despite coming out in early 2021, pretty much in the middle of the pandemic. If you guess Raya and The Last Dragon, you would be right, and also understand why my feelings towards that movie has gotten even more sour over the months since I did my First Impressions, but that's irrelevant. Raya and Encanto were given theatrical releases despite the fact that the pandemic was still happening. To me, this says that either Disney is arrogant or Disney is sabotaging their own studios, and I'm only assuming one or the other because it would be way too easy to assume that Disney's doing both.

I may be being a bit harsh on Disney, since I do doubt that Disney would be so stupid as to try and kill off one of their biggest subsidiaries. Disney and Pixar have become next to inseparable in the minds of many movie goers, in fact, you could probably name every single Pixar film before you could name all of Disney's theatrically released films. So, what does Disney have to gain from destroying Pixar? Well, let me ask a different question, what does Disney feel like they're going to gain from keeping Pixar around?

Pixar was a very different studio from Disney back in the day. Disney was still in their renaissance though definitely in the second half of it, where it started to go downhill and lead to the second (Third?) dark age, but between that time and the 2010s, Pixar was pretty much keeping Disney afloat. They stood out with their CG animation and more adult stories and characters. Now, the only thing that does separate Disney and Pixar movies is the more adult stories and characters, and it's often a subtle difference. Let me put it this way, Merida is an official member of the Disney Princess line, a line that never once featured a Pixar character. I can't really describe it better than that, it really does seem like Pixar is losing what made it stand out against Disney. For the longest time, Pixar was the only one of the two studios that theatrically released their sequels, than Disney released Ralph Breaks the Internet and Frozen II in 2018 and 2019 respectively, and again, say what you will about them, but it does make the line between the two studios a bit blurrier. At this point, I would not be shocked if Bob Chapek, the current Disney CEO, figured that Disney could do the same films that Pixar is making.

And let's also talk about that "Premier Access" thing. Premier Access has been nothing more than a big pain in the side of many Disney+ users, who did not wish to spend extra money on top of the money they were already paying. Premier Access is nothing more than an exploitation of the Fear Of Missing Out (Or FOMO) of moviegoers who just have to see Jungle Cruise, or Raya and the Last Dragon on release day or else they won't have the ability to get in on the trend while it's hot. My first impression on Raya and the Last Dragon, written when the movie came out of Premier Access, currently sits at a whopping 13 views, whereas my first impression on Encanto, written two days after it came to Disney+, sits at 21 views. Sure, this might just be anecdotal evidence and it's not like I would have gotten massive hits if I was timely with my blogpost on Raya, but it still shows, I got less hits on Raya most likely because I talked about it when the interest had died down.

None of that was actually relevant to the point I'm making, but it does go to show why people would buy into Premier Access, even though it's scummy and is theft in all but legality. However, Disney has put some very big movies behind that paywall, movies like Mulan 2020, Cruella, and Black Widow, which actually got them sued over. So the chances are that Disney might not want to attempt another Premier Access, but that would be assuming that this move would actually hurt Disney in the long run. The point is, that Disney put those movies behind Premier Access, so what does it really mean about them not putting the Pixar movies there? Did they really think they'd get more money telling us the sad story about how one of animations most iconic villains is actually a misunderstood person with a tragic backstory than they would from a Pixar movie?

I realize I'm being very pessimistic here, and that I'm probably over analyzing a bunch of stuff that is actually very meaningless. I do want to be realistic here and acknowledge that this could just be me jumping at shadows, but I can't shake the feeling that Disney is hoping they could have an excuse to axe Pixar. I've seen this before, a video game company would delegate some studios into making games that didn't sell and then shut that studio down citing that they weren't making enough profit. While Hanlon's Razor does state that we should never attribute to malice that which is easily explained by stupidity, there is a point where people only even attempt to get away with some things because they'll know that everyone will shake their heads, call them stupid, and go about the rest of their life. No! EA is smarter than that, Activision is smarter than that, Disney is smarter than that. I don't think this is Disney trying to keep us safe because they clearly have no issues putting other films into the theatres, and I doubt that it's stupidity because we've seen this song and dance before.

I'd love to hear what you all have to say, am I over-reacting? Do I have a leg to stand on in this discussion? Was this all a bunch of nonsense from a worry prone animation fan? I'd like to hear your thoughts on why Pixar movies aren't getting the same treatment as Disney films and whether nor not Disney has anything to gain by keeping Pixar around. I think this can be a fantastic discussion to have.

Update: Plans for 2022

 

So, new year huh... heh yeah, what a year 2021 was eh?

So uh, I ended up not being able to watch that many new releases last year, I could pin the blame on school or because of my social life, but while both of those are factors, the real key point was a general lack of desire and will to do so. The idea of sitting at my computer watching a movie is not so appealing to me, so the few first impressions that I did end up writing, only two of them I ended up watching on my computer, I have not exactly made my computer set up for comfortably watching a movie. So I ended up not getting around to watching movies like Wish Dragon, Vivo, Luca, The Mitchell's Vs The Machines, the Scooby-Doo courage crossover nor the new Mortal Kombat animated movie. They are all on my watchlist, but we're going to have to be a bit patient with that one.

So, what are my plans for 2022? Well, for starters, I'm going to slowly phase out the one review a month plan. This is because, this is going to be my last year of school! Come this April I will officially be finished with Art College, huzzah! Plus, I have it planned that I will essentially take a vacation after college, pretty much a time to get away from the house and just relax. I will still do movie reviews during my vacation, because I will have a lot of time on my hands. So, I'm thinking that come April, I will try to get two reviews out each month, and I may keep it at that. I'm not one-hundred percent on keeping it at two reviews each month, but as of right now it looks like the most appealing plan.

2022 is gonna be a big year for me, personally. Not only am I finishing Art College, but I'm also going to start planning to move out of my Dad's (Finally), nothing is confirmed in that regard, but I'm hoping I can start moving out by the next year at the latest. If all goes to plan, that will hopefully also give me a lot of spare time to devote to this blog, but we'll get there when we get there.

So, otherwise, what else is gonna change here? Well, I'm also thinking about bringing in reviews of animated Television shows. The DuckTales editorial seemed to do well so I'm toying with the idea of giving other shows the same treatment? Currently I'm working through Gravity Falls, but there may be other show reviews in the future. (this may be the incentive I need to finally finish Steven Universe, Daria and my Red vs Blue rewatch) Again, nothing set in stone, but it's something I've thought of doing.

Primarily though, this is still going to be a movie blog, so other than the increase of reviews later down the line, what will movie reviews look like?

Well, I do want to put more focus on older animated movies, like from the 90s back. That being said, there are a few recent movies that have struck my fancy. As of now, I only have three movies confirmed for this year, DuckTales: The Movie (Which I have already written the review for, expect that in February), My Little Pony: The Movie from 1986 (No expected release, may do that around May but don't hold me to that) and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (May save that for Summer). However, I am toying with the idea of reviewing the original King Kong movie.

As for other posts, I'm hoping to do more First Impressions blogs this year. I'm hoping that movie theatres are open to the public again (Plus I'm double vaxxed) so I can easily spend a weekend watching a movie in theatres if I can. Otherwise, they'll mostly stay the same.

As for editorials, I am sitting on some posts, two posts that look back at the first fifty movie reviews, another one about animated shorts and an old one about my favourite Disney songs, but if First Impressions become more regular, I may reserve Editorials for (Shocker) their original purpose, i.e. as a way to add extra thoughts without bogging down a movie review or to talk about certain topics that I want to voice my opinion on. So any editorials about "Entertainment discourse" or "My favourite hybrid movies" will most likely end up being a thing of the past, and I can't say I'll be sorry to see editorials like those go.

That seems to be about it for this update. I'm gonna try and increase my review output, as well as my first impressions output, I'm going to stop shoe-horning editorials onto my blog, and I might start adding TV and Web shows into my review line-up. Alongside my personal life stuff including my Finishing or Art College, and my planning to move, all in all I'm hopeful for 2022. I hope you're all as excited to tackle the year as I am, so I'll see you in February with my review of DuckTales: The Movie - Treasure of the Lost Lamp.

Let's kick this year in the butt!