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Spirit Riding Free: Riding Academy: The Palomino Family Affair (2020)
A Truly Great Affair, with two exceptions...
This was a nice episode. Fun and great for the most part.
Lucky and Bebe's storyline with their fathers was as entertaining as it was enlightening.
However, Pru and Abigail's storylines with their families left quite a bit to be desired.
Pru's parents shouldn't be trying to force their daughter to be someone she's not. She's their child, not their servant. Not their employee. She should be free to live out her own life and live out her own dreams.
And as for Abigail's parents, they are so oblivious to the torment that Snips puts Abigail through, and it's maddening.
Snips pretty much ruins Abigail's day, and we're supposed to feel bad for him when Abigail gets righteously mad at him?
Snips can't even offer up a proper apology to his sister!
And in his next appearance in a later episode, he's back to being a brat to Abigail. What a surprise...
I'm taking two stars off this episode for not-so-excellent writing on the part of Pru's parents and Abigail's family.
Spirit Riding Free: Lucky and the Fearless Fillies (2018)
The Worst Episode in a rather great show.
I'm gonna be straight and to the point here.
This show's writing is great most of the time.
But not here.
In this episode, Snips' bratty antics are unbearable and outright life-threatening. He refuses to take responsibility for his actions, he blames others for his failings, and he can't even sound sincere and humble in his apology at the end. And in all his appearances afterwards, he still acts like a spoilt and entitled brat.
This is absolutely the worst episode in the series. And I really expected better from the writers.
Spirit Riding Free: Lucky and the Treacherous Trail (2017)
A Good Learning Curve...
This episode presents a nice learning curve for Lucky learning how to trust Spirit in order to ride better with him.
Also love the raw emotion when Lucky nearly falls off a cliff and Spirit saves her. The poor girl is allowed to cry after nearly dying, which is something a lot of other adventure shows with kid protagonists are afraid to do (not all shows with kid heroes, but a lot).
The biggest misstep that this episode does, however, is have poor Pru get blamed by her father for Lucky's actions. That was some pretty stupid writing and I'll have to dock a few stars for that.
Though the character development was great in this episode, the logic behind some scenes, not so much.
How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Heavily Overrated
This film is too overhyped and overrated. Just because it's one of the few Dreamworks films without pop-culture gags that was released in 2010 (a year of few very good movies) does not mean it's a masterpiece.
First off, I will admit this has some good points. The music and animation are brilliant, and after the final battle our hero does not come out unscathed. But that's it.
The film falls flat on so many levels. Astrid is just your usual "violent-girl-turned-girlfriend" character with no other personality whatsoever. And I hate that her "punch-and-kiss" gag is condoned. It should not be. It's not a healthy idea to promote that it's okay to show fondness of others through violence, nor has it ever been a healthy idea at all.
Snot, Ruff and Tuff were jerks and karma eluded them despite their obnoxious behaviour - other than that, they were bland and just plain uninteresting. Fishlegs meanwhile is entirely a soulless, empty character.
And Stoick is just an abusive parent who doesn't get what he deserves and frankly it's unfair how Valka from the second movie is just lambasted by fans while Stoick gets praised on "how much of a good father he is". Laughable.
The only characters that one can root for are Hiccup, Gobber and Toothless. The rest of the tribe are either zombie-bland or hideous to the point that I wish that they were killed by the Red Death. They were just sheer unlikable jerks who gave Hiccup so much grief that the way they get off so easily at the end is legitimately horrendous writing.
And Hiccup's character suffers from some stupid writing. We lost our leg? Never mind that (in under a minute) - happily ever after. Nearly everyone abuses me? Forget about that at the end! Happily ever after 'cause we won!
So much crap happens to Hiccup that he should have had a scene where he calls out those who wronged him. But he doesn't. He's just another bland hero guy. The only reason why I root for him in this movie is that along with Toothless and Gobber, Hiccup is not an unbearable jackass unlike the rest of his tribe.
But yes, bland hero writing and a lack of dire consequences (emotional scarring, anger at abuse, amputation freak-out, etc.) drag down this movie.
There wasn't a single onscreen Viking death. Just how realistic is that?!
Oh, and I also feel the need to mention that the Battle with the Red Death goes against the film's message of "dragons are not bad and violence shouldn't be used as a first resort".
This movie was just pretentious and soulless. It's overrated and fails to get its mature ideas across.
The sequel did a way better job at, well, everything.
The Dark Knight (2008)
Lawful Stupid: The Movie
To start, I'm gonna just quickly vent.
The Dark Knight is overrated. And chock full of plot stupidity.
All Batman had to do was kill the damn Joker.
Thou Shalt Not Kill rule be damned.
End of problem. End of story.
He also gives up his moral high ground reasoning when he lies about Two Face (who he killed with his own actions, by the way).
Now that that's done, time for the substance behind the (dark) magic.
As many others have said before me, there is more (over)emphasis on exploring symbols, ideologies and themes rather than the characters who are supposed to embody these ideas and ideals, leading to the characters feeling cut and dry due to half-baked writing.
Batman swings across the Lawful spectrum so much like a pendulum that he just becomes annoying to watch. From disregarding other people's vigilantism (yeah, because having the training and the money automatically makes you all set, right?), to brutally smashing criminals' faces in, to refusing to kill any criminal no matter how dangerous they might be, to lying to the public, this Batman is one that lacks any charisma and doesn't give me any real reason to root for him.
Not to mention that Bruce kills Harvey (inadvertently, but since this is Batman, the point still stands), who is a traumatized Tragic Villain driven to insanity, while leaving Joker alive in captivity. Moral inconsistency much?
Speaking of which...
Joker is just a Straw Nihilist with no profound reasoning or understanding for his motives. You want a sympathetic nihilist? Look at General Shepherd from Modern Warfare 2. Back to Joker, the film doesn't even have much logical explanations on how he can pull off his outlandish criminal stunts - which is detrimental to a film that wants to deconstruct and add realistic grit to damn well everything.
Also, 3 hour blockbuster movies becoming the norm can be a standard that can rot in hell.
To sum up, this is not The Dark Knight.
It is Lawful Stupid: The Movie.
An overrated and overhyped film unfortunately brought to the world by an overrated and an overhyped film director.
The Black Cauldron (1985)
Judge it as a Film
I found this to be an excellent film!
The voice acting was brilliant.
The music was brilliant.
The main characters (good and evil) were brilliant.
The action was brilliant.
Capable of making you feel emotion - happy, sad, baleful, hilarity, you name it.
And I do love the fact that this is one of Disney's darkest.
It's my favorite Disney film ever.
And if you're gonna tell me "Read the Books!" don't bother. I tried the Books and they were horrible.
Get Ed (2005)
Brilliant Show!
What a classic Disney show! And for an old Disney show that aired in 2006 and was one of the first CGI Disney cartoons, it's actually pretty awesome!
In the futuristic city of Progress, courier teams compete to be the number one team. And a new team called Dojo Deliveries - a group of couriers consisting of children - are quickly rising up the ranks. But one of the city's bureaucrats, Mr Bedlam, is aiming to take over the world. But Bedlam needs the help of the newest and youngest member on the Dojo team: Ed. But of course, since Bedlam is evil, Ed and his friends have to not only battle other courier teams who want the top spot in the delivery ranks, but also battle Bedlam along the way.
Early episodes are light-hearted and fun, but as the show progresses the tone becomes more mature and the situations get darker. And yet the show never loses its beat.
Did I mention the soundtrack is totally radical?
The characters are all excellently rounded and relatable. First we have the Teacher, Ol' Skool, who is laid-back and fond of deadpan snarking while also getting involved with the team from time to time and taking drastic measures if need be.
Then there's Burn, the oldest of the kids, and therefore the leader. He is the most skilled, but is very prideful. And yet he has a warm, big-brotherly heart for his friends.
Then there's Deets. And there is more to her than meets the eye. She may seem like a Girly Girl, but she's the best fighter and has high moral standards.
Loogie is next. While he's a bit scatterbrained, he's just crazy- awesome! His puppet, Dr Pinch, has a mind of its own and helps to keep him in check - and provide some humour too.
Then there's Fizz. She's a bright girl who's a wizard with machines, though she has doubts about herself, due to her short height. She, along with Deets, are like big sisters to Ed.
And finally we have Ed, the newest and youngest member. While naive, he's creative and his heart is strong. He also has an AI called Torch, who's a co-pilot that comes with funny one-liners.
So with awesome characters, strong story arcs, and a rocking soundtrack, Get Ed is one of those epic old Disney shows that remains a classic to this day!