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.
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