So, I’ve been plowing through more Disney+ stuff lately. Like, a lot of stuff.
There is a lot that’s good here.
The docuseries, for example. Love the nature footage. It’s awesome. There are these documentaries of undersea animals and wildlife that are just so good and interesting. The visuals are absolutely spectacular.
I love stuff like this when I watch TV. It’s great, and very “real”. And it’s uplifting.
Some of the animal content was made for kids, but I don’t mind. I actually prefer that sometimes. I would rather see the animals than the scientists, honestly. It’s just… something I don’t see. I’ve seen plenty of scientists in real life, including myself, my parents, and many coworkers, college professors, etc. and they’re just… people, lol.
The animals though are interesting and not a part of the world that I’ve seen, and I love seeing them.
I’ve been watching kid’s TV shows, too… and I guess I don’t need to say it but it’s nice to see that so much of my childhood has been immortalized, and so well. I really love those moments when I see something in a TV show that I’ve forgotten about my own past. I’ve kinda weird, it gives me a kinda comfortably fuzzy feeling, I guess.
I suppose that if I’m ever feeling nostalgic in the future and want to revisit my past at any point all I really need is a Disney+ subscription, lol. It’s pretty mindblowing, even now. I’m always finding new series that contain bits and pieces of me, or that spin my childhood in different ways.
Recess is a fun one. It’s really cool to see my grade school self again and my old friends. It’s like looking into a magic mirror of sorts. The kids in that show do so many things that I remember, albeit not exactly as I did them. Not exactly. Teacher’s Pet is another fun series, this one based on my college exploits, even though it is ostensibly about a middle schooler.
Rolie Polie Olie is another series centered around my childhood, with yet again the same backyard with the same sandbox and tree, etc. This one is particularly interesting since it’s about a robot family. In this series the cybernetic nature of all of this is made explicit. In that sense it kinda reminds me of Whatever Happened to… Robot Jones?, a forgotten but very good Cartoon Network production about my junior high years.
I’ve also been rewatching the old classics, and will continue until I’m finished with all of them. And then I might cap that off with a showing of my own copy of Song of the South.
I watched Sleeping Beauty the other day. Great film, truly. And underrated for sure. Sleeping Beauty was more influential than people realize. Watching it I saw so much that was taken from it by other properties. I saw things that inspired parts of Jackson’s LOTR. There were parts in it that inspired scenes and visuals in Naruto, Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons, the Zelda franchise, a couple dozen RPG video games that I played as a kid, and… hell, pretty much any fantasy property in the last 50 years, lol.
The people who don’t think Sleeping Beauty is a masterpiece are not understanding how widespread it’s influence has been, methinks.
Even as a kid I remember seeing the opening of Zelda II and immediately thinking “Hey, isn’t that Sleeping Beauty?”, lol.
But for sure, it’s defo a great film. No question.
I think honestly that many of the films on offer here are underrated or even misunderstood.
People tend to dock Disney films more than they should I think because they’re regarded as “kid’s stuff”.
I watched The Tigger Movie the other day and had a blast. It was wonderful.
The best part about it were the backgrounds. The gorgeous, lush backgrounds. The film featured a gallery of some of the prettiest looking backgrounds I’ve ever seen in a movie, and they were presented in such a wonderful variety of styles. I saw some really nice watercolor paintings used as backdrops in a few scenes. I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen watercolors used as backdrops in a film before, even in an animated one. It was a pleasant surprise.
Right off the bat, I got serious Calvin and Hobbes vibes from the flick, and I’m sure that that was intentional.
I read a handful of reviews of The Tigger Movie online, and honestly not one critic or audience review I read seemed to get the point of the movie. It’s not about the plot, guys! The movie tells you in more than one scene to pay attention to the backgrounds- I remember piglet rearranging a gallery of pictures in one scene, off the top of my head.
In several places the animation actually stops so that the audience can drink in the pretty images in the background.
A common complaint about the movie was that it felt “slow” or the plot was too thin, etc. Most people, including professionals, seemed to agree that the movie had nothing at all for adults. Guys… you didn’t get it.
But yeah, very good movie, and I will be watching the other Winnie the Pooh flicks for sure. Here’s hoping the rest of them are as good as that one.
I will be looking forward to the 1977 version the most. We’ll see what I think of that one now, after not having seen it for 35 years.
Other stuff… well, there’s a lot here for sure. Kinda too much to get into, again.
Will be watching everything, it looks like. Or at least… not Marvel, or Star Wars, unless it’s Lego, or something. Then maybe.
We’ll see.
At any rate, thank God I’m watching “kid’s stuff” these days, as opposed to “adult” entertainment like some dumb police procedural, some editorial drek on the “news networks”, or “reality TV” like The Kardashians or Family By the Ton.
Thank GOD.
lol.