SIONR: Anime Dubs Are Better Than Subs

The worst part about anime critique on YouTube is that virtually all of the ones that I see are in Japanese with subtitles.  There are SO many people online who will swear up and down that watching with subs is the “true” way to watch it.  And if you don’t do that, you’re just some philistine pleb who has no opinion worth considering.  I hate that to no end.  Why?  Because all the anime that I love, the dub kicks the living shit out of the sub in every conceivable way.

The big one people go to in regards to this topic is Cowboy Bebop.  Sure, that’s the best example.  The dub is objectively better than the sub.  But I can put every series on my Top 20 Favorite Anime List (linked here) next to its Japanese language counterpart and watch the Dub do it better.  Before you say that this is just my opinion – sure, whatever.  But seriously, watch the series on that list in both languages and tell me which sticks out to you more.

One of the ones that really sticks out to me is Black Lagoon.  That series had some of the craziest talent in the world putting their absolute all into it.  You have anime veterans like Brad Swaile doing the voice of the main character.  This guy has such a history in this medium that you can’t talk about the growth of it in America without him.  He’s been in everything.  Every character in there is pitch perfect, and the voice-work is downright haunting.  I think about the episode inside the submarine, where Revy is telling her dark story to Rock, and listen to her voice.  Or when Dutch is on the phone with the Neo-Nazi who got him that job.  It’s all amazing.  Or when the head of the Russian mob in Roanapur and her dialogue with the vampire child who comes to kill her as he dies.  Yeah, the Japanese can’t hold a pin to that.

One that catches me in why people prefer the Japanese to English is Steins;Gate.  In my eyes, Okabe can ONLY be voiced by J Michael Tatum.  There’s no one else.  That man has a gift at capturing the subtle balance between legitimate character and the madness that he exudes without going overboard.  You still find him to be believable.  Seeing his facade of a mad scientist crumbling around him as he gets deeper into the realm of time travel makes the dilemma he’s facing that much more heart-wrenching.  You see the mental toll it is exerting on Okabe, and feel him losing grip on what’s the right thing to do anymore.  I cannot think of any other voice actor who could do that the way J. Michael Tatum does.

It blows my mind the fact that the dub for Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad is so amazing.  One thing that any otaku cringes at is when there is TERRIBLE musical dubbing into English.  We’ve all been there.  You hear bad voice actors doing bad versions of music clearly not written with English in mind.  So a series about a band with the center-piece being their music had all the recipes for complete failure.  But it works!  Holy fuck does it work!  It’s a testament to the voice actors they got to sing, and the person who did the dubbing in how good that turned out.  It could EASILY have been the cringiest anime dub in history.  Not to mention, since two characters in the series are supposed to have lived in America, the Japanese version has some pretty painful Engrish in there.  It’s kind of ironic that because of it being in English, those scenes flow infinitely better.  I always love in Japanese films (that I do watch with subtitles.  For whatever reason, anime no, foreign films yes for subtitles) when they have terribly done English.

Then, of course, there is Baccano.  As I am to understand it, the Japanese cast really did put in their all into these performances.  But it’s clear even they knew that the English version of this would be superior in every way.  Every voice actor in this series fits perfectly.  Pitch-perfect, they bring their characters’ to life in a way that I genuinely cannot think of who else could.  Firo is my personal favorite.  That New York flavor of snide, arrogant, and cocky just shows through.

Speaking of people fitting the role perfectly, the greatest dub on the list I made, by far and away, is Wolf’s Rain.  That series has every single major dub hitter from that time.  We have Steve Blum, Johnny Bosch, Crispin Freeman, Mona Marshall, Mary McGlynn, Kari Wahlgren, and so many more.  Every single person who was the best name in the business at the time that that series was dubbed had a role there, major or minor.  Most people don’t appreciate what it means for a series to be “star-studded,” even if it’s just voice-actors.  That series was.  The best of the best, and they brought their best work to the table.  For a series that was so deep in themes and darkness, bringing that to light in a way that made you feel for every character was a testament to the skill of those involved.

Maybe this is just because of my very high standards, but I have only seen one series, ONE, where the Japanese version blows the English out of the water.  And that’s because the ADR director for it sucked – High School of the Dead.  The English in that show was some of the worst I have ever heard.  It blows my mind.  But then I look at who did the dub work, and then I realize why.  It was from one of the worst ADR directors in anime history, who has churned out some of the worst dubs of all time in series that did not deserve it.  Goes to show the power of what a good director can do.  Because all the talent in the world can’t save you if the person helming the effort is crap.

You don’t have the remind me that this is my opinion.  I know.  But since my standards for anime are already high, that means that my standards for the voice-work are high as well.  And for people to say that if you don’t watch it with subtitles, you are somehow doing a disservice to the medium just blows my mind.  Or that, bafflingly, the Japanese version is always better, is arrogant to say the least.  Don’t go thinking I am shitting on the Japanese who do the voice-work.  I’m not.  There is no doubt in my mind that in the vast ocean of anime garbage out there, there are a ton with infinitely better English.  There’s so much bargain-bin crap that that wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

Until next time, a quote,

“You sing off-key.” – Spike Spiegel, Cowboy Bebop

Peace out,

Maverick

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SIONR: The Stupid Reaction to Black Cat in ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’ DLC

Some of you may have noticed I don’t go after the SJW community all that much anymore.  There’s a reason for that.  For starters, I don’t have anything new to say.  It’s all kind of the same, at this point.  Doesn’t matter, anyway.  Nobody listens.  Anybody who disagrees with the social justice community is just ruled out as “alt-right” or some other buzzword that hasn’t been used to the point that it means nothing anymore.  But there is another side to it.  It’s because I don’t have a very high opinion of the anti-SJW community anymore.  They are just as bad as the social justice feminists that they deride.

It’s funny, but I remember when all of these groups came together during #GamerGate, and then subsequently went apart after it became clear that there was nothing to be gained from further cooperation.  I said this would happen during a live-stream I used to be a part of, back in the day.  My compatriots didn’t believe me then.  Wonder what they think now.

You all may be wondering – what does this have to do with the title of this post?  I’ll tell you.  See, a fair amount of comic book fans are all up in arms.  Why?  Because the new design for Black Cat in Sony’s exclusive Marvel’s Spider-Man doesn’t have her boobs on display!  That’s right, her cleavage isn’t hanging out of the outfit, so naturally they are all conspiracy theorizing that it is a big SJW conspiracy.  Saying that the character was written by the chick who said the tea-bag mod in GTA Online was “virtual rape.”  It is so frustrating to see this shit everywhere.

For starters, where are they getting that this character isn’t the same as she has always been?  I mean, did you play the game?  She is flirty as fuck with Parker.  Every audio-log you get on her quest in the main game has her talking in that sultry way where you know she is trying to goad Spider on.  It also hints of their past and how it was pretty complicated.

Next, have you seen her outfit?  Yeah, the outfit that is skin-tight, black, hugging every curve, that is not meant to be sultry at all.  Nope!  Not a little!  Morons.  Yeah, her boobs aren’t hanging out.  So that means…SJW?  I swear, these people can’t keep their bullshit straight.

Finally, did nobody pay attention to how this game is structured?  It’s definitely friendly for younger people.  Hell, the first outfit you have is pretty beat-for-beat similar to the one from The Animated Series.  Wanna know something interesting about that, for those who didn’t grow up in the 90’s?  In it, Black Cat didn’t have her boobs hanging out!  This game definitely breathes a vibe that it is modeled after the old animated series.  It wants to be played by kids.  Sure, the rating is T for teens, but how much foul language do you see in that game?  Not much.  It’s pretty marketable to the crowd it was intended.  You know what that means?  It means that you won’t have a character in it who has her tits hanging out!  Because that isn’t marketable to kids!  Did nobody pay attention?

In The Animated Series, Black Cat and Spider’s flirtatious relationship is all in subtext.  There’s a reason for that.  Because the series was made for kids, but there are teenagers in the audience who think that she is hot with that skin-tight black outfit.  It’s the same here!  I’m sorry that all the comic book nerds don’t get to cum in their pants over her.  I’m sure it must be so hard for you.

Grow the fuck up.

Until next time, a quote,

“Oh, poor Spider.  I know I disappointed you when I couldn’t go straight, but why mess with perfection?” – Black Cat, Marvel’s Spider-Man

Peace out,

Maverick

SIONR: Venom is NOT Going to be R-Rated

I couldn’t believe it when I saw the headlines.  News outlet after news outlet confirming my worst fears.  A movie based on one of the most violent anti-heroes in the Marvel comic book universe is going to be PG-13.  Oh, I’m sorry, it’s going to be “hard PG-13.”  Fuck that noise!  Yeah right!  That’s bullshit meant to try and appease the fans who actually were expecting legitimate violence.  You know, like the comic book character has.  But nope!  That is all a lie.  A depressing, corporate lie.  Calling it right now, this is not going to have a single thing that risks anything when it comes to their latest work.  Because why take any risks, when you can make more money down the road?!

The success of films like Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and Logan really has seemed to slip the minds of Hollywood producers.  Instead of thinking that there is a market for this stuff among old-school comic book nerds, they choose to completely turn a blind eye.  If that were actually the case.  I think we all know the real truth here.  Sony wants to get some of the sweet MCU cheddar.  It’s pretty clear that, while they say they are going to be going away from Marvel for their next Spider-Man films, they obviously aren’t.  No fucking way.  Homecoming was WAY too much of a success for them not to notice that these people got it going on.  So instead of doing something that is an ACTUAL risk, they choose to play it safe and market on risque.  Well fuck you, Sony!  I see through your tricks, and I’m not biting!

Not much to say here, really.  All of that potential.  You have Venom talking in the trailer about killing people and brutally dismembering them.  Now we know, don’t we?!  It was all talk!  The actual film is going to have PG-13 violence.  PG-13, bloodless, “tasteful” violence.  What a waste of a fucking concept.  Is this all that Hollywood can do at this point?  That’s not me just trying to be an asshole.  I actually want to know.

I talked in a previous post about how Hollywood is going so far out of their way to make movies that are safe for marketing in China. As I am to understand it, both Deadpool and Logan were not.  So, despite them being smashing successes here in the US, they died overseas.  And because all Sony film studios know how to do is to tow whatever line they think will make them the most money (and has produced some of the biggest piles of shit in recent memory), we get to see a good concept be given the finger.

Well I’m not playing, Sony!  Fuck Venom!  I’m not seeing it.  At least not in theaters.  Maybe I’ll Netflix it when it comes out.  And all of you shouldn’t either!  If you pay money to see this dumpster fire in theaters, you are tacitly admitting to Sony that if they do this, the fans are just going to accept it.  Go ahead, fuck what we love up the ass!  We’ll still pay for it!  That’s what you’re saying when you do that.  I refuse to be a part of this chicanery!  You all do what you want, I’m not playing.

There was real potential here.  A Venom movie about all the offspring of the titular character, culminating in Venom v Carnage.  Now THAT is a fight I can go for!  So long as Carnage has a body and guts count that would make the Saw movies blush!  That’s his character in the comics!  But instead, we have PG-13 violence.  More of that Hunger Games kinda violence.  That’s the Venom you all get.  Are you satisfied.  If you give Sony your money, then that tells them that the answer is yes.

Oh, and all the shill movie news websites saying this is a good thing – fuck you!  Fuck right off with that crap.  You all want the precious advertising money.  We’ve seen how Sony will try and manipulate the public through the media.  Just look at all the YouTube personalities that who came out saying that Ghostbusters (2016) was funny!  It wasn’t!  It was a giant pile of shit, just like pretty much everything else that comes out of your talentless studio!  It is so patently obvious that you are doing whatever you can to try and make it out to be less shit than it will be.

Like I said, not going to see it.  Not doing a review on it.  This movie is dead to me, unless the voices I trust come out with reviews that say that this movie beat the fucking odds in a spectacular way.  But they won’t.  It’s going to suck.  Thankfully, one news magazine had the right thoughts on this.  I’ll close out with that.

Until next time, a quote,

“Right now, Venom is shaping up to be one of 2018’s biggest disasters, and it’s not just because the “turd in the wind” line is what’s sufficing for humor in the movie.” – Matt Goldberg

Peace out,

Maverick

SIONR: I Don’t Think Venom Will Be An R-Rated Movie

I really don’t, and it’s bugging me.  There was a new trailer released today.  The CG is polished, the character is definitely looking the part.  We see our villain, the Riot symbiote, and we get to hear Venom have very violent talks with people.  All of that stuff should be excellent to think about.  But there is something that keeps dogging on me.  Something that I can’t get out of my head, and at this point it is REALLY starting to eat away at me.  It’s the culmination of a bunch of things I have seen that got me to this sudden realization – I don’t think that this is going to be the R-rated movie we were promised.

The first clue was Tom Hardy saying that he got into this role because of his son.  Which means that he intends for the kiddo to see this movie.  Which means that he feels it is kid appropriate.  That doesn’t give me much confidence.

Next up was the trailer itself.  There are a number of things that caught my attention.  First, we keep being told about violence, but we never see any.  In fact, some of what we see contradicts the violence that is alluded to.  Example – we have Venom talking to a dude about eating his organs.  That sounds like fun!  Let’s see some violent action!  Oh wait, you see a couple seconds later him throw the dude.  It’s so fast that I didn’t catch it the first time, but I tend to rewatch things over and over.  It’s a bad habit.  It’s why I should avoid trailers, probably.  Especially since modern trailers tend to ruin the whole damn film.

Then there is a scene where Riot is letting loose with its giant clawed arms.  It is slashing outward at everyone who is directly in front of it.  Awesome!  Oh wait, it shows everyone being knocked over.  What?!  You would be dismembering everyone in that room!  Where’s the blood?!  Why is there not a single drop of blood in any of that?!  That scene in-particular really is rubbing me the wrong way.  The bulk of the people in that room should be headless, or mutilated in some horrible way.  But they’re not! You can see that they’re not!  No blood.  No gore.  No nothing!

Finally, we have this bit where Venom is accosting what I presume to be a robber or something.  He is talking about how he is going to rip his arms and legs off, then his face off and roll him down the street like a turd.  That line, by the way, was pretty great.  That’s Venom!  But as he’s biting down, it cuts away.  Okay, fine.  This is a trailer for all audiences, so that makes sense.  Here’s the problem – if he actually did this, there should be blood everywhere!  Just, everywhere.  That woman at the check-out stand should be horrified, with blood all over either her register or that and her.  It would make Tom Hardy’s line there trying to play it off that much better. Because he just did this horrible thing, then says “bye, Mrs. Chang!”  Like how in Deadpool you have Colossus grilling the titular character about his violent methods, and him trying to play it off, only for a dude who was splattered all over the billboard to come crashing down.  That was funny!  Making it a little more grotesque would still make that work.

You know what this movie needs, if it is going to sell how violent it is?  A Red Band trailer.  Now more than ever.  Because I am convinced that all the people who think this is going to be a crazy violent superhero film was duped.  I’m one of them!  I genuinely believed the articles talking about this.  But now I am almost positive that that isn’t what is going to happen.  This movie is going to be mass-market appeal.  The nerds who like Venom for the violent bastard he is?  Fuck them!  Gotta make a family feature!  Yay….

I am happy that they aren’t just jumping right into Carnage in this movie.  It’s taking the comic story of all the offspring of Venom.  That’s kinda neat.  I am also really liking the design of this character.  Clearing up the voice to show that it is Tom Hardy is also really great.  It kills me that I am so reserved, because it’s clear that Tom Hardy is genuinely trying in this film.  Nothing in the trailer tells me he isn’t putting his all into this performance.  But this movie has been marketed as another entry into the violent superhero genre, and now I am almost dead-certain that that isn’t how this is going to play out.  That bums me.

Does this mean that the film will suck?  No.  But fucking with people’s expectations is going to REALLY hurt it in reviews.  If Sony is just blowing smoke about the violence in this movie, I think they should come out now and make a statement about it.  Better to get this expectation tempered before the reviews come out and crucify the film.  Head it off.  Otherwise, put out a Red Band trailer.  Let the adults who are expecting this to be violent get a little vindication.  Just a thought.

Until next time, a quote,

“So many sacs, so little time.” – Venom, Venom

Peace out,

Maverick

SIONR: Cal-Arts Students and Teachers Insult Don Bluth

My first introduction to the animation director Don Bluth was The Land Before Time.  I had it on VHS, and I watched that so many times it wasn’t funny.  There are still some warm memories that come to mind as I think back on it.  The days of my childhood, when I didn’t have to worry endlessly about my finances and my future.  Doesn’t help that I live in a country without universal healthcare, because it’s full of retards who believe that it magically wouldn’t work here.  You know, while it is working in every other 1st World nation.  Idiots.  I remember Littlefoot’s mother dying, and how that made me tear up.  Didn’t help that that film had an incredible score to accentuate the scene.

Later on, I came to Don Bluth’s absolute masterpiece – The Secret of NIMH.  The tale of Mrs. Brisby and her mission to save her son and her family.  It’s a heart-warming story.  For all the SJWs bitching about the lack of strong female characters, I don’t hear her name come up much.  I guess because she’s a mouse, she isn’t a strong mother who is able to face her fear of circumstances much larger than herself and a mission with no guarantee of success that takes her everywhere she doesn’t want to be.  That’s not strong at all.

So when I came upon this little nugget on Twitter, needless to say, it kinda pissed me off.

Are you fucking kidding me right now?!  “cheesy out-dated overflowy animation”?!  Did I read that right?!  Oh yeah, because the shit we have now is SO much better.  Like this shit!

What’s that, you ask?  Why, that’s the new Thundercats design for the reboot cartoon!  Yeah, because that doesn’t look like a massive pile of shit.  It blows my mind that in universities, people actually believe that a living animation God is outdated and worthy or ridicule.  Kinda hurts, too.  Look at that crap above you.  That’s the kind of animation that gets praised in the modern world.  Garbage by Steven Universe loving chodes!

It kinda kills me that 2D animation has died in this country.  At least in film.  I think back to Don Bluth and old-school Disney.  Fantasia is one of my favorite movies.  It turned me on to both classical music and 2D animation.  Walt Disney originally wanted it to be a series that would keep growing and evolving.  There was a sequel, and while it was fine and all, it wasn’t at the same level as the original.  It felt like there was something missing.  The success of Pixar and this STUPID attitude that the dumb-shit public has about 3D animation being more grown-up than 2D led to Disney eventually ditching their 2D animation studios.  How many people can even do anything approaching the level of depth and detail that Bluth was able to have in all of his movies.  Even the bad ones.

Which brings me to the fact that Bluth wasn’t perfect.  After All Dogs Go to Heaven, he had a run of VERY weird and pretty bad movies that were some of the funniest fodder for The Nostalgia Critic, back when that was still funny.  But to say that the man’s style is out-dated and “overflowy” (what the fuck does that even mean?) just hurts me inside.  Of course it is.  Because why should we value really deep and detailed art, when we can make crap like Thundercats Roar, that looks worse than old Scooby-Doo cartoons.  You know, when they were made on the budget of a ham sandwich.

In this age when everyone has to be so holier-than-thou, it really is telling that this attitude has seeped its way into universities.  Kinda breaks my heart.  Just a little.  It’s a sign that the true greatness of 2D animation is never coming back.  What I wouldn’t give for someone with some level of ambition to really try and do something great with it.  It’s a dream I will have for the rest of my life.

Until next time, a quote,

“Courage of the heart is very rare.  The stone has a power when it’s there.” – Nicodemus, The Secret of NIMH

Peace out,

Maverick

SIONR: Anime Cheese in the Wrong Place

I’ve spoken at length about how I hate modern anime.  There are so many shows being made now, and they all pretty much universally suck.  The glory days of anime are long behind it, in my eyes.  Call me a hipster (I’m starting to accept that in some ways I kind of am one), but I think anime was destroyed by its own success.  Once it gained mainstream popularity (or at least infinitely more mainstream than it used to be), or rather became part of geek culture, it all went downhill from there.  The truly great anime from not that long ago became something that they wanted to recapture, but the problem is that animation studios are having to push out commercially successful shows with higher budgets and shorter production time.  It’s put terrible strain on animation studios and their employees that I genuinely feel sad about.

Wow that was a digression, wasn’t it.  My point is, I don’t think much of modern anime.  But my gay girly-mate has this new series that she is all over, and since FUNimation does this thing where they will simultaneously release dubs and subs at the same time (I refuse to watch subs anime.  I can watch subtitled foreign films all day, but I genuinely refuse to do so with anime.  So if the dub sucks, I’m done), she has forced me to partake in this series with her.  Won’t say what it is.  It’s one of her guilty pleasures, and that’s all I’m going to say.  I swear, the girl is punishing me for something.  Can’t think of what.

This series isn’t bad on a technical level.  The animation is actually pretty great.  It has this nice realistic aesthetic that I am kind of digging.  The perk of modern animation being glossy and realistic is that it gives series a quality of feeling true to life that old-school anime never really had without insane detail.  Now proper shading and less expressive faces give environments and character designs something that feels true to life.  Like this is someone you can get to know in the real world.  The best friend character is my favorite so far.

But the design of these characters being less over the top and toned down expressively means that when this series has some of the cheese that anime is known for, it stands out to me in a bad way.  A very bad way.  You have a character whose entire visual design is not at all bombastic suddenly going into a ridiculous expression that feels so out of place given the art style.  Every time it happens it feels kind of wrong.  I genuinely don’t know what this bothers me so much, but it does.

Let me give you a way to look at this that is more relatable.  You like Quentin Tarantino, right?  Of course you do.  Well imagine for a second that in Reservoir Dogs it cut to some scenery-chewing villain doing a song number.  Or if the characters with their perfect dialogue and delivery started suddenly going really over the top at the drop of a hat, only to then go back to their perfectly done dialogue again without acknowledging that at all.  Would that not catch your attention in a bad way?  It would me.

I have had a thousand people tell me that I over-analyze stuff, so if you’re going to come at me with that, don’t.  Trust me, I already know.  It just really weirds me out to have stuff like that going on when the scene is being played fairly straight.  And this series does.  It plays everything completely straight until you cut to some cheese right the fuck out of nowhere.  I will admit that my girly-mate’s series is starting to grow on me just because these characters are relatable in a good way.  At least the best friend is.  I love this chick.  Her commentary on the events transpiring around her is just the best.  This girl is basically me as a female.  Standing on the sidelines of the madness and then commenting on what she sees in a way that cuts all the bullshit out.

But like I said, this may just be me.  So what about you?  Am I on to something here, or am I totally off-base.  Maybe I can give this to you a different way – imagine in Cowboy Bebop if Spike suddenly did that silly crying face.  Or if Jet Black and the suddenly revelation face where his eyes go all huge and white.  Would that not bother you?  It’s so tonally dissident from everything else.  I don’t know.  If you are going to go with a more laid-back tone, that’s totally fine.  Hell, I dig it.  But go the distance with that.  If you want to show a character being shocked at learning something, you can do that with realistic expression.  If you want to have a motif, stick with it.  That’s all I’m saying.

Until next time, a quote,

“Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.” – Jean Luc Godard

Peace out,

Maverick

SIONR: Incredibles 2 and the Death of Pixar

I’ve repeatedly said that Disney is pure evil and they destroy everything that I love.  They turned one of my favorite films into a fucking Kinect game.  That’s how bad they are.  They take good ideas or properties and turn them into shit.  Most recently with Star Wars.  The Last Jedi was a dumpster fire, and if what I am hearing about the latest film in the franchise, it went through three directors, had multiple rewrites, and the guy who plays the titular character not only looks NOTHING like him (he’s a fucking pretty boy.  Nothing even remotely roguish at all), but can’t act his way out of a paper bag.  They had to hire an acting coach for him after shooting the bulk of his scenes.  So yeah, that will be a dumpster fire too.  I mean, they barely show this guy in the trailer for his own film.  If that isn’t a sign that this movie is dead on arrival, I don’t know what is.

Now we come to The Incredibles 2.  I really liked the first one.  It’s not my favorite Pixar film, but it’s up there.  A film about a family of superheroes, mixing some fantastic action, great scoring (the score for that film is phenomenal), and both superhero and human elements to make a great story.  It balanced out every character to give them an arc and show them grow.  It’s great stuff.  Then the trailer for the sequel dropped.

This film looks terrible.  So, we go from a story about a family of superheroes, to the mom being off doing stuff, while the dad is being a stay-at-home dad with superbaby.  Wow.  That’s so boring that writing it I felt myself lose energy.  Who thought this was a good idea?  I mean, all the creative potential that a sequel of this film could be.  Like, it’s been many years since the first one.  Why not age the characters up a little?  Have them dealing with the reemergence of superheroes in society and them being kind of swept up in things?  Or maybe have them still having to be in the shadows and yet still doing good, now accepting their desire to be heroes, yet still being trapped behind a screen of anonymity.  All the cool ideas are there, but what is the final product?  Stay at home dad and superbaby!  Oh boy!

It hurts me inside to think of how Pixar has died.  It really has.  While the death of 2D animation breaks my fucking heart (it is an art form that has died and will likely never come back in the way it once was with the old Disney magic), I did grow up with this company.  I remember seeing Toy Story and thinking it was crazy cool.  My favorite of their films, Ratatouille, is a charming story.  The Incredibles combines so many good elements.  This studio once was believed to be setting the new standard in kids movies story-telling.

Then Brave happened.  With that movie I felt something.  There was a shift in the films that they were putting out, and the content immediately starting getting progressively worse.  You’d have films that stand out in the crowd, but the bulk were either really mediocre or outright bad.  Plus, a lot of their staff was now under Disney directly making some of the biggest bargain-bin garbage ever put to film.  Films that were made only to help the influx of capital for the fiscal quarters they were made.

When I heard that they were doing a sequel to The Incredibles, my heart leapt.  Finally, a return to form!  Get some of the classy style that was modeled first in 2D drawings and then put to digital models.  Great voice acting, great score.  All the potential was there!  Then the trailer drops and I realize that I’m seeing yet-another bargain-bin movie that everyone will forget about just as fast as they did Monster’s University or Cars 2 (or the original Cars for that matter).  This kills me inside.

Disney is like the film version of EA.  They take IPs and studios with good ideas and then run them into the ground.  Does it not blow your mind the way it does mine that there are over twice as many mediocre/bad films in the Star Wars franchise as there are good ones?  Over six!  That’s insane!  Marvel has been kept from joining these ranks simply because Kevin Feige is at the helm.  Once he leaves, they’re next.  It took a man with vision and a passion for the source material to keep this genre from becoming bargain-bin shit too, and there are people who make the argument that the brand is getting old.  I think I have avoided this thought process simply because I only watch the films in there that I think look good. Pixar is gonna be their version of Visceral Games, one of these days.  It hurts me inside.

Until next time, a quote,

“Turians think they know a thing about a scorched-earth response.  Fuck ’em!” – Jack, Mass Effect 2

Peace out,

Maverick