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Description
Show: Touchstone Pictures Movie
Episode: Movie
Year: 2015

Writer(s): George Lucas, David Berenbaum, Irene Mecchi, Gary Rydestrom
Director(s): Gary Rydestrom

This is the uncanniest piece of shit movie George Lucas ever got involved with; we call it "LucasShit" for a reason! I can't believe he went from the original Star Wars trilogy and the Indiana Jones films to THIS! Jar Jar Binks looks more appealing than ANY of the freaks that came out of this movie! Maybe the Imp is cute, but the fairies and bog creatures look way off! There's a line where there is such a thing as too much detail; I can tell they were TRYING to make it look live-action while still keeping it animated without motion capture, and while it isn't as uncanny as Delgo, it still looks kind of off for the most part without the as-bad uncanny animation.

But besides it looking unnatural, how's the whole thing hold up as a product? Not very good. Like Delgo, it comes off as your typical uniting the two kingdoms magical Disney bullshit! The world of the fairies and the world of bog creatures have to unite to make… love, I guess? But the thing is the Bog King (voiced by Alan Cumming whose too good for this movie) wants to eliminate love because he's sound like he's all angry and bitter about a break-up, so he imposes the whole ban on love making everyone in his kingdom a miserable wreck! At the very least most of his subjects have some degree of awareness of how stupid this is, but that doesn't save them from the ugly!

If you think they're going for the whole beauty equals goodness thingy, that's not exactly true… the fairies can be ASSHOLES! The fairy princess Marianne is in love with this Link wannabe named Roland with a squirrel steed Chipper who obviously only wants to marry her for power and douchery. Oh yeah, and this is a musical, so there are A LOT of pop songs here that just serve to kill time and pad out the budget and time of this thing! I just find myself fast-forwarding through them myself because I can't stand to hear the same lovey-dovey schlock like "I’ll Never Fall in Love Again" getting butchered by talented actors given no direction! The other characters aren't much better like Marianne’s sister Dawn and Sunny the little African American elf! Oh, and the Fairy King is a major sexist and judgmental asshole. They're all just so LACKING in anything to a personality that it's very hard to get invested in anything this film has to offer!

Anyways, the main source of conflict is a love potion made via Primrose flowers found only in the dark forest, but only the Sugar Plum Fairy can prepare it for some reason, and she's locked up IN the dark forest, so Roland tricks Sunny into getting it for him. He's essentially Gaston with none of the charm or comedy whatsoever. Say what you will about other Disney villains who tried to hide their evil intentions, but they knew when to reveal themselves! This guy does not try at all! And honestly, the only creature in the whole movie that didn't fall into the uncanny valley there, the Imp, is actually pretty cute. Too bad most of the stuff here is basically filler with him and Sunny and all the songs; he's also a dick. Also, when they do reach the Sugar Plum Fairy, she's kind of a bitch. I think she's supposed to be like Genie from Aladdin, but she doesn't come off as very funny; in fact, she's a tremendous bitch.

Within a musical movie, songs are supposed to provide context to the situation and act as a way to advance the plot. Here, these licensed songs only serve to pad out the runtime by butchering these classic songs, it's just wasteful! I hate it when Disney can't afford to make their own soundtrack to films! Even when they've done this before by using Phil Collins for all the songs in Tarzan, Mr. Collins still made it his own thing; he didn't reuse his previous works of the most part. On an off topic note, that Imp… he's a total dick throwing around that love potion like monkey shit! Part of me thinks the Sugar Plum Fairy wanted this to happen to spite the Bog King honestly. And speaking of the Bog King, he kidnapped Dawn when she was under the influence of said potion; you can only imagine how that plays out...

Marianne herself reminds me a lot of Kayley from Quest for Camelot and Meridian from Brave, and like them, she claims to be headstrong and independent, but more often then not ends up a damsel that needs saving! She's also a major hypocrite claiming she wants a guy who loves her for her and not for her looks, but she throws all that out the window when she falls for the Bog King, over an hour into the movie! The same guy who kidnapped her sister and threatened to slaughter her village for the love potion. And speaking of the Bog King, he actually is perfectly in the right to lock the Sugar Plum Fairy up when you consider love potions and their implications. The Sugar Plum Fairy is A BITCH! By making these potions anyone can use, she's basically encouraging sexual assault and forcing others to be with people they don't care about! It helps he tried this shtick before and lost everything because of it, not wanting anyone else to be hurt like he was; of course, this makes him a hypocrite for those exact reasons.

The very concept of love in this movie… well, they go the route of saying that everybody needs a significant other in their lives or they'll never be happy! Even if you're perfectly happy being alone, you MUST have a loved one for THEM to be happy even if they're extremely shallow and narcissistic assholes! They also go the route of basing who is worthy of love solely on looks! And it's through this logic where the cure to the love potion is real love! So unless you're already in love with a significant other, you can be afflicted with this shit and stay in a false relationship! In other words, unless you're in love, you don't really matter and can just be used!

Is there anything positive I could say about this movie? Actually, this movie had the potential to use absolutely BEAUTIFUL animation and a few neat designs! Many of the set pieces at times feel like I could walk right into the movie! The animals that weren't fantastic were animated pretty damn well, and there were even times where the magic characters looked alright. But most of this films animation was focused on making the fairies and bog creatures look as realistic as possible! This is one of those things where you learn the difference between animation and artstyle. The animation itself is mostly ok, albeit rough in some areas, but most of the actual designs outside the backgrounds look pretty bad on the characters! Compare this to the puppetry in Star Wars as an example of how you make alien creatures look realistic in a movie, and you'll see what I mean.

It’s pretty clear this movie is one of those things that wanted desperately to steal from Shrek. High paid celebrity voice cast, modern pop music in a fantasy setting, and attempted "deconstruction" of typical Disney tropes. The problem is none of that works in this movie in any way. The story is so cliché and contrived just to force a happy ending and redeem characters that, while somewhat understandable, don't really deserve their happiness. The Bog King didn't deserve a happy ending, not really. It's also very confused at its audience and who it's trying to appeal to; the setting and character designs seem like it's trying to appeal to adults, but the story feels like something dumbed down for kids. However, I don't really see anyone within those age ranges really enjoying this film unironically.

Cringe-Inducing Audio: 7
Cringe-Inducing Visuals: 4
Lackluster Writing: 8
Annoyance: 7
Disturbing Content: 4
Unnecessary Cruelty: 0
Rancid Morality: 4
Low Production Values: 2
Unfortunate Implications: 6
Character Derailment: 0

Final Score: 42/100

Strange Magic is owned by Disney and LucasFilms.

Animated Atrocities is from

Regulas314

Description
Show: Touchstone Pictures Movie
Episode: Movie
Year: 2015

Writer(s): George Lucas, David Berenbaum, Irene Mecchi, Gary Rydestrom
Director(s): Gary Rydestrom

This is the uncanniest piece of shit movie George Lucas ever got involved with; we call it "LucasShit" for a reason! I can't believe he went from the original Star Wars trilogy and the Indiana Jones films to THIS! Jar Jar Binks looks more appealing than ANY of the freaks that came out of this movie! Maybe the Imp is cute, but the fairies and bog creatures look way off! There's a line where there is such a thing as too much detail; I can tell they were TRYING to make it look live-action while still keeping it animated without motion capture, and while it isn't as uncanny as Delgo, it still looks kind of off for the most part without the as-bad uncanny animation.

But besides it looking unnatural, how's the whole thing hold up as a product? Not very good. Like Delgo, it comes off as your typical uniting the two kingdoms magical Disney bullshit! The world of the fairies and the world of bog creatures have to unite to make… love, I guess? But the thing is the Bog King (voiced by Alan Cumming whose too good for this movie) wants to eliminate love because he's sound like he's all angry and bitter about a break-up, so he imposes the whole ban on love making everyone in his kingdom a miserable wreck! At the very least most of his subjects have some degree of awareness of how stupid this is, but that doesn't save them from the ugly!

If you think they're going for the whole beauty equals goodness thingy, that's not exactly true… the fairies can be ASSHOLES! The fairy princess Marianne is in love with this Link wannabe named Roland with a squirrel steed Chipper who obviously only wants to marry her for power and douchery. Oh yeah, and this is a musical, so there are A LOT of pop songs here that just serve to kill time and pad out the budget and time of this thing! I just find myself fast-forwarding through them myself because I can't stand to hear the same lovey-dovey schlock like "I’ll Never Fall in Love Again" getting butchered by talented actors given no direction! The other characters aren't much better like Marianne’s sister Dawn and Sunny the little African American elf! Oh, and the Fairy King is a major sexist and judgmental asshole. They're all just so LACKING in anything to a personality that it's very hard to get invested in anything this film has to offer!

Anyways, the main source of conflict is a love potion made via Primrose flowers found only in the dark forest, but only the Sugar Plum Fairy can prepare it for some reason, and she's locked up IN the dark forest, so Roland tricks Sunny into getting it for him. He's essentially Gaston with none of the charm or comedy whatsoever. Say what you will about other Disney villains who tried to hide their evil intentions, but they knew when to reveal themselves! This guy does not try at all! And honestly, the only creature in the whole movie that didn't fall into the uncanny valley there, the Imp, is actually pretty cute. Too bad most of the stuff here is basically filler with him and Sunny and all the songs; he's also a dick. Also, when they do reach the Sugar Plum Fairy, she's kind of a bitch. I think she's supposed to be like Genie from Aladdin, but she doesn't come off as very funny; in fact, she's a tremendous bitch.

Within a musical movie, songs are supposed to provide context to the situation and act as a way to advance the plot. Here, these licensed songs only serve to pad out the runtime by butchering these classic songs, it's just wasteful! I hate it when Disney can't afford to make their own soundtrack to films! Even when they've done this before by using Phil Collins for all the songs in Tarzan, Mr. Collins still made it his own thing; he didn't reuse his previous works of the most part. On an off topic note, that Imp… he's a total dick throwing around that love potion like monkey shit! Part of me thinks the Sugar Plum Fairy wanted this to happen to spite the Bog King honestly. And speaking of the Bog King, he kidnapped Dawn when she was under the influence of said potion; you can only imagine how that plays out...

Marianne herself reminds me a lot of Kayley from Quest for Camelot and Meridian from Brave, and like them, she claims to be headstrong and independent, but more often then not ends up a damsel that needs saving! She's also a major hypocrite claiming she wants a guy who loves her for her and not for her looks, but she throws all that out the window when she falls for the Bog King, over an hour into the movie! The same guy who kidnapped her sister and threatened to slaughter her village for the love potion. And speaking of the Bog King, he actually is perfectly in the right to lock the Sugar Plum Fairy up when you consider love potions and their implications. The Sugar Plum Fairy is A BITCH! By making these potions anyone can use, she's basically encouraging sexual assault and forcing others to be with people they don't care about! It helps he tried this shtick before and lost everything because of it, not wanting anyone else to be hurt like he was; of course, this makes him a hypocrite for those exact reasons.

The very concept of love in this movie… well, they go the route of saying that everybody needs a significant other in their lives or they'll never be happy! Even if you're perfectly happy being alone, you MUST have a loved one for THEM to be happy even if they're extremely shallow and narcissistic assholes! They also go the route of basing who is worthy of love solely on looks! And it's through this logic where the cure to the love potion is real love! So unless you're already in love with a significant other, you can be afflicted with this shit and stay in a false relationship! In other words, unless you're in love, you don't really matter and can just be used!

Is there anything positive I could say about this movie? Actually, this movie had the potential to use absolutely BEAUTIFUL animation and a few neat designs! Many of the set pieces at times feel like I could walk right into the movie! The animals that weren't fantastic were animated pretty damn well, and there were even times where the magic characters looked alright. But most of this films animation was focused on making the fairies and bog creatures look as realistic as possible! This is one of those things where you learn the difference between animation and artstyle. The animation itself is mostly ok, albeit rough in some areas, but most of the actual designs outside the backgrounds look pretty bad on the characters! Compare this to the puppetry in Star Wars as an example of how you make alien creatures look realistic in a movie, and you'll see what I mean.

It’s pretty clear this movie is one of those things that wanted desperately to steal from Shrek. High paid celebrity voice cast, modern pop music in a fantasy setting, and attempted "deconstruction" of typical Disney tropes. The problem is none of that works in this movie in any way. The story is so cliché and contrived just to force a happy ending and redeem characters that, while somewhat understandable, don't really deserve their happiness. The Bog King didn't deserve a happy ending, not really. It's also very confused at its audience and who it's trying to appeal to; the setting and character designs seem like it's trying to appeal to adults, but the story feels like something dumbed down for kids. However, I don't really see anyone within those age ranges really enjoying this film unironically.

Cringe-Inducing Audio: 7
Cringe-Inducing Visuals: 4
Lackluster Writing: 8
Annoyance: 7
Disturbing Content: 4
Unnecessary Cruelty: 0
Rancid Morality: 4
Low Production Values: 2
Unfortunate Implications: 6
Character Derailment: 0

Final Score: 42/100

Strange Magic is owned by Disney and LucasFilms.

Animated Atrocities is from

Regulas314