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 #6 - March 27

Obligatory disclaimer: real life continues to suck as more and more people are getting sick each day. Seriously, this is getting truly intolerable even by my standards, so this time, instead of watching JFC, I went back to DW. For a change, I watched a modern face-off – the ‘IRA vs. Taliban’ episode, and-?

And ever since I have watched it for the first time, I am being constantly struck by how openly prejudiced DW hosts had been on that episode. More specifically, this episode matched the Taliban’s trophy AK-47 vs. the IRA’s AR-15, and the show’s hosts twisted themselves into some amazing knots to justify giving the edge to the IRA’s AR-15. Why? Because on the earlier S1 episode, the Russian Spetsnaz actually took down USA’s Green Berets, fair and square, and the show clearly hadn’t recovered from this – ever. True, they tried to keep their future pro-American bias subtle in S2, but in S3? It came to the fore, and as I have written a long time ago, (when the DW S3 episodes were aired in real life and we were discussing each one individually, as each one was ‘piping hot’, pardon the clumsy pun), it was one of the reasons as to why DW went down for good after the S3. USA isn’t RF, (and even so, the Russians are becoming clearly against Vladimir Putin ruling them until 2036 unopposed, good for them), and for them such blatant propaganda, pro-US or not, was too much. …And yes, there were other reasons as to why DW was cancelled, but still…

…But why was I watching DW to begin with? Somehow, JFC became even more intolerable than when I saw it last, and so instead of it, I watched something else – DW ‘IRA vs. Taliban’ as I said earlier, as well as Impossible Pictures’ ‘Chased by Dinosaurs: The Giant Claw’ episode, and – ‘Mulan-1998’.

What can I say? Ming-Na Wen was already awesome as a voice actress, (and these days she is an actress-actress, staring as Melinda May in AoS, though at the end of S6 finale she got temporarily killed-off or at least – incapacitated). That said, the Shan-Yu and his horde were some of the least impressive villains of animated Disney. Why? In the movie, none of the Shan-Yu’s lieutenants really had names; yes, the various Wikis who specialise in this sort of thing, have their names, but the movie never acknowledges this. Harsh!

Moreover, the Shan-Yu himself… It seems that he had invaded China because he decided that the Great Wall of China is an insult to his manhood or something. Seriously? What is this? A reality show, ancient Chinese version? The Shan-Yu and his horde serve no other function than to be the distraction; the real adversary, of course, were the gender roles and norms in the society, and Fa Mulan proved that a woman could do a man’s job easily, etc. etc. How very 20^th century of her! (‘Mulan’ was released in 1998, remember? Technically, it was the 20^th century still, rather than the 21^st). It will be interesting to see how ‘Mulan-2020’ stacks up against this film.

…Yes, it was evident – Hell, Disney outright told its’ viewers that this was going to be more along the lines of the new ‘Dumbo’ film than TLK-2019 or the rebooted L&T. Fair enough, and hopefully the new villain, Borikhan or whatever his name is, will have a better motivation than his 1998’s counterpart did, but for now, it is too early to make premonitions – or too late, but in any case, thanks to COVID-19, now isn’t the right time. Moreover, what about ‘The Giant Claw’?

Not unlike JFC, this was a mix of education and entertainment, but more honest – it involved Nigel Marvin travelling through time – literally – to the Late Cretaceous Mongolia, 70 MYA, or so, in search of the titular creature. Spoiler warning – it was Therezinosaurus, one of the biggest purely herbivorous theropods, whose cousin the Nothronychus was mentioned earlier, when we were discussing Tyrannosaurus Rex.

And where was this dinosaur in ‘The Giant Claw’? Why, nowhere at all – it had not evolved in Late Cretaceous North America yet. Instead, this 30 minute special featured its’ cousin, Tarbosaurus bataar.

…Ever since this dinosaur was discovered, there was plenty of discussion, as to how it was related to Tyrannosaurus. These days the scientific community believes that while the two species were cousins, Tarbosaurus was more distantly related to Tyrannosaurus than some other North American tyrannosaurid species, such as Albertosaurus, Daspletosaurus and Gorgosaurus; Tarbosaurus’ bones, especially in its’ skull, prove that. That is fair, but ecologically wise, Tyrannosaurus and Tarbosaurus played the same role – that of an alpha predator; not even Velociraptors stood up to the Tarbosaurus.

What about the Velociraptors? They were depicted in ‘The Giant Claw’ as well, but they were much smaller and proportionally more realistic than they are in the ‘Jurassic Park’ franchise – turkey-sized predators, rather like modern coyotes with an attitude. They were shown hunting other smaller dinosaurs – the herbivorous Protoceratops, which about the size of a modern sheep, but had attitude of their own, and a powerful beak to back it up. (Something of the Protoceratops-Velociraptor interaction was shown in ‘The Giant Claw’, FYI).  Put otherwise, all of the Impossible Pictures’ series did their best to educate, or at least to inform, rather than to entertain – and did a much better job than the JFC did, in my frank opinion.

By the way, JFC did not have Velociraptors to begin with – instead, it had three of their cousins: the Deinonychus, the Utahraptor, and the Dromaeosaurus. The first two were bigger than the Velociraptor was; alongside the lesser-known Dakotaraptor, they were the biggest members in their family, comparable in size to their fictional counterparts from the ‘Jurassic Park’ franchise. By contrast, the Dromaeosaurus was the Velociraptor’s counterpart in the Late Cretaceous North America, but as I said earlier, it was not the contemporary of the T-Rex, so here the JFC lied…but we talked about it last time, so let us drop it.

Anything else? COVID-19 continues to march across the face of the planet, more and more public figures are continuing to get ill, and I have no idea as to when it all will end. The Donald is not entirely wrong when he is focusing on the economical aspect of it all, but he is not truly right either. Did I mention that the real life sucks? Because it does. Sad face emoji.

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

Pathfinder 2nd edition - Aug 25

…Now about that Pathfinder bit that I have promised to talk about earlier this summer, about its’ transfer from the 1^st edition to the 2^nd. What can be said about it?

Firstly, the obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes your neighbor from across the street starts to play the blues and you want to kill them before you kill yourself, just because you’re in that sort of a mood and you don’t know as to how to get out of it. What next?

The Pathfinder transfer in and of itself was clumsily done; it took place with the ‘Pathfinder Campaign Setting’ companion piece on the land of Druma, and unlike the previous installments – about Osirion, Cheliax, Belkzen, Andoran, Nidal, etc. – this piece felt less helpful to gamers who wanted to play in Druma, and more like an extra from the ‘Inner Sea Races’ core book. The latter is one of the less successful 1^st edition Pathfinder core books, BTW. It is four-fifths filler and the rest is nothing that could not be found in the Advanced Race Guide core book, for example. The piece on Druma reads the same – the enthusiasm that you could find in other PCS pieces just is not there; it’s still written well enough, but nothing more.

…And the same can be said about the new releases – the new adventure module, the new installment in the Age of Ashes campaign. They are written well enough, and there is a lot of exposition in them, but-

But while there is no denial that Pathfinder was always big on exposition, especially when compared to the 5^th edition D&D, for example, somehow they always made it work, (in the 1^st edition, that is), and it looked good. Here and now – the 2^nd edition Pathfinder – not so much. There is an excess of information, crammed together with none of the care, consideration, pacing, etc. that marked Pathfinder the initial version, but just various RPG notes that may be considered helpful when planning a new Pathfinder campaign (or whatever), or it may not.

…Yes, this balance – rules vs. fun – is always important when designing an RPG rulebook, regarding an RPG world or otherwise. We are currently playing a Space 1889 campaign, whose rules are quite different from both Pathfinder and 5^th edition D&D, and have a more ‘5^th edition d20 modern’ feel, we think. …Not that there is too much similarity between d20 modern and Space 1889, but still. What next?

Nothing. Right now, we are playing a campaign that is set in Space 1889 setting, on Venus. (In Space 1889, it’s a tropical world, if anyone cares). Currently, we are trying to figure out how to deal with a cranky old T-Rex that decided that it likes to eat people. Our PCs are civilians – settlers and the like – do not have sufficiently powerful firepower to defeat it in a straight down face-off, so we are trying to figure how to deal with it otherwise. Oh and there’s a bunch of Venusian Lizard-People running around, doing their own things… fun. Sometimes to have it you just need a change in perspective, or something similar, no?

Anything else? D23 (let us call it that) has also presented a trailer for the upcoming CGI reboot of ‘the Lady and the Tramp’. No, it is not about Lady Liberty’s interactions with her Donald the POTUS; it is a love story of two dogs. Yes, not unlike the LK franchise we are talking about animals here, but because they are animals living in a human world, (the human characters did not look CGI in the trailer, so I am assuming they are not), it works, because it is a story about two dogs that are living in a human world. The end. So far, the viewers’ attitude towards this is friendly, unlike the remake of ‘Mulan’ (coming in 2020), as the actress of the titular heroine made some politically obtuse statements, pretty much worthy of the abovementioned Donald himself, and now the potential audience is pissed; there’s a talk of boycotting and what-not. Of course, given that this is still only late August 2019, there’s still plenty of time for tide to turn regarding ‘Mulan 2020’, but given that real life sucks, let’s not be overly optimistic.

Well, this is it for now; see you all soon!

Mulan 2020 first trailer - July 7

Now you may ask – and what about the first trailer of the ‘Mulan’ 2020 remake? Since we have already mentioned the upcoming ‘Little Mermaid’ remake and ‘The Lion King’ remake is coming out later this month.

Firstly, the ‘Little Mermaid’ remake. There shouldn’t be a problem having an Afro-American actress being the titular character – as MCU’s ‘Spider-Man’ movies and Disney’s ‘Aladdin’ remake have shown, race is by no means a defining feature of a movie character, but! Then there was J-Ro’s ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’, remember it? Both Hermione and Rose Weasley were played by Afro-American (Afro-British?) characters, and it didn’t work; J-Ro herself has abandoned that aspect of her HP-verse and is currently playing with Newt Scamander and co.; true, both movies had POC as actors, but if you compare it to, say, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, then you notice that J-Ro’s movies are notably underwhelming in that department. For its’ part – and that is just as important – Disney’s remakes are at their best, when they follow close the original animated movies, with just some differences, as ‘Aladdin 2019’ and the previously aired ‘Beauty and the Beast’ remake showed. When differences are much greater, as they were in the ‘Dumbo’ remake, then Disney begins to have problems. So far, TLK seems to be like the original movie; TLM, judging by the trailers and teasers that we have seen – not so much, (though they were sketchy, fair enough), so we will have to wait and see. This brings us to ‘Mulan 2020’, only not.

First, there is also the honorable mention of the Ghostbusters remake; no, Disney did not make it, but it was a remake, and it failed. It was really quite ironic – there were all those people arguing pro and contra, if the gender-flip of the original Ghostbusters film was worthwhile – and then the movie flopped on its’ own merit, and that’s the end of that aspect of the Ghostbusters franchise, as opposed to, say, the comic crossover between them and TMNT, when the Shredder had killed some rival crimelord, and the latter’s restless spirit returned as a ghost, and TMNT had to team with the Ghostbusters, because their skills aren’t really effective against a ghost… the Ghostbusters’ franchise is working out quite well, thank you very much, movie flop or no flop.

This brings us to ‘Mulan 2020’, to TLK 2019, to TLM, and the abovementioned point – racial issues do not matter, plot matters. ‘Mulan 2020’ is rumored to be very much reworked from the original 90s’ animated feature, meaning that it might have problems in 2020 when it comes to the big screen. Those problems probably will not be exclusive to racial matters or cultural appropriation, but Disney may pretend that they are, as they tried to do with their SW films, and that now will be a bad idea: Disney/SW merger may end at the end of the SW9 movie…or rather, the current incarnation of SW franchise will. The merger itself will go on for a while, as the numerous SW comics are indicating: the juggernaut is intently trying to change the public opinion regarding the rebooted SW before the SW9 film comes out…with mixed success. Of course, Disney princesses as a whole have their own comic series already, but that is different – SW, proportionally, is a much more popular and more bought franchise out of the two… but let us wait first until TLK comes out later this month (July 2019) before we make any assumptions…

This is it for now; see you all soon!