Also, as of Kung Fu Panda 2, I'm officially halfway done the Dreamworks Watch (thank god), so here's my preliminary halfway point tier list:

Why do bug movies so frequently look like THAT! Especially from the early 2000s.

And why are they always about the colonial hymenopterans? (ants and bees mainly, and wasps are basically always antagonistic to a degree.)

I mean I guess they’re the closest thing to human society, but they have such a different social system to us!

Why must they give them unnerving and uncanny human eyes and mouths to them?

For those colony bug movies, why why why do the research on colony structure and behaviours sprinkle in jokes and world building elements using them (like with ants keeping/using aphids), when you still make them have a 1:1 MALE TO FEMALE RATIO IN THE COLONY!!!?!?

Perhaps research on this stuff was hard to come by then? Yet they could still, literally call up some entomologist or person who works with bugs and get the bloody answer that way? Or find books on the matter? Like I just don’t get it.

However, SOME (cough cough The Bee Movie cough cough) do barely any research at all. Fuck this one makes me want to pull my hair out. The jokes and all, yeah they can be funny, but I’m just SO off put by how INACCURATE the bees are! Again with the equal number of males and females. There were literal families of bees, no queens, like ??? Im gonna ignore the plot, even tho it is batshit crazy.

And why, for the love of god, make a ROMANCE between two ants of the SAME COLONY!!!?!?! THEY’RE BASICALLY SIBLINGS!?!? (Looking at you A Bug’s Life and Antz.)

It may just now be a thing of the past, however, because Sebastian J. Cricket’s design in Del Toro’s Pinocchio is seriously perhaps the best bug character design I’ve seen in film yet. So hopefully, all that LITERAL INCEST is from the past.

And these recent bug media like Hollow Knight, Bug Fables, and the small little bit I’ve seen from Social Moth and Human’s Be Gone have infinitely better designs to that hair pullingly frustrating stuff from these big companies looking to widely distribute their stuff.

Like lads. Just make them look alien. Make them look not human. By making them look human you’re just putting them in the uncanny valley.

Honestly, I just want some good bug rep in media. Anyone have any good bug media? Whether that be movies, shows, games etc. Primarily with the protags being bugs themselves, but I’ll accept some where they’re human.

Is It Really That Bad?

Disney and Dreamworks have been locked in combat since day one, and honestly, can you blame them? The Katzenberg/Eisner feud is pretty legendary, with both men taking potshots at each other in films, and the drama behind stuff like A Bug’s Life and Antz has been done to death. The thing is, in the early years of Dreamworks, it was pretty clear that no matter how hard they tried, Disney was the one who was taking the Ws when it came to the cinemas. Stuff like Sinbad and The Road to El Dorado were flopping pretty hard, and while The Prince of Egypt was a success, the failure of the former two ended Dreamoworks’s hopes of ever competing with Disney in the 2D animated market. What’s a studio to do in a situation like that? Well, someBODY ONCE TOLD ME...

Shrek didn’t just solidify Dreamworks as a contender, that movie changed the course of animation in the 2000s all on its own. With its snarky humor, pop culture references, awesome pop soundtrack as opposed to musical numbers, and celebrity cast, Shrek codified many trends for animation going forward—for better and for worse. But whatever impact the film had pales in comparison to one simple, unignorable fact: This movie came out on top over Disney. It won the first ever Academy Award for Best Animated Picture, and considering how long Disney was in that game that must have really fucking stung. While Disney spent the early 2000s floundering and releasing flops that would only become cult classics later, Dreamworks was riding that green wave Shrek produced all the way to the bank. What’s a studio to do in a situation like that? Well, someBODY ONCE…

Oh no.

Chicken Little was Disney’s blatant attempt at making their own Shrek (with blackjack! And hookers!), but to say that things didn’t pan out well for Disney there is a vast understatement. Michael Eisner made sure to meddle as much as possible, turning a more straightforward adaptation of the fairy tale into a snarky, self-deprecating comedy about baseball and aliens, which certainly is a choice. This choice had some dire consequences; while not a bomb by any means, the film ruined the already-struggling career of The Emperor’s New Groove director Mark Dindal, producer Randy Fullmer left Disney with Dindal and went into making guitars, and ultimately Eisner himself became a victim of the film as well, with it being the final blow to his tenure at Disney after a decade of failed investments. Eisner ended up passing the torch to Bob Iger, who turned out to be a better leader than Eisner who never did or said anything quite as stupid!

Audience reaction to the movie has always been pretty mixed, to say the least. Reviewers on YouTube such as Schafrillas, Doug Walker, and Mr. Enter have used the film as their punching bag at various points, with the latter in particular helping shape the image of Buck Cluck as Disney’s most vile father figure. Audiences these days aren’t particularly receptive to it either, with most people considering it Disney’s absolute worst film, though there are nostalgic viewers with a soft spot for it. I first watched the film myself a few years back, and I was thoroughly disgusted and unimpressed by what I saw; for the longest time, I had it higher than Doogal on my list of the worst films ever. Fucking Doogal! Can a film really be that bad?!

Well, I decided to give it a second chance and find out if maybe my perception was just colored by all the negative reviews. Is Chicken Little really that bad, or is this just a so-so Shrek ripoff that people overreacted to?

THE GOOD

Most of the characters in this movie are actually decent, even if they’re a little cringe. Chicken Little himself is a likable dork, which only makes all the suffering and setbacks he goes through that much harder to watch; I think they made him too likable, y’know? His friend group is pretty solid as well, with Abby being an okay love interest, Runt being a nice guy (or maybe I should say Nice Guy considering what he does with a bimbofied Foxy Loxy at the end), and Fish Out of Water being a cute “lol so random XD” character. They aren’t the best thing ever, but they’re all pretty decent. I can see why Zach Braff likes voicing the title character so much, and it is cool he got to be in the best Kingdom Hearts game, so that’s something!

Though of, course none of them hold a candle to the absolute Chad that is Morkubine Porcupine, a character so fucking cool that he refuses to give this movie the dignity of more than three single words out of his mouth. If he had more dialogue, the whole movie might collapse under the sheer power of his voice. He’s like Black Bolt, except a porcupine, and in a marginally better piece of Disney media.

There’s a great sequence at the end of the movie that has a Pee-wee’s Big Adventure-esque film within the film about Chicken Little’s exploits… except he’s a ridiculously buff rooster voiced by Adam West in a film that looks like an insane version of Star Fox from the brief clips we see of it. Runt is in there as a hardcore, ugly warthog and Abby is an overly-sexualized space bimbo, but I’m not even particularly bothered by the fact they gave the girl chicken breasts because Adam West’s chicken breasts are so much more massive. 

The entire scene, as brief as it is, is delightful thanks to West being West, and it honestly makes you wish that the whole movie was just a ridiculous space battle adventure… And everyone’s wish was granted when they released a pretty good video game based on this silly concept!

Of course, as is typical of any Disney movie, the best part is without a doubt the villain: Buck Cluck, Chicken Little’s own father.

 In his youth, he was a strapping sports star, and because of this he feels a deep sense of shame at his son’s wild antics and is completely unable to relate to him. He constantly puts him down in front of others to try and salvage his own reputation, throwing him under the bus at every opportunity and refusing to support him. And even after Chicken Little pushes himself to the limit and becomes a baseball star all so he can earn even the slightest smidgen of his father’s respect, Buck is quick to cast him aside once more all so that he can try and keep the dignity among the townsfolk he mooched off of his son’s victory. Buck Cluck is the proto-Mother Gothel, a distant and absent parent for the ages, and one of the most despicable foes the studio has ever produced. Hell, I might even go as far as to say he’s one of the greatest villains of all ti-

Wait, hold on. I’m being informed that Buck… isn’t intentionally a villain? He’s supposed to be… sympathetic…?

THE BAD

I’VE COME TO MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT! BUCK “THE CUCK” CLUCK’S A BITCH-ASS MOTHERFUCKER!

Ok, ok, let’s be serious for a second. I’m gonna get a bit controversial here, but Buck Cluck isn’t nearly as evil as people make him out to be.

Let me explain: While the film’s narrative completely and utterly fails to make his redemption feel earned at all, it’s not like he was ever really intentionally or even physically abusive like Frollo, Gothel, or Lady Tremaine were. Buck Cluck has a very real problem a parent can have, in that he has a hard time relating to his son while being a single parent that is likely still dealing with the loss of his wife. The issue is the movie doesn’t bother trying to flesh him or his feelings out and tries its damndest to make him look like a good guy all while he emotionally neglects his child.

All this being said, his vocal performance from The Princess Diaries director Garry Marshall is actually pretty great, he gets a few good jokes here and there, and it’s actually really endearingly goofy when he overcompensates with loving his son in the third act. While I’m never going to stop treating the character like he’s Chicken Hitler, I want it to be clear that my jabs at him are very much in the same vein as someone like Huey Emmerich. The difference, of course, is that Huey is an intentional case of making a character you love to hate, while Buck is accidental. And that’s why this segment is here, in “The Bad” part of the review: The movie failed this man so bad that he is put alongside characters like Shou Tucker, Ragyo Kiryuin, and Fire Lord Ozai in animated parent rankings. How do you fuck up that badly? Mainly by deleting the scenes where he actually gets development or characterization beyond being a lousy parent, that’s how!

These writing issues don’t just affect Buck, though; literally the entire movie is as messy as that Kentucky fried bastard’s characterization. The main issue is with the story itself. Now, when you have a movie called Chicken Little, you kind of expect an adaptation of the fable of the same name. And since this is Disney, you wouldn’t be stupid to assume that’s what they’d do, considering adapting fables, myths, and fairy tales is basically their bread and butter. But that is decidedly not what they did here; instead, they decided to make Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius by way of Shrek, because movies like that were popular at the time, and what we’re left with is a film populated by mean-spirited jerkasses who do nothing but dump on our likable main character as he takes part in a story to win the love of his dad via baseball that suddenly, out of completely nowhere, turns into an alien invasion movie about halfway through. Absolutely none of these elements work well together, and the film comes off felling like it was stitched together from unrelated scripts and turned into an unholy Frankenstein of bad ideas.

Not helping helping the disjointed story are the desperate attempts to seem cool. I like Morkubine Porcupine, he’s one of the better gags in the film, but he is so plainly a desperate attempt at creating an ensemble darkhorse that it hurts (the fact it actually worked in spite of this is nothing short of miraculous). The humor is very much aping Shrek, with lots of snarky humor and mean-spirited characters which ends up not working because it’s too cruel, and even ignoring that the pop culture references (a staple of Dreamworks at the time) just all come out of nowhere. Why is the fish reenacting King Kong? Why are these animals watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, and why is Indy still a human? Why did Disney think referencing the lemming suicide myth was a good idea when they literally perpetuated that myth by driving lemmings off a cliff for a movie?

Then there’s the animation. It is so blatantly obvious that this is Disney’s first time making a fully computer animated movie without Pixar’s help. A lot of characters look really unpolished, and even worse is that a lot of the characters are extremely overanimated. If you wanna see what I mean, watch Abby at the end of the dodgeball scene when she’s talking to Chicken Little. She just never fucking stops moving! Once you notice it, it becomes really distracting.

But by far the worst thing this movie does is the constant needle drops. This movie would make The Super Mario Bros. Movie blush with its overuse of licensed music, and it sure feels like Suicide Squad took notes from this because they cram so many tracks in here it’s not even funny. Sometimes they even just have thew characters sing them because… who fucking knows. Barenaked Ladies gets a pretty fat W with their song “One Little Slip” playing over our introduction to Chicken Little, but after that we either get the most obvious songs possible for any given seen (“It’s the End of the World as We Know It” plays over the alien invasion at the end, because of course it does) to “what the actual fuck is this doing here in the movie” (“Wannabe” by the Spice Girls is sung by Runt and Abby during a karaoke session, proving that canceling the Spice World review was not enough to save me from this band).

IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?

Alright guys, here comes my hottest take ever: Chicken Little… isn’t that bad.

Now, don’t get me wrong! This movie is still not really good at all. It’s disjointed, mean-spirited, confused, and stuffed to the brim with the tropes and trappings of every bad animated movie of the 2000s. But all of that is also what helps make this so genuinely fascinating! When Dreamworks did stuff like this, it was whatever, that studio is a rising contender in the animation game… but this is Disney! This is THE animation studio, the biggest around, and they’re making every single mistake possible because they want to try and beat Dreamworks at their own game, and they are failing at it! It’s honestly so funny that they tried to make their own version of Shrek without any sort of understanding of what made Shrek work.

But even beyond that, even though this movie is bad, it’s not really worse than Shark Tale is, and that is a premier so bad it’s good film. Really, this movie is the opposite of that film in many ways. Where that film had a world that was too overly nice and propped up the shittiest main character animated at the time, this movie has an insanely cruel world where the sweet, charming, heavily traumatized child is incessantly beaten down and belittled to the point you half expect him to try and dive headfirst into a deep fryer; where that film had a single generic plot that was at least remarkably consistent, this film has two separate plots that don’t go together at all and just end up making both halves of the film feel stupid and pointless; and where in that film Oscar is desperately seeking love from his peers due to his sheer selfishness, Chicken Little just wants the love and respect of his father. Pile on that the mountain of similarities, from the overuse of lame pop culture references for the sake of pop culture references gags to the bland love interests, and you have the Awesomely Bad Animation Double Feature of your dreams.

So yeah, I think the rating it has is about what it deserves. This is easily one of Disney’s weakest entries for sure, but it’s not without its moments and it has some amusing jokes, charming characters, and Adam West as a buff space chicken. If you go in with lowered expectations, you might be amused, but honestly I get why this film is so absolutely despised. It really isn’t great at all, and is firmly in the “so bad it’s good” category. You can’t really expect much more from a movie that presents a character whose biggest crime was just being an asshole getting their personality overwritten with a girly-girl one that the comic relief fat guy insists is perfect as a hilarious joke and then leads into a dance party ending where the whole cast sings Elton John.

...Or you could expect more if it weren’t for that son of a bitch Buck Cluck. Fuck that guy.

still not gonna fully come back on tumblr yet but i just wanna say that i... finished my dreamworks tier list... i have now seen all 46 of this studio's movies--well, i guess technically not all, since i'm including the direct-to-video release joseph: king of dreams (which, despite only being at the top of the B tier on my list, i do think is pretty underrated and idk why nobody seems to give it a chance), but excluding the trollhunters movie because i've never seen the trollhunters show. maybe someday i will, but right now i'm just not interested.

so, this all just confirmed for me what i've thought for a long time already, which is that dreamworks is an incredibly weird and incredibly inconsistent studio. they've created some of the most beautiful and magical animated films of all time with releases like how to train your dragon, rise of the guardians, and prince of egypt, and some of the most absolute bottom of the barrel trash i've ever had to experience with things like antz, shark tale, and boss baby. and then they've also made a handful of very middle of the road movies, that i wouldn't really say i enjoy all that much, but which i don't think are necessarily bad either--this is the C tier on my list and i will be honest, the first shrek movie was originally in this tier for me because i'm just not that into it. i only moved it up a little because i felt like i had to admit that it is objectively a pretty good movie that was groundbreaking for its time and paved the way for shrek 2 and the puss in boots movies, all of which i love, to exist.

i guess i should share my final ranking, huh? before i do that i will also say that this ranking is absolutely not objective at all and is almost entirely based on my own personal enjoyment. like i said, i originally had shrek 1 in C tier lol. and i have trolls world tour in A tier because i just genuinely love a lot of things about it and very thoroughly have a fun time watching it. the trolls franchise as a whole is so much better than most dreamworks stuff and i will die on this hill. i also tried to rank things from best to worst within the tiers, but i'm very indecisive and some of these movies were hard to rank simply because i couldn't decide if they were closer to "okay" or "bad", or "bad" or "awful"... i could see some of my rankings maybe changing slightly if i thought about it a little more. for now i'm fine with where everything is, though.

anyway, here's my list that is sure to make at least one person want to yell at me lol:

so, to break it down, my top 5 favorite dreamworks movies are:

Prince of Egypt

Rise of the Guardians

How to Train Your Dragon

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

How To Train Your Dragon 2

(i feel so bad that spirit: stallion of the cimarron got pushed out of the top 5... puss in boots: the last wish just existing + me rewatching HTTYD 2 and remembering how much i love it made that inevitable. but hey, it's still top tier.) and my top 5 least favorite dreamworks movies, starting with the least terrible one, are:

The Boss Baby

Turbo

Shark Tale

Antz

Spirit Untamed

(i watched these movies all out of order and for the longest time i thought nothing would dethrone shark tale as the worst of the worst, but i really did hate antz and spirit untamed that much, which surprised me lmao)

again, if i called your favorite movie bad, that really just means it's not enjoyable to me personally--i'm no professional film critic. also, i feel like the tiers came out sort of weirdly even, and i ended up with 21 movies in S-B tiers and 25 movies in C-F tiers, which really speaks to the inconsistency of dreamworks as a studio. i plan to try and keep up with their releases from now on, so i do hope that kung fu panda 4 & orion and the dark turn out well... but dreamworks keeps doing shit like releasing prince of egypt right after antz or putting out ruby gillman right after puss in boots: the last wish, so i guess we'll see! i'm just glad that i can currently say i've seen basically every movie from this ridiculous studio.

Miles, Phoenix and Larry were 9 in 2001 so they were born in 1992/3 which means there is a list of animated films (of varying quality) that they almost definitely watched INCLUDING:

We're Back! A Dinosaur Story (1993)

Those shitty direct to VHS Beauty and the Beast sequels like Belle's Enchanted Christmas

The Lion King (1994), and other masterpieces of the Disney renaissance

The Pagemaster (1994)

Balto (1995 - which one of them was a wolf kid?)

The Pebble and the Penguin (1995 - it's so bad and I love it dearly)

Space Jam (1997)

Anastasia (1997) and it's direct-to-video spinoff sequel Bartok the Magnificent (1999)

Antz (1998)

The Prince of Egypt (1998)

The Iron Giant (1999)

The Road to El Dorado (2000)

The Emperor's New Groove (2000)

Help I'm a Fish! (2000 - weird but it stars Alan Rickman so I'll give it a pass)

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Osmosis Jones (2001)

Spirited Away (2001 - which one is the weeb?)

Shrek (2001 - exquisite taste)

There's loads more. And that's not even considering movies that came out before they were born but probably saw.

Which movie was whose favourite VHS tape? Which did they see in theatres? Which were the other two forced to watch at sleepovers by the host? Who had the best taste in movies? The worst? The weirdest?

Did you know Dreamworks is making a teenage kraken movie about a girl kraken trying to blend in and the antagonist a mean girl mermaid with red hair. I haven’t seen the trailer cause I was told it reveals a lot but as soon as I heard kraken I had to ask you about it

I went ahead and watched this while I was decompressing in my car. When you said 'Dreamworks Kraken movie' My brain immediately 'dinged' because someone on Twitter, a year and some change ago, had leaked some concept art of mermaid/seamonster girls for a Dreamworks film so I'm guessing this is the film they were made for.

Now that the trailer is out, though... I have opinions! And not all of them are good.

First and foremost? This trailer sucks ass. Notice I didn't say anything about the animation or character-design, I said 'this trailer' sucks ass.

Why? Because this trailer is more like one of those YouTube 'reviews' that's really just a supercut of every important event in a movie. 'But Lit~ they have to show the eyecatching parts so people will watch the full movie~' A trailer is supposed to be a preview. PREVIEW! This is the 'Illumination School of Trailer-Composition' (i.e.: show every joke in the movie in one go) taken to the next worst extreme.

Now that that's out of the way:

Is it bad that, when I saw the main character, my brain went 'God, I hope we're not dealing with another Bug's Life/Antz situation'?Obviously, this movie is coming out ages after Luca, but this design really had me going 'R63!Luca???' And it makes me wonder if one studio heard about the other making a 'teenage fish movie' and it was a rush to see who could get theirs to screens first.

Plot - I get what they're doing with a 'teenager who just wants to live a normal life turns out they have a family, world-changing secret' (I mean, 'teenager' is right there in the title), but the initial setup has me going 'Again?' I just feel like this setup has been done a significant amount of times and I'm just left... *shrugs*

The dichotomy they're presenting with Krakens and Mermaids is... interesting. Also love that our antagonist is 'Not!Ariel'

It seems like it'll be a fine Dreamworks movie: not anything ti surpass Kung Fu Panda or HTTYD but something that's watchable in comparison to Boss Baby and Trolls.

Top 10 Worst Polish DUBs

As I said in my previous posts about the top 10 best Polish dubbings I don't think there are any true terrible Polish dubbings where every single person is bad. But there are a few badly voiced characters. But let's start this list with one and only, the myth the legend. . .

The Lector! For some of us, it's a nostalgic part of childhood others have no idea what I'm talking about. A lector is a person who does all the characters' voices. In the past, all movies were dubbed but then the Soviets attacked, brought communism, and having a one-person dub was cheaper. Communism is gone (hopefully forever) but lectors stayed thanks to the nostalgia, many people just got used to them. Now we can choose whether we want to watch the original with subtitles, the original with lector, or dubbing. I will say this, there are movies and shows where it works and where it doesn't work. The most surprising aspect of a lector is that it's not only him/her talking but you can still hear the original audio in the background. At first, it sounds weird and it is but it has its benefits. Thanks to it you can still enjoy the original performances while understanding what's going on. It helps with learning other languages. And it's fun watching the differences between the translation and the original because they're not word for word the same. It's like watching two movies at the same time. It also gives off the feeling like you're being told a story which can be very atmospheric. As if your grandpa or dad is reading you a bedtime story, especially when the lector's voice is so beautiful, warm and nice. Movies where it works are ''Home Alone'', ''AntZ'' and ''Corpse Bride''. The worst implementation of a lector was ''My Hero Academia''. There are too many characters talking over each other and the lector can't keep up with the dialogue while maintaining his ''lector'' voice. Let's all be glad we can so many ways to watch movies.

2. ''Totally Spies'' was on the list of the top 10 best Polish dubbings, so what's it doing here? Similar to how English voice actors changed since the 6th season because the show changed channels, so did the Polish voices. And while it's quite gearing change, especially if you grew up with the original cast the new voice actors do a good job and you can get used to them.

Except for one!

Mandy. Remember how I said I hated high-pitched voices? Well her voice actress has taken it to 11! I know Mandy is supposed to be an obnoxious and annoying character but that doesn't mean her voice has to be like nails on the chalkboard! I heard the same voice actress a couple of times but not for so long and not so loud. And her laugh. . . I had to stop episodes and take breaks from watching because I couldn't listen to her anymore. The previous 5 seasons I finished in about a week. I still haven't finished the last one because I dread listening to Mandy again. And now I have to get used to the new voices again. Let's hope the new season gets the old cast back. Or they might change voices for the third time. One thing's for sure, they can't be worse than Mandy from season 6. Right?

3. Steven Universe, more precisely Peridot. Her VA sounds too old. I know Gems are supposed to be thousands of years old but from the way Peridot acts and looks she's more of a teen/young woman/older woman but not a grandma! And I hate how they didn't translate ''Homeworld''.

4. Toad from X-Men Evolution. He's voiced by Jarosław Boberek, one of the best VAs in Poland, King Julian, an icon but he just doesn't fit the character. He emotes perfectly, he's funny, and fits his personality. But that's a voice of an old man coming from a teen boy. If he was in his 20s I could believe it or even if he was drawn to look more mature like other boys, but as is, it's just awkward.

5. Like I said there aren't many bad Polish dubbings (in my opinion), so from now on I will list problems and mistakes which happens in almost every dubbing but are still annoying. This one occurs mostly when translating but it can also happen in the original. I call it ''different episode, different voice''. It usually refers to the background characters. Their roles are so small that they don't have one VA but just any random person who was in the studio and had time to say one or two lines. It's usually fine when watching a show on TV but when you binge-watch it you start to notice or even when you just have a good memory and know they sounded differently. Sometimes it's so bad that they change voices during the episodes. It becomes even more distracting when a seemingly small, one-off character becomes more and more prominent. It's not always the translators' fault, they can't read in creators' minds. But after some point, when a character is sure to stay and be a permanent part of the show, more consistency would've been appreciated. Some of the examples include ''Gravity Falls'' and ''The Amazing World of Gumball''.

Top 10 Disney Movies That Were Never Made

Originally published January 13th, 2013

The Brave Little Toaster is being remade and will include more modern appliances like an iPhone.  There was a huge outcry at this because fuck man, The Brave Little Toaster is just awesome like okay?  But that movie was almost never made.  John Lasseter would have made his directorial debut with it, but Disney fired him when he suggested using 2-D characters with 3-D backgrounds and the project was shelved.  But of course, it exists now.  But doesn’t it make you wonder what movies stayed shelved?  Here are my Top 10.

10. Bambi’s Children (1943).  There were a lot of Disney sequels that were never made, but this was by far the worst sequel idea I came across.  Let’s watch some deer grow up—again! 

9. The Fool’s Errand (2002).  A story about a court jester that has to save his kingdom.  That would have been awesome.

8. The Prince and the Pig (2003).  A boy and his pig try to steal the moon.  THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AWESOME. 

7. Army Ants (1988).  A pacifist ant struggles living in a militant colony.  It’s funny because this idea was shelved twenty years before the whole “Antz and A Bug’s Life” controversy. 

6. Wild Life (2005).  Animals from the zoo trying to live in the gritty New York city.  The idea was canned for not being “Disney.”  It was later remade into the Disney movie “The Wild.” 

5. Penguin Island (1938).  A half-blind Christian Monk crash lands on an island of penguins and, mistaking them for people, baptizes them.  That couldn’t have gone well, but I would have watched the shit out of it. 

4. The Hound of Florence Inspector Bones (1941).  Essentially Sherlock Holmes with dogs.  What’s unique about it is that it would have been in the style of Tex Avery cartoons.  This was especially funny because Warner Bros. and Disney were in fierce competition in the early 1900s when they were both making aniamted shorts.  Warner Bros. was pop culturey and Disney had heart.  It would have been something to see Disney step into the Warner Bros. territory. 

3. The Tales of Hans Christian Anderson (1943).  This was actually going to be a story about the author’s life, with his life filmed in live-action and some of his tales included as animated segments.  Some of the tales that would have been included were The Little Mermaid, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and The Snow Queen.  All of these tales were made into Disney movies decades later (The Little Mermaid, The Emperor’s New Groove, and the upcoming Frozen.)  It would have been strange to see how Disney would have done them in the forties. 

2. Disney’s Dwarfs (2007).  This was basically supposed to be a franchise following the drawfs from Snow White.  Here’s the kick: It was supposed to be in the style of Lord of the Rings.  Essentially, Disney was going to do a gritty reboot of its very first movie.  But believe it or not, there’s a better pick for number one… 

1. The Wizard of Oz (1937). Disney planned on making this film right after Snow White, but the rights were lost out to Samuel Goldwyn, who later sold them to MGM.  MGM, of course, wound up making The Wizard of Oz that we all know, debatably the most iconic movie of all time.  Imagine if Disney had gotten the rights.  Imagine if he was the one to make The Wizard of Oz.

For some reason it’s not letting me answer the ask the way I want to, so... Annon-Guy Asked:  Annon-Guy: How do you feel about movies from Dreamworks? Like Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, Trolls, How to Train Your Dragon, Monsters VS. Aliens, Flushed Away, ANTZ and The Road to El Dorado. You can even include their recent movie, The Bad Guys, if you want too. Dreamworks has some of the best and some of the worst stuff, honestly. Shrek? Masterpiece. Unironically. A very good deconstruction, subversion and also embrace of Fairy Tale Tropes. Shrek 2? Superior to the first mostly because of the brilliant foreshadowing and the inclusion of Puss in Boots. Shrek 3? The worst Shrek. Thematically I understand what it was going for, but it was very ham-fisted. Shrek Forever After? Better than a lot of people give it credit for. Not as many good jokes, I'll admit, but actually a decent love story. The Madagascar series is... mediocre. The first one was fine, and the lemurs and penguins are the least annoying in that one. I enjoyed the premise but it was a lot of faffing about and I don't have many fond memories of it since I only saw it once or twice. Escape 2 Africa was honestly a lot better in my opinion. Bonus points for the absolutely insane move to pair up the Giraffe and Hippo. Not quite as epic as the Donkey and the Dragon from Shrek in terms of insane and unexpected cross-species pairings, but honestly, in movies where the animals are stand-ins for people, it's bewildering when things like, say, Disney's Robin Hood make Maid Marian a fox so she matches Robin so adults don't have to think about breeding when the only reason Robin is a fox is because he's clever and we associate cleverness with foxes. As nobility, and not exceptionally clever nobility, there's no reason Maid Marian couldn't have been a lioness other than the fact that Disney didn't want to go with a strange Kermit and Ms. Piggy situation. So props for something like Madagascar, where the animals are CLEARLY still animals despite being anthropomorphized, to actually have the balls to be like "Yeah, it's weird logistically speaking, but the Hippo and Giraffe have chemistry so fuck it, they get to be a couple now." Europe's Most Wanted is the second best one. The weird romance between King Julien and the bear is actually pretty damn funny with the melodrama, and the absolutely insane Animal Control woman are definitely highlights. The Gia and Alex romance was a little forced and I'm honestly so burnt out on the "Liar Revealed" plot where the whole crew has to break up for 10 minutes in the third act for tension that I kind of felt the movie would have been better without those bits but, like. I understand movies have to movie and that subplot was popular at the time and movies do better landing with mixed audiences if they have romances and yadda yadda. But, like. If they had to go with the romances, they could have made them better. Alex and Gia did have some chemistry when they were practicing trapeze together but the movie isn't nearly enough of that to make it engaging. The King Julien romance gets a pass because it's not a focal point and not trying to be. It's trying to be comedy and it works. As for the Liar Revealed plot, that works best when the liars lies actually harm the people they're lying to. This works well in something like The Tigger Movie where the stakes are mostly emotional. The gang pretending to be Tigger's family upsets him because he feels like they're belittling him and his wish to get in touch with other's like him. It's done even better in Aladdin, in my opinion. Aladdin's lie is wrong because it's solely to take advantage of Jasmine's "stupidity." Or the stupidity of others involved mostly. But Jasmine was told that he DIED and he comes waltzing back in with a new title and EVEN WHEN THEY'RE IN PRIVATE he doesn't admit to her that "Hey, I'm actually the guy you met in the market place. She's not mad at him later when it comes out he's a commoner. She liked him before he had any of the princely titles or any of that. She liked him for who he was. But she IS mad at him for not telling her who he was when he had the chance to. In Madagascar, the only reason they had to lie was for their own safety. And really, once they joined up with the troupe, they WERE technically circus performers. Lying, even for good reason, can be damaging, and I'm not suggesting the message of "lying can be hurtful" inherent to the trope is a bad message. Children, the target audience, can especially benefit from learning the value of honesty. But if the only reason the lie is bad is because it's a lie, it kind of loses its bite. The other troupe members aren't hurt because the lie caused troubles. Their acts improved immensely with the help of Alex and friends. The only person with anything approaching a sensible reason for why the lie was bad was the sealion who pointed out that, yeah, getting fired out of a cannon with no training is dangerous and he could have died. But that's not really what the movie tries to sell us on. The movie tries to sell us on the idea that pretending to be circus performers is inherently a violation, not because it put the others in danger while performing, but because being a fake circus performer is like being a fake doctor. And that angle could work, but in addition to burnout on the trope and better examples from other movies, I just don't like it in Madagascar 3. Especially because a similar thing was done so much better in Madagascar 2. And Dreamworks did the Liar Revealed plot much better with How to Train Your Dragon 2 years before Madagascar 3. Penguins of Madagascar was alright. A bunch of silly nonsense in my opinion, but I only saw it once. Probably my least favorite.Kung Fu Panda was alright. I never got around to watching it until I was an adult, but I liked the message. Jokes were kind of hit or miss, but Jack Black makes any role amazing and I appreciate that while there are some Fat Jokes, Po doesn't have to slim down to become a Kung Fu master. In fact, having a lot of weight to throw around works to his advantage. The Kung Fu is more about using the body he has to the fullest advantage and learning discipline rather than having to be the fastest or strongest. After all, strongmen that actually do heavy lifting aren't chiseled hunks. They actually need a healthy layer of fat to protect their muscles. Also Master Oogway is amazing and there's a lot of Daoism present in the philosophy of the movie. Kung fu Panda 2 had some guts putting in the Panda Genocide. I know a lot of movies and shows play with darker themes and skirt around the implications and nothing will ever get as close to a nuanced discussion of genocide as Avatar: The Last Airbender. But honestly, props to movies that actually have the guts to do that. Other than that, it was just a sort of pleasant time-killer? Not as good as the first but not bad. Decent message about coming to terms with grief and the past but nothing remarkable. I haven't seen the 3rd one yet but I saw the little bonus material with the backstories of the Furious Five. Nothing spectacular and not quite Aesop's fables, but nice little self-contained moral stories for kids.I saw the first Trolls movie once or twice and saw a review of the second one. I like a decent Jukebox musical so it was fine in that regard but there's nothing about it that makes me want to watch it again. I did enjoy the media analysis done by Big Joel, but that's about the only thing valuable I got out of the movie and I think kids wouldn't catch on to that subtle stuff since I, an adult, had to be shown by another adult how to see it from that perspective. If it was on in the background, I wouldn't yell about it and if I had nothing better to do I'd watch, but it's not in a catalogue of things I'd keep around. (Note to self, do a list at the end of things I'd keep in the catalogue...) How to Train Your Dragon is a gorgeous series of films. Loved the first one. Toothless is just amazingly designed. Wonderful disability representation and a nice message of peaceful solutions, reasonable accommodation, and not forcing people to be measured along a single axis of "worth" in order to be valuable. HTTYD 2 was also an amazing film, great themes, amazing if subtle romance between Stoick and Valka when they reunite that isn't forced to rekindle or advance like nothing ever happened. The only thing I will say is that Stoick died for no reason in my opinion. His death was purely for shock value and tear-jerking. I know it's a common thread to fridge wives, daughters, girlfriends, mothers, and women in general to give the men motivation and little else and I know Stoick's death doesn't exactly qualify because he does exist for other reasons and does help move the plot outside of his death. Mufasa from the Lion King got fridged harder than Stoick. But honestly, I think Stoick's death still counts. I have not seen the third one but I really want to and I haven't seen the animated series yet (I heard it isn't good but I intend to see it.) I saw part of a Christmas Special once but I realized it was set after the third movie so I didn't watch the whole thing.Monsters vs. Aliens might be my least favorite Dreamworks film? I remember the marketing and the character designs were interesting and I remember wanting to see it as a kid but I only got to see it when it showed up on Netflix when I was an adult. The jokes didn't land for me, the story was boring, the premise was interesting but ultimately wasted. I don't remember half of what it was about but I do remember it feeling long and boring. 0/10, would not watch again. I saw Flushed Away once as a kid and remember nothing about it other than rats in suits and the Wallace and Grommet claymation. Sorry. Don't have an opinion. Don't remember hating it so I'd be willing to see it again. Never saw Antz, art style was ugly, even as a kid who loved everything animation. From what I heard, it sucked. I'd be willing to see it once but honestly, with so much on my watchlist, even if it was free, IDK if I could be bothered. The Road to El Dorado is a masterpiece. I love everything about it. I would change nothing, I am still waiting on a sequel, IDEC if we as a society come to regard it as racist at some point (time marches forward and with luck, progress remains progress, inevitably most things sour with age, even innocent fun.) I'll be some artificial consciousness watching the sun explode while we all live in little spheroid unkillable mechs or whatever with no concept of race and I will still be watching the hell out of that movie. Bring it back to Netflix, please. I've watched it 400 times or something and it is STILL not enough. I have not seen The Bad Guys yet, but I'm furry trash and I really want to. You left out Megamind which is also a masterpiece. Not as good as the Road to El Dorado in my opinion, but better than Despicable Me by an incredible margin, and I LIKE the original Despicable Me before the series became a trashfire of marketing the horrendous yellow annoyances known as the Minions. Honorable mention to the Puss in Boots movie that I vaguely remember but only saw once, I saw the sequel is coming up and I'm interested. So, hmm Tier list... Masterpiece: Will force my kids to watch if I ever have any and would want available on my deathbed: Shrek 1, Shrek 2, HTTYD 1, HTTYD 2, The Road to El Dorado Good shit: Will show to future children if I have any and will keep in stock: Shrek 4, Megamind Decent: Will watch again if asked and keep in stock in case an errant desire to revisit emerges: Shrek 3, Puss in Boots, Madagascar 2, Kung Fu Panda Unobjectionable: Will watch if a friend wants to, will suggest other things if available, only kept in stock if I already happen to own it: Madagascar 1, Madagascar 3, Kung Fu Panda 2, Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five, Trolls 1, Shrek the Halls Yawn: Will not scream if left on in the background. Will watch if there is nothing else available but won't necessarily be happy about it: Penguins of Madagascar, Kill me: Will brick myself to sleep before watching it again, Would much rather do other things: Monsters vs. Aliens Unseen: Unable to form opinion but open to the experience: Puss in Boots: The Three Diablos, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, The Adventures of Puss in Boots, Kung Fu Panda 3, Trolls 2, HTTYD 3, HTTYD Holiday Special, HTTYD Race to the Edge, Flushed Away (seen once, don't remember enough, making my impression roughly equivalent to unseen), The Bad Guys Unseen (Derogatory): Would only see with the expectation of a bad time, would not actively choose to watch it but has no solid negative opinions other than aversion: Madagascar (The TV Series), ANTZ.

an antz life. Bootleg movie that haunts my dreams. There is a scene where someone eats food but their mouth literally does not connect to the food in any way. There is a fight scene and it's the worst thing you could imagine. One of the characters makes a weirdly racist comment about other types of ants and it's never brought up again. Every character moves like it is their last day on earth and their body is about to give out.

For a minute I thought you meant Antz, the film that came out a month before Pixar's A Bugs Life. I have seen Antz, and it is very bad. The main character falls in love with an ant princess, which is stupid. At one point he has a scene talking to the dying, decapitated head of his slaughtered friend in a deeply disturbing scene for a children's movie. I thought I was going to have actual context for this one!

But no, this is apparently worse than that.

I don't want to know what really goes on in my back yard.

I give you 2/10 points for cursing me with knowledge of this film.

@alenoah and @icedancerhell did this and ik im definitely going to be cancelled for my taste but explanations below

prince of egypt: oh my gfucking god . bro the music. the ANIMATION. the story too like obviously its based on a religious tale but i mean the way its portrayed and interpreted and how it all comes across was so on point. and did i mention THE FUCKGIN MUSIC dude i would try to sing every song when i was a kid and i think attempting that literally improved my range growing up

shrek: ok when ur a kid literally all u want is to feel mature and cool. shrek was that in an hour and 30 minutes. all the adult humor. and even the shit that would fly over your head somehow still always registered as so funny. every line is burned into my brain bc i watched it so much it was so fuckgin funny and entertaining and the storyline was so depthful and important. shrek for president

sinbad: oh yeah he makes me wanna sin. Bad

rise of the guardians: oooohhg the plot was so cool and intriguing,,, the designs were so unique,,,, also i actually used to. cosplay jack frost when i was a teen osfkjskjfhksdjf i might have like One picture around here somewhere,

over the hedge: every character is perfectly designed and perfectly voiced and the humor was so good. me at like 8 years old watching hammy the squirrel drink coffee and frolic around in a slowed down world was the peak of comedy

madagascar: its just such a classic. another movie where every line is burned into my cerebellum bc i had it on dvd. id say out of this whole list this close to number one. idk where to even begin with how stupidly hilarious it was to me

httyd: lbr who didnt just do a full [lisa simpson face] when you got to the end and hiccup had lost part of a leg. the whole movie had this aura that it was like not tethered down somehow while still being great family friendly media. also im ace sexual and UHH big dragon

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antz: unironically i think it deserves so much more than it gets. the anti war messages are great the designs are cool and it goes back into the shrek maturity territory where they get to say CUSS WORDS. p much my only qualm is that woody allen had to be there 😔😔😔  

shark tale: ok dont cancel me but i really love the plot actually. i mostly love the mafia shark boy that dresses as a dolphin but even the will smith fish crash-and-burn fame hubris thing while annoying at times was rly intriguing. and the designs are the kind of thing that as a kid i loved but as an adult i do. struggle , w ith, a bit, but overall funny and entertaining story

el dorado: the music slaps so fuckgin hard thats another example of me tryna sing cartoon music to an embarrassing degree. also the Colorse . the designs . and the humor osjfsjdf the only downside is just a personal vibe bc the best friend conflict storylines make me anxious sometimes lol

flushed away: oh my god dont at me. some of the characters are so fuckgin annoying and some of the humor is just so much but i rly did like the worldbuilding and storyline. stupid posh ass rat was rly cool actually. also yet another mafia/gang violence plot in childrens media why is that so funny when ur a kid god

spirit: GREAT MUSIC GREAT STORY! i think the way the story goes like, its Better to be told with regular horses and narration rather than talking horses,,,, but my dumb whimsical child ass just didnt latch onto that style as much as the talking animal movies

shrek 2: rly good tbh all the new characters introduced are interesting and entertaining to watch, but i mostly remember it for i need a hero and human shrek. didnt rly hit the same mark as the first :/

httyd 2: another great movie with another great twist but it almost felt like too much at once for my little brain to handle. overloaded me with gay emotion 

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megamind: i love everything it stands for i just never saw it until like a year ago so its not that dear to my heart

kung fu panda: not my style of humor, i saw it once and can hardly remember it but i feel like the plot was wholesome and cute

the croods: so funny and good, ive seen it many times actually. but some of the humor just isnt my thing (its, well, crude, which also took me like 5 yrs to get that joke,)

bee movie: was pleasantly surprised the first time i watched it??? it was pretty good and it did kinda make fun of itself so idk why its so cringe to ppl. barry b benson entertained me unironically

chicken run: i saw it once when i was very young and it just didnt resonate with me also claymation most of my childhood terrified me

wallace and gromit: same as chicken run

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entire never saw it tier: dotn hate me i just dont have a lot of time on my hands. i know i will be oppressed into watching peabody and sherman within the week and i accept the charges

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monsters vs. aliens: someone got it for me on dvd and i hated it so much. its not even that bad its just a me thing like for some reason the part where the lady becomes a giant during her wedding or w/e was just like. the worst nightmare i could imagine i hated it and it made me scared to get married bc i thought that could happen to me. also none of the main cast is charming to me one of thems a bug and i have a bug phobia so i could never rly get thru it im sorry but i coudltn do it

madagascar 2: alex backstory was kinda good but the rest was forgettable for me

madagascar 3: visually kinda cool but. :/// felt really off compared to the previous movies, like an obvious cash grab. i mean who could forget the constant polka dot afro circus song advertisements

shrek 3: again mostly just remember it for the frog dad dying ,,,

shrek 4: i only saw it like 5 months ago for the first time. fiona being a warrior in an alternate timeline or w/e (if that was real and not a fever dream) was the only semi tolerable part for me

penguins of madagascar: the first few minutes with them as babies was cute the rest i physically could not keep my attention on. i dont remember anything else im sorry

Jen Tortures Herself with Every Dreamworks Animated Movie Ever: Final Thoughts

Alas, the Dreamworks watch is complete! What a fucking weird ass experience that was. From the heights of wonder and beauty and actual art and emotions and magic that I got to experience in films like Prince of Egypt, How to Train Your Dragon, and Kung Fu Panda, to some of the most bottom of the barrel shit I've ever had to experience like Shark Tale and Antz, I feel like I have experienced the full spectrum of human emotion over the past several weeks.

Dreamworks is such an odd fucking studio, one with such a diverse filmography that is kind of just... all over the place in terms of quality. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I've had a hell of a fun time with this little pet project. Getting to experience some of these movies again (and many for the first time) was an absolute treat, and I loved sharing my thoughts on them with ya'll.

But at the end of the day, what did I learn from all of this. Well... plenty of things. I learned that Dreamworks only knows how to make three kinds of plots (family reunion, daddy issues, and Because Woman). I learned that the Dreamworks' antagonists are usually either sassy assholes discontent with their lot in life or awkward outcasts who eventually come into their own through family or freidnship. I learned that Dreamworks 2D animation is sacred and special and that I want it back so fucking badly. I learned that ogres can love, pandas can fight, dragons can be trained, trolls can sing, and babies can be bosses. And I learned that sometimes, the Dreamworks Finale Dance Party is the most powerful magic of all.

So of course, you all are probably wondering what my definitive ranking for all 45 of these movies is, huh? Well, fortunately, I've been keeping a tier list throughout this marathon to rank them all, so here's that, with each tier also in order from best to worst:

To break it down, my top three favorite Dreamworks movies are:

Prince of Egypt

How to Train Your Dragon 2

How to Train Your Dragon

And my top three least favorite or worst Dreamworks movies are:

Antz

Shark Tale

Spirit Untamed

Unsurprising, really, I think we all knew how this was gonna turn out, but where some of these movies landed on the list actually surprised me. Like... how could I have ever guessed that Croods 2 would be good enough to land an A rank? How could I have known that Spirit Untamed was a piece of shit fuck ass that is one of the worst things I've had to fucking watch for this? You'd also be surprised on how much I've toiled on S rank because... there were moments when HTTYD2 was this close to dethroning Prince of Egypt. So consider those two to be essentially on the same level of utter excellence in my mind.

So yeah, that brings us to the end of all of this, for now. I may come back and review the shorts and holiday specials eventually, and I may even return to this every year to review new Dreamworks movies that have come out (Kung Fu Panda 4, I have my sights set on you). I've grown pretty damn attatched to this silly studio, so I doubt I'm anywhere finished with them yet. As for my next watchthrough (not coming any time soon, but... eventually), well... get ready for...

Jen Tortures Herself with Every Pixar Movie Ever Made!

Coming soon, to a shitty blog near you!

Ranking every Pixar movie

From worst to best.  As an extra challenge, tag five people to do it too.  @falling-oceans @sweetkirbi  @briefstrangerchild  @matchasweettea @tehhappypl-ace

22. The Good Dinosaur: I hate Arlo. As a character, he has no spine, spends most of the film whining about how terrible his life is and then when he finally gets a grip, the movie is over. As for animation, the dinosaurs were too cartoon like to feel right for such a landscape based film. I did like the Pizza Planet truck in the opening scene, ten out of ten for hiding it with the asteroid belt. 21. Monsters University: nothing interesting happened here. Moving on. 20. Finding Dory: sigh. This film was well animated, I love Pixar and water, but most of the stunts felt, too unreal. Where Nemo and Marlin fountain hop was what killed me. I liked Hank, but when the film had him drive a truck with all the fish inside, I gave up. I did like the closure on what happened to the fish from the tank in Australia, but however they got to Cali beats me. It was nice to see Crush again. 19. Cars 2: MATER IS A SIDE CHARACTER. Ok, rant over. I thought it was okay, but still, very disappointing for a Pixar sequel. 18. Cars 3: The trailer was better than the movie. Pixar should have stopped after Cars 2. I personally didn’t care for McQueen’s end paint job. 17. Cars: The idea is nice, the soundtrack is killer, I just don’t like the Cars movies at all. I’m sorry, but McQueen is egotistical and a jerk. Just because he got stuck in Radiator Springs, doesn’t mean he’s got character development. I do however love when he arrives that first night, easily the best five minutes of the movie. 16. Toy Story 4: It felt more like a marketing strategy, rather than a continuation of the Toy Story universe. Forky and his existential crisis is a solid mood. I’ll admit, I walked out halfway through the film, it wasn’t worth my time. I wish that they left it at three movies. 15.  Monsters Inc.: I liked the idea of the movie. But, feels like the plot drops too fast and that the resolution drops as well. Mike’s comedy act is game though and Put that thing back or so help me remains one of my favorite things to yell at siblings. 14.  Coco: the animation is Gorgeous. I loved this movie when it first came out. The story is beautiful, they handled the villain with grace and it gave me warm fuzzies. However, it’s overplayed. Every family reunion I’ve been out since this film came out, they’ve played this. Stop. I think the songs are okay, but I get tired when they’re stuck in my head. Pixar created a masterpiece that my relations ruined, which is ironic, since the movie is about family. 13. Toy Story 2: they reused the, ‘I’m not a toy!’ plot and that made it tired. I liked Jessie. And the horse licking Cheeto dust off of Al’s fingers. Al looked a bit like my middle school theater teacher, so that made me feel uncomfy. Other than that, decent film. 12. Inside Out: Joy is annoying. The idea is great, although they missed a great pun opportunity with when they had to walk through long term memory. Could have used a memory lane pun. The rest of the puns were amazing and I loved the concept, just wasn’t well executed. 11. Up: I don’t cry during movies (Frozen 2’s show yourself is the exception), so I didn’t really feel upset during the first ten minutes of the film. I love Kevin and Russel’s friendship and then the pleasant surprise that there were baby Kevins. Carl had great character development and I’m grateful Pixar showed real world challenges people go through. 10. Incredibles 2: Voyd is amazing. So is Violet and Dash, I loved the boat, but my favorite part is right before the battle with Screenslaver. You don’t talk, you watch talk shows. You don’t play games, you watch game shows.... The monologue over Elastagirl hunting the big bad gave me literal chills. I would pay to watch this again and again. I loved the limo driver that messed up his line to Frozone as well. And the little girl with the sign at the protest reminded me of similar signs I’ve seen, and made, before. 9. Bug’s Life: Very mature for a Pixar film. Held onto some ideologies I’ve studied and I personally think it’s a lot better than Antz, which took a similar direction but failed. 8. Toy Story: the animation may not have aged gracefully, but for when it hit theaters, it was something the world had never seen before. I love the magic eight ball, the aging of the room was a nice touch and the dog was a riot. 7. Toy Story 3:great finale. Great characters and development and great animation. I love Barbie and that she broke up with Ken instead of just being an airhead of a toy. 6. Finding Nemo: Cinematic masterpiece. Pixar and water is a great combo, and it’s got a great story. 5. The Incredibles: Violet is so relatable. Mirage is awesome, easily the most underrated bad guy to good guy I’ve seen. Mom and Dad hero pair, amazing. Dash running on water, amazing. Violet growing up and saving her brother from the Omnidroid, amazing. Edna Mode voiced by Brad Bird, amazing. This film was incredible. 4. Brave: yes, this movie gets a lot of hate. And I mean a lot. But I’m a sucker for a heroine who takes charge. Merida fights with her mom, we all fight with family and that makes it feel realistic. The music is amazing. Chase the wind is still one of my favorite songs. The will the wisps are accurate to myth and th amount of sheer detail goes unnoticed in this movie. DunBroch, Mordu’s fallen kingdom, the Stonehenge, the sky are all so artfully animated. The witch is an absolute riot and I love her. 3. Onward: DND references everywhere. I love it. Ian Lightfoot is a relatable character with his social anxiety and lists of what he needs to do, and his sacrifice is commendable. Barley is a supportive older sibling and he’s a role model with how he helps his younger brother learn to drive, learn magic and so many other things. The Manticore is excellent and a salty character I live for. The mom is bad a, and I think that it’s amazing she got so much screen time compared to other Pixar moms. Ride of the Valkeryies playing while Barley salutes his van’s final voyage? Tearjerker. The curse beast having the face of the high school’s dragon mural? I was the only one who laughed in the theater I was in. It was relatable and heartfelt, a Pixar masterpiece. 2. Ratatouille: this movie was the start of my love of baking and of Paris. I was young when it came out, but it’s so, so artistic and beautiful. Remy is a well thought out character and having Gusteau as his shoulder angel was amazing. Alfredo Linguini literally means white sauce pasta, but I’ll ignore that. The end with the new restaurant is amazing and Chef Skinner is salty and I like it. 1. WALL.E: space. This was my childhood. I’ve seen this movie maybe upwards of a hundred times. The animation is gorgeous, the characters beautifully scripted. For a movie that has only 22 minutes of speech, it conveys a message far more powerful than any words could. WALL.E is a sunshine child with his hyperfixation on humans and as someone who hyperfixates, this was amazing to see on a big screen. That it was okay to have quirks and unique interests and viewpoints. The spacedance is beyond anything and it still has bits of humor, along with heartwarming scenes and images. EVA fixing WALL.E at the end was painful, and then the Spark bringing back WALL.E’s life was the best ending I could have ever gotten. And his whole goal was just to hold EVA’s hand, it was soooo cute!  I might have to revise my list when Soul comes out, but here’s the current!

One of the major flaws of HTTYD 3 in comparison to its predecessors is how childish the movie felt. The first two movies had the occasional joke but were still extremely mature in their storytelling. Have you read the article "Dreamworks execs have an incredible reason for why their films are unpopular" ? It came out a year after the second movie, and explains why they dumbed down the third.

It’s an interesting article and I’ve always thought there was some truth in the opinion: to their detriment, DreamWorks’ latest films haven’t focused on the creatively wild, often more mature spark that made things like How to Train Your Dragon, The Croods, Rise of the Guardians, Megamind, or The Prince of Egypt quality films. As the article writer notes:

Animated films, if anything, attract a much broader audience of older children, teens, and adults than they ever did in the Eighties and Nineties. Ironically, DreamWorks’s own films in the 2000s played a significant role in expanding the public’s perception about animated features. Now, DreamWorks is betting against its own history as they try to get back on track.

That said. Many of the earliest DreamWorks productions have a somewhat mature appeal to them, but I feel like DreamWorks has long played the game of wide audience appeal commercialism. For a period of time, they balanced their “artistic” or “venturesome” films against their “safer cash” films. The fluffier Turbo was released just one year before HTTYD2; Kung Fu Panda 3 and The Boss Baby were released a year apart, too. There was a sense of balance, letting the fluffier, probably more kid-appealing films earn money, while allowing them to take risks on more unique ventures. I’m not sure if that was their actual strategy, but regardless: balance of maturity. (And for the record, calling some DreamWorks movies “fluffier” is not intended to be an insult; I myself love their Mr. Peabody & Sherman).

And I think the reason I was so hardcore on board the DreamWorks train is that, whether it was an ill-conceived mistake (Shark Tale) or a big “what the fuck” (Bee Movie) or feeling somewhat adult (Antz), DreamWorks was willing to take those risks. DreamWorks was willing to be quirky. And DreamWorks was willing to put heart into everything; Mr. Peabody & Sherman definitely has heart to it, as does Home, as does Turbo from what I remember (only saw that one once).

I feel like advertisements for Trolls and The Boss Baby is where my friendship circles started to feel less enthused about DreamWorks. At that point, I saw some trust failing for DreamWorks’ creative direction - that DreamWorks was dumbing down their movies for children rather than making fluff family films with heart. The key phrase is “dumbing down.” There’s a huge difference between writing children’s stories and dumbing down for children. And that’s what this article writer was calling out, too.

Ghibli movies are written for children. Disney 2D animated films bring awe to children. How to Train Your Dragon understood that lots of its audience members would be children. But you breathe life into a quality story that children and adults can enjoy! Making a bunch of crappy jokes dumbed down to children is stuff like... at its worst... Norm of the North. When you’re making something shoddier, with half-assed fart jokes, because of an implicit idea children’s media doesn’t have to be as quality... because children allegedly aren’t going to notice quality... that’s where we run into problems.

Now, I’m not going to say whether or not I think DreamWorks has actually begun dumbing down its films. I know that’s the impression in my peer group. I know that’s an impression I’ve felt inside my heart, too. But I haven’t seen Trolls or Trolls World Tour or The Boss Baby so I can’t judge. But I think it’s safe to say there has been a gradual shift over time. And that escalated post-2014, where we got this from DreamWorks execs:

…the company's slate changes are more realistic/in-tune with the evolution in changes in the box office market as the 2012-2014 film challenges were tied to films which skewed older right as the box office began to see changes whereby animation demand was increasingly skewing younger as kids began to age out of the genre earlier. While we view the ability to reduce P&A as more difficult given the need to advertise to two distinct groups (kids and moms), the combination of both cost reductions in production and a younger skewing slate, do position the slate better in our view.

And my impression is it’s escalated lately (but I only have a small sample size of films, so I take what I say with a grain of salt). I remember during the NBCUniversal acquisition in 2016, fans feared DreamWorks would lose its sometimes mature, sometimes quirky heart. That the company would be in a downfall state for quality.

I had hoped that HTTYD3 might be a bastion against efforts to commercialize with cash-easy, not-as-heart-ful “kid” appeals. THW grossing a lot of money could help leadership remember that diverse audiences, not tiny children, can and do watch animated films - 3D animation’s just not a guaranteed success because it’s a more saturated market. It could at least let the tradition of some DreamWorks gutsier creative films perpetuate.

And I do think that THW doesn’t have as many problems as, say, The Boss Baby probably does, when it comes to “kid-specific appeal”. I feel like the tone in THW has a middle ground. THW was never going to be as dark as HTTYD2; DeBlois made that clear since the release of HTTYD2; but I do think there might have been an effort to lighten tone in places (ergo the large number of gag jokes that cluttered the film). There’s absolutely mature ideas inside THW: the concept of parting ways with someone you love because it’s better for both of you... that’s meaty... that’s something that even adults grapple with. Hiccup’s flashbacks with Stoick have the simple but in-depth storytelling mood I know of the How to Train Your Dragon brand. So I would phrase it as it’s not a case of complete dumbing down so much as it is some imperfect tonal choices and plot focuses (too much spotlighting on the Light Fury romance, for instance, and not weeding out an excessive amount of jokes... that again... cluttered the film). The first two HTTYD movies feel like carefully honed storytelling, capturing the essence of what their story needed. The third needed tonal and content reorganization. The presentation of stakes and plot progression weren’t on par with the first two films. The Hiccup-Toothless separation didn’t pack a hard punch to me because the steps we took to get to the end weren’t the tonal footsteps we needed.

There’s a reason I charged to theatres the weekend Abominable released (mind, this was before the map controversy over the film came out). I was hoping Abominable could be a DreamWorks film with art and heart. And you know? I think that Abominable was one draft short of being *INCREDIBLE*. The problem is it was one draft short. It stayed superficial instead of diving into the meat. The plot pacing was slow because we didn’t get into the meat, the characterization felt awkwardly paced and whiplashy because it didn’t get into the meat, and the humor felt childish rather than taking full advantage of things like character relations. But the inside heart - the inside potential - of Abominable is monumental. It’s still not a bad film! If they’d gotten that next draft, Pearl and DreamWorks could have had a piece on par with Megamind and The Croods. I absolutely believe that. If I had time, I would rewrite Abominable in fanfiction and show how much potential this thing had.

DreamWorks is no longer a young studio exploring whatever the crap it wants because it’s the new guy finding his voice or rebelling against the other voice. DreamWorks is an established powerhouse. And with establishment comes a certain degree of safety-playing and standardization of content. I don’t expect we’ll get as many wild tone shifts as Bee Movie (11/2007) to Kung Fu Panda (6/2008) or How to Train Your Dragon 2 (6/2014) to freaking Penguins of Madagascar (11/2014).

That’s not to say DreamWorks does or doesn’t make quality films. I admit I don’t have high hopes on some things like The Boss Baby 2. I do have my fingers crossed for The Wizards of Once; I hoooope that DreamWorks can treat TWOO as they did HTTYD... something with simple, powerful, overflowing, artistic heart.

Who knows. Guess we’ll see.

finished watching shark tale. and that is not an experience i intend to go through ever again. every character was insufferable except, i guess, for lenny the gay-coded shark who i still think the movie should've been about. because the main character oscar was literally just the absolute worst, and even though aladdin also had a protagonist who got himself caught in a massive lie because of his own insecurity about his poor background, and who had to learn to accept himself for who he was and that social status wasn't the most important thing in the world, aladdin was overall a better character than oscar in so many ways and had an arc that actually made sense. you could root for him because you saw how selfless he could truly be, how he genuinely had no one but a monkey in his corner. oscar had someone who cared about him, but he seemed to only care about himself. the romance in aladdin also wasn't paper thin and brought down by a love triangle involving a generic girl next door and a sexyfied fish who obviously only "loves" oscar for being famous. and also aladdin is visually beautiful and well-animated. shark tale is. ugh. it's hideous CGI even for the year 2004.

ngl i think the only reason i didn't stop watching this movie partway through was because i was playing dreamlight valley on my switch at the same time to push through my boredom, and because while the character designs are incredibly ugly they're not actively difficult for me to look at. when i was making my pixar movie tier list i stopped a bug's life after 30 minutes (out of a combination of boredom + having too much trouble looking at giant CGI bugs. sorry, i know that movie has its fans) and i suspect i won't be able to get through dreamworks antz either unless that movie somehow has a really good story.

Heya momo! For those movie asks, can i ask 7 and 8?

Mystic my dear !!!!! So happy to see you in my askbox :3

7. A movie that always makes you cry?

Already answered here but there are other movies making me cry like hell, especially The Schindler's List (the worst is I didn't cried for the whole movie even if I'm really empathic about the subject. No, the slap in the face was THE LAST FRAME, when the black and white frame become colourful, when the characters of the movie are replaced with THE REAL PEOPLE who lived all of this. I don't describe it well, but damn I really lost it at this moment for hours after)

8. A movie that always makes you laugh?

La Grande Bagarre de Don Camillo and the four other films. French masterpiece. I laugh everytime even if I can recite every line.

I have also a soft spot for kids movies with a lot of adult jokes in it like Hercules or Antz (this one is so wild XDDD)

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