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.