My opinion of the Disney live action remakes

Why do directors feel the need to remake movies that have no reason to be remade?

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Unfortunately this seems to be the the problem with the Walt Disney Classics collection, the first of the classics to be remade was 101 Dalmatians in 1996, the movie was met with massive success at the box office and it has since become one of the most beloved Disney films among fans, the main reasons that the 101 Dalmatians remake is so beloved is because not only did it correctly follow the source material but it also added new twists to the story, one of biggest differences is that the animals don’t talk, not only that but the casting was fantastic Cruella De vil was played by Glen Close and they could not have picked a better actress for the job, she manages to be threatening but still hilarious and over the top just like the original, the rest of the cast are great too but none are more memorable than Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams who played Jasper and Horace they are hilarious and by far the best part of the movie.

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With the massive success of 101 Dalmatians we couldn’t wait for the future Disney remakes and so when Tim Burton announced that he was remaking Alice in Wonderland it created a lot of hype, and with an all star cast including Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter how could it possibly go wrong?

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Well we didn’t exactly get the dark Alice in Wonderland remake we expected and instead we got this horrible excuse for a movie, it wasn’t sure if it was remake, a sequel or a retelling of the original story, it wasn’t weird enough and it kept trying to bring logic into what is supposed to be a world filled with nonsense and it was just awful, critics panned this movie for its bad casting, terrible CGI and lackluster story telling, unfortunately the movie was still successful which was probably due to it having Disney’s name to it and because of this not only is there going to be a sequel but other directors saw the movies success and started to remake all of the other Disney movies.

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The next three movies to be released were Maleficent, Cinderella and most recently The Jungle Book, out of all three of the movies the only one I was really excited about was Maleficent because it was advertised as the story about how Maleficent became evil and I thought that would be the main focus of the movie but instead it was just a really bad retelling of Sleeping Beauty, it added some good aspects to the story by giving Maleficent a more understandable reason as to why she is bad as well as giving her a backstory, but apart from this most of the acting wasn’t very good, the film was pretty boring and the only part of the movie I really enjoyed was Angelina Jolies performance as Maleficent, Cinderella which is by far the weakest of the remakes was pretty much the exact same film but remade with less likable characters with the exception of the prince who gets more screen time than he does in the original and as much as I don’t like the new evil step mother compared to the original I have to give the remake credit for giving her a reason to dislike Cinderella, for the most part I  enjoyed the Jungle Book remake, I thought it was clever with the way it expanded the story of the original film while also sharing more similarities to the book, I hated the little boy who played Mowgli as I found him to be extremely annoying and honestly it didn’t feel like he was the right casting choice to play Mowgli in my opinion, the CGI was great and the animation flowed smoothly and worked well with the characters and the movies environments, the only thing I really disliked was the casting not only did I hate the little boy who played Mowgli but I also hated almost every voice actor in the film as I just didn’t feel that they were the correct choices to voice those characters but most of this hate goes towards Bill Murray as Baloo and Christopher Walken as King Louie, I think they shouldn’t have made the animals talk at all, it worked in 101 Dalmatians favor so I don’t see why it couldn’t have worked for The Jungle Book as well, with all that said and done I do feel that people should go and see The Jungle Book as it honestly is a pretty good movie despite some of my more negative opinions of it.

So as you’ve probably already guessed, I’m not a big fan of the Disney remakes, I have nothing against some of these movies getting remade or retold if the more modern versions follow the source material and at least try to capture what the originals did, some Disney movies in my opinion don’t need to be remade at all due to their not being much wrong with the original a great example would be Beauty and the Beast which is soon to be remade, if Disney want’s to remake some of their old movies then I think they should try to focus on the older classics that could use updating such as Snow White, Pinocchio or Bambi otherwise I just think that beloved movies should be left alone to be loved and not remade for modern audiences and as a quick cash grab.

Thank you for reading this article about my personal opinion on Disney remaking their movies, please remember that this is purely my opinion and if you disagree that’s fine.

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on miiverse by searching for draskafer

 

Book Review: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol

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Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most famous books of all time and its also one of my personal favorites, please follow me down the rabbit hole as I review this masterpiece of classic English literature.

So if you dont already know the book follows the adventures of a curious young girl called Alice through a magical world of weird and unusual things.

Alice is a very mature person but she is also very naive and she has unrealistic views on how the world should work.

One day she is sitting on the bank with her sister who is reading a very boring book with no pictures, Alice complains about this and talks about how in her perfect world books would be nothing but pictures, she ends up seeing a white rabbit in a waist coat run past the bank, this makes Alice curious and so she follows the rabbit down a rabbit hole and into the unusual world of Wonderland.

Without giving away any spoilers I will say that the novel is very different to the Walt Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, where the Disney film is very light hearted and comical, the book has a bit more of a darker tone and it also tackles a lot of adult themes including Puberty (Even though its written as a metaphor, its still obvious what the book is trying to portray)

I’m not saying that the book isn’t kid friendly but I would say that you may want to read this one with your child.

There are a lot of new characters in this book that you wont recognize from the film, the most memorable for me are the Mock Turtle and Gryphon.

Alice is a lot more bearable in the book as she is more independent and she is able to think for herself almost all of the time.

This is a fantastic book and overall I think it spreads a good message, that there does come a time to grow up and that life wont always go as we plan, the book is great way of showing people that living in a world with no rules and no consequences can be just as bad if not worse than living in a world that does have rules and consequences that follow.

Whether you like the film or not, I think everyone should read this book at least once, I have read the book multiple times and I’m not planning to stop any time soon.

Perhaps one day I will get around to reviewing the movie or better yet maybe even the second book.

I hope you enjoyed this Book Review of Alices Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

 

Gravity Falls Review

3190_gravity_fallsGravity Falls was a hit cartoon series created by Alex Hirsch for the Walt Disney Channel, it first aired in 2012 and it has now finally concluded at the beginning of 2016, the show about a brother and a sister spending the summer in a mysterious town became very popular amongst millions of viewers and Gravity Falls soon became known for its quality, I have now seen the entire series and I am ready to share my opinion.

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Twins Dipper and Mabel Pines are spending their summer vacation with Stanley Pines (Great Uncle), They are spending the summer in a mysterious town called Gravity Falls, where Stanley is making them work at his business the Mystery Shack where he guides tourists through a fake museum of mythical creatures and mysterious artifacts, Dipper soon gets bored of this and decides to go and explore the town while his sister Mabel is seeking romance, Dipper accidentally discovers a Journal which is filled with mysterious legends and secrets which may help uncover the dark secrets and hidden mysteries of Gravity Falls.

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Apart from the few episodes that really expand on the shows main plot, alot of the episodes can be watched out of order without many consequences as a big portion of the show is just Mabel and Dipper going on adventures and trying to resolve a problem they have discovered in Gravity Falls, most of these problems can be resolved by someone searching for the answers in one of the journals image

When the show does focus on the main plot its hard to not get glued to the tv, for a Disney Channel show it’s surprisingly addictive and many of the non plot themed episodes are full of cryptic clues to some of the towns mysteries image

All of the main cast are very lovable. but surprisingly almost every character in the entire show has a personality and some even have interesting backstories, personally my favourite character is Mabel Pines but my favourite background character is Blendin Blandin a time traveler you will meet in season 1
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Gravity falls is one of the best looking children’s cartoon shows I have seen in a very long time, the animation is smooth and the pixels are at a minimum so the show looks absolutely flawless, I highly recommend watching it in HD so you can truly appreciate it’s beauty.

Overall Gravity Falls was one of best animated series I have ever had the pleasure of sitting down and watching, it is a little sad that the show has finished but I know for a fact that the fandom the show had brought together will be around for a long time.

I hope you enjoyed this review of Gravity Falls

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on miiverse by searching for draskafer

 

Donald Duck: The Lucky Dime Caper (Master System/Game Gear) (1991) Review

Lucky_Dime_Caper_Starring_Donald_Duck.jpgDonald Duck the Lucky Dime Caper is an action platformer which was released in 1991 for the Sega Master System and the Sega Game Gear, the game was one of the many line of games starring Donald Duck in some of video games earlier years.

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The evil witch Magica De Spell has stolen Uncle Scrooges lucky dime and has kidnapped Huey, Dewey and Louie, Donald realises that he must find and rescue his nephews and sets off to save them but not before Uncle Scrooge offers Donald a special reward if he also returns his lucky dime.

696304-lucky_dime_caper_proto_sms_10Like I said the game is an action platformer, its fairly basic and what you would expect Donald can jump on enemies to defeat them, he can also use two types of weapons a hammer and a frisbee, the hammer can be used to whack enemies at a close range while the frisbee can be used to attack enemies from afar, you can only hold one of these items at a time which is quite annoying as I wish you could swap between them, apart from that everything is simple enough you need to get from point A to point B and at the end of every stage is a boss battle.

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The boss fights are not very interesting and they are all very similar, every one of them gets defeated in the exact same way you either have to hit the boss or something related to that boss a couple of times and they will eventually fall.

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The gameplay is basic as you would expect with an old Disney game and the controls are easy enough to learn but one problem I do have is that the game feels just a little bit stiff, making some of the jumps can be very difficult to make because it feels like the game is fighting with you by pushing Donald back which caused me to fall to my death way too many times.

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The game looks fantastic the color’s burst out of the screen, the animation is smooth and all of the artistic choices suit the different environments perfectly although some of the character sprites in certain stages would be questionable whether they would be appropriate to use in media today.

ghghgh The music is the usual generic little tunes that you usually get from games that don’t have a massive budget to work with and this is no exception, none of the music is memorable or even that nice to listen too I find that I always get bored of it quickly whenever I play the game.

Overall Donald Duck: Lucky Dime Caper is an ok game, it has great graphics but overall everything else is nothing special and the whole experience can be a little bit boring, out of both versions I would recommend the Master System version over the Game Gear version as the Game Gear port does have some recognizable issues such as item placements being different and not being able to back track, it’s not the worst Donald Duck game out there but it’s definitely not the best 5.4/10

I hope you enjoyed this review of Donald Duck: the Lucky Dime Caper

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

 

Beauty and the Beast the Enchanted Christmas (1997) Review

“WHO DISTURBES MY CHRISTMAS !!!”

BATBXmasTitleDo you remember that cute scene in Beauty and the Beast where Belle and the Beast played in the snow and started to fall in love with each other?

Do you wonder or even care about what else happened on that cold winter day?

Me neither but Disney wants more money so in 1997 they made up a load of nonsense and chucked it on a VHS tape for the whole family to enjoy.

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The Story to the Enchanted Christmas is that a Pipe Organ called Forte (Voiced by Tim Curry) is mad at Belle because she is stealing his Master who only now appreciates Forte’s music after the enchantress cast the Beasts curse, Forte’s music helps to soothe the Beasts pain caused by this event

Yes that’s right we went from one of the greatest villains ever made (Gaston) to a magic Pipe Organ.

Belle tries to teach the Beast about the magic of Christmas but this saddens him because it was on Christmas eve that he was cursed and Christmas only reminds him of his old ways.

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Forte hears of this and he tricks Belle into leaving the Castle to find a Christmas tree in the Black Forest, Forte tells the Beast and this makes him mad so he runs off to find and scald Belle

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Will Belle ever be found by the Beast?

Will the Evil Forte be stopped?

Will the Beast ever love Christmas?

Do you care?

No of course you don’t because its ridiculous and that’s where all of the movies problems begin, the plot is dumb and doesn’t make any sense at all because all of the events in this film are never mentioned in the original movie so its like they never happened, Tim Curry is annoying and so is everyone else I couldn’t even stand Belle in this film and shes my favorite Disney Character of all time, the animation is no where near up to par with the quality of the animation in the first movie, the songs have terrible lyrics and again are very annoying, when the characters talk the animation is out of sync with the dialogue, all of the new characters are boring and pointless but I will admit that the axe was kind of cool and finally it is so obvious that this was only made as a quick cash grab for Disney.

Beauty and the Beast the Enchanted Christmas is a revolting mess of a film, its an insult to the original movie and in some way it has slightly ruined it for me because now every time I see the winter scene I just know that this piece of crap is apparently going to happen even if I cant see it.

Thanks for reading my Review of Beauty and the Beast the Enchanted Christmas

The next Christmas movie I will review is

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you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

 

Disney Infinity 1.0 (PS3, XBOX 360, WII, WII U) (2013) Review

 

Well I finally caved in and bought Disney Infinity

 

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Disney Infinity is Disney’s answer to the Skylander’s franchise, in a very similar fashion to its competitor Disney Infinity requires the players to purchase toys in order to play the game.

disneyinfinity590-100521268-origThe way this works is that you will need to place the figures you have purchased onto the Disney Infinity base, Once you place the characters onto the base they should then appear in the game (ADD ONE FOR SINGLE PLAYER AND TWO FOR MULTIPLAYER!!), once the characters appear in the game you can then either play around in the toy box or you can play a play set (Campaigns), to access a play set you will also need to add that play set piece to the Disney Infinity base.

If you decide to play in the toy box, you will be in a sandbox style game which allows you to simply build your own Disney Infinity worlds, which you can then play in these worlds with various characters including those who are not part of any play sets.

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I’m not a massive fan of the toy box mode but I’m sure that the reason for this is my lack of interest in sandbox style games, the toy box mode has a lot to offer and can be great way to pass time when your bored or have friends over, you can add many different objects and toys to your world and many of these can be interacted with, for example if you add a car you can drive it, if you add a weapon you can use it to destroy enemies and you can even build race tracks.

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You can earn new toys and items for your toy box by using the Disney Infinity Vault, You gain these items by using a random selector, you can change the items by selecting shuffle and you can gain an item by selecting spin, this will give you a random item from the list that is shown at the time.

NjOr5WFWhen you add new characters to the Toy box they will be added to the Hall of Heroes, the Hall of Heroes is where you can see your entire collection of figures presented as statues, once they reach level 1 they will gain a bronze statue, but if you level them up even more they can be upgraded to a silver or gold statue.

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Any power disks you have will also be added to the hall of heroes once they are added to the Disney Infinity Base, there are two types of power disks, circular power disks which can grant characters new powers and abilities and hexagon shaped power disks which can add new items and themes to the toy box.

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When your done messing around in the toy box, you may want to play some of the many campaigns that are available within Disney Infinity 1.0.

The Starter pack comes with three different Campaigns which are based on different Disney properties, the campaigns that come with the game are Monsters University, The Incredible’s and Pirates of the Caribbean, each of these campaigns offer a different game play style.

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The Monsters University play set has the player taking control over Sulley, Mike or Randall, the objective is too help Monsters University gain more fear it week tokens than their competitive college Fear Tech, the way you earn these tokens is by scaring over students, vandalizing the Fear Tech campus and by setting up pranks all over both the MU and Fear Tech Campuses.

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The Incredible’s play set is full of intense super hero action, you can take control of all the entire Parr family (Mr Incredible, Mrs Incredible, Dash and Violet) and as a small treat you can even play through the entire play set as the films villain Syndrome, I think this is awesome but I would have loved it if Jack-Jack was a playable character or even better would be Frozone.

I WANT SAMUEL L JACKSON IN MY DISNEY INFINITY GAME DAMMIT !!!

Your mission is too clear the city of Omnidroid’s, rescue the pedestrians from super villains, help the police capture and arrest many creative villains and trouble makers and finally defeating Syndrome once and for all.

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Last but not least the Pirates of the Caribbean play set is an adventure style game filled with swashbuckling action and piracy, you can play as either Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Barbossa or Davy Jones.

In this Adventure you must find hidden treasures which when combined will create a super weapon which can be used to help defeat the dreaded Kracken, a unique game play style to this particular play set is that it offers the unique ability of customizing and sailing your own ship across the ocean giving the player a sense of freedom for exploration and adventure.

Each of these play sets allow the player to purchase new items in the toy store for example in monster inc you can buy a paint ball gun which you can use to shoot students and in Pirates you can buy new swords for your character and new cannons for your ship.

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Graphically Disney Infinity has a very cute and very interesting art style, the majority of the game looks very cartoony and everything is drawn like a toy, for example when you play as a character you will notice that you can see where the arms and legs have been attached to the body, also when you die in the game your character will explode separating its limbs from its body.

I really like that the game looks like a giant toy set because this helps give off the illusion that the figures you buy are toys and not just regular figures, this makes spending your money on Disney Infinity feel more rewarding when compared to similar series such as Skylanders and of course Amiibo.

The Audio is nothing special as its either just the music from the movies or its new tracks that are generally not that memorable or interesting.

Disney Infinity 1.0 is a great game if you like the Disney properties, due to the type of game that Disney Infinity is it’s not worth the money if your not willing to empty your wallet on all the characters and play sets, apart from this it has great controls, adorable graphics and is genuinely very addictive and a lot of fun to play, the only downside is the lack of decent audio tracks and lack of game play for people who don’t want to get into the collection side of things.

7.0/10

Personally I am a collector and I will be releasing collection updates when I upload small reviews of the additional play sets.

My Collection so far 7/29

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I hope you enjoyed my review of Disney Infinity 1.0

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer

 

 

 

Book Review: Kingdom Keepers Disney After Dark by Ridley Pearson

There will be Spoilers !!!

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That’s right I’m reviewing a book and if your wondering why its taken me three years to get around to book reviews that’s because I have never really been a huge reader but I have recently decided to try and delve into the world of literature and too give you my opinion on some popular and obscure book titles.

The first book I am going to be reviewing is Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark by Ridley Pearson, this title is the first in this very popular series.

The book focuses on the lives of five teenagers (Finn, Charlene, Philby, Maybeck and Willa) who have been offered the opportunity to become virtual Disney Hosts, if you have ever been to Walt Disney world you will have noticed cast members walking around and offering help and guidance to the guests.

These teenagers are becoming DHI’s (Disney Hosts Interactive) allowing them to have holograms of themselves walking around the Magic Kingdom as virtual cast members, all five of them agree to have virtual versions of themselves created and afterwards they part from each other and get on with their lives.

Or at least that’s what they wanted to happen but unfortunately every time they go to sleep they wake up as their holograms in the Magic Kingdom, they learn that they have no control over this ability from an old man named Wayne who they meet every night while they are in hologram form.

Wayne explains to the teenagers that a great darkness and evil is trying to take over the Magic Kingdom and possibly the world, these evil entities have been code named the Overtakers, Wayne also explains that all five of them have been chosen to be the heroes who will eventually save the day.

The Overtakers seem to be famous Disney Villains who reside in some of the parks more famous attractions, The villain in Book 1 is Maleficent the evil witch from Sleeping Beauty, she is very spooky  in this book and she tends to talk in a whisper like and raspy voice which definitely makes her character much more creepy.

She uses a lot of magic throughout the book although most of time she is using to try and kill the five heroes and at times the book takes a very dark turn because of this, by far the scariest part of the book for me is when all of the dolls in its a small world come to life and start trying to bite the five main characters.

The only character I really connected with in the book was Wayne and that was because he was very mysterious and a lot of time I personally felt that he had a very ghostly vibe to his character which often allowed me to see him as a guardian angel watching over the heroes, unfortunately he was also the only character that i found remotely interesting as a lot of the other characters were a bit too normal and boring for my tastes.

I was very impressed that the way Ridley Pearson described the layout of the park and the attractions was very accurate to the layout of the Magic Kingdom in real life, this is a nice touch for people who visit the parks often as they can visualize the descriptions in the book to those areas in the real park.

In conclusion Kingdom Keepers Disney After Dark was a fun book to read but overall it wasn’t that interesting and at times I felt that it overstayed its welcome, if your a fan of Disney then this book is definitely worth your time and even if your not a fan of Disney this book is fairly cheap to pick up and is worth giving a shot especially if your a fan of adventure and fantasy.

I hope you enjoyed this review of Kingdom Keepers Disney After Dark by Ridley Pearson

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Goofy Movie (1995) Review

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A lot of Disney shows from the late 80’s and early 90’s were very well written and this usually resulted in those shows being turned into a movie at some point a classic example is Duck Tales, Duck Tales was an extremely popular cartoon back in the 90’s and it still is very well known today the show its self was about Uncle Scrooge and his three nephews Huey, Louie and Dewey looking for ancient treasures so they can become rich and the movie followed this same premise making it less like a movie and more like an extended episode of the show.

I watched Goof Troop growing up and it was literally about Goofy being a goof ball, his son Max being in High School and the antics of his grumpy neighbour Pete and his crazy family, so I expected the Goof Troop movie to be the same but longer and yeah it has most of that but it also sends a very important message, the importance of family bonding.

The movie is essentially that Max is a Teenager who wants to move on with his life making his own decisions and learning from his own mistakes, but his Dad Goofy doesn’t want to lose his son so he keeps being over protective while at the same time constantly trying be with Max, Max manages to get in a lot of trouble at school while trying to impress a girl and not long after this the principle calls Goofy and this causes him to organise a camping trip for himself and Max so that they can bond, but the problem is that Max is supposed to be going to a party with a girl he really likes.

Obviously the camping trip Causes Max to have to cancel the date which results in him disappointing the girl, this causes Max to lie to the girl telling her that he is going to be on stage at the rock concert that’s being streamed live over television at the party, the rest of the movie is just a road trip where Max and Goofy attempt to bond and at first things don’t go too well because Max is still mad that he has to cancel his date, throughout the movie this slowly changes and both Max and Goofy start to get along more due to them sharing time together during activities that they both enjoy for example Goofy sits through a vehicle stunt show which he doesn’t like and Max visits a yarn museum which he finds boring but his Dad really enjoys.

things seem to be going really well and then both Max and Goofy fight again, which is great because it shows that these things take time and a few days away together is not going to immediately fix what started off as broken relationship, there’s a really well directed scene near the end of the movie where Max is reading the map and has to decide if he wants to tell his Dad to take a left or a right at a junction where left goes to LA and right goes to the camp site this leaves Max in a difficult situation where he needs to decide what’s more important his relationship with the girl he likes or the relationship between himself and his father, this movie is kind of deep which really surprises me considering that this movie is about Goofy.

I think the plot and the message of the movie is brilliant its not often that we get a Disney movie that isn’t talking about some great danger that’s going to happen, or the murder of someone’s parent or how to become a hero but instead shows an issue that is a reality between a lot teenagers and parents and for that alone this movie deserves a gold medal.

The animation is nothing spectacular but I don’t really expect much considering that this is not a Disney Classic and I don’t think it even went into theatres so this doesn’t bother me too much, the best way I can describe it is that the animation is very similar to that of the original show but with a bit more polish, more vibrant colours, added shadows and shading, more artistic detail and it genuinely just looks better.

Goof Troop

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A Goofy Movie

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I couldn’t really get into any of the musical numbers as they generally just weren’t that interesting and I don’t feel that this movie needed to be a musical because apart from in the final song where Max and Goofy discuss each others true feelings about their relationship none of the songs did anything to progress or benefit the movie, also I kinda wish that more of Pete’s family were in the movie as they are by far my favourite characters from the show and I always felt the Pete and his family were the cause of a lot Goof Troops greatest moments, apart from that this is surprisingly a really good film that spreads a very important message that I believe will benefit both adults and their children.

If you haven’t yet seen A Goofy Movie go give it a shot as it may leave you pleasantly surprised.

Thank you for reading my review of A Goofy Movie

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer

 

 

Anastasia (1997) Review

When I was a child I remember visiting my Grandmother and watching a bunch of Animated movies that she had on old VHS tapes, Anastasia just so happens to be one of those movies, as a kid I thought it was amazing and I watched it all of the time but now that I am an adult I haven’t seen the movie in 13 years.

Until now

Was it as good as I remember?

Anastasia

The first thing that caught my eye was that Anastasia was made by Don Bluth who is famous for some of the greatest animated movies of all time such as An American Tail, The Land before time and the Secret of Nimh. I had a strong feeling that Anastasia would be just as amazing as some of his other work especially since I loved the film with a passion when I was a child.

Let me just begin by saying that the animation was incredible, everything in the film was extremely well detailed, the animation moved very smoothly and the use of a mixture of light and dark colours really helped build up the atmosphere for multiple scenes that were shown throughout the movie. The animation blew me away and it can easily compete with the animation of some of the Disney films of the time.

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The movies plot was really cool if not a little hard to follow.

A party is being thrown to celebrate 300 years of ruling of the Romanov Family, The Dowager Empress Marie is leaving for Paris and a very young Anastasia is sad that Marie is leaving.

Marie gives Anastasia a music box so that she will always remember her, at this point the films villain Rasputin enters the palace and is immediately told to leave, Rasputin says that he will not stop until the entire Romanov Family are dead.

Rasputin sells his soul so that he has the power to for-fill his dark purpose. With his new Dark powers Rasputin Controls the Civilians of the town to charge the palace, with little choice left the Romanov family flee Russia to find safety.

Anastasia and Marie are saved by a servant boy called Dmitri, Marie and Anastasia are about to board a train.

Marie manages to to board the train but Anastasia does not, they grab eachothers hand but they slip from each other and Anastasia falls unconscious.

We cut to 10 years later and Anastasia is leaving an orphanage to try and find her real family and to learn about herself and her past.

The films plot is really well structured and it allows enough time for the audience to be able to understand and sympathise with all the main characters that are introduced throughout the movie.

The music is really hit and miss with me because I love all of the instrumental music used to help build the atmosphere of certain scenes, its really well conducted and the final result being a combination of Choir and Orchestra is something really beautiful to listen too.

I cant say the same for the voice acting or any of the songs that are performed vocally, all vocal performances seemed really emotionless it felt as if the actors and actresses didn’t really want to be lending their voices to the film and because of this it really makes the whole experience a little boring and hard to watch with the exception of Christopher Lloyd who voices Rasputin because he did a remarkable job voicing the films main antagonist, you could really tell that Christopher Lloyd loved playing this role in the film.

I also did not enjoy the majority of the vocal songs for the exact same reasons as I previously stated again with the exception of the movies villain song which was catchy but I wont be adding it to my I-pod any time soon.

Watching Anastasia again really reminded me of a lot of warm childhood memories but it deeply saddens me that I found so many issues with such an important movie from my past.

I may not have enjoyed it as much as I had hoped that I would, but Anastasia will always be a very important film to me as it helps me remember what it was like being a little kid and visiting my Grandmother and even though my grandmother has not yet passed on, this movie will always be one of my fondest memories of her.

I hope you enjoyed my review of Anastasia

Have you got any films from your childhood which are very dear to you?

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

By Padawan

 

Walt Disney’s Frozen (2013) Review

Lets talk about Disney’s Latest number one hit Frozen
frozen_movie_poster_disney_

Am I the only person who thinks this movie is overrated?

I’m not saying that Frozen is a bad movie, I actually find it to be very entertaining, but the fact that I really enjoy a movie doesn’t mean that it has no flaws and in my opinion frozen has quite a few.

Ok so lets start by talking about what I like

Frozen is a beautiful movie as the animation is really good, Arendelle is in my opinion one of the best looking towns that Disney has ever had in a movie and the character designs are near perfection.

For the most part it has an amazing soundtrack, the songs in this movie actually helps us understand the characters and the emotions they are feeling for example during “Do you wanna be a snowman” we see Anna’s Desperate attempts to get her sister Elsa to talk and hang out with her during her childhood and teenage years and this shows us the upsetting emotions and the struggling battle that both Anna and Elsa are going through, it also helped the movie progress childhood to their adult life in a well structured manner.

Another Favourite song of mine “First time in Forever” allows the viewer to really connect with Anna by showing us her extroverted and playful personality and also teaching us that Anna is fed up with being separated from the rest of Arendelle and we learn that she wants to find love and she’s excited because she now has the chance to do this because Elsa is going to be crowned Queen.

Frozen is based on the book “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Anderson. I have never read the book but if the story is as good and well structured as the story of Frozen, then I will most definitely be getting the book at some point. Without giving away any major story details Frozen is very well put together, it never really seems rushed and as much as I have issues with this movie none of them are to do with its structure and pacing. Almost all of the characters have good reason to be in this movie and any loose knots are eventually tied bringing the movie to dignified and well put together ending.

Get ready to hate me, here are my issues with frozen

Prince Hans could have been a really great villain, Disney took the Gaston approach making what seemed to be the town hero or in this case the handsome prince eventually becoming the villain and having to be stopped. The problem I have is that Frozen didn’t need a villain at all and Prince Hans is hardly ever in the movie. First few scenes we see him in he’s a good guy, he’s very charitable and overall a very nice person but then through no character building he just turns out to be the villain.

You could argue that he needed to be in the movie so that Disney could show the morale that love at first sight does not exist and yes I do realise that this was Disney making fun of them selves in the past with Snow White, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty, but still they should have done more with Prince Hans maybe they could of shown his character becoming more power hungry in some of the scenes, this would of helped explain the sudden change in his motivations and maybe given his character an actual purpose, I personally feel that the movie would be hardly any different if he wasn’t in the movie at all.

The Duke of Weasel Town actually has a purpose to be in the movie, we learn early on that he is in control of trades between Weasel Town and Arendelle and that all he wants to do is discover the secrets to Arendelle’s Fortune. He may not be in the movie that often but at least he has a dignified reason to be there, unlike Prince Hans who I don’t recall even mentioning why he is in Arendelle in the first place.

As much I love the music in Frozen one song I cant stand is called “Fixer Upper” the Rock trolls for some reason get a song and as much as it is a pretty funny song I do find it annoying, I don’t know why but this song just isn’t really that good, put it this way where as everyone has “let it go” and “do you wanna build a snowman” on their I-pods I don’t know a single person who owns “Fixer Upper”.

Lets talk about “Let it Go” this song has had a huge financial success and is even in the top of the charts. Thats right a Disney song is in the Top 40 and with good reason, “Let It Go” is amazing it may be one of the best songs ever written for a Disney movie and I love it

I do have one small issue unlike most of the other songs in frozen which felt like they were written for a Broadway musical, Let it Go is a pop song and you can tell it was recorded in a studio and in my opinion I find this to be very distracting.

Also the song doesn’t really feel like it needs to be in the movie as they could have just had Elsa run off and then Anna goes to find her. It does seem like the only purpose the song had was so that Elsa could accidentally build Olaf and to be fair I don’t really see how they could have brought him into the movie in a different way. As much as I love frozen I really wanted to talk about some problems I feel the movie has that I feel are getting overlooked.

Of course this is just my opinion and I’m not in any way stating anything that I say as facts. I just really wanted to review Frozen and I could only give a fair review by also pointing out what I feel are some of the movies flaws as well as it’s obvious wonderful and perfect moments.

Thank you for reading my review of Frozen
If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours
By Padawan