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The Red Turtle – Boring Is The Least Of It

Let’s start by saying there are only about five shots of the titular character – at least as a turtle. I knew better than to hope this movie was an animal fantasy film, which was good, because it wasn’t even really fantasy, more surreal satisfaction. Uncanny valleyish, actually. And not in a good way. There is basically no story at all until about three quarters of the way through the film, and once there is, it just gets weird and, well, stupid. I knew that it wasn’t going to be my favourite film of all time when I realised Studio Ghibli was involved – I simply don’t get on that well with their storytelling style – but it you hadn’t known this was Studio Ghibli, you never would have guessed. What’s the opposite of putting all their previous work to shame? Well, it’s that. I’d barely say there was character design or art style at all. More what you get when you have neither. The animation was . . . mostly walk cycles – you know what you’re supposed to avoid where you can as an animator...
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KPop Demon Hunters - The Lower Target Bracket

For me, an eight-year-old watching KPop Demon Hunters is like an eight-year-old reading Twilight. They like it, but they don’t truly understand it (not that Twilight has that much to understand!). To find that the lower end of KPop Demon Hunters target bracket is that age group seems ludicrous to me. When I first saw the film I assumed it was aimed at teenagers, and was glad companies were finally doing what I thought they should have been doing all along – and I am no teen, or eight-year-old! They say films and books ‘find their audience’ and to me, that’s what happened. While objectively there is nothing unsuitable for children this age (assuming you are talking up to them as, say, anime generally does), it does feel too deep and dark to be purposely aimed at them. Everything about the film from the direction, to the dark tones in the art work among the colour etc screams teens or older. Truly, it is verging on Young Adult (general sense, not publishing sense!). In fact, to me it...
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Rebutting Disney Innocence Over Kimba - A Few Thoughts

Surprised I haven’t got to this sooner in a way. Someone wrote something on DA saying Disney didn’t copy Kimba because it would have been a bad business choice. This sounds a very innocent viewpoint to have, and while I wrote a few points in a comment then (only indirectly addressing the subject), it set me on the track of writing a proper piece related to that and the topic in general.  First off, as we can see from the modern day, Disney doesn’t care about their reputation. Or at least, it isn’t their main priority. There is mountains of evidence that Disney did copy it all over the internet, from comparing images, to script that’s the same, to white Simba concept art. All the characters have an exact counterpart who very frequently looks very similar too.  There’s also the well known fact that half the people working on it thought they were working on a Kimba remake. This at least means, Disney were copying it, even it were a misunderstanding of sorts. Kimba’s creator and D...
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The Watership Down Series 2 Ending Is Really Stupid

 Campion has been working against Woundwort this whole time, only to save him? It is not convincing Campion would do this. A lot of the spy stuff doesn’t make sense actually, but this is the limit. He has Primrose and Blackberry to protect for a start. Conflicted he might be, yes, but that level should only make him mournful when Woundwort is dead, not prevent it from happening. There are a lot of implications too, like Campion basically being responsible for every bad thing that happens in series 3. Speaking of series 3, this ending makes Campion’s series 3 setup utterly ridiculous. So, Campion saves Woundwort, and Black Rabbit be like, you’ve got to kill Woundwort now. If this was supposed to be deliberately dark and ironic, it would be super clever. Unfortunately, it clearly isn’t, not to mention that this setup comes to nothing in the end anyway, but I digress. The big one for me though is that the Watership Downers themselves should not have reacted to Campion’s perceived deat...
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Fire Bringer – Why This Brilliant Book Has Not Been Adapted

I mean Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies, not to be confused with the Firebringer Trilogy, which I will get round to reading later this year. When I first started reading I couldn’t understand it, and to be honest, I was a bit worried too. If this genius book had been forgotten and not adapted, what chance did my own stuff have? But that was before I got to the Middle. Once I passed this point, I began to see problems emerging, and I also started to notice issues that had been there all along but I had brushed aside because it seemed like one percent problem to ninety nine percent brilliant.  Bear in mind this is very subjective, and I could be completely wrong about some if not all these things. I will also be bringing up Watership Down as a comparison quite a bit.  First, this should be labelled as a Young Adult or Adult book. This isn’t a problem in itself, but it does have a bearing on things, so I feel I should bring it up first. Also, if I, an adult reader are having ...
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Eden – Why Are People Saying This Is Really Good?

Eden is definitely nothing to write home about. It wasn’t bad, and there were good things in it, but it solidified something as a problem that hadn’t bothered me on previous occasions I encountered it.  A lot is lost when you chose CGI over hand drawn animation (or an equivalent, such as tablet drawn) but when you do this to anime the gap between the two is much, much wider.  Eden makes you feel nothing and it is almost one hundred percent down to the animation, or lack of it a lot of the time. It is particularly bad when it comes to character expression, which there is a severe lack of in the protagonist. I’ve seen way better in MMD dance videos. Heck even most storyboards put together for testing look more expressive and dynamic. And don’t get me started on the crying cycle. Not only is it the most unconvincing animation ever (and so obvious a layer on top of a model) but it's painfully obvious it is cycling over and over again, with the exact same time gap between.  Ok...
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I’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus – I Really Wish You Wouldn’t

Many people have that one Christmas song they hate. Some have more than one! For a lot of people it seems to be Last Christmas, while others seem unable to stand A Wonderful Christmastime for some reason. For me it’s I’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus. The lyrics are stupid in a nonsense and irrelevant sort of way, and the voice is extremely irritating.  But the main reason I’ve come to dislike this song so much is something completely different. The message and sentiment are absolutely terrible. So here’s this do-gooder kid who thinks it would be clever to commit the criminal acts of kidnap and stealing, to give deprived kids some presents. But if that’s not bad enough, think of the implications. He’s going to deprive all the kids of the world who are expecting presents – and will be very upset at not getting any –  to give them to a few who aren’t expecting any anyway.  Also, talk about teaching that the end justifies the means. It never occurs to him to tell Santa the problem...
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