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Fatkraken posted:Going back to Disney villains for a moment, there are at least a few properties where the villain is presented as excessively masculine; obviously Beauty and the Beast springs to mind, but there's also Tarzan, the recurring use of Pete in various shorts and Goofy properties, The leader of the Mongols in Mulan. It's not as ubiquitous as the schemer archetype, but the bully who throws his weight (and often societal privilege) around definitely happens enough to be another pattern. I always thought of the classic Disney movies as kind of the big-budget, animated equivalent of the UK's traditional Pantomime musicals, most of which are based on old fairy tales but with modern humour thrown in. Pretty much every character is a grotesque except for the protagonist & love interest, and there's always a super-theatrical villain from one of a small handful of archetypes hamming it up to the max. There's also typically some drag queen involvement, particularly with characters like the ugly sisters in Cinderella.
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Feb 7, 2014 14:42
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Avril Lavigne posted:I always thought of the classic Disney movies as kind of the big-budget, animated equivalent of the UK's traditional Pantomime musicals, most of which are based on old fairy tales but with modern humour thrown in. Pretty much every character is a grotesque except for the protagonist & love interest, and there's always a super-theatrical villain from one of a small handful of archetypes hamming it up to the max. There's also typically some drag queen involvement, particularly with characters like the ugly sisters in Cinderella.
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Feb 7, 2014 14:55
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computer parts posted:The Atlantis villain was also a key antagonist in that mold as well. So where does Home on the Range fall in that spectrum?
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Feb 7, 2014 15:00
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resurgam40 posted:So where does Home on the Range fall in that spectrum? I haven't seen it but it looks like while there is a traditional antagonist (the cattle rustler) the main conflict is a bank foreclosure?
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Feb 7, 2014 15:03
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Pick posted:The LEGO movie is super pleasant and I wholly recommend it Jumping in to second this. Saw it last night with a couple friends in an otherwise empty theater (that served alcohol). It was a blast from start to finish.
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Feb 7, 2014 15:05
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So I've been thinking this over for awhile now and I can't come up with a good answer myself since I'm not well versed in music theory, but what is it about the Frozen soundtrack that makes it sound so "broadway" vs music from any other Disney classic like the little Mermaid, beauty and the beast, etc?
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Feb 7, 2014 16:12
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Darth TNT posted:I am interested. I know that they hit it hard around 2000. But they have recently been on the rise again. Bionicle was big for a while but as far as I can tell it has shrunk a lot. Lego was doing well up until the mid-90's, where they started to flag, and tried a few different tactics. In the late 90's/early oughts they churned out lots of sets with horrifically bad parts usage and made lots of unique parts for many sets(Rock Raiders in particular had tons of huge, pretty useless specialty pieces). Stuff like this lovely police station:  Really, if any vehicle set had that specific wedge part in that picture that has the headlights on it(on the truck), it was probably garbage. Notice the total emptiness of the "inside" of the building itself. Lots of sets were like this, with very very few actual bricks, mostly specialty parts. Even the foundation of the building, the large white pieces, were one big piece instead of multiple smaller regular bricks. This meant that you could pretty much build the set by the book, and not much else. Many other similar sets were made, like so:   Lego part molds are ridiculously expensive and they were creating tons of new ones for specific pieces that only got used in a handful of sets, which was a huge waste of money. People didn't buy the sets and Lego started to decline sharply. Rock Raiders was a disaster. Just look at this garbage.    You've probably noticed a trend in these above sets, huge unwieldy specialized pieces like the ridiculous cockpits, the caution-striped things, the drills(though the drills are pretty neat pieces and got more use in later sets), the arch pieces, the laser thing, the huge bins, and the conspicuous near-lack of regular bricks. They discouraged creativity and Lego advertised them heavily, I remember seeing lots of this commercial on TV. Here's a handy image of the gigantic single-piece parts that came in the sets.  A similar series from the same time frame that bombed terribly because of the bad parts usage was Insectoids. Just look at this thing and count the regular bricks on it versus extremely specialized parts:  Those gigantic back leg pieces? used in four sets. Ever. And all of them were large and expensive sets. That sort of problem plagued turn of the millenium Lego. The prototypical Bionicle series, Throwbots, as far as I know had middling sales if not straight-up bombed. The figures were crap and were almost entirely new pieces, had bad gimmicks, bad articulation, and came in these huge heavy plastic shells that couldn't be used for anything. Suffice to say, kids weren't happy with these and Lego fell into dire straits. Then a new CEO came along and turned them around. He initiated licensing deals for Star Wars Legos(arguably the single biggest business decision Lego has ever made and saved the company), slashed the amount of unique pieces being produced by a significant amount, had a buildable action figure line created(Bionicle) that had its own storyline and pieces that could be used outside of their own sets(as opposed to Throwbots and Roboriders whose major pieces were extremely specific in use), increased the amount of normal bricks, wedges, and plates versus specialized parts in sets, and the company rebounded in a huge way. Pretty sure I heard they are now the second most profitable toy company in the world right now, behind Mattel. Like, I just googled "2012 lego city" and all of those sets not only look way better, but also have much more diverse parts usage and plenty of regular standard bricks, plates, and wedges for creative building for kids(or adults!). For example, look at The Mine, or the Police Station. They both use parts from the dark days of 1998-2000(the huge single-piece rock walls, split-open boulders, and gigantic archway on The Mine, and the Police Station has those tall 2x1 parts, giant roof wedges, and the helicopter is very similar to the 1998 one) but they're a much smaller percentage of the overall pieces and the sets incorporate many more smaller, useful parts.   And just 'cuz, this is what the average vehicles look like nowadays, compared to, say, those really awful trucks from 1998 near the top of the post. It's a world of difference and exactly why they fly off shelves instead of warm them.     As for the Bionicle 2003 crash, I KNEW it would be the Rahkshi, Bohrok Va and Bohrok-Kal year. The Bohrok-Kal were literally just recolors of the regular Bohrok but with lots of silvery poo poo on them. The Rahkshi were recolors of each other. The Bohrok Va were just garbage. The only thing that differentiated any of them were the weapons, unlike with the original Toa and Toa Nuva sets which each had different aspects added onto the core body frame. Lego was trying to save some cash by churning out huge amounts of recolors and it backfired horribly. That was around the time I stopped paying attention to Bionicle, really. Metru Nui was refreshing and made it popular again, and that was the last I looked at it. Hopefully this post wasn't too incoherent.  Also, there's no My Little Pony Lego set, as MLP is owned by a rival toy company, Hasbro.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:26
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I had the Rock Raiders Drill Walker as a kid, when was it that LEGO did that Mars series where they had a bunch of tubes that you could transport Martians around. Which lead to a fun level in LEGO Racers 2 at least.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:42
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couldcareless posted:So I've been thinking this over for awhile now and I can't come up with a good answer myself since I'm not well versed in music theory, but what is it about the Frozen soundtrack that makes it sound so "broadway" vs music from any other Disney classic like the little Mermaid, beauty and the beast, etc? I don't think Frozen sounds any more like a typical Broadway production than the other films you mentioned. Broadway in general had a huge influence on Disney's renaissance in the 90s and Frozen is simply their return to that formula. Here's an interesting article from the LA Times on the subject. This is a good post, thanks.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:54
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couldcareless posted:So I've been thinking this over for awhile now and I can't come up with a good answer myself since I'm not well versed in music theory, but what is it about the Frozen soundtrack that makes it sound so "broadway" vs music from any other Disney classic like the little Mermaid, beauty and the beast, etc? I would think it's because of the Broadway talent behind it. Not only do you have Idina Menzel from Wicked and Josh Gad from The Book of Mormon, the songwriters are also Broadway songwriters, having worked on shows like Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:58
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Thanks for the LEGO post! My brother and I were really into LEGOs as a kid. My favorite was Aquazone. I don't know how well it's endured the test of time but don't you dare rip on Aquazone.Fatkraken posted:Going back to Disney villains for a moment, there are at least a few properties where the villain is presented as excessively masculine; obviously Beauty and the Beast springs to mind, but there's also Tarzan, the recurring use of Pete in various shorts and Goofy properties, The leader of the Mongols in Mulan. It's not as ubiquitous as the schemer archetype, but the bully who throws his weight (and often societal privilege) around definitely happens enough to be another pattern. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Villains, being exaggerations, are always going to seem to fit some stereotype and they're often going to be burdened with the associations of that stereotype, which might not be intentional. Divergence from the norm is always seem as questionable so if it's not this, it's that, you know? I don't think any Disney hero is stranger than the villain, except maybe Lilo, Quasimodo, and maybe Tarzan. (Where that was one of the major points of the film.)
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Feb 7, 2014 17:16
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Captain Invictus posted:
Not at all! And before Rock Raiders and Insectoids, there was...Time Cruisers. Ugh. Even when I was young I saw it for what it was: "We have a lot of spare pieces from this and this and this, let's slap this poo poo together into a set! Kids'll LOVE IT!!"  Vomit-inducing. It's funny, because The Lego Movie sets kind of remind me of Time Cruisers, in that they have a lot of different themes thrown together, but they're done so well that it's like night and day.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:20
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MinionOfCthulhu posted:Not at all! And that's still the closest thing we have to a Doctor Who set.  Is there such a thing as a Legochat thread? Because that'd actually be neat.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:37
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Yvonmukluk posted:And that's still the closest thing we have to a Doctor Who set. Indeed there is! Captain Invictus posted:Yeah, it got the boot to Creative Convention from GBS where it kinda rots for eternity now with relatively few new posters. It's a great thread, shame the title got stuck the way it is when it got booted out of GBS. It didn't really fare as well as the Transformers thread, which also was formerly in GBS. I guess it's because BSS has more traffic than the subforum of a fairly slow board. 
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Feb 7, 2014 17:44
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Yeah, it got the boot to Creative Convention from GBS where it kinda rots for eternity now with relatively few new posters. It's a great thread, shame the title got stuck the way it is when it got booted out of GBS. I had actually forgotten about Time Cruisers. Even as a kid I thought it was the sign of a company in trouble and trying to use up all their terrible extra parts.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:45
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Captain Invictus posted:Bionicle is a Lego property, not K'nex. Oops, quoted the wrong post there. Just wanted to make the point that Lego is not beyond whoring out any of their lines for animation purposes. I had no idea they were close to going out of business though, probably because that was part of the timespan between "being a kid" and "having kids" that I didn't pay much attention to Legos. couldcareless posted:So I've been thinking this over for awhile now and I can't come up with a good answer myself since I'm not well versed in music theory, but what is it about the Frozen soundtrack that makes it sound so "broadway" vs music from any other Disney classic like the little Mermaid, beauty and the beast, etc? If I had to guess, it's because the songs are much "poppier" than your average Disney movie. It seems like the songs were made more to sell records and get heavy rotation on Radio Disney than to fit well within the movie. raditts fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Feb 7, 2014 |
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Feb 7, 2014 17:46
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raditts posted:probably because that was part of the timespan between "being a kid" and "having kids" that I didn't pay much attention to Legos. There is actually a term for this, and everyone goes through it. It's called the "Lego Dark Ages". Also, I'm not sure if they get a shoutout in the movie(probably not since Benny is in it and that's "original" Space) but I hope folks remember M:TRON, the best Space theme. There's a page with a lot of "updated" M:TRON sets on it here: http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/mtron/Interesting This one is my favorite remake of my favorite set ever:  I'll stop gushing about Legos until I actually see the movie now. 
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Feb 7, 2014 17:56
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The sad thing is I remember buying all those early sets. I specifically remember the city set, the drill, and the insectoids. I also had those 90s space sets with the clear plastic everywhere. 90s as gently caress. I didn't get any Throwbots but remember seeing them. I never liked that Technic/Bionicle stuff.
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Feb 7, 2014 19:28
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Pick posted:Thanks for the LEGO post! My brother and I were really into LEGOs as a kid. My favorite was Aquazone. I don't know how well it's endured the test of time but don't you dare rip on Aquazone.
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Feb 7, 2014 19:37
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achillesforever6 posted:I had the Hydronauts set with the giant submarine and it was awesome. I think I had every Aquazone set. My parents didn't buy us many toys that weren't LEGO, come to think of it. My brother's favorite was the original Space Police which was pretty kickass too. I was hoping to see some Aquazone or Space Police stuff in the film but if I did it went by quickly .
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Feb 7, 2014 21:04
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I'm kind of glad that I became "too old" for LEGO right around that time. I mean...as a kid, I'm sure I would ahve loved the setes anyway, because OMG space and undersea dudes! But as said, I would havebeen very limited after building what i was supposed to build when I then did what you were suppossed to do...break them apart and go hog wild. With large, pre-molded plastic pieces that are pretty much only good for the set they were made for, that becomes harder. The last sets I remember getting were second-generation Space Police (trans. dark green, not trans. red) and Ice Planet 2002. Best space set ever. Commander Cold doesn't take any of your poo poo.   This set right here might have been the last actual LEGO set I owned for years and years until after I graduated college. But as for movie talk, I'm seeing it Sunday. Very excited.
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Feb 7, 2014 22:15
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Bionicles ARE in The Lego Movie. When she says "and a whole bunch of other universes we're not gonna talk about."
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Feb 7, 2014 22:42
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I love that they titled a series Ice Planet 2002, in 1993. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVCOAFKjaoY Corek fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 00:26
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Captain Invictus posted:Lego was doing well up until the mid-90's, where they started to flag, and tried a few different tactics. In the late 90's/early oughts they churned out lots of sets with horrifically bad parts usage and made lots of unique parts for many sets(Rock Raiders in particular had tons of huge, pretty useless specialty pieces). Stuff like this lovely police station:  I'd always go online to look at the cool old city line that for some dumb reason was discontinued from 2000-2005.
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Feb 8, 2014 01:33
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Just got back from the Lego movie: AWESOME. No, I kid - it's really good, and "Everything is awesome" may finally shoved Whistle Stop out of my head. Me and my friend went during school hour, so it was us, a nice old couple (who went for the reason we did), and a couple families with AM Kindergarten kids who thankfully are polite and kept quiet during the movie. rear end in a top hat Boyfriend Batman is probably my least favorite thing in the movie, but makes sense for how a twelve year old would play him as. I'm glad the makers kept the biggest chunk of the finale out of the trailers, because I think the reveal would've lost it's impact otherwise. I found myself laughing at a lot of gags, and surprised how brutal it treats the lego people, such as good cop's face erasure, and decapitations. And surprised how it made feel for a bunch of plastic even when I know there's going to be a comedic snapback coming soon. I like the message, and how Emmett pointed out how the Master Builders' inability to plan and organize is what kept them from winning, it isn't just "Creative types vs. boring drones" EDIT: Now properly spoilered
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Feb 8, 2014 01:48
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DrBouvenstein posted:I'm kind of glad that I became "too old" for LEGO right around that time. I mean...as a kid, I'm sure I would ahve loved the setes anyway, because OMG space and undersea dudes! But as said, I would havebeen very limited after building what i was supposed to build when I then did what you were suppossed to do...break them apart and go hog wild. Ice Planet loving owned. I had every set, and I think I spent more time playing with them than any other toy in my entire childhood.
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Feb 8, 2014 02:07
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By the way, on villain chat/LEGO movie stuff I was recently complaining about how there are not nearly as many "villain redemptions" as people complain about. Well, this movie did it, and did it right. And frankly, I'm always really, really, really happy when it happens because honestly it's a dynamic I prefer. It makes "evil" less about people than it does about pressures and feelings that are common to all people, and helps kids realize that making things good isn't about killing off whatever's bad. Way more nuanced, and I teared up like a little doofus.
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Feb 8, 2014 02:19
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Waffleman_ posted:I would think it's because of the Broadway talent behind it. Not only do you have Idina Menzel from Wicked and Josh Gad from The Book of Mormon, the songwriters are also Broadway songwriters, having worked on shows like Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon. Beauty and the Beast is RIDICULOUSLY Broadway-sounding. It also had composers with musical theatre experience (Ashman/Menken wrote Little Shop of Horrors) and both Jerry Orbach and Angela Lansbury are/were legendary Broadway stars. I believe they recorded all the songs with the full cast & orchestra present to evoke the Broadway feeling too. There's a reason it was the first Disney film to get a stage adaptation. I'll agree that Frozen's music is much poppier-sounding though. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.
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Feb 8, 2014 02:22
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LEGO was only so-so. It wasn't nearly as funny as the reviews promised it would be so I think I got a little too hyped up. The textures, animation, and everything (EVERYTHING) being made out of LEGOs was neat though. The action scenes seemed a little garbled at times. A forgettable microcosm of pleasantness (you know except Bad Cop's parents). Batman was cool.  Good commercial 7/10 should have played at Super Bowl.
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Feb 8, 2014 04:08
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My head is buzzing with just little ways in which the lego movie was so, so good, but I think one that's really sticking out to me is that this may be the first animated movie with a celebrity voice cast that actually the fame of a cast member to help the story. The reveal of who the dad was and what the entire story was actually about would not have worked if Will Ferrell were not one of the most overexposed faces in movies. It just clicks instantly, I love it.
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Feb 8, 2014 04:18
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To bust up the LEGO chat, I just watched The Croods on Netflix, which I wouldn't have done without the praise from it in this thread. Thanks! I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, including visual and world-building aspects apart from the story. The animal designs were delightfully bonkers, and the settings were surreal and GORGEOUS, but I also really liked how the cave people were built and how they moved, and the choices the movie made about depicting their lifestyle, like sleeping in piles and being insanely physical -- surprising but totally logical details. AKA the best kind. Edit: When they got shoes and it's exactly like when you put shoes on a dog, I'm dead. Jesus. Crisco Kid fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 06:12
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Ya I saw the Croods the other day too and it's insanely good, I wish marketing would stop making movies not look the way they're supposed too.
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Feb 8, 2014 06:37
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Pick posted:Thanks for the LEGO post! My brother and I were really into LEGOs as a kid. My favorite was Aquazone. I don't know how well it's endured the test of time but don't you dare rip on Aquazone. In Frozen Elsa is definitely the strangest character in the movie, but she's more of a sympathetic antagonist than a hero even though she's not the real villain And while we’re on the topic of Disney villains and gayness it’s worth mentioning that the sea witch Ursula was modeled after legendary drag queen Divine.  
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Feb 8, 2014 07:04
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Just got back from the Lego Movie, and I thought it was extremely good! Especially the end, which I dare not spoil.
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Feb 8, 2014 07:06
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Also got back, everyone in the theatre was FREAKING out. There were a ton of little details in every scene, its one of those movies that you need to rewatch. Go see it right now! Also better Batman than Christian Bale
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Feb 8, 2014 08:44
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The Lego Movie is going to be an all-time classic as far as I'm concerned. I was laughing and feeling the sads and happys at every single step along the way. Every character was awesome, the voice acting was top notch, the animation was so amazingly perfect and inventive, I could never have dreamed that it could have gone this well after so many years of license movies being disappointing. I think this may be the best non-Disney Epic animated movie I've seen since Toy Story 3.
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Feb 8, 2014 09:35
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More LEGO Movie praise. It's prefect. Pitch Perfect. I could not imagine a better movie being made from this concept. That's probably because when I was a kid, I had video games and LEGO and that was about it for my toys and I never had a thought to complain about that. There are so many in jokes and actual jokes throughout this movie it's unreal. The bit with Bad Cop kicking over a chair made me laugh every. Single. Time. Unikitty was surprisingly underplayed, hell I think Metal Beard had more lines than she did and he was barely in any trailers. Also holy loving poo poo LEGO Millennium Falcon showing up out of nowhere was the loving best god drat. Batman was pretty drat great as well. The best joke in the entire movie is the final 30 seconds before the credits. Though the one part where 1980's space guy actually gets to build a spaceship is an easy second funniest. Everything about this movie is magical. It's incredible rare when anything, movie, video game, novel, whatever, gets hyped up a lot in my head, and then the final product actually delivers on the hype. The LEGO Movie delivers on the hype. And I think the 500g of candy I ate during the movie only slightly alters my happiness over how well this movie came together.
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Feb 8, 2014 09:59
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:And while we’re on the topic of Disney villains and gayness it’s worth mentioning that the sea witch Ursula was modeled after legendary drag queen Divine. Divine is played by a man though. Does Ursula being emphatically female still mean she reads as "gay-coded" or whatever, specifically to the segment of the audience not that aware of Divine? Drag queens are extreme parodies of femininity but are necessarily played by men, when a character who is clearly female is given those traits, do they still evoke homosexuality, or just appear to be parodying certain "feminine" traits within a female vessel?
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Feb 8, 2014 10:08
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Fatkraken posted:Divine is played by a man though. Does Ursula being emphatically female still mean she reads as "gay-coded" or whatever, specifically to the segment of the audience not that aware of Divine? Drag queens are extreme parodies of femininity but are necessarily played by men, when a character who is clearly female is given those traits, do they still evoke homosexuality, or just appear to be parodying certain "feminine" traits within a female vessel? There are actually women who perform in drag and identify as biologically female drag queens. I think basing the design on Divine was mostly about aesthetics and overall flamboyant, showy personality (Ursula being sort of a performer to pitch her side to Ariel) but it's worth noting. I'm not really sure automatically equating dragqueens and homosexuality makes sense necessarily either.
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Feb 8, 2014 16:55
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Pick posted:By the way, on villain chat/LEGO movie stuff I was recently complaining about how there are not nearly as many "villain redemptions" as people complain about. Well, this movie did it, and did it right. And frankly, I'm always really, really, really happy when it happens because honestly it's a dynamic I prefer. It makes "evil" less about people than it does about pressures and feelings that are common to all people, and helps kids realize that making things good isn't about killing off whatever's bad. Way more nuanced, and I teared up like a little doofus. As someone who has had to watch a lot of Nick Jr. and Disney Jr. over the last few years, pretty much every kids' cartoon with a villain has them wind up confessing their petty villain origins and becoming a good guy after being defeated at the end of the episode. Which is a good lesson for kids, but I dunno, sometimes a motherfucker just needs to be vaporized. I really liked how they handled it in the Lego movie, though. There was this part in one of the commercials where Will Ferrell's character said something like "when you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, you get Will Ferrell!" that made me laugh out loud, and I was disappointed it didn't show up anywhere in the movie. Tiberius Christ posted:Also got back, everyone in the theatre was FREAKING out. There were a ton of little details in every scene, its one of those movies that you need to rewatch. Go see it right now! Also better Batman than Christian Bale Batman's song was loving hilarious. raditts fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 17:33
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