Reviews

To call this finale disappointing would be an understatement.

1. What the heck was Johnny thinking? His plan was: -ok, imagine he drove Monsters Inc. Out of business. Then who is he gonna steal laugh power from, huh? His plan would only work short-term for what? A week?

-what "research" did he do on mixing laugh and scare power like he claimed? Clearly he did none or at least - not enough. I thought he's a professional.

-who hires a guy and then tells him "yeah we set you up kid. The reason everybody hates you now - yeah, we did it" and he doesn't even consider for a second that he's friends with Monsters Inc guys and immediately trusts him with his evil plan before Tylor proves to him he's fully onboard with Johnny.

2. Joy being nearly as mean as Randal is disappointing. "See kids? Appearances aren't deceiving. If you see a long, mean-looking lizard it's absolutely mean and evil! Judge a book by its cover! Oh and remember that evil lizard from the movies? We're bringing him back too, and we're basically doing the first movie's finale all over again, where a mastermind is this kind-looking chill guy who is actually evil and the physical antagonist is this evil lizard who's agile and has camouflage ability!"

The animation and direction in the last 3 episodes were absolutely amazing for a streaming show, pretty much a proper sequel to Monsters Inc, but the story was weak, repetitive and as a result - disappointing.

On another note - I really, REALLY hope Randall will get a chance to redeem himself. Keep in mind, despite him doing evil things before, he was sweet in the very beginning(Monsters University) and didn't actually kill anybody in Monsters Inc movie, even though he attempted to. If they actually redeem him and make him a good guy I'll actually forgive writers of this finale for this.

There have been a lot of questionable things in this show, but this episode just broke all worldbuilding.

And before you think "he's too serious about it" let's remember that this show had a lot o serious moments too, not just pure, absurd comedy. It's the combination of strong serious moments and comedy is what made the show's best episodes so good.

In the first season Ivy is presented as not a villain, but a person who fights for the environment, she literally says she's not a villain. But here she fully embraces it because? It's not explained. But what's way, way worse - The Legion of Doom tower was destroyed in the first season, presumably killing every member of it who was inside.

But not only they are revealed to be alive and well for whatever reason(yeah those without any powers would definitely survive that), they AREN'T EVEN MAD at Joker who destroyed it and nearly killed them. He is the host on the award show with other LoD members and they don't interact with each other at all and everybody pretends like the Joker didn't destroy the LoD tower, replacing it with his own. Since when are these people saints who forgive something like that? Even average people wouldn't forgive it and you're telling us the bad guys, some of the worst people on the planet are completely OK with Joker backstabbing them like that?

As for the rest of the episode - it was dull and pointless and didn't move the main plot anywhere. Severely overrated. This is just lazy writing.

Unlike many, I defended this show. I liked most of season 1 episodes and some season 2 episodes. Unlike many, I didn't dislike Captain Carter. I thought she was a believable and a well-developed character and I can easily see her replacing Steve Rogers and even back in Captain America 1 movie she was shown to be smart and strong-willed.

But here... She can just easily use and control all stones however she likes, and other weapons like Mjolnir and Hela's crown.

Kahhori was also a Mary Sue in this season, learning hundreds of times faster than any of the people who got the same power, and of course she can go toe to Toe with Strange Supreme. Two overpowered girls fighting against a white male. That's not even surprising anymore, that is the norm of the modern MCU

Speaking Strange - he was the biggest disappointment in this episode. Like other reviews have mentioned, he has already learned his lesson, he changed for the better, why did you make him evil again? Imagine how amazing it would be to see him and The Watcher fight side by side in Avengers 5 and 6 against a new threat. I thought this is where the whole thing was going. But it wasn't, they just created an OP character and didn't know what to do with him so they made him evil again and killed him off. Extremely weak writing.

What I also hated personally is how after he was purged from his demons he became a good guy again, a man who's grieving, but his "demons" said they wanted it. So it wasn't Strange who was evil, it was all the magical creatures he consumed. I always hated the idea of villainizing non-human creatures because on the real Earth, only true villain is a human, yet it seems like those creatures are the ones who turned him to the dark side in the first place.

Terrible finale. The animation is great, but because the episode is severely overrated I'm giving this a 1.

I don't think I want to watch this show again.

Hey everyone! Die-hard Tabaluga fan here, who has been a fan of the 90-s series (it's first season only) for nearly 17 years now. I wanna start off by saying this is by no means a bad movie some people say it is. It's really well directed, animated and decently written. This review will consist of 2 parts - with and without spoilers. Here is the spoiler-free part of my review. I will mark the spoiler part before it starts.

Obviously lots of work was done on the characters and their development, especially Tabaluga. So let me describe the characters a little bit more here.

Since the movie is based on the original musicals and has no connection to the 90-s series, most of the characters from the TV show (like Happy or Shouhu) are absent and do not appear here. Instead we have Bully, the ladybug, and Kolk the raven as the new ones. Kolk is a typical parental figure who is left to care for Tabaluga after Tabalugas parents are gone. He is quite well developed and we see that while he worries for Tabaluga, he trusts him and believes in him. The ladybug however, is a typical comic-relief character, who's main goal is to keep the younger viewers entertained. He does give a little lighter tone to an overall dark movie, although sometimes it goes too far and nearly ruins the scene.

Limbo is a big, silly polar bear who plays a similar role to Bully.

Arktos is much darker than he was shown in the 90-s series, and it looks like a good thing here. He is tricky and smart enough to pose a real threat.

Lilli is surprisingly well-developed, not simplistic she was shown to be in the 90-s series(although the tv-show creators did not have time for her development at all), here she has a clear, believable and well-defined character.

Nessaya also makes a brief appearance, though I can't say much about her. She was a typical wise character that seems crazy at first but actually gives a great advice.

Tabaluga is developed the best of all. He is courageous, kind, but still is quite young and makes mistakes. There was something I didn't like about him. When he falls in love with Lilli he is consumed by this so much that he follows her like a puppy with love on his face every time he looks at her even though he just met her. That's not the calculating and smart Tabaluga I know from the 90-s show. Sure, he lost his head in the 90-s episode "Tabaluga and Lilli" as well, but in there at least he was younger. Here he almost looks like a teen. Overall I wish there was a little more depth about him and more time was devoted to him.

The Greenlanders are among my complants though. Just like in seasons 2 and 3(which I absolutely loathe) of the original tv-series there were only mammals and birds among them, which is racist given the fact that it should have all kinds of animals, including reptiles. "well, we have a dragon, that should be enough". Well, it wasn't. Especially given the fact that you aren't considering dragons as Greenlanders in this movie.

Music: the music was, for the most part, outstanding. My favorite songs were the first one where Tabaluga was growing up(I haven't felt so excited about watching anything for many, many years) and the song in the ending credits, which brought me to tears. Both were absolutely amazing. Arktos-es song was also good, the original music from the albums was used in there I presume, as it was the same theme used in the 90-s series, same goes for Lilli's theme. Most of other songs were just ok. The soundtrack was great and fits perfectly into the scenes where it plays.

Story and pacing: The pacing is really good, it never seemed rushed or going too slow, the creators pretty much found a perfect balance here. The story is well-done, though some parts - let's just say I wish they were done a lot differently.

And now my spoiler-free part of the review comes to an end. The movie is excellent overall and it's obvious not just a lot of work, but a lot of soul was put into it. I just wish the things I will describe below didn't ruin it for me, otherwise to me personally, it would have been near perfection.

SPOILERS BELOW



First of all, let me just say that the scenes with the Tabaluga's parents dying and a pile of dead dragon bodies shown to Tabaluga was way too dark. Even I, a 28 year old person was emotionally devastated by it, it's no surprise many of the children who watched the movie were really scared too. It's been almost 2 days since I watched the movie and it still haunts me. If "the last one of his kind" thing was sad, but still gave us hope in the 90-s series, then here it's absolutely depressing and just makes me wanna kill myself. It's that sad.

Another thing I disliked in the movie(as I already mentioned above) is the love at first sight of Tabaluga to Lilly. There is nothing inherently wrong with it, it's just they form long-lasting relationship with this without getting to know each other better. I know that's how it happened in the original albums but I personally find such rushed relationship which turns out to be a developed long lasting one so quickly unacceptable. They could have showed that Tabaluga and Lilli spent some years together or at least months, but they become a couple after a few weeks or even days!

And what was with Tabaluga being able to talk to Nessaya only once? They didn't explain that part at all, and we see her among other Greenlanders later. I also really disliked that it's love that needs to activate Tabaluga's fire. Not his faith in himself, not his duty to save Green Land and all of his friends, but his personal, selfish love for Lilli. Why is it selfish? Because Green Land and Ice land are at war and all he things about is Lilli and how much he loves her. He saw a pile of dead dragon bodies a few hours ago? Who cares if he has Lilli and spends time with her, promising to be with her forever, with someone he just met? Love activating fire doesn't make sense from biological point of view as well. Imagine if snakes got their venom, which they use to get food and defend themselves only after they met their mate? That's how ridiculous it is. In the 90-s show, he already had his fire in the third episode, simply because he was growing up. Here he needed attraction for someone to find it.

Another thing I disliked is the Deus ex Machina scenes, like when Limbo saves them in the last moment. Some humor was also completely out of place, in one scene they repeat EXACTLY the same joke that was overused in seasons 2-3 where James comes up with an idea, tells Arktos about it, he dismisses it, makes it look like he came up with the idea himself.

Verdict - it's an excellent movie with some parts that I wish were not included in here, without them it would have been absolutely amazing, and to me personally would be a nearly a masterpiece. I would give it 7 stars out of 10, but the "only mammals and birds among Greenlanders" makes me take away one more star. A solid movie which I can't recommend to little kids and people who are very sensitive like me.

Some people are just dumb enough to say that movie is crap without actually watching it. When I was 11 I saw the first sequel o LBT The Great valley adventure,and found it far not as good as the first movie, in fact I didn't actually like it, maybe just a bit.Then I didn't see LBT anywhere until 2007, when I got unlimited internet connection and finally got a chance to know about all things I missed during my childhood, I found one of LBT songs from LBT 13 and found it very cute, because of Petrie's singing there.I was impressed by amount of these movies, I thought they should be more successful than 2-nd movie of there are so much of them and decided to download all movies. Well I just made myself watch Great valley adventure, to so to say remember LBT characters and storyline. Then LBT 3 and it was a bit better, but still drawn worse than first movie and worse overall of course.so I watched all sequels 4-6 and got used to it's stile-not amazing, but good to remember childhood.But when I watched The Stone of Cold Fire, I felt something changed, strong dialogues, Great-drawn Amazing storyline, They DON'T "meet new friends" and other nonsense some of LBT haters say they only met 3 villains and 2 friendly aliens, researching the main characters doing miraculous things like teleporting and other mystic stuff, this whole movie is filled with mystery, and meanwhile it doesn't go far from the main storyline, This movie is totally different from previous 6 as a new Millennium it's quality is much better and continues improving with later sequels. I really enjoyed this movie ,and it's actually looking as the second movie of LBT deserving for Family rating, Everyone Young and old will most likely love it.2 of 3 songs in The Stone of CF are not childish, they are just great, every word is catching, maybe because adults sing them.Also a Science fiction storyline is extremely rare for childish cartoons and realistic once( reminds me show LOST where all begins realistic and them and then goes to science fiction with time traveling) and revealing aliens at the end just blew my mind! This movie has an excellent stile, especially Pterano's personality, and his voice(Michael York did great job), SOCF is also tougher than the other onces, and at the same time it brings good moralities, where can bad leadership bring to, and that some people who seem bad have heart too, they are just confused like Pterano. I'm also glad there were SciFi instead of magic, if This stone was magical it would ruin the whole LBT universe Every time I re-watch this movie I more realize how great it is, it isn't silly as any previous sequel.Also the soundtrack is amazing.

Some people think it would rather better to make a series instead of movies, my question to you ARE YOU SICK?? You really think that low quality 20-min time limited episodes would do anything good?? Sooo in 2007 a lame cartoon series of LBT released, drawn with low quality, repeating songs, silly story lines, dialogues, can't say it is worse than The Great valley Adventure, but most of episodes a really not so good, they are just childish and not for the whole family to watch, just made for kids,and for Little kids.

About other Sequels, I think The Stone of Cold fire made a new level for the sequels, made them not only for children(who definitely like them)but for the whole family again, almost as it was with the first movie, which is the best for all times, but if there were no sequels I'd rather live sadder, most of LBT sequels brought much happiness in my life, and NO other cartoon is even close to it's greatness.