Franklin and the Turtle Lake Treasure (2006) - A Wonderful and Respectable Adventure For Young Kids

 

Hey, It's Franklin! Yeah, I wanted to do something else that was relatively easy to review because, movie review last week, but I'm getting back on schedule, as a bonus for me it's another movie based on a property for preschoolers. I remember watching Franklin growing up, if I remember correctly I even had a Build-a-Bear turtle that I named Franklin, I think I preferred Franklin over Little Bear as a kid, but I don't actually remember too much about it now, I remember some episodes, but I think Little Bear just kind of stayed with me longer. To be fair though, Franklin had the better theme song, sung by Canadian icon, Bruce Cockburn (pronounced KOH-burn). Anyway, I wanted something familiar to review this week, so I chose Franklin, and as another bonus, this movie is available on YouTube via the officialfranklin YouTube channel and the Treehouse Direct YouTube channel.

Franklin finds his Aunt Lucy has returned to Woodland, and brought her Goddaughter, Sam along. Wanting a real adventure before the summer ends, Franklin and Sam are given an old map drawn by Franklin's Grandmother that lead to a small time capsule she buried when she was a kid. Seeing the old map causes her to remember a tragic event in her childhood. When she later falls ill, Franklin, Sam, Aunt Lucy and his friends Beaver, Bear and Snail, travel to Turtle Lake to find the time capsule, and the talisman that was inside of it. I really have to respect this movie a lot, beyond the fact that the plot is well structured with few diversions from the main plot, and even then they keep in the spirit of the theme so they aren't that big. The fact that the story does go to such a dark place, it does not hide the fact that Franklin's Great Grandparents didn't make it out of the fire. I admired The Little Bear Movie because it did not shy away from the dangers the characters could face on their journey, and similar can be said about this movie.

I feel like I should talk about things like this because, animation has a reputation amongst certain audiences as solely being for kids, unless it specifically goes out of its way to be raunchy and violent, and that does lead to a certain kind of image. I've ranted about this in the past, movies like Mummies, UglyDolls, Robinson Crusoe, Open Season, movies that are just uninterested in being anything other safe entertainment for children, stuff that doesn't stick with them as they grow up. Now, I'm not saying we should be letting children watch Felidae or anything, but there are plenty of kids movies that take risks, that go into darker places, and it always irritates me when a movie like Open Season or UglyDolls is made, because here is a movie for the same, arguably a younger demographic, and it takes more risks, it makes children experience harsher emotions, possibly more confusing ones. If Franklin the Turtle can take more risks and go darker places than your kids movie, you better hope that movie has some other strength to it, because that is frankly embarrassing.

The characters are charming, Franklin, Bear, Sam, they feel like genuine kids, and they have problems like kids too. Bear has a moment where he feels Franklin is putting someone else over their friendship, and it comes from an understandable place. I also like all the odd characters they meet, they all have their charm and even some kind of magic to them. If you are familiar with the old cartoon, I don't believe there is much difference between the characterizations. Also, Snail is just really adorable. What I can also praise this movie for is the animation. I'll be honest, I do like it when an animation style is polished for a movie, and the movie just has a warm and visually pleasing look to it. The only downside is that both official YouTube uploads are locked at low quality rates, with the Treehouse Direct upload only being 480p. So I would recommend finding this movie on DVD if possible, but if you don't mind 480p YouTube quality, the movie still looks good, just not as good as it could look.

I really was surprised by Franklin and the Turtle Lake Treasure when I first watched it, I love watching movies like this because they really do shoot the whole idea that these movies have nothing good for anyone after a certain age in the foot. Sure, kids will absolutely love the adventure and the pretty visuals, but I feel grown ups will have an appreciation for the story, the character moments, the theme, and the artistry. It really is one of those movies that I believe children that grow up watching will have an appreciation for animation afterwards. Put it up there with The Little Bear Movie and Blue's Big Musical Movie as something perfect to show really young kids. I would probably put this under Blue's Clues, but above Little Bear. All in all, Franklin and the Turtle Lake Treasure is a wonderful movie for kids, and I absolutely recommend it for kids and parents.

Sleeping Beauty (1959) - Disney's Silver Age Equivalent of Frozen

 

Okay, I am back from my trip and as you can imagine, I didn't have a lot of time to really pick a movie. In situations like that, I like to do a review of one of my comfort movies, unfortunately I've kind of already reviewed all of them, The Emperor's New Groove, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, so I figured I would do the next best thing and review a movie that I was still familiar with. I have made comments about Sleeping Beauty in the past, and I already reviewed that Maleficent movie a while back, so I figured it was about time to really put my full opinions out there. I have described it as "Classic Disney's equivalent of Frozen" or something to that extent. What do I mean by that, and is that really a bad thing?

The famous story of Sleeping Beauty is a classic Fairy Tale, we all know it, and Disney does a pretty fair retelling of the story. At a celebration of the birth of the Princess Aurora, the evil Fairy Maleficent curses the princess to prick her finger on a spinning wheel's spindle and die. To protect the Princess, the three good fairies, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, take Aurora into the woods and disguise her as a peasant girl. On her sixteenth birthday, the Fairies intend to return Aurora to her father, so she can be wed to the Prince Philip. However, Maleficent manages to find out and thwarts their entire plan. I think a lot of people may view this as a particularly weak story, and I won't really disagree, but at the core of this movie is a fairy tale, and most of those are not particularly strong or deep stories. As a fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty does do a decent job of telling the tale. I don't think it's as strong as Cinderella, but I can imagine a worse telling of this story.

Another thing people might, and have, criticized this movie for are the characters, particularly the leads... sort of. Aurora and Philip are not the most interesting characters in Disney history, and honestly I don't really know if I can truly call them "The leads". It really does feel like the real "leads" of this movie are the three good fairies, they're the ones that have the biggest discussions, the big dilemmas, even arguably something of an arc. Even then, I wouldn't say they're the best characters in the movie, and you know exactly who I think that honour goes to. Maleficent is easily one of Disney's best villains, and she really has the best of everything in the movie, she has the best design and the best performance. Not that the rest of the performances are bad, but Eleanor Audley absolutely steals the show with this performance, in fact I think this is better than her performance as Lady Tremaine. I feel I should also talk about the two kings, King Stefan and King Hubert, but I feel they could have mostly been cut from the movie.

On the topic of "The best of the movie", I think we can all agree that Sleeping Beauty is one of Disney's most beautiful movies. I've heard it described as "Disney's Living Tapestry" before in a 2019 Article headline by Jen Seggio for moviebabble, and I got to be frank, I absolutely agree. The artstyle and design work is genuinely some of the most gorgeous work of the Disney Crew in this era, if I had to rank all the pre-Death era movies by how beautiful they looked, I think this would top the list, or it would tie with Fantasia. Speaking of, the music in this movie is alright, the backing score is fantastic, but I think the songs are not the best. Actually, that is not entirely accurate, because their is really only one real song throughout the entire movie, and it's repeated like five times. Even the best Disney songs I don't really want to listen to at five points in the same movie. It's a shame because Once Upon a Dream is genuinely a decent song, like I probably should have given it an honourable mention on my list of favourite Disney songs, and there are two other songs in the movie, but they aren't very memorable.

I think I kind of laid out why I view Sleeping Beauty as the Pre-Death equivalent of Frozen, it's an okay at best movie with a weak story and mostly weak characters, but the animation is really great, and it has that one song that overshadows the rest. The only real difference is that Sleeping Beauty has a fantastic villain, while Frozen does not. Still, I don't think that makes this movie "bad" per se, just not one I think I'd actively choose to watch very often. I can imagine this being someone's comfort movie, like the movie you put on when you're having a bad day or are just really sad. Honestly, I get that, I wouldn't argue that Muppet Treasure Island is the best Muppet movie, but it is still one of my biggest comfort movies. It's kind of hard for me to recommend as a movie, but at the same time I can't really not recommend it, I do think it's one of those movies you need to see at least once, so for that, I'll give it a Slight Recommendation. Not a great movie, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to see it.

Top 10 Single Role Wonder Voice Actors

So, I'm away from my computer for the time being, I can't really watch anything or write anything, so I've decided to touch up and old post I never published. I came up with this idea in late 2022, I didn't publish it for a couple reasons, but because I can't really write anything new, I decided to finally push this one out. I should be able to write new stuff next week.

In music, the term One Hit Wonder refers to, multiple things under the same umbrella, but mostly a band or artist who is only known for one song. That song could have been a major hit, it could have been a minor hit, it could have been one of many hits, but it is all completely overshadowed compared to one song. Think of songs like "Take on Me" or Alien Ant Farm's cover of "Smooth Criminal". The term has become a catch-all for most things in the entertainment world, directors, video game developers, and actors. I kinda wanted to do something similar, especially because voice actors can be linked to one role forever.

It tends not to be something you really think about, but then you remember, if someone brought up Clancy Brown, your immediate thought would most likely be Mr. Krabs on SpongeBob, unless your a fan of The Shawshank Redemption. There are many voice actors like Frank Welker, Tara Strong and Tim Curry who can really deliver unique voices and can disappear into their roles, and there are some voice actors like Patrick Warburton and Tom Kenny who are often recognizable, but have enough roles under their belt that you can recognize them beyond Family Guy or SpongeBob SquarePants. Some voice actors, aren't always that lucky.

I think my major rule for this list is that, while these actors can have other roles, they are mostly known for one role. Like, if I were to say "Tom Kenny", you could easily name SpongeBob, Spyro, Ice King and a bunch of other roles. If I were to say any of these voice actors, you would only really recognize them for their best known role. We are going to play a little fast and loose with the definition here, but in general all the rules will be adhered to. So, here are ten Single Role Wonders in Voice Acting.

#10. Jim Hanks as Sheriff Woody

A big part of being a one-hit wonder, or a single role wonder in this case, is having one major thing and not having anything else that massive, in music this often leads to chasing the success of the big hit, but you can't really do that in acting... unless you're major gig is literally providing the voice for your brother. When you're the brother of one of the most beloved and successful actors with a very recognizable voice, it must feel weird to be called in as his sound alike, right? Major props to Jim Hanks for stepping in, and whenever someone needs a Tom Hanks voice, he is always up there, though he is usually stepping in to do the voice for Sheriff Woody. Though he has stepped in for Tom on other occasions, like when The Polar Express got a video game, and he has quite a few live action credits to his name, in voice acting it's Woody, Woody, Woody, and apparently an episode of Milo Murphy's Law. Credit due, he never seems upset about it, like he can do a good impression of his brother and has made a good career out of it, but this is definitely one of those cases where I can sum up most of his career with one role.

#9. Alan Young as Scrooge McDuck

Something you should really consider when you talk about Single Role Wonders in acting, is their performances in other mediums. Some people might consider Mark Hamill a Single Role Wonder since his biggest role is Luke Skywalker, but when you consider his voice acting career, voicing the likes of The Joker, Fire lord Ozai, Skips on Regular Show and quite a few voices on Metalocalypse, you can't really consider him as such since none of those are minor roles. So, one could almost not consider Alan Young for this list either, since some people might now him as Farmer Wilbur on Mister Ed, but for most of you, you'll probably only know him as the voice of Scrooge McDuck. It really does do a massive disservice to the man's nearly eight decade long career, but that is another thing about one hit wonders, the big thing everyone knows you for can change, and though there are plenty of roles under Alan Young's belt, the one everyone will know him for is the money loving miser, old Uncle Scrooge.

#8. David Eccles as Krumm

Here is an odd one, David Eccles is a fairly obscure name in media, though according to his IMDb, he did a lot of sound editing for cartoons, and Metal Gear Solid, and did some composing work. As a voice actor, he has not done a lot, and even then he only appears in a couple episodes of what he is actually in, save for one show. You may not be able to tell what episodes of The Wild Thornberrys or Rugrats he's in, but when I tell you he is the voice of Krumm on Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, that's when you recognize his voice. I don't know why he didn't go into more voice acting, maybe he didn't like it as much as sound editing, maybe he didn't want to be type casted, then again he has largely disappeared from film entirely, according to his IMDb, his last job was in 2008 for a short film called "Kidnapping Terry". Whatever he's up to, I hope he's enjoying it.

#7. Thom Huge as Jon Arbuckle

There has got to be something said for voice actors who pretty much voice an entire cast of characters on one show. Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer have multiple well-loved voices on The Simpsons, but you can find them in other places. Thom Huge has never left Garfield, and despite voicing everyone from Binky the Clown to Roy Rooster on U.S. Acres, the one character who he is completely tied to will forever be the dorky loser owner of Garfield, Jon Arbuckle. It's always sad when a really good voice actor doesn't get to stretch out into other roles, but in this case it may be sadder. Thom left voice acting after Lorenzo Music died in 2001, and frankly, Lorenzo and Thom were like Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, you can't top them and they're an iconic pair. Whatever Thom is doing now, I'm sure he has no regrets about being part of one of the biggest pop culture franchises in the world.

#6. Colin O'Meara as Tintin

Lots of recognizable names on this list, so lets go with one more who is less recognizable, at least this name may not be so recognizable if you aren't a reader of my blog, because this is a name I've brought up before. For many of us in the English speaking world, Colin O'Meara was our Tintin, and his decidedly not at all Belgian voice was the voice of Tintin for many I would imagine. It's amusing because the show had quite a Canadian cast, but some of the actors on this show would be recognizable to most, like Wayne Robson who played Mike Hamar on The Red Green Show, or Maureen Forrester who was an Opera Singer. Colin O'Meara would probably not be too recognized beyond his role as Tintin, unless you're a massive fan of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. His Wikipedia page, which is literally half a paragraph long, also claims he was in Sailor Moon, but citation is needed on that one.

#5. Dan Povenmire as Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz

You can't really consider voice actors for this list who debuted in shows from the 2000s, mostly because they still have plenty of time to really find more roles and get some more notoriety. It does however, kind of stop mattering when your big role is one of the most beloved villains in cartoon history, and when you revel in that iconic role you are kind of admitting that you're okay with being known for one single role. However, to be absolutely fair to Dan Povenmire, voice acting really isn't his major gig, as he was an animation director on both Family Guy and SpongeBob SquarePants, and he wrote The Campfire Song Song. When you look at Dan Povenmire's credits, it's very clear that voicing Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz is just kind of a bonus to his already outstanding career as an animator, director, writer and producer. Keep on keeping on, good sir.

#4. Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn

...Well this just got sad... I came up with this idea early in November of 2022, and I sat on it for a while after it was written because... well you'll see why, but in that time Arleen Sorkin also passed away. I want to make it clear, calling these actors "Single Role wonders" is not meant to be an insult, if anything it's kind of a celebration of how iconic their most well-known roles really are.

I can't really imagine having one major role would be that upsetting to voice actors. I don't think Tom Kenny is losing sleep over voicing Nickelodeon's most iconic character. I can imagine voicing the same character could get repetitive, but when you are also the inspiration to one of the most beloved Batman characters since the comics, I can't really imagine you'd be that mad. Arleen Sorkin was a big inspiration behind Batman villain Dr. Harleen Quinzel, otherwise known as Harley Quinn, and to suggest that the character isn't a pop culture icon would be untrue. People have argued about her portrayals as if she has always been a part of Batman, and for a lot of people, she was. Voicing the character as recently as 2011, it can only be fair to say that Arleen Sorkin gave the character a lot of the personality and mannerisms we associate with our favourite clown woman. Voicing a character that becomes bigger than anyone could really imagine is not something one should sneer at.

#3. Casey Kasem as Shaggy Rogers

Casey Kasem is easily one of the most recognizable names in radio, but when it comes to animation, some radio personalities have managed to be recognized as voice actors, such as June Foray who has many voice acting credits under her belt. However, there is one major role that Casey Kasem has under his belt, a role that everyone adores to this day, one Norville Rogers, otherwise known as Shaggy. Voicing the character since 1969 and up to 2010, Casey Kasem has been the voice of Shaggy Rogers for so long, even singing for a BBC Children in Need Medley by Peter Kay. It's hard to imagine anyone else taking over the role, though Scott Innes and Matthew Lillard have also become quite synonymous with the character. Casey Kasem also did Cliffjumper on the original Transformers series, but left during the third season, so he's got other roles, but to many he is, and always will be, Shaggy Rogers.

#2. Peter Sallis as Wallace

British television has an odd place in American Pop Culture. Considering that very little dubbing needs to take place to import these shows, it could be argued that England has had a big impact on American television. Lots of Americans will know names like Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Laurie, David Tennant, and oddly enough Peter Sallis. It really shouldn't be so surprising to think that the voice of our favourite cheese loving hair-brained inventor Wallace is one of the most iconic voices in animation, after all he's voiced the character in four shorts, a full short series, a theatrical movie, and a couple of video games. Any other role he's done, again, gets a little overshadowed by the fact that you can sum up his career as "he was the original voice of Wallace from Wallace & Gromit". It also doesn't hurt that Gromit himself has no voice, which gives Peter Sallis a large part of the spotlight in the shorts. Quite the cracking role, eh lads?

#1. Kevin Conroy as Batman

Oh... I'm going to get in some hot water for this one. Remember how I said I originally came up with this concept in early November of 2022, well one of the reasons I shelved it was because Kevin Conroy had passed away, and I didn't want to imply that his entire career revolved around a singular character. However, we need to be real here, he was the voice of The Batman in animation for so long because he was one of the best Batman actors. For many of us, the answer of who is the best live action Batman is tricky to answer since there have been some great ones, but there is only one answer for who the best animated Batman is, and that is Kevin Conroy. His effortless switching between the caped crusader and Bruce Wayne made him blend into the role so perfectly, that there really is no argument, for many animation fans, Kevin Conroy is Batman, and that is the role he will forever be remembered for.

Well that was... sad. Honourable Mentions!

1. Mel Blanc - I wanted to include him because he is mostly known for his role in the Looney Tunes cartoons, but he was also the voice of Barney Rubble on The Flintstones.

2. Carlo Bonomi - A voice actor you probably don't recognize, mostly because the character he voiced didn't really speak, more or less. However, the mumblings and Noots of Pingu will always be in our hearts.

3. Yeardley Smith - You don't really get to be a main cast member on The Simpsons and not have that role dominate your career, especially if that role is Lisa Simpson.

4. Alex Borstein - You may recognize her as the voice of Lois Griffin on Family Guy, but people seem to like her in The Bad Guys too, maybe it's a bit early to call this one.

5. Bill Farmer - Voicing a Disney character as iconic as Goofy might over-shadow other roles, but in this house, we respect Hop Pop.

6. Peter Cullen - He was on this list until the last minute, while Optimus Prime will forever be his most well-known role, he has some other roles that some may know him for, like Eeyore or Monterey Jack.

7. Dan Castellaneta - If Peter Cullen can qualify for this list, Homer Simpson can too, though some respect for Grandpa Phil too. 

Why is The Amazing Digital Circus Absurdly Popular?

Absurdly is probably not the right word for it, in under a week the second episode of The Amazing Digital Circus reached not ten million, not twenty million, but fifty million views on YouTube, currently at ninety-three million, and as of June 13th, 2024, the pilot is at three-hundred and twenty-seven million views. Now, I loved the pilot and the second episode as much as the next person, but there is a question that is sticking in the back of my mind, something I've wanted to ask with the pilot but never really got the chance to. All in all, it really isn't a big question, frankly it's inconsequential, but I got to know, does Caine ever accidentally bite down on his eyeballs? Okay, in all seriousness, the question I really wanted to ask is, why this show? Specifically, what is it about this show that makes it so popular?

Somethings, it makes sense why they're so popular, SpongeBob, Superman, Minecraft, Star Wars, I get why these properties are so popular, but a lot of that is hindsight and years worth of fans taking about every aspect of these things to death. The most recent example in that selection was Minecraft, which was officially released in 2011, thirteen years ago, and it was available to the public since 2009. The Amazing Digital Circus pilot was released in 2023, just barely a year ago. Yet it already has more views than the Nostalgia Critic's review of The Room. Hell, the Angry Video Game Nerd episode on NES Accessories as of writing this has only eighteen million views. Is It a Good Idea to Microwave an Airbag, one of the most well-known episodes of the webseries that got me into web-content, is at two and a half Million views. Actually no, I think the only way I can really illustrate how crazy insane popular The Amazing Digital Circus is, is by stating this fact; The Amazing Digital Circus pilot has amassed more views in less than a year, than Don't Hug Me I'm Scared did in twelve years. So, why is this show so popular?

Well, let's start with the very basic; the show is accessible. The Pilot is available in eighteen different languages and has closed captions for sixteen. Granted that is not anywhere close to the amount of languages there are in the world, but that is still an amazing amount. It goes to show the obvious, accessibility is a good thing. However, I don't think this is the full story. I'm sure the accessibility helps, and I'm sure it helps quite a lot, but all that accessibility wouldn't matter if nobody was watching it, and clearly people are, so I ask again, what is it about this show that appeals to people, to the point that it does actually matter that it's available in other languages?

Well, let's move from the very basic, to the very obvious; The Internet loves horror. "Oh, but I'm on the internet and I don't like horror", hey, I was like that too, but I still read Creepypasta, I wasn't too good for Jeff the Killer and Candle Cove, Hell I got my start in reviewing by talking about creepypasta on DeviantArt, don't go looking for those journals, I have honed my craft so much since those days. It goes way beyond Creepypasta though, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared was a sensation to the point that it was referenced in children's cartoons, Five Nights at Freddy's was such a viral sensation that it spawned a whole generation of horror games entirely made to be played by talent-less clickbait Let's Play channels, Hell it's not even just true-horror that gets popular, the most popular Homestar Runner toons are almost always the Halloween toons, to the point where those are pretty much the only thing we get out of Homestar Runner anymore. So horror and Halloween vibes are practically worshipped on the internet in the same way that Led Zeppelin is worshipped in rock and roll communities.

Once again, I don't think this is the full story. The internet loves horror, but that doesn't mean every horror thing is beloved. A lot of those old creepypasta stories are, rightfully, dunked on and mocked online, and bad horror games are practically a dime a dozen and often ignored, and terrible horror movies are almost never talked about, in fact I took part in one of those Twitter Retweet Response Thread things which asked for terrible horror movies, so while the internet loves horror, it also clearly only loves good horror, and bad horror is mocked, criticized and forgotten about. Besides, I don't think I'd call The Amazing Digital Circus a full on horror series, not like The Gregory Horror Show, honestly not even in the same vein as Courage the Cowardly Dog. It definitely has horror elements, but the kind of horror it reminds me of is more like The Stanley Parable, which... I don't know if you would call a horror game, but it certainly has a bleak, almost psychological horror vibe at points. So if it isn't the accessibility, or the horror, what makes it so popular?

Is it just that the show is THAT good? Well... of course, people wouldn't watch it if it wasn't. However, that's not the full story either. "Good" content doesn't always explode in popularity, especially not instantaneously. Many creators will talk about having that one video that opened the floodgates so to speak, some creators will even have a video that completely revitalizes their channel. So the excellent quality is definitely a factor, but it doesn't fully explain the immense amount of views.

There is also the possibility that the show is genuinely so eye-catchingly unique and different that it had to stand out and become popular. Which is a fair argument... except for the fact you could say the same about most internet content. Again, I must bring up Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared. It has significantly less views than The Amazing Digital Circus does, and I'd argue it's just as, if not maybe more unique. Really, the entire reason that internet content is more popular than traditional television or cinema is entirely because it is different, new and arguably groundbreaking. Any old fans of Game Theory or James Stephanie Sterling will recognize this comparison, it's like pasta sauce, there is always a market for a chunky sauce. Well, the internet is filled with that "chunky sauce", and all manner of pasta sauces that you can't watch on a television station or in the movie theatres. So, if The Amazing Digital Circus is not popular solely because of accessibility, the fact the internet loves horror, the show being of excellent quality, or the fact that the show is unique, what is the reason?

Well, isn't it obvious? It's all of that and more. It's kind of the perfect storm really, the description of the pilot describes it as a "Psychological dark comedy", so people who are into horror and horror adjacent content, i.e. the internet, would check it out, they would be impressed by the quality of the video and the fact that they haven't really seen anything entirely like this before and share it around, and because the show is available in multiple languages, anyone who is interested in it can check it out no matter what language they speak, it was the perfect storm of right idea in the right place at the right time, because... 2023 was not a very good year for animation. I say that like I am an expert on everything that was happening at the time, but no, 2023 was pretty bad, in fact the 2020s has not been a good decade for mainstream animation. However, independent animation, now the 2020s has been a fantastic decade for that. It blows my mind that The Amazing Digital Circus came out in 2023, because it feels like the kind of thing that would have been released in the absolute golden year that I did not give enough credit to, 2022. 

Honestly, I can see The Amazing Digital Circus being one of those shows that inspires the next generation of artists, like a lot of animations, comics, video games and short stories are gonna come out in the next few years that have such obvious traces of the Digital Circus in them, that it stops being funny. The popularity of The Amazing Digital Circus is an interesting phenomenon because, on the surface it is very obvious why the show is so popular, it's a really good show, but when you really look at how popular it is, that is where it becomes fascinating. If it was just a good show, it wouldn't be this popular, and I don't think it is just one thing that makes it such. If there is one thing I can say however, is that we want justice for Gummigoo!

Garfield Gets Real (2007) - A Lousy Attempt to Bring the Comics to Life

 

So, I've been on a Garfield kick right now, not sure if that's really a surprise. I remember reading those comics as a kid, we used to have a set of those rectangular books full of the comic strips, there was also this big thing that sort of got me reacquainted with Garfield; I began my journey to read through every entry in the 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die book, yes I am losing my grip on sanity. Also, there is that new Garfield movie that came out, so that may have got me thinking too. I always did have a soft-spot for Garfield, so I think this is the perfect time to look at one of his direct-to-video movies from the late 2000s... as for why I chose this specific one, well it was available on YouTube, sometimes I don't need a real reason.

The plot follows Garfield as he grows tired of his job of acting in a comic strip. Y'know, I would say that this is stupid, ridiculous and asinine, but the original Roger Rabbit book, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf had pretty much a similar setting, comic strip characters doing the comics as their job. The difference is, in Wolf's book, the cartoons and the humans coexisted in the same world, while in this movie it's two separate worlds, which adds a layer of confusion. After Odie looses a prop in the real world by a tear in a screen that lets the comic characters see into the real world, Garfield decides to jump into it, followed by Odie. Then after a day, their strip is about to get cancelled, so they have to return to the cartoon world, but they might be replaced by two buff and muscular animals, and hold on one second, how can they find replacements for Garfield and Odie if they're in the real world. It is said in the movie that there is no way back from the real world, so why is the real world finding replacements? Call it a nitpick, but it's kind of distracting. I guess the rest of the plot works, but that one bit bothers me.

The movie does Garfield as a character alright, like at no point did I think, "Nah, this ain't Garfield". Most of the characters remain the same from the comic and other adaptations, save for two. Nermal and Arlene just kind of felt different. I think it's felt less with Arlene, but in the comic she actually could keep up with Garfield's dry wit and sarcasm, she was practically just as sarcastic as he was, and here she feels like... gosh I don't know how to describe it, she feels like the only thing that the writer knew about this character was that she was Garfield's love interest, and I know for a fact that isn't right because the sole writer credit is Jim Davis himself, so maybe he wanted to do something different here. Nermal straight up annoyed me in this movie, he always did have a little ego calling himself the "World's cutest kitty cat", but here, he's just arrogant and annoying, and Jason Marsden's voice performance does not help. That being said, the voice cast is fine overall, Frank Welker does a good job replacing the late Lorenzo Music as Garfield, he doesn't have the same voice, but the inflections are there. Wally Wingert and Gregg Berger as Jon and Odie respectively are good. I think most people agree that Wally is almost as good as Thom Huge as Jon. Of course, the two villains have to have the worst voice performances though, being muscular pets, they obviously have to have Hans and Franz accents.

As an aside, for a world of cartoon characters, most of the comic strip characters they have are not real characters from real strips. Dagwood from Blondie cameos, but he doesn't really say or do anything, I mean I doubt you could have actually gotten Snoopy to appear, and so you only had to mention him, but why not Hagar the Horrible? Pearls Before Swine? Doonesbury? What about Dilbert... Actually yeah, maybe that was a good call, but my point still stand. Heck, even have some characters from discontinued strips appear, Little Nemo is in the public domain, any of those characters could have appeared. It really does cheapen the film a bit by not including that many memorable comic strip characters. They don't even make a reference to Rube Goldberg, and they invented a character who makes inventions.

The animation of this movie is disgusting. Okay, that is a bit of hyperbole, but the 3D models and this style of animation just do not mesh at all. The movement is almost too fluid, and character designs just look ugly. It sits in that middle ground, where the animation is cheap, but not Television cheap. I'm gonna say it, the 2009 Garfield Show looks better than this movie, yeah that animation was cheaper looking, but this movie just looks hideous. I suppose compared to other movies I've reviewed this movie isn't the worst, but I just hate looking it at, I can't really think of any other movie I've reviewed that is just straight up unappealing to look at, even movies like Silver Circle or The Misty Green Sky I can excuse as not having any real budget. I know Garfield hasn't had the best looking animation in anything, with the exception of a couple Television Specials, but this may just be the worst he has ever looked. They don't even do anything visually to separate the cartoon world from the real world.

It probably wouldn't help much if the movie looked good, because the writing just isn't there. We've all made comments and jokes about how the Garfield strip has become less funny over the years, but this movie is just painfully unfunny. Each joke was predictable, and Garfield just doesn't really have that bite to him, probably because he's not working off of Jon in this movie, he's working off of new characters who aren't really interesting, and Odie, who doesn't talk. I think back to a lot of the old Garfield strips, and Garfield's wit and sarcasm was genuinely funny, even if it took a while to get the joke, his dry responses to what was around him was a big chunk of the humour, so taking that away, what are you left with? Not much really.

Really, "Not Much" is the best way to describe this movie. The writing is lousy, the plot is flawed, the art-style is terrible, really the only saving grace is Garfield himself, and even then this movie doesn't have any of his strengths as a character. If you really want a solid adaptation of the comic strip, I say keep looking, I think your best bet would be the Garfield specials like Garfield Hits the Town, Here Comes Garfield and even the Garfield Christmas special. This movie just doesn't work, and I can't really think of any reason to watch it, unless you're like a big, and I mean big, Garfield fanatic. Even then, I think this is one that is safe to skip.

First Impressions; Garfield, Thelma and FoodFight!

2024 has been a... slow year for animated movies so far, and frankly it's also been an uneventful one. Like I can't think of any releases that I think everyone is going to talk about in years to come. Like, say what you want about Wish, we'll be talking about that movie forever. April has been completely dead for any major animated releases, but now that Summer is almost here, we're going to start seeing some more releases, so hopefully this slow start will actually build to something. It's telling when one of the more notable releases in this stretch of time is a documentary about a movie from 2012. That all being said, what were my initial impressions of the new releases?

The Garfield Movie
Released: May 24th, 2024
Portion Written: May 26th, 2024

From the trailers, I assumed the worst part about The Garfield Movie would be Chris Pratt as Garfield, he just doesn't have the same kind of inflection as Lorenzo Music did, or even Bill Murray did. Little did I know, that the movie would actually be one of the biggest disappointments of the year. Honestly, the movie isn't "bad" per se, it has some good elements, but nothing that really made me think "Yes, I will absolutely watch this movie again".

The biggest problem with Garfield is that, by the standards of Garfield, this movie is pretty weak. I think back to all those specials from the 80s, and think about things like in the Christmas special, Garfield at the Arbuckle farm and listening to Grandma talk about her late husband, or Here Comes Garfield where he remembers good memories before Odie is taken to be euthanized, or in Garfield on the Town where he says goodbye to his mother, those were emotional gut punches, and Garfield looking at the tree his father watched him in and realizing he was always there, it just didn't hit as hard.

I should also bring up the fact that there are repeated flashing light sequences in this movie, so yeah, be warned if you have photosensitive epilepsy or have any light sensitivities.

Overall, while this movie does have good moments, as a whole I just don't think it really works the best. I can slightly recommend this one because, it isn't awful, and it's still Garfield, but as a whole I just don't think it really worked.

Thelma the Unicorn
Released: May 17, 2024
Portion Written: May 27, 2024

Sometimes a movie or something comes out that I just have to ask myself... "Am I becoming a jaded grump?" It always the kind of movie that I watch the first few minutes of and can guess what the plot is going to be and what the theme and message is. I guess there isn't anything really... wrong with movies like this, or Wish Dragon, or Next Gen, it's just that I don't really want to watch them. I had the same issue with Klaus, that I found that I knew exactly where the story was going, what arcs the characters were going to have, and what the theme of the movie was going to be. I guess ultimately there is nothing wrong with this movie or it's message, I just wasn't as into this one. Do I recommend it? Eh, I guess... again I don't think it's really harmful or insulting, just milquetoast and average.

Rotten: Behind the Foodfight
Released: May 2, 2024
Portion Written: May 29, 2024

Any animation fan who has been on the internet for the past ten years should know about the movie Foodfight. It is infamous for all of the reasons, and to list them all would be to review the entire movie... It's on my list. Sometimes, you have to wonder, how does a movie end up becoming so disastrously bad?

This documentary, uploaded onto YouTube by user Ok So..., discusses the history of the infamous animated flesh wound, as well as dispelling some rumours, and frankly... it kinda just seems like this movie was actively sabotaged, I don't want to spoil things too much, but it definitely sound like the director had no clue how to... be a director, just in general, forget directing an animated film. There is a lot of information about this movie in a neat and concise little package that is available for free online. Even if you are have absolutely zero interest in Foodfight, and frankly I don't blame you, I almost recommend this documentary as, like a how not to make a movie thing, like the documentary shows how the movie was made, how people who worked on it felt while making the movie and basically do not follow the footsteps laid down while making it.

Rotten is a fascinating look at one of animations most fascinating... look I have a rule about swearing so that limits things I can compare Foodfight to, just give this documentary a look.

I guess it also says a lot that the highest ranked movie of this selection is said documentary about a movie from 2012. It's honestly kind of foreboding that the two movies I've liked the most this year were Kung Fu Panda 4 and Rotten, like I'm really hoping that there is something else coming this year that will impress me... and I highly doubt it's gonna be Moana 2.

Well... what can I do... Fare-thee-well.

Elemental Vs Zootopia - How Two Different Stories Become Similar

You know what one of my least favourite film criticisms ever has been recently? "Elemental is like if A.I. tried to write Zootopia", and it's not because I think Elemental is a masterpiece. I won't deny that there are some similarities, even I have said that Elemental had some elements of Zootopia in its story. However in comparing the two, I find that the comparison is not actually all that apt, and honestly I feel this way about other movies we compare to each other, like Coco and The Book of Life, or Antz and A Bug's Life, because really most of the similarities just seem superficial. This begs the question, why do we make this comparison? Why do we say this about Elemental, but Zootopia doesn't get unfairly compared to anything it is similar to?

Full disclosure, I did not re-watch Elemental for this blog, I watched and did a review of Zootopia, but most of what I bring up about Elemental will be from memory and what I have previously written about it. We'll see if this was a good idea at the end, eh?

I think the big reason this comparison is made is that, at their cores, both movies are ostensibly about prejudice. I say "ostensibly" because, while the movies may have themes of prejudice, I don't think I would say that Elemental is entirely about prejudice. Zootopia was a crime mystery where the main villain was directly targeting a certain group of people for a twisted sense of justice for another certain group of people. Zootopia focused entirely on different characters experiences with prejudice, from how the police academy is not made for mammals for Judy and how the police don't really treat Judy like an official cop, to how Nick took the prejudice he faced and let it shape him into the person he is. I said in my review that Zootopia was not necessarily strong in its themes of prejudice, but the truth of the matter is that Zootopia is about prejudice. Which is where I feel Elemental throws a lot of people off, because while there is the theme about prejudice in the movie, Elemental is not about that, it is a love story.

Elemental is about the daughter of immigrants befriending and falling in love with someone outside of her... let's be real here, outside of her ethnicity. Partially, it was inspired by the director, Peter Sohn's, upbringing as the child of Korean immigrants, and by his marriage to someone that was not Korean. It is also about Ember finding her own identity, struggling with what she wants and what she believes her family wants. While the movie does show that there is prejudice in this world, and what prejudice Ember and her family faced, the movie is not about prejudice at the very core. If I'm being honest, while I did say that Elemental ultimately had a weak story, I think the fact they didn't focus on the prejudice angle actually made it a bit stronger.

My big problem with Zootopia was that, because it seemed that they wanted to make Zootopia an ideal instead of a metaphor, the actual themes of prejudice were not very strong. I mentioned ways they could have made the theme stronger while still keeping within the restrictions of a PG rated film. However, because Zootopia looks too much like a utopia, the theme doesn't come across. I remember one of the complaints about the movie was that it was very blatant and obvious, and I think a lot of that is that they rely more on telling us than showing us. There are instances where we are shown the prejudice, like when Judy has to do cop training in an environment that was not built to suit her limitations, but even then we still have to be told that "Bunnies have not been cops before", and rather than show other hopeful lagomorphs and rodents alongside Judy only for Judy to be the only one to actually become a cop, she is the only one there alongside larger mammals.

Meanwhile, Elemental opens with Ember's parents being denied housing, while her mother is pregnant, and has a scene in the middle where Ember and her father are denied entry into a location because of their race. One voice in the crowd even yelled at them to "go back to Fireland", which I find amusing because when you think about discriminated ethnicities, you may not tend to think about Ireland, though the Irish were arguably one of the most discriminated against people in American history. What is the point about this anecdote? Well, the fact that, even though Ember and her family are heavily coded as south east Asian, it shows that anyone could have been this fire family, from Korean and Japanese immigrants to those told to go back to Ireland. This shows the clear difference between Zootopia and Elemental, Zootopia dealt with racism, Elemental dealt with xenophobia.

I think at the end of it all, Zootopia and Elemental are two very different stories, I mean obviously, one is a buddy-cop crime mystery, the other is a romantic-comedy drama. Yet, because both movies discuss themes of prejudice with non-human characters, people would start to expect the newer movie to be like the older movie. However, even within their discussion of prejudice, both movies are different, as Zootopia wanted to present its setting as an ideal, as if this is what is possible if we work together. You see it in the world that it integrates mammals of all sizes, to the point where a lot of the themes of prejudice are lost. Elemental meanwhile showed its setting as a metaphor, as a "this is what our real world actually is". I will not argue that Elemental is the better movie, nor will I argue it has stronger themes of prejudice, what I will argue is that the story and themes of Elemental are ultimately different to that of Zootopia. Comparing the movies to each other only does a disservice, it disregards the story that Elemental is telling, and the story that Peter Sohn wanted to tell, while also putting expectations on Zootopia that I don't think it can live up to.

I'm not going to sit here and force you to prefer Elemental over Zootopia, honestly they're both kind of on a similar level of enjoyability for me. I will however, say that if you're going into Elemental expecting Zootopia, you're going in for the wrong reason. I don't particularly think either movie is all that strong, but both are enjoyable for what they are. I do get why people make the comparison, but at the end of the day, saying that "Elemental is like A.I. rewrote Zootopia" clearly demonstrates to me that you did not actually pay attention to either Elemental or Zootopia. Even before I rewatched Zootopia, I knew that the two movies were not alike at all. So maybe, we can indeed have more than one story where the theme is prejudice, especially if those two stories are as different as they can be.

Zootopia (2016) - Simultaneously one of the Most Fascinating, and most Aggravating Movies

The themes of prejudice have been discussed in art with animal characters for ages, the oldest example I can think of is Art Spiegelman's Maus from the 1970s, which was about Art's father and his experiences in the Nazi occupation, though I'm sure it has to date back even further, and it makes sense why. It's an easy to use metaphor to discuss difficult issues. This is part one of a two part idea, because last year, Pixar released a movie that was partially about prejudice titled "Elemental", and one of the big criticisms of that movie was "It's like A.I. rewrote Zootopia", so I figured it would be a good idea to compare the two, however in order to do that, I needed to watch them both, so I took this as a chance to review Zootopia. In my next blog, I will look into the comparisons and see if it is truly fair to pit the two movies against each other, but as of right now, I just want to look at Zootopia on its own, and see how it holds up as a movie.

The plot follows Judy Hopps, a rabbit who wants to be a cop, however things aren't exactly set up for her. She's a small rabbit, and the other police animals are much larger, so she is stuck with parking duty. However, when she strong arms herself into a case of a missing Otter, she only has a day or so to solve the case or else she loses her job. She teams up with a shifty con-man fox named Nick Wilde to solve the case, with the usual expected twists and turns along the way. The plot moves along fine, like any good mystery plot should, every location we go and person we talk to is part of some form of importance. As a mystery plot, I think Zootopia works, but thematically how does Zootopia work? It has its ups and downs honestly. What I do like is that the movie is smart enough to show the prejudice that Judy is facing, and we get told the prejudice that Nick faced as a kid, and that's mostly it. For a movie that is thematically about prejudice, we don't see a whole lot of it until the end where we get one of the worst twist villains in any Disney movie ever, but more on that later.

The big problem with stories about prejudice is, there's a scale, the more effective the metaphor and symbolism is the more "adult" the story will have to be. Maus is directly about a survivor's experiences in Nazi Europe, as well as the author's feelings about his father being a survivor. It is not a comic I would recommend to the same demographic as Zootopia. I think that for a prejudice story to truly work, we will actually have to see more hints about how the society views certain groups. We see Foxes and Weasels being shifty con-men types, but we only really see three, including Nick. No background appearances from other foxes, weasels or even minks or stoats, and as someone who is a born and bred city folk, the city is full of the kinds of people that could easily be represented as foxes, weasels and minks, people who have to turn to conning and panhandling to get anything. 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. For an example, we see that the police academy is not set up for smaller mammals, so wouldn't it be more powerful to see a bunch of other small mammals along side Judy, only for Judy to be the only one to become a police officer? That would signal not only the kind of setting we're in, but also the kind of character Judy is much more strongly.

Speaking of, one thing I do have to commend this movie for is that Judy is a pretty great character, clever and determined, but also excitable and not ashamed to be vulnerable. Nick is also a fine character, he definitely comes off as a the guy who was shaped by the environment and society. The other major character we have to discuss is the twist villain, Bellwether... Yeah, she's one of the worst Disney villain ever. The Twist Villain has been used to label a lot of different characters over the years, some less deserving of the label than others like Lotso Huggins and John Silver from Treasure Planet, but Bellwether is one of the characters I think earns that label. The worst part is, with a couple rewrites, I genuinely think she could have worked, maybe not one of Disney's best villains, but at the very least could have been good. We see how she's treated by Mayor Lionheart, and honestly they could have done something with that, like have him make passive aggressive comments or microaggressions against her, but no, they don't really go that route, just making her the unappreciated secretary character. At least the voice cast is solid, with J. K. Simmons being one of my favourite voice actors, I'm always going to praise a voice cast with him.

Animation wise, this movie is pretty good. Visually is can get really dark in places, but otherwise the textures and lighting are really good. This is the kind of movie I can appreciate a more realistic animation style for, it's kind of like Monsters, Inc. except with a bigger leap in technology, and Monsters, Inc. was already a major leap in CG technology. There really isn't a whole lot to say about the animation, it's good. I think there has been better anthropomorphism in movies like Kung Fu Panda, and even in DuckTales, but otherwise I don't have very many complaints about the technical side of the movie... just the metaphor side.

The biggest problem with Zootopia is, at the core is a good movie with a strong message about prejudice, however what we have instead is an alright movie with an okay message about prejudice. Honestly, going back to Zootopia after I first watched it years ago, I was actually kind of surprised at how much I wasn't into it, and I think it all comes down to the themes. I really do think that there is a good message about prejudice inside of this story with these characters, a great one even, but they just didn't bring it out. They wanted to make it a balancing act, where Zootopia could be an ideal society, but prejudice could still be a thing here, kind of like how Star Trek does it, except Star Trek is clever enough to get away with it, and even they fumbled the ball a bunch of times. As a whole, do I recommend Zootopia? I guess I do have to, if you're too young to read Maus, I would recommend this, but ultimately I think that this is at least two levels above those Dhar Mann videos.

Let's Be Real About the Streaming and Digital Era

Frankly I can't begin this blog any other way than by being blunt about this, I don't think anyone is shocked about the news that Paramount+ has dropped Big Nate and the Rugrats Reboot from their service. We can be upset, honestly I think we're even allowed to be offended, but surprised? After the multiple HBO Max purges? After the Disney+ purge? After the fact that it has been established that this is how streaming services work for years now? Frankly, it is not shocking, and the worst part is that it is not shocking.

I've made it clear that I am not a particular fan of the era of streaming we are currently in. To be clear, I am very much in favour of Streaming services, I think they are a cheap, convenient and accessible way to watch thousands of movies and TV Shows... or at least they were. Over the years, every advantage streaming has had over physical home media has been completely ruined by asinine decisions, over-abundant greed, and a huge misunderstanding of what made streaming so appealing in the first place. What was a promising new way to watch your favourite movies and shows became, let's be one-hundred percent honest here, the new cable.

Remember cable? All the annoying packages and bundles that gave you channels you didn't want just for one channel that you did want? Tell me, how is that any different from subscribing to one streaming service just to watch one movie or TV show? Streaming faces the same problem any service that has nearly endless content will face, a glut of content, specifically content you don't actually want to watch. So the argument of "You get accesses to a lot of crap" really is not the ringing endorsement that companies think it is. Why should I get Paramount+ if I only really want it for Star Trek? Why should I recommend Disney+ if they're only going to watch The Simpsons? Likewise, why should anyone get a cable package if the only channel they want out of the whole thing is some cooking channel?

This has led to streaming services trying to have that one "killer app" that proves that you need this service far more than you need the other one. Disney's The Mandalorian, HBO Max's Our Flag Means Death, Paramount+'s, Star Trek: Picard, shows that were made solely to entice viewers into choosing their service over the others, and let's not forget about "Original movies", Luck, Beavis and Butt-Head Do The Universe, The Tiger's Apprentice, Turning Red, and the less said about Netflix's originals, the better. Not all of these shows and movies are bad, but it's very clear that they only exist because the companies behind the services want a carrot on a stick to dangle in front of their audience, a new Star Trek Reboot, the latest Pixar movie, and it absolutely makes sense why they would be baiting viewers with original programs, since all of their other content can just disappear.

This isn't really the fault of most streaming services, particularly ones that predominately rely on third party content like Netflix or Tubi, but services that have predominately first party content, like Disney+, HBO Max or Paramount+. When Netflix takes something off their service, it's usually because their rights expired and they need to renegotiate, but Disney or HBO Max removing their own content from their own streaming services, at best they're just doing a modern day equivalent of the Disney Vault, and at worst... well we're hoping it isn't another Coyote vs Acme case.

Yet what really irritates me, and others, is the digital storefront. Many companies are using digital storefronts as more digital rental shops. In that when you "buy" and item from the store, the company still retains every right to it, and can remove it from your library without your consent. This has happened with music and some video games as well (Screw you Konami), and it's slowly becoming apparent that "ownership" is something that we very well me never have in an all digital distribution world. So, any convenience and accessibility we got out of streaming and digital distribution has been made completely moot, but what about the price?

Clearly paying X amount of dollars a month for unlimited access to potentially unlimited content is way cheaper than paying one to three hundred dollars for a DVD or Blu-Ray player, anywhere from twenty to fifty dollars for a Blue-Ray and of coursed the fifteen dollars plus concession for the movie theatre. Except, you're only really getting the better deal if you are using one streaming service, if you are only paying about $185.88 a year for one streaming service, it's probably fine. If you're paying that, plus other subscriptions, it's much more of an issue. Streaming services seem to be under the delusion that when it comes down to utilities, rent, food and entertainment, that they'll be safe from any budget cuts the audience members have to make. Besides, you can find equipment and movies for much cheaper at thrift stores and local libraries, public amenities people, you pay for them for a reason.

At the end of it all, I can easily imagine a future where we talk about streaming the same way we talk about cable, a relic of a not-to-distant past that we dropped in favour of something better. I remember when we all thought that home media releases were gonna be obsolete because of Netflix, but as we are still seeing DVDs and Blu-Ray in stores today, it's very obvious that physical media is still holding on strong. The issues arriving with convenience and digital ownership make the purchase of a DVD seem much more appealing, you don't need wi-fi to access it, you need to pay for it more than once, and the only way it can be taken from you is if someone breaks into your house and steals it, which can be prevented. I will always be a champion of technological progress, but at the end of the day, I just can't keep heralding something that is inferior to what we had before. So, if you are able, buy as much physical media as you can, or rent it from your local library, because streaming is far messier than it needs to be.

Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) - A Ridiculous Effort, Kind of a Guilty Pleasure

Warner Bros. is in a rough position... understatement of the year I know, but y'know.. hindsight and peaks and valleys and all that... The point is Warner Bros. is not in a good place as of now, and it is very likely that the ramifications of said not good place are very likely to reveal their ugly heads soon. Whether that is another, much larger strike, the dissolution of one of the most important studios in film history, or the complete collapse of the Hollywood system... Well I've put money on stupider bets, but it remains to be uncertain, though each outcome is equally likely. I bring this up because, people are saying that the big animation studios are gonna crumble, you know Disney, Warner Bros, and all that stuff, or at least people are thinking that is what will happen, and all I have to say is... no. If Disney was going to crumble, they would have crumbled during their disastrous era in the nineties and early two-thousands, which involved failed theme parks, box office flops, and lots of bad business decisions. Disney is not going to crumble because of a couple movies that we're mediocre are worst. However, Warner Bros is a different story, because it is looking pretty bad over there, because while Disney's current lull is not as bad as their Post-Death, Pre-Renaissance era was, this is looking worse for Warner Bros than their post Quest For Camelot era, where they straight up lost faith in all their upcoming animated releases... which included The Iron Giant and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

All of that build-up to such a minor reveal. Almost like a real journalist. Anyway, I needed another movie to fill in this week, because I have an editorial that will follow my next movie review, so for this week I chose to review another movie from my childhood, it also let me rant about the response to this valley for Disney and Warner Bros, so, I win.

The story is... zany. Describing almost feels like a Herculean task because it's just so wild and ridiculous. After Daffy Duck gets let go from Warner Bros. he causes some ruckus that gets a security guard named D.J. Drake fired as well, which is unfortunate because D.J. is the son of the studio's most beloved star, Damian Drake, who has appeared in several spy movies. It also just so happens that Drake is in fact, a super spy and is on a mission to recover a supernatural diamond called "The Blue Monkey", but he gets captured, and must entrust the mission to his son, D.J. and Daffy tags along because he heard the word diamond and thinks he'll get rich, while Bugs and a WB Executive are after them to get Daffy back. Honestly... this plot is inane, ridiculous, asinine, and other synonyms. I kind of love it, it is a little bit too ridiculous for what I would imagine to be a Looney Tunes movie plot, I think somewhere between Space Jam and Back in Action is the level of ridiculous I'd like for a Looney Tunes movie. That being said, the plot gives us some fascinating locations, unique scenes and some pretty alright gags. It's pretty clear that at some point, they stopped taking this movie seriously as a movie and took it seriously as a vehicle for gags and jokes. It's ridiculous, but I can't help but love it.

I don't think the characters are all that great, I mean, the live-action characters are passable, but they're mostly saved by their casting. Brendan Frasier smiles like a Looney Tunes character, and Jenna Elfman is pretty good at being the frigid and more grounded in reality character. I love Steve Martin, but I think the role was written more for a Jim Carrey type performer, someone who has much more fluid movement, Steve Martin just looks very stiff with his movements, which I guess is a joke in and of itself, but I dunno, I think you could have given this role to Jim Carrey and it would have been a lot funnier. One place I can give credit to the casting for is the smaller roles, Timothy Dalton as the Super Spy? Come on, that's just an amazing casting gag, and Peter Graves cameos in a secret mission instructional video. Goldberg as a secret agent henchman is great, and the Acme VP members are all filled with "if you know, you know" kind of names like Bill McKinney, George Murdock, Ron Perlman, and Robert Picardo.

I also must give credit to the voice actors. Joe Alaskey is probably my second favourite Bugs Bunny, behind Mel Blanc (I should do a blog about that), and Jeff Bennett is a great performer for Foghorn Leghorn and Yosemite Sam. Of course, Billy West and June Foray are wonderful as always, two of my favourite voice actors right there, and Casey Kasem and Frank Welker cameoing as Shaggy and Scooby-Doo respectively is always welcome. Some archive recordings were also used, for the most part it's minor. I think the casting is very well done here, and the cameos from some lesser known Looney Tunes characters like Nasty Canasta and Marc Antony and Pussyfoot are really nice. I do wish Blacque Jacque Shellacque cameoed, but that's really about it.

I think the animation is a mixed-bag. On one hand, the actual animation is not terrible, the characters move fluid and look solid enough. The problem comes in with the live-action mixing, and not just the actual integration, though honestly it's pretty fine, like I can believe these characters are part of this world, until I see them interacting with other characters. When a live actor has to hold, attack or physically interact with a cartoon character in any way, it often looks phony, and does pull me out of this illusion. Roger Rabbit worked because they took several steps in order to make sure the cartoons were believably interacting with the live actors, and Space Jam had the live actors predominately in the cartoon world, so it had less blending to do than this movie. It also doesn't help that some of the CG has visibly aged rather poorly. I think to mask a lot of this, the editing is much faster paced than a typical Looney Tunes short, and that does this movie zero favors. Slapstick really works best when you can feel the impact of each hit, and if you cut away as soon as the impact is made, it just doesn't land as well. Looney Tunes shorts worked best because they were a lot more cleverly written than other shorts of the era, and that clever writing also lends itself best to slower paced editing.

However, I think the major saving grace of this movie is the humour, and I don't mean the big jokes or the slapstick, a lot of those are alright, but a lot of the background jokes had me howling with laughter. Everyone brings up Mathew Lillard talking to Shaggy about his portrayal in the live-action Scooby-Doo movie, but in the same scene, seeing Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf do their routine in the background, or seeing Michigan J. Frog just be randomly carried away are really good gags. Bugs and Daffy exchanging last will and testaments during a car chase was a fantastic gag. I also loved a lot of the fourth-wall breaks and seeing the references in Area-52 was just fantastic for my little movie loving heart, Robot Monster, Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Kevin McCarthy reprising his role for a brief cameo as well. To be fair, some of the bigger more prominent jokes and gags were kind of funny too. I don't think I'll ever get tired of the lit match in the room full of explosives gag, it's a well-worn bit, but I love it.

The term "Guilty Pleasure" has a very loose and undefined meaning. Is it something you like in spite of, or even sometimes because of, the flaws? Is it something you wouldn't normally admit to enjoying, but love anyway? I think Looney Tunes: Back in Action is kind of a guilty pleasure for me, in that "Shut your brain off and enjoy the ride" type of enjoyment. It's a dumb, ridiculous and inane mess, I'd almost call it a farce, but I'm not always best with genre. I think if you're my age and you grew up with this movie, you'll have some fondness for it, not like a Treasure Planet level masterpiece that was unappreciated in its time, but as a movie that's good for some dumb laughs. This might be my favourite of the Looney Tunes movies, which... kind of says more about the rest of the movies than it does this one. Do I recommend it? Yeah, I guess. It's hard to really recommend this as a hidden gem or an unfairly slept on movie, but at the same time, I do think it's an entertaining flick, and if you can tolerate an inane plot, there may be some enjoyment in this film.

Disney Live-Action Trudge: Maleficent (2014)

Of all the movies I have lined up in this marathon, Maleficent was the one I was most dreading, it wanted to make a villain more sympathetic, it completely changed the story from the original, and if I look at the timeline, I actually think this is the movie that got the Disney Live-Action remake trend started. I mean we glare at Alice in Wonderland a lot, but I think if this movie failed then the trend would not have really begun, because after this movie, every year had at least one live-action adaptation or remake or sequel. I pin the blame for all of them on the success of this movie, so it should not be any surprise that this is the movie I was the least willing to watch. At the very least, Alice in Wonderland had a potential hook to it, and wasted it but that's already been talked about, the very concept of Maleficent irritates me.

You know that Maleficent's name sounds very close to "Malevolent" right? So, why was THIS the villain they wanted to give a tragic backstory to and make sympathetic? The character whose name is literally an off-shoot of a synonym for evil, is the one they thought could be redeemable? It boggles my mind, like I know the whole "What's in a name?" line, but like, this is a very glaring issue for me, you don't name someone "Maleficent" and make them a hero, unless you're doing some serious subversion like Nimona did. I guess this is also a subversion, but it's not a very good one. I mean, why not just have Maleficent be a nickname, a name given to her by her enemies, give her any other name? You're more than willing to change the names of the other fairies, why not change hers and still make her name technically be Maleficent? And you really want to know the most infuriating part of this movie? It's actually okay.

Yeah, I was shocked, this movie is... okay. Like, as a movie it is competently made, the writing is fine, couple nitpicks with the story, but like overall I can't say it's a bad movie, just a bad concept. I think if they made original characters for this movie there would be less stigma around it, and I could see it working a lot better. A lot of my problems are that these aren't original characters, like change everyone's name, change the title to "The Real Evil" or "The Dark of Light" or something and I'd be absolutely down. Maybe that would have hurt revenue somewhat, but even then I could see it being a big cult movie if it didn't do so well.

I think what really got to me was the three fairies in this one, terrible parental figures really piss me off, so making the fairies into squabbling, incompetent disasters just annoyed me a lot more. It also didn't help that Maleficent "The Mistress of All Evil" was essentially just a trickster in this movie. All throughout the movie, all she does is just play tricks on the fairies, like you're a powerful fairy and you just play tricks on people? Granted that is pretty accurate Fae behavior but that isn't really accurate Maleficent behavior. It just reiterates my point that I think this movie would have been a lot better if these were original characters and not caricatures of iconic characters that we know and love. Also just gonna say it, Angelina Jolie does not give half the performance that Eleanor Audley gave in the original, the scene where she curses Aurora just feels off and not as powerful.

I also kind of hate what they did with King Steffan, not the whole "Make him the real villain of the story" part, I understand that, but the whole... "Make him a villain" at all part. I mean, this is a villain redemption story, on some level, why did it need a real villain? Like, if Maleficent can be redeemable, why can't the king? Is it because we hate royal hierarchies? I don't know, it just doesn't sit right with me that there had to be a "real villain" in this story at all, like I'm totally not on his side, the movie does a good job of making him the bad guy, but like... maybe I didn't really want a bad guy.

I should talk about the rest of the movie, but honestly there really is not a lot to talk about. It's just okay, kind of generic, but ultimately okay. I really do feel like if Disney made the bold choice to make this an original I.P. it could have lead to a decently big franchise, like imagine it, a dark fairy who was wronged by humans, growing attached to the child of the human that wronged her and bridging the two worlds into one, frankly I'd love to see other stories that could spawn from that, imagine that as the premise for a TV series, or a series of novellas, or a comic series. I think they did hamper the potential of this movie by tying it to the Sleeping Beauty property. I'm not a big fan of the original Sleeping Beauty, I think it is that era's equivalent of Frozen, but if I had to pick I think I do prefer the original, it's an iconic fairy tale and it didn't need all of this. Overall though, I can't say this is a bad movie, as a movie it is perfectly decent, but as a concept, I hate it.

Also, this movie did not need a narrator!