Okay, full admission here, I did not really want to do this. Not that this is a bad movie, far from it, I think it's really well done. However, it is not a movie for me. Sometimes you watch a movie that is just not something you're into, and that's okay. However, this movie has a lot of... discourse for want of a better term, surrounding it, and to top it all off Disney is facing another controversy, and if that wasn't enough, there is a certain blog post or two that may need some addressing. So, I'm going to give you my very quick thoughts on the movie, the stuff I liked about it, the stuff I didn't really like, and then I'll go into all of the other stuff surrounding it.
So, Turning Red. I don't think I really get to talk about Pixar on this blog that much, I mean the last First Impressions blog I did on one of the studio's movies was Onward, and the last Pixar movie to get a proper review was Toy Story 3 back when I did my Toy Story marathon in preparation for Toy Story 4. I really don't talk about Pixar that much, and it's a shame because they are one of my favourite studios. Granted I haven't watched all of their movies, but I definitely put them pretty much at the same height as Laika. So I was at least interested in Turning Red on the merit that it's the latest Pixar film. Pixar has been doing something very interesting recently, as more and more of their movies are about people. I mean they still have their movie about a non-human protagonist, but for most of the 2010s, they've been about people or human like people. I think this is a very interesting direction and I'm curious to see where it will lead.
As for Turning Red itself, I do think it's a good movie. I really like the animation style, sure the mouths did take a bit to get used to, but the eyes, oh my goodness the eyes. The eyes were like a perfect mix of anime expressiveness and CG liveliness. On top of that I love the character designs, I like how they aren't the typical "Little Girl" type designs, they aren't the "glitz and glamour Hollywood picture perfect" cute girl design. I think this is wonderful. I'm not too fond of the writing, well, not too fond of it until the last third or so of the movie. Look, one of my biggest worries of Encanto was that I was going to tell where it was gonna go and, yeah I had that feeling at times during the movie. However, the characters, I think we all knew at least one of these kids growing up, like we all knew a Sid or a Remy, we either knew these kids or were one of these kids. I like Mei's father, I think he's a great parental figure. This movie is full of good elements, and I do not want anyone to walk away from this post thinking that I hated this movie, aside from the plot, I like pretty much everything about this movie. Plus, being set in Canada just made it a bit more familiar for me, granted I've never been to Toronto (West coast is best coast), but still, it's nice to see a more mainstream movie that is set in my home country.
So, why was the movie getting scrutiny before it came out? Some people didn't like the art style, some people thought the characters weren't realistically written, and some people just think a movie like this counts as pandering. Look, it's okay if you don't like the art style, being someone who never cared for Klasky-Csupo I get it, sometimes a style just does not appeal to you. However, I don't think I've ever used Klasky-Csupo to put down anything, not western animation, not 90s cartoons, not Nickelodeon. That is one thing I can't stand about animation discourse, most people will just look at one piece of western animation they don't like and try to hold up some garbage anime because "It looks better, forget the story and characters, looks are all that matters." Yeah, this is why I stopped playing modern video games. If you don't like the visual style, that's fine, but don't act as if that is the be all or end all of a cartoon or movie. As for the other complaints, I'm not even gonna dignify them. Maybe these kids don't act like real kids, and Sponges don't live in Pineapples, and traumatized children don't fight crime dressed as a bat, it is fiction, and it can take some liberties, and if this movie is pandering, than what would you call it if Pixar made a movie specifically to cater towards the people complaining about this movie, because that is also pandering you know.
And about my previous Pixar post, I wanted to save that for this post, but I wrote that all the way in January because I just could not hold onto it until now. So, do I still think Pixar is in trouble? Maybe it is a bit pessimistic to see Pixar and the "next Blue Sky Studios", but I'm still gonna be cautious about it. We'll see how Lightyear gets treated and then I'll make the call on whether I was right or wrong. Really, I was envisioning this post a lot more like my Adventures of Buck Wild post, which I spent just ragging on Disney and that was the plan for that post. Man, if only I had waited, then I could have written something about Bob Chapek funding the "Don't Say Gay" bill in Florida, which tells people by law what they can and can't say, which is censorship. Literal, actual censorship that is against the first amendment. #DisneySayGay #DontSayGayisCensorship
No, I'm still not gonna forgive Disney, for anything. However, I will be honest and say when I'm urinating on their head. Turning Red is a good movie, I think it's a well-made outing from Pixar, do I think it's gonna be the best animated movie of the year? Considering what I have seen so far, I don't think so. Really this just is not a movie for me, I'm putting this along side Coraline and Wolfwalkers. However, even in those cases I do have to say that the movie is still worth seeing, so what if it isn't for me? It's not hurting anyone by existing (Music), asking people to look past some really insensitive material (Dog) or being an insult to cinema or animation (The list of movies I could name here are numerous, so let's just pick The Lion King 2019 as the blanket example), if you enjoy it, I'm not going to fuss. It is not my thing, but I still give it a recommendation.
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