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back on my bullshit kids, time to write a 300 pg...

alt mode based gender binary….. my interest has been piqued..

look we all see the fans who r clearly recovering furries (you can be a robot fucker and furry at the same time you cowards) headcanoning seekers and fliers as having bird like mannerisms but we need to consider that the inherent inorganic nature lends itself to a broader interpretation of cybertronian biology based behavior and society. 

what kind of behavior is more expected of a more delicate jet moded flier than a boxy crane moded bot with a chassis shaped like a fucking brick wall? and theres not a direct analogy you can really draw with human gender because cybertronian gender is a whole different monster, but i will say that they both operate on the idea of “function;” in humans, the western gender binary dictates that “females” and “males” look and operate different all because they serve different reproductive functions. 

female humans take up less space because theyre inherently smaller cause they dont need to fight for a mate or whatever stupid baseless bullshit sexist transphobes like to spill these days. well, maybe there are similar modeist ideas about those with tool forms; why would a microscope need to be enormous (and we can argue that a bigger microscope can see things closer up but they can build quantum engines so eh they can have small electron microscopes)? what purpose would a rodimus sized data slug be? and again, a bot with a tool mode is usually used by others, so its thought that they should all be sociable and friendly because their mode is one that “serves others.” obviously we cant say that humans have any analogous gender to cybertonians, but the idea that “function” dictates expected behavior and shape is very much similar.

its also practicality based. if im referring to that flier over there but not that grounder, id want a pronoun and gender that implies that it is specifically the flier. because of how bot modes TYPICALLY operate, it would usually be obvious which gender (flier, tool, grounder, etc) a bot would be; remember how ratchet said ambulons bot mode didnt make any sense at first? he didnt have any typical markers for his alt mode, whereas most bots do. i also see him humanized as either a more masculine woman or a thinner more feminine man in fanart; obviously people arent necessarily thinking that “oh he has a weird bot mode so he must be gnc!” but it sets an interesting precedent when we consider how easily changed certain aspects of a bot mode are (think rung wearing the wheelie backpack.) 

if you have an issue of gender confusion among bots, it might be something like rodimus being labeled a flier because someone at first mistakes his spoilers for wings. a boxier, heavier bot like thunderclash or optimus is obviously a grounder; their wheels are obvious, on the outsides of their legs, and they have a bulkier build. rodimus has his wheels (usually cause these artists like to fucking change it up) on the inside of his legs, tucked halfway into compartments, and his frame is sleeker, obviously built for speed. speedsters in general could possibly be considered a gnc subculture; theyre often sleeker and with hidden wheels, making their  alt mode a little more ambiguous.

of course, this can make some interesting culture crosses when it comes to cybertronian verse non cybertronian gender. if we look at chromia, she’d be considered a gnc woman- short “hair,” a more masculine role, broader shoulders -  but a very traditional grounder. shes bulkier (although again, style inconsistency), and both her wheels are clearly visible, which means shes very obviously grounder. i think by the time that most of the contemporary idw comics take place, a lot of the old assumptions of cybertronian gender have gone the way of the functionist government, but we also have to take into account that this was also never the way the writers wanted to present cybertronian gender, just an interesting theory.

of course i say all this remembering that alt mode identities are all tied into clear racial and class based analogies too, but identity dynamics usually have more than one meaning too so. shrug.

also art style disparities between individual comic artists as well

The Wall #49: SHEEP AND WOLVES

Welcome everybody to another entry of The Wall. On this week... your mom! Heh. Oh, I wish- I'm sure she's a wonderful lady. I said I was going to review Batman v. Superman but... eh, I then kind of lost interest and heat after a while- besides, the movie still sucks balls, so it's not like anything's changed. No, this week's review takes us on another stop of our international animated tour- Russia! The big mother of all cold herself, Mother Russia blessed us with this animated outing that was so good that it didn't get imported to the States. "Why might that be?" you're probably asking yourself, well I'll answer that right now: ... I HAVE NO IDEA! Maybe it was some sort of communication error (which wouldn't make sense as this movie has a fully dubbed English version, so... I 'unno), maybe they changed their minds at the last minute, or maybe because it's so mind-meltingly awful that they pulled the plug on its release before the studio would embarrass itself. Considering my last review it may be easy to assume that anything I would review afterwards would automatically be less positive. That may be true, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't have good things to say about it- hell, last week I saw one of my favorite movies this year (which I'll review later), and I've been itching to gush about it here. But no, I'm going to talk about Sheep and Wolves instead because, what better way to transition into my Worst Movies of 2016 by going from one of the best animated movies of the year to one of the absolute worst? Let's dive in, why don't we~?

(Music: Undertale- CORE)

I don't mean to be disrespectful, I like to think I'm a nice person and I will give anyone a chance, unless you’re Zack Snyder, or David S. Goyer, or Warner Bros., in which case you can piss off any day now. So when I write the things I’m going to write, I don’t mean this as just me trying to be mean, but as a way to try and help a small studio like the one that made this movie understand why your product doesn’t work, so I will try to be as cold and clinical as I can to explain just what is wrong with this movie. But first the plot, and you might want to sit down for this one.

In this movie we have a wolf named Grey (voiced by Tom Felton. Yes, THAT Tom Felton) who is a goofy but kind wolf who wants to live life as a carefree spirit, that is until he crosses the path of a big bad wolf named Ragear (voiced by Rich Orlow, whom I’ve never heard of) who is adamant to become the new leader of their wolf pack since their current leader Magra (voiced by Jim Cummings. Yes, THAT one, too.). However, Ragear gets shut down by Magra by telling him that he will not be ascended to be leader of the pack unless he faces off in a duel with another wolf, who just so happens to be Grey. Grey steps up to the challenge and they’re due to fight in three days to see who is more fit to run the wolf pack. Meanwhile, Grey faces a bit of problem when a surprise he had planned turns out to dash the dreams of his girlfriend, Bianca (voiced by Ruby Rose. Yes, THAT- I’m not going to keep this gag going or we’ll be here all day), who thought Grey was going to ask for her hand (paw?) in marriage. She accuses him of being very immature and in desperate need of change. Trying to find a way to change, Grey stumbles into this caravan full of gypsies and he talks to their leader(?) named Mami (I don’t know who she’s voiced by) who gives Grey this potion to help him change, but things go south when Grey gets turned into a sheep and is not only unwelcome, but hunted down by the wolves due to sheep being their prey. So he runs away and ends up getting knocked out, only to wake up in the sheep village. He’s being taken care of by an ewe named Lyra (China Anne McClain), while being suspected of by this skeptic sheep named Zico (Ross Maraquand) who questions his whereabouts and goes on to find clues about this new mysterious sheep that just showed up in their home. Grey believes that he’s in a bad dream but then decides to blend in once he starts meeting the sheep folk. Meanwhile, Ragear becomes impatient by Magra and his ban to keep them from hunting prey like wolves (which for this universe doesn’t really make much sense), so instead of waiting for his duel like Magra ordered, he just kills Magra and ends up taking the position as the wolves’ leader and wants to lead the wolves to hunt for the sheep so they can eat… well, like wolves. Grey discovers this and now wants to protect the sheep from this possible massacre, while it becomes hard for him to keep his true identity intact with his new kin. How will all of this be resolved?

I don’t take this long trying to give a simple plot synopsis, but I wanted to break down this entire setup to give you a hint as to what’s wrong with this movie. If you want me to sum this movie up really quickly it’s just yet another “fish out of water” story, and with a twist that isn’t even that unique to this kind of movie. The movie is a bizarre combination of both Shrek 2 and Brother Bear in terms of plot, but it’s nowhere near as funny as the former, nor (while flawed) as engaging as the latter, and while I have serious problems with Brother Bear I can tell you it pulled this story off a LOT better than Sheep and Wolves.

Since I’m going to dip into my issues with this movie (which is a LOT of them) I may as well get my positives with the movie out of the way, because they’re very minimal- it’s actually just one: the movie is really pretty. While it’s pretty obvious that this is a low-budget movie thanks to the very small amount of environments featured in the movie, not to mention that just like Sing it shamelessly copy-and-pastes characters and shots everywhere, the scenery of the movie actually manages to be pretty stunning. I like how the environments look, they’re vividly-detailed, very colorful, and the lighting also manages to look really good, especially when they stand out against things like grass or the fur on the wolves. The animation itself is also not bad. It’s far more lively than something like, say, Ratchet and Clank, and it has an art style that suits the animation better than a movie like The Wild Life. Even though I have HUGE issues with the character design, they managed to make a really appealing-looking movie and I do think that’s something that deserves some serious credit. It’s obvious to me that the people working on this movie have some good talent in their hands, and I’m saying this because I stop being nice right here. Because the problems with this movie are far too many for me to recommend this as something anyone reading this should watch.

Let’s start with the character designs. While the general look of the movie is really appealing and colorful, the actual designs of the characters leave a lot to be desired. There’s no real better way for me to say this, but the characters all look like how a middle-school furry artist would draw his furry wolf OCs (original characters, for those of you that don’t know) when first starting on DeviantART. They’re far more humanoid than anthropomorphic, which really stands out with characters that have more stylized and cartoony designs. It’s almost as if the characters were all designed by completely different artists, however this is an approach that worked in its favor in a movie like Secret Life of Pets, but here they stick out like a sore thumb. All the wolves are top-heavy and just look ridiculous when they run on all fours. I also had this same problem with Alpha and Omega six years ago (funny how they’re both movies about wolves), but the hair is really off-putting. Most of the wolves have pretty much anime hairstyles which just look distracting and out of place. This is really noticeable on a character like Bianca who basically looks like a human chick that just so happens to be cosplaying as a wolf. With the sheep this gets even more bizarre, as there are sheep who clearly look like anthropomorphized sheep, standing right next to sheep that have more human-like features that are kind of distracting, NEXT to other sheep who just look like they’re a human and sheep that probably fused together like in The Fly. Again, it’s highly distracting because they’re not anthropomorphic like the characters from Sing or Zootopia, and yet they’re also not animal enough to be like the animals from The Secret Life of Pets or even The Wild Life. It’s like they’re stuck in this strange uncanny valley of anthropomorphism and it’s kind of off-putting to watch. Mami is the only one who manages to make this work, though it probably helps that she’s hardly in the movie. Grey looks alright by all standards, except for his dumb Emo Peter Parker haircut.

From what I’m sure you can gather I’ve said about the story, it’s pretty much also copied and pasted from… anywhere else. It combines traits of Shrek 2, Brother Bear, The Lion King, too many romantic comedies to count, Kung Fu Panda 3, Shark Tale (another disaster full of clichés and off-putting character design)- it borrows so liberally from other movies that it even borrows their flaws as well. Shark Tale needs no explanation, it has the dopey character who is in love but cannot spit it out because God help him “he’s just awkward” (oh please), it also borrows a problem unique to a movie I reviewed not too long ago, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie, in which it is full of really annoying cartoony sound effects that get really, really fast. By the way, I said this movie ripped off The Lion King (why on Earth do we have TWO animated movies that came out in 2016 that thought this was a good idea?) and it does so in the Magra’s death scene. Ragear shoves him off the cliff in a way that’s not too dissimilar to Scar throwing Mufasa into the wildebeests. It doesn’t help that both just so happen to have a character voiced by Jim Cummings, which makes the resemblance even more obvious.

Though speaking of terrible sounds, the voice acting isn’t that great. I mean sure, you have people like Jim Cummings who would sound awesome if they even just read the phonebook, but much like Morgan Freeman in Ben-Hur, he’s not doing anything new. Tom Felton… I have NO idea what the hell he’s doing, it’s like he’s trying to sound American and fail horribly at it, but he’s at least trying. Ruby Rose just straight up did not care about this movie at all, she could not sound any more disinterested if she tried, which isn’t only a serious problem because it just sounds bad it also makes her character come across as really uncaring and self-centered, which becomes a MAJOR problem thanks to one particular scene from the movie that I’ll get to. Believe me, I will. Still, this is pretty bad- it’s almost as if the voice actors weren’t allowed to be given a second take or something like that.

But what’s even worse than the voice acting is the score. I’ve complimented good scores before and lambasted bad ones like Accidental Love, for example. It had a score that was highly annoying, bouncy, and would never shut up. It was trying to be a “whacky, silly” score that instead of trying to get you to laugh it only made you cringe. So yes, an overly-goofy score is one issue but thanks to this movie the opposite is also true. This movie has a score that is far more surprisingly dramatic and intense than you would think which gives me the impression that this movie is really trying to get me to take it seriously… and this is the same movie that has a Rocky-style montage of a character trying to give themselves a concussion. AND FAILING AT IT. Sure, that’s meant to be the joke, but this is much less justifiable in countless scenes of something dramatic happening only for it to get cut-off by some awkwardly-inserted comic relief. Oh God, it’s like Epic all over again.

The absolute worst part about this movie is the characters. I’m not going to spend much time on them because I could write an entire essay on just what’s wrong with this cast, and this review is getting really long as it is. So I’ll say this, they vary from being really stupid, to being really annoying, to all-around unpleasant. Grey is kind of a goofball, but other than that he’s just your generic main character and he’s one of the better characters. His best friend sheep who is lovestruck cannot say a word to her about his feelings to save his life, which is not just an awful cliché in and of itself, but his voice is really annoying and her never shuts up. The big bad Ragear is clumsy and gets beaten up a lot, so it’s pretty much impossible to take him seriously as a credible threat and the only time he succeeds at anything it’s simply because the plot just felt like it needed to keep going. Lyra is your generic “nice girl” type who pretty much has no personality aside from, well, being nice, except for one particular scene where she chews out Grey for giving her little brother, Shia, the influence to have him run off from the sheep village to fight off wolves himself, and this happened AFTER Grey saves his life as well as a scene in the movie where she scolds her little brother for being an irresponsible little shit who doesn’t listen to anybody. And Shia, oh I despise him. Not only does he have a really annoying voice and attitude, he’s one of those characters that should have died far sooner than he does (which is never- spoiler alert) because he does anything BUT listen to someone who’s trying to do nothing but HELP HIM. He’s by far one of the most irritating characters I’ve seen in any movie this year- he’s up there with Steel from Max Steel, The Enchantress from Suicide Squad, the Colleens from Yoga Hosers, and pretty much EVERYONE in Collateral Beauty- and it doesn’t help that he gives a really awful message at the end of the movie which pretty much amounts to him saying that you shouldn’t kill someone because it will make you just as bad as they are, which is normally a message that has a lot of weight to it, but when the person who is trying to kill you is DOING EVERYTHING IN THEIR POWER TO TRY AND EAT YOU, and you fight back in self-defense!

I also mentioned Bianca, and out of all of the bad animated movies with forced-in love interests she’s by far the worst. Now, she’s at least thankfully not forced into a relationship with Grey (they already have one at the start of the movie) and the way his little problem is resolved isn’t by true love (but it’s not less dumb). The reason why I hate Bianca the most is because of one particular scene where she pretty much ACCUSES GREY OF CAUSING RAGEAR FROM KILLING MAGRA AND MAKING HIM THE NEW LEADER, and all because he was trying to change himself to prove to her that he’s not an immature clown. It’s somehow all HIS fault, and at no point does she ever get called out on being a colossal bitch. Though Grey DOES call out the sheep for being whiny, pathetic, and annoying, it doesn’t really leave a very satisfying impact when it’s ruined by the scenes that precede and follow it. I HATE EVERYONE IN THIS MOVIE. This movie was just like Collateral Beauty all over again- I really thought I was going to be in for something bland, but not THIS annoying and unpleasant. I really hate this movie, thanks to its combination of terrible tonal shifts, bland story, irredeemable cast of characters, and ho-hum voice acting. It’s easy to see why this movie never made it to the States. (2,541 words. Can't believe this one took me almost a week to write, but I needed to get my thoughts collected so I could express just what the hell was wrong with this movie.)

This is a really foul movie. I don't really get this kind of enjoyment out of something that fills me with dread and hatred- I would much rather be talking about things I really love, like Zootopia, but this is the kind of movie that is not only so bad that it's wasted your time, but it'll ruin your day!

Yes, I give this movie a 2. And how appropriate because now I can make more room for my best big project. That's right guys, The Wall #50 is going to be... THE TOP 10 WORST MOVIES OF 2016 I'll see you all there.