Movies - June 20

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Moreover, it is beginning to bleed into the media too.

Look at the movies, to be more precise. They are just going down. The Jurassic franchise? Surviving on games, which is separate, (in a manner of speaking, ok), from the films or the streaming series. The Planet of the Apes franchise? Also down to the ground. The upcoming Supergirl movie? It is the usual ‘cynical anti-hero find their wings and inner goodness to become the hero they were meant to be’. Given that ‘My Adventures with Superman’ cartoon has done this to Kara in S2 much more powerfully, there is no surprise that people are not too enthusiastic about the upcoming Supergirl movie. Not that DC had many options left – the CW Arrowverse Supergirl really rode the perky good-hearted superheroine aspect of this character to the hilt, making Supergirl look good too, so now the DC movies are trying to do something else with the character.

The Flashpoint Paradox live-action movie had a dark-haired Supergirl instead of Superman, which was not a bad idea, overall, but someone in the creative team behind the DC live-action movies decided that that idea was contaminated by Ezra Miller’s toxicity, so back to the blonde hair it is. Now Supergirl curses, swears, drinks, and the like, but never fear! Once push comes to shove, Supergirl will do what is right. …Whether the audience will appreciate it is another question. Next?

Well, this brings us to my main point of my rant: ‘Steps’. Pause. Here I mean not the stairs, (that is for Po Ping the Panda), but rather the upcoming Netflix movie. In this version of the Cinderella’s story, one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, (her name is Lilith), gets the fairy godmother’s wand, makes a hash of things, and has a tyrant named Priscilla take over the kingdom, so now she and Cinderella have to team-up to save it all. Pause.

Does this sound familiar? It kind of does. No, not the Lilith bit – thanks to the team Vivziepop the name of Adam’s first wife (in some religious traditions) is well known now. I am talking about the movie’s plot – it is heavily influenced by Disney’s movie ‘Cinderella 3: the Twist in Time’. There, Cinderella’s stepfamily stole fairy godmother’s wand and almost took over the kingdom, but never fear – one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, (Anastasia), reconsidered and helped Cinderella save the day. The delivery of ‘Cinderella 3’ and ‘Steps’ is different, but the latter was clearly influenced by the former. That said, while Disney’s movies often have plot twists, the plot of ‘Steps’ does not – not apparently. Rather, from the little we have, we will have Lilith help Cinderella defeat Priscilla and become a better person. The plot of ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ did this sort of thing already. Still better than Disney. Pause.

Let me try again. Where is Disney in all of this? Making ‘The Stepsisters’, something new and edgy about Cinderella’s stepsisters, Anastasia and Drizella. It is supposed to be done a la ‘Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers’ reboot too. That particular reboot with Disney’s attempt to do something a la ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ film. The original movie itself… is based on a book that has little to do with the film, and has its own fans and audience, not much more. The ‘Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers’ film – ditto; it made money, so Disney is keeping the crew busy with ‘The Stepsisters’ while it decides what to do next, and it can take a while.

Listen. Disney loves to make money. It hates losing money, and being involved in controversies and the like – even more. It wants to appeal to the sexual minorities, which is does by featuring them in various MCU properties, done in such a manner that they can be ‘cut out’ of the main MCU narrative and the latter doesn’t suffer; sexual minorities are the outlier, and the main heterosexual narrative is the main narrative.

Is Disney’s own universe, sometimes that cannot be done, as it was with ‘Raya and the last dragon’: there the same-sex relationship was plain to see. Therefore, Disney just ended that universe, the movie is a one-time, and it will remain a one-time, though Raya herself will appear in various other properties as a Disney princess. No girlfriend or anyone, though.

Conversely, there is the ‘Frozen’ franchise. The first film was quite traditional by Disney princess standards, with Hans being a traditional villain, albeit one with an open ending – he did not die, for one thing. However, ‘Frozen 2’ completely discard that story, having Elsa and her family go north, where they met Honeymaren Elsa’s not-girlfriend – right now Elsa is officially single, and as some person told us, she’ll remain single until she decides how she swings. I.e., Disney realized that they hit on something good with a blue-eyed blonde queen/princess/whoever and they do not want to ruin it by controversy. So they did not, Elsa remained conveniently single in ‘Frozen 2’, and now that the third and fourth movies of the ‘Frozen’ franchise are coming in the next few years, we will get to see what Disney does to poor Elsa next. Anything else?

Eh, ‘Cinderella 3’ made a bit of a mess itself, as it cancelled out the events in ‘Cinderella 2’. Maybe ‘The Stepsisters’ will fix it, or they may not. Netflix’s ‘Steps’ might be a fun fresh (relatively) take on the ‘Cinderella’ story, or it might just be an insipid and pointless generic piece of junk about a redemption of not quite a villain. We will just have to wait and see. Real life sucks, remember?

This is it for now. See you all soon!

Wish - Nov 22

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Wish’ movie instead.

Where to begin here? Good question, for the ‘Wish’ feels all over the place. One spot is the ‘star-stuff’ angle: it looks as if Disney took it from Pamela Travers’ ‘Mary Poppins’ novels. See, in one of the storylines, the children that Mary Poppins nurses/raises/takes care off, learn that everyone and everything – birds, beasts, people, flowers, stars themselves, and et cetera – are made from ‘the same stuff’, i.e. everyone is connected. In another storyline – or maybe the same one, I am not the biggest expert on MP – the children and Mary Poppins meet two sisters and their elderly mother, who run a store during the day, and stick the stars to the sky at night. Pause.

No, the ‘Wish’ has quite different takes on both of those concepts, but the idea might have been lifted from Pamela Travers’ books. What next?

Um, the female lead looks like a variant of Isabel Madrigal from ‘Encanto’? Perhaps, but the overall feel of the films is quite different. See, ‘Encanto’ runs most of its’ time in isolation, but at the end of the movie that isolation ends, the titular place is ready to be re-connected with the rest of the world… something that also raises a premise of a sequel, (and how it will go, at least at the start). ‘Frozen’ has already done something similar: Arendelle is not isolated, not exactly, and both movies have done some world building, albeit to varied extent and so on. ‘Wish’, on the other hand, does not do that: it begins on an isolated setting and ends in the same manner, but, hey, the villain is defeated, that is good, right?

Hard to say. On one hand, the people of the island learn that by mastering their power, they can defeat any single individual, no matter how powerful the latter is, individually. That is very democratic… but the endgame in the ‘Wish’ is that while the king got captured in a magical mirror and looked in the dungeon, his wife, (or ex-wife), continues to rein as the island’s queen, making this development less of a revolution and more of a palace coup. European society and history knew plenty of both, so they should not have problems differentiating between the two. The U.S. society and history, conversely, do not have too much experience… but still. After the Donald’s mess during 2020, you would think that they began to learn the differences and all. Anything else?

The ‘girl power’ angle. Regretfully, this was done in the ‘Wish’ so clumsily, that all the ‘witty’ critics, who make puns such as ‘M-She-U’ regarding MCU, will have a field day here, since this is the late 2023, and making all the movie’s villains male doesn’t really fly anymore; it is less progressive and more retrograde these days.

In addition, speaking of MCU… my apologies in telling that CD the captain Marvel perished at the end of ‘The Marvels’. She has not. She has merely retired, it seems, leaving MR stranded in a parallel universe on one hand, and KK jump-starting the next Avengers on the next. Again, the entire ‘Miss Marvel’ mini-series got ignored, and it’s anyone’s guess where ‘The Marvels’ will take MCU next, but still, it is a more inspiring and upbeat movie than the ‘Wish’ is, which feels rather flat and uninspired instead. The ‘Wish’ just does not look right, it does not feel right, and its’ message does not really come out right either. Overall, it feels inferior to both ‘Encanto’ and ‘Frozen’. C’est la vie.

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon.

Hocus Pocus 2 - Oct 3

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Hocus Pocus 2’ film. Why? ‘Cause I have actually enjoyed watching it, unlike the ‘She-Hulk’ series.

Now, some of you have taken objections regarding her latest episode, ‘The Retreat’ and claim that J.W. is not a Mary-Sue here. To which, I reply: she is an only woman in an episode, surrounded by a bevy of men. Of course, she is a Mary-Sue; this is one of the telling marks of a M.-S. Character in fiction, (regardless of gender), but…

…But the men in ‘The Retreat’ were underwhelming, meaning that J.W. isn’t a ‘typical’ M.-S., but more of a ‘pathetic’, ‘underwhelming’ one; I never thought that a M.-S. Character could have such adjectives, but MCU managed to achieve that regardless – congrats to them! Not, and what about ‘Hocus Pocus 2’?

‘Hocus Pocus 2’ is something different, less like MCU, and more like ‘Frozen 2’. Why?

Because almost like the ‘Frozen 2’ film, ‘Hocus Pocus 2’ lacks a ‘typical’ antagonist; the Sanderson sisters – in the first film – certainly were that: unabashedly evil. The main protagonists of the first film – several plucky kids and one special cat – had to go unbelievable lengths to defeat them, (which they did). More importantly, while the Sanderson sisters had magical powers, (and some serious singing skills, let us be honest), the children – or the cat – did not.

In ‘Hocus Pocus 2’, the situation is different: practically everybody is a witch here, save for a certain cranky zombie, cough. Now the playing field is much more level, everyone can relate to each other better, and the secondary conflicts between the new children characters feel rather forced and, well, secondary.

Yes, aside from the Sanderson sisters, none of the characters from the first film appear; instead, we get a brand-new cast. This also connects ‘Hocus Pocus 2’ to ‘Frozen 2’, where the franchise had a complete remake and went in a completely new direction from where the first film (we’re talking ‘Frozen’ here) had gone. That said, the films in both ‘Frozen’ and ‘Hocus Pocus’ franchises were excellently made and fun to watch, plus…

…Plus whereas ‘Frozen 2’ went in the ‘green energy’ direction, (and we will talk about it at another time), ‘Hocus Pocus 2’ – not so much. Here, the issue was with the concept of witchcraft – no duh: from the old stereotype that we had during the release of the first film, now the witchcraft became a part of U.S.’ cultural history, and must be dealt with differently – which ‘Hocus Pocus 2’ did. Quite successfully too, given the movie’s reviews: it worked.

Why, again? Because it did not go too deep into various RL issues, but instead sought to entertain its’ audiences, which was a children’s/YA’s movie is supposed to do. Both the children and the Sanderson sisters were zany and fun to watch…and nothing else, actually: somehow, the stakes in this film feel lower than how they were in ‘Hocus Pocus 1’, but that’s ok: this franchise is just small enough, and compact enough, to endure this without much ado… and so they had. MCU, conversely, is much larger and more overblown than this, and so it is not doing as well: ‘She-Hulk’ is not bad, it is just flawed – but we have talked about this show before.

Therefore, for now, this is it. See you all soon!

Raya and the last dragon - March 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Moreover, WV is done, and TFATWS is coming out only this Friday, so let us fill in the gap by talking about the latest ‘purely Disney’ film, ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’, instead.

What it is about? Yet another Disney attempt to picture a utopia, ‘Frozen 2’ style. In ‘Frozen 2’, the focus was on climate, (cough, Greta Thunberg, cough). Here, in RATLD, we are talking more about society, about how people – in the imaginary world of Kumandra – put aside their differences and free their world from the Druun, united as one. “I hope that one day you will join me, and the world will be as one”, spoke the lyrics from an old American song from my teenage years, and now Disney tried to execute something similar in RATLD. My dear team Disney, this is hokum, especially in the U.S., where practically every member of their society is highly individualistic, making this sort of cooperation highly unlikely. Therefore, the entire message of RATLD will not amount to anything, but the entertainment element of the movie is still there. Right?

Well, there is the entire Southeast Asian bit, which is especially Disney appropriating the especially colorful cultural bits and pieces of the various ethnicities for money. Sometimes it is more serious, as it was in ‘Mulan-2020’, apparently, but in case of RATLD? Disney just used the… Chinese/Japanese version of the dragon, and claimed that it was not so. Fandom.com would publish anything these days, it seems – for example, they published an interview with RATLD’s crew who claimed that Sisu was inspired by the nagas, in part.

…The nagas, again, are the ancient Hindu version of the reptiloids – they are reptilian humanoids, shapeshifters, who live alongside humans and sometimes marry them, (or kill them, other times), but they are no more dragons than they are humans, and their default setting is more of a snake-human hybrid, or a reptilian humanoid, aka a reptiloid, so the QAnon and the rest of them insane idiots aren’t that too far out there, but we digress. Nagas are not dragons, dragons are not nagas, and Sisu, (and her fellow RATLD’s dragons), was inspired by Aang from the ‘Avatar: the last airbender’ cartoon series. Kumandra with its five tribes is reminiscent of the world of Avatar with its four elemental cultures – the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, the Air Nomads and the Water Tribes – and also of real-life China, which is dry in the west, but green in the east and downright tropical in the south; Kumandra had switched this imagery, becoming dry in the east and green in the west among other things, but it is still RL China (cough Mulan-2020 cough), voiced by a largely East Asian cast, which in this day and age is primarily China…and also Japan, true, but certainly not Southeast Asia. So what?

Point, since to a point, the characters of RATLD are a typical kids’ movie/TV series/etc. formula – a team of quirky characters, each one bringing something unique to the table, while in reality being the traditional fighters, rogues, mages, etc., in an atypical get-up, (i.e., Noi is a baby, etc.), each one needed to complete the quest and fully upgrade Sisu to stop the Druun… right?

Wrong. In the end it is not the main cast’s special skills that are needed to save Kumandra, but trust – Raya and co. ends up trusting Namaari, (who, until then, was pretty much a typical protagonist by the standards of Disney films), and so it raises a question: was all of this team building really necessary? Sisu aside, (as a dragon, she gets a bye, I suppose), this sort of a twist leaves Noi and co. completely superfluous… and it actually shows; so far, none of the RATLD fanworks talk about anyone else other than Raya and Namaari, because, hey, same-sex couple! Cool! Yay! Fanworks! What next?!

Nothing much – that was the overtly educational part of the RATLD movie, which is being promptly ignored by everyone, even as Earth’s human population continues to squabble with each other over the COVID-19 vaccines, for example; everything else was just mind fluff coupled with cultural appropriation, done in the drunken magpie style – Kumandra is supposed to be Southeast Asia, only it isn’t; Sisu, Raya and co. are team Aang, with Namaari being Zuko; and the Druun are really the Druj, embodiments of falsehood and lies of the Zoroastrian religion, which used to be the state religion of Persia, modern Iran, until Islam took over – but that was another story. Ours is that of RATLD, which tried to be meaningful, but ended up going nowhere, with a trite – and ignored – message of peace that rather undercut the actual movie plot, (aka a plot twist that did more harm than good to the plot) was wrapped in a wrapper with some religious connotations, A:TLA did have a spiritual, if not a religious, side to it, and RATLD tried to copy it blindly, and so some things got carried over, unintentionally perhaps, but we begin to rant.

…No, not really – RATLD is a rather monochrome world, as far as Disney creations go. The Druun are yet another incarnation of ‘the other’, a faceless, featureless enemy, that just wants to kill and make more zombies, (cough, TWD, cough), one that cannot be reasoned with, or befriended with, or be sympathized – this is more of Namaari’s thing, only she ends up not being a villain at all, but rather one of the team. In A:TLA, this sort of thing worked only because the true villains of the series ended up being Ozai and Azula, while Zuko was set-up as a reluctant ally to the other heroes – the team Avatar – practically from the very beginning. In RATLD we do not have that; Namaari is much less sympathetic than Zuko ever was, so while her plot twist works, it is not worth it.

…Yes, I don’t like plot twists ever since the first seasons of AoS messed this concept up, but that’s not the point; the point is that RATLD works, but little more; it aspires to be something greater, but it fails: Kumandra may supposedly be an utopia without the Druun, but people there know how to use weapons, for one thing, and martial arts, and what else have you, so things were never so rosy from the start – but this is becoming a rant. I do not want to rant. So, let me just wrap things up by saying that I did not like RATLD too much, as far as 2021’s movies go, Bliss was much better, (and yes, the two movies are different, but still), even if it had partially spoiled the resolution of WV to me – but that is another story.

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

Mulan-2020 - Sep 6

 

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, Chadwick Boseman is dead, and no one could save him. Ouch! Let us go and talk about Disney instead.

…Well, yes, there’s also DC with its’ Superman: Man of Tomorrow, which has finally become available to all of the public yesterday, but I must admit – after watching the movie version of Batman meeting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I’m rather sore at DC, so we won’t be talking about Man of Tomorrow for the moment. The comic book aspect of the Batman/TMNT franchise is not too bad, but the movie was only loosely connected to it, instead, going for a reboot-reset of the entire story, weakening it in the process, (and being otherwise inferior to it too). What about 2020’s ‘Mulan’, then? Isn’t it also a reboot slash reset?

Yes it is, and it is done in the ‘Frozen 2’ style – let me elaborate. At the end of the first ‘Frozen’ movie, Else and her friends seemed to be oriented down south, where Hans and the rest of his family were located. In ‘Frozen 2’, however, no mention of them was left, and team Elsa instead went north, to right an old family wrong, as well as fix an ecological problem – Greta Thunberg must be so proud!.. By comparison, the ‘first’ Mulan movie was a part of what is now called ‘The Disney Renaissance’ – i.e. a series of animated musical movies, which can be considered ‘woke’, but not overly so, especially by today’s standards. There was humor, singing, music and drama and a formulaic cast, which included a hero, a villain, a love interest, and a comic relief… generally speaking. And in the reset?

The reset ‘Mulan’ has no singing nor comic relief, but plenty of action sequences and CGI. People are calling it a ‘Wuxia’ movie already; originally, ‘wuxia’ means Chinese martial arts, and a ‘Wuxia movie’ means a film that is centered around Chinese martial arts. The Chinese themselves can do a good Wuxia film, often set in a historical, or a historical fantasy setting. I have saw one or two over the years, and can safely say that while they are fun to watch on occasion… that is the end of their reach, as far as I am concerned; a film that is driven mainly by conflict between two martial artists is not my favorite sort of film – the Western take on a movie which often has emotion and drama and less ass-kicking and foot-stomping is more to my taste, and to each their own.

…Only, ‘Mulan-2020’ is doing exactly that – it is oriented on action scenes and martial arts and it has made them its’ defining feature. Cultural appropriation, anyone? Only, yes, this movie, (and the rest of Disney) already has a rocky relationship with China and co., as Ms. Liu Yifei had positioned herself in support of China and its’ police, and not in favor of the dissidents. This statement caused a splash, and Disney implemented a semi-successful hush over the entire affair, only not successful enough, as the petition to boycott ‘Mulan’ has returned by now, but do not worry! Enough of mainstream China will like ‘Mulan-2020’ to make up for any losses caused by the petition and its’ allies! Is not Disney progressive and democratic, eh?..

Leaving real-life politics aside…honestly, ‘Mulan-1998’ had its’ own problems, and the 2020 remake did not address them too well. The titular heroine was transferred well enough, which is what she deserves, but look at the main villain, for example.

…Actually, the male villains of any ‘Mulan’ is not a very good idea. Let us start with Shan-Yu, who, apparently, instigated the entire invasion of China because the Great Wall of China had emasculated him, (metaphorically), or something to that effect, and so he invaded to prove to the Emperor of China that he is the man! It is a 90s sitcom meeting Ancient China, I tell you! 2020’s Boru-Khan, who is invading to avenge his father’s ignoble defeat, is a step-up, in fact!

…As for the appearances…pause. Disney’s 90’s movies often had memorable villains, such as Scar in ‘The Lion King’, or Hades in ‘Hercules’. Shan-Yu, however, stands apart…why?

Firstly, for the stupidest reason ever for villainy, as we have talked already. Second, he actually has no villain song – and is hardly ever referred to by name/title in the movie, i.e. Shan-Yu, and neither are his villains. Sure, Disney did have names for those characters, but even their page on the Disney Wiki calls them just ‘Huns’ instead, which is fairly reasonable, as the ‘Huns’ were, or are, a collective name for various steppe nomad people that had harassed cultures all over Eurasia, from ancient China to the Roman empire, with various success. That isn’t a problem, so why is Boru-Khan, who is a more derived villain and person than the Shan-Yu is, as well as his minions, are dressed more akin to Islamic stereotypes, while wielding various weapons right out of the various RPGs?

…The truth is that China was invaded in real life, and it was conquered by a nomad army in real life, an army that was led by Asia’s answer to Europe’s Julius Caesar – Genghis Khan, who forged a loose, if actually existent, amalgamation of various tribes into an army great and powerful enough to dominate everyone around them.

No, seriously, before Genghis Khan, Mongolia and the rest of Central Asia was inhabited by various tribes and tribal unions that had little in common, (aside from the lifestyle), and who didn’t get along. Banditry and outlaws were commonplace, (and Genghis Khan himself was an outlaw in his youth, among other things) – and then Genghis Khan survived his childhood, rose to power, and forged that loose amalgam of tribes, gangs, and what else have you into an army that conquered the northern Chinese empire… leaving the southern Chinese empire for Genghis Khan’s heirs.

Sadly, the latter made a hash out of Genghis Khan’s professional war machine, by turning into a bunch of typical Asian dynasties, which vanished by the mid-fourteenth century. Only the westernmost part survived till the mid-fifteenth century, and afterwards its’ people became the ancestors of the modern Crimean Tatars, a little known and much abused culture, which was exiled en masse to Siberia or worse on Stalin’s decision – but we digress. After all, our point is that both in 1998 and in 2020 Disney did its’ best to avoid any actual historic elements in its’ ‘Mulan’ fairy tale, to avoid offending anyone – and they called it political correctness!

Put otherwise, for Disney – at least, and maybe others – political correctness translates into stylish inoffensiveness that doesn’t get into the way of making money, and if it does, then Disney has a problem, as it did with the SW sequel trilogy as well as such films as ‘Solo’, and it does do its’ best to fix it – by lying low for a while and then returning. Not the best strategy, but, apparently, the only one that Disney has, or wants to have.

…With ‘Mulan’, however, the plot went differently, thanks to COVID-19, of course. The movie theaters are all closed, or were all closed, (now some are open, apparently), and Disney had to release its’ film on Disney+, at least in the U.S., (elsewhere, say – Asia, the situation is different), but, again, it all comes down to the money: anyone who wants to see the new ‘Mulan’ movie has to pay about thirty American dollars, and that’s it. You got your brand-new Disney movie. What is left?

The film itself. It is more derived than the 2019 version of ‘The Lion King’, it got more new and original content, and it aims to entertain the audience, nothing more, nothing less. Then again, the ‘Artemis Fowl’ movie, released during the summer of 2020 also by Disney, was supposed to entertain as well, and it had failed miserably for all sorts of reasons; the result is a movie so bad that not even equal rights activists want to have anything with it. I.e., in ‘Artemis Fowl’ 2020, you got POCs, (the Butlers), directly employed and bossed by WASPs, (the Fowls). You would think that this would cause a reaction…and it did: the ‘Artemis Fowl’ film was so toxic, so flawed, that everyone agreed that it should sink into obscurity ASAP, and so it did, and no one is talking about it anymore.

‘Mulan-2020’, on the other hand, is quite successful, is already very popular and attractive – and it does its’ best to strike all the right notes…if by the ‘right notes’ you mean something out of the late 1990s instead. The rebooted ‘Mulan’ isn’t even trying to be ‘woke’ or ‘politically correct’ very hard; instead, it is going for the authentic ancient Chinese look…even though, you should remember, that in real life, ancient China did get conquered by the barbarians, which looked very different from both 1998’s bestial-looking Huns, (who weren’t even named back in the movie, I think), and from 2020’s rather Islamic-looking forces of Boru-Khan. There are even depictions of the so-called Turco-Mongol forces, and people who are genetically linked to the good old Genghis and his cohorts – certainly, when DW had its’ ‘Mongol vs. Comanche’ in S2 and ‘Hannibal vs. Genghis Khan’ in S3 episodes, it had no problem in acquiring the representatives of the appropriate races for the main face-off, but we digress.

The point, instead, is that the 1998’s ‘Mulan’ was a light-hearted and family-friendly animated musical that talked about some fairly progressive and forward issues by the late 1990s standards. 2020’s ‘Mulan’ is a slightly tweaked reset of the film – a reset that was tweaked in all the unimportant ways; yes, there’s now a wicked witch for Mulan to defeat as well as Boru-Khan, but, somehow, this fact fails to make a crucially important derivative and to put ‘Mulan-2020’ over its’ 1998’s predecessor. In terms of ‘political correctness’, ‘progress’, ‘wokeness’, or however you want to name it, ‘Mulan-2020’ isn’t any superior than its’ predecessor was, so if you want to just go and witness the new variant of the original 1998’s movie – go for it!

…This is it for now – see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #40 - April 30

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, COVID-19 or not. It’s raining today, so we got to stay inside, and on the DA – which itself is supposed to end at the end of May, aka within four to five weeks – I found a comic about a South Andean deer named Awka and her friends.

…From what I could understand, the South Andean deer are disorganized and scattered, at a disadvantage from the introduced red deer, (better known in North America as the wapiti), who are staying together and who have blocked-off some of the South Andean deer migratory routes and don’t let them pass. Balrog and Gandalf the Grey so understand – been there, done that, ripped the mountains of Moria asunder – where were we?

Ah yes, the deer wars. Some of Awka’s family are trapped on the other side of the red deer blockade and cannot get through – supposedly, because we are never introduced to them at all. Instead, we get flashbacks and the like, as Awka messes with the red deer herd by being the absolute worst. Pause.

Here is the thing. In AoS, (especially the initial seasons), in ‘Frozen 2’, in ‘Trolls 2’ and the like we are introduced to the idea that there are few to none deliberate villains, mostly people that misunderstand and the like. That is nothing new, even the Old Norse, (and I am not talking MCU here), had a saying that amounted to, like, ‘Even a hero had their flaw and a villain isn’t all bad’. That is realistic enough, but when we are dealing with a movie that has a magical snowman (on top of many Norse mythical monsters), or a comic that features talking deer, realism isn’t up there, is it? Tolkien’s LotR trilogy, in particular, was really clear-cut – there are the bad guys, and here are the good guys, no one is in the middle…and there are racist overtones, even though his fanbase, (such as David Day), try to deny it.

By contrast, Mr. Martin’s ASOIAF series never really has purely good or evil characters, (let us leave Brienne out of it). As a result, both in GoT and in the novels, ASOIAF became something of a morass to wade through, as alliances are made and broken, everyone is soldering on – and the unquestionably evil Night King, a fusion of Sauron and the Witch-King of Angmar, (aka the Nazgul #1), is leading an army of White Walkers and the Walking Death onto the living. To Mr. Martin, it seems, humanity is a morass – but we’ll have to hope that in his final books, he’ll show how Westeros defeats the Night King – if they defeat him; plus the GoT version was extremely dissatisfying to its’ fanbase, but we’ve talked about this before… Back to Awka?

…With Awka and the rest of her South American comic, it is the same thing – the author/illustrator is doing their best to depict everyone as well-rounded characters, and as a result, it is extremely hard to root for Awka sometimes, and she is still the main character.

Pause. Modern mass media, such as comics, TV series and movies may try to get rid of outright evil (and outright good?) characters, but that will never happen, because not all characters are equal and because conflict, (outright or otherwise) is still the main plot motor, so good & evil are still a part of media world, and for main characters in any fictional plot, they are especially important; I’m not sure if I’ll be rooting for Awka to succeed or even continuing to follow the comic, but I felt that the above had to be said. What else?

…I confess that I wanted to talk to you about bison today. Why? Because of yaks. You see, there are two species in the bison genus – the American bison that most people know, and the European bison, aka the wisent. The two species of bison are related to each other, naturally, but they look quite different from each other, and the scientists have established that proportionally, the American bison is more closely related to the yaks than to their European relatives.

To elaborate, the ancestral bison species were Eurasian rather than American animals. Then, as they began to go west during the Pliocene-Pleistocene period, they interbred with the yak ancestors and split, eventually, into two species, the American and the European. The American bison consists of several subspecies; the European bison – of only one, (the rest were killed off by humans), but this is how the cookie crumbles; the American bison is more closely related to the yak than to the European bison. Bet you that MLP: FiM, which featured both the American bison, (wrongly called buffalo – both bison and buffalo may be bovine mammals, but they are not closely related to each other within the group), and yaks, did not tell you this!..

…Well, I guess that this is it for now – see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #21 - April 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Fortunately, yesterday, (aka April 10, 2020), we got the ‘Trolls 2’ movie, which offered an escape from reality… into what? Let us disassemble.

First, the disassemble part. Or the dismantling part, if you rather. As soon as the professional critics saw it, they noted the similarity to the last two ‘Avengers’ films, save that the Infinity Stones became replaced by six magical soul strings or whatever, (though still, whoever gets the all six will rule them all). That is one, for Marvel.

Two is for Disney proper, or more specifically – for the ‘Frozen’ franchise. As we talked about the ‘Frozen 2’ movie last year, in this franchise, Disney did a complete reboot – ‘Frozen 2’ fully abandons most of the premises built up at the end of ‘Frozen 1’ and goes off in an entirely new direction, while completely unacknowledging this fact. What reboot? Where? There is no reboot, everything is the same!..

And as for Elsa’s sexuality? Do not go there. Disney gave its’ audiences a teaser with Elsa and Honeymaren, but nothing else. Disney does not intend to officially rock the boat for their blue-eyed blonde breadwinner, and so they leave it to the fans to hype it up – whether Elsa is gay, straight, asexual, bisexual, etc., etc. The Disney execs themselves are not talking. One of them outright claimed, “Elsa herself will tell us whom does she like”! Great, she is a swinger then! …Oh wait, she is an animated character this Disney property. Quit acting coy people and just admit that you want the best of both worlds and do not want to rock the boat at the same time!.. Where were we?

…’Trolls 2’ got nothing like that, this movie is for an even younger audience than ‘Frozen 2’ was, yet just like the ‘Frozen’ franchise, they became fully rebooted. ‘Trolls 1’ was about the titular trolls, who were captured and eaten by some ogres or whatever they were called in the universe. Princess Poppy and her sidekicks (one or several – it does not really matter here), befriended an ogre laundry maid, helped her win the ogre prince’s heart, and freed the rest of the trolls. The end.

‘Trolls 2’ acknowledges none of that; this movie is all about the titular trolls and only about trolls, as ‘Trolls 2’ delivers a politically charged message about unity and self-identity, conquering and domination, good and evil. Pause. ‘Frozen 2’ did it as well, and in a much better manner – i.e. with a good deal less songs. This brings us to number three: ‘Cats -2019’.

‘Cats-2019’ are not the worst movie that came across me; ‘Doolittle-2020’ is not anything worth being smug about. However since it was not a musical, it ended up being just an insipidly unsuccessful movie, that is all. Tony Stark should stick to engineering, and not go into medicine after all, weird accents notwithstanding. ‘Cats-2019’ on the other hand is a musical – it is loud, it is stupid, it is proud, it is overwhelming, and in a large amount – it is intolerable and unendurable. ‘Trolls 2’ went down the same path – it is a glorified musical, or a variety show, about as intense as ‘Cats-2019’ were, and not in a good way either.

…Yes, ‘Trolls-2’ are designated for a younger audience than ‘Cats-2019’ were, (at least in theory), but the delivery method is the same – musical. The end result is still the same, though given the current circumstances, ‘Trolls 2’ came out on digital rental, and not just in the movie theaters, as ‘Cats-2019’ had, so thank the Lord for small mercies. Anything else?

Hard to say; I wanted to talk about this ibis today; the ibis is a cousin to the stork and the heron, differing from them mostly in its’ bill – the heron’s is straight and thin, the stork’s is straight and thick, while the ibis’s is thin and curved down.

Also unlike storks and herons, the ibises are tropical birds: storks and herons are found in Europe, including quite far up north, whereas the ibises are not – only the glossy ibis is found in the U.S., for example, while its’ relatives, including the members of the same genus, are found in the American tropics instead. With the spoonbills, it is the same story.

…The spoonbills are the closest relatives of the ibises, they look like herons or storks, whose bills got squished into spoon-like shapes, (hence the name). They are not very numerous in the U.S. either, nor in Europe – out of six species, only one is found in the U.S., and another on – in the European part of Eurasia. Storks, and especially herons, are represented by more species there. Why is it so? Is it because of humans? Hard to tell, though trolls, and especially – ‘Trolls’ aren’t really a part of it. Ah well, that is life for you. The snow is melting, the birds and other creatures are coming back, and (human social) life may begin to return to normal in May 2020. We will just have to wait and see.

…This is it for now – see you all soon! 

Harley Quinn and the prodigal son - Feb 25

Obligatory disclaimer… no, wait. Secondly, the ‘Harley Quinn’ cartoon TV show’s great, no doubt about it. Firstly – real life sucks. No matter what you try, no matter what you try to figure something out, real life will derail you, and then-

Pause. Let us talk about the Biblical parable of the prodigal son. No, we will not talk about the TV series of the same name, because I found it to be forgettable and meh; we are talking about the actual article. In it, the titular character lives his loving but traditional family, screws his life completely, returns home with tail between his legs, (metaphorically speaking), and is celebrated with a fattened calf, because, as both the narrator, (the Savior?), and the father of the family tell the audience and the other son, who dutifully worked at the family business all the time while his bro wasted his chance, Heavens are happier at one repented sinner than over many more people who neither sinned nor repented to begin with.

…You know, who sinned and then repented? Judas. Yes, that guy. Does it mean that he also ended up in Heaven and not, you know, in Hell, according to Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’? Just asking, but the truth is that in the ‘Prodigal Son’ parable everyone is an asshole.

Let us elaborate. The titular character is an asshole because he had wasted all of his potential, literally and otherwise, and ended up being good for nothing but to herd pigs. When Jacob the patriarch, (son of Isaac, father of Joseph), ended up being a shepherd, he ended up making a fortune and married to Leah and Rebecca, (and not to mention a couple of concubines on top of them). The prodigal son? He did jack squat, other than bitch and moan about his fate & come crawling back to his family, as the parable intended to. Man, the Savior sometimes could be a jerk storyteller!

However, the rest of the family is not much different from the titular character…only they are. While he was doing nothing, they were doing the same thing repeatedly – running the family farm, (because of the fattened calf reference, because otherwise we got nothing to go on here). Yes, that is often hard, repetitive and boring, which is why the prodigal son ran away. And then he just partied hard and this is it, possibly because that is the only thing he had ever done? With his father if not outright enabling him, then certainly babying him, because he is the baby of the family, maybe? Pause.

Yes, something similar happened to Joseph back in the Old Testament, only our man Joseph did become the viceroy of Egypt or something similar, and revealed himself to be a bad ass. The titular character is an uninitiative waste of space and his father is okay with it, he is that forgiving. At least this time he gave his other some cock and bull excuse, dimly aware that this time he might have gone over the line.

…This isn’t the point of the parable? See above, cough Judas cough. St. Augustine supposedly once said that he believes in Christ and Christianity, because it is absurd, (or that absurd?). Fair enough, but proportionally, St. Augustine was closer to the time when the Gospels actually got written, (following the Word of God) than to our time in this time and space continuum, and it tells.

…So what does that have to do with me? Nothing, save that I am doing my best to find a regular job, (I may be no Old Testament Joseph, but still), and am having zero luck. My family, on the other hand, seems to be shoehorning me into the position of the parable’s older son, who works almost for nothing save for room and board. Did I tell you that I hate my life? Because I do. Arthur Fleck (cough Phoenix cough) was a genius if he was able to rework his life from a tragedy into a comedy, because I certainly cannot.

…Yes, I know that Joker in all of his incarnations is anti-hero at best and a villain at worse, as he was, or rather is, in the ‘Harley Quinn’ cartoon, which is doing all the same things that the ‘fantabulous emancipation’ film has done, but at a slower pace. Then again, it is a cartoon series, not a single-shot film, so it can afford to be prolonged.

One aspect that is affected by this is the Harley-Ivy relationship: the S1 finale ended with Ivy being dead, and/or resurrected, I am not sure. I.e., whatever relationship Harley and Ivy will have, this will be taken slowly, I suspect. Then again, DC is not Marvel, it doesn’t have Disney backing it up, (yet), so it’s not surprising that Ivy and Harley may be going the ‘Elsa met Honeymaren’ routine. Hell, Joker is outright absent in the ‘Superman: Red Son’ movie, and it is still a good one. (It just came out this February).

…Yes, SRS is focusing more on the Superman’s corner of DC’s Elseworlds than Batman’s, (cough spoilers cough), but still, the laughing prince of crime tends to pop up in unexpected places, but we digress. (SRS is not a bad animated movie either, incidentally). The point is that my life lately sucks more than it usually does, more family sucks more than it usually does, and I see no way out, period. I do not intend to be either the good or the prodigal son, while we are on the subject. For better or for worse, I am just trying to be myself, regardless as to what this entails, down to the end - now if only all my ads on LinkedIn, and Glassdoor, and Indeed, and Monster, and so on would come to a fruition. (Sad face emoji).

…This is it for now, see you all soon.

The Harley Quinn Movie - Feb 6

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, pure and simple, and your family tends to make it worse – and it is also simple. So, let us talk about something more complex – the latest DC movie – instead.

Why it is a more complex subject? Because in reality, it is two movies stitched into one – first, we got ‘Birds of Prey’, (BOP), which deals with a group of anti-heroes, led by Harley Quinn, in a fight against a crime boss named ‘the Black Mask’, (DC’s answer to Marvel’s Red Skull, BTW), and the second is ‘the fantabulous emancipation’ of the same Harley Quinn as she gets over the Joker, (Jared Leto’s version). Pause.

Now, this is not the first case of two movies being stitched into one – I personally remember the ‘Lost World: Fallen Kingdom’ film, which was two films – the first being the team Owen/Claire (OC) teaming up with the minions of the Evil E to rescue several dinosaurs, (including Rexy and Blue), from the exploding island; and the second being team OC infiltrating/getting captured by the Evil E’s minions to get into the Lockwood mansion and stop the Indoraptor from…something – yes, it’s a killing machine, but nothing more; the movie heavily anthropomorphized it, but it still was nowhere as formidable as the I-Rex from the first ‘Lost World’ film was, and plenty of dinosaurs got out into the world… but we digress.

…And the second film was the SW8 movie, where everything from Rey and Ben’s final confrontation in the ex-Snoke’s throne room feels like a tag-on from an entirely different SW8 film – maybe it was borrowed from the original SW8 script? Or something? Hard to tell, and we have discussed the SW8 & 9 films before, so let us get back to the DCEU.

Did DC succeed with their latest film? As people have acknowledged, it’s no ‘Joker-2019’, and indeed, when the discussions about BOP-emancipation began, ‘Joker-2019’ was avoided. Not surprising, since on one hand, ‘Joker-2019’ is an outlier and not a part of the DCEU per se, and as such, it is a completely different film from the DCEU ones… and it had also won an Oscar. Not surprisingly, then, that team DC does not known as to what to do about ‘Joker-2019’ and tend to avoid it in their discussions, especially unofficial ones.

That said, ‘Joker-2019’ did try to discuss important social issues in real life…and the Harley Quinn double-whammy tried to be feminist! Feminist! Feminist! In addition, girl power! Rawr! …Did it succeed?

Leaving aside the impressive interweaving of the two films, BOP and ‘the fantabulous emancipation’, done in a way that would make Marvel’s Deadpool, (especially the MCU version), proud. That said, since people treat it as a single film instead, well… it is done by the book – women are good, men are bad, (or outright evil), and women are beating them down as soon as they are done being oppressed by them. Just look at Greta Thunberg, back in real life.

…What is this? Now that the initial shock value is gone, Greta seems to have met only a limited success – people are indulging her, going along and pretending that she matters. Since none of her efforts seem to have actually amount to anything beyond making this or that public statement and talking to this or that leader of some country or another… Greta is beginning to feel like a trained parrot that everyone loves but will forget as soon as the entire out of sight out of mind situation occurs – and this, atypically, brings us to Cassandra Cain.

Why? Here is the thing. Margot Robbie’s Harley is consistent with her depiction in 2016’s ‘Suicide Squad’ film. Dinah and the Huntress look nothing like their counterparts in the DC ‘Arrow’ TV-verse (or the original BOP TV series), but DC is inconsistent like this, so that is acceptable. However, for both Renee and Cassandra, this is their official entrance into the live-action DC depiction, (especially for Cass), so what, and who, was thinking? They took ‘Orphan’, one of Batman’s most formidable lieutenants, and turned her into a plucky extra from ‘Ocean’s 8’!

…Actually, the entire movie has a strong feeling of ‘Ocean’s 8’, especially in regards to girl power – ‘Ocean’s 8’ was ‘Ocean’s 11’ albeit gender-flipped and more edgy. Alas, as the ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot showed, gender flipping a movie plot is not always enough, (both it and ‘Ocean’s 8’ are largely forgotten by now), and as ‘Like a Boss’ proved, girl power on its own isn’t a miraculous money-maker either.

Does the Harley Quinn movie has anything else going for it? It is bright, it is loud, it verges on the absurd, and the good guys – that is, girls – win in the end. It is not trying to be intentionally deep if you move away from the titular heroine as she goes on a journey of self-discovery and the rest of team BOP is going for the ride as they need to work together to defeat the Black Mask and Zsasz. The latter are completely unsympathetic, (especially Zsasz), nonredeemable, and are killed at the end. 

Sigh. Even Marvel/MCU is moving past killing every villain in their movies – Loki is back and being redesigned, so’s MCU’s version of Zemo, (and maybe others?). Seeing how DCEU is trying to ape MCU still, maybe it is time for them to stop killing-off their villains… oh, right, Joker. Pause. Never mind. This version of the Black Mask was decisively influenced by the comics’ Joker, and it shows – the movie’s villains have actually more time on screen than its’ heroes – aside from Harley, and this brings us to Cass, but also – to the hyena.

Cass is simple – Harley decided to make her her protégé or something. Ask Harley. Maybe she knows. But the hyena is something else. True to the DC canon, it is a spotted hyena, which is the biggest modern hyena species, and the strongest. It can literally rip a person apart with its’ bone-crushing jaws, so seeing Harley interact with her new pet is something else. I really hope that she had picked-up her comic-book counterpart’s hyena managing skills, because otherwise, there will be trouble!

…As it is, there may be trouble already, as the movie shows no sign of a Poison Ivy. These days, in most incarnations, Ivy and Harley are a couple, a duo, a team – Ivy helps Harley the way that Joker did not, would not, or could not – take your pick. They are also a couple, the same way that Willow and Tara were on the BtVS TV series, for example, so her absence in the movie is glaring, and also telling.

In ‘Frozen 2’, there was Honeymaren, Elsa’s new potential love interest, and yet nothing came of it. Why?

Because Disney does not like to make statements that hurt it in the wallet; it does not like to be hurt in the wallet to begin with: their ‘damage control’ in the SW9 film is the latest evidence of that. Only, in SW9, this ‘damage control’ didn’t succeed, so for now no more SW movies, and especially trilogies; ‘The Mandalorian’ and the like will need to carry the SW-universe forwards for now.

For Disney, their ‘Princess’ series are even more important than SW is, so they have no intention of rocking the boat by getting either the same-sex issues or the sexuality issues involved. Yes, there is many fanworks that do just that, but they do not matter, especially not to Disney, whereas DC…

…Well, in DC, there is the current Harley Quinn cartoon series, which seems to be going precisely in that direction, by the means of an endgame. Yes, DC is not putting all of their eggs in one basket, and the HQ cartoon series is different, and much more balanced, than the HQ movie is, but the signs of this were there in the last trailer, so we were warned. Anything else?

No, not really. ‘The Fantabulous Emancipation’ gave a new dimension to the movie, which otherwise would have been just a more violent and psychedelically crazy ‘Ocean’s 8’. The gangster setting…well, ever since the Superman/Batman animated series of the 1990s, the gangster setting was the default for Gotham, which only served to make the Black Mask and Zsasz even more formidable. The fights themselves were nothing special, certainly not in 2020, and they were not any more feminist than the ‘Like a Boss’ movie was. So, yes, Harley Quinn saved the movie and the day, just not how she probably intended to… i.e., this her normal M.O., especially without Ivy around to ground her, cough. Hint-hint. Regardless, go Harley!

…This is it for now, see you all soon.

Race to the Sun - Jan 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. It is tedious. So’s family. So are you, and it is up to you, and you alone, to do something about it. Sometimes you even succeed, and that makes all the difference. 

Now let us escape into the world of books – in this particular instance, it is Ms. Rebecca Roanhorse’s YA novel, ‘Race to the Sun’. Once more it is a YA novel associated with Rick Riordan of Percy Jackson fame, but this time it has something different, and no, it isn’t the fact that it is a self-contained, one-shot novel, but its’ intro – it is more open and expanded than before. This is important, because ‘Race to Sun’ is a much slimmer novel than, say, the previous installment – i.e. ‘Tristan Strong’, (remember him?), meaning… what?

First, what kind of a novel ‘Race to the Sun’ is? It is a straightforward imitation of Riordan’s own novels with none of the development or the effort that Mr. Riordan had put into his own novels. Ms. Roanhorse did an admirable attempt at this YA novel, yet somehow it feels perfunctory, empty, and pointless – kind of like popcorn for brain, put otherwise. When you are reading ‘Tristan Strong’, you really resonate with the novel’s titular character/narrator and the rest of the characters on their quest/journey; in ‘Race to the Sun’ – not so much.

…As a matter of fact, the issue of scope is another difference between the two novels: in ‘Tristan Strong’, the stakes are saving an entire world; in ‘Race to the Sun’ – not so much. Oh, sure, stakes are high and personal for ‘NIZHONI BEGAY’, her family and friends, but somehow, ‘Tristan Strong’ manages to do the same thing better, and it is a much thicker book too – 482 pages vs 298 for ‘Race’. Okay, and-?

And now we’re back to the prologue, where Riordan waxes much more poetically than how he normally does, talking about the Native American mythologies while being pointedly politically correct, and astute, and whatever else. For that matter, so’s the author, Ms. Roanhorse herself – in ‘Race’ she does her best for her novel and especially its’ main narrator to hit all the right notes while imitating Mr. Riordan’s novels to the best of her ability, with the supposedly added real life factor – ecology and pipelines. Pause.

…I know it’s weird, but Ms. Roanhorse, (and the rest of team Riordan), is beginning to remind me of another author – Ms. Ali Smith, and her latest novels: ‘Autumn’ (2016), ‘Winter’ (2017), ‘Spring’ (2019), and the upcoming ‘Summer’ (2020) are also fiction that is trying to facture in real life, including ‘the president of the United States’, who might be the Donald in Ms. Roanhorse’s ‘Race’ and who is the Donald in Ms. Smith’s series. Remember when we discussed the ‘Like a Boss’ movie earlier this January? How it tried to cruise easily by utilizing its’ politically progressive, (and also correct), race card? ‘Like a Boss’ ended-up failing as a movie; Ms. Smith’s novels moved from coherent and traditional in ‘Autumn’ to anything but in ‘Spring’, and while ‘Autumn’ was apparently ‘shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize’, she didn’t win – a George Saunders did, and neither ‘Winter’ nor ‘Spring’ came anywhere near the more traditional ‘Autumn’ too. Put otherwise, Ms. Smith’s latest novel series started strong but grew weak, and so are the novels that ‘RICK RIORDAN PRESENTS’ – they started strong with Ms. Chokshi’s and Ms. Cervantes’ novels, relatively speaking, and then there was Mr. Lee’s YA novel of space opera, ‘Dragon Pearl’, and then Riordan’s own YA novels of demigods and monsters began to flounder and are no longer as politically progressive and correct as they once were, and now we got ‘Race’, where on one hand we have Mr. Riordan’s own kiss-up of a foreword, and on the other – the novel itself, which feels like a pale version of ‘Percy Jackson’ and co., with the ecological angle tackled on it… not unlike how it went down in ‘Frozen 2’, remember?

In ‘Frozen 2’, team Disney tried to present an ecological as well as a socio-racial utopia, in the best dreams of Greta Thunberg, until she made a verbal slip, that all those politicians who disagree with climate change, should be ‘put to the wall’ (and given a final smoke before they’re shot), and then she went home on a train and nothing has been heard of her ever since – this sort of speech must’ve sounded too Russian revolutionary for Greta’s grown-up supporters, and that’s the end of her as climate & social media darling, eh?

…Essentially, this is the problem with the West’s attempts to ‘revolutionize’ its’ youth slash the next generation: they want change, but they want to play it safe while playing at radicals. You cannot. Either you have radical change, but it will not be safe, or you will have it safe, but the change will only be cosmetic at most, or even less than that. Disney, Paramount Pictures, and etc. can churn any sort of utopic/propaganda/etc. films, but unless they are ready to put up and suffer where it hurts – in the wallet – it will not work. Instead, in reality, as soon as Disney/SW began to suffer financially post the SW8 film, their SW9 film aimed to rewind and erase most of the SW8 film’s impact on the SW-verse. It did not really work, and people are just as unhappy with the SW9 film as they were with the SW8 film, albeit for different reasons – but we digress.

Now, ‘Like a Boss’ didn’t try to pull anything as ‘Frozen 2’ did – it just tried to coast on political correctness and that’s it. Ms. Smith’s novels tried to do the same thing – to utilize real world issues in lieu of the novels’ shortcomings, (whatever they are), including the world’s hatred of the Donald. Marvel comics tried to do something similar in their ‘Defenders’ mini-arc and it didn’t appear to have worked in regards to their sales either, and so that comic series ended with a panorama of all the ‘Defenders of NYC’ instead. Frankly, I sometimes wonder if there is any other city in the Marvel world that comes even close to NYC – at least in DC you got several cities, (Metropolis and Gotham at least), so it somehow balances out – in Marvel, not so much.

And where does ‘Race’ fit in here? Why, right next to ‘Like a Boss’, and Ms. Smith’s novels and the like. Ms. Roanhorse tries to have it all while doing minimum, and as a result, her YA novel feels perfunctory and hollow: when you have read it, you do not want to re-read it, as you do with ‘Tristan Strong’ or even ‘Dragon Pearl’ for example. Those novels you want to re-read, YA audience or not. ‘Race to the Sun’ – not so much… but you still should try it, because real life sucks, and reading novels – YA, grown-up, etc. – helps you escape it, period. Anything else?

Well, yes, there’s a lot of other things to talk about, including the ‘Doolittle-2020’ movie that got released today too, but for now let’s just acknowledge that Mr. Riordan and his book franchise is suffering and degrading; from the truly memorable YA novels it had devolved into not-memorable instead; like so much of American youth culture lately, ‘Race’ wants to inspire, but it doesn’t want to offend, and you cannot have one without the other, as so ‘Race’ doesn’t offend anyone, but neither it will inspire anyone either. Ah well, I’m sure that Ms. Roanhorse got her commission or what else have you, Mr. Riordan got another (one shot) YA novel associated with him, and everyone is happy. Or not, but it is unknown what Mr. Riordan will do this time – the last time he was unhappy after the initial two Percy Jackson movies, and he spoke his mind, and that was the end of that. No more adaptations of his novels, (save for comics, but that is the same thing, really). No one wants to mess with the Riordan-man. No one wants to have anything with the Riordan-man. Take your pick, (and the fact that those movies were just plain bad does not the affairs help either). How will Mr. Riordan get out of this mess, will he be able to get out of this mess, we will not know, especially not immediately, but hopefully we will.

…This is it for now – see you all soon!

Mulan trailer 2 - Dec 5

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about yet another movie trailer – this time, it is the upcoming ‘Mulan’ remake. And? What can be said about it? Looks like it is going to be ‘woke’.

…You know what; let us talk about what this term means in relation to movies, starting with the upcoming ‘Mulan’ remake. In the original ‘Mulan I’ movie, there were two specific characters that were particular: the matchmaker and Chi-Fu, aka the clerk that was there with Li Shang’s secondary army. The Matchmaker was a fat mountain of a woman; Chi-Fu – a skinny weasel of a man; both were minor antagonists, and both were physically unattractive, in a comic way. From what the remake’s second trailer shows us, ‘Mulan-2020’ will have none of this.

Is it a good thing? On one level – yes. Already, Disney/Marvel is catching flack both for the upcoming Red Guardian in the ‘Black Widow-2020’ film: not unlike Thor in ‘Endgame’, he is something of a fat funny drunk, not unlike John Falstaff from Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV’ plays, but enough of modern people found neither Thor in ‘Endgame’ nor this version of the Red Guardian particularly funny, and they made it known to Disney. True, Disney is still going forth with this version of the Red Guardian in the ‘Black Widow-2020’ movie, as they did with the fat Thor in the ‘Avengers: Endgame’ film, but-

-But here real life sneaks in, and brings forth – the Peloton. However correctly it is spelled, earlier this week, (Dec 4, 2019), it brought forth its’ own shit-storm regarding WG and WL. To wit, sometime in November 2019 it released a short ad, which goes like this: A husband gifts a wife a Peloton for holidays, she begins to workout on it, and it changes her life somehow – because she loses weight or whatever. The end.

Let us call upon Captain Obvious, and he states that, firstly, the wife in question – ‘Grace from Boston’ – was never that fat to begin with. Yes, compared to the Kardashians she may be plain, but not everyone is a Kardashian yet, thank you very much. She may have weighted, say, 52 kg at the beginning of the ad, at the end – around 50, but then again, she was supposed to have worked-out on the Peloton for an entire year. (What is a Peloton? A souped-up exercise bike, essentially, with its’ own Internet or whatever. Where were we?) This is kind of lackluster, but to be honest, the entire ad is vapid and empty – it tries to present itself as sincere, authentic and deep, but in reality it’s lackluster, its’ actors don’t look like people that need exercise for weight loss to begin with, they don’t look like average Americans (or Canadians) who watch such ads very much, and so those average Americans (and Canadians?) tore down Peloton’s real-life stock by… 9 or 10%. Considering that an average Peloton is a luxury item, that is not such a small deal. However – what this got to do with Disney?

To begin with, a Peloton is a luxury item, just like a movie – you do not need either of them in real life, you can spend money on them if you want, but this money can always be spent somehow else, on something more necessary, and since a Peloton costs somewhere between $2000 and $2500, you better get most of your money’s worth from it…and be ready to spend more money on it, both for electric bills, (because it runs on electricity rather than on solar or wind power, from what I can understand), and for maintenance; even an ordinary exercise bike or treadmill need this sort of thing every once in a while, and if you don’t maintain them, they die, with or without electricity. 

Considering that a Peloton proportionally is more complex than an average treadmill… yeah, maintaining it is probably more expansive than an average treadmill too. What next?

Next, Captain Obvious points out that no movie – Blu-Ray, DVD, ticket, whatever – ever cost a four-digit figure. True, and you don’t have to maintain it as you do a Peloton, an exercise bike, a DVD-player or any other device, but again – it’s luxury, you can get along in your life without it, and so movie companies like Disney and Sony spent a lot of time trying to get you to spent money on their movies all the same, just as Peloton does for ads that advertise their products – and what do you assume all of those trailers are-?

Since we are back with Peloton, what was its’ problem? Why are people so angry at it, hating it, mocking it? Because Peloton’s approach with it backfired – its’ actors are unrealistic, (Grace from Boston is shown wearing pink-colored high-heels in winter, which is just is not right, because while Boston is a more southern city than Toronto is, its’ winters still get very snowy – not the best weather for high heels). They are already trim and fit, they do not relate to an average viewer of the ad, who probably is not as trim and fit – and this brings us to Marvel and Disney.

Listen: before Thor in ‘Endgame’ and now – the Red Guardian in ‘Black Widow’, there was Maui in ‘Moana’, (2016). This is notable because, firstly, ‘Moana’ is a less asexual version of ‘Frozen II’ (2019): both movies talk about ecology, both movies have female leads, (though Moana is more like Anna than like Elsa), neither movie has a definite villain: though ‘Moana’ does have a certain, cough, ‘Shiny’ crustacean, but if you compare him to someone like Jafar or Ursula, let alone the original Maleficient he isn’t that bad, and both deal with ecology: in ‘Moana’, the world is experiencing a magical analog of global warming, while Elsa’s is more of a would-be ice age – but that’s only the dressing, the underlining message is the same. Yes, Maui is acting much more morally ambiguous than Kristoff does, but that does not matter, Moana may actually be smarter than Elsa and her sister, and in the end, she does save the day… largely by herself, whereas Elsa and Anna actually need each other and to lesser extent – other people to do that.

Is ‘Moana’ a more derived and complex movie than ‘Frozen 2’? Hard to say, but it certainly is than ‘Frozen 1’. Where were we?

Ah yes, Maui. He does not look like a typical Disney male lead, now does he? And from what I can remember, when ‘Moana’ was released in 2016, Disney did catch criticism about Maui’s looks – and then people began to defend Disney’s choice, and this brought controversy, something that Disney is trying to avoid.

Disney/Marvel went on ahead with the fat Thor in ‘Endgame’? Yes, but Thor was only one character out of many in that movie, and Disney/Marvel’s approach to controversy was to do its’ best to kill it, especially after the Tony/Steve rivalry began to get out of hand and the Marvel fandom was already semi-split and divided as to whether or not Hydra was Nazi or only evil? In SW, Disney did its’ best to plough over the fans’ complains, so ‘Solo’ made only millions of dollars in cash, not billions, because enough people had enough of Disney/SW, so now Disney is spending a lot of money to make a lot comics, animated series, series like ‘The Mandalorian’ and etc., to turn the public opinion back in their favor. This brings us back to ‘Mulan 2020’.

Firstly, ‘Mulan 2020’ already had had controversy, when earlier in 2019 the movie’s female lead, Liu Yifei, made an anti-Hong Kong statement; whether she was right or wrong is another question, but many people became genuinely angry at her statement. The result? Neither she nor anyone else of ‘Mulan 2020’ cast and crew made this sort of statement ever again for the rest of 2019, Disney wants to make money, damn it, not to cause controversy!

…We might have already discussed it in regards to ‘Frozen 2’ – around the time it was released, Ms. Jennifer Lee, who was in charge of it, made a statement that roughly amounted to ‘Elsa knows her sexuality best, she’ll tell us who she likes when she decides to’, and this statement reveals, that as far as women go, Ms. Lee has really big-ass balls, because it takes genuinely big-ass balls to make this sort of statement. Listen: Elsa is a fictional character, made by CGI. A live actress voices her, but only because Hollywood has not figured out how to make machines speak as well as real people – for now. Elsa is going to have a relationship with whomever the script tells her to – male, female, human, non-human, etc. Nothing more, nothing less, but-

-But the truth is, whether Elsa will be revealed as gay or as straight, plenty of fans will be upset and angry about it…maybe angry enough to abandon the ‘Frozen’ franchise – something that might’ve occurred to Disney’s SW franchise around the time of the ‘Solo’ film (2018). Not surprisingly then, Disney is trying its’ best to avoid a repetition of this situation from that time and until the present, let alone the future: MCU’s Red Guardian may be stirring controversy, but you don’t hear this about any of ‘Mulan-2020’s characters, now do you? They all appear to be physically attractive at the very least – just as the spouses of the misfortunate Peloton ad are. This also makes them about as relatable as the spouses of the Peloton ad are, and with the removal of such canon characters as Mushu the dragon and Cri-Kee the cricket, Disney may discover that their strategy has misfired instead.

…What strategy, you may ask? Simple: the ‘Black Widow’ trailer has generated plenty of discussion. The second ‘Mulan’ trailer – none at all; in fact, its’ timing may have been deliberate – Disney is burying it under the heap of SW-related news. Disney does not like controversy, especially when its’ ‘heartland’ – the Disney princess franchise – is involved. This brings us back to ‘Frozen 2’. In it, Disney has genuinely made something new – the new ‘Frozen’ film has nothing in common with the first movie save for the main characters – but when it comes to the underlying message, its’ depiction of the new Arendale-world as an ecologically-friend utopia, it falls flat. Even IGN, which these days hates to make negative reviews, admitted that Disney didn’t quite go the distance with ‘Frozen 2’; whatever it plans to do with ‘Mulan-2020’ may experience the same problem, and this brings us back to ‘wokeness’. It may be becoming a term with multiple meanings, but apparently in relation to movies and similar media? It is beginning to mean ‘inoffensive’, ‘vapid’, and ‘bland as possible’, as the characters of the Peloton ad show. They have no personalities, no characteristics that make them unique – and in Western societies, everyone is unique. Just ask Greta Thunberg, would you? ‘Mulan-2020’ doesn’t appear to be as bad as this ad, but neither it is as ‘bland’ as Disney might assume that it would be: for example, the new Shan-Yu still does have a falcon – only it’s no longer a mere bird, but his witch girlfriend, who’s the brains behind this invasion. Pause.

The ‘Mulan’ trailer 2 mentioned a phoenix that guards the imperial throne. This is worthy of a digression: the movie is talking of a Chinese phoenix, which, incidentally, is nothing like the Western phoenix. The latter is a Solar symbol, its’ depiction vary, but usually it is vaguely eagle-like, (because in Christian symbolism, the eagle is connected to the sun, a religious relic left from the pagan times). The Chinese phoenix looks much like an elaborate, more derived version of a rooster, or one of its’ wilder cousins, a pheasant of some sort. (The males of Asiatic species can look even more unusual than the peafowl males do). Why, sometimes it is even used in place of the rooster in the Chinese zodiac – but the point is while in the past there were male Chinese phoenixes called feng, and female, called huang, these days the Chinese phoenix called simply fenghuang and it is baseline female – an opposite to the Chinese dragon, which is baseline male.

Pause. Mushu the dragon exchanges a look with Captain Obvious and leaves to pump some weights: he needs to get into shape with a potentially hot phoenix girlfriend.

It must be pointed out that the Chinese phoenix is just as mythical, imaginary and make-believe as the Western phoenix is; it may be based on a wild pheasant or a domestic rooster, but that is it. Very quickly it became its’ own entity, and it is one that has no literal connotations with reality. There is no fire behind this smoke, no cryptid behind this myth. End of story.

…But the question of whether or not Mulan will learn/figure out as to how to turn into the phoenix to challenge the evil barbarian-witch for the supremacy of the skies has just began. Disney is trying to avoid controversy…but this way lies blandness and lack of interest from the potential viewers; as ‘Frozen 2’ showed, if you don’t go the full distance, you don’t catch the full attention. Yes, by making a concise, intentional statement you, well, officially commit yourself to some cause or another; you will be judged by its’ standards, good or bad. Pause.

…The problem with such state of affairs that it will cost you something or other, no matter how clever or powerful you may consider yourself to be. Fair enough, but remember the parable of the bat: beasts went to war with the birds, the bat tried to sit on the fence, siding with the winner, but eventually both sides caught onto her game and exiled her from both parties, condemning the bat to a life of ignominy and darkness. Disney, of course, is nothing like that, it has its’ own cause and commitment – money. Ergo, any attempts to do something truly radical and progressive will always fall flat, as they did with ‘Frozen 2’, with Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ (2018), no matter how Disney and its’ associates claim otherwise. Genuine, authentic commitment to anything other than money always costs money. Disney is not ready to lose money for anything, as the events surrounding ‘Solo’ showed. And thus, Disney and its’ movies (in all of its’ incarnations) will never be as radical and new and authentic as Disney always claims and/or tries to make them. The end.

…This is it for now – see you all soon.

Frozen II - Nov 22

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. That said, ‘Frozen 2’ has arrived in the movie theaters. Yippee! Huzzah! And yay?!

…Let’s from the start talk about the big difference between ‘Frozen 2’ and ‘Frozen 1’: if the latter was loosely based on Hans Andersen’s ‘The Snow Queen’ fairy tale of a novella, the former is a completely original movie; though the plot starts in Arendelle, it quickly dismisses the elements of ‘Frozen 1’ and quickly careen into a completely new land with completely new elements. (Obligatory warning: spoilers are ahead, read at your own risk).

…MCU’s AoS TV series constantly recycled, rebooted and redesigned its’ old elements and never really tried to do something truly new. The Disney movie ‘Frozen 2’ went in a completely new direction, following Elsa’s motto of ‘Let it Go’ and let the old film go. There is some sort of symbolism of Elsa and her team leaving Arendelle behind and going into a completely new land, populated by completely new people, with a completely new set of rules… and no traces of civilization per se. This is the reason as to why the critics are divided already in regards to ‘Frozen 2’ – everyone did expect a straightforward sequel to ‘Frozen 1’ and instead got anything but. Disney’s own logic is understandable here, they did not want to spoil the surprise, but the confusion that results from their surprise might be just as bad, proportionally. We will have to wait and see as to what develops from ‘Frozen 2’ as time goes by.

Back in the movie itself… wait. What is ‘Frozen 2’ about, firstly? ‘Frozen 1’ was about the question of man vs. monster, of humanity vs. coldness (inhumanity), of lust for power, of succession of throne, of confidence, femininity and other traditional values, and by ‘traditional’ I mean ‘well-established and well-accepted in the contemporary Western society’. ‘Frozen 2’ touches upon those issues considerably less so than its’ prequel did, it seems to be concerned with the question of civilization/conquest vs. native ethnic groups, but it is a thornier issue than the ones talked about in ‘Frozen 1’, and so that topic is both downplayed and moved past very quickly in the movie into the next act – and what is the next act? In addition, people may be pointing to the destruction of a certain dam in the last part of the movie, and they are right: the message is of a restored balance, (somehow, supposedly), but in real life, this sort of action has very different consequences; they are touched upon in ‘Frozen 2’, but again, this is dismissed very quickly. Disney is all about making money, and that is the complete opposite of controversial issues, so while Disney may tolerate some controversies in SW and Marvel, at least they did in the past -now they are doing their best to kill them – in its immediate domain, especially the Princess movies, just no.

However, if we move past the more controversial and socio-aware issues of ‘Frozen 2’, (and there aren’t many – Disney is saving them for Marvel, apparently, just look at the upcoming Sam & Bucky show on Disney+), what is there left?

Various mythos and mythologies, that is what. First, in order of appearance, the Northuldra. 

Regardless of what they are in ‘Frozen 2’, their racial designation is a portmanteau of ‘North’ and ‘Huldra’, with the latter being counterparts of elves and fairies in Scandinavia. According to one legend, when the Lord came over to Adam and Eve for a visit, they were able to clean-up and otherwise prepare only some of their children, which they propped for an introduction; the rest they hid. The Lord was not fooled, however, and he made a proclamation, stating that ‘what is concealed shall not be revealed’ or something to this extent; the result were the first Huldra or Uldra. They look mostly human; however, they have hollow backs and animal tails, usually fox, dog or cow. Unlike their troll and Jotunn cousins, they were not as hostile to humans or as physically imposing; however, they were still strong enough to manually bend horseshoes and were often magic-users as well. Most of stories including the Huldra, (or the Hulder) involved their women marrying human men; usually it ended badly, (especially for humans), but sometimes the pair made it work and even had children, who were usually human, (no tails or any other animal features), but who, again, were often magic-users of one sort or another.

Now, you may argue that the Northuldra that appear in ‘Frozen 2’ are not anything like that; rather, they are a more derived version of the ‘noble savage’ cliché that plagued Disney during the 1990s and the earlier periods. Fair enough. Unlike the people of Arendelle, the Northuldra live in a forest with no sign of human civilization or its’ trademarks, (especially by the Western standards) and they seem to be using no steel or other metals and they live in apparent harmony with nature; the old clichés die hard if at all. That said, the same could be said of elves, especially those that are more like Tolkien’s than Disney’s, Marvel’s or DC’s, for example, so there is that.

Beyond the Northuldra, there are the various elementals, one of whom, the fire elemental, is the salamander; Disney’s ‘Frozen 2’ went with a classical depiction – that of a fiery/fire-breathing lizard rather than something D&D. Again, in European history, the salamanders were some of elemental nature spirits – they did embody fire; when it came to the other elementals, then the earth was represented by the gnomes, (think D&D dwarves rather than D&D gnomes), water – by undines, (variant mermaids), and air – by sylphs, which are often depicted as graceful winged humanoids. Here ‘Frozen 2’ shifted from this concept; the air elemental in particular seems to be shapeless and invisible instead; a variant D&D invisible stalker?

The earth/stone giants, however, bring us back to the Norse myths – they were the Jotunns or the trolls, they are the frost and stone giants of Marvel’s Thor. They are embodiments of a primal, untamed nature, and they did not like humans or their civilization; just watch them demolish the dam at the end of ‘Frozen 2’. They also live in the same forest, past the magic veil, where no civilization exists at all – and they are hostile to Anna and co. for no given reason, straight from the start. True, having stone brains probably doesn’t help, and Anna and co. were able to maneuver them into bringing down the evil dam… that was raised by the grandfather of Anna and Elsa, by the way… but hey, the balance between civilization and nature was restored! Go, Greta Thunberg! Wait, what?

…Since the 1970s, USA tried to make itself into a utopia, and after winning the Cold War, they accelerated their movements, and on some fronts, such as the social integration, they have achieved some success. On the other – such as the environmental issues – not so much. True, without the U.S. interference things aren’t rosy either; just look at Canada and its’ continual mishandling of the oil pipeline; but the problem? During their last peak – the early 1990s – US tried to do and solve everything through sheer physical force. Before long many people, countries and governments were sick of it; president Putin’s anti-US stance is not very healthy or sane…but again, he is an American creation, just as the Taliban had been, that broke free to US’ detriment. These days, many countries are still pro- than anti-US, but they do not appreciate American meddling in their affairs either. Just look at what happened when the ex-president Obama endorsed the Canadian PM Trudeau. The Canadian media were very professional, they freely admitted that this was nothing like the (fictional) Russian meddling in the previous US elections, but they were just as firm at pointing out that the ex-president Obama (and the rest of the US) should stay out of the Canadian elections as it is right and proper. The end. These days, Trudeau is still the Canadian PM, but whatever is going on down in the States, he wants no part of it.

And what is going on down in the States? Why, yes, the impeachment of the Donald, but also the upcoming presidential election. The former is going on more or less; the latter even worse than that. The Donald was never the best president of the United States, but who are the alternatives in the 2020? Fine, he is impeached and out of the way; who is left? Don’t forget, the US is a true democracy, its’ president is elected by all the people, and not a smattering of oligarchs, top army brass and various other strongmen as it is in the RF; in America, the presidential candidates have to win-over their electorate and its’ votes, and right now? The American government is involved in a soap opera called ‘The Donald, his life, family and impeachment’. Once 2020 comes around, both of America’s main parties may find themselves flat-footed and unsupported by America’s proletariat…and that is a problem that will not be fixed quickly or with the blame game on the Russians…

Back to ‘Frozen 2’… yes, at the movie’s end it did become some sort of a utopia, where civilization and nature can coexist. It also features a sea horse called a Nokk. It is better known as Nix or Nixie; it is a water spirit, similar to the Kelpie, as well as to the Grindylow and the Merfolk. Rowling’s Grindylow was some sort of a goblin-like creature, inferior to the merfolk of her universe; in real-life folklore, both the Grindylow and Nokk/Nix/Nixie were water spirits that were man-eaters; just look up Theodor Kittelsen’s depiction of the latter: it is more humanoid than equine, but judging by its eerily glowing eyes, it is clearly unfriendly towards humans.

On the other hand, the same man painted another two paintings, depicting the brook-horse – a subtly different water spirit, one that did usually appear as a white horse on land; it would entice people to mount and ride it, where upon it would jump back underwater, drowning its rider. The Nokk from ‘Frozen 2’ combines the elements of both of those real-life folklore beings: it is shaped like a horse rather than as a merfolk or something anthropomorphic, but it has the glowing eyes of Theodor Kittelsen’s Nokk as well.

Finally, there is Idun, Idunn or Iduna. Yes, this is the name of one of the characters from the ‘Frozen’ franchise, cough, but it is also the name of one of pagan Norse goddesses – she was the divine distributer of Asgardian apples of youth that kept the Norse deities eternally young, and she was the wife of Bragi, the Norse god of bards, skalds, and poets. Neat, hah?

…Trivia aside, what can be said of ‘Frozen 2’ as a whole? It shows a clean break from the events of ‘Frozen 1’, which brings us to Hans. He is not in the script at all. Overall, that is not really a problem; just look at MCU’s AoS (and also AC, especially at S2), where not only the actors had their roles remade and repositioned, but their characters (especially Grant Ward and Kara Palamas, but honestly – all of them) disrespected, abused and discarded. Compared to them, Hans’ fate is mild and perfectly acceptable, except for – Elsa.

Let us recap the first ‘Frozen’ – Hans, regardless his moral compass, was very much a part of the main cast and was a rather more complex character than, say, Gaston from the B&B franchise, (regardless of the version). You would expect him to be back in the second film, simply because he had not died unlike most of Disney’s villains, but instead there is no mention of him at all – and that changed the team’s dynamic; there’s only Anna and Kristoff now, (Kristoff’s relationship with Sven is something else), and Elsa is happily single and unattached – Emma Watson must be so proud! On a more serious note, you can find a video online, where Disney chief Jennifer Lee says that Elsa ‘will ‘tell us’ when she’s ready to explore her sexuality’. Except that Elsa is a fictional character, drawn in CGI, and she will do what the owners of her franchise, (i.e. ‘Frozen’) will want her to do.

In Hollywood, which includes Disney, sexual minorities are treated even worse than racial ones, (unless they are The Rock. As ‘Hobbs and Shaw’ shown us, you do not mess with The Rock) – both OUAT and TBBT rather flirted with having same-sex characters on their shows, but in the end, it had amounted to nothing concrete – and Disney wasn’t even a part of either of those franchises. And here we have Elsa, whose sexuality was hotly debated ever since her first movie was aired six years ago. These days, the initial passions died down some, but Disney is quite sure that by making Elsa officially heterosexual will annoy a large fraction of ‘Frozen’ fan base, and by making her officially homosexual – ditto. So instead they’re keeping her asexual…and now that she’s no longer the queen of Arendelle, but rather the protector of the forest, (what, did the previous one die, or get turned into a tree, or something?), Elsa is no longer a part of the more civilized, humane part of her world, (well, the world of her franchise), but of the primal and less humane one instead. If this is her happy ending, (and we have no reasons to believe otherwise), then it is certainly an atypical one, especially by Disney’s standards. As both the first ‘Frozen’ film and ‘Moana’ showed, Disney is trying to break the mold that it made during the ‘Disney Renaissance’ of the 1990s, but it does so on its own pace and settings. Yes, there is probably wokeness in ‘Frozen 2’, but as Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-Man’ movies showed, if done correctly, that is a good thing, and secondly? If the elections of 2016 showed that mass media’s influence over the American populace is great, but still has limits, then ever since ‘Frozen 1’ and ‘Moana’ showed that while the public opinion over the decisions of media companies such as Disney, (and Sony, etc.), is also both great and finite. What will come out of this is anyone’s guess.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!