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Hoping Soul gets its own thread because there's a lot to pick apart there. I was absolutely digging the opening moments. It didn't feel like Pixar at all, just basically played completely straight and down to earth. It's not that I don't love Pixar, but at this point their shtick has become recognizable and approaching manipulative and was nice to see a fresh take. Then he turned into a blue blob. I actually didn't know this was part of the film because I didn't look up too much about it. I was immediately annoyed by this because, of course, once again the main black character doesn't get to be themselves in their movie. Second, it launched the film straight back into familiar Pixar territory in tone and humor. But, as more time was spent in the "soul dimension" or whatever it was, I really appreciated the art direction, music, and abstract concept of it all. Actually, I felt that it was a bit too abstract - the rules of this soul world aren't exactly made clear. So right as I had begun to accept the direction taken to this soul dimension, Joe and 22 find themselves hurling back to the real world. I had a brief sigh of relief here, only to quickly retract it when I realized what was going to happen with the cat. So, great, we're back in the real world, but now we're going to deal with the cliche body swap dynamic and "only this one human can understand the animal" antics. Thankfully, these were kept relatively restrained, Yet, with the heavy subject matter that is strongly targeted at adults, and the abstract, high-concept setup, the body-swap/brain-in-animal dynamic felt at odds with everything else. It seems clear to me, and has for a while, that Pixar wants to branch out into more mature films, and by that I don't mean rated R, but without the caveat of needing to also appeal to kids. There are so many other ways they could have explored Joe's internal struggle while still having him return to his own body and without a talking animal. This definitely needs another watch for me. When it finished, my initial reaction was to place it just under Inside Out, which I adore. But, after sitting on it a bit, I feel it lacks the emotional gut punch and tight narrative to put it in the same league. Inside Out's "brain world" has a very clear and consistent logic to it which was absent here, and it has a very clear message: being sad is a normal and necessary part of the human experience, and recognizing this is beneficial to coping with depression." In Soul, there doesn't seem to be a clear message. It was going for a somewhat bold statement that we don't have *A* specific purpose, but that felt more like a conclusion they came up with after the fact rather than writing and structuring the film around it. Oh, I also thought it would have a heavier emphasis on jazz and soul music and was a bit disappointed that it's really only present in the beginning and end of the film. I did not enjoy Tina Fey as 22. It was one of the rare times where it felt like Pixar chose the voice for name recognition rather than what they can bring to the character. Overall though it's still very good and worth watching. Great art direction, great music, a few excellent jokes, solid performances. It demonstrates how Pixar remains on a much higher level than basically all other animated films. SweetMercifulCrap! fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Dec 26, 2020 |
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Dec 26, 2020 21:04
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Alan Smithee posted:Any recommendations for Soul like movies Inside Out. It’s similarly abstract but better made overall IMO.
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Dec 27, 2020 00:17
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Toy Story 4 wasn't bad, but it was totally pointless. It had nothing new to say or do with the characters, except at the end I guess, and it undercuts the ending of 3, which was a perfect sendoff.
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Dec 27, 2020 06:45
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Boxman posted:Anyway this rando on Disney twitter is having a normal one thanks to Soul, and I think we can all agree that its pretty great. Hahaha woow.... I've met this guy in person. He's exactly as pretentious as you would think.
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Dec 27, 2020 22:13
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Pixar has always been really good about picking voices that seem to be chosen for how they can bring the character to life over marketability, though. Amy Poehler is perfect as Joy, as is Phyllis Smith as Sadness. Tina Fey doesn't bring anything to 22, and I think that "middle aged woman voice" joke was inserted to excuse this rather than being the reason for it.
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Dec 28, 2020 21:20
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Also, whenever 22 wasn’t on screen, all the other characters should have been asking “where’s 22?”
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Jan 3, 2021 20:39
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readingatwork posted:I watched a couple episodes and it seems like a pretty good animation team working with some mediocre writers. I get the feeling that they mostly just want to do visual gags/homages in an old timey style and don't really care how they get there. Agreed with all of this. The animation is great. Everything else is... fine? Kids will probably like it. But it's just about the most generic cartoon writing and humor possible. Cuphead and Mugman's personalities are also off. Like, Cuphead in the game is a bold dude eager to do good and fight. In the show he's a whiny brat constantly running away. Cuphead also should have been the straight man with Mugman being the wildcard.
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Mar 6, 2022 05:41
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The 7th Guest posted:e: watching the first episode, it seems pretty similar to the mickey mouse shorts, just with more dialog. So in the new Mickey Mouse shorts they're really good at subverting expectations and surprising the audience and the shorts are actually funny because of that. In Cuphead, the joke that can you quickly predict if you grew watching cartoons plays out almost every single time. I suppose this is pretty much what they were going for, a "Saturday morning cartoon" vibe, and it doesn't make it bad, but just kind of there.
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Mar 6, 2022 09:55
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Yeah, Disney spent so long being so infinitely protective of its characters now when they do something surprising it’s really truely surprising. It’s hard to do the same thing in a brand new ip Absolutely. It's not just that the new Mickey Shorts do surprising things with the characters though, the joke writing and comedic timing are genuinely fresh and sharp. The vast majority of the jokes in Cuphead are like, if you've ever watched cartoons before, you can predict them exactly. Lots of stuff like "Hey, definitely don't do X!!!" ..... *does X*
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Mar 7, 2022 05:37
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I'm confused... why is Turning Red garnering a bunch of hate and arguments?
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Mar 8, 2022 18:16
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Read the original tweet and take a guess. I did. I get that people are slamming the art style but why did they mention "culture war people"?
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Mar 8, 2022 18:45
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BigglesSWE posted:Looking forward to Turning Red. I’m especially curious to see how a modern movie will portray 2002. It’s such a weirdly specific detail I can’t help but being intrigued by it. The show Pen15 on Hulu is about middle schoolers set in 2000 and pretty much nails it.
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Mar 9, 2022 02:15
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having people dance in situations where they wouldn't normally dance because they're enjoying the product so much is the absolute laziest and cringey style of commercial, and once you're aware of just how often it's used, you won't be able to unsee it.
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Mar 9, 2022 09:36
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