Day 816: #HTTYD2

Dragon trapping, the viking edition of a lightsaber, lots of flying and ice, and of course, more time with the cat-dragon, Toothless...oh yes, it must mean it's time for another blog post on a Non-Disney Animated Film. As you know very well, this doesn't happen often. After all, I barely have enough time to watch any movie, much less something that's non-Disney and not on my Epic Animated Disney Film Rewatch, but my friend Jessica has brought me to a room I previously didn't know existed on my college campus for an afternoon of dragon watching.

Even weirder in this scenario? I'm blogging while I watch. Sort of.

The simple fact is...blog posts that are written while trying to watch something generally end up to be one giant mess of a post, so instead I live tweeted the majority of the film, and I'll share just some of my favorite tweets with you now...or at least the ones that are important to this blog and the storyline.

Things, as you can see, started off relatively normal. But then again...whenever I embark on a Live Tweeting Spree, you really should brace yourself.

I didn't start my live tweet until maybe like 20 minutes into the movie, so there were definitely a few things my tweeting session missed. In those first minutes, a Viking Lightsaber, a Frying Pan and Viking Pirate Ships were among the odd references I found amusing. Keep the Viking Lightsaber in mind. It'll be back later. 

I actually had several tweets about this and I still feel this way after seeing the whole film, but I sensed a lot of connection between Brave and How to Train Your Dragon, more-so within the second HTTYD than the first. I have the feeling it had something to do with the mother, since Merida's mother and Hiccup's mother really remind me of one another. Then again, it could also be because they're based on similar locations in Europe...

Apparently I was really on a Star Wars track mind today because I found plenty of connections between the films, and yes, that guy really does remind me of General Grievous (I think it later became his mother...but when she had the mask one...and this makes no sense if you haven't seen the movie...). The villain in the film reminded me more of Attila the Hun though. 

I kind of felt like HTTYD2 was filled with little references from other movies, like it was a bunch of Disney animated films and then a few other oddball movies thrown together with a dragon that acts like a cat. I'll talk more about this at the end, but this is just example one of other movies this one reminded me of. 

Of course, I was live tweeting from a computer (because it's literally a million times easier than trying to do it on your phone), and then in the middle of live tweeting a picture of Colin popped up. This actually happened many more times throughout the movie, but we found it amusing...or at least I did...that I never escape. After all, #HookersGonnaHook!

Here we have a more master list of the films this movie reminded me of, and to be completely honest, I'm not even sure where all of these references came from...especially since I haven't even seen The Croods. Must be a Non-Disney Animation thing. 

Haha this character made me laugh! I don't remember her name anymore, but if you've seen the film I'm sure you can figure out who I'm talking about. Basically, she spends the entire movie fawning over this viking and it's not important at all, but I found it super hilarious the whole time and just had to tweet about it eventually. 

Megan was probably more upset about it than I was, but the fact that (SPOILER ALERT) Hiccup's father just goes off and dies is really upsetting to us. It just seemed weird. And sad. And not ok. 

I mean, I feel like the Ice Dragon and Marshmallow would be really great friends! 

I cannot express to you how much I loved the Viking Lightsaber. I thought it was pretty darn clever and was a really unique addition (and reference) to the film. I think I tweeted about it at least three times throughout the course of the movie...basically anytime I saw it. 

In the end, I think I really enjoyed the first film more than the second, mostly because I feel like the plotline in the first one was more original. We hadn't met Toothless yet and we were learning about Hiccups problems, but this one just kind of fell flat for me. I felt like part of the plot from the last film was repeated (with the relationship between Hiccup and his father and so on and so forth), and the mother coming in only for the father to be taken away just kind of disrupted the plotline and made it flow in a sort of awkward way. And as I mentioned earlier, I felt like it brought in a lot of elements from other movies, making me feel like what I was watching had already been done before. No, it wasn't like just one movie being repeated, but sometimes, if there are too many elements that remind you of another film, it still doesn't feel as original as it could. As for HTTYD in general, as in both films, I think they're certainly worth a watch, maybe not on the same scale as some other animated films out there, but something that will keep you entertained. Plus, the music is great throughout both films and if you watch it for no other reason than to listen to the music, go for it. I won't judge, I'm a music major, after all! 

However, that wraps up another live tweeting session, meaning that yet another blog post is in the books. It's sort of odd...blogging about something that's sort of relating to Disney on an off-scale. After all, HTTYD is not a Disney Animated Movie, but the reason I'm watching it is because I should, I suppose, every once and a while, watch a non-Disney Animated Movie. Regardless, if you haven't seen HTTYD, go give it a chance! Toothless is one adorable dragon! 

Have a magical day!

Day 439: Shrek

Last Night, or a week and a half ago rather, I went to a local high school to see their production of Shrek The Musical. I know the guy who played Shrek, as well as Donkey, so it was pretty awesome to see the show with people I knew in it.

Of course, with Shrek comes tons of fairy tales, and the perfect topic for a blog post. Shrek is probably by far one of the most successful Non-Disney animated films, and I'll give it credit for that. In fact, I do enjoy the original Shrek film...to a point.

Let's start off with the bad, so we can end with the good: it's honestly sort of difficult to love something that makes fun of Disney. It's basically why it was invented, right? I mean, to have a story about fairy tales that can poke fun at the rival. That's fine and all, I mean, I enjoy Disney parodies as much as the next person. There's tons of them on YouTube that you can find. But it's like do you really need to do it to the extent? Like, I can't say I love something like that. Sure, that I find parts of it funny and what not, but not something I love.

On the opposite side, I DO love how they have all the different fairy tales interacting. Especially in the musical, for some reason I just loved it. Maybe it's because of the fact that I'm taking the fairy tales class here at SNC, and therefore I had more of an appreciation for them or something like that. I don't know, but the music and the interaction was just great. It's not everyday you see Peter Pan right next to Red Riding Hood and The White Rabbit. It's a really inventive way to tell the different stories in a brand new way, and for that I give Shrek some serious credit.

Fairy tales are all about rewriting and retelling in order to keep them fresh and new, and that's exactly what Shrek does. Granted, Disney has been doing the same thing for ages, and that's all a big part of how this fairy tale thing works, so it's nice to see a different take on it involving all of them at once. It's wonderful.

Congratulations to everyone from Appleton North on their production of Shrek, and special shoutout to Joey and Alex, who did a spectacular job!

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on March 25 due to Midterms and Travel).

Day 181: Star Trek

Phew, now that I'm back from camp I've had a few minutes to stop and think!

Wait a minute...is the title of this post something non-Disney?

It is!

Tonight I went to go see Star Trek (although I really couldn't write this until what was technically July 1, since I didn't get home until after midnight). But I felt the need to blog about it because as odd as it may seem, I can relate the whole thing until Disney. Here is your spoiler alert though!

First off, I absolutely loved the film. I will admit that I cried when Kirk died. I'm not kidding. I was ok and held it in, and then Spock cried and I was like "NOOOOOOOO" and yeah...tears. I didn't see it coming at all. Of course, as soon as I got over his death I figured out how he was going to come back to life and so on and so forth, but still!

Now, how does this all relate to Disney? Well, Star WARS, of course! Soon Star Trek and Star Wars will have the same director, and I'm more confident than ever that it's going to be great! The only thing I have to say about JJ's directing is that I hope he tones down the lens flares for Star Wars to help create some distance between the two films. Granted, Star Wars is filled with darker colors compared to Star Trek, which has a lot of white because of the ship.

Plus, I saw the preview for Ender's Game, which has Harrison Ford, and honestly no one can say that he can't reprise Han Solo, because he looked pretty good in that preview for being as old as he is. So yeah...everything will be fine as long as Han Solo is there. Which he better be. Oh, and there's the fact that I think Chris Pine is like Harrison Ford's Prodigy. I mean...they look pretty similar. PLUS, Pine is starring in Jack Ryan later this year, a role once played by Ford!

I am really glad though that I'm not a Star Trek fan. I mean, I love these new movies, but I'm just not into it the same way I'm into Star Wars. I think it allows me to make more sense of the film itself, like how it was filmed and the techniques used. Stuff like that. It's given me a whole perspective on what I think Abrams will do with Star Wars, and since Star Trek fans seem to be pretty happy with the outcome of the newest films, I have a feeling that us Star Wars fans will be happy with the outcome of Episode 7 too.

Here's today's Disney History: 2011: It is reported that Disney is developing another film based on one of its theme park rides. Walt Disney Pictures has hired Jason Dean Hall to write the script based on "The Matterhorn," a popular amusement bobsled ride at Disneyland. The storyline will be about five young mountain climbers scaling the Matterhorn who have an unfortunate encounter with a Yeti.

Have a magical day!