The Glade 4.0

Placeholder for when I go see this tomorrow night.

(Happy, Khross?)

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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I've had company ever since Wednesday, so I've had no time to myself to write, but Phe and I saw it Saturday and bloody loved it.

Good. I thought it looked interesting, and was hoping it'd turn out well. Still need to see Catching Fire, too.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I feel that this may be the best Princess Movie ever.

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I have my tickets purchased for tomorrow night!

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

We really enjoyed it.

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Don't want to derail, but also very good. Fixed all of the problems if the first film.

Frozen and Tangled are proof that Disney sucks at selling its princess animations nowadays (I think because they're girl-shy). Both looked utterly rancid from the promo materials (particularly Frozen, whose trailers and posters posited a comic relief character that appeared to give Jar Jar Binks a run for his money in the annoyance department), but both were excellent.

Yeah, Olaf is pretty annoying. I didn't find him endearing at all.

The marketing definitely left a lot to be desired.

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

I didn't mind him in the context of the film, but the marketing materials were selling a totally different movie.

He wasn't as annoying as in the promo spots, that is true. The movie was NOT what I'd expected going into it. It was rather refreshing to be a little surprised for once.

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Olaf was far less irritating than I expected. Story and animation were spectacular. Music was mixed, and sadly forgettable... I don't have a single tune from the movie left in my head this morning, can't remember them at all. Robert and Kristen Lopez are, unfortunately, not Alan Menken.

Speaking of the music, Kristen Bell wasn't completely out of her league singing alongside Idina Menzel, which surprised me.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

On a more detailed note, I love the way it blew away several common Disney Animated Feature tropes with extreme prejudice. For instance,

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Based on the box office numbers I think they are doing fine. Disney has apparently reached the point where they don't even need to spend a second thinking about their promo materials and will still close the weekend #1 just on the brand name.

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Disney needs to fire their entire motion picture marketing department.

Sure, Frozen and Tangled did well at the box office. But animated movies usually do well at christmas. Hell, this is a Disney animated movie called Frozen released at christmas. You could market it with an ice-sculpture of a giant turd and it would sell 300 million in tickets. That's not the point.

The movies John Carter and The Lone Ranger are examples of why their marketing is brutally bad. I found them both to be immensely entertaining -- they hit their targets dead center, and yet nobody went to see them.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

John Carter's box office numbers were super disappointing, I saw it in 3D and had a great time. Underrated movie, right there.

Unfortunately for Disney, brand name appeal only really works when you're doing brand name things. So their animated features will do well without marketing because they're Disney animated features. Anything else is going to take, because the kids watching the Disney channel and listening to Disney radio really don't want to see things that aren't animated.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Maleficent appears to have some intelligent marketing behind it.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I think it did pretty darn well overseas, though. If they'd marketed it as the granddaddy of modern sci-fi...

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Not enough to save it from costing Disney 150 million dollars.

Fortunately The Avengers more than made up for John Carter and The Lone Ranger's losses put together.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Saw it this past weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Managed to have strong female characters without resorting to making all the male characters idiots (ala Brave). Managed to have strong male characters without resorting to making all the female characters helpless (ala traditional princess movies). I liked that. I found Olaf to be the anti Jar Jar. I liked that too.

My daughter made it clear she wants to see it again. My sons gave it two thumbs enthusiastically sideways--which means they liked it despite being a princess movie.

Saw it with some friends tonight. Pretty solid. (Hmm. Or is a movie named Frozen better described as "pretty and solid"?)

I won't comment on the memorability of the songs, as I'm mostly crap for remembering Disney songs in general. It was refreshing to not cater to all the aging and dated Disney princess tropes about love, yes.

But what impressed me most was that it was a simply gorgeous bit of animation. While I don't remember much about the song, the set and choreography for the number where Elsa raises her crystal castle was amazing. I'm not usually one to go on about Disney magic and whatnot, but that was a scene that really evoked a powerful sense of, well, magic.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Here, courtesy of Disney: song, set AND choreography for where Elsa raises her crystal castle...

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

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Holy shitsnacks!

I loved the movie, and the scene where Elsa goes ape-shit was awesome.

I agree with everything here, with the additional note:

I watched with two young children and one thing that the movie fails at, with regards to young children, is that there is no villain. Normally in Disney movies it's overly obvious and easy to follow, but neither of my children where able to really follow that aspect of it.

There's a definite villain in Frozen. It's telegraphed fairly early on, but younger viewers are less likely to pick up on it until the Big Reveal.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.