The SDC has already been defeated, if it survived at all it will be Whitley or willow in charge, that plot thread HAS been ended but it’s all thanks to Salem more then anybody else, the mantle vs atlas conflict is arguable also dealt with by Salem because for the time being they’re now on even ground, as for the white fang, I’ve mad or clear that I highly question ghira’s competence for the job, and with sienna dead I don’t see anybody who can give me any sort of trust

So, here's the thing, the SDC hasn't been fully dealt with. The legacy of it still remains, there's a good chance there's still pockets of SDC buildings around in other kingdoms, and while the physical SDC is destroyed, thar doesn't mean the people who worked with them are dead and gone. The SDC can't be dealt with any further baser on the conditions that we see.

Mantle vs Atlas conflict is only going to grow worse because they're on even footing. Being on even footing isn't a fix for years of conflict between faunus, humans, the elite and those who are struggling to get by. The elite are going to continue to want what they had, tensions will rise, the issues between Atlas and Vacuo is only going to fan the flames. Just because Atlas was destroyed doesnt mean that issue is over. Thinking that Atlas is gone fixes an entire issue of hate, systematic failure, and prejudices overnight because now everyone is on equal footing is asinine. I dont know how to tell you politely that you are an idiot if that is what you think. That's not how it works. And chances are, we probably wont see much because that's not going to be the focus of the story. The focus of the story at this point will be getting people to work together, not fix all the issues. Mantle vs Atlas and subsequently Atlas vs Vacuo conflicts are probably going to get glossed over and will more than likely be a talking in show that while they're going to hate eachother for years, decades more, they still can try to work together.

As far a Ghira goes, I dont know how to help you on that one. Ghira is competent and the show gives us enough to prove that. If you cant see it, I cant help you. But here's the thing: if you're only going on his competency by the fact that the White Fang struggled to get anything done and ended up fracturing because of infighting, you're looking at the wrong person's competency. By that logic, Sienna is just as incompetent as Ghira because in the 5 years she was in charge, the only thing that changed was that the White Fang was hated and actively killing people. Again, racism isnt a thing that can be fixed overnight. Ghira's previous leadership style and Sienna's style are both commentaries, if poorly worded, on how solely peaceful organizations and organizations run by people who are tired of no progress being made arent enough to cut it. Protests work if people are listening, but that's not always the case. And violence only makes things worse. Adding fuel to the fire is only going to make a bigger fire. And if you had more trust in Sienna running the White Fang because she was getting progress with fear, that's a whole lot of issues you have that you need to work out because I cant help you. Overall, we'll have to wait to see how things go, but my point is this: Ghira is a competent leader given that he's leading Menagerie rather well, but finding the middle ground for leading a group and taking action is something he'll have to do differently from before.

TL;DR: Mantle vs Atlas conflict isnt over, the SDC situation is still there and hasnt been ended, you not having trust in Ghira is a you issue, and you're an idiot for thinking all of this is either fixed because Atlas is gone, or you have a lot of issues you need to work through if you cant see that Ghira is a decent leader and would rather trust someone like Sienna, who made things worse, over someone who is trying to make things better. Just because these subplots are going to start getting moved back doesnt mean they're done and over with. All it means is that as the story progresses, we'll see the girls tackle the main story as they go because their goal right now isnt to solve all the world's problems. Their goal right now is to stop Salem. And once they're done with that, then they can focus on the SDC and systemic racism, issues between the elite and those who are exploited. And chances are, that will be an afterward or an epilogue.

I have Thoughts on Frozen 2 because of course I do. Spoilers galore under the cut.

Just to recap my feelings on the first movie: I loved Elsa, thought Hans was hilarious as a villain, liked most of the songs, and enjoyed the “true love” twist at the end. 

Everything else? Pretty mediocre.

But I think Frozen 2 actually improved some things about the first movie in retrospect (while also being a good movie in its own right). Some things that I wanted but didn’t get from the first movie but got from the sequel were: 

No villain. Well, there technically is a villain, but Elsa and Anna’s grandfather is long dead in this movie and not an active participant in the plot. Instead, the characters (primarily Anna) are working to fix the results of the villain’s betrayal of the Northuldra. The story’s more about characters working through circumstances rather than fighting bad guys, which I like.

Less Kristoff and more Anna and Elsa interaction. This movie felt a lot more like a story about sisters than the first one did because I actually got to see their relationship in action and their personalities play off one another.

I remember being annoyed at how the “Let It Go” scene in the first movie cut away from Elsa’s face to focus on the ice palace, but her big transformation scene in the sequel showcases her expressions.

Characters of color with actual names and lines and active roles in the story. That shouldn’t really be notable in 2019 (or back in 2013, even), but here we are.

Olaf was still annoying, but also funny.

More interesting/creative/colorful imagery as opposed to lots and lots of white snowscapes. There were a couple of sequences that looked like someone handed Jennifer Lee a stack of rainbow scratch pages and just told her to go nuts.

I think I liked the soundtrack more from this movie, too:

Elsa gets two Oscar-bait songs in this movie: “Into the Unknown” (which is genuinely fantastic and gives me the same “I could fight a whole mastodon right now” feeling that Idina Menzel’s songs usually do) and “Show Yourself,” which is framed as the successor to “Let It Go.” I actually found the second one’s melody a little lackluster compared to the first when I watched the movie, but it’s really grown on me after a couple of relistens. I like how it starts off very gently and quietly, and then works its way up to a powerful reprise of Iduna’s lullaby. And it’s a good answer song to both “Into the Unknown” and “Let It Go,” as well as the movie’s overall theme about uncertainty and finding your path. The thing is, the main reason I loved “Let It Go” so much was that– taken out of context– it’s very easy to read it as a metaphor for coming out (especially with the pop version’s alternate lyrics). And I realize that that was probably purposefully baity as hell, and I fell for it like a total clown, but whatever. Anyway, you can’t really decontextualize “Show Yourself” in that way quite as easily. That’s not bad, really. Just a little disappointing for me personally. Oh, and I really want a goth metal cover of “Into the Unknown.” Someone page Evanescence or Within Temptation.

“The Next Right Thing” is incredible and a very effective song about grief (The line ”How to rise from the floor when it’s not you I’m rising for” hit me like a train.). I like how muted it was, and how simple the lyrics were. Kristen Bell’s singing voice is usually sweet and upbeat and sincere, so hearing how raw and tired she sounded in this song really left an impression.

I really liked Iduna’s lullaby (because I love a good lullaby in any musical).

Olaf’s song felt kind of jarring for the point it was at in the movie, and it has this really dopey melody that I feel like was conceived and written in the span of like twenty minutes tops, but it’s still genuinely funny. I liked the how it fit into his whole little subplot about growing older (and the movie’s overall theme).

Kristoff’s song was... a Choice. I guess if you really wanted to put a 80s pop ballad music video in this movie as a gag, "Lost in the Woods” is fine. I actually really like the song on its own, but there was just no reason for it to be as long as it was in the movie, lmao. Like I get that you have a Jonathan Groff and you want to use him, but I got the joke after we hit the chorus the first time; you don’t have to stretch it out. Just cut the song short in the movie and put the full version on the OST.

And lastly, the character arcs and overall storyline were better this time around:

I liked the movie’s theme of feeling lost and having the courage to find your footing and also yourself. “Into the Unknown” is Elsa’s song, but the rest of the movie’s soundtrack advances the themes from it. Olaf’s song is about assuming he’ll understand everything when he’s older highlights the point that there is no fixed time in your life where everything is clear and easy and you stop having to grow as a person. Anna’s “The Next Right Thing” is about picking yourself up after a harsh blow and making yourself keep going, simplifying it to just taking one step at a time. Even Kristoff’s song builds on this theme since it’s about feeling completely lost without someone, so it still fits the broader concept of being uncertain. And “Show Yourself” is about finally finding your path and feeling certain in spite of your fear.

Elsa’s character arc has a much more satisfying resolution than the one she had in Frozen. In the first movie, she accidentally reveals her powers, runs away in shame and then finds that she actually likes herself when she’s on her own and isn’t forced to hide who/what she is, is eventually brought back home against her will, and... that’s where she stays at the end of the story. In this one, she starts off safe at home, does the standard Hero Rejects the (Literal) Call to Adventure thing before finally deciding to follow it, ultimately finds the source of The Call, comes into her own, and stays with the Northuldra at the end to live out her life as the Avatar one half of the “fifth spirit” that connects humans to the elemental spirits. She still has Anna, understands who she is, and gets to stay where she’s happy and where she feels like she belongs. I kind of wish she’d just let Arendelle get destroyed, though. Not like anyone was home anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I liked Anna a lot more in the sequel. I didn’t really care for her or Kristoff in the first movie (or their relationship because it was basically just a watered-down version of Rapunzel and Eugene’s), but I think it helped that she spent most of her screentime in this movie either with Elsa, Olaf, or alone. I like that she’s not clingy exactly, but she’s clearly very anxious about Elsa’s safety at all times. She follows Elsa everywhere, asks if she’s okay like a dozen different times, and only leaves her side when Elsa physically forces her to. I liked seeing how desperate she was to keep Elsa with her after being pushed away from her for so long. I liked watching her pick herself back up after she thought she’d lost her sister for good, and I loved how willing she was to destroy her own home to make things right with the Northuldra and the forest. Anna was very flawed and admirable in this movie, and just an all-around great character. And I definitely think she’s better suited as queen than Elsa. I wish we’d gotten a scene showing Elsa telling Anna that she was going to stay in the forest. It would’ve capped both their storylines a bit better to show both of them accepting this major change to their lives and their dual roles in their world. It seems like such a natural and obvious conclusion that I’m almost convinced that a scene depicting that very thing exists and was just cut for time.

I liked the snowman’s character arc, lmao. It was a nice microcosm of the movie’s themes, and the post-credits scene was a good way to end it.

I liked Mattias. He introduces the concept of doing “the next right thing” whenever you’re at a loss of how to proceed with your life. He’s also surprisingly willing to destroy Arendelle after Anna tells him why that needs to happen. I would’ve liked more dialogue there, or to see him struggle with the decision a little, but I guess there was just no time for it.

Aside from Iduna, the Northuldra characters weren’t in the movie quite as much as I think they should’ve been. There’s the tribe’s leader, who obviously has some (mutual) distrust of Mattias and what’s left of the Arendelle guard. There’s Honeymaren, who gives some useful exposition here and there, and she also gives you an idea of just how long the conflict between the Arendellians and the Northuldra has lasted since she’s lived her whole life without seeing the sky because of it. And then there’s Ryder, who... is basically Kristoff personality-wise, lmfao. Because we really needed two of him. I think you could’ve collapsed him and Honeymaren into one character without really losing anything crucial to the plot. But anyway, maybe they all could’ve played a part in guiding the rockbiters Earth Spirits to destroy the dam the way the Arendelle guard did. I get that that was meant to be a moment of reckoning for the Arendellian characters, but the Northuldra (and not just Anna) had a right to play a part in that, too. If nothing else, it would’ve been good to see the tribe’s leader watch the dam fall since she was alive to see it built in the first place.

As for Iduna... She’s an actual character in this movie. We learn that she’s part of the Northuldra tribe and that she apparently hid her identity from her husband all her life, I guess out of fear that he may harbor the same distrust of magic as his father (and given how he tried– however well-intentionally– to suppress Elsa’s magic after she accidentally hurt Anna, Iduna probably wasn’t wrong for that). At the same time, though, it makes you wonder why she never told Elsa about her heritage or the spirits while she was alive. She knew that humans and magic could coexist harmoniously; did she really keep that a secret just so her husband wouldn’t know who she was? Did King Husband just not suspect anything when his first kid was born a waterbender? I mean, I know the real reason for all this is that the writers just hadn’t thought this backstory up yet when the first movie came out, lol, but still. It throws the king and queen’s actions in the first movie in a more interesting context, but not one that really makes sense... I dunno, I guess it needed some more fine-tuning. A little more insight into Iduna’s rationale during Elsa’s childhood would’ve helped.

So to sum up: it’s not perfect, but I definitely think it was better written than the original (which I realize isn’t saying much, lol, but still). It does everything a sequel is supposed to do: it expands on the world the story takes place in, gives more depth to the characters (not just in giving them more backstory, but also in giving them new challenges to grow from), and tells a story that’s actually new. There are obviously things I think could’ve been done better, but it’s mostly stuff that would just improve something that already has a pretty good foundation (as opposed to the first movie, which almost needed to be completely reworked from the ground up). 

I liked the unified theming and how clearly it’s shown through the songs, the two leads’ character arcs, the OST, the visuals. I do wish it had followed through with some of the stakes it presented (like actually destroying Arendelle and just... letting Olaf stay dead lmfao), and that it’d developed a couple of the Northuldra characters a bit more, but yeah, overall? Not bad. Definitely an improvement from the original if nothing else.

Pinocchio (1940)

I apologize for the length of this review, It turns out I had a lot to say about Pinocchio.

2 years after Snow White’s successful release, Disney released their second animated feature film. This time, instead of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen, they adapted a fairy tale by Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio. The adaptation is way looser this time, dropping subplots, and making the heroes and villains more heroic or evil. It’s barely longer than Snow White - 88 minutes long - but it does manage to tell a more detailed story by having longer story sequences. It’s the only Disney Animated Canon movie with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Interestingly, Bambi was meant to be the second animated feature but technical difficulties with animating the animals forced it to be pushed back.

As a kid, my first exposure to Pinocchio was Shel Silverstein's poem, which is a plot summary of the movie. Of course, there’s also the Shrek Pinocchio. Oddly enough, every single post-Disney Pinocchio seems to put a huge amount of emphasis on his nose growing, when that takes up almost no time in the original story.

This time the character who’s given a character arc is the main character. Pinocchio must learn to be good, so he can be a real boy. He takes most of the movie to do that, because Honest John keeps sidetracking him and he’s too naive to know better than to follow his bad role models. Jiminy Cricket being a bit useless as a conscience doesn’t help. He’s never there when he needs to be and when he is he’s not very good at convincing Pinocchio of anything. 

The story has an odd structure, where each act of the story is given it’s own villain and arc, starting with a walking combination of several racial stereotypes named after a pastry, then a man who seems to be made of pure unfiltered nightmare fuel, then a giant whale. Stromboli, whose name has been changed from Mangiafuoco for the movie, probably didn’t seem racist to audiences in 1940, but well… he does now. Despite barely having any screen time, and the fact that his character design not having aged particularly well in that it’s a bit racist, he’s one of Disney’s most infamous villains, probably because he does a great job at going from friendly to threatening in seconds. Notably, he’s hit with the worst of the “making the villains more evil” thing. 

Act 2 has the Coachman, who like Stromboli, is voiced by Charles Judels. He’s got a similar amount of screen time, and is a similar character. He shares Stromboli's ability to go from happy to terrifying in seconds as well. 

Act 3’s villain is completely different from the first two. Monstro is a giant whale, and isn’t doing anything for his own profit. The only time he intentionally attacks the heroes is because Pinocchio has just light a bonfire in his stomach as part of their escape attempt. Like Stromboli, his name was changed. Collodi’s sea monster was called The Terrible Dogfish.

There’s also Honest John and Gideon. Honest John could count as the big bad of the movie, since he’s behind Pinocchio getting stuck with both human antagonists, and also he gets the closest thing to a Disney villain song in the movie.

The movie has a few weird quirks to it. Honest John, Gideon and Jiminy Cricket are the only anthropomorphic characters in a movie with a cast that otherwise consists entirely of humans, non-anthropomorphic animals, and a talking puppet. The Coachman’s henchmen are either living shadows, humans in black bodysuits and cloaks, monsters, or multiple copies of Clayface from Batman, and they’re never explained.

The constant use of musical numbers continues from Snow White, though it’s less prominent here, and the use of every song to advance plot or character development seen in later Disney musicals (and modern musicals in general) is starting to take shape. Also, for an early Disney movie, this one is dark, and has a surprising amount of getting crap past the radar. Jiminy Cricket accidentally putting his hand on the clock woman’s butt by mistake or staring at the dancing girls in the I Have No Strings musical number wouldn’t be out of place in a Dreamworks Animation movie, and characters, including Pinocchio and Lampwick, drink what I can only assume is beer. And everyone in the movie smokes at some point, including Geppetto smoking in bed.

The tone of the movie whips wildly back and forth, though that works more to the movie’s advantage than anything else. Stromboli and The Coachman both possess the ability to turn frightening in a second, but it’s not limited to them. Lampwick (what kind of name is that, anyway?) turning into a donkey in particular, starts off comedic - what do I look like, a jackass? - and then abruptly becomes very terrifying as soon as Lampwick realizes what’s happening.

I don’t think Pinocchio deserves it’s 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating, but it is - villainous racial stereotype pizza pastry man aside - a good movie. It’s paced well, and has some incredibly well done mood whiplashes, animation, and a great soundtrack. Not my favorite animated film, but a solid little film I wouldn’t object to rewatching with friends.

Also, Jiminy Cricket looks about as much like a cricket as Arthur looks like an aardvark, in that he doesn’t.