OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD: where we complain about popular things in media we don't like to feel better about ourselves

[Booyakasha]

This is the venting topic. Froth at will.

[Sim Kid]

Disney is capable of so much better. They created 'Moana'. How do you go from 'Frozen' to 'Moana' in such short time? I hope against hope it wasn't mere accident. I hope Disney had a moment of realisation and went, "Oopsie. We designed 'Frozen' too well. It has netted us all the money in the world, despite it being artistically bankrupt. We set loose the Whore of Babylon Mk 0.1, and that was very naughty of us. Let us make a not-naughty movie this next time. It might not make us as much money, but at least we won't have to see our own reflections in the bathroom mirror slowly fade away forever."

They probably created Moana because they could "afford" to be riskier with that one.

Movies about Polynesian people rarely reach the mainstream. Sure, disney isn't exactly short on money (This isn't the 70s or 80s.) but I doubt they would have gotten such a film approved during the early 2010s. Especially since Tangled's early trailers portrayed it as a subversive/parodical fairy tale in the likes of Shrek and Enchanted.

[Booyakasha]

^Wow.

...I'd never have thought of that. I'm too pessimistic, man. Why don't I give people the bennie of the doubt a little?

[Random User]

Moana, while I loved it, and while it was a fairly tasteful film about Polynesians, just wasn't that good imo. There's too much payoff without Moana actually struggling or changing as a person. Not that it was bad or anything, but it's not really as gripping as other hero stories.

[Booyakasha]

^That's cool, homey. There's no accounting for tastes.

I mean, I truly don't know why that one bad shot in LotR bothers me so much. A single instance of character model inconsistancy in LotR, which is otherwise a masterwork of perspective and visual effects----------meanwhile my favourite show is 'Steven Universe', a show with literally no character design bible. They just draw and scale people however they please. I'm fine with it, but I can certainly understand why it'd turn people off.

[steeze]

Survivor doesn't come across to me as one of those shows I'd group in the reality shows category of things that irk me. I look at that like a reality game show. Which has actual value because it's actually pretty extreme. Those people are suffering trying to make that money. They aren't put up in some remote fancy cottage with all their roommates drinking and talking about each other.

Yeah, I don't know why that shot bothers you so much either^^^^^

CGI wasn't exactly top tier in 2001 lol. I'd just take a bathroom break during it. "What did I miss?"

[Booyakasha]

Well, I guess it's a little hypocritical, but at the same time, well who's to say what is and isn't hypocrital, anyway. We're all just looking for meaning here, and I don't really see what's wrong with the fact that I can forgive something in the context of a show I adore that I find inexcusable in a movie that bores me. There's no accounting for tastes---------a person is a microcosm of case studies, and a person can make excuses for liking this and doing that, but in the end it's a result of that person's unique personality, his fears, his dreams, his desires and shames and loves and memories and all the rest, all mixed up together. You can make a broad statement about an irreducibly complex system, and no matter how apt it is, the statement will only be useful up until it isn't.

[Apollo the Just]

Oooooohhh while we are bitching about Disney and Pixar can I just say that every time I see someone’s “favorite animated movies” list is exclusively Disney/Pixar I experience an emotion that is a combination of feeling superior and also rage. Like, Disney makes fairly consistently good movies, but they also have a very safe formula and haven’t really broken ground in like 20 years. There’s nothing wrong with liking Disney/Pixar - Brave is on my favorites list! - but if the ONLY animated films that you consider good come from that single source, uuhhhh im judging pal. Dreamworks has put out some films (HTTYD but also others) that are on par or better, LAIKA has pretty much never done wrong, there are a **** ton of dope anime films, and also the only people doing 2D animation justice in the US anymore are indie studios because Disney’s officially said “**** that noise lmao”. Anyway get some culture y’all phillistines

Related, I really wanna see The Breadwinner and I’m ashamed I haven’t yet

[Booyakasha]

^Did you happen to see the remastered version of 'The Last Unicorn' they put out on DVD/BD a couple years back, homey?

I already loved the movie just because of the story and characters and all, but they cleaned up the visuals so much, and the results are breathtaking. Kind of fell in love with the movie all over again.

[Apollo the Just]

NO but I really should. It was already gorgeous and can only have gotten better from there.

I get so emotional about the line “how dare you come to me now, when I am this”. What a good **** movie and I still need to finish the book

[Valigarmander]

So while we're on it....

....can we stop shoehorning romance into EVERY SINGLE THING?

You know it is possible to put a man and a woman together and they don't start falling in love. you know it is possible for people to be happy without having ever found "the one". Why is this always treated as some kind of a sign of ultimate life-fulfillment? This is one of the reasons we have freaking Incel, you know - because society tells them that they're not fulfilled unless they got a spouse or are in a romantic relationship. Stop it.

This is one reason why Zootopia and Moana are two of the best Disney movies EVER. Because both star a woman and a man going off on an adventure or doing things, and ending with them having a platonic relationship. (Moana shows no romantic interest in anyone - nobody's trying to be her boyfriend... it's almost like you got to know Moana AS A PERSON and not "as ____'s girlfriend". WOW WHAT A NOVEL CONCEPT.) Zootopia even has Judy and Nick working as coworkers - not dating. That IMO is far more progressive than ending with two girls loving one another or two guys loving one another. Cause it shows you don't need fulfillment with romance.

Seconded. This is also why I've never been a fan of shipping generally.

[smol Kat]

^I don't mind the concept of shipping (especially when it's really obvious VELVET AND ELEANOR I AM LOOKING AT YOU) but what I really hate is when people "name" ships. I dislike the concept of blending words in general, so that's a large part of why.

but also if you were to name a ship of me + my significant other it would be really, really stupid[/i]

[Apollo the Just]

I don't mind shipping because to me it's a form of extrapolating on media (what-ifs, imagined scenarios, thinking more about what's given, interpreting dynamics...) and I'm all about that.

I AM super tired of works within themselves throwing in a boring het romance and pretending it's in any way interesting. Who cares. Do something more interesting with your character interactions and motivations please.

[Calamity Panfan]

I agree with romance subplots feeling super contrived. I've seen screenwriters, directors, etc. in the past justify it like "Well love is a universal emotion, and adding love stories can help make larger-than-life characters more human." And I get that, but like, love is so much more than romantic love. You can build strong stories and characters with any kind of relationship. A lot of movies could be better off for it.

[Apiary Tazy]

Romance is done poorly a surprising amount of the time, and I mean in every orientation you can put in front of the word romance, it's not exclusive to any sexuality if I may be so bold to say so. Love is a way to garner emotion for your characters but rarely does a scriptwriter or director try to go beyond the basics. They believe a confession should close out the show rather than add onto it because a wedding is seen as some form of happily ever after. There's also this worry that changing the status quo or making two characters a couple will turn people away so a lot of the time there's no commitment to a romantic relationship. It's worse in movies where a relationship has to be built up to a marriage in the time it takes to cook a pork roast and especially when it's a sub-plot. It's a box to fill on a checklist, like children being in danger but never actually being hurt too bad or when a villain kills only one character and just leaves to show things are now serious. Done for its own sake, no one cares about anyone involved so every moment between the two characters was just time wasted. Might as well have just given me more explosions.

(I've realized that I want to just deliver hot takes about media all day. I don't think this topic would work for such a thing. Hm.)

[Booyakasha]

(I've realized that I want to just deliver hot takes about media all day. I don't think this topic would work for such a thing. Hm.)

Are the blogs still a thing at this new VGF? I read your old blog a few times (your SU evaluation series was a hoot). Alternately you could make a new topic and huck it all in there---------not that I'd do that, I prefer the 'scatter my genius far and wide, so it becomes unavoidable and the only way to get rid of it is to nuke all my posts one by one and then IP-ban me' route

[Apiary Tazy]

I moved to Wordpress with most of my old stuff getting placed onto it. I was gonna put myself on some other site but that one went to pot so I'm staying on it. But eh, I don't mean to detract from cloud yelling for personal ponderings.

I feel weird shilling myself, but hey.

Speaking of that site, nothing has come to frustrate me like really bad parody. Like when something goes "isn't saving the world a really wacky situation. It would never REALLY happen" while they're having a generic adventure. "I'm a strong female character! I don't need saving like some damsel in distress!" and then she gets kidnapped. Or those Friedburg and Setzer films where they eventually just took from other movies with nothing to really make what they've made cohesive. It's not a group of people getting into danger because of their own antics, it's actors pretending to be Spartan Warriors and Britney Spears. I can not care about it.

[United Nations]

pork roast

@Ender @Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds
*eye twitch*

[Booyakasha]

Just watched 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' for the first time in a while.

You know, Gene Wilder's version is probably more misanthropic and evil than Depp's, but he's got the personality----------personality goes a long way. And anyway, is it really any more wrong to subject children to unimaginable horrors than adults? Kids're just people, only smaller. Don't coddle them, Bluth 'em, baby! Gotta snip the old apron-strings sooner or later.

I like Charlie. This Charlie. He ain't no cardboard cut-out, no plaster saint. He's envious, and self-deluding, and he burns with resentment. He's frustrated. Reminds me of Luke, man. Charlie wins because he's better than the others----------he's either too virtuous or too jaded to fall for Wonka's traps, and thus manages to win the dark lord's approval. Does Wonka see the good in Charlie at the end, or does Charlie exploit the weakness in Wonka? It's a question for scholars. All I know is I like the dang movie, man.

The songs are all great. 'Cheer Up Charlie' is a real heartstring-puller---------it's in that one key, man. Same key as 'Baby Mine', and 'Not in Nottingham'. And that dang 'Brother My Brother' song from the Pokeymans! What the hell is with that key? Does it just naturally make people sad and wistful? What is that, a B-flat major? Is there a music guy in the house?

This movie must be like porn for chocoholics. Or maybe like torture, depending on the context in which one watches it.

(EDIT:...so where the hell does this movie take place, anyway? America, or England? Perhaps some kind of gestalt gem-fusion of the two countries, where there's just no telling whether the next person you run into will sound like he's from Sheboygan or Liverpool? Is it set in Canada? Do people in Canada just pick their accents out of a hat at birth, and then they get Ludovicoed into talking that way? It wouldn't surprise me-----------they got socialised medicine, it's a slippery slope.)

[Booyakasha]

I moved to Wordpress with most of my old stuff getting placed onto it. I was gonna put myself on some other site but that one went to pot so I'm staying on it. But eh, I don't mean to detract from cloud yelling for personal ponderings.

I feel weird shilling myself, but hey.

Dude, shill. Sell yourself. I'm seriously delighted that you just told me where to find the new home of your blog. Who's going to sell you better than you could?

Hell, I'll shill for you----------I just added Tazy's blog to my bookmarks, alongside the likes of Seanbaby, Ecchi Attack!, Oglaf, BCDE, RedLetterMedia, Zany VGQuotes and Shadbase. Take that as you will.