Watching a Disney/Pixar movie every day until I go insane, the topic

10/10 for Onward? Damn. I thought it was alright, I'd give it like a 7/10.

I was pretty fresh into entering fatherhood when that movie came out.

Soul
Originally released December 25, 2020

While this marathon is intended for films that got a theatrical release, I think exceptions are fine for movies that didn't get that release due to COVID ravaging the planet and instead went directly to streaming. One of these movies is Soul, and damn was it the movie we needed that Christmas.

Joe Gardner is a middle school music teacher with dreams of becoming a jazz musician. When a former student of his arranges an audition for him to play piano for the famous Dorothea Williams, Joe absolutely crushes it and is welcomed into the band, but immediately falls down an open manhole and dies. After escaping from the escalator to the afterlife, Joe ends up at the "You Seminar" where newborn souls receive their personalities and find their spark so they can make the plunge down to Earth and be born. Posing as a particularly inspirational soul called a Mentor, Joe is paired up with the troublesome Soul #22, who doesn't even want to go to Earth in the first place. In what would be an ideal exchange, Joe and 22 make a deal that 22 will find her spark to get the numerous Jerries off her back, and give Joe the Earth Pass so he can return to life.

They try everything in the Hall of Everything, but 22 fails to find her spark (except for a possible career as an arsonist, which Joe very responsibly shuts down). As a last ditch effort, they make a journey to "The Zone", which is where peoples' consciousnesses go when they're... well, in the zone. 22 introduces Joe to Moonwind, a CERTIFIED GOOD GUY who enters The Zone for the sole purpose of sailing around with his crew of hippie pirates and helping lost souls snap out of their depression and rediscover the joy of life. Moonwind helps Joe find his body clinging to life in a hospital, but Joe rushes things despite the warnings and instruction given to him and ends up in the body of a very-recently-deceased cat, and accidentally drags 22 with him, who lands in his body.

Cat-Joe and Joe-22 (I won't call them that beyond this point) escape the hospital and 22 is immediately overwhelmed by how noisy, bright, crowded, and considering there's a pandemic going on, maskless New York City is. They meet up with Moonwind in his meat-body and he agrees to help them get back into their respective correct places after he clocks out of work, and the rest of the day is spent trying to get Joe's body ready for the performance with Dorothea and her band, while 22 starts to warm up to the idea of being alive and finds all kinds of shit she enjoys, like eating stolen pizza and shutting down insecure jerks. Before Moonwind can help them make the swap, 22 decides she isn't done living yet and runs off, resulting in both herself and Joe being caught by an afterlife accountant named Terry (not to be confused with the Jerries).

Returned to the You Seminar, everyone is shocked to discover that 22 has her full Earth Pass, but nobody knows what her spark was. Joe tries to take full credit for it, which enrages 22 and she throws the Pass at him before running away. Joe uses the Pass to return to his body and performs with the band to great success, but still feels completely unfulfilled. Afterward, he realizes that 22's spark was the experience of life itself, and puts himself in The Zone to find her. Moonwind explains that she's become a lost soul, and Joe is vored by her and learns that he's the greatest contributor to her depression. He snaps her out of it and gives her the Earth Pass, then helps her make the plunge despite not being able to return himself. Back on the escalator to the afterlife, one of the Jerries appears and offers Joe a second chance at life out of gratitude for helping 22, which he accepts and promises that although he doesn't know what he's going to do next, he's going to live his life to the fullest. The End.

Absolutely an incredible movie. Before I go into other details, I want to risk getting a little emotional and talk about the core message of the movie. That message, which is delivered absolutely masterfully, is that life is worth living even if you never accomplish your dreams, or if you accomplish them but still feel unfulfilled. Life is worth living just for the small moments of joy and fun, and the people you share that life with. It's not about what you end up doing but how you do it and who you do it with -- that's what matters. Life's about the journey and not the destination, so slow down and enjoy the little things, don't take them for granted. That's a powerful, incredibly relevant message that people needed to hear in 2020 and that they need to especially hear today. Please take this message on board.

Now, that aside, this movie is also beautiful looking. The two-dimensional, neon-sign-like appearance of Terry and the Jerries help them stand out against every other character well and help them look just as alien as they should. There are a lot of great moments of humor here, and the conflict-free plot is exactly the right way to deliver on the core message. Terry is presented as an antagonist who's trying to round up Joe and force him into the afterlife, but the movie is smart enough to keep his appearances sparse and not overuse him. Joe and 22 aren't even aware he's after them until he catches them, which is perfect -- this movie wouldn't have worked at all if they were constantly and knowingly on the run.

Thankfully, this movie did receive a theatrical release eventually, but not until 2024, where it sadly underperformed. A quick look at Wikipedia shows that it had a budget of $150 million, but a box office gross of only $122 million, which is a fucking shame because this movie is a fucking masterpiece . It doesn't deserve to be remembered as a financial flop, but instead as the absolute treasure that it is.

Final Score: 10/10

Raya and the Last Dragon
Originally released March 5, 2021

I figured out pretty quick what this movie wanted to be and why it exists. Let's see if you can figure it out by the end of the summary!

Raya is a young warrior princess of the Heart nation assigned to protect the Dragon Gem, a relic created by a dragon to house shadow-monsters known as Druun that turn people into statues. When her father invites the leaders of of the other four nations over to a peace summit/dinner, Raya ends up getting the gem broken because she's an idiot. The other chiefs take the shards of the Gem and go home while Raya's father gets stoned, and six years later, she's on the hunt for the resting place of the last dragon, Sisu, who created the gem in the first place. Pursued by fellow warrior princess Namaari of the Fang tribe, she wakes Sisu up in the Tail nation and finds out that the dragon isn't only kind of annoying, but also not the one who created the gem, but rather the courier.

Still, Raya and Sisu partner up and leave Tail along with a young boatman/chef named Boun. As they collect orb shards from two more nations (Talon and Spine), Sisu gets more magic powers that never come into play and they recruit more party members that never do anything; a "con-baby" from Talon and her three monkeys, and the last non-petrified Spine warrior, Tong. While leaving Spine, Raya duels Namaari and loses, prompting Sisu to save her and also get a social read on Namaari. Believing that Namaari can be trusted, Sisu tries to convince the others to just talk to her and get the last orb shard, but they won't hear of it since everyone blames Fang for destroying the world.

Sisu flies Raya back to the Dragon Orb chamber and tells the story about how the orb was created because they all trusted each other. Raya agrees to try Sisu's plan and they do so, but Raya freaks out and attacks Namaari, causing Sisu to get shot and killed by a crossbow. All the water in the area disappears and the Druun begin to attack, and Raya goes to confront Namaari again while her companions save people using the remaining orb shards. Once the Fang people have been evacuated... to somewhere, I guess, Namaari joins Raya's party and they decide to trust her. They reassemble the orb and then die, but the orb pulses with magic and brings everybody in the world back to life, including the petrified dragons.

The dragons bring Sisu back to life, and the party disbands to return home to their families. Later, after Raya returns home to hug her father, everyone shows up to show that the world is united again. The End.

So, did that story remind you of anything? Because I'm pretty sure this movie was Disney's attempt to create their own Avatar: The Last Airbender. It carries SO MANY vibes of that show, from the setting to the art style to the character designs to the humor (although the humor in this one falls flat a lot ; characters inexplicably use slang that feels like it should be modern, but is also either dated or used incorrectly ("What's drippin', Raya?")). What it doesn't capture, however, is the pacing. Whereas TLA gave itself three seasons to tell a story in a satisfying way, Disney gave this movie two hours to do the same.

And honestly, if this had been expanded to even a single season show, it would have been a huge improvement. This movie sets up a lot of lore, an entire world, and a wide cast of characters, but absolutely nothing is given the time it needs to breathe and grow. During the journey Raya recruits a pretty colorful crew of allies, but with nothing to do and nowhere to develop, it doesn't feel like any of them actually need to be there. Even Raya and Sisu themselves feel incredibly flat and one-dimensional, with the only actual character growth being that Raya decides to trust Namaari at the end of the movie. The end of the movie where the main cast are all reunited with their de-petrified families could have been a really heartwarming, emotional, and rewarding moment, but we're given absolutely no reason to care about or feel attached to these characters, so it's not.

By this time, Disney+ was a well-established thing and had multiple original shows that had been released, and there's no reason why this couldn't have been one of them. It wanted to be Disney's TLA, and it could have been Disney's TLA, but wasn't given the proper chance. It simultaneously tries to do too much and not enough, and despite having a really interesting concept with a lot of potential behind it, Raya and the Last Dragon really fails to live up to that potential and just ends up as kind of an average (or possibly even slightly disappointing) experience instead.

Final Score: 7/10

I really enjoyed raya and hope Disney doesn't completely abandon it. The Premise, the animation and the world are all pretty interesting

It's pretty obvious they want this movie to be picked for Kingdom Hearts. The "villains" are pretty easy to swap out for Heartless.

Luca
Originally released June 18, 2021

This is the final movie in the marathon that I had seen before I started this. After this point, it's all brand new to me.

Luca is a young sea monster who farms fish, and one day meets another young sea monster named Alberto, who lives above the surface in a tower by himself because his father's a deadbeat. Joining him on the surface, Luca takes human form when his skin dries off and Alberto teaches him about life above water (as he understands it, anyway) including his dream of owning a Vespa scooter. Luca's parents find out that he's been going on the surface and freak out. They try to send him to live with his anglerfish uncle Ugo, but with some gentle encouragement from his grandmother, Luca runs away and joins Alberto to travel to the nearby fishing community of Portorosso. It takes them all of five minutes to meet their archenemy Ercole, a jackass whose age is impossible to figure out. They also meet a young girl named Julia and enter the annual race as a team for the prize money, which they intend to use to buy a beat-up used Vespa.

Julia brings them home to meet her one-armed father Massimo and their judgmental cat, and allow them to live in her tree...house? Over the next few days the three of them train for the triathlon (Alberto on the speed-eating leg despite not knowing how to use a fork; Luca on the cycling leg despite not knowing how to ride a bike; and Julia on the swimming leg despite swimming like... well, me) and dodge Ercole's antagonism, while Luca's parents arrive in town and start bullying the local children trying to figure out which one he is. As Luca and Julia grow closer and she educates him properly about the world and outer space and stuff, Alberto grows jealous and has an accident where he exposes himself as a sea monster. Luca pretends to be frightened of him to protect his own cover, and Alberto swims back to his tower.

As Massimo heads out to look for Alberto "even if he doesn't want somebody to", because he's a CERTIFIED GOOD GUY , Julia figures out that Luca is also a sea monster and advises him to leave town before he's killed, because there's a bounty out for his people. Luca returns to Alberto's tower and tries to make peace with him, then decides the way to do that is to enter the race and win it on his own so they can buy their Vespa. He does exactly that and nearly wins the whole thing until it starts raining, and he's forced to take shelter under an awning so he doesn't get wet and turn into a fish. Alberto comes running up with an umbrella for him to use but is knocked over by Ercole and revealed once again. As the townspeople try to capture Alberto, Luca says "fuck it" and rescues him, fishing up in the process.

The entire town surrounds Luca and Alberto (and Julia) and prepare to kill them, but Massimo walks up and declares that they won the race. He then basically dares any of them to try and hurt the boys and everyone backs off, and two old ladies in town even reveal that they are also sea monsters who have lived there the entire time. Luca and Alberto buy their Vespa and all the sea monsters are invited to dinner, and the next day as Julia prepares to board the train for school, Alberto hands Luca a ticket that he sold his Vespa to buy and tells him to go join her at school. Luca's parents agree, Massimo adopts Alberto as his son, and during the end credits montage Luca reveals his true nature to Julia's mother and classmates and nobody's afraid of him, which is cool. The End.

I really liked this movie, it was a lot of fun and kept itself focused on what it wanted to do. At first I hated the character designs and animation style, because it looks like a cross between Steven Universe and a Rankin-Bass movie -- which, honestly, doesn't combine all that well. It just looks really weird. But towards the end, I stopped noticing how weird it looked and it just started working.

It's got a bit of a Little Mermaid vibe at first with the way the plot starts out, but quickly grows into its own thing. The story moves along at a really nice pace and ends on a satisfying note, but I kind of feel like the team breaking up towards the end was an unnecessary wrinkle that didn't end up changing much of anything. The race could have progressed more or less exactly how it did if they all remained on the same team, and ultimately Julia finding out about their true nature didn't change anything about their relationship. I guess it did rip the Band-Aid off before the reveal during the race, so it's fine.

It's got a couple flaws, but ultimately nothing that I can penalize it too harshly for. It was still a fun, well-paced, enjoyable movie that didn't have me feeling bored or disinterested at any point. The animation style was offputting at first, but I did eventually grow used to it. There was also a recurring theme where Alberto advises Luca to ignore his anxiety by telling the voice in his head "Silencio, Bruno!" It's never outright stated, but I'm pretty sure Bruno was either the name of Alberto's deadbeat father, or it was just some pre-emptive marketing for the next movie in line.

Final Score: 9/10

Toy Story 4 is my fav of the series. Nice of them to bravely zag instead of copy-pasting yet again. I only saw it once, yet I feel like it didn't have a kid to be latched on to about, instead Forky is the kid role. I dunno, I forget.

Are you nearing insanity btw?

2001mark posted...

Are you nearing insanity btw?

I think I hit it a while ago but fought through it, either way there's only a week's worth of movies left so I'm seeing this through to the end

Never seen Encanto huh

TheGoldenEel posted...

Never seen Encanto huh

Well, I have now .

Encanto
Originally released November 24, 2021

This is it. The final week. Seven movies I haven't seen before this tournament, and then I'm fucking done . Let's start by finding out why everybody keeps talking shit about Bruno.

Mirabel Madrigal is a teenager in a secluded Colombian village, who lives in a sentient magic house with her family who all have their own unique superpowers granted to them by a candle and holy shit I did not expect this to be an X-Men movie . Mirabel, however, is the only member of her family (other than those who married into it) who doesn't have a power, which makes her a little bit of a black sheep. During her cousin Antonio's miracle ceremony, he's granted the power to speak to animals, and Mirabel witnesses the house starting to crack. She warns her family but it's already fixed itself and they don't believe her, but upon questioning her super-strength-bearing sister Luisa, Mirabel finds out that she felt her strength start to falter at the same time Mirabel talked about seeing the cracks.

Seeking a new lead, Mirabel enters the tower belonging to her excommunicated uncle Bruno, and finds a shattered piece of glass that contains a vision he had of her standing in front of the cracked house. She tries to keep it secret, but her super-hearing cousin Dolores heard everything and blabs to the family at dinner, which enrages the family matriarch and Mirabel's grandmother Alma. Her Poison Ivy-type sister Isabela is also pissed off because the revelation ruined her proposal, and she shuts herself in her room. Mirabel discovers Bruno still living in the walls because he wants to be part of the family and talks him into having another vision, where they find out that she has to hug Isabela to fix the miracle.

Mirabel and Isabela make peace when she realizes she can make plants other than flowers, and enjoys the new expansion of her powers. Alma's not happy about it because she views it as Isabela misusing her gift, and Mirabel calls her out on being the toxic element in the family that chased Bruno away and puts too much pressure on everyone by reducing them down to their superpowers instead of the people they are. This revelation causes the house to crumble and the candle to go out, so Mirabel flees to the mountains. Alma finds her and tells the story of the night they were chased out of their village and her grandfather died, and as they hug it out Bruno rides in on a horse and brings them back to town.

The entire town helps rebuild their house out of gratitude for everything they've done, and once it's finished, Antonio gives Mirabel the front doorknob to put in place. She does so and the magic flows back into the house and restores its sentience, along with everybody's powers, because I guess that was her power all along. The family celebrates, accepting Mirabel and Bruno as part of them again. The End.

Encanto is a movie with a very simple and straightforward plot, but damn does it know how to handle it. It unfolds like a pretty decent mystery and you see the members of the family (well, most of them) grow and develop as it proceeds, and the viewer realizes that Alma's the real problem at about the same time that Mirabel calls it out. You're not sitting there waiting for the characters to get to the point, and you're not blindsided by it; it's built up to and revealed at just the right moment. Taking place entirely in a single house, it might also be the closest Disney's done to a "bottle episode", or at least to the best of my recent memory. Still, the house itself and its TARDIS-like design helps it create a wide variety of vibrant and lively environments for the characters to explore, so it doesn't feel like it's all in one place.

To gush about this movie a little more, the soundtrack is one of the best I've heard in a while. Every track is consistently great and fun to watch, really playing around with the environment and lyrics. I loved the music in this movie and have no notes.

And as much as I tried not to, I couldn't help but compare it to another Disney movie about a weird vaguely-superheroic family, Meet The Robinsons. This movie takes that premise and delivers on it SO MUCH better by actually focusing on the family, and not having any member of it feel like they're there just to... be there. Everyone here contributes in some way, albeit some more than others, and none of the Madrigals feel truly superfluous (except maybe the shapeshifter). It balanced everyone out pretty well, and I kind of wanted to see more out of all the characters.

This final week's off to a fantastic start.

Final Score: 10/10

Yeah for having essentially one setting its never struck me as a negative. I think it helps the musical numbers break reality and transport the characters into various situations and scenery. The familys rooms are also basically new areas as well.

I have to say I am enjoying this thread!

Also Dolores knew all along that Bruno was living in the walls because she could hear him. Its not clear why she chose to keep quiet about it.

Sariana21 posted...

Also Dolores knew all along that Bruno was living in the walls because she could hear him. Its not clear why she chose to keep quiet about it.

Because they dont talk about Bruno.

Turning Red
Originally released March 11, 2022

Meilin Lee is a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl who, along with her friends, are INCREDIBLY hyperactive and spend the first ten minutes of the movie convincing me I'm not part of the target audience. She's also obsessed with a boy band called 4*Town and helps run a tourist trap about her family's history, but when her mother Ming finds out that Mei is horny for a convenience store clerk, she freaks out and creates a scene that ends up embarrassing her in school. Mei wakes up the next morning as a giant red panda, as you do in this situation. She figures out that she can control it by remaining calm, and does her best to do so, but ends up turning into the panda at school and running the fuck out of there. Ming witnesses this and chases her through town, eventually catching up back home.

Ming and her father Jin explain that they knew this was coming because it's a family blessing/curse, and holy shit why wouldn't you prepare her for this sooner . While Mei stays home to try and keep it under control until they can perform a ceremony to expel the red panda spirit, her friends arrive to talk about a 4*Town concert and Mei reveals herself to them. They freak out but get over it quickly, and using the power of friendship, she's able to keep it fully under control. After proving she can withstand a box of kittens, Mei asks her parents about going to the concert. Jin is willing to give her a chance but Ming says no, because of course you're going to say no, she turns into a giant red panda when excited .

After she accidentally pandas up in school, it turns out that everybody loves it, so Mei and her friends turn it into a money-making scheme to earn the concert money themselves. On the same night that Mei is booked for a birthday party appearance, the Badass Aunt Squad (featuring Badass Grandma) rolls up to help keep her in line until the ceremony day. Mei sneaks out and has a blast at the party until she attacks the host, and Ming blames her friends for it. Later, at the ceremony, Mei decides to keep her red panda spirit because it's making her a better person, and runs off to meet her friends at the concert. Ming's necklace containing her own spirit breaks and she turns into a red panda kaiju that destroys the concert.

The rest of the family shows up and starts setting up an improvised ceremony circle, while Mei distracts Ming. She twerks her mother into submission, I'm sorry Fandom, that's what she does , and the rest of her family destroy their jewelry to drag her unconscious giant body back into the circle. Inside the spirit bamboo forest Mei and Ming make peace, and everyone except Mei give up their panda spirits again. Mei starts using hers to help the family tourist trap and goes full furry, walking around with ears and a tail when not in red panda form. The End.

This was honestly kind of a middling movie for me. Like I said above, I'm pretty sure I'm not in the target audience and never was as I wasn't a teen girl at any point in my life, so a lot of the themes didn't really hit home for me. Mei and her friends kind of come across as irritating a lot, and Pixar still uses that weird Steven Universe bean mouth here that they did in Luca; unlike Luca, though, I never got used to it here. I don't know what prompted them to change their character models to look like this, but it's really not working for me.

I also have to say that this movie is SHOCKINGLY horny for a Disney film. These teen girls are going through puberty HARD, and there's all kinds of innuendo and PG-rated sexuality. I wouldn't say any of it crosses any lines but I'm sure there were a few "concerned parent" groups and terminally-online types clutching some pearls over it.

But the story was pretty decent, I enjoyed watching it. I can't say I really cared for Mei and her friends, they were kind of irritating, but it's a neat idea for a movie. I don't think the giant kaiju fight at the end really fit with the movie, and would have preferred some other kind of resolution, but can't really say what that alternative resolution could have been. I didn't hate it, but I don't think it's one of Pixar's best. I'll give it a noncommittal middle-ground score, I guess.

Final Score: 7/10

Yeah there hasnt been that much horniness since the likes of the Bambi characters in spring.

Solid movie, and a love letter to 90s women.

4/10, it didn't mention 9/11

Lightyear
Originally released June 17, 2022

When this movie released, literally all I had heard of it was that conservatives were pissed off about two women kissing. It seems like it came and went and was quickly forgotten, which is kind of unfortunate, because... well, I liked it. Mostly, anyway.

Some opening lines establish that this movie is the movie that inspired the Buzz Lightyear toy from the Toy Story franchise, a revelation that gives Deadpool a nosebleed. Buzz himself is on a scouting mission on a new planet with his commanding officer Alisha Hawthorne and rookie Featheringtonhamsonhamtonson, and it turns out that the planet is filled with hostile bugs and vines that try to kill everyone. This disables their ship "The Turnip" and strands them for a year while they try to repair it and develop a new fuel crystal. Buzz takes a test flight that fails, and finds out that due to time dilation (which a planet full of actual space scientists failed to account for) four years have passed.

He's assigned a therapy robot cat named Sox to help him adjust to the loss of time, and Sox is amazing and I want one. Despite Alisha's protests, Buzz continues to take test flight after test flight, jumping farther and farther in time while everyone he knows ages and dies around him. Eventually he makes it far enough that Alisha has died and is replaced with a new CO, who wants to shut down the "go home" mission and instead focus on defenses for the new home they've built. Security tries to confiscate Sox, who has figured out a stable fuel formula, and Buzz escapes with him and steals a ship to take a successful hyperspeed jump. He arrives another 22 years in the future and meets Izzy, Alisha's granddaughter, and is told that evil robots from space (under the command of Zurg) are attacking the planet.

Alisha brings Buzz to meet her crack team of incompetent, unqualified idiots, and they set out to destroy Zurg's ship while Buzz repeatedly tries and fails to ditch them. After they steal a part from an abandoned mining station, Izzy fucks up their escape and Zurg's robots capture both the fuel crystal and Buzz himself. On the ship, Buzz learns that Zurg is actually an older version of himself created as a time dilation clone that traveled back in time or some stupid bullshit, and he wants to travel farther back to stop the Turnip from being stranded in the first place. Buzz realizes this means Alisha would never find her wife and that a lot of people, including Izzy, would never exist and decides not to work with him, so Zurg ties him up until an older version of Sox breaks him free.

At about this time, Izzy and the other members of the squad use one of the robots' teleportation mines to travel to Zurg's ship, and set out to save Buzz. Izzy makes it to him in time for them to grab the fuel cell and set off the self-destruct, and they barely get off the ship in time. Buzz detonates the fuel crystal and blows Zurg up in space, and they crash-land on the planet and are rescued. The new CO offers Buzz a chance to train a new squad of Space Rangers, and Buzz decides to train Izzy and the others. The End.

This movie starts out strong , a really good piece of action sci-fi. The beginning where Buzz jumps forward through his life and all his friends and co-space-people are aging and dying around him is actually a little emotional, and shows what he's giving up for their sake as they all get married and raise families and actually live their lives. I also like the characters involved in the movie, including Sox, who's just the fucking best and consistently hilarious.

But sadly, towards the end it kind of falls apart. Zurg's reveal as Old Buzz just felt a little dumb and overdone; for a while I thought he would be Featherhamsontonman (but I'm really glad he wasn't, since that would have just been a direct repeat of Syndrome from The Incredibles), but there would have been absolutely nothing wrong if he was just a space robot attacking the colony. There was even a bit of dialogue where Old Buzz didn't know who Izzy was, despite her being "introduced" to Buzz before his final, successful mission, so I was thinking that it was a trick of some kind and another rubber mask was about to come off. But nah, this wasn't the case. Time travel makes everything dumber.

I also have a theory that I want to put out there. The movie suggests that it's a simple case of a time dilation duplicate traveling back in time, but I actually suspect that during the final mission, Buzz jumped timelines. There's a scene towards the middle where Buzz and the crew of rookies are having some sandwiches that are built backwards (meat on the outside, bread on the inside), and while Buzz says that they're strange, everyone acts like they're built completely normally. There's a suggestion that at some point, they just started making sandwiches that way because the other way around wasn't as good, but this could have also been a subtle clue that Buzz isn't in Kansas anymore. The elderly convict on the team definitely would have remembered the bread-on-the-outside sandwiches, but she didn't seem to.

I don't want this to get too long, but there were also a few recurring plot threads that went nowhere at all. One of the broken Zurg-bots stalks them through the movie only to get unceremoniously shot and destroyed. Mo obsesses over having a pen in his suit and all it's used for is to unjam a hatch that didn't need to be jammed in the first place. Mo and Darby set up a bomb to shut the door and protect their ship from Zurg's robots, but they never reach the door anyway and they get the door shut two seconds before the entire mothership blows up, so that was all busywork. Just all kinds of little things like this that amount to nothing and end in unsatisfying ways.

Also, there was a real missed opportunity to do this movie in live-action to make it feel more different from Toy Story. Ah well. It was still a decent bit of sci-fi, but fell apart towards the end with the time travel angle and the little things that went nowhere. I still didn't hate it, though, it was pretty fun and enjoyable and it had Sox, who really needs a break after carrying so much of the movie's second half on his fucking back.

Final Score: 7/10

did you know that since Turning Red takes place in 2002, they should have been talking about 9/11?

generous score for lightyear, we turned it off like halfway through and never had the desire to go back

Strange World
Originally released November 23, 2022

Jaegar Clade is a famous explorer in the land of Avalonia, who wants to explore the world beyond the mountain range that surrounds them. His son Searcher doesn't want to be an explorer and is more interested in an electricity-filled plant he discovers and names "Pando", so Jaegar throws a bitchfit and stomps off on his own while Searcher returns home to usher in a golden age and improve everybody's lives. 25 years later, Searcher has a Pando farm, a wife (Meridian), a son (Ethan), and a three-legged dog (Legend), and president (Callisto Mal) flies in on her airship to tell him that something's killing Pando and they need to find the cause. Despite his objections, Searcher agrees to join the expedition; Ethan and Legend stow away, and Meridian flies in on their crop duster to chase them down.

They follow Pando's roots into the core of the planet and are attacked by fluorescent pterodactyls, crash-landing in a vibrant, incredible world filled with vibrant, incredible creatures, including an amoeba-like thing that befriends Ethan (Splat) and a caveman (Jaegar). Jaegar saves everyone from a horde of tentacled blob monsters he calls Reapers that try to kill everyone, and Callisto negotiates a deal where he helps them find what's killing Pando and they fly him to the other side of the mountains, a win-win. During the trip Searcher and Jaegar each try to bond with Ethan and try to convince him to follow in their respective footsteps, which ends up pushing him away from both of them while they accidentally grow closer and start fixing their own broken relationship.

They finally arrive at Pando's heart and find out that it's actually a literal heart, and the Reapers and Fluorescodactyls are attacking it. Searcher comes up with a plan to smash up the Pando reserves and crop dust the heart to kill off the attacking creatures, but Ethan doesn't feel right about the plan and jumps off the ship. Searcher goes after him and they end up on the other side of the mountains staring at a giant eye that's staring at them, and realize that Avalonia is actually a giant creature that they live on, have been exploring inside of, and Pando is an infection that's killing it. They fly back to the ship and explain this to everyone, but Callisto isn't willing to give the Pando up and briefly locks them in a cupboard until they quickly escape and take over the ship.

Meridian flies the ship to distract Callisto while Searcher and Jaegar dig a hole in Pando's outer shell, and Ethan leads a bunch of creatures in to do their job as antibodies. The Pando dies off and the heart starts beating again, and they return to the surface ready to be received as villains who destroyed their energy source. A year later, people are adjusting pretty well to the loss of Pando, have developed an alternative energy source, Jaegar and Searcher are now co-running the farm (which now grows food instead of electricity), and Ethan has moved underground to gather natural resources from inside Avalonia with his boyfriend. The End.

This movie fucks . It's honestly everything I've discovered that I love during this marathon; a solid pulp-style adventure with likeable characters that grow and develop noticeably, colorful and fun environments and creatures, fantastic visuals, and some pretty cool action. It does slow down a bit towards the middle of the movie but it's important that it does so, because that's where a lot of the character development happens. It also teases the audience a little at the very beginning with some really stylish hand-drawn animation.

I was expecting Ethan to figure out that his calling wasn't to be an explorer or a farmer, but instead a biologist, because he shows a lot of tendencies towards that during the movie when he does things like heal Splat's injury or . So it was a bit of a letdown to see that this wasn't what happened at the end, and he basically just combined both of those callings into peacefully and harmlessly harvesting resources from inside Avalonia. Eh, maybe he's still doing some biology work on the side.

This movie reminded me a lot of Atlantis, which was another movie that I loved. It's kind of a similar concept and execution, but still goes in very different and satisfying directions. Perfect score, no notes.

Final Score: 10/10

Yay, someone else who liked Strange World !

Elemental
Originally released June 16, 2023

Bernie and Cinder Lumen (not their real names) are fire elementals that immigrate to Element City, which they immediately find out is both inhospitable and aggressively racist towards them. They purchase a hollowed-out old building and fix it up into a convenience store and have a daughter named Ember, which attracts an entire community of fire elementals to create their own part of town. As Ember grows up and works in the store she learns that she fucking hates customers (to be fair, customers are awful people) and has a literally explosive temper. This temper leads to a pipe breaking and letting in a water elemental city inspector named Wade, whose name I swear I never heard spoken out loud for fifty-three minutes .

Wade is forced to write up numerous code violations in the shop and Ember chases him down, and her sob story gets him to take her side seconds after he mails the violations away. So they explore Element City's bureaucracy until they reach his air elemental supervisor Gale, who gives them one week to find and fix a leak in the city's canal system and she'll tear up the violations. Doesn't seem entirely ethical or legal, but eh. Ember and Wade track it down to an obviously broken door at a spillway and fix it with sandbags and then a glass barrier, and start secretly dating so Ember's racist father doesn't find out.

They continue dating until Wade brings her to meet his family, and his home is a literal deathtrap for her. She demonstrates to Wade's mother an artistic talent for creating glass sculptures and his mother offers her an internship with a friend, which pisses Ember off because it forces her to realize that she doesn't want to inherit her family's store and it's holding her back. She tries to break up with Wade and he leads her into another deathtrap so she can see some flowers in a flooded subway station, and they learn they can touch each other without dying. Ember then mentions running her family's store again and Wade encourages her to follow her own dreams, so she breaks up with him.

Later, at her father's retirement party, Wade crashes it so he can say they love each other and she tells him to gtfo. Bernie gets pissed and decides he can't trust Ember with the store and he's not retiring, so she rides off on her badass motorcycle and witnesses the glass dam breaking because the city never bothered to fix it properly. She rides back to warn everybody in Firetown and the store starts flooding, threatening to extinguish her family's blue flame. Wade shows up to help protect it and they manage to save a part of it in a lantern and seal themselves away from the water, but the heat building up causes Wade to evaporate and die.

After the flood recedes, Ember's family digs her out of the hearth, and she tearfully tells her father that she doesn't want to run the store and is a piece of shit. He says she's not a piece of shit and they hug, and Ember hears Wade crying. She makes him cry more until his body drips out of the brick ceiling and reforms, and they hug and kiss. Four months later Bernie has sold the store to some regulars so he can retire, and Ember and Wade are about to leave for her glass-sculpting internship. Bernie tells her to hurry up and leave so he can fuck Cinder more often, I'm sorry Fandom, that's literally what he says . The End.

Ehhhhhhh. I didn't really care for this one. The concept of the city felt a bit like a worse Zootopia, a thought that I kept trying to push out of my head in the interest of fairness. But unlike that fictional city, which actually put effort into specialized districts so everyone could live equally and comfortably, Element City seemed to be built specifically for the purpose of excluding fire elementals, including having places where they weren't allowed to go and being openly racist towards them. It wasn't as comfortable a vibe, and while Zootopia tackled the subject of systemic racism in a more subtle and tactful manner that actually connected with the viewer, Elemental just bludgeons people with a hammer asking if they get it yet.

I also didn't really connect with Ember and Wade's romance that much. I'm just not that big a romantic, so a love story was never going to be up my alley to begin with, but theirs felt a little forced at the beginning and didn't seem to develop naturally. They met, they were essentially blackmailed into fixing a door, and suddenly they're dating. The movie also over-focused on the fire and water elementals and just left the air and earth elementals as undeveloped concepts. There was a horny earth elemental kid who kept picking armpit flowers to try and romance Ember, which was creepy, and there was Gale and a basketball team of air elementals, but that was literally all they had for representation. It left Element City itself feeling like an undeveloped concept, and it really could have been JUST about Bernie and Cinder moving to a water city instead of an integrated one.

So, yeah, I wasn't too engaged with this movie, and found myself actively bored a couple times. I just didn't find it or its characters to be particularly interesting. It did have some cool music, though, and the animation style was much nicer than Pixar's last couple offerings, so I'll give it some points for those. But it really felt like it was an underdeveloped concept overall.

Final Score: 6/10

Wish
Originally released November 22, 2023

The penultimate movie of this marathon (unless Moana 2 makes a surprise appearance on Disney+), and one released to celebrate Disney's 100-year anniversary. I remember a lot of people talking about how this movie was a real disappointment, so let's see if I end up agreeing with them.

Asha is a 17-year-old girl living in the kingdom of Rosas, where King Magnifico collects wishes from his citizens and grants them periodically, with the catch that the person forgets their wish entirely up until the moment it's granted. Asha wants to become his apprentice, and after a brief pep talk with her friends who infringe heavily on the Seven Dwarves' copyright, she nails the interview right up until the point that she asks Magnifico to grant her 100-year-old grandfather, Sabino's wish. Magnifico refuses because he thinks Sabino's wish of becoming an inspiring musician is "too dangerous", and tells Asha that not only will his wish never be granted, but now her mother's won't either.

She tries to explain to her grandfather and mother what happened, but Sabino tells her he doesn't want to know a wish that will never be granted, and she runs out of the house and wishes on a star. The star falls from the sky and makes plants and animals sing and dance, then when Asha asks if it's a wish-granting star, instead encourages her to pull off a heist and free the kingdom's wishes from Magnifico. Meanwhile, Magnifico has interpreted the star's falling as a direct threat and challenge to his rule and debates employing forbidden dark magic to fight it, but Queen Amaya talks him down. He still puts out a bounty on whoever's responsible and promises to grant the wish of whoever turns the traitor in.

Asha and Star steal Sabino's wish back but are unable to claim her mother's, and return it to him. Magnifico then appears at their house to say Asha's been turned in and crushes her mother's wish, absorbing its power for his own. He becomes addicted to it and after a brief chase, returns to the castle to consume more wishes and create a staff to capture Star with. Shortly after, Asha's Sleepy-inspired friend Simon is revealed to be the one to turn her in, and has his wish granted to become a strong and loyal knight. He immediately turns in the rest of the Not-Dwarves and they go into hiding with Asha and plot rebellion, helped by Queen Amaya, who's tired of Magnifico's shit.

They put their plan in motion, but the Magnifico who was chasing Asha as a distraction is revealed to be Simon in disguise. He's immediately mauled by rabbits while the real Magnifico captures all the freed wishes and Star, absorbing it into his staff and enslaving the entire kingdom. Asha encourages the people to sing Magnifico to death and he's absorbed by his staff, and Star and the wishes are freed and returned to the people, including the ones that were destroyed because happy endings. Simon returns from his bunny battle and says "sorry", Queen Amaya locks Magnifico's gem up in the dungeon, and Star makes Asha into the Fairy Godmother while everyone in the kingdom pursues their dreams. The End.

In a lot of ways, Wish is Disney's love letter to itself, which is honestly fine. It's their 100-year anniversary, they can celebrate it however they want. It was kind of fun catching all the references to older Disney movies (some of which more obvious than others), and I did like the animation style. It was 3D animation made to look kind of like hand-drawn animation, and I thought it was a clever way to tie the two eras together and looked pretty snappy. I loved this movie's look. The soundtrack left a bit to be desired in my opinion, it felt a bit like they were trying to chase the breakout success of "Let It Go" with every song. But it's kind of like how I mentioned The Emperor's New Groove failing for me because it tried to have too much comedy, and the jokes lost their punch -- if every song is performed as if it's the showstopper, none of them are.

As for the plot, it was... meh? Things felt like they went rushed or unexplained a bit too often. Magnifico's sinister turn at the very beginning of the movie seemed so sudden and unprovoked, and a lot of his actions just seemed villainous for the sake of being villainous. He wasn't a very inspiring antagonist and many of his motivations went unexplained, and the way he was defeated felt very anticlimactic. It felt like a movie where things were either almost happening or happening for no reason, and at a certain point I realized I was mainly watching to catch the next Disney reference than out of genuine interest in what was going on.

I'd say Wish was a fairly weak experience, but dammit if the animation style didn't charm me. The investment in nostalgia helped it a bit, and if this was the final movie to cap off this Disney marathon, it would be a pretty satisfying and fitting conclusion. But as it turns out, I have one more to watch tomorrow, so it's kind of cheated out of that.

Final Score: 5/10

Wish was their 100th anniversary movie and it was supposed to reflect that but sounds like it didn't

It just occurred to me that Asha is 17 years old and her grandfather is 100.

How old was her mother/father (whichever was his child) when Asha was born? How old was he when they were born?

TMOG posted...

The Emperor's New Groove

Probably my favorite Disney movie ever. I still watch it as a grown up! LOL.

Inside Out 2
Originally released June 14, 2024

Here we go, the final movie. The last couple have been a bit disappointing, so let's hope that we can end this fucking mistake of a marathon on a strong note.

Riley Andersen is now 13 and her five core emotions have become experts at their job, helping her to create a positive Sense of Self ("I'm a good person") as she heads off to hockey camp with her two best friends, Grace and Bree. Suddenly, OH SHIT, the Puberty Alarm goes off, and a demolition crew shows up to headquarters along with four new emotions; Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui. (They lock Nostalgia in a closet for ten more years.) Joy and Anxiety immediately start fighting over the best way for Riley to handle the camp with the revelation that her friends are going to be sent to a different high school and they'll be separated, and after Joy accidentally humiliates and alienates Riley, Anxiety launches her Sense of Self into the back of her subconscious and seals the core emotions in a giant jar to be locked away with her secrets.

While Anxiety motivates Riley to ditch her friends and join the popular girls on their team, Joy and the other emotions escape the jar and Vault of Secrets along with a preschool cartoon dog that Riley still likes, a hot but terrible fighting game character, and Riley's deepest darkest secret, who ominously declares it's "NOT TIME YET" and locks himself back in. They set off on a quest to retrieve the Sense of Self and return it to headquarters, sending Sadness back ahead of them to quickly recall the SoS when they find it. Embarrassment, realizing that Anxiety probably isn't handling things the best, helps Sadness hide while the others continue their journey.

Anxiety starts assembling a new Sense of Self for Riley out of her own memory balls, which starts to tell her that she's "not good enough". After dyeing a red streak in her hair, enlisting a cubicle farm of imagination to think up the worst case scenarios, continuing to isolate her from her friends, and breaking into the coach's office to read her notes, Sadness makes a move and briefly takes over the console via Ennui's stolen phone before she's discovered and stuck in a bucket. During the camp's final game, Anxiety destroys the recall tube and Joy and the other emotions return on an avalanche of bad memories while Anxiety gives Riley a panic attack. Joy manages to talk Anxiety down and they remove the negative SoS, then Joy realizes she'd been doing the same thing and removes the positive SoS, allowing a more complex, conflicted one to form that ends the panic attack.

All nine emotions are now in sync to help Riley adjust to high school, and she keeps in touch with her best friends while being embraced by her new ones from camp. It's implied that Riley is accepted onto the team while Joy tries to free the deepest darkest secret (for some reason), which reveals himself as some light accidental arson before locking himself back up. The End.

This movie's plot has a lot of similarities to the first, which I guess is a little inevitable considering the subject matter. Both are a bit of a road trip through the bureaucracy of Riley's mind while she's forced to deal with huge lifestyle changes, these changes lead to the wrong emotions being in charge and causing her to make the wrong decisions, Joy realizes she's being too much of a control freak, etc. If you reduce the plots of both movies down to bullet points, they look fairly identical. It could even be argued that Bloofy, Pouchy, and Lance Slashblade fill the same role that Bing Bong did in the first, albeit none of them died in an incredibly tragic way -- at least, not that we know about.

The conflict between Joy and Anxiety was handled really well, though. Anxiety herself fills the role of the movie's antagonist, but it's clear to see that she is genuinely trying to do what she believes is the best for Riley and her future and is acting out of a desire to help her rather than harm her. Her actions are extreme and misled, but not ill-intentioned, and that makes her a really interesting... well, "villain" isn't the word, but I already used antagonist and don't want to repeat myself more than I have to. It also becomes pretty clear at the end that they have the same flaws of being overcontrolling and believing themselves to be superior and more important to the other emotions, unintentionally suppressing them to single-handedly dictate how Riley grows and develops.

I felt like this was a really good movie, but didn't quite do enough to set itself apart from the first film. They are incredibly similar in structure and execution, but neither really handled it worse than the other. Despite doubling the cast from five emotions to nine, none of them really feel underdeveloped or unnecessary (well, except maybe Envy doesn't do much in this movie) and the framing of Riley at the hockey camp honestly could have been interesting even without the inner mind angle. I think I can fairly give this the same score as the first movie.

Final Score: 9/10

...and that's it, the last movie of the marathon! I can't believe I actually watched 92 kids' movies in 92 days, what the fuck is wrong with me

And the end of this marathon happened to line up perfectly with me going back to work next week, so that's great. I guess it did help me pass the time this winter and fought off my usual cabin fever and depression that hits me this time of year, so that's good. It was pretty fun to write up the reviews (even if some of them are a little arbitrary or inconsistent with opinions I held earlier), and I'm glad to see that others decided to follow along and share their own opinions of the movies, their opinions of my opinions, and even a few people who watched some of these for the first time because of me.

What's next? Well, sleep for one, and trying to figure out how to fill two extra hours per day. At least until next week when those hours are filled with work.

See you all in my next ill-advised, self-inflicted daily task. (Aside from the Pokemon drawings, which I'm still enjoying thoroughly.)

That was great! Thank you for bringing us all along on the ride!

Now you'll have to watch every new one to keep on top of things.

@TMOG

If I had seen this movie as a kid/teenager, there's no doubt I would have been absolutely obsessed with it and watched it on a loop. It's still a very fun thing to sit and watch as an adult, though, with a lot of humor that would go over kids' heads and some actual moments of violence and a little sex appeal for the horny dads (sorry, Fandom). It kind of appeals to just about every age and is very well put-together. I really liked it, and aside from being a little unoriginal can't think of a lot of major flaws... oh, what the hell, even though it's a very blatant Stargate ripoff, I think it deserves this score.

Final Score: 10/10

@Phantom_Nook

I actually saw Atlantis in theaters back in the day. It was on a school field trip to the theater. The only thing that stuck out to me back then was Rourke turning blue and exploding.

When I watched it again as an adult, I enjoyed it a lot more.

@Mibahlzitch

The thing I remember most is how hot Kida is.

As you three did comment on Atlantis, the movie was to have a proper sequel Atlantis 2 Shards of Chaos which was scrapped as was a planned animated show following it called Team Atlantis.

The show instead only had three episodes done and were linked with a new story element for the "sequel Milo's Return". Actual plan is that the proper sequel would have Milo and Kida having to permanently block off the surface entrance to Atlantis, leaving the show to have them looking for another means back there.

One episode of interest is "The Last" which would have featured Demona (Voiced again by Marina Sirtis) from Gargoyles.

Yep, some of those DTV Disney sequels were 3 episodes of a canceled TV show put together so their time wasn't wasted.

Charged151 posted...

That was great! Thank you for bringing us all along on the ride!

so what would you say your top 10 of either Disney or Pixar (or both) is at this point?

This was an excellent topic and fun to follow along with, thanks for sharing.

Are you insane now?

TMOG posted...

What's next? Well, sleep for one, and trying to figure out how to fill two extra hours per day. At least until next week when those hours are filled with work.

There always are those the cheap bootleg Disney & Dreamworks movies

KFHEWUI posted...

There always are those the cheap bootleg Disney & Dreamworks movies

Oh yeah. Maybe Good Times/Golden Films stuff.

Maybe I should copy/paste these reviews to something before I forget about this topic and it purges lol

Mods, we need a sticky!

Did you end up going insane?

If so, when and at what movie?

TMOG posted...

Maybe I should copy/paste these reviews to something before I forget about this topic and it purges lol

Probably a good idea. A final list of all scores would be cool too.

If you ever come back to this there are the hybrid films that are primarily live action but also have animation. Mary Poppins, Petes Dragon, etc.

TMOG posted...

Maybe I should copy/paste these reviews to something before I forget about this topic and it purges lol

If you're interested I saved them all to a document I could send you.

I'm catching up now, I do agree with whoever said TMOG should make it a thing to post movie reviews, they're fun to read

I defy the purge because I still need to save these lol

just copy/paste into word? shouldn't take you more than a hour to do that.

SamsungGearS2 posted...

just copy/paste into word? shouldn't take you more than a hour to do that.

Yeah I know but I'm incredibly lazy

TMOG posted...

Yeah I know but I'm incredibly lazy

NapoleonToo saved them for you (post 293).

Finally backed everything up and realized I left a thought half-finished during my Strange World review. I'll just quote the paragraph and bold the part where I insert the text that I somehow didn't actually type out.

TMOG posted...

I was expecting Ethan to figure out that his calling wasn't to be an explorer or a farmer, but instead a biologist, because he shows a lot of tendencies towards that during the movie when he does things like heal Splat's injury , realize the truth about Avalonia's internal workings and that the Pando is an infection, or object to killing off the animals that were attacking the Pando because "it doesn't feel right" . So it was a bit of a letdown to see that this wasn't what happened at the end, and he basically just combined both of those callings into peacefully and harmlessly harvesting resources from inside Avalonia. Eh, maybe he's still doing some biology work on the side.