Soul (2020) Movie Review

 

Soul isn't just a movie. It's an experience. One that I was initially reluctant to have because of the fact that Pete Docter is the film's director. If you're not familiar with Pete Docter, he directed Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out and had a story or executive producer role on Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, WALL-E, Brave, Monsters University, Toy Story 4, and Onward. So he's a staple of Pixar. Docter tends to go in deeper and more complex directions with his movies and so there are times I feel like I'm missing a key element when watching his films. Especially the more esoteric films like Inside Out. But then I watched Soul last night and I was pleasantly surprised that that wasn't the case this time around.

Soul is a very straight forward film. It's far from simple, but it doesn't jerk the audience around with it's themes. Which is something that I appreciate about Pixar. They tend to be good at knowing who the audience for their movies are and never talk down to us. Instead they just try to tell the best story they can tell and leave it up to us whether we go along for the ride or not. Which is a very smart way of doing things. Other studios owned by Disney could stand to take note of what Pixar does right and follow their example. 

I haven't always connected with characters in Pixar movies, but I connected to the character of 22 in this movie. 22 is a new soul, who hasn't lived life yet and is hesitant to begin her life due to the way the Soul Counselors prepared the new souls for life on Earth in the "Great Before". It's kind of a commentary on the one size fits all approach to education that we have here in North America, when everyone is different and has their own way of learning. It feels more like allegory rather than a direct reference to it, but it's still something that I picked up on.

Speaking of 22, a fellow blogger named Kyle mentioned on Twitter that the character is autistic. I was slightly skeptical of that take, just because I hadn't seen the movie yet and sometimes people can be mistaken when it comes to saying whether a fictional character is autistic or not. But after watching the movie last night, I 100% agree with Kyle's assessment of the character. Though moreso at the beginning of the movie than at the end.

The main character, Joe Gardner, is a pretty likeable character. I wasn't sure about him at first, just because I really didn't know where they were going with him. But he grew on me as the movie went on. And that's because he grows as a person as the movie goes on, which I appreciate greatly. At the start of the movie Joe is so focused on his dream of becoming a jazz musician that he had forgotten that your dreams don't define you and sometimes they have to change as you go through life. As the movie goes on he is reminded of this, and this is integral to his arc in the movie. Which is really cool.

It doesn't just remind Joe of this, it reminds the audience as well. When I was in high school I wanted nothing more than to be on the radio, with my own family. Never in a million years did I imagine that I'd be a blogger. But when my dream of being on the radio didn't pan out, I wasn't really sure of what I was going to do. It wasn't until 2015 that I finally settled on being a blogger. And even then, I wasn't sure if my blog would take off or how long I'd run it for. But here I am, writing about a movie that has given me the best viewing of a Pixar movie since Toy Story blew me away in theatres 25 years ago. 

I've never been as big of a fan of Pixar as I am of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed pretty much every movie that Pixar has put out that I watched, but my family stopped renting the Pixar movies after WALL-E came out in 2008, and even then, we bought Cars and Ratatouille on DVD. Of course this was before streaming, so I didn't have access to the movies unless we bought them on DVD/Blu-ray, or caught them on TV. I saw Toy Story 3 and Brave on TV and only saw Inside Out in theatres because my girlfriend at the time wanted to see it with me. In other words I need to catch up on my Pixar movies. Soul was a great way to start on my Pixar movie viewings. 

Overall Soul is an excellent movie. It was funny, smartly written, and visually stunning. The people and scenery look extremely realistic, but there's a cat in a good portion of the movie and the cat looks more cartoonish. It also looks more cartoonish in the "Great Before" scenes. If you haven't seen it yet, you owe it yourselves to check it out. 

And that is my final post for 2020. I'm taking the rest of this week off but I wanted to get this review out because Soul dropped this weekend and I watched it last night. So I will see you all in 2021. I'll be back with more reviews and posts starting next week. So until then I will talk to you later.

Kyle's Blog

https://kylelovesanimationnmore.wordpress.com/ 

My Favourite Christmas Movies

 Hey guys! Welcome to a special Christmas blog post. It's Christmas Eve and with this year being so much different, things in my house are also slightly different this year. So today I'm going to be talking about my favourite Christmas movies and specials of all time. Originally I was going to do a Top 10 list, but I have too many favourites to keep to a Top 10 list, so here's all of them. Also the movies on this list aren't just the ones that I watched when I was a kid. There are also a few more recent ones on it as well. Here we go.

I put Christmas Vacation first just because it's the one I've seen the least on this list. I first saw it on TV when I was a teenager, sometime in the mid-2000s and then I haven't seen it since then. I don't own it on any home video format, so I don't know if it holds up, but from what I've heard from other people over the years is that it does indeed hold up. Maybe one of these days I'll have the opportunity to watch it again.

Up next is I'll Be Home for Christmas. This was one of my absolute favourite Christmas movies when I was a kid. However, I watched it on Disney+ last year and it doesn't hold up quite as well as I'd hoped it would, particularly when it comes to the behaviour of the main character, Jake Wilkinson. I still enjoy the movie though. I own it on VHS, but I haven't watched it yet on that format. Maybe tonight, since it's Christmas Eve.

The Jim Carrey version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas is another Christmas movie that I loved when I was a kid, but doesn't hold up quite as well now. I watched it on Netflix last year after having not seen it since I had it on VHS in the 2000s. I still like it, but it's not as good as I thought it was back in the 2000s when I first saw it.

Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas is yet another example of a movie that isn't as good as I remember it being when I was a kid, but I still enjoy it. As I said in my review of the movie, being a direct-to-video production rather than a theatrical release, this movie didn't have the budget that the original did, AND it was produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, almost as if it was meant to be a special episode for a Beauty and the Beast series rather than as it's own movie. Except, I can't find any information indicating one way or the other. Still though, the story is decent for a direct-to-video film. And it's still mostly the original cast from the first film, so I enjoy it for that fact alone.

Home Alone 3 is the Home Alone movie that I grew up watching. I was too young to see Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York when they came out in the early '90s, but the third movie, which is it's own standalone thing and has nothing to do with the first two films, came out at just the right time so that I was old enough to be able to see it. I didn't get to see it in theatres, but we owned it on VHS and I watched it constantly. I haven't seen it in years, so I don't know how well it holds up, but it's on Disney+ AND I bought it on iTunes recently, so I have the opportunity to watch it.

My absolute favourite Christmas movie from the past couple of years is Klaus. It was such a brilliantly made film that I am still amazed that it's a Netflix Original. The animation style is so unique and the story so genuine and well written that despite my reservations about it, I couldn't help but love this movie when I watched it on Netflix last year. It's one of many interpretations of the origin of Santa Claus, but I think it's one of the best ones out there. Even surpassing the Rankin/Bass versions.

Let It Snow is another recent Christmas movie that I love. While it's nowhere near as good as Klaus, it's still a decent story and it has a phenomenal cast. Joan Cusack (Working Girl), Jacob Batalon (MCU Spider-Man films), Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Odeya Rush (Goosebumps), Anna Akana (YouTube), Isabella Moner (Instant Family), and Shameik Moore (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) are all excellent in this movie.

 I was never a huge Kurt Russell fan, having not seen many of his movies, though he was quite good in Sky High. However in the last year I've seen two movies that have really turned me around on him as an actor. The first was Big Trouble in Little China and the other was the Netflix film, The Christmas Chronicles. Besides The Santa Clause this movie is the best attempt at modernizing the Santa Claus character. The child actors in this movie are pretty great too. I haven't seen the sequel yet, but I've heard it's pretty good. 

Speaking of The Santa Clause, it's next on my list. I've already reviewed this movie but it's still one of my favourite Christmas movies of all time. My sister informed me that we did indeed own it on DVD in the 2000s and that it was the special edition release from 2002. She also informed me that it's now in her collection. I thought that if we owned it, that was the release we owned, because we didn't start buying DVDs until 2003 or 2004, but I couldn't remember if we'd owned it or rented it.

No list of favourite Christmas movies is complete without The Muppet Christmas Carol. Michael Cain is the best version of Scrooge that I have ever seen, with only Scrooge McDuck and Sir Patrick Stewart surpassing him in the role. Of course having the Muppets as the supporting characters is pretty great. I absolutely love that Statler and Waldorf, the elderly hecklers on The Muppet Show, play Jacob and Robert Marley instead of just having one or the other play the traditional role of Scrooge's partner, Jacob Marley. I have it on DVD and I popped it in last year to review for The Twelve Days of Christmas Reviews on my old blog and it holds up quite well, nearly thirty years later.

The other version of A Christmas Carol that is my absolute favourite is Mickey's Christmas Carol. I watched this on Disney+ this year and I definitely enjoyed watching it again after all these years. I thought it was genius to have Scrooge McDuck play Ebenezer Scrooge, and have Mickey Mouse play Bob Cratchit. I also think it's great that other characters from other Disney movies are included, such as the rabbits from Robin Hood, and the characters from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. And it works as a short. 

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is another special that is a favourite of mine. As I said in my review, this movie is a perfect example of learning to accept people who are different from you. Which is something I didn't really pick up on until I sat down to watch it a few weeks ago for my review. Plus I've watched it every year since I was a little kid. And Rudolph is a pretty great character.

I think How the Grinch Stole Christmas works because of Boris Karloff's narration and his singing of "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch". That and it's just a fun special to watch or listen to if you have the CD soundtrack like I do. I've probably been watching this special for as long as I've been watching Frosty and Rudolph. I definitely like this version better than the Jim Carrey version, and not just because it's the original adaptation. The Jim Carrey version put too much emphasis on the negative aspects of the Whos of Whoville, and the torment the Grinch went through, rather than the fact that the Grinch was just...well...he was just a Grumpy person with no rhyme or reason. Which is how I prefer the Grinch to be. It's more faithful to the intentions of Dr. Seuss when he first wrote the book in 1957.

Finally, the last thing on my list is Frosty the Snowman. I watched this special on VHS so much that I practically have it memorized. I swear I could've done my review of it without watching it again first. Everything from Jimmy Durante's version of "Frosty the Snowman" to Professor Hinkle, is burned into my memory. It's probably my most favourite of all of the Christmas movies and specials that I have seen over the years. There's just something about this special that makes me go back to it every year as long as I have a copy on home video.

And those are my favourite Christmas movies of all time. And that is it for me for this week. I have one more review for you on Monday because the new Pixar movie, Soul, comes out tomorrow and I think I'm going to watch it on Sunday night. So until then have a wonderful holiday, whatever you celebrate this time of year, and have a great weekend. Bye for now!

My Eleven Christmas VHS Tapes List

Hey guys! I know you were all looking forward to a review of The Nightmare Before Christmas from me today. I've decided to wait until next year to review it. Instead I decided to do a list of my favourite Christmas VHS tapes from when I was growing up. These aren't in any particular order. They're just the tapes I grew up watching at Christmas time, in addition to all the Christmas specials on TV.

 You can't have a list of VHS tapes without talking about The Muppet Christmas Carol. I'm pretty sure we got this from my grandparents for Christmas just after it came out in 1993. I loved this movie when I was a kid. We watched it all the time when we were kids. I'll talk about it more in my favourite Christmas movies list which will be posted on Wednesday.

 As I mentioned in my review of the movie, we didn't watch this tape as often as we did the other tapes on this list. However, we did watch it a few times just because it is a midquel to Beauty and the Beast with most of the same cast from the first movie. Check out my review for more on this movie.

I don't know how many of you will remember this, but something that I had on VHS as a kid was The Teddy Bears' Christmas which came out in 1992 and is a sequel to The Teddy Bears' Picnic. Sort of. Technically it's a prequel, but there was no real continuity to these short films so it didn't matter in what order you watched them in if you had more than one of them. We just had the one, though I remember seeing The Teddy Bears' Picnic either on TV or renting it on VHS from the video store. Anyway, we had this tape when I was a kid and I remember watching it quite a bit.

I loved the Berenstain Bears when I was a kid. My mom would get me the books from the CHEO gift shop quite often, and I think I also got some from my grandmother at a garage sale or something. Regardless, I had a lot of the books. I had one VHS tape and that was The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree. It was a special that originally aired on NBC in 1979 and was released on VHS in 1984, 1987, and 1989 and on DVD in 2002 and 2008. I had the 1989 VHS release when I was a kid. I really don't remember how often I watched it, but I'm pretty sure I watched it once or twice at Christmas time.

This is the Home Alone movie that I watched when I was a kid. I know that Home Alone 3 isn't as much of a Christmas movie as the other films in the franchise are, but it's still a Christmas movie. It's also the Christmas movie that I watched all year round, it didn't matter what time of the year it was. Like it could've been the middle of summer and I'd still watch this movie. Just because I liked it so much, and because it wasn't as much of a Christmas movie as the previous two movies in the series had been.

 I'll Be Home for Christmas was one of my favourite Christmas movies growing up. Being alive in the '90s two TV shows were hugely popular. Home Improvement, starring Tim Allen, and 7th Heaven starring Catherine Hicks and Stephen Collins. So naturally some of the kids from both shows would get to star in a movie together. Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement and Jessica Biel from 7th Heaven play the lead roles in this movie. The movie has it's problems, but I've always enjoyed it even if Jake, the character that Jonathan Taylor Thomas plays, ends up being a "genuine butthole" as Jessica Biel's character calls him at one point in the movie.

I've already talked about The Santa Clause on this blog, but c'mon this was the first of the two live action Disney Christmas movies that starred a cast member from Home Improvement in it in the '90s. My sister also confirmed for me that we did indeed own this movie on DVD when we were younger. So that's cool. Anyway, we didn't own it on VHS, though we did rent it at least once on the format when it first came out. 

Aside from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, the only Power Rangers VHS I owned was Alpha's Magical Christmas. Which is probably the most obnoxious Power Rangers VHS tape a kid could own in the '90s. Personally, I loved it but there are better Power Rangers VHS tapes I could've owned. The special doesn't hold up that well watching it as an adult but like I said it was the only Power Rangers VHS tape I owned as a kid besides the 1995 movie that is.

Barney & The Backyard Gang: Waiting for Santa, which is the fourth entry in the Barney & The Backyard Gang video series, is the last Barney tape that we actually got when I was a kid. I don't actually remember how old I was either. Probably around 7 or 8 years old. This was the 1993 printing that we got so it probably couldn't've been more than a year or two after it's release that we got it since this edition was re-released in 1996 or 1997 and again in 1998. While this was the only Barney Christmas special that my siblings and I owned, we watched the heck out of it just because it was Barney. Though we were no longer watching Barney & Friends on TV, we were still watching the three Barney & The Backyard Gang tapes we owned as well as the two Barney & Friends era tapes we owned. In fact I remember watching this at someone else's house during the Icestorm of 1998. 

I don't actually know how many times I watched this tape of Frosty the Snowman when I was a kid. If you read my review from the end of November, you know how much I love this particular Christmas special. I won't go into it again here. I will say that as soon as I had the opportunity I bought a new copy of this edition of the special on VHS. Which is how I watched it when I reviewed the movie.

Does anyone remember this movie? My sister and I used to watch The Nutcracker Prince pretty often when we were kids. I haven't seen it in years and it wasn't until recently that I discovered that it was released by Warner Bros. because we had the Canadian VHS release, which wasn't released by Warner Bros. but by Cineplex Odeon Video, an arm of the theatre chain here in Canada. I haven't seen it in years so I don't remember a whole lot about what happens in it. I'd love to watch it again but I don't own a VHS or DVD copy of it, it's not streaming anywhere and both DVD editions have been out of print for over a decade. So maybe I'll get lucky and find a VHS copy or an old DVD copy at a thrift store after this pandemic is over and I'm able to go out again. 

Well guys that is going to be it for me for tonight. I will be back on Wednesday with my favourite Christmas movies list which will close out the year of 2020 here at the Review Basement. Have a great night everyone! Later. 

The Mandalorian (2019) Season 2 Review (Spoilers!!!)

 

The second season is quite possibly the best season of Television that I have ever seen, alongside side the second season of The Orville and season 1 of Star Trek: Lower Decks. At least the second half. The first half of the season worried me a bit, but the pay off was worth it. I am going to get into spoilers for the entire season in this review, so if you're not caught up on this season yet, then please do so before reading this review.

The first thing I want to talk about is the cameos we got this season. Going in order we had Cobb Vanth in Chapter 9, Bo Katan in Chapter 11 and Chapter 16, Ahsoka Tano in Chapter 13, Boba Fett in Chapter 14, Chapter 15 and Chapter 16, and Luke Skywalker in Chapter 16. Luke was really the only one I got excited about in the entire season. Vanth was in the novels back in 2015 with the Aftermath trilogy, but he was so unmemorable in Star Wars: Aftermath that even though I read that book, I didn't remember that he was in it at all. With Bo Katan and Ahsoka, I didn't really care because I've only seen the movie and the first season and a half of The Clone Wars and the first two seasons of Rebels and so I didn't have any attachment to those characters. They were good characters and made sense to appear in this show, but I didn't get the hype surrounding their appearances because I'm not super familiar with either of them. 

While it was cool to see that they couldn't help but save Boba from the Sarlacc in Canon like they had thirty years ago in Legends, I'm not a huge fan of that character because when I was growing up and even into my teen years there was no material that showed Boba Fett as an interesting character. The few comics he was in that I read continued to show him as an incompetent character, and he was in so few of the novels in the Bantam era and early second Del Rey/Ballantine era that he just did not impress me. Like Windows said in Fanboys "You guys both got to stop perpetuating this myth that Boba Fett is a bad ass. All right? He has a jet pack. So did the Rocketeer. Really cool. When it comes time for battle, the man's Michael Bay - all style, no substance". 

The Luke Skywalker cameo was pretty amazing at the end of the season. And a very big surprise, since unlike with Cobb Vanth, Fett, Bo Katan and Ahsoka, it was not announced that Mark Hamill would be reprising his role of Luke Skywalker in the season finale. I actually like the de-aging technology they used to make Mark look the way he would've had the Sequel Trilogy been made in 1988-1992 instead of 2015-2019 and been set five years after Return of the Jedi. It shouldn't be used all the time, but in specific instances like this, it works pretty well.

And while I didn't have any attachment to most of the cameos this season, I have to say that they did it in a way that isn't super lore heavy. You don't need to have seen The Clone Wars and Rebels or have read the Aftermath trilogy, to understand what was going on with Vanth, Bo Katan or Ahsoka. The lore is there, but you don't need to have read or seen it to be invested in these characters.

I love the relationship that Mando has with Grogu (Baby Yoda to some of you) this season. It's very different than it was in the first season. While there it was more of a protective type of relationship, where Mando is protecting the kid just so the Empire doesn't get their hands on him, here it's more of a two-way familial relationship. I honestly feel like The Mandalorian as a whole is very much a character driven show while the movies and shows like The Clone Wars and Rebels, are very much plot driven and extremely lore heavy. And so it's harder to become invested in the characters. Especially in the shows where there's alot of characters being thrown at you at once, and they aren't necessarily the same characters from episode to episode. The Mandalorian is very good at introducing new characters and effectively utilizing a very small cast.

My one issue with this season is that the early part of the season, right up until about Chapter 12 or 13, was so slow and meandering that I found it really difficult to get through despite all the great character moments between Mando and Grogu. We didn't really need an episode where Mando is stuck on a snow planet with an amphibian character, being chased by giant spiders while Grogu eats the Amphibian's eggs. It was a very well done episode, but in the grand scheme of things it really didn't do a whole lot to push the plot forward or to develop the characters further. And because it felt like half the season was filler, when it was only an eight episode season, they left so much out there regarding what Moff Gideon was trying to do with whatever they wanted Grogu for. There's been more speculation and not enough answers. I don't know if that's because they already know they're getting a third and fourth seasons, or if they just wound up trying to do too much in only eight episodes. I just know that I was more invested in the characters and in whatever Moff Gideon's plan was that the more time we spent doing other things and not getting to the inevitable rematch between Mando and Gideon, the less I was invested in what was going on in the series outside of Mando and Grogu's relationship.

Luckily the season did pick up by the time Ahsoka showed up in Chapter 13 and from there it just blew me away with the story and the other characters too. And it kept getting better as we reached the end of the season too. In fact, starting around Chapter 13 I started watching the show right after breakfast on Friday mornings so I didn't have to wait all day and then be potentially spoiled on certain things on social media. Before that episode I was waiting until Friday night to watch it. I did pretty well avoiding spoilers, but it was mainly the filler stuff or things I wasn't as familiar with like Bo Katan and her Mandalorian companions. There's one more thing I want to talk about here.

At the end of the season finale there's a post-Credits scene where Boba Fett and Fennic Shan take Jabba's Palace from Bib Fortuna, Jabba's long time Twi'lek Majordomo and then there's a title card that says "The Book of Boba Fett coming in December, 2021". Like everyone I thought that was a teaser for an upcoming Boba Fett series or a teaser for what season 3 of The Mandalorian is going to be since they're suspiciously coming out at the same time. But I got to thinking about it, and the episode was directed by Robert Rodriguez and I feel like that post-Credits scene was an homage to his movies that have post-Credits scenes teasing the next movie (even if a next movie is never made) rather than a reveal for any upcoming series. Just because that seems to be a little too weird, with nothing having come out that even hinted at an upcoming Boba Fett series. Plus the title sounds more like the title of a Rodriguez film rather than a Star Wars series. Especially when the live action shows coming out on Disney+ have a one or two word title like Ahsoka, Lando, Andor, or Obi-Wan Kenobi. So it doesn't really make sense for them to have that title or to have it come out the same month as season 3 of The Mandalorian, and not to have any prior announcements for a show based on such a high profile character like Boba Fett. If it was actually happening I think we would've heard about it long before now. 

Overall, this season was a pretty solid season of Television. Like I said, it was slow to start and I wish we'd gotten more with Moff Gideon, just because Giancarlo Esposito does a very good job playing that role and the character is more menacing than even Tarkin was in the original movie. Plus I was interested in that storyline and I just feel like they did enough with it due to the time constraints they ended up putting on themselves with the slower start to the season. Again, they might've done it on purpose so they can keep Esposito around for the third and fourth seasons since he's already confirmed that he will be showing up in those seasons too. We'll see what happens though. So now we have a year to wait until season 3 starts. Should be interesting.  

Blog Update (December 2020)

 Hey guys! How are all of you doing? I'm pretty good. The season finale of The Mandalorian has dropped and I just finished watching it. I'm going to write about the episode sometime over the weekend, probably on Sunday just for a chance for everyone to see it since I will be including spoilers. Right now though I thought I'd give you a bit of an update on the blog and what my plans are for the rest of 2020, which is only two weeks away from ending. 

All month I've been doing alot of Christmas reviews for Disney and non-Disney, but family friendly, Christmas movies and specials. Next week is Christmas so I'll be wrapping that up on Wednesday. Originally I was going to watch I'll Be Home for Christmas for next week's Disney review, but earlier this week when I was on Disney+ to watch Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, I realized that Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas is on there, so I changed my mind and I'll be reviewing that on Monday. Despite my parents having owned it on VHS when I was a kid, I didn't actually watch it until December 2014 or 2015, when my friends and I put the DVD on during a party we were having the night before New Year's Eve. So, while many people love it, I don't have that attachment to it since I've only seen it once in my entire life. I'll talk more about that in my review on Monday though. 

On Wednesday I'll be reviewing Barney & The Backyard Gang: Waiting for Santa. I had thought about holding off on this one until I got to it in the line up of the Barney & The Backyard Gang series but I didn't want to overload you with Barney reviews in order to get to this point in the series. Plus it's the only Christmas special from my era of Barney and I wanted to get to it over the holidays this year. Hence why I'm doing the review next week. And because Waiting for Santa is the only Christmas special from my era of Barney, it's the only Barney Christmas special I'll be reviewing. 

After that I am taking until Monday, January 4th, 2021 off because it's going to be Christmas and then New Year's and I've gone pretty hard on the blog these last couple of months, so I feel like I need a break. Don't worry though, I'll be back in the New Year with more posts.

Living with Disabilities will be back in the New Year as well. I considered doing a Christmas related post for that series but all of the Christmases that I remember were all spent at home and the way my family celebrates Christmas has nothing to do with my disabilities. Unlike Halloween. So stay tuned for more about my life with disabilities.

I got more posts on the way in 2021. Including my reviews of the remaining two Teddy Ruxpin VHS releases that I didn't do as part of my series on the original Hi-Tops Video VHS releases, and reviews for The Hardy Boys when that finally starts in 2021 and for season 1 of Stargirl when I'm finally able to start watching that. I've also got more movie reviews, comic book reviews and book reviews as well in the New Year. 

That's all for me for today. I'll be back sometime this weekend with my review of the season finale and the full second season of The Mandalorian. I'm not quite sure when, but at some point it'll happen. So until then have a great day and I will talk to you later.

Teddy Ruxpin #12: Teddy's Winter Adventure (1985) and Teddy Ruxpin #32: Teddy Ruxpin's Christmas (1986) Double Feature Christmas Review

 Hey guys! Welcome back to another Christmas review. Today I've got a double feature for you as I talk about Teddy's Winter Adventure, the twelfth entry in the The World of Teddy Ruxpin book and tape series, AND Teddy Ruxpin's Christmas which is the thirty-second installment of that series. I couldn't decide between the two of them which one I wanted to review, so I went with both since Teddy Ruxpin's Christmas is just the Grundo characters singing Christmas songs. So without further ado, let's get into it.

Teddy's Winter Adventure is the only Christmas story produced for the Teddy Ruxpin talking toy that actually has a story to talk about in it. It's also a really good story too. Originally I had planned on talking about the adaptation of the story done for the The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin TV series as well, but I didn't have a chance to watch it last night when I was listening to these stories. So we'll just be focusing on the original book and tape version this time around and who knows, maybe I'll throw in a bonus review of the TV show episode at another time.

I didn't own this book and tape set when I was a kid. I knew of it because of the book listing on the back of the early Teddy Ruxpin books like The Airship, but I didn't have it and I didn't hear it until I got the MP3 files of the entire original series from Crimson Raccoon (his Yahoo! screen name obviously) in 2011. There were no scans of the books to go with the MP3s though, but the Internet Archive has a digitized copy of the book, so I'm taking a look at the artwork so I can talk about it.

The first thing that struck me about this story is that it maintains a pretty good sense of continuity. Because they're meant for children and because not every child who got a Teddy Ruxpin would get all of the book and tape sets, the stories were written so that they could each be their own standalone story for those kids who couldn't get all of them. This story is one of the rare times that a previous story is referenced. In Teddy and the Mudblups, which is the story right before this one, Gimmick had left his wrench in a pot of Grubby's oatmeal, which basically ruined both the wrench and the oatmeal. In this story, Grubby gives Gimmick a brand new wrench as a Winter present and reminds him to not leave it in any oatmeal this time. Which kinda blew me away that they actually had a blatant reference to the story that immediately preceded this one. Usually the callbacks are to things in stories that came out long before the current one and are more general in nature, so as to not confuse the kids who maybe didn't have a particular story. Which brings me to my first (and only) nitpick.

In his narration, Teddy explained that for the Winter season him, Grubby and Gimmick made gifts for each other. Except, it seems like Teddy and Gimmick are the only ones who made their presents. Grubby doesn't have the skills to make the jacket that he gave to Teddy and he DEFINITELY does not have the skills or the equipment needed to make a wrench. So he went out and bought them most likely. It's not a big deal or anything, but it's just something interesting to note.

Even though they call it Winter in the story, we all know that it's actually Christmas. Sure, Teddy, Grubby and Gimmick don't have a Christmas/Winter tree, but they exchanged gifts in the morning, ate hot food, delivered presents to their other friends in Grundo, and then their friends dropped by for a visit to deliver presents to them. Yeah, I'd say that it's Christmas. I guess Ken Forsse, who wrote the story and the lyrics for the songs, wanted to be creative with holidays in the World of Teddy Ruxpin so that they aren't quite like the versions we have in the real world. Phil Baron, the voice of Teddy, would do the same thing later on with Halloween in Autumn Adventure. I say later on, but these stories were probably all written at or around the same time, because the book and tape sets all came out in close proximity to one another.

The artwork in this book is amazing. Apart from Julie Armstrong being absent, this is the same team that did the art for Grundo Springtime Singtime. It's basically the standard house style for these books, which didn't actually come into being until the latter part of the first batch of book and tape sets, and that would be around this one as this is the second to last set in the first batch of 13. While I like the style used in books like The Airship and The Story of the Faded Fobs, I love the style used in this, and most other books.

The songs in this story are pretty good. There's only two of them, "The Snowflakes Are Falling" and "This Gift is For You". They're good ones though. I don't have as much attachment to them as I do the songs in Grundo Springtime Singtime, just because I didn't grow up listening to this story since I didn't have it. But, like I said, they're still pretty good songs.

 Teddy Ruxpin's Christmas is just Teddy and the gang singing Christmas songs. That's it. There's not even a wraparound story like there is with Grundo Springtime Singtime. There's also very little dialogue, and what there is, is basically being used as a transition from one song to another. Which is fine. Also, because this book was published in 1986 as one of the later books in the series, the entire script for the story, including the complete song lyrics, is included in the books. Which is cool because then you can sing along to all of the songs, which isn't that hard to do without the lyrics in front of you, but it's more like a sing-along this way.

Speaking of the songs, my favourite one is "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (Grundo Version). I mean I love "The Twelve Days of Christmas" anyway, but adding the Grundo flavour to it is pretty fun. Although some of it is weird because they actually use people and species from Grundo as "gifts" given to the person by their true love, and the first one is Wooly in a Boggleberry Tree. Luckily it's just a song because if someone actually tried to give that as a gift to Teddy, well there might be some damage if Wooly doesn't get out of the tree since Boggleberry Trees aren't really big enough to accomodate someone who is Wooly's size. Also, on the 6th Day of Christmas the Fobs said that Teddy gave them six magic crystals. I feel like that would be a very bad idea. At least in the TV show since M.A.V.O. is aware of the crystals and actively tries to obtain said crystals and the Fobs can't really protect themselves.

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is the only song really worth talking about since all the other songs are traditional Christmas carols that don't have any Grundo flair to them. As such talking about them would be pointless, since I'm sure music critics, who are better qualified to talk about them, have done a better job at talking about them than I could.

The artwork is pretty good here too. The art team on this book is slightly different as Alchemy II was working on pretty much all of Worlds of Wonder talking toys at the same time they were working on the Teddy Ruxpin material, so the art team would get switched up except for the Art Director, Russell Hicks, and two others who had done the art for earlier books, Julie Armstrong, and Allyn Conley/Gorniak. Everyone else is completely different. Which is cool, but also weird considering they didn't actually change up the art team until much later in the series, like closer to the end of it.

Overall I enjoyed both of these stories. However, I think I like Teddy's Winter Adventure slightly better because it's the introduction of Christmas to Grundo, as it was something that Teddy and Grubby brought with them from Rillonia, and there's actually a story there. I love singing Christmas carols, but I feel like Teddy Ruxpin's Christmas doesn't have as much replay value on it like many of the Christmas albums I listen to at this time of year do. But if you removed the transition dialogue you could basically have a pretty good Teddy Ruxpin Christmas album as it works much better on that level than it does as a story. 

Alright guys that's gonna be it for me for today. I'll have a blog update post for you either tomorrow or Friday, and then on Saturday, I'll have my season 2 review for The Mandalorian up as the season finale drops on Friday. For next week's final (for the year) non-Disney Christmas review, I'll be taking a look at another childhood favourite, Waiting for Santa, the fourth installment of the Barney & The Backyard Gang video series. So until then have a great day. So long for now! (cue Teddy Ruxpin end theme). 

Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997) Movie Review

 The Direct-to-Video sequels that Disney put out in the '90s and early 2000s are a bit of a mixed bag for me. My favourites are The Return of Jafar, The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, and The Lion King 1 1/2. Then there's Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. It's good, but not only is it not as good as Beauty and the Beast, it's also not as good as the three movies that I just mentioned. It's also not really a sequel either. It sort of is, but the primary story is a midquel. Let me explain.

So a midquel is a movie that's made after a particular movie, in this case Beauty and the Beast, but takes place during the movie that came before it. The Lion King 1 1/2 is a midquel because it takes place during the time of the original film. The Enchanted Christmas takes place during those months in Beauty and the Beast that we gloss over in both the 1991 film and the 2017 remake. They were glossed over because we didn't need to know what was happening during those months. They weren't necessary for the audience to follow the plot of the movie.

The problem with midquels is that, because they take place during the events of the movie that preceded it, you can't really progress the characters very far, especially if the midquel is set before the part of the original movie where a character has a big change, for better or for worse. The Beast is a good example of this because The Enchanted Christmas takes place between the scene where Belle and the Beast reconcile after Beast saves her from the Wolf pack after she runs away from the castle and the scene where Beast decides to get Belle a gift to show that he cares about her, and decides on giving her the library just before they go into the song "Something There". Because of this, the Beast can't change too much in this movie, because he hasn't fully realized how much he cares for Belle yet, and even Belle has only just started to soften towards the Beast. And because they're the protagonists for both movies, there isn't any growth in the characters, except for Beast coming around on the idea of Christmas.

Forte, the villainous pipe organ in this movie, has to fail in killing Belle and the Beast because they still need to get on with the plot of the original movie. Which he's not in. At all. You don't even see a hint of him in the West Wing in the point of the original movie that happens before this movie, since he was destroyed at the end of this movie and therefore, is absent from the rest of the original movie. I didn't realize this, but Forte is voiced by Tim Curry, which is fascinating since Curry also played Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island, which came out almost two years before this movie was released. He also did alot of other acting work at Disney in the '90s, which is interesting.

What this movie does well is maintain the relationships between all of the characters from the original movie. Lumiere and Cogsworth are still at each other's throats, Chip and Belle still get along very well, Mrs. Potts is still a mother figure to all of the characters, including Belle, and of course Belle and the Beast's relationship is still cool though it's getting warmer as the film goes on, just in time for the final act of the original film. It also does a good job of shedding more light on the circumstances that led to the Prince's transformation into the Beast by the Enchantress who visited the castle as an old beggar woman. While it wasn't necessary to go more in depth in those events in order to enjoy the original movie, as it was quite successfully conveyed to us in the film's prologue, it was cool to see it, albeit in a flashback. They used this scene in the 2017 remake though they changed the events from Christmas to just a formal ball, as was common in those days. But still, this is the first place we actually saw those events play out. The animation in this movie's version is pretty good and I like how the Prince's transformation into the Beast isn't as drawn out as his transformation at the end of the original movie is.

Because this movie was produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, rather than Walt Disney Feature Animation, visually it doesn't look as good as Beauty and the Beast does. The CG used to bring Forte to life isn't as bad as it is in other movies at the time, but it does clash with the traditional 2-D animation style the rest of the movie was done in. It also definitely isn't up to par with what Walt Disney Feature Animation had done in the Disney Renaissance films of the late '80s and early '90s, nor is it as good as what Pixar had done in Toy Story in 1995 or what they were doing in A Bug's Life, which was in production at the time this movie was released at.

The acting in this movie is very strong though. Aside from Tim Curry and the entire cast from the original movie, aside from Richard White as Gaston, Jesse Corti as LeFou, and Rex Everhart as Maurice, you have Paul Reubens as Fife, the Piccolo servant to Forte, and Bernadette Peters as Angelique, the Christmas tree angel, who was originally the castle's decorator, who also doesn't appear in the original movie. Despite it having been several years since they were together, the cast from the original movie, including Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts, feels like they hadn't been apart very long. Though Haley Joel Osment replaced Bradley Michael Pierce as Chip so the voice isn't quite the same though similar enough that you can hardly tell the difference. It's like how James Arnold Taylor sounds enough like Ewan MacGregor in Star Wars: The Clone Wars that if you don't know his voice, you might think that it is Ewan MacGregor reprising his role from the prequels. It's kinda like that with Chip in this movie.

If you've read this far into this review, then you may have noticed that outside of which studio produced this movie, I haven't talked about this movie like it's an animated movie. That's because it doesn't matter. Whether it's made in an animation studio or on a sound stage with physical sets, props and actors, a movie is a movie, the medium doesn't matter. And I think there's too much stigma towards animation, despite the fact that for years we've movies and TV shows made in Animation that are aimed at adults. The Simpsons, Family Guy, Archer, Akira and Star Trek: Lower Decks are all examples of movies and shows that are done in Animation but are aimed specifically at adults. Despite that, there are many adults who still think that Animation is for children only. If you're one of those people, then obviously you've never seen Warner Bros.'s direct-to-DVD DC Comics based animated movies. Those are definitely not "kids stuff". 

Now I don't have as much nostalgia for this movie as my sister does. Of course, we owned it on VHS when we were kids, but being that it's a Christmas movie, we didn't watch it nearly as often as we did The Lion King II: Simba's Pride or A Goofy Movie. We also didn't watch it on repeat during the Christmas holidays like we did Frosty the Snowman, Barney & The Backyard Gang: Waiting for Santa, or The Muppet Christmas Carol. At least I don't remember watching it as often as those other movies and specials. What I do remember is that I didn't like this movie as much as I liked, and still like, Beauty and the Beast and Simba's Pride. I just felt like the Lion King story lent itself to sequels and midquels better than Beauty and the Beast does. And I still feel the same way about it now, watching it as an adult, as I did watching it when I was 11 years old. In fact I'm pretty sure we got this movie for Christmas in 1997, so it was pretty early on. It's a good movie, I just don't like it as much as I do the original movie, or Simba's Pride. 

Overall Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas is a decent movie. It's just not my favourite of the direct-to-video sequels/midquels/prequels Disney put out in the '90s and early 2000s. I'm probably not going to be buying it on DVD or VHS any time soon, but I'm glad I'm able to watch it on Disney+. It brought back memories of the few times I watched it with my brother and sister when we were kids and VHS was still the primary home video format.

Thoughts on the Disney Investors' Day Announcements

Last night was insane! Disney announced so many projects from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios and 20th Century Fox that I couldn't keep up with all of it. I'm not going to do a complete breakdown of all of these projects that were announced because there's just too many of them. What I am going to do is talk about the overall announcements and then talk about the ones I am excited for the most.

I think Disney did a much better job with the amount of shows and movies they announced from Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. It was small and digestible. However, the Lucasfilm stuff, particularly the Star Wars aspect, and the Marvel Studios stuff was way too much. I've loved the MCU since I saw The Avengers in the summer of 2012, but last year, when Avengers: Endgame came out and I was getting ready for Spider-Man: Far From Home, I felt like Endgame was the end of the MCU for me and Far From Home was a nice little epilogue to eleven years of story. As a matter of course I have never been a huge Marvel fan. In fact outside of Spider-Man and the X-Men, the only thing I've really gotten into from Marvel is The Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan, though I can appreciate Captain America and the Fantastic Four. Because of this there's only three things I am looking forward to and two of them are Disney+ series and the third is a movie.

Same thing with the Star Wars stuff that Lucasfilm announced. There's only a few things that I'm looking forward to in the batch of announcements made last night. Part of the problem is that there's too much on the streaming services, on traditional TV still, and in theatres and the audience is expected to watch ALL of it because the genre and franchise shows and movies are all connected to each other. Which makes it impossible to keep up with everything. Especially for someone like me who wants to watch the older shows and movies and watch some of the newer shows and movies. Even with this blog being my primary focus, I don't have the time to watch everything that Disney puts out. And in some cases I don't have interest in the things they put out. Primarily much of the Marvel and Star Wars stuff.

Of all the shows and movies announced by Marvel last night there are only three that I'm looking forward to and am excited for. Hawkeye, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Fantastic Four. I mean I'm also looking forward to Black Panther II and Spider-Man 3 (untitled sequel to Far From Home) but they weren't talked about aside from Marvel stating they won't recast the role of T'Challa/the Black Panther in light of Chadwick Bosman's death earlier this year. I wanted to be excited for WandaVision but between that horrible title and the fact that I don't care enough about Scarlet Witch or Vision for the show to have any impact on me, I'm probably not going to watch much more than the pilot episode if I even watch that because it just doesn't interest me. The same goes with Loki, WHAT IF...?, and much of the movies announced or that we got trailers for. 

We got a trailer for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and it looks just as awesome as the three Captain America movies that we got in the MCU over the past nine years. Plus the chemistry between Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan is pretty great and not something we actually got to see in the MCU movies since Bucky was a bad guy or not right in the head for most of his post-Captain America: The First Avenger appearances and didn't get much screen time with Sam. 

The second thing I'm excited for is Hawkeye starring Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton and Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop. While I didn't really care for the first trade paperback volume of Matt Fraction's run on Hawkeye, Kate Bishop was my absolute favourite part in that volume and have wanted to read more of her adventures ever since, but haven't had the opportunity to do so. So knowing that she's going to be starring alongside Barton in this series has me REALLY excited.

The last thing that I'm excited for that Marvel announced last night is the upcoming Fantastic Four film. To be clear I have not read a whole lot of Fantastic Four. What I have read is mostly Free Comic Book Day stuff or stuff related to Spider-Man. However I saw the 2005 Fantastic Four movie, Fantastic Four shortly after it had come out on VHS and DVD in early 2006. I don't remember exactly whether we rented the DVD or the VHS, but my mom was out one night and it was just my dad, brother, sister and I home, so we rented the movie and had a family (minus one) movie night together. And after the stupidity of the 2015 Fantastic Four movie, I'm excited to see what the MCU does with those iconic characters. The rest of it looks and sounds cool, but I don't have any interest in what's coming up for the MCU aside from the three things I mentioned. I mean, I suppose I'm looking forward to Black Widow whenever that ends up coming out, but honestly, aside from the fact that I still believe that Black Widow should've gotten her own movie right after The Avengers in 2012 and 2021 just feels too late, the movie and Black Widow's backstory, just doesn't interest me that much. I love the character, but I don't need to explore her origins to enjoy the character. Especially when they first set it up all the way back in season 1 of Agent Carter in 2015 and have done nothing with it since then is annoying. That's just how I feel about it though.

Star Wars is about the same for me. There's very little that I am excited for in this batch of announcements that Lucasfilm released last night. However the #1 thing that I am over the moon excited for is Rogue Squadron a movie directed by Patty Jenkins, who directed both Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984 (which isn't being released until later this month). It's also going to star the elite Rebel starfighter squadron made popular by the Star Wars: X-Wing novels written by Michael A. Stackpole and the late Aaron Allston, and the Star Wars: X-Wing Rogue Squadron comics written by Stackpole. Those are some of my favourite Star Wars novels and I am thrilled that there's finally going to be a movie starring the unit. I don't even care if they bring characters like Corran Horn or Ysanne Isard or Mirax Terrik back into Canon, from Legends, or not for this movie. Just seeing Patty Jenkins's name attached to not only a Star Wars movie, but a movie that's going to be called Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is enough for me to say, "Here Disney, take my money!" because I WILL go see that movie when it comes out at Christmas time in 2023. 

Aside from that monster of an announcement, the only other things I am absolutely excited for that's coming out of the Star Wars Universe is Obi-Wan Kenobi and a series that was just announced last night, Lando. I was already excited for Obi-Wan Kenobi because Ewan MacGregor is returning to reprise the role from the prequels, and his Obi-Wan was my favourite part of that trilogy. However, last night the official title, Obi-Wan Kenobi, was announced. It was also announced that Hayden Christensen who played Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith is returning to play Vader in the series. Which is super cool because I liked Hayden as Anakin and I felt he did a great job with what he was given by George Lucas during filming of the prequels. 

Nothing has been said about Lando apart that it's in development. Most of the speculation online is that the show is going to be similar to The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and Young Sheldon where Billy Dee Williams is going to narrate episodes of the series as the older Lando, while Donald Glover is going to return as the younger Lando from Solo: A Star Wars Story in the episodes themselves. Which would be cool, but they didn't say that Glover is involved in the show in any way, so it's always possible that they'll recast the role for this series and have it be separate from Solo. I hope Glover returns because his Lando was my favourite part of Solo and I don't think I'd care as much about this show if he wasn't playing Lando in it. Especially now that Billy Dee Williams is old enough that playing Lando on a TV show probably wouldn't work as well as it did when he returned in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker last year. But we'll see what happens when the show comes out. There's no start date for filming or airing yet.

Despite my lack of interest in the movies coming out from Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios in the last couple of years, with Zootopia and Incredibles 2 being the last movies I saw from either studio, I actually find myself drawn to the slate of movies that they have planned for 2021 and 2022. Which is surprising because I've been rather neutral on the output from both studios in recent years, so for me to be excited for all of these movies, not just one or two, based on a premise alone, no trailer, no concept art, nothing, is impressive. So now I want to talk about the movies, which are fewer than everything being put out by Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios combined.

The first movie coming up for Walt Disney Animation Studios is Raya and the Last Dragon. I finally saw the trailer for it, and it looks amazing! Like absolutely, positively, AMAZING!!! I mean I thought the movie poster looked pretty good when it was released earlier this year, but, as you can see from the poster above, it does not do the animation justice, because just from viewing the trailer, the animation looks absolutely gorgeous. I am really excited for it to come out in March.

The next movie to come from Walt Disney Animation Studios is a film directed by Byron Howard, whose work at Disney goes all the way back to Pocahontas in the '90s, with his first directing job was on Bolt in 2008. That film is the 60th feature film to be released by Walt Disney Animation Studios and it's called Encanto. The premise of this movie actually sounds intriguing. It's about a young girl in Colombia who is the only non-magical member in her family. Which sounds pretty cool. Oh and the songs for the film are being written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, so that's pretty cool. Between Mary Poppins Returns and Hamilton Miranda has been really killing it at Disney in the last few years. Which is cool to see.

First up from Pixar is Soul. That looks really good too. It's streaming on Disney+ on Christmas Day, and it's a general Disney+ release rather than a Premiere Access release like Mulan was earlier this year. So I'll definitely be watching it when it comes out, because I wanna see it. 

The next film coming from Pixar after that is Luca. It's a coming-of-age story set in Italy, with a little bit of a twist to it. That sounds really cool. We're probably not going to get a trailer for a while yet since the movie isn't coming out until June, but I'll be keeping an eye out for it when we finally do get one. 

The next two Pixar films are the ones I am really looking forward to. The first is called Turning Red. From what I saw in the announcement the movie is about a girl who turns into a giant red Panda Bear every time she gets anxious or scared or angry. I don't remember exactly which one it is, but that sounds like a really cool premise. Also, it's a really weird premise, but hey it's a cool weird one. The second is Lightyear. As in Buzz Lightyear. But not the toy from the Toy Story franchise. It's about the actual Buzz Lightyear character that the toy is based on, kind of like what the series, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command was in the early 2000s. And according to the announcement, Chris Evans, Captain America himself, is voicing Buzz. Which is so cool. I like the idea that Pixar is doing something with Buzz again because I really enjoyed Buzz Lightyear of Star Command when that was on twenty years ago and I always wished it could've gone on farther than just the direct-to-video film and the 65 episode series.

In addition to the films, Walt Disney Animation Studios announced they were doing TV shows in animation for Disney+ based on several different Disney films from the last eleven years. The first is Tiana, based on the 2009 film, The Princess and the Frog (great film by the way). Which is weird since nothing has really been done with that movie since 2009. Princess Tiana appeared in Ralph Breaks the Internet in 2018, the characters appeared on Once Upon a Time, and Dr. Facilier also appeared in Descendents 3, but nothing's been done with continuing the storyline of the movie in the eleven years since the movie came out. So that'll be interesting to see what they do with it.

The next one to come up, in the order the movies released in, is Baymax!, which is about Baymax from Big Hero 6 and apparently it's about him working as a nurse in San Fransokyo. So that will be interesting and yet also disturbing at the same time. Interesting though. The third one is called Zootopia+, based on the 2016 film, Zootopia. It's an anthology series focusing on three different groups of characters from the film. And the final one is Moana, based on the movie of that name. 

The one I'm least excited for is Zootopia+, just because it's not focused on Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde. Instead it's focusing on the least interesting characters in the film, the Mice Gangsters, the Tiger Dancers and the Sloths. The Sloth in the movie is fine for comedic effect, but as a main character in a series, it just wouldn't work quite as well. I'm still going to watch it when it comes out, but I'm not as excited for it as I am the other ones. The one I'm most excited for is Baymax! just because Big Hero 6 is my favourite of the more recent Disney movies. 

Whether the show or movie interests me or not, all of this is really cool and exciting news from Disney. After going so long without hearing anything from Marvel Studios concerning their post-Avengers: Endgame output, it's nice they're finally giving us something. It's just a little too much all at once and it's pretty overwhelming. Same with the Star Wars stuff coming out of Lucasfilm. Like I said, I have the things I'm excited for and has my interest from both studios, it's just not much else from them interests me. 

I really feel like Disney is THE studio for a variety of entertainment, and that we're seeing some cool stuff coming from them in the next couple of years. They also seem to have their plan for nurturing Disney+ in the future, because their initial output on the platform in regards to current stuff has been rather weak though their classic library has been extremely extensive. All I can say is that I'm excited for what Disney has planned and I plan on enjoying as much of it that interests me. Nothing more. Nothing less. And that's how it should be.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) Christmas Special Review

Hey guys! Welcome back to another Christmas special review. Today I'm going to be talking about the 1964 NBC special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. However, I'm going to be looking at it a little differently than I normally would've had I reviewed this on my old blog. So let's get into it.

I have been watching Rudolph for about thirty years now. Every year, around this time, whether it's on TV or on DVD, I will watch Rudolph. Why? Because it's one of my favourite Christmas specials, besides Frosty the Snowman and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. But, I've never seen Rudolph in the same way that I saw it last night when I sat down to watch it on the The Original Christmas Classics Anniversary Collector's Edition DVD box set that used to be my grandfather's. In the past I've seen it as a simple tale about a Reindeer whose nose glows bright red, an Elf who wants to be a dentist, and Santa Claus. It's so much more than that though.

I am autistic and while I know that Rudolph and Hermey aren't autistic I can still relate to both characters because they're misfits, just like myself. One line that really resonated with me is when Hermey is in the workshop working on a doll, pretending she's a patient, needing work done on her teeth, and the Head Elf, who apparently has no name, says to him, "You'll never fit in!". Why does that resonate with me? Because when I was in high school, I wanted to fit in so badly, despite being the only kid in the school who was physically disabled and used a wheelchair. This was back when I thought I just had physical challenges to overcome, not knowing that I'm autistic. It wasn't until I got to college that I realized that not only would I never fit in, but that, maybe, just maybe, I didn't WANT to fit in. I wanted to be weird and unique and not care what anyone else thought.

That's what Rudolph is all about. Learning to accept the differences within yourself as well as in the people around you. Not only that, but it's about other people's inability to accept these two misfit characters just because they're different than everyone else. Which is so resonate in today's society as we struggle to be tolerant of other people's cultures, skin colour, and sexuality. Even disabled people are often forgotten about by society. And while I think the turnaround on the characters accepting Rudolph and Hermey was rather quick and out of nowhere, I think that's just because we didn't see the Head Elf or the other Reindeer while Rudolph, Hermey and Yukon Cornelius were on the Island of Misfit Toys and dealing with the Abominable Snow Monster, and they don't appear again until the end of the special. Which makes their acceptance a bit jarring. All except for Rudolph's father, Donner, as we see him realize that he was at fault for trying to hide Rudolph's nose in the first place.

I'm not a huge fan of stop motion animation, preferring either traditional 2-D animation, or 3-D/CG animation. Just because I find that stop motion animation is rather limiting in terms of facial expression and movement, though set design is very good. However, I feel that it works for Rudolph and for Santa Claus is Comin' to Town better than other stop motion animated movies and TV shows that I've seen over the course of my life. I can't imagine Rudolph being done in the 2-D style that Frosty or How the Grinch Stole Christmas are done in. The sets are gorgeous, the characters are well designed, even if their expressions are pretty limited. Especially the human characters like Santa and Cornelius and the form of animation used in this special make it what it is. 2-D animation is fine for the 1948 short cartoon, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and the 1998 feature film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie, but for this, stop motion is perfect.

The songs in this special are awesome. My favourite songs are "There's Always Tomorrow", sung by Clarice to Rudolph, after the other Reindeer had made fun of him and Coach Comet expels him from the Reindeer Games, "A Holly Jolly Christmas" sung by Burl Ives as Sam the Snowman, who is the special's narrator, and of course the titular song, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" which is also sung by Burl Ives. In fact, I know that it is Christmas time when I hear the Burl Ives version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". I also have two new favourite songs. One being "The Most Wonderful Day of the Year" sung by the Misfit Toys. The other is "We're a Couple of Misfits" sung by Rudolph and Hermey at various points at the beginning of the special.

I don't have anything to dislike or outright hate in this special. However, if I had to pick something, it's that complete turnaround with the Elves and Reindeer suddenly accepting Hermey and Rudolph at the end. I know they only had so much time to tell the story in, but it's kind of a fast turn and a little jarring. I'm not going to knock it too much though since this is a fantasy, not real life, so it doesn't have to be realistic for me to enjoy it. 

That's my review of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I might be back tomorrow with another post, but I'm not entirely sure yet. Alot of news is coming out of Disney concerning Star Wars, Lucasfilm in general, Marvel, Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, so I might come on here and talk about all of that tomorrow. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Have a great evening guys and I'll talk to you all later.   

Archie Comics Digests Overview

Hey guys! Today I wanted to talk about something that has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember: the Archie Comics Digests now known as Jumbo Comics. Don't worry, I'll be watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer tonight to have that review up tomorrow. I just wanted to do something a little bit different. So let's get into it.

I don't remember what my first Archie Digest was. In fact I don't remember what year I read my first one in. They've just always been part of my life. They were everywhere. I even remember reading some in the waiting room of one of the clinics at CHEO. But, if there was one year that I began collecting the various Archie Digest titles it would have to be 2001 when I had an operation to try to fix my left foot enough so I could walk without any assistance. However, my earliest encounter with an Archie digest was back in 1993 when my mom bought me the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Classics Digest, from the CHEO gift shop. I don't even remember why I was even at CHEO that time. I think it was just for an appointment, but it could've been a full day of appointments or for day surgery. Regardless, I was with her when she bought the digest for me, so I know I hadn't been admitted to the hospital for any reason. 

However, in 2001, my mom had been at the grocery store and happened to see Jughead's Double Digest #80 while she was at the cash and thought I might like it. At this point we had maybe two or three Archie digests in the house at the time, but they were for my siblings and I and so they were on a bookshelf in our basement, where our communal "Kids Area" was located. This is where we would watch TV or play one of our Nintendo consoles, be it the NES, the Super Nintendo, or the N64. My Teddy Ruxpin books were down there, as were several of our other children's books that we still had that had been bought for all of us. This Jughead comic though was the first Archie digest that I kept in my bedroom and was just for me. However it would be another year before my collection began in earnest. In 2002 I got Jughead with Archie #176. But it would still be a few months before I got another Digest.

Then in February 2003 I went into kidney failure and ended up in the hospital over the March Break. This is where my Archie digest collection really began. I've been collecting ever since. And like I said, my mom didn't discriminate. It didn't matter if the book was Archie, Jughead, or Betty & Veronica. If there were Archie characters on the cover, she bought it for me, no questions asked. Not because she was treating me like a child despite me being in my teens (she wasn't). Not because I was in the hospital quite a lot in 2003 between kidney failure, esophagial surgery and appointments relating to those. She bought them for me because I genuinely loved reading Archie comics. I didn't have access to a comic book store because I still lived out in the country back then and the nearest comic book stores were 20 to 30 minutes away and gas was just starting to become expensive. So regular trips into the city were less frequent and limited to the occasional trip to Chapters, the movies and hospital visits for appointments. However the digests were sold at pretty much every grocery store in our area, so they were easier to get than the regular Archie comics, or any DC or Marvel book, were at the time. And like I said, I loved reading them.

When I was a teenager, reading the Archie digests were an escape from the insanity of life as a high school student. A reminder that there was at least one high school where the problems I was facing as a physically handicapped boy, and as it turns out a boy who is on the Autism spectrum, who was in high school, didn't exist. A high school where Archie's only real problem was double booking when it came to dates with Betty and Veronica. As an adult the Archie digests hold a different significance to me though.

For the last three or four years of his life, I shared these digests with my grandfather. My mom would buy one for him and when he was finished with it, he'd pass it along to me. Or I'd buy one for myself and when I was finished with it, I'd pass it along to him. I didn't get the chance to talk to him about them, but I'd hear from Nana how much he enjoyed reading them. We got him a book of Peanuts comic strips to try, but he didn't take to them the same way he took to Archie and the gang. I love Peanuts so I inherited that book from him. But we bonded through Archie.

The thing I like most about the Archie digests, with the regular sized ones having been discontinued in 2010 and the Double Digests becoming Jumbo Comics in 2016, is that even though the series changed with Mark Waid's run on Archie in 2015, the digests kept the traditional Archie art style that has been a staple of the series since the '50s. Granted the majority of the stories are republished from the regular Archie comics from decades passed, but the first story is always a new story and that story is always in the traditional art style. Even the writing is your traditional Archie storytelling without all the CW level teen drama introduced in Waid's run.

Not to knock Waid's run because it's one of my favourite runs of modern day comic books, even over many of the runs that DC has produced in the last ten years. But, there's just something fun and timeless about the classic Archie stories and the art style. In my case it's more than just simple nostalgia, because like I said, I like Waid's run as much as I do the classic stories. It's just Archie represents a timelessness that is missing in most modern entertainment mediums these days. But the classic Archie comics can be enjoyed by someone in 2020 as much as they were enjoyed by someone in 1950. That's what the Archie digest titles represent.

Another thing that I love about the digests is that they contain stories about all aspects of the Archie comics. Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Little Archie, Bingo Wilkins, Josie and the Pussycats, Archie 3000, and Archie 1 (prehistoric version of the Archie characters) all have stories in them, no matter what the title of the book is. This was my first exposure to Sabrina in the comics. I knew the character as played by Melissa Joan Hart on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, but I'd never read her comics before. Until I got the digests. Strangely enough there was a period in the comics where they were more following the TV show than they were the classic Sabrina comics. 

The one downside of the digests is that if you had a lot of them, you might've found that you had several copies of the same story. I found that in several of mine because I had such a big collection once upon a time. In fact there's a Little Archie Christmas story in the one I got this week, World of Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #104 that I remember reading a long time ago in an issue I had sometime in the mid 2000s, probably around 2004 or 2005. I don't even remember which issue I originally read the story in, I just remember the story from the past. 

Another downside to the digests is that there isn't really a record of what stories are from what issues from the regular Archie comics titles. In most collected editions there's usually a list of what issues are collected in the book, whether it's a table of contents like in The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, or a section on the back cover or on the publication information page after the main title page like most collected editions, be it hardcover or trade paperback. The Best of Archie collected editions have the title and the issue number at the top of the first page of a story, or on a specific page with memories of a story from an Archie fan, mainly comic book writers, journalists, and novelists. But the digests have never had anything like that and there's little to no information on them online either. In fact I did some digging, but came up short, because even on My Comic Shop, there's no information on what issues are collected in the digests, just titles for the stories. I guess when you pick up a digest you don't need to worry about what issue a story originally came from. It would just be nice if there was something to tell the reader what the original issue was so they could track it down if they so choose. That's just me though.

As I said, the Archie digests have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. Sure there might be periods where I don't buy them as often, and I don't have my entire collection of nearly 20 years worth of Archie comics, which span nearly 80 years of stories. But they're still being sold. And because they're still being sold, I'm still buying them whenever I feel like picking up a classic Archie story that I maybe have never read before, or revisiting one I read many years ago like that Little Archie story in World of Archie Jumbo Comics Digest I mentioned earlier. 

And that's my look at the Archie digests and my history with them that continues to unfold today. I don't get them as frequently anymore, especially since I don't have my grandfather to share them with anymore, but every once in a while, I'll pick one up and read it because even all these years later, I love the Archie Classics. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer so I can get that review out sometime tomorrow. Later.

*cover images were taken from the Archie Comics Digest and Jughead's Double Digest pages on My Comic Shop.

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