RGTK movie - June 29

 Obligatory disclaimer: the carrion is back. Wait, what?

Let me try again. Since real life sucks, the original dead rat is gone, but there is a brand new one, either killed by some other animal, (or a human), or just drowned in the recent rains. Again, it is located on private property, where both people and their pets, (i.e., we are talking primarily dogs here), are walking by, so it is authentically curious to see how long this dead animal will last. And, moreover, the dead skunk – remember, we talked about it last time – may be gone, but not entirely: there are some pieces of it, especially the tail, remaining on the road. Fun! Looks like the public maintenance is going for a full year with it or something. Jolly good! Turkey vultures, where are you?

On a more whimsical note, let us talk about ‘Ruby Gillman, The Teenage Kraken’ film. Warning: spoilers will be done best to be avoided, but that is no guarantee!.. This movie is a partial spoof of Disney’s™ TLM, but unlike the latter, there is more subtext, and less confusion. More precisely, there are no animal sidekicks, which only distract from the main plot, and the movie does not play ‘musical chairs’ with where exactly it is located: it is located in a fictional U.S. city of Oceanside, period.

The characters… the characters are also all-American, even if they do come in all shapes and colors: the titular character, for example, is blue-skinned, (as is the rest of her family, at least on land), and no one cares about it to call them out.

Second, yes, there is a strong ‘pretty on the inside vs. pretty on the outside’ element in the film. However, since RGTK is able to keep that element subtle and in the depths, it works. On the surface, again, this is a spoof of TLM, but keep in mind that the titular character had to team up with her mother and grandmother to defeat the main villain (redacted). This is different from the TLM reboot, where Ariel does everything herself instead – in the original 1989 film the animal sidekicks helped Ariel to get to stop Eric’s wedding to ‘Vanessa’ in time, while it was Eric’s actions rather than Ariel’s that ended Ursula for good. Cthulhu ftagn!

…And as a response to Ursula going big in both Disney’s versions, practically everyone went big in RGTK – there is a feeling that the movie’s scriptwriters had fun with this one. In addition, again, we got teamwork vs. a single evil individual, something that Disney seems to have forgotten. It tried over in MCU with AoS, but that collapsed sometime after S4, really – and now MCU pretends that AoS never happens, given how SI flat-out ignores S.H.I.E.L.D. and everything else associated with it. Yes, there may be different reasons for that, but the result is the same – AoS and S.H.I.E.L.D. are gone for good from MCU.

Elsewhere, we got, yes, the PJ Masks, and in their previous incarnation they were all about teamwork – the three titular characters always worked together to defeat their opponents, who almost never worked together, and even when they did, it was never for long. Thus, the show’s audience learned about the values of teamwork… as well as any other values, and virtues of acting properly and nicely.

And then the show got ‘upgraded’ to ‘PJ Masks and Power Heroes’ that did… the same old thing albeit in a diluted version: previously it was all 3 PJ Masks helping a single new hero to become, well, more experienced and etc., and now it’s more of a one on one, with at least one of them Ivan/Ice Cub being something of a Marty-Stu instead… Where were we?

Unlike the previous two examples, RGTK manages to keep itself together and remain enjoyable. It is more substantial than the TLM-2023 film is, and is quite complex as well, for a children’s film. Quite enjoyable too, and – no one dies. This is also different from Disney films, where villain dying is almost a permanent feature. This trait has passed onto MCU, (SW – not so much), though lately they seem to be trying to buck it – as WV and the rest of MCU’s Phase 4 onwards elements showed – but at the same time, MCU has become more of a mixed bag success-wise… Anything else?

Well, until a turkey vulture arrives and eats that dead rat, nothing much. RGTK is a fun film to watch, and I recommend it, for one. Anything else is up to you.

For now, this is it. See you all soon.

SI, 'Promises' - June 28

Obligatory disclaimer: the dead rat is actually gone. Wait, what?

Let me try again: real life sucks, but for a while there was a dead rat, located not far from where the dead skunk had been lying, but because the rat – a female one, judging by its’ size – was lying on private property, it was gone in a matter of days going for weeks, rather than weeks going for months, as the skunk had been. Pause.

Again, real life sucks, but when I tried to do something different and continue to watch Marvel’s™ ‘Secret Invasion’ series – the second episode, ‘Promises’. Again, so far SI feels like a prequel to something – there’s action going on, true, but mostly there’s exposition and talking; ‘Promises’ was driven less by action and more by dialogue, which is ironic, given how the writers are going on strike in Hollywood, and lately, (June 2023), quite a few actors, (even A-List actors) are threatening to do the same. This may be the reason as to why SI is being downplayed in the online news, especially since SI was using CGI artwork in its’ episodes – because otherwise my only idea is that USA, RF, UK, and several other countries will team up to take the Skrulls down. Put otherwise, this is a ‘Ms. Marvel’ situation – when an MCU (Disney+) TV series made such a tone-deaf semi-political SNAFU that everyone is doing his or her best to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Fun!

…On the other hand, what else is there to discuss? The evolution of the vulture birds? Thanks, but Mr. Keith L. has done it already, having written a very interesting and comprehensive book about them, (published and released back in 2022). In it, he discusses those overlooked and often neglected birds of prey, clarifying their relationships to each other, (which are more complex than how they look), as well as their evolution, ecologies, interactions with humans, and so on. Given that vultures are even less popular animals than the hyenas are, Mr. Keith L.’s achievement is quite something! Positively better and more interesting than SI is.

SI, on the other hand, is flat-out lackluster. Pardon me, but it is. My home city of Toronto has only turkey vultures out of all the scavenger birds, and only in summer, but even that is enough to see that SI may be joining ‘Ms. Marvel’ in MCU’s hall of fame as one of its’ aspects that is not so much as good or bad, but just lackluster – and we’re only two episodes in. Harsh, and yet I find myself almost wanting for some sort of a vulture to swoop in and to carry-off the streamable series into the land of the dead – but that is a different story…

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

SI, series premiere - June 21

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about Marvel’s™ ‘Secret Invasion’ series instead.

The series’ premiere episode, ‘Resurrection’, is… no, it may be indicative of the series (mini-series), as a whole: it lacks heart.

No, let us try again. ‘Secret Invasion’ is a remake-reboot, not unlike TLM-2023, only if TLM-2023 is obvious, then ‘Secret Invasion’ is a ‘subtle’ way of rebooting both S.H.I.E.L.D., (AoS), and S.W.O.R.D., (WV, remember?). After AoS, WV, and – the ‘Ms. Marvel’ series, SI is the third attempt for MCU to develop a secret agency something or other. AoS was a spy TV series that veered into new pastures at the end of S4 or around that time and it took the titular S.H.I.E.L.D. with it. That series ended with S.H.I.E.L.D. flourishing… an ending that came from a previous incarnation of the show, and which ended in a metaphorical cul-de-sac as they were replaced by S.W.O.R.D. in WV. Skrulls also played a minor role in that series, but play they did, and as we’ve seen in the trailer for ‘The Marvels’ film, they, and S.W.O.R.D., were supposed to play a role in MCU – and so the Skrulls do. 

S.W.O.R.D., on the other hand, got replaced by something called S.A.B.E.R. with nary an explanation, though in ‘Ms. Marvel’ we just had surrogate S.H.I.E.L.D., represented by the government, chasing Clan Destine, aka surrogate InHumans, with Kamala being caught in the middle. However, by the end of MM, we learn that none of the above applied to Kamala, who had her own destiny, and who got swapped with Carol ‘Captain Marvel’ Danvers at the end – an act that ties-in directly with ‘The Marvels’ as the trailer shows – but there the villains are to be the Kree, not the Skrulls. Pause.

Going back to the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film, we learn that in MCU the Skrulls are good, while the Kree were bad. Therefore, now we got a splinter group of the Skrulls, who are bad after all, and Fury, Hill, and the good Skrulls need to stop them. Can we say ‘unnecessarily complex’? Whatever was going on in the heads of MCU’s creative team regarding them will remain unknown – it just too convoluted to be revealed.

However, the ‘plot development’, where the splinter Skrulls are beginning a conflict between USA and Russia is all too predictable: it is safe. Sure, MCU could have used China, North Korea or Iran, (to name a few), in place of RF, but RF is safe. Disney/MCU knows that it will not offend anyone by using RF as cat’s-paw for the main villains – the splinter Skrulls – and anything else is more risky.

Sure, USA is not too happy with China these days, for example, (just ask Biden the POTUS), but Disney/MCU is ready to commit to that train of thought and would rather be somewhere else. As it was written before, Disney loves to make money, but it hates to lose money even more, and controversies cost money, and so Disney prefers to end controversies before they begin. The result? Things like the almost featureless ‘Elemental’ that go down easy, go out easy, and are forgotten just as easily. You remember the Spider-society in Sony’s™ second Miles Morales film? On one hand, this organization is quite democratic - we got people of all shapes, colors, sexes, species, etc. On the other hand, this organization is quite inefficient, as Miles is able to avoid them… period. The Spider-society is less of an organization and more of a crowd that is not very efficient at executing tasks period. (The titular organization of AoS had a similar problem, but on a smaller scale). This is… not unlike the actual US society these days, which is quite democratic and politically correct, but not very good at executing various tasks; the fact that the RF’s ‘special military operation’ is floundering is their fall, not US’ achievement, and it shows. If RF ever gets its’ things together, (a tall order, true, but still), then Ukraine is in real trouble…

Leaving real world behind and going back to ‘Secret Invasion’… we got more of AoS, really. AoS had FitzSimmons to show the American unity with the U.K., and here we got Ms. /agent Sonya, who is a member of MI6 and Fury ally, (supposedly). In reality, the relationship between the two countries is more fractious, but Disney/MCU has nothing to do with reality, you know? Real life sucks as it is…

‘Secret Invasion’, on the other hand, is just lackluster – it isn’t as bad as ‘She-Hulk’ had been, but judging by the more than slightly subdued reaction from the media, everyone is aware that it isn’t ‘What if?’ or even ‘Sam & Bucky’. It is just a much-shorter clone of AoS, and people are treating SI as such. Pity, I would say, but there is nothing to pity – Disney/MCU should have just stuck with S.W.O.R.D. instead.

For now, then, this is it. See you all soon.

PJ Masks & FH - June 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us briefly talk about the new FH development instead.

Ok, no, first I need to address the issue of why I am not talking about the current PJ Masks’ development. To this, I reply: real life sucks already, so why should I talk more of the same? In greater detail, listen: here, Disney Junior is trying to softly and slyly reboot the PJ franchise, just as Disney/Marvel is rebooting AoS via the upcoming ‘Secret Invasion’ series, and Disney itself is rebooting its’ animated movies as well – just look at the TLM-2023 version and compare it with the original 1989 one. However, in the case of PJ Masks, the soft reboot ran into a specific problem – the lack of continuation. Seriously, look at the previous seasons, as I’ve written before – there’s no consistent character development either among heroes or villains; neither side seems to learn anything from their repeated clashes, or they do, but never utilize it – and thus, all of them are caught in an endless loop of fights, night after night. You could really write a dark story here, about several children who are caught into some sort of a crazy Groundhog Day – pardon, night-like – scenario and cannot escape it unless they do something drastic…

Ok, this will not happen because the titular characters – the PJ Masks – have daytime/civilian identities and their nightly emergencies have something to do with their daytime issues. That is fair, but sadly, the series reboot seems to have gotten rid of this, now there is even more nighttime action and even less daytime, making the cartoon series even less realistic than it was before… Yes, I do understand that ‘PJ Masks’ was never about realism, but still, this is depressing, so I’m ignoring the series for the moment, and am not commenting on it either.

As for Ubisoft’s FH property… yes, they seem to be going Mesoamerica now, and are introducing a new named character Vela the conquistador. Yes, the conquistadors were the initial conquerors of Mesoamerica for the Spanish empire. For me, though, they strike closer to home: one of their most famous members, Hernan Cortez, appeared in the third and final season of DW, where he faced-off against Ivan the Terrible.

I have written before that the match-up didn’t make historical sense: like many eastern despots, Ivan IV the Terrible stayed safely behind the front lines… of course, so did the king of Spain during Cortes’ times… so the point here is that in this episode, DW had a Russian/Eastern villain defeated by a Western/European anti-hero! How novel… not. Still, DW is done and gone now, and what is left is… FH, for as we talked before, the creative team behind FH has plundered DW for ideas a lot, and the new conquistador character is yet the latest example – with one difference.

For the melee weapons, Hernan Cortes used a halberd, (which became a trademark weapon of one of the original team knight characters – the Lawbringer), as well as the ‘espada rapera’ – the Spanish rapier. However, since FH’s new character is based on their previous Warmonger character, their weapon is the Warmonger’s old weapon – the flamberge sword. Essentially, this is a rapier/sword combo, with a wavy, stylized blade, a la a tongue of flame. Put otherwise, the FH team also seems to be running dry, Mesoamerican styles or not.

…So, what we got here is the ‘PJ Masks’ show, which has transformed from a relatively decent pre-teen superhero fable show into its’ flawed imitation, where style is more important than substance, and conversely, we got the latest FH update, which has delivered – so far, but still – another update, also on style, nothing more. That is flat-out depressing. Have I mentioned that real life sucks? It does, and one can always count on oneself and one’s family to make it worse.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

Elemental - June 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. This is all I want to say about it right now, so let us move onto the ‘Elemental’ movie instead. Regrettably, ‘Elemental’ is much of an improvement, topic-wise – it also sucks, not unlike how ‘Doolittle’-2020 sucked, only moreso.

Let us elaborate. Superficially, ‘Elemental’ isn’t too different from Disney’s ‘Zootopia’ film (2016), save that in place of anthropomorphic mammals we got anthropomorphic elements instead – air, earth, fire and water. No, the ‘Avatar/Korra’ franchise had people who could control such elements instead, (and they had people who had no such powers too). The world of ‘Elemental’ is more restrictive than the world of Aang and Korra is, as well as the world of ‘Zootopia’ – there are only four main elements, (any ‘crossbreads’ such as mud or steam embodiments don’t appear in this film), and nothing else. In fact, at least some critics are asking why are there sentient/self-aware elementals, of water, for example, and then there is just plain water, which is neither sentient nor self-aware.

Next, we got the actual plot. In ‘Zootopia’, we got a love story between a red fox and a bunny rabbit, an unintentional and flattering parody of Harry and Megan. They have to solve a mystery of the night howlers, figure out who is trying to set carnivores and herbivores, (well, ‘predators’ and ‘prey’) against each other, as well as deal with prejudices, biases, preconceptions and superstitions against each other. In ‘Elemental’, we got a female fire elemental named Ember and a male water elemental named Wade who… pause.

The main conflict in ‘Elemental’ is that Ember had blown stuff up, and Wade has to report her to the city hall. Since that would put the kibosh on Ember’s entire family and their dream, done in the ‘Straight-off-the-boat’ style, Ember has to persuade Wade that she isn’t so bad and he shouldn’t report her – and when she does achieve it, in a manner of speaking, (among other things), she loses her temper shortly afterwards once more, and creates another explosion that she and Wade have to solve together. Fair enough, but the plot of ‘Zootopia’ is simply better and more complex out of the two.

Then we come to romance. As it was said above, in ‘Zootopia’, romance is only a part of the movie; the mystery of the night howlers is just as big a part. In ‘Elemental’, there is only romance… wait, what do I hear? It is an interracial romance and therefore it is more important? Right, once again, from the topic.

As TLM-2023 showed, racial issues are still big and thorny in the U.S. society: after TLM-2023 aired, I saw many videos and read fan reviews that – while claiming that they were not racist, certainly made a lot of noise about H.B. and her race. The fact that TLM-2023 is a bad movie on its’ own merit does not help the situation either. However, what matters is that TLM-2023 is one side of a coin – a film that brings out a lot of race-based critique in a manner that helps no one.

…Meanwhile, ‘Elemental’ is the other side of the same coin: it is supposed to be a responsa to the interracial relationships’ critique, but it does so smoothly and glibly that it helps no one.

Again, the U.S. society, or at least its’ elite, don’t deal with interracial relationships very well. Look at Disney/Marvel, for example: in AoS, there were no WASP/POC relationships; in ‘Avengers’ – ditto, and SW did not do any better. TLM-2023 handled this sort of thing very, well, heavy-handedly, pardon the pun, but at least they tried – and ‘Elemental’ doesn’t do the interracial relationship any better, certainly worse than how ‘Zootopia’ did it.

Put otherwise, ‘Elemental’ is ‘Zootopia’, not only simplified to just four races/species, but with all the rough edges sanded and smoothed out, which only hurt the film. In ‘Zootopia’, characters had to deal with real prejudices and outright segregation – tall, small and short characters were often treated differently from each other and without any political correctness either. ‘Elemental’ does not really have that; yes, Ember and Wade come from different social classes, but ‘Elemental’ does not explore that either; the main conflict here is that Ember and Wade are fire and ice…I mean, fire and water, ha-ha. Couldn’t they make them earth and air instead? Are earth and fire, for example, all that compatible?.. Never mind, where were we?

Flat-out, by smoothing out any controversies and conflicts, the creative team behind ‘Elemental’ has decreased its’ value, has decreased the value of Wade and Ember’s relationship… period. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and MJ have value as a couple; Sony’s Miles Morales and Gwen, (as well as Peter B. and MJ Watson) – ditto. Ember and Wade – not so much. You want to see a fictional interracial couple that works as a team, defeating enemies and overpower obstacles? Go and re-watch ‘Zootopia’ once again. ‘Elemental’ is just a faded copy of it.

Anything else? Yes, Ubisoft’s FH franchise seems ready to go Mesoamerica soon – already there is a conquistador-like character in the works. There was a conquistador – Hernan Cortez himself – in the third and final season of DW, but that is another story…

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

Miles Morales Spider-Verse movie - June 2

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Across the Spider-verse’ movie instead. To put it concisely: it works. Why?

Firstly, it deals with the multiverse correctly – it is a huge, jumbled complex that can accommodate, well, everything, from myriad of spider-people to a world without shrimp, or something along those lines. (Also, Gwen Stacy as a Spider-Woman? That does not sound quite right). As a result, whereas MCU is struggling to fit the multiverse into itself, Sony’s Spider-Verse does not – the spiders do not control the multiverse and let it flow as it is… or not.

Enter Miguel O’Hara, who is one of the movie’s main protagonists, (especially for Miles): he is not so much evil as orderly – he is a champion for inevitability of fate, (cough, Thanos, cough), and he and his cohorts are doing their best to enforce this P.O.V. across the Spider-verse multiverse. By contrast, Miles, Gwen, and their cohorts are more about freedom of choice – hence their conflict with Miguel and his team.

…The more traditional struggle between good and evil here is embodied in the character of Spot, who, (he is a canon Spider-Man villain, BTW), is trying to demolish the Spider-verse multiverse just because; this version of Spot is chaotic evil, and unapologetically so. …Of course, since this is a good movie, Spot has his own journey to travel before he arrives at this alignment, and so he does. What is next?

The delivery of the movie – there is humor in it, drama, and everything else beyond. The style of the Sony Miles Morales’ films is something else – I found it unnecessarily distracting and overwhelming in the first film, and I consider this the case now. However, given the popularity of these films, I am guessing that the overwhelming art style of theirs’ also works. Anything else?

The film doesn’t have a mid-credits’ scene because it has ended on an open-ended ending, pardon the tautology – the conflict between inevitability of fate and the freedom of choice, (mostly human, though there are sentient pigs, cats and non-avian dinosaurs as well), is still going strong, while the Miles Morales that the audience got to know and love, (cough), is still at large in the Spider-verse multiverse because he can. There are consequences for one’s choices, always, but following/believing in inevitability is one of them, not an exception or an alternative. Also…

Also, the relationship between Miles and Gwen, (throughout this movie at least), is an interracial one, cough. Mind you, it is nothing new – Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Zendaya’s MJ relationship is an interracial one too, not to mention the actual relationship between the two actors in question – but Hollywood follows its’ own rules when it comes to interracial relationships, it seems.

Yes, I am talking about the upcoming ‘Elemental’ movie, which is a weak rip-off of ‘Zootopia’. The racial history of the U.S. is a messy and a complicated one; these days, (the early 2020-s), there are still people who have issues with race and interracial relationships, but the sort of a vapid response that ‘Elemental’ is offering is no solution but the other side of the problem; not to mention – I suspect – that it is the reason that we didn’t get any sort of a ‘Zootopia’ sequel after the ‘Zootopia+’ mini-series had been released, for otherwise ‘Elemental’ would’ve been blown clear out of the water, (pun intended). What next?

MCU’s ‘Secret Wars’ mini-series, apparently. This is MCU’s latest attempt to fix the whatever hole/damage AoS had inflicted on its’ narrative – but that is another discussion, for another time. (Sony’s Spider-Verse had wisely avoided any but the most basic mentions of MCU. Good for them!)

For now though, this is it. See you all soon.