Quickie Review Mary Poppins Returns

Somehow this little blog about books ended up reviewing movies, netflix original series, and a videogame that one time (and some essays that should really be given more effort and REALLY should be cited). There are lots of movies I like (because I’m someone just easy to please), but don’t really have too many thoughts on them, so that’s where I came up with the idea of quickies. Short and simple reviews for fairly minor movies.

A Spoonful of Sugar makes the Review go Faster!

After over sixty years (and all kinds of controversies between author, disney, and even a movie based around the controversy between PL Travers and Walt Disney), we have Mary Poppins Returns. I gotta admit I didn’t particularly care or was even aware this movie came out at the end of last year. I decided to give it a shot after seeing a few Mary Poppins inspired paintings and buying a tea set for my aunt.

The film is shockingly lovely and nostalgic; not in the sense that Mary Poppins was my go to movie as a kid, but because I did stay up late in the 90’s and 00’s watching Disney Channel where after a few hours they showed reruns of classic Disney media including Walt Disney Presents and some of the older Disney films and even some behind the scenes stuff on how the Disney films, shorts, and special effects were done. They even roll the intro credits like the old disney films, complete with illustrations of what to expect in the film as a whole.

The plot is predictable, the Banks family has troubles and may lose their home, Mary Poppins is going to step in and aid once again, nothing too complex. Emily Blunt’s portrayal of Mary Poppins is not the same as the approach Julie Andrews took, rather than being wholesome and sweet, Blunt is…blunt. When asked about portraying the character, Blunt said she took inspiration from the book version of Mary Poppins because she felt she couldn’t channel the same energy as Julie Andrews’ portrayal.

The movie is pretty to look at and I did feel giddy over the 2d animation used for the film since Disney hasn’t done 2d animation since The Princess and the Frog (why do my friends hate that movie??) The music is nice, I’m not much of a music oriented person, but I did enjoy The Place Where the Lost Things Go very much. Also Lin Manuel Miranda finds a way to rap in this movie (sorta).

I give Mary Poppins Returns three balloons out of five.

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A Wrinkle in Time Film Review

A few months ago I posted a blog out of excitement for the motion picture adaptation of one of my favorite books growing up (and got me into reading) A Wrinkle in Time. Earlier today I got to sit down and watch the film and see if I would be fully satisfied with this motion picture adaptation of a book close to my heart, or would this be like Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader again?

Spoilers from this point on, I’d much rather you go read the book A Wrinkle in Time first, then watch the film.

First thing is first, I didn’t hate the film. I do heavily feel things could have been handled better than what was presented. Fortunately there is a big steaming pile of things I liked in the film to make me happy that I watched the film and to say that I liked the movie.

In defense of the film though, I knew changes would be made, I knew characters would be adapted out and new scenes and dialogue adapted in. However there are things in the film that bother me. The primary thing being the direction of the character Mrs Whatsit. In the book the Mrs W’s are indeed celestial beings that are wise, kind, and willing to help Meg and Charles Wallace find their father. While the characters of Mrs Who and Mrs Which are still the same, Mrs Whatsit is kind of a slightly bitchy Elle Woods.

She is still very kind and shows concern for the children, but she also looks down on humanity unintentionally and puts Meg down frequently during the film (she also has a ‘thing’ for the now male Happy Medium). My only reasoning for the decision to have Mrs Whatsit put Meg down was to have Meg focus on her own faults more and more since they are needed by the end of the film, but with the reaction Mrs Who and Mrs Which give her, I don’t think that was the intention.

There are a few plot points glossed over or excluded from the film including; the black thing (the entity that created IT and is causing the evil in the universe), the origin of Mrs Whatsit, the whole point of Calvin in the film, and the near exclusion of the planet Ixchel and Aunt Beast. Also Sandy and Dennis Murray are nowhere to be seen, but I don’t think we’re getting any sequels to A Wrinkle in Time.

The film is modernized a bit, Mrs Who quotes some recent historical figures (including Lin-Manuel Miranda) and a more modern setting, to be honest though with the clothing worn by the human characters and the lack of cellphones this film could take place between the 1990’s and today. Along with modernization, some of the darker aspects of the book are removed from the film (I guess in this version of the film CPS would not let any form of child abuse slide so easily).

There is also a lack of clarification between using magic and science; in the novel there is no magic used. The whole point of the Happy Medium was so she could use her crystal ball to find Dr.Murray and expose Calvin’s home life, via a scientific approach. That is to say I do like what was done with the scene and how it helped Meg grow as a person later in the film.

Back to Calvin, I don’t understand his point in the film. In the novel he’s there to encourage Meg and to try to save Charles Wallace, and in later books it’s heavily implied God wanted Meg and Calvin to get married one day. While romance is never a big deal in the book (Calvin and Meg do kiss) it’s almost non existent in the film and instead of sharing a kiss, Meg and Calvin share a hug. As mentioned above some of the darker tones from the novel aren’t present in the film including Calvin’s home life. The book revealed that Calvin was in a abusive household with multiple siblings and a mother who ‘had the hope and joy in her life beaten out of her’. Not sure why this was watered down to Calvin having a verbally/emotionally abusive father, but it does fit the scene fairly well.

Charles Wallace is…kind of annoying, which is also what I got from the book when I was rereading it as an adult, so nothing too bad. Meg was the central focus of the film (obviously) and I am happy what was done with her character; she didn’t let minor things bother her (not having fashionable clothing, caring about her weight, etc), she cared about her family and brother and knew she was intelligent.

Now there’s the near exclusion of Aunt Beast and how the climax of the film was handled; I liked what was there, and I dislike what wasn’t there. While I was happy that this time around IT wasn’t defeated as seen in the tv movie, I didn’t like the exclusion of Aunt Beast in the film. While I am happy Aunt Beast is there in cameo form, I felt that the character would have been necessary to increase the outcome of the climax.

In the book Aunt Beast was part of a race of creatures that had no gender, no eyes, no ears, and no mouth and spoke via thought. Despite the lack communication the species of Ixchel are very kind and loving by nature and heal Meg out of the goodness of their hearts and provide some ammo via ‘power of love’ to have Meg go and save Charles Wallace. I feel that if this scene had been included, it would have made the climactic ‘battle’ between Meg and IT over Charles Wallace stronger. I am also happy with how the ‘battle’ is handled in the film.

In terms of appearance, THE FILM IS BEAUTIFUL TO LOOK AT! The planet Uriel is such a beautiful portion of the film with bright colors and scenery (gotta love that New Zealand filming location). The clothing and dresses worn by the Mrs W’s are also very beautiful and detailed. I find myself loving Mrs Who’s outfits in the film with one of her gowns having quotes in various languages sewn into them.

The special effects are nice, and I do like Ava DuVarnay’s decision to make the planets visited in the film as alien as possible (no flying centar in this film).

The Removal of Christianity

I had a feeling this would happen, I’m not shocked and I’m not really offended either. Despite what a meme on the internet may tell you, A Wrinkle in Time is not about religion. While there is mention of the citizens of Urial singing a verse from the Bible (Isaiah 42:10-12), Calvin mentioning reading from the book of Genesis to Charles Wallace, and Charles Wallace name dropping Jesus as someone who fought against darkness, the book isn’t as overtly about religion as many think claim it is.

It is also heavily hinted in the book that the Mrs W’s are servants of God in the books, and in some trailers for the film the impression that they serve a higher being is there. I do enjoy the science fiction approach to them this time around with them only being able to exist there there is both physical light and light as in the figurative sense of good in the universe.

Despite the removal of Christianity from the film there is still a strong good versus evil theme with Meg witnessing the large cosmic evil from the influence of of the Black Thing and IT and seeing the small minor evils in the world (Calvin’s abusive homelife, a school bully who forbids herself from eating certain foods so she can be skinny, a stranger Charles Wallace is kind and polite to getting mugged while waiting for the bus, teachers being envious of a promotion for one of their colleagues, etc). The book and the film are able to stand alone without the inclusion of the religion, but I was hoping the line of ‘not to me Calvin, never to me.’ would have been kept in the film.

Marketing

I feel that Disney didn’t have as much faith in this film as many were lead to believe. While it may be a good thing little to no merchandising was released for the film (there are a few coffee mugs, notebooks, and posters with quotes from the film and three barbie dolls of the Mrs W’s. Oh and the obligatory Pop Funko figures, gotta have my pops). This might be because aside from the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, live action Disney films have a tragic habit of underperforming and being quickly forgotten about within less than a year (you ever hear of anyone talking about Tomorrowland or Maleficent still?)

I mean I knew about the film and kept close tabs on it from the release of the trailer last year (my poor friends Sam and Myrna had to endure me counting down to the premier of the film), but I’m not really sure if the public was as aware of the film. As mentioned above I kept close tabs on the film even subscribing to #AWrinkleInTime on Instagram, but I don’t know exactly how much effort Disney placed into marketing. Seeing as how my nieces and nephews (who I see usually around weekends alone) were aware of the film, I’d say it was advertised enough.

The advertisements and film did put heavy emphasis on women and young girls being able to change the world and to ‘be a warrior’ which I have nothing against, but that wasn’t really a thing in the book.

All in all despite not living up to my picky standards I did enjoy A Wrinkle in TIme and give it three flying tulip aliens out of five.

Princesses and Femenism

After watching Beauty and the Beast last week, rewatching the animated Beauty and the Beast from my childhood, and looking up actual signs of Stockholm syndrome (apparently it needs to be studied more), I decided to write a bit on feminism and princesses. Not real life princesses, but the animated ones kids and adults of today’s society grew up with. I talk from my own personal viewing experience and talk as much as I can about feminism as I’m allowed to with my Y chromosome (I think I’m allowed to go a little further because I’m gay).

Disney Princesses

I know there are alot of arguments concerning the Disney princesses and how they can and can’t be feminist role models because it took literally ten(ish) princesses for one to NOT get a boyfriend/handsome prince in the end.

I like to think of the Disney princess movies as slowly progressive feminism with Snow White being the worst damsel in distress and Elsa and Moana being able to save their own damn selves.

From Snow White we have Cinderella who takes alot of crap from her evil stepmother and stepsisters and just goes with it because she’s a good girl who feels she will be rewarded for her goodness and kindness one day. She didn’t want to go to the ball to meet Prince Charming and live happily ever after; she wanted to go to the ball to have a good time and to have a night off from her life as a servant to her family. Prince Charming falling for her was just an added bonus. In her live action adaption (which is pretty much a rated G version of Everafter), she’s made an intellect and the ultimate Christian good girl having the ability to forgive the people who wronged her and even let them off with their own happily ever after. Also she has one of the few decent Disney sequels with Cinderella 3.

Aurora from Sleeping Beauty is still a damsel and she longed for someone to marry, but she wanted to date the individual first and get to know him before marrying any old guy. Plus the movie is just the good fairies and Maleficent going back and fourth at each other.

Between the first three princesses and the Disney Renascence we had Princess Eilonwy from The Black Cauldron. She was being held captive along with the protagonist and had some pretty crappy magical abilities at best. She didn’t want a relationship, she just didn’t want to be held captive by the Horned King. At most she kisses the protagonist, but since Disney views The Black Cauldron as a box office bomb Eilonwy, Taran, Gurgi, and Hen Wen and ignored by Disney with DVD releases of The Black Cauldron popping up once every twenty(ish) years. I have a copy.

In the eighties and nineties our princesses started being more proactive. Ariel of The Little Mermaid gets alot of flack because she sold her voice/soul for legs (and a vagina), for the sake of romancing a guy who’s life she had saved. In her defense she could be a “fangirl of humans” and after saving a human, she wanted to experience more human things. As an adult though, Ariel’s efforts to get the attention of a man to make him fall in love with her is an awful message for little girls (and some boys). Fortunately her animated tv show made up for this (I think, it’s been two decades since I’ve seen it).

From there we have Belle, who was the first Disney princess who didn’t want a man in her life. She was literate, and longed for more outside of the jackass illiterate folks in her town who sang shit behind her back. Contrary to what many believe (I was one of them) Belle is not a victim of Stockholm Syndrome. For more on that, look at this neat video essay by Lindsay Ellis.

From there we have Jasmine who didn’t want an arranged marriage, she wanted to actually get to know and love a guy and experience life as a normal person. Like Ariel, Aladdin The Animated Series helps her out alot. There’s also Pocahontas, there’s so many things wrong with that movie, but at the very least part of her goal was to prevent a war between Native Americans and English settlers.

Mulan technically isn’t a princess since she never actually married royalty. She got hugged by the Emperor of China though. I feel like Disney watered down her badassness from her original story; in her original story she asked her dad if she could join the army, he said no, she dueled him, won, joined the army, won a shit load of battles. I like her movie too, she isn’t interested in a man and technically doesn’t even get a boyfriend by the end of her movie.

After Mulan Disney took a break from princesses, then for the sake of tokenism we got The Princess and the Frog; it’s a good movie, there’s also alot of stereotyping. Tiana has a goal and that goal is to have her own restaurant. She is hellbent on it damnit! My only issue with this movie is that everyone and Tiana’s mom keeps on telling her “you gotta get a man in your life! COMPLETE YOURSELF TIANA!” At the same time we also have Charlotte who wants to become an authentic princess and is spoiled…spoiled sweet. Instead of getting mad at Tiana for unintentionally making a mess at her party, Charlotte helps her clean up and lends Tiana one of her many princess costumes without a second thought. When presented with the opportunity to break the spell on Prince Naveen via “princess kissing a frog to get a prince,” Charlotte jumps at it because she’d rather see Tiana’s dreams come true than have her own come true.  Seriously why isn’t Charlotte included in the princess line with Tiana? She’s the closest we’ll ever have to a Disney adaption to Emma!

After The Princess and the Frog failed to meet Disney’s box office standards, Disney thought they would do a few more princess movies then just stop altogether. Tangled was made with Rapunzel as the first CGI princess, she intentionally didn’t want a man, she just wanted to explore her life beyond her tower. Yeah she got Eugene. She has an animated series now that seems to be following in the footsteps of Aladdin and The Little Mermaid.

Then we had Merida, she was a Pixar Princess. She burped, hated fancy dresses, occasionally enjoyed eye candy, and is a badass archer. She also refuses to sing in her episode of Sophia the First. While trailers and marketing wanted to present Merida as a badass who did cool stuff and took names, she technically didn’t do that. Brave focused more on the relationship between Merida and her mother queen Elinor and how both of them needed a better understanding of each other’s worlds with Merida learning to handle a violent situation with pacifism (she ended a civil war in her house with the skills Elinor had been trying to teach her), while Elinor (in bear form) has to resort to action to protect her family from Mor’du and aid in his defeat. Merida is included in some of the box sets for princesses, but she’s usually not in pretty frilly dresses. Her doll at the Disney Store doesn’t even have crowns and jewels, it has an arrow and an ax!

Then came Frozen. Yes I am talking about Frozen, yes I’m aware everyone is sick of hearing Frozen and parents everywhere are TIRED of hearing their children singing Let it Go, but I’m going to talk about it. Briefly. I love Frozen, I saw it the day after a very shitty day (like crying the whole night shitty) with my best friend. The events of the night of my brother trying to calm me down from what drove me to a point of despair and the bond between Anna and Elsa means alot to me and the fact that for the first time in forever an act of true love was sacrifice rather than a kiss. Also Elsa is not a princess, she’s a queen.

Now we have Moana, for some reason I haven’t seen this movie, but I’ve heard very good things. It’s on my to watch list, don’t worry.

Many (myself included), have complained that there is no Mexican princess. Recently though we got princess Elena of Avalor on Disney jr. Some might see it as a slap on the face that the first Hispanic princess is on tv instead of getting her own movie. My thoughts are this; you bitches have to settle for one movie while Elena has a WHOLE SERIES! Haha, SUCKERS!

Princesses who Aren’t From Disney

Not all princesses are from Disney, a few other people have tried to cash in on it though. In some cases even parody the idea of Disney Princesses.

The Swan Princess is a series of movies about a princess who gets turned into a Swan; I haven’t seen it in a while, but from what I recall the princess is a tomboy most of her life. She had acne as a tween/early teen, and hated the prince her parents wanted to set her up with. Then when she was older, beautiful she was forced into a room with said prince and they noticed they became hot. From there she gets turned into a swan, becomes human, and in the span of six sequels becomes a swan again. I presume Princess Odette is as proactive in this movies as her nineties Disney princess counterparts (possibly more).

Anastasia is constantly mistaken for Disney, she’s from a Don Bleuth/Twentieth Century Fox production though (you will never find her merchandise at the Disney Store. Ever. STOP ASKING!) She was sarcastic, didn’t want a man, was going to con her aunt, and is dead in real life from the execution of the whole Romanov family. In the cartoon though her aunt found a way to save her life because she was her favorite niece (that’s kind of a bitch of her). Anastasia’s story has action and explosions though, and our princess killing her foe in cold blood (Tiana had to “kill” her antagonist indirectly and did it with a smile on her face).

Now there’s Fiona from Shrek. I have mixed feelings about the Shrek franchise because I liked the first two movies, then I discovered they want to make more when ending it on the second movie would have been just fine. Fiona was neat though, she and her father and fairy godmother had “planned” her life to follow a very Disney Princess life. Then Shrek comes along and they both just bond over being different from what is expected. Fiona is action oriented choosing to fight after getting frustrated with being a damsel in care of Shrek. In the third movie she stages her own damn rescue mission with the help of the other princesses encouraging them to fight back against Rapunzel and Prince Charming. In the fourth movie’s weird timeline where Shrek never rescued Fiona she decides to save her own damn self and embrace the life as a warrior princess ogre.

Finally we have the princess who didn’t have a frilly dress and would have killed for a damn bra in space. Princess Leia, okay technically she is owned by Disney now and sadly her actress Carrie Fisher passed away last year. But prior to being purchased by Disney, Leia was sarcastic, she knew how to use a blaster, she killed giant slugs with chains. She even ditched the princess status and became a general and we will see more (and probably the last) of her this December.

Nintendo’s Princesses

Princess Peach and Princess Zelda are known to many video gamers as videogame royalty. They’re also saved by Mario and Link. Alot. It has been described that the stories and adventures in the Super Mario game series as “actors in a movie” to help explain why Bowser is friends with everyone in Mario Kart and that he isn’t really evil. He’s just an actor while Peach is an actress and sole monarch to the Mushroom Kingdom.

In 2005/2006 Peach got her own game called Super Princess Peach. In a strange turn of events it’s now up to HER to save Mario and Luigi from Bowser. To save the day Peach uses her emotions and a weapon called the Vibe Scepter/Rodd. Although I admit it’s interesting to see how Peach’s emotions can solve problems, I can’t help but feel that in a way it’s a step back in comparison to Peach the in the Super Smash Brothers series who is kicking ass in all her finery. Princess Daisy and Rosalina also join the royalty of the Super Mario World (no pun intended), Daisy has been described as a tomboy compared to Peach where while Peach would do something like bake a cake, Daisy would like to do an activity like boxing. Rosalina is older and a more tragic character in comparison. She left her family to take care of the Luma for countless years and realized one day her family had passed on.

In comparison to Princess Peach, Princess Zelda of The Legend of Zelda series has always been more proactive, even in her first game. In her first game, rather than let Ganon get his hands on the triforce of wisdom, Zelda shatters it into pieces to postpone Ganon’s growth in power. From then on Zelda has acted more as a chessplayer against Ganon trying to prevent Ganon and other evil forces from destroying Hyrule. A good chunk of the time things do go south, but Zelda and Link still beat Ganon or whatever malevolent force is before them.

There have even been times where Zelda got her hands dirty; Orcarina of Time had her aiding Link in the shadows disguised as Sheik. After being freed from Ganon, Zelda uses her magic to help free Link from the castle falling around them, then create three split timelines and confuse many, many fans and Nintendo employees when it comes to the timeline.

Twilight Princess had Zelda also be more proactive in the defense of her kingdom. Granted she probably should have been more careful when picking a competent militia for defending Hyrule. But she joins Link in the final battle against Ganon because she honestly wasn’t in the game that much. In Twilight Princess we also have Midna, the ACTUAL Twilight Princess who got her hands dirty with Link, had character development, and caused what is known as the most bittersweet ending in any of the Zelda games.

Prior to Twilight Princess The Wind Waker also had Zelda joining Link in the final battle against Ganon firing light arrows while Link fought Ganon with the master sword. Before the final battle Zelda was known as Tetra, a sassy pirate who didn’t know what the big deal was about her lineage. For some reason she becomes nicer after discovering she’s a princess and also somehow changes her skin color too.

Zelda’s damsel in distress status is actually mocked a little in Spirit Tracks where Zelda’s spirit and body are separated and Zelda loaths the fact that she has fallen victim to the same fate as all her ancestors before her. She does step up from there by being Link’s companion for the story and even possessing armor to fight with in the game.

In the most recent Zelda game Breath of Wild, Zelda has become a scholar and could care less about being a princess. She wants to be Belle and put herself to usage beyond “oh I’m a sacred princess with holy powers,” because she can’t access these holy powers. It’s not until that she’s pushed to her limit and her feelings towards Link and wanting to protect him (and probably believing in herself and embracing her scholar tendencies) that this incarnation of Zelda is able to harness the powers of the goddess Hylia that flows through her blood and spends one hundred years fending off Ganon alone and NOT being a damsel. So I’d say Zelda has definitely more proactive than Peach as both a capable monarch and ruler of her kingdom. Plus it seems she always gets better dresses.

Are Princesses Bad?

I suppose they’re not, but we don’t exist in a fantasy world where there’s an abundance of princesses. There isn’t much monarchy left to marry into as well, but there’s also nothing wrong with reality. People (I guess in this case the target audience of little girls) don’t necessarily need to be badass princesses like Zelda fighting off the ultimate evil by themselves, and they can’t constantly have the image of Prince Charming coming to sweep them off their feet (sweeping is a woman’s job 😉 ).

I don’t think princesses are dying any time soon, not with the fact Disney makes an easy 50$ per princess dress and God knows how much more with merchandising. I think things can evolve and with many parents being aware that there’s more to life besides being a princess they can encourage their children to be more independent from what is presented to them in the media. Unless your child wants to be Hermione, always encourage your child to be Hermione.

Beauty and the Beast 2017 Review

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, or rather twenty-five(ish) years old. In continuation with live action adaptions to their classic movies Disney adapted their animated classic Beauty and the Beast to live action film staring Emma Watson as Belle, because let’s be honest we all secretly wanted it that way and didn’t know it, I didn’t even know I wanted it that way.

Unless you’re just barely born, or just escaped North Korea or some other communist regime there aren’t really any spoilers beyond these bold texts. Okay fine there are SOME spoilers.

For the past few weeks I had been teasing my dad that if I ever had kids I would make him watch this new Beauty and the Beast with them countless times since I made him sit through the animated Beauty and the Beast countless times growing up. Yes I apologized to him for doing that and thanked him for being such a patient parent with me growing up.

This morning my dad got back at me by sarcastically saying “how different could the story be this time?” And he was right. This new live action Beauty and the Beast is nearly an exact live action remake of the animated film. There are some differences though.

In the beginning of the film rather than having stained glass windows and narration tell the prologue, we see the Enchantress do the deed of placing the spell on Prince Adam (Dan Stevens) with narration and the same score from the animated film. From there with some tweaking it is more or less the same movie.

Plot holes were addressed (such as the timing and pacing of events seen in the animated film) and corrected in this version. Characters are fleshed out, Belle is not a victim of Stockholm Syndrome (Emma Watson made damn sure of it).

I like that Belle was upgraded from just being a bookworm who longed for more. I know Belle was unintentionally the entry drug for little girls in the nineties to get into feminism. But to me growing up her ‘longing for more’ didn’t exactly scream ‘strong independent woman’ since she was living off her dad still. Now Belle is a book worm, one of the few literate people in the village, and a bit of a engineer since her dad makes music boxes. During the movie though part of me was searching more for Hermione in Watson’s performance as Belle. I then sighed and told myself that Emma Watson is not Hermione and that Hermione is not Belle.

Speaking of Belle’s dad, he too is upgraded from strange elderly person who is an adult child to balance the MAN the Beast is in Belle’s life. He has been downgraded from wacky inventor to heavily respected music box maker. His decisions in his and Belle’s life stem from the fate of Belle’s mother (I honestly don’t know why so many parents were killed in Disney movies up until recently).

The Beast is more or less the same, except he too is literate, so in this version when he gave Belle a library it really did mean something. It’s because of their love of books, his distaste for Romeo and Juliet, and bonding with Belle over stories that they do fall in love.

Our awesome household appliances also get screen-time, but not much of an increased role. The stakes are raised that if the spell cannot be broken they will literally turn into plain objects. What was interesting was that this time around there were family and loved ones of the castle staff who were unaware of what became of them due to the Enchantress’ spell.

Gaston (Luke Evans)  and LeFou (Josh Gad) also have extended roles. Gaston has a backstory of being a war hero and LeFou is confirmed to being in love with Gaston. Other than that they’re just the same, I won’t spoil what becomes of LeFou’s ‘gay old time’. Yes there was the gay controversy concerning LeFou, but let’s be honest you all don’t want to read ANOTHER blog post about that. And if you do, go google it somewhere else then.

Finally, there’s the Enchantress herself. She is actually present in the now unlike the animated film where she’s just illustrated on a window (we don’t speak of Enchanted Christmas here). Part of me was hoping it would be Helena Bonham Carter from the 2015 Cinderella film continuing her work as a fairy who gives a test of character to the people she’s watching and connect the two movies, but Hattie Morahan does a lovely performance as the Enchantress though, even if she doesn’t say a damn thing.

Artistically the film is beautiful, and the costumes are amazing to look at. Of course the music is a wonderful experience too, yes some of the original score from the animated film was kept in and there is nothing wrong with that at all.

Beauty and the Beast was a huge part of my childhood, it made me interested in becoming an artist (how many three year olds do you know have the ability to stick to a dream to their early twenties and sort of accomplish it?) Seeing it on the big screen adapted to live action was great and I intend to watch it again and maybe buy the Beast at build a bear workshop, unless a wonderful (mentally healthy, book obsessed) man on the internet wants to propose to me with said Beast doll.

I give Beauty and the Beast 2017 three and a half places of The Grey Stuff out of five. (it’s caviar?????)

Disposing of Villains

In alot of stories there is something to cause conflict, we usually call this something a villain. The villain exists because let’s face it a story would be as dull as dirt with just main protagonists. Granted a story doesn’t need a villain gloating twirling his evil mustache at the hero. Sometimes the conflict is something beyond anyone’s control, but today we will be talking of how in many works of fiction villains can be defeated in a variety of ways. Sometimes fans are satisfied, sometimes they’re not. Note I will be primarily covering select solutions to villains from works of fiction I’ve seen or read or watched, if you wish to counter argue some points you are welcomed to do so in a respectful way.

Spoilers for Many Works of Fiction, gosh I gotta find a way to write these things without spoilers.

Kill the Son of a Bitch!

That’s right, sometimes the solution to all of the conflict it for the hero to kill our antagonist! We see this action frequently in fiction these days where a villain is so bad they just need to be killed. The hero either kills out of necessity of a final solution unwillingly, because it needs to be done, or just because the villain needs to die.

This is somewhat common in anime and manga; in the Sailor Moon manga our heroines kill nearly all the villains they run into without any hesitation or second thought to the idea of killing someone because they are a bad person. I had an issue with this problem since when I got to read the Sailor Moon manga I had already watched the anime where alot of these villains didn’t die. This is probably so since Naoko Takuichi had to continue to get to the main plot of the story and didn’t have time to develop most of her villains and needed a reason for Sailor Moon to show off her fancy new powers for the new arc.

Both the anime and manga of Dragon Ball featured Goku and friends usually kill the antagonists they run into because it was their only resort after Piccolo and Goku fought in the world martial arts tournament (so many beings in that fictional universe that have the power to destroy planets with ease). In this situation though it’s because said villains are threatening the planet earth on a regular basis and don’t seem to think killing innocent lives is a bad thing.

This isn’t something restricted to just anime and manga; Disney is guilty of this too, just not too often. In Sleeping Beauty the good faries having had enough of Maleficent screwing around with them and ruining their best flowers take Prince Edward and show the bitch and her minions who’s boss. They turn her beloved pet crow to stone and enchant a sword that Edward throws into Maleficent’s heart killing her efficiently. Even in her version of the story Maleficent is pushed far enough that she has to kill her enemy for the greater good.

There is also Mulan, while she technically isn’t a princess (she only hugged the emperor of China), she has the highest headcount of any of her princess counterparts committing mass genocide against the Han via avalanche and launching a giant firework/rocket into the leader of the Han. Tiana kills Dr.Facilier and while not exclusively Disney, Dorothy Gale did kill two witches, both times as accidents though. Same for her book counterpart. Same goes for Anastasia who unlike the previous girls in this paragraph kills her foe in cold blood.

Back to television this is very common on kids tv; most seasons of Power Rangers have the Rangers kill the main antagonist because they’re evil. Not all antagonists are killed, but I’ll get to that later.  So far all three seasons of Agents of Shield have had to resort to killing the antagonist of the season because they’re that insane. And finally on Doctor Who, while the Doctor himself has a rule set for himself that he won’t kill an enemy (post reboot anyways), that doesn’t mean his companions are always as compassionate/willing to follow his set of rules.

Finally in literature it is a common theme in dystopia novels that the final solution to defeating an enemy is through killing. In The Hunger Games series it appears Katniss’ solution to the issues in Panem is to kill president Snow, however rather than killing THAT antagonist, Katniss chooses to kill president Coin realizing she’s just as evil (possibly more evil) and lacking in compassion as Snow.

In contrast with above, the heroines of The Lunar Chronicles only choose to kill Queen Levana because she’s that insane, has the power to control people against their will, and is just that much of a jerk to make people miserable. She even tries to pull the compassion card with Cinder by just asking the lead heroin to let her “just be pretty again” before attacking Cinder in a rare moment of gullibleness.

Then there’s The Chronicles of Narna where despite being Christian literature many foes are killed. Not in cold blood though, but rather because the enemies are just variations of Satan. The final book in the series does have all the remaining antagonists and grey area entities fates left ambiguous (probably in hell) and in a unique twist all of the protagonists died.

God/Nature/Gravity/Someone Else Does the Dirty Work

This is more common in children’s entertainment where it’s not such a good thing to have the protagonist kill, so why not have nature or gravity do the dirty work for them? This is very common in works of Disney so I won’t list any specific movies from Disney where this happens.

Outside of Disney this is fairly rare, but since it wasn’t always a Disney franchise there is the original Star Wars trilogy. Luke goes on a mission to try to redeem his dad and has to deal with the constant sarcasm of Emperor Palpatine, Anakin reawakens in Vader and kills Palpatine for Luke leaving the young Jedi fairly pure still.

The first few seasons of Power Rangers actually has all the villains constantly trying to one up each other rather than having the rangers kill the main antagonists. Supposedly had the franchise not been a success, actress Machiko Soga would have been flown to California from Japan so they could film the five rangers placing her and her team back into a dumpster and sending her back to space.

While the antagonist doesn’t have to necessarily be killed for this solution, it is a good way to keep the protagonist from getting their hands dirty and keeping a fairly clean image and my second least favorite approach to the problem.

The Nonviolent Solution and Possible Redemption

Continuing with Power Rangers in what was thought to be their final season Power Rangers in Space where all hope is lost in the universe and five Rangers on earth and other rangers teams/allies fighting a losing galaxy wide battle against the Alliance of Evil consisting of all their previous foes teaming up together and doing planet wide attacks rather than sending one monster at a time. Zordon orders Andross the red ranger in this hopeless moment to kill him thus reducing nearly all the villains to ashes and redeeming villains such as Rita, Zed, Divatox, and even bringing Andross’ sister back from the dead.

Power Rangers Time Force went a step further and rather than killing the monster of the week, the rangers arrested them and froze them to be imprisoned. It is in the finale that the main villain Ransik chooses to surrender to the rangers in a moment of realization at the evil he has caused after nearly killing his daughter Nadira. Nadira had previously turned against her father after being told by a friend to break the cycle of hate that had caused the events of the season (oh and helping a woman give birth when she went into labor when Nadira was robbing a store). Ransik chooses to surrender to the rangers and be arrested.

As stated above in the Sailor Moon anime many villains and antagonists are in fact still alive because Usagi and friends treasure life and the power of love and friendship is that strong that all enemies can be redeemed. Didn’t work for Nephrite though. The French/Korean children’s show Miraculous LadyBug actually runs on this where on a weekly basis the protagonist Ladybug has to use her Lucky Charm powers to solve problems without killing any of the antagonists.

This is also a major issue with the children’s cartoons Avatar The Last Air Bender and Avatar the Legend of Korra where both incarnations of the Avatar choose not to kill the final antagonist. For Aang  in the final episodes of the series he is conflicted by his personal belief that killing is wrong despite the past Avatar incarnations saying that it was his duty to kill Fire Lord Ozai belief’s be damned. However a new option is presented and Aang jumps at that opportunity to save the day. In Legend of Korra, the lead heroin does kill one of her adversaries, but admits she regrets that there was no way for her to save him. In her series finale she approaches Kuvira and rather than using force against her talks her down into surrendering. Kuvira does not get off easy with Korra’s friends though.

Finally there’s the Twilight saga, as bad as the series is I do respect it for one reason. Rather than going for the bloody intense fight that Stephenie Meyer had been building up to in the final book Breaking Dawn our author chooses to have our protagonists and antagonists not go into battle with one another.

I will say that despite how anticlimactic this solution is at times, this is my preferred solution to a story since in real life (joking aside with my friends) I am a pacifist and I’m not particularly fond of violent solutions to problems.

Why Does it Matter?

Fifteen years ago today there was an event that affected people around the world and changed the world we live in. Where lives were lost and people felt emotions from sorrow to anger. It was the day my dad took me aside and decided to take the religion he had chosen for me more seriously by telling me that the people responsible for so much death were bad people, but that not all the people of the Islamic religion were responsible for all the potential days meant to be lived by those people lost.

Ten years later on May 2nd 2011 Osama Bin Ladin had been killed. I remember that day crying because I realized something horrible. That in the act of him being killed by US soldiers and celebrating his death that we had sunken to the level of evil (conspiracy theories aside (all conspiracy theory comments will be deleted btw)) needed to claim so many lives. I know not all of the world felt joy in his death, but it felt very wrong to me at that moment and even now that it had to be the final solution to a problem that still hasn’t been fixed as a result in today’s world.

To finish this, I’ll leave a quote from Fred Rogers; When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look at the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” 

 

 

 

Fandoms, do we Know What we Want? What we Really, Really Want?

Before the iPhone the internet was a simpler time; we had MySpace teaching us html code, no one posted intense political rants every four years, you could upload, stream, and watch anime on YouTube without having to go through the trouble of torrenting new episodes, we all used AIM instead of skype, there sadly were the origins of cyber bullying, and yes there were also complete a**holes who spoiled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to fans who didn’t realize what they were getting themselves into.

We didn’t have tumblr to show us the fanart and crafts we didn’t know that we wanted to see, we didn’t have facebook to search for our favorite books, movies, and tv shows and follow them in a convenient way, and we definitely still had to buy dvds since Netflix wasn’t what it was today. Cosplay was harder to do, and I could continue to go on and on how in nearly ten years being in a fandom has changed significantly.

We Need Things That Make Sense

Today I’m going to talk about questioning what we want from what we are a fan of. My reasoning for this is the recent rumor of there being a possibility of a Harry Potter version of Pokemon Go being made based on the success of the later and fans losing their minds over it saying “yaaas, I need dis nao!” And although it does sound nice, the truth is no, we don’t really need it.

I agree maybe there does need to be a Harry Potter app for Pottermore since the website has been re-hauled completely making it hard to find specific information than in the previous version. But we don’t need a Harry Potter version of Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go works for the Pokemon franchise because the whole point of the video games, anime, and manga is to travel around catching, training, and battling with your pocket monsters while fighting whatever evil organization is trying to take over the world with little to no adult supervision, however please make sure your child has adult supervision if they are playing Pokemon Go and always play with w friend to avoid stranger danger. Harry Potter on the other hand is different from Pokemon with deeper themes concerning love, life and death, racism, and much more. It took Pokemon up to the sixth game to come up with a meaningful plot.

While it is possible to create a tie in with the spin off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them consisting of the magical creatures of the Harry Potter universe, it would probably be sloppy at best in comparison to the time dedicated and spent to developing Pokemon Go.

The same applies to cross overs of series; a good example was a proposed episode of Doctor Who where JK Rowling’s Harry Potter universe would have crossed over into the Doctor’s world and dark wizards would be running around. At the time David Tennant demanded the idea be shot down to Russel T. Davis because “it would be jumping the shark for both franchises,” I’m not saying crossovers are bad and can’t happen, but they need to be done very carefully.

Also please stop saying either Danielle Radcliffe or Rupert Grint should be the next Doctor with Emma Watson as the companion just because “it’s them” they need to be able to add more to their resume first to become the next Doctor (however I wouldn’t mind Emma Watson or Tom Felton as the Doctor one day ).

What Happens if we get What we Want?

Sometimes what we want is given to us; case in point, the Star Wars series. After Revenge of the Sith it looked like the Star Wars franchise was going to be dead with fans buying as much merchandise as possible to see how much it would be worth in the future. Big fans of the franchise had novels of the expanded universe to enjoy, some of them going beyond the events of Return of the Jedi.

Then fans were given, The Clone Wars tv series with a movie to kick it off. Fans hated it (initionally), I think it’s because the art style was a little weird and the fact many fans did not want a fourteen year old girl to be the padawan to Anakin Skywalker. Little did we know we’d all come to like her. Then came the purchasing of Star Wars by Disney with the promise of new movies and destroying the library of the old expanded universe. Fans who followed the expanded universe were rightfully pissed that their established universe was labeled as an alternate universe and all ongoing stories were cancelled as a result. Some enjoyed the recent Force Awakens movie, some didn’t. My point is that sometimes if we’re given what we want we probably won’t like it like we thought we would.

Same goes for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, some fans loved it, some fans despise its existence and condemn JK Rowling even though she just provided an outline. I intentionally feared what would become of the franchise with the announcement of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film trilogy since, let’s be honest with ourselves, it was turned into a spin off for the sake of continuing the franchise in the eyes of Warner Brothers. Seeing the work and effort JK Rowling has placed into setting up the world of FBaWtFT after stating she needed a ten year vacation from Harry Potter I’m confident to say this won’t (entirely) be a soulless attempt to continue to cash in on the franchise.

Also sometimes getting what we want is a good thing; let’s look at how Netflix and Hulu have saved some of our favorite tv shows like Longmire and The Mindy Project from being cancelled for good. Fans rejoiced and are happy at these turn of events. Now if only we knew how not to binge watch a whole season and realize we have nothing to watch for a whole year. Still waiting on the return of Firefly though…

How do we Know Anything Anymore?

I can’t tell anyone how to be a good fan, or what they want in a fandom, but I’ve been around long enough to know what’s a good idea or bad idea. It’s fine to cosplay, buy merchandise, write your self insert fanfiction, and create fanart. It’s fine to love everything that comes out of a franchise, and it’s fine to enjoy something and still critique what you love. “To be a fan is to have hope.”

 

Isle of the Lost (it’s probably better than the movie it’s a prequel to)

I saw the trailer to Disney’s Descendants and imminently thought “this is awful, if the fictional characters in Once Upon a Time saw this, they’d wage war on Disney Channel.” It has potential, but it probably will be as good as Highschool Musical or Camprock, which isn’t saying much since those two were made to get money off the parents of the kids who watched them. The characters introduced looked one dimensional, and clearly I’m not the target audience. The only interest I have in it is Kristen Chenoweth playing Maleficent. I decided to not show interest because I’m an adult, I’m not the target audience, and because I have Once Upon a Time for my needs. Then a book was announced called Isle of the Lost: A Descendants Novel. I debated on buying it since the book isn’t your typical YA novel; It is aimed for a younger teens, possibly even children between nine and twelve. I decided to give the book a shot if I came across it. Thanks to Target I came across the book and purchased it. I will say I did like it, it was predictable, some of the characterization of well known Disney villains along with plot holes as to how these villains got children (particularly Mother Gothel…) There are snippits of life off the island with Ben son of Belle and Prince Adam and his life in becoming a king for the land of Auradon and foreshadowing between the relationship between him and Mal daughter of Maleficent. It is interesting to see how the children of Disney villains aren’t loved by their parents especially in comparison to Regina and Maleficent of the tv show Once Upon a Time. There is also the issue of the reduced usage of magic between both heroes and villains. Not much else can be said about it, I will say it probably kilometers better than the movie it’s a prequel to. I’ll give the book three poison apples out of five.