 |
| Image Source: 50 Shades of Animation |
Best
“Simba’s Pride” may be heavily flawed but it also had the
most potential which easily puts it above most of its competition.
For whatever technical flaws it may have, when it’s good, it’s
great and at the very least carries itself with a sincerity that doesn’t damage
the legacy immediately preceding it.
“Cinderella III’s” twist on its tale may be a simple one but
it milks it for all its absolute worth to full effect.
What was once one note becomes far more fleshed out and what
could be considered contrived in the original (not by yours truly but I digress)
is lovingly poked fun at for a sequel that serves as a far superior companion
piece to the first movie than the embarrassing pilot preceding it.
In some ways, “Bambi II’s” decompression and expansion of a
point of significance in the young prince’s life is a bit of a contradiction to
what made the first film great. Fortunately, the humanization nonetheless
manages to work in creating a relatably engaging narrative of a family coping
with trauma that manages to hold onto much of the quaint charm that has made
the original an endearing classic.
In following the trend of the good sequel being the ones
that actually invert the formulas to the movies that they follow up, “101 Dalmatians
II” forgoes the tantalizing but futile effort to characterize all 99 individual
puppies in favor of focusing on just one and what it means to be one member of
a family household so large, to fairly charming effect.
While I occasionally battle with myself on whether or not “Aladdin
and the King of Thieves” is the best of
the sequels, there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s one of the most sincere and
that goes further than just about anything that I’ve seen from this line over
the last 2 years.
Characters develop and drama builds and resolves itself
organically in a sequel that feels not only natural as a progression of the
narrative it was born from but even at home with the primary text its franchise
is based on.
Considering the films listed below, that’s an admirable
amount of effort.
Worst
“Lady and the Tramp 2” is the singing Disney animal
equivalent of that kid that thought he was hard, ran away because his dad just “didn’t
understand him,” and got found beaten up the next day by the real hardasses of
the street only to sulk to his room and regress deeper into his Hot Topic phase
that he’ll be embarrassed by during the college years.
We hated seeing actual people going through those years so
why should we watch the Disney version of it?
At the risk of setting off some cultural land mines, can we
stop commenting on questionable practices of ancient cultures in stories set in
those cultures when we know the commentary won’t be headed for hundreds of
years? Pointing out the mistakes of the past don’t make us look smarter, it
just reminds us that we’re running from the screw ups of the present that we
don’t want to deal with.
Honestly the only reason I couldn’t put this at number one
based on the audacity of its concept alone is because that very audacity makes
it too fascinating to ruminate on.
Todd and Copper join of country band. Damn Disney, really?
I’m not saying that the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs doesn’t
require some cultural unpacking, but even watered down versions of his worst
concepts would have been better than this.
You wasted a good material and George Carlin. Shame on you
Disney.
I honestly don’t think there’s anything I can say here that
a single frame of the movie on YouTube can’t speak more adequately for me.
The Pipe Dream
No follow-ups, lists, or qualifiers. I’ve sat through some
of Disney’s worst and at this point its just me begging for some recompense in
return
The level of world building on display in “Zootopia” puts
some live action films to shame and I don’t want to see it wasted.
Keep the adventures of Wilde and Hopps going. Spin off into
new characters. Do an anthology of loosely connected stories within the city
with different perspectives. Make a comic book. Make a TV show. For god’s sake,
put that new streaming service to good use.
I’ve spent 2 years hating the decision to make sequels
coming from Disney yet here’s one I’m actively willing to risk disappointment
on. Get cracking House of Mouse.
No comments:
Post a Comment