AWKWARD ZOMBIE

I've never quite understood adaptations like that that take a known story and completely change it. I mean I know companies like Disney make a living off of it and they can become good films, but I've always thought an adaptation should try and tell the original story in a fitting way, not take the characters/setting and make up their own stuff. Just make it a different story if you're going to do that grumblegrumblegrumble

Because the only thing, THE ONLY THING, that matters in the world of marketing is branding. Thats the reason for the endless shitty remakes, thats the reason for reimaginings, thats the reason for why comics have been using the same characters for 60 years, because the brand is what people know, so that is what sells. Everyone knows who Tarzan is, so people will go to it because they recognize the name, regardless that theyve seen it a thousand times before.

Marketing people will dig up your dead mother and enact a puppet show with her rotting bones if it meant making a few dollars off you. Thats it. There's no room for art or storytelling, only cheddar.

Has anybody seen Frozen yet? Is it any good?

I heard it got a chilly reception.

Saw The Hobbit II. It's clear at this point that this is more of a loose interpretation than an adaption. The movie was fun and entertaining, but the writing got lazy and downright poor in some occasions. (spoilers ahead I guess)

The thing that irked me most was Gandalf heading into Dol Guldur alone, that was completely out of character. Also, what's up with Peter Jackson's staff-breaking fetish? They're physical manifestations of the Valar's edict to the Istari, you can't keep breaking them willy-nilly. The relationship between Kili and Tauriel felt rushed and even hack-eyed and tacky in places. I did like their discussion about the stars though, where Tauriel references the days where the Eldar walked under the endless star-night. In general the Mirkwood Elves part was a bit weird, with orks getting in easily and slaughtering Elven guards like mooks, with zero mourning shown by the two Elven main characters.

Which reminds me of the orks freely walking around Laketown without even a hint of guards taking note or getting taken out. And Legalos deciding to melee an ork twice his size in narrow quarters. And the master of lake taking out Bard with his own hands, completely ignoring his previously established character.

So it was pretty dumb at times, but don't get me wrong, still an enjoyable movie. It's disappointing this won't live up to the Lord of the Rings movies though.

So I watched Tokyo Godfathers for the first time. It's a pretty good movie.

So Frozen. In one word: EXCELLENT. VERY well done movie, amazing animation, extremely charming, and definitely worth your time. Before I saw it myself, my sister kept insisting that it's just as good as Tangled, and for me, Tangled just barely beats Frozen. bodaciously the only thing that made me like Tangled more is the fact that I like Tangled's soundtrack better. Frozen had a few good songs, but a good number of them were kind of forgettable. On the other hand, the writing in Frozen is great. Like Tangled, the dialogue is more modern, but it doesn't feel like a bunch of guys in suits wrote it. It feels natural and carries the movie's humor. Most importantly, I just plain enjoyed the film. I'm old enough to notice the usual movie plot devices and can predict a good deal of the plot. What makes me feel like a modern movie is good is when I don't CARE that I recognize the plot, because I'm just having a good time. There's one point in the movie where I legit nearly cried. That's pretty rare. Also, I'm so sorry, I can't apologize enough to you guys, I'm aware that she's an animated character, but when Elsa goes full on Snow Queen, she is so FREAKING HOT.

I saw Desolation of Smowg with a friend today. It was.....definitely a Peter Jackson LotR movie. It's been years since I've read The Hobbit and I've never read the Silmarillion, so I can't really speak for how accurate it was to those books. What I CAN say is that the movie was pretty good, but Bilbo, you know, THE HOBBIT, didn't do too much until the end of the movie. It was nice to see Smawg in his entirety, though. I'm kind of confused about why they decided to end the movie where they did. They've got like two or three more chapters of the book left to work into the third one. Also it kind of bothered me that there were no major fights in this one. There were battle scenes, but no one major died and the main heroes and villains didn't fight all that much.

I've heard this complaint a couple of times, and I don't understand it at all. The movie was even more action packed than the last one. Don't fret tho, I know what they're going to fill the next one with and it's going to be nothing but action.

Then it was a problem with the first one, too. What I mean is other than fighting spiders and weird barrel fighting, the other fight scenes were Gandalf running away from orcs, orcs running away from Legolas, and Bilbo and the dwarves going all Home Alone on Smaug. The rest was actually just a lot of standing around in one place talking or walking.

Also I should mention that I don't think I gave Frozen's soundtrack enough credit earlier. It's very good, not at all bad, but I just like Tangled's soundtrack more. There's not a single song in Tangled I disliked, whereas in Frozen there was one, maybe two that I didn't care for that much. That being said, I was listening to Frozen's soundtrack today and I found that, for the most part, the so-so songs were better than I remember and the excellent songs were just as good as I remember.

Yeah, Frozen is amazing. As far as the songs go, "Let It Go" obvs is a top notch song, as everybody agrees. Other then that, the other songs are pretty great(specifically Anna's 3 songs), but like you said, Tangled is awesome.

"Fixer Upper" can be compared with "I've Got a Dream", where Tangled's obviously wins, imo.

Edit: actually, I was thinking more along the lines of then both being songs sung by a group. In terms of lyrics/meaning, "I've got a dream" is more like Olaf's Summer song, which is also arguably meh.

Olaf's song and Love Is An Open Door with both very meh. I thought "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" was just OK when I heard it in the theater and then today I was listening to it and WHO PUT THESE TEARS ON MY FACE

Marvel is casting for Baron Strucker of HYDRA in Avengers 2, and apparently Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch will be working for him initially.

Kind of throws a wrench in what I imagined the plot would be.

I really want to see her, I've always really liked Spike Jonze and it just in general looks really good