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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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Laura’s Star – Great Visuals, Terrible Everything Else

You never feel like anything’s ever getting anywhere for a start. I’d go as far as to say there is not real story. It is also one of the laziest uses of the “kid moves to new place” trope I’ve ever seen. It thinks just moving the girl and have her sulking around the place is enough.  There are no consequences for actions – whether good, bad, or neutral. This not only gives terrible messages but it means your levels of care drop to about minus twenty or something. Most of the film, and most of its characters could be dropped and very little would have to be changed to reach the same outcome. The whole thing could easily have been done within fifteen minutes, or barely stretched to twenty five to be a similar length to other like Christmas specials if necessary if they just made something happen.  The ending is a cop out, a genre shift, unearned, far too surreal (for the film itself, I mean), and makes absolutely no sense. So there’s not even any reward for sticking around....
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Sherwood – Just Why!

I should have known better than to watch anything on the BBC IPlayer. Like Disney these days, anything made or on the BBC misses the mark, is dreadfully politicised, and seems to pride itself on being painfully modern. So I don’t mind a complete and utter fantasy/sci-fi type reimagining of the classic Robin Hood story, not in principle anyway. In fact, that was exactly what made me watch it. So here’s this total girlboss Robin Hood (which should probably be spelt Robyn given it’s a girl’s name, but never mind). She’s got red hair (don’t they all), and she can leap about the place, already able to do everything perfectly without any backstory, or explanation. She comes across as bossy and rude, which isn’t surprising, because you can’t be a girlboss without being bossy and rude, right.  I have always been one to say I prefer action and bore quickly otherwise, but this feels like too much action. It is right in your face somehow, and feels exhausting. The other characters just come a...
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Glisten & The Merry Mission – Good, But Not What I Thought

This is actually pretty good, especially given the fact it is both designed to sell toys and is a Christmas special – a combination which is usually asking for trouble.  Objectively, there is nothing wrong at all, and that is saying something coming from me – even if not exactly a compliment! This doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t what I was anticipating, and that it unfortunately fell in to a big pet peeve criteria for me – a story that supposedly centres on animal characters, but in reality has human (or human-like) protagonists. I thought the story mostly focused on Santa’s reindeer when, in fact, the main characters are elves – human substitutes from a storytelling point of view – with the reindeer in the title only appearing near the very end, and likely only has a total of five lines.  Another smaller problem I have with it subjectively is that I feel they are truing far too hard with the Christmas vocabulary. It clearly hasn’t come naturally to the creators. It lea...
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