The Amazing Digital Cricus Episode 5 Left me Thinking, this isn't Pomni's Story at all, is it?

So, as a lot of readers may be aware, I am a big fan of the GLITCH Productions series, The Amazing Digital Circus. The aesthetic of the animation and artstyle mixed with the charming and lovable characters really won me over immediately from the pilot, and I, as many others were, was hooked on where the story would go from there. It went places, needless to say, and the latest episode, Episode 5: Untitled, is so far the most... "Places" the show has gone so far.

Episode 5 is where things get really... for want of a better word, real. The show has been real before, but this is where we really get to piece things together. Episode 5 is an episode that will leave you confused about how to feel, but also certain as Hell about what to feel. This is one of those episodes, and I think it largely changes the direction of where the show is going, or our perception of where the show is going.

Ever since the pilot, everyone was damn sure that this story largely about Pomni, how she adjusts to the circus, how she relates to the others, and possibly how she abstracts. Yet, Episode 5 seems to shift the narrative. Pomni is still our main character, but this does not seem to be her story, at least not entirely her story. Episode 5 focuses on Pomni's relationship with Jax and Ragatha, and we learn two important things about them.

With Jax, what we learn is implied, but heavily so. When Ragatha tells Pomni that Jax doesn't have friends "Anymore", it becomes clear who Jax is and why is does what he does. At his core, Jax is afraid, he is a scared little bunny, what is he afraid of? Losing the people he cares about. He's pushing people away so when they do abstract, it doesn't hurt so much. "Let them fall face down if they must die, making it easier to say goodbye". We see Jax look at a door with a crossed out face on it during Caine's intermission. Was this one of Jax's friends? It does seem that he is warming up to Pomni, why is that? Well, I have a theory, but before we look at that, let's look at Ragatha.

What we learn about Ragatha is much more stated, though still largely implied. It is implied in the fact that it is not directly stated to the audience. Ragatha did not have a particularly caring mother, and this is probably why she is the way she is. Where Jax is a nuisance because he doesn't want to be hurt, Ragatha is positive to a toxic degree because she also doesn't want to be hurt, she said it herself in Episode four. "I like, hate you, but I don't want you to hate me." In essence, she is trying to be the one that everyone likes, but this ends up pushing everyone away. She will bottle up her feelings in order to protect herself, and it's only hurting her more.

Ragatha is a rag doll, obvious statement, but what does that mean? Dolls and plushies are popular children's toys, because for a lot of children, they were a source of comfort, a friend that wouldn't judge you or tell you to "Grow up". A friend that was always there for you when you needed them. A friend that Ragatha needs. Similarly, Jax is a rabbit. One may see him as the next version of the "Trickster Rabbit" archetype, like I myself have, but now we see something different with him. Jax is scared, he is a small animal made tall, he is putting on a show to deter predators, or in this case, abstraction.

This is in no way absolving Jax of his actions, by the way. Fandom notoriously has an issue with forgiving male characters for their wrong-doings because of one singular thing. How the fandom is treating Jax is reminding me about... a character from the Sad Wizard Lady's books. I mean, the two are absolutely irredeemable people, but they have one mildly tragic part of their backstory and all is forgiven? Just because we now know why he is pushing people away does not change the fact that he is still doing the things he is doing. Just wanted to Snape, I mean snipe that point before it came up.

Pomni is a jester, not a clown, the distinction is important. Jester's were more than just entertainers, they were also trusted messengers, and were allowed to speak freely without punishment in many cases. To put my theory bluntly, this story is not about Pomni, this story is about everyone else. The show begins with Pomni arriving at the circus because she is the catalyst for change. She is the one who is breaking down the barriers between all the characters, and she is doing so by letting them be honest, listening to them, and doing the things she can to help them.

Pomni saw Gangle and offered to take closing duties for her. She was with Kinger and listened as he talked about his wife. She has broken through to Jax, and seems to be making Ragatha confront a part of herself she doesn't like. Pomni is the main character of the show, but this story is not really about her. The Amazing Digital Circus is really all about the other people in the circus, which makes me wonder... how is Pomni going to get through to Caine, can she get through to Caine?

Gooseworx said that the message of The Amazing Digital Circus is that "there is meaning to be found in a stagnant life". All of this makes me wonder, and kind of reminds me of the Gregory Horror Show. I kind of expect this show to end similar to the first season of that show, something expected but haunting. Untitled was a good episode that makes one shift their perspectives on what they thought they knew. We knew this was Pomni's story, but now it seems like it's really about someone else, or something else. One has to wonder if the circus is changing because of Pomni, if she is bridging the gaps between the others and their previous lives.

Also, because I have nowhere else to put this, I absolutely have to make this observation, Jax and Zooble are trying to out each other without outing each other.

Shrek 5 Looks Different, and that is okay... for now.

Once again, Shrek has got his big green ogre fingers choke-holding the attention of the internet, though this time it is for less positive, but still highly meme-able reasons. The announcement of the fifth movie in the Shrek series has come with a new artstyle and to say that fans are not happy is an understatement. The change in artstyle has sparked outcry with people even calling for fans to do the "Ugly Sonic Treatment" to try and get DreamWorks to change the artstyle back to the original. Despite the fact that people have absolutely learned the wrong lesson from Sonic, one must wonder why such a decision has caused such a reaction.

So, what does this new artstyle look like and why is it a noticeable departure? DreamWorks was releasing 3D animated movies in a time where Disney was still pretty dedicated to more traditional 2D animated films, though Pixar was definitely marking a shift for the company as their features were becoming more successful and popular than Disney's 2D features. Pixar's animation style has always been Disney adjacent, bright colours and very clean, DreamWorks on the other hand had a much darker and grungier style in their 3D features, right from the very beginning. Pixar gave their ants bright blue colours, while DreamWorks gave them more realistic reddish-browns, but the ultimate example of the difference between the two companies is, as you have probably guessed, Shrek.

Shrek was a fairy-tale movie that did not look like anything Disney was putting out. While the movie could be quite colourful, it wasn't the bright shiny colours of Pixar, and it was the usual kind of grungy and gross that DreamWorks was more known for. This style aided the writing of the movie, which was a satire on Disney's classic princess films and the Disney renaissance. However, things have been slowly changing over the years. While Disney and Pixar still do their bright and colourful films, there is a noticeable shift in styles. You'll notice that they aren't afraid to use more muted or mundane colours, or even darker colours. Onward was a fantasy movie set in a modern human-esque world, and the colour palette reflected that. Lightyear was entirely set on a grey-brown alien planet, Raya and the Last Dragon had moments in dull dry deserts. While Disney and Pixar can and do still make movies like Elemental or Wish, movies with a more colourful palette and artstyle, it's clear that they are branching out into something much different.

I think this is where the change in artstyle comes from, now that Disney is making the more realistic looking 3D movies, what is the movie franchise that satirized Disney going to do? It reminds me a lot of the Sega-Nintendo rivalry in the 90s where the Genesis was the hot new console with a 16-Bit processor and its slogan was "Genesis Does What Nintendon't", highlighting the difference between the Genesis and the 8-Bit Nintendo Entertainment System, with the Genesis releasing in America two years before the Super Nintendo did. When the Super Nintendo did come out, something had to change, Nintendo had their own 16-Bit console, just like how Disney has their own realistic 3D animation style, so Shrek is being given a more cartoony style, and not many people like it.

Personally, I do have to wonder why the change in artstyle now, especially when the previous movie in the Shrek franchise, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, looked amazing with the more standard artstyle, even though it did noticeably take influence from other stylized animated films like Spider-Verse. It definitely feels like a rash decision made for attention rather than anything else. Of course the change in style is not completely without merit, but there was no warm-up to this change so it felt absolutely jarring. Of course, this would be fine if something improved, and the big problem is that, for the most part, it looks the same. It does not appear to be any kind of big leap forward in artstyle or technological evolution, it looks like a DreamWorks movie, just more cartoony. If there was a noticeable improvement in artstyle or technology, I don't think fans would be as upset with the change in artstyle, but as far as we can tell, it isn't.

I'm not going to sit here and say this artstyle change is bad or even unnecessary, but I can see why people think it is. There was no build-up to this change, the previous Puss in Boots movie looked phenomenal, there does not appear to be any improvement that coincides with the change, and it does feel like DreamWorks is trying to differentiate itself from Disney and Pixar without much thought. Personally, I am interested in seeing what this new artstyle brings, but I will be honest when I say that they are going to have to prove that this change was necessary. I don't think it looks bad at all, but if they can't justify this change in artstyle, than whether it looks good or not in irrelevant. DreamWorks, this is your chance to step up and prove us wrong, unlike what happened with Ruby Gillman.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) - A Fun and Decent Quality Movie by Illumination

2023 was not a bad year for animated movies, I mean it had Nimona and Across the Spider-Verse as big releases, it couldn't be bad. The thing is, it was just kind of a... quiet year? It was very clear that the pandemic projects were starting to wrap up and if anything began work during 2020 or 2021, this was the last year we would see any of that. 2022 was just absolutely full of releases that everyone was going crazy over, and 2023 definitely had a lot of those as well, by comparison it felt much quieter, of course 2024 was also quiet by comparison so we'll have to see what 2025 brings us. I think doing my best list of 2023 was largely easy to do, because the top five was comprised of two movies I really loved, two movies I liked a lot, and one movie I really respected. There was, however, one movie I did not put on that list, and one might wonder why. Was it simply because I hate the studio that made it? Was it because it was not actually that good? Was it for any other reason other than that I wanted to give a shoutout to Elemental? Well, let's take a look; This is my review of The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

The plot follows Mario as he and Luigi are sucked into the Mushroom Kingdom via a pipe they found while secretly fixing the Brooklyn Water System. Luigi gets dropped in the lands under the control of Bowser, who has stolen a power star in order to get Princess Peach to marry him, but Mario has teamed up with the Princess and a brave little Toad to gather the Kong army to fight back against Bowser and save Luigi. I think the best thing about this plot is that it very much is in spirit of the video games. I could very easily imagine a Super Mario game that is a lot like this movie's plot, something akin to Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros. 3D World, and maybe a reverse of Mario is Missing. I think the big fault of many video game movies is that they can often deviate too much from the initial video games in spirit, but I feel this movie manages to within the spirit of the Mario games.

I think most of the characters are the same, close in spirit to the games. Luigi is still your scared of everything coward, Bowser is still your lovesick villain, of course Mario did not have much of a personality in the games, other than that guy who will always help out with a smile on his face because that is what he likes to do. They definitely fleshed out Mario a lot more here, and I like it. They also took a lot of influence from other sources for Peach, she reminds me a lot of the Super Mario Adventures comics that were originally published in Nintendo Power. Overall, the characters are good, the ones that are similar to their game counterparts are well-done, and the ones who do deviate are still recognizable. However, I think the voice cast is the biggest part of these characters, specifically one Chris Pratt. Honestly, I think we are so used to Mario's cartoony Italian voice that we probably would not have been too accepting of any voice actor in his role, though there probably had to be picks we would be more accepting of than Chris Pratt. I dunno, my biggest issue with Pratt is that he's just given roles he is not best suited for, but I think he does an okay job here.

The rest of the voice cast are definitely much better cast, Anya Taylor-Joy captures the determination, excitability and authoritativeness of Princess Peach (those were a lot of big words), Charlie Day definitely captures that timid nature of Luigi, and I don't think there could have been any better casting for Donkey Kong than Seth Rogen. My biggest criticism for the voice acting, as I've said before, goes to Jack Black as Bowser. He does a fine job, but his singing voice is too close to his normal singing voice for me to separate the two, and later in the movie he sounds more like Jim Cummings as Pete, I like Jack Black, the Kung Fu Panda movies I think are some of his finest work, so I think this was more of a direction thing than an actor thing. However, one place I can give credit to is the voice cameos, everyone talks about Charles Martinet's roles, a character who represents the original Mario design, and Mario's father, and those are very fitting roles for him. I also noticed Scott Menville in one scene, and it's always difficult for me to hear him voice anyone, because the first thing I immediately think when I hear him is Robin from Teen Titans.

Before I forget, I did like the music of the movie. You will hear a lot of classic Mario tunes integrated into the movie's score, and I was one of the many people who cheered when they heard the DK Rap in the movie.

When it comes to animation, I'll be honest... I think Illumination was the best studio to make this movie. I know how that sounds, but Pixar and DreamWorks both have this very noticeable and recognizable style, both of which are more focused on realistic movement and texturing. I think the cartoony world of the Super Mario Bros. games truly did benefit from a studio that is more known for Cartoony and Stylized looking animation. It might sound weird, or look weird, that I'm praising Illumination, but my gripes with them were never about animation, mostly. I was always eyeing them for their stories and that they never seemed to really reach for much with their movies. I don't think they make entirely bad movies, but by the same token I don't think they make entirely great movies either. Animation wise, sure they started off kind of basic, but I do think they've gotten better, and my biggest example of that? The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which is bright, colourful, expressive and full of life. So, is this Illumination's lone "Great" Movie?

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is good, absolutely. The story is good, the characters are good, the animation is good, what is holding it back? I think a lot of it is that the movie is simple and only really takes risks as a product and not as a movie. It's kind of hard to really love a movie like this unless it is really damn good, Transformers One was really good, but it also came out in a bit of a dead year for animated cinema. I don't think it really is the fault of the movie that I can't say that it's one of the best animated movies ever, I think it's more the year it came out and the track record of the studio behind it. It's easy to be the best when everything around you doesn't try. That being said, I do think The Super Mario Bros. Movie is good, Illumination's animation style does suit the Mario world perfectly, the casting is pretty good, and frankly, it was just nice to get a good movie with Mario in it, so for what it's worth, I do think this movie warrants a viewing, if only for being one of the few, if not only, Illumination movies I can say is better than alright.

Hey, It's Almost Time for the Annie Awards!

Alright, by now you should know the drill, the Annie Awards are announced, I'm going to give my opinion on them, I'm gonna be wrong come awards night, nobody will actually care. To be fair, I do love sharing my predictions because I just have that gambling urge, and since I'm not putting any money on these predictions, I never technically lose. In all seriousness, this is my third year giving Annie Award predictions, and I enjoy doing this because, really for the same reason people enjoy making predictions about the Oscars or the Grammys or the Emmys or what-not, because we do genuinely love a lot of the things that are being nominated, and we have a deep love for cinema or music or animation, so we want to share that love in the ways we know and enjoy; through competition.

If you're new, my format for this is pretty easy to grasp, I introduce each category and give my thoughts on the nominees, which one I think will win, which one I'd like to see win, and which one I think is the least likely to get the award. I only cover the categories for features because, first off those are the ones I actually have opinions on, and secondly, if I did the other categories this blog would be a slog to read through. Of course, I also want to stress that I don't honestly care all that much, I've said it before and I'll say it again, awards don't typically mean that much. Last year, Across the Spider-Verse practically swept the ceremony, but Nimona is still the better movie, fight me. With that said, let's get to the good stuff.

BEST FEATURE

All in all, a fairly strong selection of nominees this year. I think the only nominee that I don't see winning is That Christmas, which to be fair I haven't seen. I also haven't seen Inside Out 2, but I think it has a decently strong case to walk away with this award, it has a better case than Kung Fu Panda 4 does anyway. I liked Kung Fu Panda 4, but let's be real, it's only winning this award as a fluke, especially compared to The Wild Robot. If I had to put money on any one movie winning this award, it would be The Wild Robot. Ultraman: Rising is also a decently strong one, but I just thought the movie was okay at best. If I had to really give them a ranking, Inside Out 2 would be in third place for most likely to win this award, Kung Fu Panda 4 would be fifth, That Christmas would be sixth, The Wild Robot would be first, Ultraman: Rising would be fourth, and that leaves second place to Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. It wouldn't be unprecedented, Curse of the Were-Rabbit won in 2005, it also won the Best Animated Feature Film at the 78th Academy Awards, won nine other Annie Awards, won the Best British Film award at the British Academy Film Awards, like it just won a whole lot of awards, like Wallace & Gromit absolutely collect at award shows, A Grand Day Out and A Matter of Loaf and Death were the only Wallace & Gromit short films to not win the Best Animated Short Film Oscar, and A Grand Day Out was still beaten by a different Nick Park short film. I'm just saying, The Wild Robot is the safe bet, Wallace & Gromit is the easy next pick.

 BEST FEATURE - INDEPENDENT

So, as usual I didn't actually see a whole lot of these movies. I saw Flow, and that was it. To be fair, it won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film, and it won a whole bunch of other awards, so I think it's a fairly safe bet that Flow will win. If I had to pick my next pick, I've heard good things about Memoirs of a Snail, so I think I'll go with that. I haven't seen, or even really heard of, the other nominees, but I'm sure they're all worthy of the award.

BEST FX - FEATURE

Let's see, Kung Fu Panda 4? Not likely to win this award. Moana 2, even less likely. Frankly, I think the Annie Awards are just giving lip service to Disney sometimes. The Wild Robot is very much likely to take home this award, and I can also see Ultraman: Rising walking away with it. Though, I'm actually going out on a limb and going to say that the safe bet is Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Again, Wallace & Gromit just collect awards, but also when it comes to visual effects, Aardman usually gets a lot of good praise, so I'm going to pick Wallace & Gromit as my safe bet for this category.

BEST CHARACTER ANIMATION - FEATURE

Again, I think Wallace & Gromit has a good chance with this one, again it's because of Aardman. However, I think I'm gonna give the safe bet to The Wild Robot, but frankly I thin it could go to either movie really. I'm kind of impressed Kung Fu Panda 4 is getting a lot of nominations too, it just feels like pitting The Great Khali against The Big Show, like you know which is the better movie of the two immediately. Actually, I think a more apt comparison would be Giant Gonzalez against The Big Show, but that's getting into wrestling history and you're not here for that. Also, Inside Out 2 and Moana 2 are also nominated, I'll give Inside Out 2 third place again.

BEST CHARACTER ANIMATION - LIVE ACTION

Every year I talk about this one for a throw-away that I'm only kind of half-serious about. Still would have loved to live in a universe where I can factually say "Annie Award winning movie Cocaine Bear", but I digress. I think I'll give the safe bet to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

BEST CHARACTER DESIGN - FEATURE

For once, Inside Out 2 is no longer the third most likely to win this award, it has graduated all the way up to second most likely to win this award. Yeah, I don't imagine that many movies are going to win against The Wild Robot, but to be fair, I don't think there really is a "Safe Bet" so to speak for this category, not because all the movies in this category are worthy of the award, but because this one really is down to a matter of taste. That Christmas is also nominated, shame I didn't check that one out. There is also Spellbound which... I can kind of see it walking away with this award, but it doesn't look like anything special. Finally, there is a movie called "Scarygirl" that is nominated and it looks... Well, this is for character design so maybe.

BEST DIRECTION - FEATURE

Chicken for Linda! is our first nominee and... yeah I haven't even heard of this movie, it won a couple of awards, only losing on three nominations, so that's impressive. I'll have to add this movie to my... growing list of movies to check out. Flow is also nominated, and I can see this one taking home the award, the direction of this movie was really good. That Christmas gets another nomination, was it really that good? Of course, I think The Wild Robot is going to be the safe bet, that and Wallace & Gromit as well. I'm not saying it's unlikely that Flow or even Chicken for Linda will get this award, but Chris Sanders and Nick Park are established names in the industry so it's going to be pretty big if they both lose to an Indie film, and frankly it would be kind of amazing.

BEST MUSIC - FEATURE

Hmm, I haven't seen that awful Lord of the Rings movie show up here yet, not complaining, just thought it was worth noting. There's always that one movie you think is going to get some nominations but is almost completely ignored (cough Wish cough). Anyway, we have another movie I haven't heard of here, Kensuke's Kingdom. Piece By Piece also gets its first nominee here, and... I dunno, this one kind of feels like cheating. That Christmas gets another nominee, there is also always that one movie that just gets a lot of nominations. Again, I think the safe pick is The Wild Robot, followed by Wallace & Gromit. I think this is the most thought I've ever put into this category so far.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN - FEATURE

Umm... Call me crazy, but I don't think there is really one "Safe Bet" here, I mean sure The Wild Robot is obvious, but it shares the bench with Inside Out 2, Ultraman: Rising and Wallace & Gromit, I think the only safe bet is that That Christmas won't be taking home the award.

BEST STORYBOARDING - FEAUTRE

Holy wow, Despicable Me 4 has a nominee? As does Saving Bikini Bottom? They must have really been desperate to fill this one. It says something when I genuinely think the safest bet here is That Christmas, because Moana 2 and Spellbound do not come off as Annie award winners to me, but I haven't seen either of them so what would I know? I just know that this award might be the least interesting to many viewers.

BEST VOICE ACTING - FEATURE

Mélinée Leclerc gets a nomination for her performance in Chicken for Linda, Maya Hawke gets a nod for Anxiety in Inside Out 2, The Wild Robot has two nominees this year, Lupita Nyong'o as Roz and Kit Connor as Brightbill, and Brian Tyree Henry has a nod for Megatron in Transformers One. Is this really the first nomination Transformers One has? Fascinating. Anyway, I think The Wild Robot is the safe bet again, but Inside Out 2 might be the next pick for me.

BEST WRITING - FEATURE

Wow, Flow got nominated for the category? That is hilarious, wouldn't it be absolutely funny is the movie with no dialogue got this award? And yes, I know that writing doesn't just mean dialogue, but it's heavily associated with dialogue at the very least. Other nominees include Inside Out 2, Kensuke's Kingdom and Memoirs of a Snail. I think I'll take a risk and suggest Memoirs of a Snail will win this award, but that is very much not the safe bet pick here.

BEST EDITORIAL - FEATURE

Oh this category, I never like predicting for this category. Let's see, we have Inside Out 2, Moana 2, The Wild Robot, Ultraman: Rising and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Umm... The Wild Robot, maybe Wallace & Gromit, I don't want to come off as a fanboy championing a movie that has little chance, but like... Ultraman wasn't that good and I didn't watch Inside Out 2, and I have zero interest in anything Moana related, so I wouldn't have any opinions on that.

I think because 2024 was just kind of a "meh" year for animated cinema, the awards do kind of have to nominate the same handful of movies for each category this year. Like, I don't think Kung Fu Panda 4 was bad, but I don't think it will walk away with any awards this ceremony. Same with things like Ultraman, Moana 2, and seriously, how the Hell did Saving Bikini Bottom and Despicable Me 4 get a nomination? How did Transformers One only get one nomination? Okay, to be fair, Transformers One isn't exactly the kind of movie that award ceremonies would be lauding, but still, it could get thrown a bone for Storyboarding? The second worst SpongeBob movie and the most mediocre Illumination movie were more worthy of that award than Transformers One? Anyway, I don't expect The Wild Robot to be a total sweeper like Across the Spider-Verse was, but at the same time, I would not be surprised if it was.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Impressions; Despicable Me, Sandy Cheeks and Ultraman

I have to wonder, at what point can we call a year "Bad" for something, like did people decide that 1980 was the worst year of Pop Music in 1980 or only after a few years have gone by? It's easy to say that 2024 is a mediocre year for animated movies now, but we're just over half-way through, but like, what really has there been animation wise? 2023 was a pretty empty year for animated releases, but at least there were good movies released then. 2023 was no 2022, but it had some good stuff, but what has their been for 2024? There's been Inside Out 2, Which I still have yet to get to, and Kung Fu Panda 4, which seems to have gotten a mixed reception. It's telling when the best animated movies released are sequels and a documentary about a notoriously bad animated movie. Still, we have some new releases to talk about, so maybe we'll see something good?

Despicable Me 4
Released: July 3, 2024
Portion Written: July 28, 2024

I mean… it’s an illumination movie, what more needs to be said? Okay, that is a bit unfair, it's not like Illumination makes movies that aren't worth talking about, it's just... I feel like all my major problems with this movie are the same problems I have with the rest of Illuminations line-up that I've seen, it's just not trying to be anything that great. Granted, this is probably on the lesser side quality wise, and that mostly falls to the story. There is just too much going on, and a lot of stuff that just doesn't really get much of a resolution. The kids have a Karate class and that goes nowhere, the wife becomes a hair-stylist and that goes nowhere, the Minions become super-powered and that also really goes nowhere despite it being the most advertised aspect of the movie. I was waiting for them to show up in the climax and when they appeared I was like, "Ah, this is all this subplot is going to amount to, alright." I mean seriously, the Minion stuck in the vending machine had a more rewarding pay-off.

I feel like the story would have been better if it was just Gru and Poppy or Gru and Maxime, because I can imagine the former being a fascinating character study of Gru deciding whether he wants to return to being a villain or if he wants to stay with his family, and the latter would be a standard, but fairly entertaining, family-comedy film. Do I think this is the worst animated movie of the year? Honestly, no. Illumination movies just don't really get there for me, again they don't try to achieve greatness, and the benefit to that is that they also never hit absolute failure either. I can't really recommend it, but like... it's pretty innocuous.

And if anything, it got "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" stuck in my head, so thanks for that movie.

Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie
Released: August 2, 2024
Portion Written: August 2, 2024

At least it's better than Sponge on the Run.

Okay, that's a bit harsh, because I'm gonna be honest, I didn't think this movie was awful. There were some gags I actually liked here, even some dumb ones, like they almost felt like classic SpongeBob gags, and I'm not gonna lie, I did like Sandy's family, though I also just like Johnny Knoxville so take that for what it's worth. Is this movie great? No, it does have some issues, some of the effects, most notably the live action mixing were noticeably off and uncanny, the human actors just didn't feel right, the songs aren't really anything I'd want to listen to, I really don't get what the obsession with this stylized Computer Animation is, I think it looks ugly, and the movie is kind of... there. I mean, I wouldn't classify it on the same level as a movie like Mummies, but like, it really isn't something I'd probably come back to, but you know what, it is better than Sponge on the Run. I'll make jokes about its content, like Squidward being a bisexual furry (Only half kidding), but I don't think it's that bad, I can accept this movie's existence as a SpongeBob movie, albeit not a good one. I can't really recommend it on any real level, but like... I can't say I didn't have some enjoyment out of it, I'll go "Slight Recommendation" but take that with a grain of salt.

Ultraman: Rising
Released: June 12, 2024
Portion Written: August 17, 2024 (I watch these sporadically, shut up!)

On some level, I do have to admire this movie. There are elements here I can really appreciate, like the stylized animation, the choice to have a grey morality, honestly even the character relationships and drama I can kind of admire. Despite that though, this is kind of just another one of those movies where I have to ask, "Am I just getting jaded?", because I did kind of peg how a lot of this story was gonna go, for an Ultraman movie, I didn't assume that the movie I was gonna be reminded of most would be Mr. Baseball of all things. Even the animation, though I do recognize it as being of high quality, it often does just come off as Spider-Verse-lite. Still, I can't say this is a bad movie, it's quite well done, it's just, I think I would just rather watch The Sea Beast. I dunno, this was just another movie that failed to grab me, maybe I just had high expectations. Do I recommend it? Yeah, I arguably is one of the best movies I've seen all year, but like... honestly, if this is it, than this year just seems ready to accept the title of "Worst year for animated movies".

The Imaginary
Released: Dec 15, 2023
Netflix Release: July 5, 2024
Portion Written: August 25, 2024

Yet another movie that I just have to ask myself if I'm becoming too jaded or if the movie is just genuinely not that good. Something about this movie just does not entertain me, I dunno, maybe it's how the movie looks, something about the art-style and animation is just not pleasant to me, it's like putting an anime face on a real human head sometimes. Maybe it's the villain, who is holding onto an imaginary friend as an adult, which has a bunch of implications regarding the theme, maybe it's just that I wasn't a huge fan of Spirited Away, that could be a factor too. I dunno, something about this film doesn't sit right with me. I guess I'll withhold a full rating for now because, I mean how can I really rate a movie when I can't describe my reaction towards it? This... is a first for First Impressions, a movie I just straight up can't really articulate myself with, bound to happen sometime I guess.

Yeah, this year isn't looking to great for animated films, and if I'm being honest, I'm not really looking forward to the rest of the line-up for this year. We've got Moana 2, Mufasa: The Lion King, and The Wild Robot, and honestly, I'm most dreading The Wild Robot. Hopefully I'm wrong on that one, but I dunno, this year's track record has been unimpressive so far. I don't even know if I'll be able to do a best list... maybe a "Movies that weren't complete trash" list... I'll think of something.

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.

Coyote vs Acme vs Warner Bros

You ever hear a news story that... you just can't believe because it's so freaking dumb? Like those Florida Man stories or some of the many weird tales in history? Coyote vs Acme is just... so stupid of a news story that frankly I don't even know what to say here. Like, every single level in this story is so stupid that it baffles me that someone could make this choice without being laughed at by everyone in the company. I thought the Nimona debacle was a disaster... Nimoma looks quaint compared to this, honestly The Thief and the Cobbler doesn't seem like as big a mess, though it is easy to make comments like that when the situation is not yet entirely resolved, and the ramifications of these actions have yet to completely unfurl. To put bluntly, We're only at the tip of the iceberg of this situation here, and to put it even more bluntly, this is only the tip of a very horrid iceberg.

Coyote vs Acme was a highly anticipated feature from Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, it was about Wile E. Coyote, the iconic Looney Tunes character, getting in a lawsuit against the Acme corporation for their products. People were excited for this movie, for starters, it's another Looney Tunes Live-Action Mix, and people are having nostalgic connections to the previous movies, Space Jam and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, this would also be the first time that the Coyote has been a main star in a movie since arguably The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie back in 1979. The film was first shelved in late 2023, so it could be a tax write-off, alongside previously shelved movies Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt.

The immediate problem should be noticed, the Looney Tunes are literally one of Warner Bros.' most popular franchises, having earned a total revenue of over 15 Billion dollars, and of the characters, Wile E. Coyote is one of the most popular, ranking at Number 3 on The A.V. Club's Top 40 Best Looney Tunes Characters, and at Number 7 on Cracked's Top 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Characters. There is literally no benefit to axing this movie, the only reason I can think of that they believed it would be more profitable to shelve this movie entirely, is because they're worried it will bomb. To play devil's advocate here, the previous Looney Tunes Movie, 2021's Space Jam: A New Legacy, grossed over one-hundred sixty-three million dollars, on a one-hundred and fifty million dollar budget. While those are good numbers, that does mean that the movie pretty much broke even, looking at it from a purely marketing stand-point, what conclusion would you draw if you saw those numbers? Of course, as a counter, some may point out that Space Jam is a meme franchise and most people would only go see it in theatres as a joke, and the only way anyone would actually recommend it unironically would be if the movie was so phenomenally good it made you forget you were watching a sequel to Space Jam. I don't know if I would, I still haven't watched it. I am very behind on the animated releases of 2021.

Speaking of that fact, I'm honestly surprised that Space Jam even broke even at the box office because that was 2021. If I need to remind you, 2020 was the year everything shut down because of a global pandemic, and it wasn't over in 2021, though people were pretending like it was. I couldn't be the only one who was avoiding movie theatres because they still didn't feel completely safe, honestly releasing movies in theatres in 2020 and 2021 just seemed like a bad idea, and it also didn't help that Space Jam also went directly to streaming simultaneously. Yeah, that's another thing people tend to forget, a lot of people are still willing to see movies in theatres, but because theatre prices are expensive, many people would prefer to watch a movie on streaming instead, predominately because it's cheaper to pay ten dollars a month for HBO Max and its wall of content instead of fifteen to twenty dollars for a movie ticket that only lets you see one movie. Now I hate the streaming era, but that is a different argument for another time, my point is, box office numbers probably are not the measure of popularity that some people might think they are. Especially since we have things like home media releases, merchandise sales, and of course streaming numbers.

Regardless, someone at WB (Only keeping their name out of this to try and remain somewhat professional) is worried that this movie would bomb, so decided to pull it. However, because of public backlash, they brought in some potential buyers, only for it to be revealed that they didn't even want to sell the movie due to worries that the movie would be a smash hit and embarrass WB. This is the stupidest thing I've read since Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot called something a "Quadruple-A Game" and I swear reading that made me lose braincells. Let me put it like this; What WB is doing with Coyote vs. Acme is like if McDonald's decided to not bring back the McRib, and then decided to make a law that only they could sell ribs in case some other restaurant made their own Rib Sandwich, and made more money than they could. So they aren't selling their rib sandwich anymore, but they also don't want to not make money off of it. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place, except the rock is made of soapstone, and the "hard place" is Cotton-Candy Rainbow Land.

This whole situation is just stupid, it's the kind of stupid that isn't even funny. Decisions like this prove that there is a problem with management at Warner Bros, decisions that, to quote Treasure Planet's Captain Amelia, "Displays a level of ineptitude that borders on the imbecilic", and the sad thing is... this isn't even new. Multiple shows such as Sym-Bionic Titan, Beware The Batman, and Megas XLR have become tax-write offs in the past, and there was the previously mentioned Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt. This is indicative of a deeper problem, one that I am not even slightly educated enough to start speculating upon. I've heard some claim that this is going to be the event that causes either the entire film industry to change or the Hollywood system to be completely burned to the ground, metaphorically speaking of course. I am not optimistic, I feel we've been here before, maybe not with movies, but with music, or video games, or internet content, that one event that everyone believed was gonna bring nothing but great changes, but then it ended up being "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" except we didn't even get a new boss. Maybe I'm wrong, but as it has been said before, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes".

I used a lot of big words in this blog... I want ice cream.

Was Wish Really That Bad?

So, the Annie Awards have been announced... you may have heard about that. I only did a blog post about it recently. Anyway, there has been one thing about it that most people have found amusing, and honestly I'd be lying if I said I didn't find it partly amusing myself, and that is that Wish, Disney's big 100 year celebration movie, has not been nominated for one Annie Award, in fact I think the only "major" awards it's been nominated for is a Golden Globe and two Critics' Choice Awards. Honestly, it is a shame because... I didn't think Wish was a bad movie, I thought it was fine. You know, not one of Disney's A-List movies, but it was definitely better than Strange World or The Black Cauldron. Honestly, I didn't even want to put it on my Worst Animated Movies of 2023 list, because I like to be nicer to movies that could have been good or great, but just weren't there. Hmm... I think that explains my feelings towards Ruby Gillman.

All of this, and audience reception towards the movie leads me to wonder, am I wrong? Is Wish actually a bad movie? I'll admit, this is a difficult question, not because the whole idea of "Good" and "Bad" can be very subjective to the point where it hardly even matters, but mostly because it really makes me look at what I consider a good or bad movie, and ultimately, it comes down to my usual standard, a good movie is a movie I enjoy, and bad movie is one I don't. Of course, there are some exceptions, I wouldn't call the Rescue Rangers movie from 2022 a "Bad" movie on the same level as The Cat in the Hat from 2003, but I didn't find Rescue Rangers to be a very funny movie while The Cat in the Hat I found hilarious because of just how awful it was. Ultimately, I use this metric because, it is my belief that entertainment should, you know, entertaining. This leads to me saying things like Jackass Forever is my favourite live-Action movie of 2022, or Mummies is the worst animated movie of 2023. So, I guess the real question is "Do I think Wish is an enjoyable movie"?

Yes, yeah I think it is something that can be enjoyed. That doesn't say a lot though, does it? I mean, what does it even mean to say "It can be enjoyed"? You can say that about anything; "Homestar Runner! It can be enjoyed!", "Dark Souls, it can be enjoyed!", "Horrible Fascist Propaganda, it can be enjoyed. It shouldn't be, but it can.". I think what I ultimately mean is, it's the kind of movie that knowing what you're going to get is gonna be more beneficial than going in blind. It's not something I can morally object to, it's not something I can get angry at, it's a musical fairy-tale fantasy movie, that is kind of what I expected, that is what I got. In my worst of 2023 list I said this; "Encanto was a movie I wasn't expecting to be as good as it was, Strange World is a movie I was expecting to be better than it was, Wish is a movie I expected it to be exactly as good as it was... It reached for good, but it could have been great."

I'd like to say a lot of it has been because Disney has been doing poorly in 2023 and my expectations were lowered because of that, but mostly it's just because I didn't really have any faith that Disney could do a Fairy-Tale Fantasy again. I mean, the last one they did was... I guess Frozen 2? Beyond that, most of the Disney Animated Canon is... despite what Disney would want you to believe, not even Fairy-Tale movies. At sixty-two movies, I'd count only about eleven as Fairy Tale Fantasies, including Wish. Some I don't know how to count, like Alice in Wonderland, The Emperor's New Groove or some of the package films that have fairy-tale stories as one story told within them, removing any movies I am not sure about leaves about thirty-nine movies that I would not classify as Fairy-Tale Fantasies. So, despite the fact they're literally the Fairy Tale company, they haven't actually made that much, and it's been ages since their classic movies.

I'm not one of those movie goers who says that "Modern Disney sucks and everything was better when I was a kid", because that is very much not true, there have been some excellent movies and TV shows made under the Disney branding from the late 2010s onward, but Disney animated movies are definitely different, and this is especially apparent in their modern fantasy films. If Raya and the Last Dragon was modern Disney to a tee, Wish is Modern Disney trying to evoke Classic Disney, and they have undeniably failed at that attempt. Wish failed to evoke anything about Classic Disney, outside of references that made me want to watch Classic Disney movies, and I should set an aside here, when I say "Classic" and "Modern", I really mean, Pre-renaissance and Renaissance onward. Most of the tropes that are common in modern Disney movies were mostly popularized by movies in the renaissance, for example Sisu from Raya and the Last Dragon probably would not have existed as she did without Genie from Aladdin. When I say "Modern Disney", I really mean 1989 onward.

Those references do seem to be a point of contention for a lot of people. I've heard the argument that, it should have just been the Seven Dwarfs and the Fairy Godmother and Peter Pan in the movie, and I have to say that I don't agree. I mean, if Disney Dreamlight Valley, Disney Heroes: Battle Mode, even Rescue Rangers 2022 have proved anything, it's that you can't just have your crossover just be a crossover, like yes the hook of Kingdom Hearts and Who Framed Roger Rabbit is that they are crossovers, but there is more to those than just that, because surprisingly "Crossover" is a weak hook. Beyond Disney, look at Jump Force, look at PlayStation All-Stars, look at a lot of the Nicktoons crossovers, Spyro Orange and Crash Purple, you get my point right? If Wish was not a strong movie on its own, it would not be made any stronger by being a crossover.

So... what is the verdict? I think ultimately, Wish is not a bad movie, I mean, compared to Mummies, Luck, Scoob!, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Duck Duck Goose, those are bad movies. Wish does not compare to any of them, it's not horribly bland to an insulting degree, it's not a representation of anything wrong in media, it's not an insultingly made movie, it's just not a really great movie. I don't want this to come off as "Everyone who dislikes Wish is wrong", because I don't think they are. I think a lot of it is being blown out of proportion, like how does Wish compare to Disney's other worst movies? The Black Cauldron, Chicken Little, Dinosaur, The Three Caballeros. I keep hearing people say that "bad movies are better than boring ones", I disagree because that implies that all kinds of "bad" are the same. I just can't muster that much disdain for Wish, compared to The Black Cauldron's sack of crap being dropped on your head, Wish is like a drop of water on your head. I mean, am I really going to get upset at Wish? Sure, it doesn't reach for greatness, but it's not a total disaster either, I'm perfectly fine with that.

The 2024 Annie Award Nominees Have Been Announced

 

I had a lot of fun with the 2023 Annie Award Predictions blog last year, and since I don't have much else to talk about in January, why not do this again? I mean, SAG-AFTRA getting into A.I? Okay yeah that is really bad, like seriously what the Hell? That was literally a massive part of the strikes, this is just stupid. Anyway, last year I did check out the Annie Awards, so I actually am kind of excited for them this year. I don't really care for a lot of discussion around award shows, but in a historical sense, it is kind of fun. So, I'm gonna make my predictions, and as a bonus if I am wrong, or the award winner is one I disagree with, you don't have to read about my complaining about it.

As usual I'm only going to talk about the awards for Features, because I don't watch a lot of TV so this just makes it easier on myself, plus with all the categories, this makes it less to read. If you read my blog from last year you know how this will work, if not, I'll introduce each category, talk about the nominees and who I think will win and who I want to win. You can check out the Nominees for this year here: https://annieawards.org/nominations

With that said, let's talk Nominees!

BEST FEATURE:

All in all I would say that this year's Best Feature awards are looking really strong, literally any movie could walk away with this award and I think everyone would understand. While I think Suzume is a strong, if a bit of a dark horse candidate, I think it will ultimately be down to The Boy and the Heron, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Nimona. If I had to pick which is most likely to win, it's kind of tough, I mean last year was pretty clear that it was gonna be Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, but this year I think those three have equal chances of winning. Into the Spider-Verse won the award in 2018, but at the same time only two sequels won the award alongside their predecessor, those being Toy Story 2 and How to Train Your Dragon 2. I dunno, I wouldn't be surprised if Spider-Verse was the third franchise in this list.

How did Kung Fu Panda 2 lose to Rango? Anyway, I think Across the Spider-Verse is the most likely to win this one, but you know which movie I would love to see win this award? Nimona, and not just because it's my pick for best animated movie of 2023, I want it to win for more... spiteful reasons? It's pretty common knowledge now that Nimona was allegedly cancelled as a Blue Sky movie because of Bob Chapek's homophobia, and I'm just saying if it does win Best Feature and the Annies, I mean I was already hoping he is kicking himself after how successful the movie became, but this would just add salt to the wound.

I wouldn't be surprised if Boy and The Heron Won, giving Studio Ghibli their second Best Feature award since Spirited Away, but I think it will ultimately go to Across the Spider-Verse, and I would prefer it go to Nimona. Oh yeah, there's also some Turtle movie in the list, I don't know.

BEST INDIE FEATURE:

Um... I didn't watch any of these movies so I don't really have any predictions or opinions about this one. Last year I did have some views because looking back on it, I was definitely way to hard on 2022, that year had a great selection of animated movies, and it showed with the fact that I managed to watch two of the five nominees for this category that year. I was surprised Marcel The Shell With Shoes On took home the award, but I was super happy it did because that was my favourite movie of the year.

I guess if I had to pick I'd probably pick Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia, but that's like the only nominee I've heard about. I dunno, maybe Four Souls of Coyote or Robot Dreams or The Inventor or White Plastic Sky will take home the award and I'll look like a fool, but I won't be surprised if Ernest & Celestine take the award this year. They lost to Frozen in 2013, so did the Wind Rises actually, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is the movie most people expect to win this award.

BEST FX - FEATURE:

Oh boy, this one is gonna be tough. Well, not really but this is a pretty varied category this year. We have Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, Elemental, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Vere, Suzume, and a film called The Peasants. I think Across the Spider-Verse is the most likely to take this one home. The live-action mixing and different art-styles really makes it stand-out amongst the rest of the nominees. I think I would like Suzume to win this one, because I do think it deserves at least one award, and probably won't win one, but I think it will go to Across the Spider-Verse. I mean the first movie didn't get nominated for effects in 2018, so this is their chance to make up for that.

BEST CHARACTER ANIMATION - FEATURE:

Oh boy this one is pretty tough. I don't think Nimona will take this one, it's probably the least likely to win this award in my opinion, though it would be awesome if it won. I think this one will come down to Elemental and Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. Though my track record is hilariously off with this award, considering that last year I thought that Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio was least likely to win this award, since Turning Red and The Bad Guys both had two nominations in the category, but what do you know, I was wrong.

As an aside, I'm so happy The Amazing Digital Circus got nominated for Best Character Animation - TV/Media. Dark horse candidate truly, but hopefully it takes home the award.

BEST CHARACTER ANIMATION - LIVE-ACTION:

Cocaine Bear got a nomination in this category, so screw it, GO COCAINE BEAR! I want to live in a world where I can say "The Annie Award winning movie Cocaine Bear"!

BEST CHARACTER DESIGN - FEATURE:

As much as Elemental is a strong contender for this award, I do think it will be down to Nimona or Across the Spider-Verse, again. I think these movies will be neck and neck for a lot of awards this year. Both films were very stylized with a comic book feel so it does seem likely one of them will take the award. I looked up Robot Dreams to see what it looks like, I don't want to be rude, but it doesn't really look like it will be taking home the award, if it does I will genuinely be shocked. As for the final nominee, Merry Little Batman... I don't have many thoughts really.

BEST DIRECTION - FEATURE:

It's tough to really pick for this category because I've only seen three of the five nominees. On the one hand I do think it could be down to Nimona and Spider-Verse again, but at the same time The Boy and the Heron is also a strong candidate, Miyazaki definitely deserves that award too. On the other hand, Robot Dreams could have had amazing direction but I wouldn't know because I didn't watch it. I guess I'll be fair and give it a little leeway with this category, it isn't like the big features are shoe-ins for this category either, but it seems more likely to me that Nimona, Spider-Verse or Boy and the Heron will take home this award.

Also, that Turtle movie is nominated again... hmm.

BEST MUSIC - FEATURE:

I have nothing for this category... umm... I guess I'll pick Elemental as my most likely to win and Suzume as my preferred winner. Spider-Verse, Ninja Turtles and Boy and the Heron will probably also have a chance but uh... yeah I'm pretty useless with this category.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN - FEATURE:

Okay, let's not talk about Nimona and Across the Spider-Verse again and talk about the other nominations. Elemental does have a chance, and removing the other two movies, I think it is most likely to win. I jest a lot but I do say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is also a strong candidate, and The Boy and the Heron is probably my other preferred winner of this category. You know, I think Ruby Gillman might have also stood a chance in this category, just not in any other category.

BEST STORYBOARDING - FEATURE:

Another Robot Dreams nomination... There is always one movie that gets a bunch of nominations that I haven't seen, I'll have to add Robot Dreams to my watchlist. I think I'll say that Nimona, shockingly, if my preferred pick, but as for likely pick... I want to say Nimona as well, but Suzume is also a strong contender in my opinion.

BEST VOICE ACTIONG - FEATURE:

Lets see, we have David Hornsby in Merry Little Batman, Tresi Gazal in Migration, Chloe Grace Moretz in Nimona, Hokuto Matsumura in Suzume and Jack Black in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Is that the first nomination for the Super Mario Bros. Movie? Really? Wow, I thought it would have gotten a couple more by now. Anyway, I'm hoping for Nimona to take home this award, though I wouldn't be shocked if it went to Jack Black. I don't think I'd agree with it though, Jack Black's performance was one of my criticisms of the movie, but still I wouldn't be surprised.

BEST WRITING - FEATURE:

Damn, Nimona's gotten a lot of nominations... or... NIMONA-tions... eh?

Anyway, another Robot Dreams nomination, and Suzume is getting a surprising amount of nominations too. The Boy and The Heron is also likely to win, and more Turtles. I can't really pick one, so I'll just pick Nimona and Suzume.

BEST EDITORIAL - FEATURE:

Finally we have best editorial, which the nominees are... pretty okay. This is Leo's first nomination for an award, which is weird considering all the buzz it got, but I guess being better than a mediocre Disney movie only gets you so far. Elemental has another nomination, and it has a pretty good chance of winning. Again, Nimona and Spider-Verse are neck and neck for this award, I think I'll actually have to give it to Spider-Verse, everything that had to be edited together in that movie was pretty impressive. Oh, and that Ninja Turtles movie got nominated again... so that's neat.

I just realized, I said I would share my thoughts on last years winners. I don't think I ever got around to that... whoops. Well I won't be promising anything this year, I may live-tweet the ceremony but barring that once everything is finished, it'll be finished. The awards will take place on February 17th this year, so hopefully I'll be able to catch them.

Ultimately, I think most of the awards will go to Nimona or Across the Spider-Verse, those movies were both just really good, and should get a bunch of awards, and I can't think of any movie that I think shouldn't have been nominated. For as much as I say I'm done with Ninja Turtles, I'm happy it has some nominations, I'm surprised some movies only got nominated once, like Ernest & Celestine, Ruby Gillman and Leo. Still, not much left to do but wait and see, maybe I'll be surprised. Until then, I'll see you in February.

Also, I am absolutely rooting for The Amazing Digital Circus!

Ruby Gillman Could Have Been Great!

I think Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken is my favourite movie of 2023 to talk about. Truly, it is such an interesting thing, no piece of cinema released in 2023 has taken up more of my mental process. It is not anything like Nimona, Across the Spider-Verse, or even Elemental, and I don't mean that is terms of quality, story, cinematography or critical and commercial reception, no I mean that in the sense that, Ruby Gillman was such a disappointing mess that at least half of my thoughts about this movie concern whether or not I even like it.

The problem with Ruby Gillman is not new to cinema, we have seen movies filled with missed opportunities before, but watching it makes me feel like the filmmakers actively tried to avoid the interesting parts of the story. I've talked about this quite a lot already, I've done three separate blogs about Ruby Gillman, first was the First Impressions blog, then one where I compared it to Elemental to try to analyze why one movie was a sleeper hit and the other was slept on, and most recently I ranked it as the fourth worst animated movie of 2023. However, it just sits there, in the back of my mind, gnawing at my brain, the simple fact that this movie is truly one of animations greatest "Could have been" stories, I'd argue up there with The Thief and the Cobbler and The Modifyers, Ruby Gillman is a "could have been" that... somehow "is", and if that doesn't make sense, you're not alone, I just wrote it and I don't quite understand it.

The most important questions of "Could have been" stories are "What" and "Why", specifically "What could it have been?" and "Why was it not?", and what makes Ruby Gillman such an interesting "Could Have Been" is the idea that nobody sets out to make a bad movie, so when I say "Ruby Gillman could have been great", it actually kind of hurts to have to ask "Why was it not?". It feels obvious to me what the movie should have been, and it seems obvious to others, but why wasn't it obvious to the filmmakers?

I think a good question to ask in this case is "How could Ruby Gillman have been great?" and the answer is pretty simple; it has the right pieces. A fish out of water story where the main character is... pretty much literally a fish out of water, and seeing them have to balance their identity with having to adapt into a new society that is foreign to them, that is a really good story idea, and it has been used to great effect in many ways. This story immediately is identifiable, relatable, and poignant. So many people, thanks to their ethnical background, their gender identity, their disabilities, or even just because they struggle with identity completely, can relate with a character like Ruby Gillman, someone who is caught between two identities. It helps a lot that Ruby's friends and family are interesting enough to really add layers to this concept. How does being in a relationship with a human affect her relationship with her family, how does her family affect her relationship with her friends, how would the reveal that she's a Kraken affect her relationship with her friends, how does it effect the relationship she and her family have in her town?

I guess in some ways one could argue that they had scraps of this idea in the movie, with how wanting to embrace the fact she's a princess affects her relationship with her mother, but that does not really feature heavily in the movie. Honestly, even the Princess stuff could have been good, because it could have added an entirely new layer of drama, she not only has to balance her human life and her Kraken life, but she also has to do it while struggling with her own identity, this is a really fantastic plot for a movie. Short and sweet, Ruby Gillman should have been a movie about a teenaged girl struggling with her identity, we did not need mermaids, we did not need a war, and although a giant kaiju battle is welcomed, it was not wholly necessary.

When I talked about this movie on my worst of 2023 list, I brought up that, this movie seems to have an identity struggle of its own, not knowing what kind of movie it wants to be. I've heard the meme about Elemental being written by an A.I. trying to remake Zootopia, which is, first off not at all true Elemental and Zootopia are two different stories, and second of all, really unfair on the face of it, because Elemental knew what story it was telling. Ruby Gillman seemed to want to be Turning Red, except with hints of The Princess Diaries, and maybe a bit of Luca. Well those are three completely different stories, it's like making music and wanting to mix Madness, System of a Down, and Bruce Cockburn, like you really need to find the pieces of these elements that fit, and it really did not feel like Ruby Gillman had those fitting pieces. It had the right pieces, not the right connectors.

A Tumblr user by name of mauraders4evr made an interesting post about the biggest problem with Ruby Gillman, you can read it all here, but to paraphrase, the movie's concept is missing the "And Then", the part that adds to the subversion and makes viewers invested in it. Personally, I agree with this sentiment, but I want to add that it did feel like Ruby Gillman knew it was subversive, but not what it was subverting. The movie has little more subversion than "Mermaids are evil actually".
"It's The Little Mermaid, because the villain looks like Ariel!"
Okay, is that it? I'm sorry but uhh... Disney did this kind of subversion better... back in 1991... by making the hunky and heroic looking Gaston, a character who looks like they'd be the typical Disney hero, a villain. Subversion is about more than playing with our expectations, it's about taking concepts and tropes and flipping them around.

I don't think this movie needed to be subversion, I think it needed to be more grounded. My comparison to Elemental wasn't just to look at why Ruby Gillman bombed when Elemental became a surprise hit, I did the comparison because Ruby Gillman, could have easily been the movie Elemental wanted to be, a movie about identity, relationships outside of your own kin, and what those relationships truly mean. Ruby Gillman could have been the great movie that was hiding in Elemental's weaknesses. The greatest tragedy with Ruby Gillman, with any piece of entertainment really, is not that it's bad, it's that it could have been so much more.

Also, while it's on my mind, why did they have the joke about them hiding their identity by saying they were Canadian? Was it because of Turning Red?