Hi I'm Dranzerstorm
You may remember me as a regular contestant on the caption battle contest.
Welcome to Retro Retrospective, my world dedicated to the old guard of the Otaku world; expect some reviews of the old & obscure, and in-depth geeky knowledge with the occasional top ten and I now have a logo.
Little info about me
Well I'm British and I'm in to all things animated and nostalgia.
I've grown up with every cartoon going and have watched hundreds of anime.
Oh and to answer a question I was asked once, no I don't wear glasses in real life, I would wear Loke's sunglasses though.
Since it just came out as a live action film how does the original 90s Beauty and the Beast compare.
The tale as old as time is about a prince cursed to become a beast among the many servants who are cursed to become his furniture, over time as the petals fall more of their humanity goes away until someone can love the beast for who he is; enter Belle who is classed as perculiar for wanting to spend all day reading and dreaming of adventure. When her father becomes prisoner for ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time Belle replaces him at the castle only for a series of events to unfold which ends in Beast saving Belle's life from wolves. As the two become closer leading up to a romantic ball scene, the town finds Belle's father Maurice guilty and is about to be sent to a mental asylum until Beast decides to let Belle go which ends up mistakingly leading Gaston and the town to the castle to destroy the Beast. After the confrontation ends and Beast is wounded by gun shot and Gaston falls to his death, Belle declares her love for the Beast and he's brought back to his human form along with his servants.
Hardly a spoiler the live action movie is pretty much word for word, song for song bar alot more story explanation from the live action film on why certain things are as they are, which gives the live action film some considerable edge over this animated counterpart, but the animated version is still very much whimsical and still remains one of only two animated films to compete for a best film oscar, the other being Up.
So in comparison both have their merits but compared to how CInderella went in Live Action it's far much superior in quality.
In conclusion I do wait to see what can be done next with other live action versions of popular Disney movies but is this live action version better than the animated?
Yes on the better story
Yes on improving and adding side characters
Not quite on whimsical and scale, as that ballroom scene is still hard to beat in any media let alone a faithful live action recreation.
Welcome back to a week where cartoons are beating anime tenfold and another one of these who conquered last year was Zootopia.
Judy Hopps is a bunny with big ambitions, she wants to become a cop but the job is dominated by big animals mostly predators, undeterred she graduates from the Police Academy as best student and gets a position in Zootopia's Police Force but is dismayed when she gets stuck in a Meter Maid post. Later she meets Nick Wilde, a fox with a knack for schemes and hustling, while initially helping Nick with a hustle without realizing she later drags him into a city wide Police case as mammals have gone missing throughout the city, Judy does this by essentially blackmailing Nick and will let him walk free in return for information as he has been in contact with at least one of the missing mammals.
After a tip off from the local mob boss, Judy and Nick arrive in the jungle where they get attacked by the mammal they wanted to question. After more investigation they discover that all the missing mammals have reverted back to their predator instincts with no reason why which suddenly creates a divide between prey and predator, something that the two leads know all too well so it's up to Judy to find the cause of these sudden devolutions back into animals. (Irony)
What I like about this film is that despite all the internet buzz, trailers and society's penchat for spoilers I went in not knowing what the end result was going to be and that's quite a number of months after the original release so I was kept on the edge of my seat the whole film.
But I think what Zootopia really did right was that it understood the real world better than real life humans which is both fascinating and a little sad. There's talk in the news all the time of racism and prejudice just for being different or being part of a group with a bad history or even tainted image from terrible people but what really hits the nail on the head is that the supposed innocent party are just as terrible as the people they paint as being terrible. It even felt heartbreaking watching Clawhauser packing his things away after the whole Predator reveal and he's the nicest guy in the whole film. I even felt sympathy for Nick, who was only pushed into hustling because of some bad people in his youth. Yeah kind of makes you think this movie and it's probably the best Disney have done in a long time.
Don't really have anything bad to say about this movie.
Now onto the companion list of 10 live action shows, I already did an exclusive British list so lets do the others.
Honorable Mention
Sesame Street
I'm bound by my rules on Pre-School shows and the fact that this has alot of animation as well as live action doesn't really make it a candidate on this list, however I will never say a bad word against this show.
10. Pee-Wee's Playhouse
A bizarre world from the mind of actor Paul Reubens, Pee-Wee's playhouse was the madcap adventure that was designed for kids with ADHD.
9. Are You Afraid of the Dark?
A surprise Canadian hit which managed to really scare you and while the safety filter was on and most of the stories ended in safety, the occasional darker ones would really catch you out and of course many jumped on that opening sequence.
8. Bill Nye the Science Guy
If you want your science lessons to be insanely awesome then Bill Nye has you covered, a fast paced comedy show full of song parodies and endless amounts of science to make your brains work overtime after schools.
7. Fresh Prince of Bel Air
Bit of a grey area as it travels the fine line between kids show and adult but I watched a lot more of this when I was younger rather than older. Watch a young Will Smith live it up with his rich Aunty and Uncle in Bel-Air. Time to make you feel old now. Will Smith is now older than Uncle Phil was in the show. To be honest Will Smith just doesn't age anyway.
6. Saved by the Bell
Before Nickelodeon and Disney packed the world with nothing but Live Action Kids shows, Saved by the Bell was the show that pretty much started the whole trend, while suffering a bit from being in the Pink Cadillac era of tv (High School setting that feels like the 50s but with plenty of 90s trends) it still manages to be significant in this day and age but it does show it's age.
5. Sister Sister
Nickelodeon's breakthrough hit that gave way to others like it, Sister Sister showcases the lives of Tia and Tamara who get separated as infants but reunite as teens under unique single parents Fashion Designer Lisa and Limo Driver Ray. One of the few twin plots that doesn't go for the obvious tropes and occasionally played some powerful moments such as when they finally learn about their birth mother.
4. Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Melissa Joan Hart originally started with Clarissa Explains It All, my sister was obssessed with it and the brother and sister dynamic in that show really put me off but Sabrina, Hart's more famous work was a lot more entertaining and really gave the live action sitcom market a boost in what can be accomplished with technology at the time.
3. MIghty Morphin Power Rangers
Haim Saban is a genius, without him I think anime would be dead because he saw something in Hurricane Rangers that would make a fortune over in the west and it did. This was Power Rangers and while it has become a cheese fest it's a very entertaining cheese fest, welcome to the world of Japanese TV and all it's weirdness.
2. Kenan & Kel
A cult classic and one of the few that's remembered among all my friends. Kenan & Kel showcases comedian friends Kenan and Kel as they get into bizarre situations usually by dumb luck or poor judgement and made even more famous for the "Who Love's Orange Soda?" line. It's so well remembered Nickelodeon started doing reruns again. (Or maybe they are desperate to win back diminishing viewers for their channel)
1. Wishbone
Now for something adorable.
Wishbone was a story telling show as the title character would tell a story from the point of view of a dog obviously done by voiceover who would replace the story main character with Wishbone himself, these were famous literacy works that may even be taught at school, everything from Shakesphere's works to Dickens, from legends like Robin Hood to old folk tales like Journey to the West. Yes Wishbone covered Saiyuki.
It was charming and had a sense of whimsy and Soccer the Dog (Actual name) is so adorable!
Post 21 and we look into today's cartoons with Elena of Avalor
Elena is a Princess of a far off Latin Kingdom who ends up trapped in an amulet which saves her from death at the hands of a soceress for many years; after being set free by Sofia the First (Long story) Elena must learn how to rule her Kingdom using the tools left to her by her late parents along with her many friends around her.
Pretty simple premise but how does it stack up?
Basically if you've seen Sofia the First this is basically the same with an age upgrade, not really surprising as it's the same universe, same creator and Sofia is even responsible for setting the plot in motion so it's all set in stone, in fact it may as well be an older Sofia learning how to be a ruler but I digress; Elena is at least more interesting in personality and the characters around her are endearing enough to not be too distracting, on the other hand I also feel that this is.
1. Been done before.
2. An obvious post Elsa character that tries to deliver the notion that women are strong independent characters.
and 3. Proves once and for all that the main core Disney Channel is for girls.
Some people may disagree with statement 3 but looking at this kind of show makes it hard to ignore considering it's other programs are Miraculous Ladybug and copious amounts of teen sitcoms that are not worth the script their written on and only girls actually like them.
Because of my rules on pre-school shows, Sofia the First is exempt from review as the target audience are too young to defend it but seeing as this doesn't really deviate much from it, I'd say this review pretty much sums up both shows which in my opinion is that they are okay shows that don't really bring anything new to the table, hey at least Elena's music is better.
Let it be said that I'm not one to follow trends especially when ninjas took over the world but lets see what was released by the west to tackle the might of Naruto during the mid 2010s.
For 800 years the town of Norrisville is protected by a ninja, in order to keep this going, a new ninja takes the fold every 4 years, next to take the ninja costume is Randy Cunningham 9th grader, however it's not long before he gets enemies in the form of the Sorcerer and his two main allies, Hannibal McFist a big time business man with a mechanical arm that has its own brain and Viceroy who may as well be called Baxter Stockman.
Randy must learn the many teachings of the ninja while defeating his enemies in order to keep peace in Norrisville.
This is the most mixed of mixed bags for many reasons.
1. It clearly took lessons from the Ninja Turtles school of cartoons with it's obvious choice of villains yet they have some top quality voices from the likes of Tim Curry, John DiMaggio and Kevin Michael Richardson.
2. It clearly took the torch from American Dragon a show with a similar premise but then rips off Sailor Moon by having it's victims become monsters.
3. The two leads were clearly part of the Mordecai and Rigby dynamic but are also both jerks.
4. Randy has to keep his identity secret but the ninja is not only common knowledge his so called best friend exploits it.
So yeah mixed bag is an understatement but at least the show itself is entertaining and while it looks like it is pandering to the new millennials need for ninjas and street cred, it's actually a fairly enjoyable show and the fact that the leads are jerks actually makes a change from the typical lead with phenomenal cosmic power and the typical wisecracking fun loving 10 year old that goes with it.
So despite taking more than a few pointers from previous shows, Randy Cunningham 9th Grade Ninja is a good show, now you just need a shorter title and you might actually be remembered. *Smoke Bomb*
