Everything's Great - An anti-whinge Part 1

[Amentep]

I haven't seen the Aristocats since I was a kid - not sure what I'd think of it now. But yeah its the 2nd of Phil Harris 3 Disney animation appearances. Disney used to re-release movies and we'd go see them at the local drive-in, typically on a double bill. Aristocats, Robin Hood, Sword in the Stone, Sleeping Beauty (although I don't actually remember it, I'm told I was there). Saw The Rescuers on my birthday though.

 

Once the drive-in closed we didn't go to movies as often (having to pay per person vs per car was too expensive).

[Bartimaeus]

Ah...that sort of thing was way before my time. Funny thing is, a car isn't hardly any less comfortable movie viewing than the terribleness that you get at most local movie theaters.

 

I've seen all of those, though, except the Aristocats. Sleeping Beauty was probably the best, followed by Sword in the Stone.

 

[Blarghagh]

Well to be fair, Anna and Elsa's parents are following the advice of trolls.

 

Well mystic knowledgeable trolls.

 

Not making it any better is it?

 

Actually, they totally misunderstood the unclear directions of mystic knowledgeable trolls. The trolls were right.

[Meshugger]

Robin Hood was fourty years ago! How have you avoided seeing any since then?

 

Just never interested. For me, Disney is about Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

Burgers cheer me up.

 

 

Damn KP, you're looking good girl! (nice burger as well)

 

The "newest"-Disney movie that i have seen is Robin Hood. I haven't cared for the rest.

My ass isn't that nice.

[Bartimaeus]

 

Actually, they totally misunderstood the unclear directions of mystic knowledgeable trolls. The trolls were right.

 

 

What do you think were their actual instructions, then?

 

(edit) Now that I think of it, maybe the parents did take the troll chieftain's instructions to extremes: he just implied that she should keep careful control of her powers, and that they should probably stay hidden (I'm assuming, since otherwise why remove Anna's memories of them?) - not that the sisters should not be together or talk to anybody else at all. Hmm.

Edited May 28, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

Ah...that sort of thing was way before my time. Funny thing is, a car isn't hardly any less comfortable movie viewing than the terribleness that you get at most local movie theaters.

 

I've seen all of those, though, except the Aristocats. Sleeping Beauty was probably the best, followed by Sword in the Stone.

 

We skipped FOX AND THE HOUND (because...TRAUMA) but saw THE BLACK CAULDRON in the theaters which was supposed to be the big return of Disney animation, but really that didn't happen until THE LITTLE MERMAID (despite The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver & Company, Disney had to give us another Princess before people took notice... ).

 

I actually still remember seeing a Disney Book from just after the close (in 1981? 82?) that had production art from The Black Cauldron prior to the animation division shut-down and thinking it was a shame it'd never get made.  Then a couple of years later - bingo - Disney Animation was back in business

 

Looking over the classics, I haven't seen 14 of the 54 released films (Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, Melody Time, Fun and Fancy Free - although I've seen segments of MMM, MT and FaFF - The Fox and the Hound, Oliver & Company, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahantas, Fantasia 2000, Lilo & Stitch, Home on the Range, Meet the Robinsons, and Winnie the Pooh 2011).  I've wanted to see Lilo & Stitch and Fantasia 2000 for some time.  Probably should get around to it.  And re-watch Sleeping Beauty.

 

Edited May 28, 2015 by Amentep

[Bartimaeus]

Sleeping Beauty is a little bit boring, I'll admit...it's mainly the music that makes Sleeping Beauty for me. Some really fantastic pieces inspired by Tchaikovsky.

 

What the heck is the Black Cauldron? Fantasia 2000 is...a mixed bag for me: I thought it had some good segments, but also some...too abstract/silly segments, too (e.g. the opening flying whales segment, which sorta just made me scratch my head). I'm also not the biggest fan of Lilo & Stitch - it's okay, but...a little too modern for my tastes, and almost a little too...ADHD, for lack of a better term. Too crazy and all over the place for me, haha. Pocahontas is pretty decent, as well. "Savages" is the thing that makes Pocahontas most for me.

 

I've not seen Meet the Robinsons or Home on the Range - Disney was been pretty invisible for me for the past decade or so, until about Tangled. I did, however, actually watch that Winnie the Pooh recently: it was...fair enough, I suppose. If there's anything I don't like about that movie, it's the fact that most of the voice actors sound really, really out of place - particularly Christopher Robin, who sounds like a three or four year old to me, and has the (lack of) range to match . Every time he talked, it made me cringe a little. It's also a little too directed at younger audiences, but I'm willing to overlook that because that's...probably how it should be for Winnie the Pooh.

 

(edit): Why the heck is Vevo hosting that Little Mermaid song?

Edited May 28, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

Sleeping Beauty is a little bit boring, I'll admit...it's mainly the music that makes Sleeping Beauty for me. Some really fantastic pieces inspired by Tchaikovsky.

I've always liked the look of the art style if nothing else.

 

 

What the heck is the Black Cauldron?

Disney doing high fantasy:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHiyYSuveJ4

 

I'm also not the biggest fan of Lilo & Stitch - it's okay, but...a little too modern for my tastes, and almost a little too...ADHD, for lack of a better term. Too crazy and all over the place for me, haha.

You know the guy behind L&S also did How to Train Your Dragon - I sense a trend...

[Bartimaeus]

Yes...perhaps there is...

 

I know Disney trailers/advertisements are almost universally bad regardless of the quality of what it's advertising for...but that trailer for the Black Cauldron looks so bad. I say this, knowing that the trailers for Frozen made Frozen look like garbage and actually delayed me from watching Frozen...was the Black Cauldron any good?

[Meshugger]

 

Burgers cheer me up.

 

Damn KP, you're looking good girl! (nice burger as well)

 

The "newest"-Disney movie that i have seen is Robin Hood. I haven't cared for the rest.

My ass isn't that nice.

 

 

Shush your lying mouth, you're just fine.

[Blarghagh]

 

 

Actually, they totally misunderstood the unclear directions of mystic knowledgeable trolls. The trolls were right.

 

 

What do you think were their actual instructions, then?

 

(edit) Now that I think of it, maybe the parents did take the troll chieftain's instructions to extremes: he just implied that she should keep careful control of her powers, and that they should probably stay hidden (I'm assuming, since otherwise why remove Anna's memories of them?) - not that the sisters should not be together or talk to anybody else at all. Hmm.

 

 

I had to look up the actual quote and I'm not sure if this is accurate, but I believe these were the instructions:

 

"Your power will only grow, there is beauty in it but also great danger…you must learn to control your powers, fear will be your enemy…"

 

The parents assume this means that other people will fear her, and lock her away and force her to never use her powers again. But the way I see it, they're saying what plays out in the movie - Elsa can't control her powers because she fears them and fears she will hurt people, yet self-acceptance and love is the way she eventually learns to control it. Fear is literally the enemy in learning to control those powers. The trolls use Yoda-speak and the parents are the biggest morons.

[Bartimaeus]

So when the king says immediately after, "No, we'll protect her: she can learn to control it, I'm sure of it. Until then, lock the gates, we'll reduce the staff, limit her contact with people, and keep her powers hidden from everyone...including Anna," ...the chieftain didn't feel like saying something, like maybe, "Uh, no, that's not quite what I meant..."?

Edited May 28, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Hurlshort]

Black Cauldron was awesome, and basically turned me into an avid reader at a young age.  Well, the movie and the Sierra adventure game.  

 

That could be a pretty awesome remake, actually.  The Black Cauldron was the first game I remember that had more than one ending.

[Amentep]

Yes...perhaps there is...

 

I know Disney trailers/advertisements are almost universally bad regardless of the quality of what it's advertising for...but that trailer for the Black Cauldron looks so bad. I say this, knowing that the trailers for Frozen made Frozen look like garbage and actually delayed me from watching Frozen...was the Black Cauldron any good?

I enjoyed it, but I've like seen it twice. It wasn't perfect by any means, but animated sword and sorcery was totally up my alley at the time..

Edited May 28, 2015 by Amentep

[Blarghagh]

So when the king says immediately after, "No, we'll protect her: she can learn to control it, I'm sure of it. Until then, lock the gates, we'll reduce the staff, limit her contact with people, and keep her powers hidden from everyone...including Anna," ...the chieftain didn't feel like saying something, like maybe, "Uh, no, that's not quite what I meant..."?

 

Yeah, pretty much. That's the point of being cryptic. How It Should Have Ended rips into it pretty hard too. The point is, the trolls are cryptic and mischievous and they pull the same shtick again later on the film when the troll chieftain goes "an act of true love" and Anna immediately jumps to "true love's kiss" and the bastard says NOTHING. They're kinda making fun of the whole cryptic prophecy cliché, and the true love prince cliché, and a bunch of other clichés. There's a surprising amount of "what did we do in other movies... let's turn that on its head" in Frozen that almost looks like they're playing it straight. Hans is a good example, and the fact that it ISN'T a kiss that shows true love, etc. Let's not even get into the fact that every single thing the comedy sidekick does is suicidal.

 

How It Should Have Ended video:

 

[Bartimaeus]

I can forgive not correcting the "true love's first kiss" bit, because maybe he simply didn't have a better idea - I mean, if she was engaged and in love with Hans, then it seems like a pretty good idea, right? Maybe if he had known how *long* they had been engaged, he might've said something. At least he wasn't like the other trolls and wasn't trying to hook up Kristoff with Anna while Anna is literally dying that very moment from something they all already know about because it happened not that terribly long ago; yet, for some reason, they still don't care in the slightest about it. I can't stand "Fixer Upper" because of how horribly inappropriately placed it is in the movie, haha. It would be bad enough if it was just Elsa going crazy (followed by the castle siege...), but with Anna literally in the process of dying right there... But not telling the parents that they are doing literally the complete opposite of what they should be doing...while they're actually directly telling him their awful plans... Yeah, that's less forgivable.

Edited May 28, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

Although there is one thing...

 

...in the end...

 

Elsa learns to control her power and Anna is saved by true love.

 

So...maybe the Trolls ignoring human stupidity was right, since in the end everything they promised happened?

[Blarghagh]

I think that was the lesson we were supposed to take away from it, but it could have been more clear. I didn't say the movie's attempts to subvert classic Disney tropes were entirely succesful. And yeah, the trolls have... problems. I feel like they're a holdover from an earlier version of the script or something, knowing how long the film was in development hell it's a wonder we got a decent movie out of it at all. I prefer Tangled myself, but I can't fault a Disney princess movie that much for its plot as long as it's fun and got a couple of nice tunes. Plus, some people hate Olaf the Snowman and I actually went in wanting to hate him (the previews made him look annoying as hell) but I just can't help but love the little bugger and all the comedy that is surprisingly black once you think about it. "Oh look at that, I've been impaled."

[Bartimaeus]

Although there is one thing...

 

...in the end...

 

Elsa learns to control her power and Anna is saved by true love.

 

So...maybe the Trolls ignoring human stupidity was right, since in the end everything they promised happened?

 

Anna literally died, Elsa was nearly murdered by Hans, Sven would've froze and drowned in the ice water sooner or later if Elsa hadn't had an epiphany after Anna was unfrozen, Olaf would've died sooner or later without Elsa, the parents are already dead, Kristoff...uh...Kristoff might've been okay. Sad if Anna hadn't magically been unfrozen, but probably okay.

 

A LotR quote comes to mind..: "The quest stands upon the edge of a knife: stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all."

Edited May 28, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Blarghagh]

Hey, Kristoff did say he could live with it if she died earlier in the film. He only stuck with her because she promised him a new sled.

 

Huh, that's actually pretty dark if you take it out of context.

[Bartimaeus]

I think that was the lesson we were supposed to take away from it, but it could have been more clear. I didn't say the movie's attempts to subvert classic Disney tropes were entirely succesful. And yeah, the trolls have... problems. I feel like they're a holdover from an earlier version of the script or something, knowing how long the film was in development hell it's a wonder we got a decent movie out of it at all. I prefer Tangled myself, but I can't fault a Disney princess movie that much for its plot as long as it's fun and got a couple of nice tunes. Plus, some people hate Olaf the Snowman and I actually went in wanting to hate him (the previews made him look annoying as hell) but I just can't help but love the little bugger and all the comedy that is surprisingly black once you think about it. "Oh look at that, I've been impaled."

 

I liked Frozen more because the plot didn't feel *completely* predictable. I hated how Tangled opened up with spoiling some of the most important danged parts of the story for no reason. Maybe they didn't care because they figured everyone already knew how the story of Rapunzel went, but *I* didn't know how it went outside of "girl has very long hair, something something". It also took me a long while to appreciate the music in Rapunzel - I was pretty ambivalent in regards to all the music except "Mother Knows Best" for a while: it took me several rewatches/relistens to really appreciate Mandy Moore (voice of Rapunzel) in "When Will My Life Begin" and "I See the Light". I still like Frozen's better, but I like Tangled's well enough now, too.

 

Also, IMO, Anna and Elsa are stronger, more relatable (for myself, anyways) characters than either Flynn or Rapunzel. So there's that, too.

Edited May 28, 2015 by Bartimaeus