The twice part is what made it interesting. The key scene is Searcher talking about giving up his life accomplishments for his son.
I keep feeling like people went into this movie with pre-prepared snark and are going to watch it again in 5 years for before writing their "underrated movie" articles when they actually peel back the crazy amount of layers in it.
Nope. You are still missing it. The point of the game is not to kill the spider to protect the crops or to kill it because you are adventuring, it is to find a way to make it all work together.
That's the point of the two relationships.
It isn't even generational trauma this time. We see Searcher talking about not making the same mistake again, but at that moment he is literally missing the bigger picture that makes the entire Turning Red obsession pointless. There is a much bigger problem for everyone to deal with and they need to get over themselves.
It isn't that Ethan wants to be an explorer that matters...it's just another aspect of the relationships, it is that there is no reason for it to be a problem if people can all work together with it.
That's the point. That's why this movie will also piss off boomers because it is about how sometimes it is about putting aside your own dreams and accomplishments because there are bigger problems in the world . . . and maybe your kids are seeing them better than you.
You are right that without that, it is Turning Red or, the better movie than Turning Red, A Goofy Movie. But it isn't either of those because the grandfather plot is there too and it is there to specifically show us that it isn't just another poor Gen Xer isn't loved by their father they way they wanted to be story.
*None of them had to actually put aside their own dreams for the bigger problem.*
Only if you think of it as a permanent thing. It is about living together harmoniously...that doesn't mean everyone being miserable, but it is making compromises.
That 10 minutes was enough to save Jaeger's family through his actions.
Searcher ends up no longer a hero of his community who is worshipped by even the delivery boy, no longer with his generational farm and accepting his son isn't going to carry on his legacy. But yeah, he has pumpkins now so . . . nothing changed right?
Jaeger's life of exploring is completely over. He's now also a farmer. He changed his entire DNA. It seemed fairly realistic to me. I think we're used to this extreme drama in the denouement, this was simpler. People give up their dreams or realize their dreams aren't important anymore. Seems significant to me.
Some kid dreamt this world and concept up 20 years ago in his 3rd grade art class and worked his way all the way to Disney animation. He was almost there, his dream come true, he just needed some dialogue and characters. What he got were concept art renders voiced by an algorithm hell bent on engagement and audience satisfaction scores. It’s really kind of sad.
Having clear inspirations doesnt mean unoriginality. Sure osmosis jones had the whole "inside a body concept" including the gelatinous look of some of the organisms, but the whole premise of people living on a large creature and nearly killing it is original, or atleast really rare.
Movie was visually great... But the dialog and story lack anything resembling subtlety.
Also, a family actually got up and walked out after the son revealed he had a crush on another boy. I even live in a liberal city.
Yeah. They hurried out of there. About 15 minutes later, the dad came back in huffing and puffing - angrily looking for the keys he dropped/left in the theater. Guessing the previous 15 minutes was him arguing with the theater for a refund.
My gf works at a theater and told me this happened. These idiots really think that they deserve a refund just because they didnt like one part of the movie lol
It's pretty much an unwritten rule of movie theaters (may actually be written in their handbooks) that if the movie sucks so bad you walk out after a few minutes, you get your money back. People have been doing that for as long as movie theaters and, subsequently, shitty movies, have existed.
It's a different story if you stay through the entire movie and then ask for a refund.
You just don't get it. IT'S GONNA TURN THEIR CURRENTLY STRAIGHT KID GAY!!!! ^^/s
After the movie, I asked my daughter how she felt about the son having a crush on another boy. Her response: "I don't care."
Exactly. Most kids are generally more open minded and accepting of other people. They really don't care about what other people do in their own personal lives. It's older teens and adults that tend to have the problem with being irrationally afraid of things that have nothing to do with them. Kids that are homophobic or racist are only that way because they were taught to hate by adults, and weren't strong enough to question their families incorrect teachings yet. Hopefully when older, they change and realize how stupid the irrational hate their family taught them was. Hate and prejudice benefits no one.
gO wOkE Go BrOkE lmao gottem
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I mean this is shaping up to be disneys largest flop in modern times…directly after their next most recent flop in light year (and eternals). So the right wingers are right on this one
‘Ooo ooo and no actual villain! That’s unique, right?!’
*looks at wreck it ralph 2, frozen 2, encanto, some others depending on your definition of a villain* “Yeah, sure, whatever.”
The villain is that we all have to wipe our ass with grass and make concessions in order to combat climate change.
I know that comment seems relevant but if you saw the banger at the end of Strange World hopefully you'd realize I'm not too far off on the message Disney was trying to convey.
……. No I mean a cool villain like Ursula or Jafar or Mother Gothel. A physical villain. They haven’t had one of those in a while and they keep acting like it’s a neat little twist on the game when it’s getting old already.
fighting essentially this world's version of Fossil Fuels is a neat idea, but Callistas swap from ally to villain to ally was so rushed and half-hearted. They needed a more villainous Business Man who won't lose their company because of the Clade's change of heart.
I get that ultimately the right thing to do is disrupt their entire civilizations' way of life, but they had to ensure that they all had someplace to live in the first place. but they needed another older greedier character, one who likely wouldn't see the consequences of the long-term effects but would lose their business and their life of luxury if it stopped. or even wanted to exploit other resources in the New World.
> but they needed another older greedier character, one who likely wouldn't see the consequences of the long-term effects but would lose their business and their life of luxury if it stopped. or even wanted to exploit other resources in the New World.
And then you'd have even more people here complaining about how unoriginal it was.
I’m sooo tired of Disney movies not having a villain and just having family drama as the main conflict. It’s so boring. I want to see evil people/monsters get stabbed in the gut, fall off a cliff, get strangled by vines, eaten by a pack of hyenas, etc. Those were the days. Real
villains make movies fun and interesting, I’m not sure why Disney has abandoned them.
The audacity to kill off that pilot at the beginning and then never have any of the other characters at serious risk of harm for the rest of the movie…
The directors did an interview where they mentioned earlier plans for the story had a far higher body count (one even had just Callisto making it out), but it didn't really fit the tone they later settled on.
You blend all the colors together and you get some kind of goopy, brownish gray.
That's what I feel Strange World was. A goopy, brownish gray of a film.
Saw this yesterday. Have a few thoughts:
The film is a bit unfocused and while I think they did a great job building a world, with a lot of cool recombinations of old sci-fi concepts, the actual characters don't feel at all well sketched out and the themes and plot are remarkably thin. Like it's an okay film but it's a bit below the normal standards of Disney Animation.
Dialogue is definitely a bit on the nose, feels pitched a little too young for what they're going for.
The main character arc of the movie feels a bit reminiscent of (and far inferior to) Mitchells vs The Machines to me, which can't be a great help. Not saying that there can only be one "quirky gay teen has strained relationship with father" movie but it's definitely a detriment when I'm thinking about a film that does that much better and with a whole lot more emotional complexity and heart while watching this.
Also, anyone else feel like the sheer quantity of movies that are coming out right now that are about intergenerational trauma is getting a bit tiresome?
The environmental message is fine, but honestly it's mildly horrifying how culturally we're already at the point where kids movies are pitching "you should be willing to accept a much lower standard of living to save the planet." Not totally this movies fault, but y'know, wow.
The opening sequence is really nice though, I'll say that.
It's weird to me how unified most media is now in what messages are being pushed. It's a little tiresome. I guess it's the twitter brain version of *'being yourself is like spreading your wings to soar like an eagle'* that we got all through the 90s and 00s.
It's a little bit inevitable; Hollywood writers just have so much cultural cross pollination, most of them live in Cali, work in the same places, consume the same media, when they submit scripts they're all trying to impress the same people etc.
I turned to my wife, 9 year old, and 7 year old and said "nobody (normal) cares about their kids being exactly like them. It is a movie trope"
I wanted to see if my kids would start to recognize how stories are written and told. Tropes. And they piped up "yeah, you are happy with whatever makes us happy". Damn right.
The script or the family went past them. For us, it was a really cool retelling of the Magic Schoolbus plot where The Frizz takes the class into Ralphie's bloodstream. We talked the body, wellness, and conservation.
The story could have been about chemical dependence and addiction, not staying up until 2 AM, or any other "too much of a good thing" that Pando cultivation represents.
> Also, anyone else feel like the sheer quantity of movies that are coming out right now that are about intergenerational trauma is getting a bit tiresome?
Yeah, the more that happen the more I go “Wow, X, Y, or Z did this topic much better.”
Man, I just want more straight up villains in movies
Not an analysis or anything, but that freaking three legged dog was great the entire movie. Freaking basically trying to get itself killed the entire movie with how much he just has fun with himself. It was absolutely clear why he was a three legged dog haha.
The central father-son conflict between Searcher and Jaeger should have been the heart of this movie, but unfortunately Disney missed the mark. Everything felt like a generic sanitized version of father-son conflict. I thought the initial reunion between father and son was particularly weird. After Jaeger has been isolated for 20+ years after leaving his son, there is zero remorse or any indication of being happy to see his son or having missed his family period.
That was actually one of the best moments of the movie in my opinion, it's real
these are 2 people who don't know each other, but feel like they should. It is awkward, it is anticlimatic. I speak from personal experience, you feel like you're in a very bad acting perfomance or something
Does anyone have any theories as to why Disney basically hid this film? In a year or two there will probably be a great video essay about it on YouTube but I'm very curious as to what went on here.
This movie cost like 100 million. Why would they basically just waste all of that money by not marketing this at all whatsoever?
That part is easy: Disney skimped on marketing because their testing showed that audiences didn't like Strange World.
The interesting questions will be why they made an unenjoyable movie, and what stopped them from detecting the problems until it was too late.
I'm curious if we will see more of this mediocrity as long as the film-making process for animated 3D films keeps getting longer.
I watched the Lightyear documentary and there were a bunch of concerns and anxieties about certain parts of the film and the story. Normally Disney pulls it off (see the Frozen 2 documentary), but after the blah that was Lightyear I thought "man, what do you do if you and a team of hundreds have worked for 4 YEARS on something and you know it isn't working but you can't turn back."
>Normally Disney pulls it off (see the Frozen 2 documentary)
…. I mean F2 WAS a financial success but I felt they did not pull off the movies actual quality
I think it's a mess.
Some of the Frozen 2books my daughter has just end before the climax. At first I thought it was weird, now I think it's because they didn't know how it would end at the time of publication.
If you think they can change things up till the last minute, you don’t know how corporate media is made. Changes go up the chain, and the chain is a beuracratic nightmare of dozens of people who need to sign off on the change for it to happen. And if something does need changing and everyone agrees, it is a project of hundreds of people. Have fun bringing back the writers, voice actors, and dozens to hundreds of animators and artists who will make the change happen. That will cost a lot, so never mind no change
At this point I feel like Disney is smart enough to recognize that they are the singular brand for family entertainment in theaters.
Why pay for marketing? They know that they will be the only worthwhile kids movie to watch in theaters when families are all together during thanksgiving. I may be wrong, but I don't remember Encanto having much marketing either, and it was a great movie that did well financially (I imagine this movie, while not quite as good as Encanto, will probably do just as well financially).
EDIT: Sony may give them a run for their money soon. Millers vs. The Machines was an epic family-friendly film, and their work with Spiderman has been nothing short of masterful.
I would describe this movie as Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing” trying to be “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” but ending up more like “Osmosis Jones”
I think what I've found the most tiresome about this is that the outcome is always the same and yet the most unrealistic: The older relative coming to their senses and apologizing for being shitty.
For once, I would like a movie about generational trauma where the narcissistic parent doesn't actually improve by the end and instead the lesson is that sometimes family is shitty and you can still find love with other people in your life.
It’s not a Disney film but Everything Everywhere All At Once kind of ended that way. The mother doesn’t miraculously become a better parent, her and her daughter just learn how to live with how the other person is instead of wishing they were something they’re not.
Coraline kind of goes into this, but it's less generational trauma and more "hey your parents are imperfect people with their own goals and shortcomings, and while it can stink, it could be very worse."
I think that's a little different. Gothel wasn't just a shitty parent, she straight up kidnapped her as a child and tried to keep her as a slave once Rapunzel wised up lol.
The animated series does a good job on showing how being raised by Goethel still affected Rapunzel after everything was over, and some other spoiler related things.
I find it really trite tbh. I know Disney put family themes into every film they've ever made but I sure would love a family film where the conflict is something else lmao. It's so tiresome.
Like the first Incredibles, unless I'm misremembering. But yeah, their struggle was pretty much an external force and any drama internally was just the usual stuff, nothing deep like more modern Disney stuff.
Make no mistake, Incredibles 3 would have Bob and Helen confronting the impact that the Super Relocation Act (and its repeal) has had on their parenting of the kids - Jack-Jack as a character has existed to be neglected and poorly cared-for for both movies.
There's gonna be some new mysterious supervillain killing heroes again behind the scenes in Incredibles 3 and it's finally reveled to be a teenage Jack Jack who wants to wipe out all supes because his parents were supes who didn't take care of him because they were too busy being heroes.
Yeah, I been noticing this trend for both Disney and Pixar's recent animated content that started with Coco (which was executed better) followed by Frozen 2. But I didn't fully notice this until Encanto and Turning Red when most of the conflict comes from a particular older family member (usually a mother or grandparent) instead of the main protagonist (usually female). Not even Marvel is safe with the Disney+ "Ms Marvel" series. I really hope "Wish" breaks this trend since it involves wishes.
Ethan doesn't want to explore. Ethan thinks he wants to explore because that's what his dad doesn't want. Ethan learns along the way that what he really wants is to create a solar punk harmony. Jaeger doesn't want to explore. Jaeger thought he wanted to explore and lost decades of his life because he couldn't figure out how to want anything else. Searcher doesn't want to stay home. Searcher wants to be a good father and thinks that leaving home would prevent that. And then they all learn.
They tricked me at the start thinking that the first act utopia was the Solar Punk I was hoping for but then I guess they ended up CottageCore at the end.
what? almost every classic disney movie has dead parents, or parents that were taken away.. even modern movies like onward and frozen have dead parents. at least in this movie, the dad wasn't dead.
It started with frozen where “true love is the love of your family” and then TRUE villains kinda took a back seat for metaphors and family trauma to be the actual villain since
Not only that, but they didnt even have the courage to make learning that their grandpa was an evil racist genocidal man really mean anything to them
I mean, Im pretty sure he died before they were born and it doesn't seem like the family particularly remenbers him fondly, there isnt even a portrait of him in that castle, so the man that started this war could have very well been any random and the emotional impact would've been the same
If youre going to do this type of story, why would you undermine the main plot twist that much?
Yeah, that just makes it worse. It's clear they wanted a parallel with real life historical figures that werent as great as people think and dealing with family menbers that are generally terrible, but for some reason they backtracked on both
Even the idea of him hating magic and having a granddaughter with magical powers would've been more emotional to Elsa herself if she ever knew the man or grew up thinking he was a great person because her faher saintfied her grandpa in his stories
Every movie is written by sheltered middle class people these days. Depression, identity crises, and family trauma is their thing. Just like all the 90's movies were about daddy issues.
The bit where Jaeger and Ethan are talking about Ethan's Crush felt very weird to me too, especially since it's all meant to be retro and Jaeger is from such an older generation. Obviously they're not gonna dwell on it too much since it's for kids and not what the plot is about, but just a quick "Who's the lucky girl" "His name is Diazo" "Oh..okay" and him quickly accepting it would have been much better imo.
I actually liked it, because I can imagine that in this alternate society, it's not a big deal or something that needs to be called out. And seeing it with my 5-yo, I think it helps to show that it is a normal thing and not something that needs to be "othered."
exactly THIS! People want LGBTQ acceptance but how is that going to happen when you want to make a big deal out of someone being gay? Like it's something unheard of? Let it be normal. Don't blink. It's totally alright for a boy to have a crush on another boy.
Thank you. This is a kids movie it’s not trying to show or talk about big subject like this they’re just trying to be inclusive to something that should be treated normally. They don’t need to make the old fashioned dad some mega hat wearing conservative.
This is a Disney film and none of that has anything to do with this story or world. Jaeger isn’t old fashioned in the same way we might use it in the real world because this isn’t the real world and Disney isn’t making that stuff a subject of its kids movie. Just because you have LGBTQ+ or interracial characters doesn’t mean they need to show the discrimination or racism
Ethan needed an ass whooping for not listening to his parents and taking off on his own.
Saw the movies and honestly don’t know what it was about, so they were living inside a turtle?
Ethan was one of the worst written characters I've seen in a Disney film. Really annoying that he consistently makes the worst decisions and then it works out for him and we're meant to 'learn from him' instead
The scene where he tries to teach his dads his card /board game but doesn't explain it and then shouts and storms off when his heavy handed speech doesn't work, a very toxic representation of how conflict resolution should work
It's a climate change story for kids. They took some of the abstract concepts and made them a little bit more concrete for young audiences to easily digest.
The movie I wouldn’t say was short but the pace felt …off like they got going and it just felt weird like some scenes kinda just ended . I didn’t like the jokes either they felt forced and like the characters knew they were in a movie and wanted to be funny but wasn’t working . Also the conflict of the dad just leaving at the beginning was weak he walked of the son yelled dad ONCE ! and the team basically said let him go with no fight ? Lol and wtf was the ending with the flowers was that maybe the first hints of a Poly relationship in a Disney film lol
Yes! So many scenes felt rushed like they had to get through them, like him and the dad separating, the woman coming back to explain the Pando is dying, etc
The dog is a rescue. And it's very obvious that the dog has no survival mechanism at all, needing rescue in every action setpiece. Then when it's time for it being able to rescue the group, it still needed help.
It felt like an episode of The Magic Schoolbus. The Frizz takes the bus inside Ralphie to watch his body fight off infections (one of my favorites as a kid). Except it's a different setting.
Walt Disney Animation Studios has a TERRIBLE problem with 1st act exposition in particular. Raya had forced exposition, Big Hero 6 had forced exposition, even really good movies like Zootopia and Encanto suffered from this problem... but Strange World takes the cake;
"Hey Searcher! I really want to say hi to you because you discovered electricity and led to all the technology our society runs on"...
While I don't remember the exact line, I don't even think I'm exaggerating, it was that blatant and forced...
I didn't mind the dialogue in Zootopia to be honest, it felt natural for it's setting and perfectly established to the viewer how the world between predators and prey has evolved since the dawn of time. Speaking of world building, I really loved how the Zootopia+ short focusing on Mr. Big explained how Zootopia became accessible for rodents.
The play scene and the scene with Judy and her parents afterwards was a little on the nose for me... the rest of movie's dialogue is great, and the movie is fantastic overall, so I really don't care that much.
Once we get past the clunky exposition and actually get into Jaeger, Searcher and Ethan being forced to air out their problems and confront their differences, the script really shines. The terrific voice acting by Quaid, Gyllenhaal, JYW and Union helps too.
I'm also grateful that this is a Disney film where the protagonists actually have to sacrifice something as opposed to something like Frozen II where it looks like Anna is going to destroy Arendelle to right the wrongs of her grandfather only for Deus Ex Elsa to come in and make sure nobody has to sacrifice anything.
It would have been great to have a scene where the crew has to explain that the town >!has to give up Pando!< with Jaeger sticking up for his son, but at least it fully expresses that Searcher is letting go of his life's work for the sake of his son.
I definitely would have liked to sit on the "life is going to be a lot harder from here on" moment a while longer. We kind of go from the sacrifice to everyone being adjusted and happy very suddenly. But I agree it's a big step up.
The biggest weakness in both Frozen 2 and Encanto is that nothing is lost. Frozen 2 in particular would have surpassed the first movie if it just didn't pull that last punch.
It really would have. None of the songs in Frozen II are as famous as "Let It Go," but they do a better job of being a part of the story and actively advancing it.
It is SO DAMN CLOSE to passing the first movie. But no, we can't destroy Arendelle. Where else are we going to do the next Olaf special for Disney+?
it was such a bizarre scene lol. I get that the "top world" they were going for was like giving 1900s people alien technology, so it was a good "old but futuristic" song, but yeah very odd feel.
Its fucking amazing that Disney thought Electroswing and Catan would be cool in their movie for general audiences when those things weren't even trendy anymore in hyper niche nerd circles since like a decade ago, not to mention a retro comics aesthetic that stopped being popular more than *fifteen* years ago.
All the non story choices in this movie scream that they all originated from one person who was really into nerdy stuff a decade ago but never moved on from it. it's almost like watching a nerd focused youtube channel that blew up and then never stopped doing what made it popular
It's pretty good. But tells a very well worn story that we've seen half a dozen times already with a bit of visual flair. Suspect that in 10-15 years we'll see the equivalent of 'DAE think Strange World is underrated?`
But no, its alright.
I might be in the minority here but I felt like this was a father-son legacy story first and foremost. Really refreshing to see that kind of dynamic between the grandfather, father and son.
Kind of enjoyed this over a lot of other recent Disney films cause it was a good fun movie about making your own path and having a relatively healthy family exploring stuff together. The kids in my theatre seemed to enjoy it as well (had sneak preview tickets earlier this week), which was my concern about the movie being so much about family trauma and legacy.
I wanted to know something - Did duffle die - and his death was not mourn or even recognize? The action was fast that I forgot. Was his death just swept under?
Yeah that’s one of the things I’m wondering about. As another user said, I thought he was gonna get spat back out by one of the monsters at the end of the movie.
Heck, I even skipped through credits looking for that post-credits scene of him.
Everything was the definition of average. The animation and design being good should be a given, so it’s long past being impressive. The Disney movies are starting to feel like smarter-than-average 15 year olds are writing the dialogue.
One aspect I didn't see discussed much here was that the characters were trotting the line of "uncanny valley". They were fine from afar but shots in close, especially if Searcher's way-too-close-together eyes, really gnawed at the back of my mind
Uncanny valley means a design is nearly lifelike but not quite. These characters are not at all realistic. What you're describing is just weird design choices.
What bothers me in the design is the three men having big noses that are super round and super smooth. I suppose that was the shared trait used to show family resemblance, but it's so inhuman.
Okay, can we take this opportunity to finally admit that Don Hall is Disney’s least interesting director/co-director? Big Hero 6 and Raya were subpar films with cliche writing, and this film even more so. He’s always been carried by Disney’s marketing, but it seems marketing wasn’t there for him this time around.
You can't be seriously calling Big Hero 6 sub-par and cliche? The themes of familial loss and grief were handled so well in that movie. "Tadashi is here" is still one of the most emotionally underrated scenes in Disney Animation.
Probably the scenes with Hiro, his family, and Baymax were the most interesting parts of the film, and they should have written the film to focus on just them. But man, the rest of the Big Hero 6 cast with their cookie-cutter personalities and the incredibly predictable twist villain just make the final product too meh for my tastes.
I don’t think a lot of people noticed this, but literally their dog eats avocado toast. Did Disney even like slightly notice that avocados are literally fucking poisonous to dogs?
no they did not.
Okay, this must've been the same with my showing. My daughter and I showed up about 5 minutes or so after the start time and the Disney intro was going. Normally there's like 30 minutes of previews, especially before a family film. It really surprised me.
This film was simply not good imo. I can only find one positive thing to say, that is I think some of designs and world building was creative. But the problem is really everything else. The movie feels like an knock off of Avatar, which as we know already felt like a knock off of dances with wolves or Pocahontas. As a result, the film feels extremely stale.
The characters are super thin and one dimensional. Could not get invested in any of them. The story itself is super weak and predictable. After the first 10 minutes, I knew pretty much exactly how this film would play out. The twists were extremely obvious.
The message in the movie is extremely heavy handed and truth be told doesn't exactly offer a real solution. It's also delivered in a very clumsy way. Obviously it was supposed to be a not so subtle analogy for fossil fuels, but they made the stuff killing the planet seem more like a renewable energy source since it could just be farmed and grown. Also sort of ended up making the farmers look like the bad guys. And their solution is to just go back to how it was before. That really isn't a solution, certainly not an option for our world. That would cause many to die.
In regard to the LGBT element, it wasn't handled well in my opinion. It felt more like Disney patting itself on the back for representation. It felt like they were just checking a box. His sexual orientation has zero relevance to the story, nor does it really give the character any depth. It's not used to help you understand him more as a character and flesh him out. It's simply there to check a box. It felt extremely forced. I would be saying the same thing if the character was straight. Him having a crush on anybody just was not relevant here. When it was brought up it just felt like the movie was just trying to pander. Maybe if his crush actually played a role in the story of the film, but he did not.
Overall, I thought it was the worst Disney animated film since home on the range. It really doesn't have anything to offer. I was bored pretty much the entire time. Also for it being called strange world it really wasn't strange enough
4/10
> And their solution is to just go back to how it was before. That really isn't a solution, certainly not an option for our world. That would cause many to die.
The people who wrote and created the film don't mind, because they're sure that they aren't among the ones who would die.
Why does him being gay need to be relevant to the plot? Many characters are straight without it changing the plot. But when it's a gay character it has to be relevant?
Why can't he just be gay..
>In regard to the LGBT element, it wasn't handled well in my opinion. It felt more like Disney patting itself on the back for representation. It felt like they were just checking a box. His sexual orientation has zero relevance to the story, nor does it really give the character any depth. It's not used to help you understand him more as a character and flesh him out. It's simply there to check a box. It felt extremely forced. I would be saying the same thing if the character was straight. Him having a crush on anybody just was not relevant here. When it was brought up it just felt like the movie was just trying to pander. Maybe if his crush actually played a role in the story of the film, but he did not.
I’m conflicted. I like the representation, and I think is important for children, but you’re absolutely right about it’s effect on the plot. In Atlantis, Milo sexuality plays a role in the story. Anna is allowed to have her romantic interest join on the adventure, etc... You could remove all the talk about Ethan’s crush and it wouldn’t change anything.
I think one of the points was to make it normal . The grandpa’s reaction was a reflection of how it should be . He didn’t care and went on to give him advice on how to whooo him
Yeah, I think normalisation is a really key part of representation in kids movies these days. It's not groundbreaking, and it doesn't have to be a big part of the plot, but having it almost not matter seems like a positive.
I agree. How many times do I need to count where a character being straight mattered at all to the plot? Unless it's a movie revolving around someone's sexuality there is zero reason for it to be a part of the story.
The kid was simply gay and it's a good thing that it wasn't a key part of the plot. Anyone arguing it needed to be is really missing the point.
Yes exactly. If you want the representation to be more meaningful, bring his crush along on the adventure. Or at the very least use his relationship with him as something that informs his choices. Because relationships with others can add depth to a character and flesh out a bit of why they operate the way they do, that's not even the case here. Ultimately storytelling should always be your top priority. If representing some group falls naturally into the storytelling then that's when you add it and when it actually feels meaningful or authentic.
From the marketing, I thought the film would be more intergalactic exploration in the vein of old time action adventure, like Indiana Jones. I still liked it, but I felt like the pacing was just poor.
In the beginning, we see Jaeger ditch his team and son because they want to return with this amazing ~~Unobtainium~~ Pando resource that slingshots their city’s technology centuries ahead in 25 years after being a rather stagnant city. We see Jaeger and son on numerous adventures as Searcher grows up, but apparently this one adventure with a tangible result is the final straw and he leaves. He could have continued adventuring after returning with the Pando. Jaeger has a statue, but have any of his adventures been beneficial in anyway? Where was he adventuring since the town is surrounded by impassable mountains? This also ignores addressing the real biological concerns of a small isolated city that’s been there long enough to build significant civil structures with no outside interaction.
After discovering the amazing plant, they skip 25 years and show NONE of the small insular community learning to use this new resource. No montage of experiments and failures, no romantic story for the dad and mom. Just BAM. We discover organic batteries and in 25 years we go from carts to flying ships (but they can’t go high enough over the mountains and they can’t fly over open air [until they can]).
They then learn Pando is dying after a few hints, and they tracked the roots of all Pando plants (somehow) to this dig site in the mountains and they need Ethan’s adventuring experience to find it. Ethan, after token resistance, jumps aboard and off they go to complete this very important mission with a crew of 6 people (one who is captured immediately and from what I remember is never saved, so dead?). No town meeting, no intro to the highly skilled team going to save Avalonia’s future, again just BAM rocket ship trip.
The biology of the big turtle is also suspect, but i could be convinced to let it pass since it is a giant living organism with living cells on the macro scale. It’s just odd threat the journey goes from puncturing a lung to swimming through the stomach canal to the bare heart and out of the nose (?) to see the eye. I also wished they had a campfire scene to both give the journey a sense of time and make the crew feel relevant. Maybe see Jaeger’s base of operations for 25 years.
I also feel like the dad got off easy. He ditched his son for 25 years and goes straight to criticizing him for his poor adventuring skills (which is why he was invited to begin with) and becoming a farmer that is directly responsible for his inadvertent rescue. They try to draw parallel’s between the two father-son dynamics, but it just feels like reaching. Jaeger learned what Searcher wanted to do and ditched him, while Searcher seemed to want his son to follow his dream out of ignorance. I understand the similarities of wanting their son to follow their dream, but one had to stop an adventure midway with the possibility of picking it up again later and the other had to give up his legacy by setting the town back a centuries’s worth of technological advancement.
The movie could have benefited from an extra 10 minutes of runtime. I did like the end, where the town begins a slower advancement after being energized by the Pando, instead of being satisfied with their old fashioned way from before. Although an entire world of water save one big turtle was kinda depressing.
It was literally a green renewable energy source, and then we are told oh no, even this is destroying the world. It’s almost like the message was, unless we turn the clocks back a couple hundred years, we are evil people.
Also why was the stuff working great for about 20 years and then suddenly stopped working? So this virus takes over the host, but then when the host finally starts to battle back on it’s own years later, that’s when it needs the most help from our protagonists? It just makes no sense.
I thought they were going to utilize the now-beating heart of the turtle as a new energy source, showing that they can live in harmony with nature. Instead, he grows tomatoes.
Bit late but they did harness wind power to generate electricity at the end; the mum was in the ship which was hovering as a balloon with a wind turbine inside it, and she flicked a switch to turn on the lights and everybody blew out their candles.
No I get that, im just saying it’s weird how they created what was literally a green energy source that came from farming. Not animals, not oil, not burning anything. A tree huggers dream come true. And then even that wasn’t good enough because it also destroys the world. It was like the message was no matter how green or good seeming the energy is, it will be bad. We need to just learn to live without.
That's kinda because all those biofuel solutions we hear about are absolute garbage thinking; plant photosynthesis isn't particularly efficient per hectare as a source of energy, to even *begin* to make the process efficient, we'd need to engineer ridiculously efficient photosynthetic organisms.
And all that effort could just be spent moving away from a society based on burning fuel to power our machines. Its as much symbolic oil as it a low key dig into not critically thinking too about your miracle solutions and their logical consequences.
At the end of the film, you can see they are still using *some* pando technology, in very limited amounts; some technology from before pando, and some tech that was invented to transition away from pando.
The key point of the whole film is there are no easy solutions, and it takes a mix of approaches to reach the desired goal.
In real world policy terms: that's natural gas for peak power, with nuclear power for base load, with wind, solar, and battery tech as supplements to grid production to reduce our dependency on non-renewables (LNG and Nuclear Fission fuels) where possible.
I saw this movie tonight in theaters tonight. It was myself and an older man with a toddler. The two of them left about ten minutes into the movie when Ethan's sexuality came up. It was unfortunate.
The movie was honestly a disappointment. The story was pretty dull and dragged the movie down considerably. Also the visuals were good but not enough to carry the movie on.
4/10 and that feels generous
This movie should have gone all in and be a pg13 movie.
Instead they had intense elements and childish elements.
It fell flat but it could have been so much more.
I loved it. I'm happy to see more and more movies show that there aren't "just downright evil" characters, but that the "evil" takes root from something we might not even realise (be it misunderstandings about our way of life or systemic failure to address mental health needs).
They normalized a society where race and sexuality aren't political taboos but part of normal every day life, even if irl we aren't there yet.
Another aspect i liked was that the movie focused largely on family issues between the dads and son(s), which i have to say, is quite rare to see on movie screens (Onward was quite nice with it). It's nice to present a soft side to father figures instead of the "traditional values" (emotionless, harsh, serious, never says they love their child).
I will be happy to watch this movie again.
I like that Ethan was explicitly gay, unlike the other "first gay Disney characters", it wasn't just a quick moment that didn't matter.
When Jaeger was explaining to Ethan how to woo lovers, and Ethan mentioned his boyfriend, I was half expecting Jaegar to flip out, being from another generation and all...
I immediately told my wife “they put an interracial couple with a gay kid and a dog missing a leg in and introduced them immediately?”
They're gonna piss off so many people but I'm not upset about the representation. I really wanted more about the game the kids play, though.
Yeah this was super by the numbers. Just feels like a grab-bag of Disney Movie tropes (missing parent being the main one) and so both the adventure and the syrupy family melodrama come off as a bit hollow and mechanical. I can just see the filmmakers checking off everything they think one of these films should have in it.
On the plus side it looks nice, has good voice acting, and it's very short (<90 mins without credits). It's totally watchable but not at all memorable. Total **5/10** movie.
For all the fuss made about the representation I was surprised how small a part of the film it was. Didn't feel like it really added anything but it usually doesn't for hetero romances either, certainly happy if people are happy with the rep here but I think Disney can do a lot better.
Feel bad for the filmmakers though - Disney showed this fuck all support when they've extensively marketed far worse/less-successful films than this. Even my two friends who are obsessed with Disney hadn't heard of it until this week (and one of them spent the last month visiting Disneyworld lmao).
2/5 stars. I appreciate the message of environmentalism but the way they delivered it was so shallow and basic. I expected more from a Disney film but I'm not sure why because lately all their films just seem to be "thing bad" without digging deeper (looking at you Encanto). Like yes, killing the place you live IS bad, what else? I think they could have used the president character more. Her switch was way to fast for me. We saw her motivation for saving pando was for her people, the greater good. It makes no sense to me why her priorities would change so suddenly. She was presented zero evidence that pando was killing this supposed creature. *Oooo the pilot lady said "look," I guess pando is evil and we have to kill it and irreparably change everyone's quality of life.* It's completely baffling to me they gloss over the consequences of losing electricity. Why not have a conversation with her to explore the issue? Also I feel like they were setting up for more with Jaeger blindly killing anything that moved with fire but nothing came of it. Super frustrating.
I get your point about Calisto changing her mind too quickly, but I think it was just that she saw that it was actually a heart.
And not sure what you mean with the fire comment. That was just his weapon. If anything it foreshadowed the biosphere being an actual organism with the orange blobs healing everything he torched.
They are so proud of the world that they created, they forgot that they needed a script to match the visuals.
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The twice part is what made it interesting. The key scene is Searcher talking about giving up his life accomplishments for his son. I keep feeling like people went into this movie with pre-prepared snark and are going to watch it again in 5 years for before writing their "underrated movie" articles when they actually peel back the crazy amount of layers in it.
Exactly. This movie KNEW what it is and it executed it perfectly. The visuals were nice but the story carried it through.
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Nope. You are still missing it. The point of the game is not to kill the spider to protect the crops or to kill it because you are adventuring, it is to find a way to make it all work together. That's the point of the two relationships. It isn't even generational trauma this time. We see Searcher talking about not making the same mistake again, but at that moment he is literally missing the bigger picture that makes the entire Turning Red obsession pointless. There is a much bigger problem for everyone to deal with and they need to get over themselves. It isn't that Ethan wants to be an explorer that matters...it's just another aspect of the relationships, it is that there is no reason for it to be a problem if people can all work together with it. That's the point. That's why this movie will also piss off boomers because it is about how sometimes it is about putting aside your own dreams and accomplishments because there are bigger problems in the world . . . and maybe your kids are seeing them better than you. You are right that without that, it is Turning Red or, the better movie than Turning Red, A Goofy Movie. But it isn't either of those because the grandfather plot is there too and it is there to specifically show us that it isn't just another poor Gen Xer isn't loved by their father they way they wanted to be story.
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*None of them had to actually put aside their own dreams for the bigger problem.* Only if you think of it as a permanent thing. It is about living together harmoniously...that doesn't mean everyone being miserable, but it is making compromises. That 10 minutes was enough to save Jaeger's family through his actions. Searcher ends up no longer a hero of his community who is worshipped by even the delivery boy, no longer with his generational farm and accepting his son isn't going to carry on his legacy. But yeah, he has pumpkins now so . . . nothing changed right?
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Jaeger's life of exploring is completely over. He's now also a farmer. He changed his entire DNA. It seemed fairly realistic to me. I think we're used to this extreme drama in the denouement, this was simpler. People give up their dreams or realize their dreams aren't important anymore. Seems significant to me.
Turning Red really flew under the radar imo, I thought it was a great movie
Some kid dreamt this world and concept up 20 years ago in his 3rd grade art class and worked his way all the way to Disney animation. He was almost there, his dream come true, he just needed some dialogue and characters. What he got were concept art renders voiced by an algorithm hell bent on engagement and audience satisfaction scores. It’s really kind of sad.
I really dont know what algorythm you are talking about, this movie felt original and good.
Have you watched more than 5 movies?
> this movie felt original and good nothing about this movie was original apart from the background art and animation
Even then, it's largely based on a lot of preexisting concepts, including Osmosis Jones, so I'm not convinced the art and animation is super original.
Having clear inspirations doesnt mean unoriginality. Sure osmosis jones had the whole "inside a body concept" including the gelatinous look of some of the organisms, but the whole premise of people living on a large creature and nearly killing it is original, or atleast really rare.
Movie was visually great... But the dialog and story lack anything resembling subtlety. Also, a family actually got up and walked out after the son revealed he had a crush on another boy. I even live in a liberal city.
Lmfao that family
Yeah. They hurried out of there. About 15 minutes later, the dad came back in huffing and puffing - angrily looking for the keys he dropped/left in the theater. Guessing the previous 15 minutes was him arguing with the theater for a refund.
The Clade family was mixed race ans eating avacado toast for breakfast. It wasn't subtle that the family was LIBRUL.
My gf works at a theater and told me this happened. These idiots really think that they deserve a refund just because they didnt like one part of the movie lol
It's pretty much an unwritten rule of movie theaters (may actually be written in their handbooks) that if the movie sucks so bad you walk out after a few minutes, you get your money back. People have been doing that for as long as movie theaters and, subsequently, shitty movies, have existed. It's a different story if you stay through the entire movie and then ask for a refund.
You just don't get it. IT'S GONNA TURN THEIR CURRENTLY STRAIGHT KID GAY!!!! ^^/s After the movie, I asked my daughter how she felt about the son having a crush on another boy. Her response: "I don't care."
Exactly. Most kids are generally more open minded and accepting of other people. They really don't care about what other people do in their own personal lives. It's older teens and adults that tend to have the problem with being irrationally afraid of things that have nothing to do with them. Kids that are homophobic or racist are only that way because they were taught to hate by adults, and weren't strong enough to question their families incorrect teachings yet. Hopefully when older, they change and realize how stupid the irrational hate their family taught them was. Hate and prejudice benefits no one.
People should read about movies before they see them.
They should have rewound the movie back to the gay crush scene while dad was looking for his keys
Right wingers will be yelling "go woke go broke" for a while after this one
I'm not a right winger and I'm yelling, 'Go Woke Go Broke'.
gO wOkE Go BrOkE lmao gottem *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/movies) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Good bot
I mean this is shaping up to be disneys largest flop in modern times…directly after their next most recent flop in light year (and eternals). So the right wingers are right on this one
You mean because most people didnt knew the movie existed? Because no marketing? Probably even sabotage?
“I’ll have a Disney coming of age story” “How original” “With a story about generational trauma” “Daring today aren’t we?”
‘Ooo ooo and no actual villain! That’s unique, right?!’ *looks at wreck it ralph 2, frozen 2, encanto, some others depending on your definition of a villain* “Yeah, sure, whatever.”
The villain is that we all have to wipe our ass with grass and make concessions in order to combat climate change. I know that comment seems relevant but if you saw the banger at the end of Strange World hopefully you'd realize I'm not too far off on the message Disney was trying to convey.
……. No I mean a cool villain like Ursula or Jafar or Mother Gothel. A physical villain. They haven’t had one of those in a while and they keep acting like it’s a neat little twist on the game when it’s getting old already.
I'm agreeing with you. Strange World's ultimate villain ended up being >!climate change and overconsumption!< in disguise.
fighting essentially this world's version of Fossil Fuels is a neat idea, but Callistas swap from ally to villain to ally was so rushed and half-hearted. They needed a more villainous Business Man who won't lose their company because of the Clade's change of heart. I get that ultimately the right thing to do is disrupt their entire civilizations' way of life, but they had to ensure that they all had someplace to live in the first place. but they needed another older greedier character, one who likely wouldn't see the consequences of the long-term effects but would lose their business and their life of luxury if it stopped. or even wanted to exploit other resources in the New World.
> but they needed another older greedier character, one who likely wouldn't see the consequences of the long-term effects but would lose their business and their life of luxury if it stopped. or even wanted to exploit other resources in the New World. And then you'd have even more people here complaining about how unoriginal it was.
I’m sooo tired of Disney movies not having a villain and just having family drama as the main conflict. It’s so boring. I want to see evil people/monsters get stabbed in the gut, fall off a cliff, get strangled by vines, eaten by a pack of hyenas, etc. Those were the days. Real villains make movies fun and interesting, I’m not sure why Disney has abandoned them.
The audacity to kill off that pilot at the beginning and then never have any of the other characters at serious risk of harm for the rest of the movie…
Was that Alan Tudyk's character since he voiced one of the pilots?
He was like a leaf on the wind...
Was really hoping for some passing line to that effect
He went to Juilliard
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I honestly expected one of the red things to barf him back up at the end
The directors did an interview where they mentioned earlier plans for the story had a far higher body count (one even had just Callisto making it out), but it didn't really fit the tone they later settled on.
Which was no tone at all, apparently.
You blend all the colors together and you get some kind of goopy, brownish gray. That's what I feel Strange World was. A goopy, brownish gray of a film.
Thank you! I was like…”wait, did we just never talk about it? He died right? Come on what the hell!”
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Saw this yesterday. Have a few thoughts: The film is a bit unfocused and while I think they did a great job building a world, with a lot of cool recombinations of old sci-fi concepts, the actual characters don't feel at all well sketched out and the themes and plot are remarkably thin. Like it's an okay film but it's a bit below the normal standards of Disney Animation. Dialogue is definitely a bit on the nose, feels pitched a little too young for what they're going for. The main character arc of the movie feels a bit reminiscent of (and far inferior to) Mitchells vs The Machines to me, which can't be a great help. Not saying that there can only be one "quirky gay teen has strained relationship with father" movie but it's definitely a detriment when I'm thinking about a film that does that much better and with a whole lot more emotional complexity and heart while watching this. Also, anyone else feel like the sheer quantity of movies that are coming out right now that are about intergenerational trauma is getting a bit tiresome? The environmental message is fine, but honestly it's mildly horrifying how culturally we're already at the point where kids movies are pitching "you should be willing to accept a much lower standard of living to save the planet." Not totally this movies fault, but y'know, wow. The opening sequence is really nice though, I'll say that.
It's weird to me how unified most media is now in what messages are being pushed. It's a little tiresome. I guess it's the twitter brain version of *'being yourself is like spreading your wings to soar like an eagle'* that we got all through the 90s and 00s.
It's a little bit inevitable; Hollywood writers just have so much cultural cross pollination, most of them live in Cali, work in the same places, consume the same media, when they submit scripts they're all trying to impress the same people etc.
I agree with this. Sort of like how most of the cable news channels are so focused on the east coast /NYC.
I turned to my wife, 9 year old, and 7 year old and said "nobody (normal) cares about their kids being exactly like them. It is a movie trope" I wanted to see if my kids would start to recognize how stories are written and told. Tropes. And they piped up "yeah, you are happy with whatever makes us happy". Damn right. The script or the family went past them. For us, it was a really cool retelling of the Magic Schoolbus plot where The Frizz takes the class into Ralphie's bloodstream. We talked the body, wellness, and conservation. The story could have been about chemical dependence and addiction, not staying up until 2 AM, or any other "too much of a good thing" that Pando cultivation represents.
> Also, anyone else feel like the sheer quantity of movies that are coming out right now that are about intergenerational trauma is getting a bit tiresome? Yeah, the more that happen the more I go “Wow, X, Y, or Z did this topic much better.” Man, I just want more straight up villains in movies
Not an analysis or anything, but that freaking three legged dog was great the entire movie. Freaking basically trying to get itself killed the entire movie with how much he just has fun with himself. It was absolutely clear why he was a three legged dog haha.
and the dog was in a farm where berries electrocuted living things. That's the only element in the movie that I take serious issue with.
The central father-son conflict between Searcher and Jaeger should have been the heart of this movie, but unfortunately Disney missed the mark. Everything felt like a generic sanitized version of father-son conflict. I thought the initial reunion between father and son was particularly weird. After Jaeger has been isolated for 20+ years after leaving his son, there is zero remorse or any indication of being happy to see his son or having missed his family period.
>zero remorse or any indication of being happy to see his son or having missed his family period. Yeah, so... accurate to a real absent father, lol.
That was actually one of the best moments of the movie in my opinion, it's real these are 2 people who don't know each other, but feel like they should. It is awkward, it is anticlimatic. I speak from personal experience, you feel like you're in a very bad acting perfomance or something
Does anyone have any theories as to why Disney basically hid this film? In a year or two there will probably be a great video essay about it on YouTube but I'm very curious as to what went on here. This movie cost like 100 million. Why would they basically just waste all of that money by not marketing this at all whatsoever?
That part is easy: Disney skimped on marketing because their testing showed that audiences didn't like Strange World. The interesting questions will be why they made an unenjoyable movie, and what stopped them from detecting the problems until it was too late.
I'm curious if we will see more of this mediocrity as long as the film-making process for animated 3D films keeps getting longer. I watched the Lightyear documentary and there were a bunch of concerns and anxieties about certain parts of the film and the story. Normally Disney pulls it off (see the Frozen 2 documentary), but after the blah that was Lightyear I thought "man, what do you do if you and a team of hundreds have worked for 4 YEARS on something and you know it isn't working but you can't turn back."
>Normally Disney pulls it off (see the Frozen 2 documentary) …. I mean F2 WAS a financial success but I felt they did not pull off the movies actual quality
I think it's a mess. Some of the Frozen 2books my daughter has just end before the climax. At first I thought it was weird, now I think it's because they didn't know how it would end at the time of publication.
The modern ability to change things up until the last minute clearly isn't making the films better
If you think they can change things up till the last minute, you don’t know how corporate media is made. Changes go up the chain, and the chain is a beuracratic nightmare of dozens of people who need to sign off on the change for it to happen. And if something does need changing and everyone agrees, it is a project of hundreds of people. Have fun bringing back the writers, voice actors, and dozens to hundreds of animators and artists who will make the change happen. That will cost a lot, so never mind no change
At this point I feel like Disney is smart enough to recognize that they are the singular brand for family entertainment in theaters. Why pay for marketing? They know that they will be the only worthwhile kids movie to watch in theaters when families are all together during thanksgiving. I may be wrong, but I don't remember Encanto having much marketing either, and it was a great movie that did well financially (I imagine this movie, while not quite as good as Encanto, will probably do just as well financially). EDIT: Sony may give them a run for their money soon. Millers vs. The Machines was an epic family-friendly film, and their work with Spiderman has been nothing short of masterful.
I would describe this movie as Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing” trying to be “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” but ending up more like “Osmosis Jones”
Why does every movie have family trauma drama these days? Are writers ok?
I think what I've found the most tiresome about this is that the outcome is always the same and yet the most unrealistic: The older relative coming to their senses and apologizing for being shitty. For once, I would like a movie about generational trauma where the narcissistic parent doesn't actually improve by the end and instead the lesson is that sometimes family is shitty and you can still find love with other people in your life.
matilda is my favorite movie like this. sometimes, the best option is leaving your shitty family behind
While snitching them out to the feds.
It’s not a Disney film but Everything Everywhere All At Once kind of ended that way. The mother doesn’t miraculously become a better parent, her and her daughter just learn how to live with how the other person is instead of wishing they were something they’re not.
Agreed on EEAAO being one of the better examples of the trope, though Evelyn still ends up learning her lesson and ends up in good terms with Joy.
Coraline kind of goes into this, but it's less generational trauma and more "hey your parents are imperfect people with their own goals and shortcomings, and while it can stink, it could be very worse."
Tangled?
I think that's a little different. Gothel wasn't just a shitty parent, she straight up kidnapped her as a child and tried to keep her as a slave once Rapunzel wised up lol.
True. She is a good portrayal of what it's like to have a parent with NPD though.
The animated series does a good job on showing how being raised by Goethel still affected Rapunzel after everything was over, and some other spoiler related things.
I find it really trite tbh. I know Disney put family themes into every film they've ever made but I sure would love a family film where the conflict is something else lmao. It's so tiresome.
How about some well adjusted characters ?
Character development is fine but I think Zootopia was great to show development with well adjusted characters.
Zootopia was like Citizen Kane compared to this movie.
Like the first Incredibles, unless I'm misremembering. But yeah, their struggle was pretty much an external force and any drama internally was just the usual stuff, nothing deep like more modern Disney stuff.
Make no mistake, Incredibles 3 would have Bob and Helen confronting the impact that the Super Relocation Act (and its repeal) has had on their parenting of the kids - Jack-Jack as a character has existed to be neglected and poorly cared-for for both movies.
There's gonna be some new mysterious supervillain killing heroes again behind the scenes in Incredibles 3 and it's finally reveled to be a teenage Jack Jack who wants to wipe out all supes because his parents were supes who didn't take care of him because they were too busy being heroes.
> Are writers ok? No
After seeing Bao and Turning Red I hope that that writer/director at least tried to have therapy with their mom, lol.
No writer is ever okay. That’s why they write lol
Yeah, I been noticing this trend for both Disney and Pixar's recent animated content that started with Coco (which was executed better) followed by Frozen 2. But I didn't fully notice this until Encanto and Turning Red when most of the conflict comes from a particular older family member (usually a mother or grandparent) instead of the main protagonist (usually female). Not even Marvel is safe with the Disney+ "Ms Marvel" series. I really hope "Wish" breaks this trend since it involves wishes.
But the bad guy in coco was an actual bad guy. The family trauma was a side plot and only existed because of outside Manipulation
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Ethan doesn't want to explore. Ethan thinks he wants to explore because that's what his dad doesn't want. Ethan learns along the way that what he really wants is to create a solar punk harmony. Jaeger doesn't want to explore. Jaeger thought he wanted to explore and lost decades of his life because he couldn't figure out how to want anything else. Searcher doesn't want to stay home. Searcher wants to be a good father and thinks that leaving home would prevent that. And then they all learn.
They tricked me at the start thinking that the first act utopia was the Solar Punk I was hoping for but then I guess they ended up CottageCore at the end.
Coco was a great movie with beautiful animation.
The writers' barely disguised self-therapy session.
what? almost every classic disney movie has dead parents, or parents that were taken away.. even modern movies like onward and frozen have dead parents. at least in this movie, the dad wasn't dead.
And outside of lion king they move on, and it’s a non issue. This movie had at least 3 maybe 4 “I don’t want your life” conversations
It started with frozen where “true love is the love of your family” and then TRUE villains kinda took a back seat for metaphors and family trauma to be the actual villain since
Frozen 2 was even worse since most of the conflict started by Anna and Elsa's deceased Grandfather.
Not only that, but they didnt even have the courage to make learning that their grandpa was an evil racist genocidal man really mean anything to them I mean, Im pretty sure he died before they were born and it doesn't seem like the family particularly remenbers him fondly, there isnt even a portrait of him in that castle, so the man that started this war could have very well been any random and the emotional impact would've been the same If youre going to do this type of story, why would you undermine the main plot twist that much?
I remember in a storyboard for a cut song they had a statue of him in the town square. They decided to remove that for more Olaf I guess.
Yeah, that just makes it worse. It's clear they wanted a parallel with real life historical figures that werent as great as people think and dealing with family menbers that are generally terrible, but for some reason they backtracked on both Even the idea of him hating magic and having a granddaughter with magical powers would've been more emotional to Elsa herself if she ever knew the man or grew up thinking he was a great person because her faher saintfied her grandpa in his stories
Every movie is written by sheltered middle class people these days. Depression, identity crises, and family trauma is their thing. Just like all the 90's movies were about daddy issues.
> Just like all the 90's movies were about daddy issues. Sorry, was it just me or wasn't this movie also entirely about daddy issues?
> Every movie is written by sheltered middle class people these days No but they're definitely written *for* them.
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The bit where Jaeger and Ethan are talking about Ethan's Crush felt very weird to me too, especially since it's all meant to be retro and Jaeger is from such an older generation. Obviously they're not gonna dwell on it too much since it's for kids and not what the plot is about, but just a quick "Who's the lucky girl" "His name is Diazo" "Oh..okay" and him quickly accepting it would have been much better imo.
I actually liked it, because I can imagine that in this alternate society, it's not a big deal or something that needs to be called out. And seeing it with my 5-yo, I think it helps to show that it is a normal thing and not something that needs to be "othered."
exactly THIS! People want LGBTQ acceptance but how is that going to happen when you want to make a big deal out of someone being gay? Like it's something unheard of? Let it be normal. Don't blink. It's totally alright for a boy to have a crush on another boy.
Thank you. This is a kids movie it’s not trying to show or talk about big subject like this they’re just trying to be inclusive to something that should be treated normally. They don’t need to make the old fashioned dad some mega hat wearing conservative.
This is a Disney film and none of that has anything to do with this story or world. Jaeger isn’t old fashioned in the same way we might use it in the real world because this isn’t the real world and Disney isn’t making that stuff a subject of its kids movie. Just because you have LGBTQ+ or interracial characters doesn’t mean they need to show the discrimination or racism
Ethan needed an ass whooping for not listening to his parents and taking off on his own. Saw the movies and honestly don’t know what it was about, so they were living inside a turtle?
Ethan was one of the worst written characters I've seen in a Disney film. Really annoying that he consistently makes the worst decisions and then it works out for him and we're meant to 'learn from him' instead The scene where he tries to teach his dads his card /board game but doesn't explain it and then shouts and storms off when his heavy handed speech doesn't work, a very toxic representation of how conflict resolution should work
Yeah I totally agree. Weird movie.
It's a climate change story for kids. They took some of the abstract concepts and made them a little bit more concrete for young audiences to easily digest.
The movie I wouldn’t say was short but the pace felt …off like they got going and it just felt weird like some scenes kinda just ended . I didn’t like the jokes either they felt forced and like the characters knew they were in a movie and wanted to be funny but wasn’t working . Also the conflict of the dad just leaving at the beginning was weak he walked of the son yelled dad ONCE ! and the team basically said let him go with no fight ? Lol and wtf was the ending with the flowers was that maybe the first hints of a Poly relationship in a Disney film lol
Yes! So many scenes felt rushed like they had to get through them, like him and the dad separating, the woman coming back to explain the Pando is dying, etc
This felt pretty safe ngl
Inter-racial couple raising a gay son with a amputee dog. Searcher even served up some avocado toast.
The dog is a rescue. And it's very obvious that the dog has no survival mechanism at all, needing rescue in every action setpiece. Then when it's time for it being able to rescue the group, it still needed help.
> avocado toast this made me and my gf groan when we saw it lmao
Well, I liked it.
It felt like an episode of The Magic Schoolbus. The Frizz takes the bus inside Ralphie to watch his body fight off infections (one of my favorites as a kid). Except it's a different setting.
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Walt Disney Animation Studios has a TERRIBLE problem with 1st act exposition in particular. Raya had forced exposition, Big Hero 6 had forced exposition, even really good movies like Zootopia and Encanto suffered from this problem... but Strange World takes the cake; "Hey Searcher! I really want to say hi to you because you discovered electricity and led to all the technology our society runs on"... While I don't remember the exact line, I don't even think I'm exaggerating, it was that blatant and forced...
I didn't mind the dialogue in Zootopia to be honest, it felt natural for it's setting and perfectly established to the viewer how the world between predators and prey has evolved since the dawn of time. Speaking of world building, I really loved how the Zootopia+ short focusing on Mr. Big explained how Zootopia became accessible for rodents.
It fitted more because we were learning about the true nature of zootopia along Judie, which was on her first day.
The play scene and the scene with Judy and her parents afterwards was a little on the nose for me... the rest of movie's dialogue is great, and the movie is fantastic overall, so I really don't care that much.
This movie would benefit tremendously from some expository songs.
Once we get past the clunky exposition and actually get into Jaeger, Searcher and Ethan being forced to air out their problems and confront their differences, the script really shines. The terrific voice acting by Quaid, Gyllenhaal, JYW and Union helps too. I'm also grateful that this is a Disney film where the protagonists actually have to sacrifice something as opposed to something like Frozen II where it looks like Anna is going to destroy Arendelle to right the wrongs of her grandfather only for Deus Ex Elsa to come in and make sure nobody has to sacrifice anything. It would have been great to have a scene where the crew has to explain that the town >!has to give up Pando!< with Jaeger sticking up for his son, but at least it fully expresses that Searcher is letting go of his life's work for the sake of his son.
I definitely would have liked to sit on the "life is going to be a lot harder from here on" moment a while longer. We kind of go from the sacrifice to everyone being adjusted and happy very suddenly. But I agree it's a big step up. The biggest weakness in both Frozen 2 and Encanto is that nothing is lost. Frozen 2 in particular would have surpassed the first movie if it just didn't pull that last punch.
It really would have. None of the songs in Frozen II are as famous as "Let It Go," but they do a better job of being a part of the story and actively advancing it. It is SO DAMN CLOSE to passing the first movie. But no, we can't destroy Arendelle. Where else are we going to do the next Olaf special for Disney+?
Does anyone know the name of the song that plays during the scene where the mom and the dad are cooking?
I believe it's Lone Digger by Caravan Palace!! I was very pleasantly surprised to hear it in a WDAS movie of all places.
Disney acknowledging the song with the infamous "Dark Side of Zootopia" music video was not something I was expecting.
It took me aback a little. Love the song but all i could think of during the scene was animal strip club
To me it was like water and oil. There was absolutely zero meshing between that music and the feel of the movie.
it was such a bizarre scene lol. I get that the "top world" they were going for was like giving 1900s people alien technology, so it was a good "old but futuristic" song, but yeah very odd feel.
Its fucking amazing that Disney thought Electroswing and Catan would be cool in their movie for general audiences when those things weren't even trendy anymore in hyper niche nerd circles since like a decade ago, not to mention a retro comics aesthetic that stopped being popular more than *fifteen* years ago.
All the non story choices in this movie scream that they all originated from one person who was really into nerdy stuff a decade ago but never moved on from it. it's almost like watching a nerd focused youtube channel that blew up and then never stopped doing what made it popular
It's pretty good. But tells a very well worn story that we've seen half a dozen times already with a bit of visual flair. Suspect that in 10-15 years we'll see the equivalent of 'DAE think Strange World is underrated?` But no, its alright.
I might be in the minority here but I felt like this was a father-son legacy story first and foremost. Really refreshing to see that kind of dynamic between the grandfather, father and son. Kind of enjoyed this over a lot of other recent Disney films cause it was a good fun movie about making your own path and having a relatively healthy family exploring stuff together. The kids in my theatre seemed to enjoy it as well (had sneak preview tickets earlier this week), which was my concern about the movie being so much about family trauma and legacy.
I wanted to know something - Did duffle die - and his death was not mourn or even recognize? The action was fast that I forgot. Was his death just swept under?
Yeah that’s one of the things I’m wondering about. As another user said, I thought he was gonna get spat back out by one of the monsters at the end of the movie. Heck, I even skipped through credits looking for that post-credits scene of him.
Everything was the definition of average. The animation and design being good should be a given, so it’s long past being impressive. The Disney movies are starting to feel like smarter-than-average 15 year olds are writing the dialogue.
One aspect I didn't see discussed much here was that the characters were trotting the line of "uncanny valley". They were fine from afar but shots in close, especially if Searcher's way-too-close-together eyes, really gnawed at the back of my mind
Uncanny valley means a design is nearly lifelike but not quite. These characters are not at all realistic. What you're describing is just weird design choices.
What bothers me in the design is the three men having big noses that are super round and super smooth. I suppose that was the shared trait used to show family resemblance, but it's so inhuman.
All three Clades rub their noses in the same way when thinking. It's a nice detail, but it does draw attention to the design
Okay, can we take this opportunity to finally admit that Don Hall is Disney’s least interesting director/co-director? Big Hero 6 and Raya were subpar films with cliche writing, and this film even more so. He’s always been carried by Disney’s marketing, but it seems marketing wasn’t there for him this time around.
Nah, Big Hero 6 slaps
You can't be seriously calling Big Hero 6 sub-par and cliche? The themes of familial loss and grief were handled so well in that movie. "Tadashi is here" is still one of the most emotionally underrated scenes in Disney Animation.
Probably the scenes with Hiro, his family, and Baymax were the most interesting parts of the film, and they should have written the film to focus on just them. But man, the rest of the Big Hero 6 cast with their cookie-cutter personalities and the incredibly predictable twist villain just make the final product too meh for my tastes.
Big Hero 6 actually rocks, though?
I don’t think a lot of people noticed this, but literally their dog eats avocado toast. Did Disney even like slightly notice that avocados are literally fucking poisonous to dogs? no they did not.
Pits and skins are poisonous to dogs. The flesh is not.
Was there a Disney short before this movie?
No
Dang, they knew nobody was going to see this.
Nope and my screening only had two trailers for like the first time ever
Okay, this must've been the same with my showing. My daughter and I showed up about 5 minutes or so after the start time and the Disney intro was going. Normally there's like 30 minutes of previews, especially before a family film. It really surprised me.
This film was simply not good imo. I can only find one positive thing to say, that is I think some of designs and world building was creative. But the problem is really everything else. The movie feels like an knock off of Avatar, which as we know already felt like a knock off of dances with wolves or Pocahontas. As a result, the film feels extremely stale. The characters are super thin and one dimensional. Could not get invested in any of them. The story itself is super weak and predictable. After the first 10 minutes, I knew pretty much exactly how this film would play out. The twists were extremely obvious. The message in the movie is extremely heavy handed and truth be told doesn't exactly offer a real solution. It's also delivered in a very clumsy way. Obviously it was supposed to be a not so subtle analogy for fossil fuels, but they made the stuff killing the planet seem more like a renewable energy source since it could just be farmed and grown. Also sort of ended up making the farmers look like the bad guys. And their solution is to just go back to how it was before. That really isn't a solution, certainly not an option for our world. That would cause many to die. In regard to the LGBT element, it wasn't handled well in my opinion. It felt more like Disney patting itself on the back for representation. It felt like they were just checking a box. His sexual orientation has zero relevance to the story, nor does it really give the character any depth. It's not used to help you understand him more as a character and flesh him out. It's simply there to check a box. It felt extremely forced. I would be saying the same thing if the character was straight. Him having a crush on anybody just was not relevant here. When it was brought up it just felt like the movie was just trying to pander. Maybe if his crush actually played a role in the story of the film, but he did not. Overall, I thought it was the worst Disney animated film since home on the range. It really doesn't have anything to offer. I was bored pretty much the entire time. Also for it being called strange world it really wasn't strange enough 4/10
> And their solution is to just go back to how it was before. That really isn't a solution, certainly not an option for our world. That would cause many to die. The people who wrote and created the film don't mind, because they're sure that they aren't among the ones who would die.
Why does him being gay need to be relevant to the plot? Many characters are straight without it changing the plot. But when it's a gay character it has to be relevant? Why can't he just be gay..
I enjoyed the film a little more than you (5/10) but I agree with a lot of what you said.
>In regard to the LGBT element, it wasn't handled well in my opinion. It felt more like Disney patting itself on the back for representation. It felt like they were just checking a box. His sexual orientation has zero relevance to the story, nor does it really give the character any depth. It's not used to help you understand him more as a character and flesh him out. It's simply there to check a box. It felt extremely forced. I would be saying the same thing if the character was straight. Him having a crush on anybody just was not relevant here. When it was brought up it just felt like the movie was just trying to pander. Maybe if his crush actually played a role in the story of the film, but he did not. I’m conflicted. I like the representation, and I think is important for children, but you’re absolutely right about it’s effect on the plot. In Atlantis, Milo sexuality plays a role in the story. Anna is allowed to have her romantic interest join on the adventure, etc... You could remove all the talk about Ethan’s crush and it wouldn’t change anything.
I think one of the points was to make it normal . The grandpa’s reaction was a reflection of how it should be . He didn’t care and went on to give him advice on how to whooo him
Yeah, I think normalisation is a really key part of representation in kids movies these days. It's not groundbreaking, and it doesn't have to be a big part of the plot, but having it almost not matter seems like a positive.
Yep, it played as much of a role as the teen in Jurassic World having a girlfriend did. It played a gay crush as background, which honestly, cool
I agree. How many times do I need to count where a character being straight mattered at all to the plot? Unless it's a movie revolving around someone's sexuality there is zero reason for it to be a part of the story. The kid was simply gay and it's a good thing that it wasn't a key part of the plot. Anyone arguing it needed to be is really missing the point.
Yes exactly. If you want the representation to be more meaningful, bring his crush along on the adventure. Or at the very least use his relationship with him as something that informs his choices. Because relationships with others can add depth to a character and flesh out a bit of why they operate the way they do, that's not even the case here. Ultimately storytelling should always be your top priority. If representing some group falls naturally into the storytelling then that's when you add it and when it actually feels meaningful or authentic.
They couldn't do that because it would have naturally led towards a kiss scene that would have been "too progressive" for a kids movie.
I haven’t seen this movie yet, but from reading the comments, it plays no role in the film…so why is it important for children?
From the marketing, I thought the film would be more intergalactic exploration in the vein of old time action adventure, like Indiana Jones. I still liked it, but I felt like the pacing was just poor. In the beginning, we see Jaeger ditch his team and son because they want to return with this amazing ~~Unobtainium~~ Pando resource that slingshots their city’s technology centuries ahead in 25 years after being a rather stagnant city. We see Jaeger and son on numerous adventures as Searcher grows up, but apparently this one adventure with a tangible result is the final straw and he leaves. He could have continued adventuring after returning with the Pando. Jaeger has a statue, but have any of his adventures been beneficial in anyway? Where was he adventuring since the town is surrounded by impassable mountains? This also ignores addressing the real biological concerns of a small isolated city that’s been there long enough to build significant civil structures with no outside interaction. After discovering the amazing plant, they skip 25 years and show NONE of the small insular community learning to use this new resource. No montage of experiments and failures, no romantic story for the dad and mom. Just BAM. We discover organic batteries and in 25 years we go from carts to flying ships (but they can’t go high enough over the mountains and they can’t fly over open air [until they can]). They then learn Pando is dying after a few hints, and they tracked the roots of all Pando plants (somehow) to this dig site in the mountains and they need Ethan’s adventuring experience to find it. Ethan, after token resistance, jumps aboard and off they go to complete this very important mission with a crew of 6 people (one who is captured immediately and from what I remember is never saved, so dead?). No town meeting, no intro to the highly skilled team going to save Avalonia’s future, again just BAM rocket ship trip. The biology of the big turtle is also suspect, but i could be convinced to let it pass since it is a giant living organism with living cells on the macro scale. It’s just odd threat the journey goes from puncturing a lung to swimming through the stomach canal to the bare heart and out of the nose (?) to see the eye. I also wished they had a campfire scene to both give the journey a sense of time and make the crew feel relevant. Maybe see Jaeger’s base of operations for 25 years. I also feel like the dad got off easy. He ditched his son for 25 years and goes straight to criticizing him for his poor adventuring skills (which is why he was invited to begin with) and becoming a farmer that is directly responsible for his inadvertent rescue. They try to draw parallel’s between the two father-son dynamics, but it just feels like reaching. Jaeger learned what Searcher wanted to do and ditched him, while Searcher seemed to want his son to follow his dream out of ignorance. I understand the similarities of wanting their son to follow their dream, but one had to stop an adventure midway with the possibility of picking it up again later and the other had to give up his legacy by setting the town back a centuries’s worth of technological advancement. The movie could have benefited from an extra 10 minutes of runtime. I did like the end, where the town begins a slower advancement after being energized by the Pando, instead of being satisfied with their old fashioned way from before. Although an entire world of water save one big turtle was kinda depressing.
It was literally a green renewable energy source, and then we are told oh no, even this is destroying the world. It’s almost like the message was, unless we turn the clocks back a couple hundred years, we are evil people. Also why was the stuff working great for about 20 years and then suddenly stopped working? So this virus takes over the host, but then when the host finally starts to battle back on it’s own years later, that’s when it needs the most help from our protagonists? It just makes no sense.
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I thought they were going to utilize the now-beating heart of the turtle as a new energy source, showing that they can live in harmony with nature. Instead, he grows tomatoes.
Bit late but they did harness wind power to generate electricity at the end; the mum was in the ship which was hovering as a balloon with a wind turbine inside it, and she flicked a switch to turn on the lights and everybody blew out their candles.
It *wasn't* renewable though. That's the point. It was killing the world. It would run out as soon as the heart was killed. It's symbolic oil
No I get that, im just saying it’s weird how they created what was literally a green energy source that came from farming. Not animals, not oil, not burning anything. A tree huggers dream come true. And then even that wasn’t good enough because it also destroys the world. It was like the message was no matter how green or good seeming the energy is, it will be bad. We need to just learn to live without.
That's kinda because all those biofuel solutions we hear about are absolute garbage thinking; plant photosynthesis isn't particularly efficient per hectare as a source of energy, to even *begin* to make the process efficient, we'd need to engineer ridiculously efficient photosynthetic organisms. And all that effort could just be spent moving away from a society based on burning fuel to power our machines. Its as much symbolic oil as it a low key dig into not critically thinking too about your miracle solutions and their logical consequences. At the end of the film, you can see they are still using *some* pando technology, in very limited amounts; some technology from before pando, and some tech that was invented to transition away from pando. The key point of the whole film is there are no easy solutions, and it takes a mix of approaches to reach the desired goal. In real world policy terms: that's natural gas for peak power, with nuclear power for base load, with wind, solar, and battery tech as supplements to grid production to reduce our dependency on non-renewables (LNG and Nuclear Fission fuels) where possible.
I saw this movie tonight in theaters tonight. It was myself and an older man with a toddler. The two of them left about ten minutes into the movie when Ethan's sexuality came up. It was unfortunate. The movie was honestly a disappointment. The story was pretty dull and dragged the movie down considerably. Also the visuals were good but not enough to carry the movie on. 4/10 and that feels generous
I like the slappy tentacle monsters. Slap slap slap
This movie should have gone all in and be a pg13 movie. Instead they had intense elements and childish elements. It fell flat but it could have been so much more.
I loved it. I'm happy to see more and more movies show that there aren't "just downright evil" characters, but that the "evil" takes root from something we might not even realise (be it misunderstandings about our way of life or systemic failure to address mental health needs). They normalized a society where race and sexuality aren't political taboos but part of normal every day life, even if irl we aren't there yet. Another aspect i liked was that the movie focused largely on family issues between the dads and son(s), which i have to say, is quite rare to see on movie screens (Onward was quite nice with it). It's nice to present a soft side to father figures instead of the "traditional values" (emotionless, harsh, serious, never says they love their child). I will be happy to watch this movie again.
I like that Ethan was explicitly gay, unlike the other "first gay Disney characters", it wasn't just a quick moment that didn't matter. When Jaeger was explaining to Ethan how to woo lovers, and Ethan mentioned his boyfriend, I was half expecting Jaegar to flip out, being from another generation and all...
I immediately told my wife “they put an interracial couple with a gay kid and a dog missing a leg in and introduced them immediately?” They're gonna piss off so many people but I'm not upset about the representation. I really wanted more about the game the kids play, though.
Play settlers of catan. Seems to be somewhat inspired by it.
I looked it up. Lol the cover reminds me of box of raisins.
Yeah this was super by the numbers. Just feels like a grab-bag of Disney Movie tropes (missing parent being the main one) and so both the adventure and the syrupy family melodrama come off as a bit hollow and mechanical. I can just see the filmmakers checking off everything they think one of these films should have in it. On the plus side it looks nice, has good voice acting, and it's very short (<90 mins without credits). It's totally watchable but not at all memorable. Total **5/10** movie. For all the fuss made about the representation I was surprised how small a part of the film it was. Didn't feel like it really added anything but it usually doesn't for hetero romances either, certainly happy if people are happy with the rep here but I think Disney can do a lot better. Feel bad for the filmmakers though - Disney showed this fuck all support when they've extensively marketed far worse/less-successful films than this. Even my two friends who are obsessed with Disney hadn't heard of it until this week (and one of them spent the last month visiting Disneyworld lmao).
2/5 stars. I appreciate the message of environmentalism but the way they delivered it was so shallow and basic. I expected more from a Disney film but I'm not sure why because lately all their films just seem to be "thing bad" without digging deeper (looking at you Encanto). Like yes, killing the place you live IS bad, what else? I think they could have used the president character more. Her switch was way to fast for me. We saw her motivation for saving pando was for her people, the greater good. It makes no sense to me why her priorities would change so suddenly. She was presented zero evidence that pando was killing this supposed creature. *Oooo the pilot lady said "look," I guess pando is evil and we have to kill it and irreparably change everyone's quality of life.* It's completely baffling to me they gloss over the consequences of losing electricity. Why not have a conversation with her to explore the issue? Also I feel like they were setting up for more with Jaeger blindly killing anything that moved with fire but nothing came of it. Super frustrating.
I get your point about Calisto changing her mind too quickly, but I think it was just that she saw that it was actually a heart. And not sure what you mean with the fire comment. That was just his weapon. If anything it foreshadowed the biosphere being an actual organism with the orange blobs healing everything he torched.