Yet another Disney movie post

Bear with me internet, there's been a lot of Disney movie watching going on in my house. Maybe burning 16-20 new Disney movies was a bad bad idea? Who knows, what I do know is that I spent two hours at work last night thinking about Disney movies, because I'm just that much awesome. Also work was very boring due to the thunderstorm and I had nothing to do but clean and think, about cartoons apparently.  Anyways, on to the rant!

When Disney prequels retcon the existing story line so bad it no longer makes sense:

My favorite Disney movie of all time is the Little Mermaid. Find me a little girl born in the 80's who doesn't know all the lyrics to "Part of your world" and I will show you a seriously deprived person, or someone who's parents maybe didn't believe in TV or happiness. Needless to say I have seen The Little Mermaid more times than any person should reasonably watch a movie, and at 27 I still know all the words and sing along very loudly when Ariel laments about the horrors of living under the sea. Recently, actually not so recently more like 2008. I had to Wikipedia that. Anyways, Disney came out with a prequel to The Little Mermaid called Ariel's Beginning. Now I've only seen the prequel a few times despite it existing in my house, it just doesn't have the same magic the original had. Either way I know the story line and its basically about how Ariel's beautiful voice brings the magic of singing back to the underwater kingdom of Atlantis.

Side note: I'm not actually totally certain that Triton's kingdom is called Atlantis, but in my head it always has been so I'm gonna keep calling it that.

However, somewhere around the beginning of the movie we the audience learn that the reason there is no singing or music allowed in Atlantis is because Ariel's mother had a beautiful voice and King Triton can't bear to be reminded of his late wife. Why you ask? Well in the movie the mermaid sisters and their royal parents are all hanging out in a lagoon on the surface (fans of the original will gasp now, as Triton is vehemently opposed to all things "surface" in the original movie) when suddenly a pirate ship comes upon them and starts flinging harpoons. All the children and the king escape but their mother doesn't make it. Its not shown on screen but I'm going to go ahead and assume she was harpooned.

Taking this new information into account the entire premise of the original makes no sense. Why on earth would Ariel ever risk going to the surface? This is obviously something she does often since she is best buddies with a seagull, did she forget her mothers horrific death? With no (sane) reason to ever go to the surface Ariel would never have become to enamored of humans and the whole idea of her falling in love with one is laughable since, wait for it, they harpooned her mom!

So now not only does the entire movies premise no longer make sense but we have this totally confusing exchange between Ariel and her father when he discovers that she's been splashing around above water.

Triton: "Contact between the human world and the mer world is strictly forbidden, Ariel you know that! Everyone knows that!"
Ariel: "You don't even know him!"
Triton: "Know him? I don't have to know him! They're all the same, spineless, savage, harpooning fish eaters, incapable of any feeling-"

Given what we now know thanks to the magic of retconning that first line should read something more along that lines of "Contact between the human world and the mer world is strictly forbidden,because they harpooned your mother! Ariel you know that! Everyone knows that!" And boom! Argument over. Sure it may seem a little heartless for him to bring something like that up, but given that he then goes on to destroy all her stuff and is pretty clear about the fact that he is desperate to convince her to stay away from the surface, it would've been much easier to just remind her of that part of her history that Disney has seen fit to give us.

In conclusion, Disney is shooting itself in the foot with all the prequels, children may not care being so excited to see their favourite characters in new movies and such. But us life long fans? We're dying over here Disney, there is only so much nonsense a person can handle. So from the bottom of my heart Disney, please no more prequels! 

PS. Did you notice that I discovered the font controls in this post? Behold the magic of italics and bold type :) 

The most misunderstood Disney villain

I've been so incredibly absent from this blog since I started it (ultra mega absent!), I discovered its a lot harder to think of something remotely interesting to say on a daily basis. I'll try and update more often, I promise. With that in mind, on to the post!

I recently got a bunch of the old school Disney movies for my kids, and also for me because I loved those movies. And so did you, don't pretend you don't still love them. Today I put on Peter Pan for my son thinking it would be the most likely to grab his attention since he would recognize some of the characters from watching Jake and the Neverland pirates. It didn't, and I ended up watching most of the movie by myself. However I noticed while watching it that poor Captain Hook is actually tragically misunderstood and not really a villain at all. Sure he does some mental stuff, like kidnapping Tiger Lily and bribing Tinkerbell into giving up the location of Peter Pan, but he's totally driven out of his mind by Peter Pan. Lets break it down shall we?

1. At the beginning of the movie, our first introduction to Captain Hook is on his ship full of disgruntled pirates, they are even throwing knives at his likeness carved into the door. The other pirates are pissed off because clearly this thing with Peter Pan has been going on for a long time. However there is no mention of why Captain Hook is after Peter. Except his missing hand.

2. HE`S MISSING HIS HAND! Everyone just kind of laughs at poor Captain Hook with his hook for a hand. BUT there is no back story about the missing hand except that Peter cut it off in a fight and fed it to a crocodile who is now stalking Hook trying to eat the rest of him. Has anyone considered the idea that Hook may have some pretty severe PTSD going on? Possibly some kind of anxiety problem from being stalked by a carnivorous animal bent on ingesting him? Take for example Captain Hook`s reaction when the crocodile shows up in that intro scene. He is visibly shaking and distraught, going so far as to climb into Smee`s arms. Mr. Smee is not nearly so troubled by the crocodile as he can obviously see that the crocodile can`t get them while they are on the ship, but Captain Hook is incapable of thinking rationally when it comes to the crocodile. An indication of some deeper problem? I think yes.

3. Why is he missing his hand? Sure Peter cut it off, but why? Who started the fight? For all we know Peter Pan is a spoiled brat who thinks he can get away with mutilating poor pirate Captains. There is obviously no law enforcement on Never Land.

So my theory here is that perhaps Captain Hook is after Peter because he is seeking some sort of retribution for his missing hand. Maybe he wants to turn Peter over to a some sort of law enforcement that we are never introduced to in the movie? Under this theory that things that Captain Hook does start to make more sense. Even when he kidnaps Tiger Lily, she is harboring a fugitive by refusing to turn over Peter Pan. There is also further evidence that Peter is nothing but a jerk. He exiles his best friend (Tinkerbell) ordering her banned for life, only to rescind that when Wendy insists on it. Keep in mind that later in the movie he says that Tinkerbell is `the most important thing in the world to him. But he had no problem kicking her to the curb when the new girl comes along. Then he laughs hysterically while the mermaids try to drown Wendy, they even admit to trying to drown her. Which Peter thinks is just awesome. He also totally forgets about Tiger Lily when he is supposed to be rescuing her, instead tormenting Captain Hook some more, further contributing to his mental illness. He only remembers to save Tiger Lily who is tied up and drowning, after Wendy reminds him.

Based on all this I think its pretty obvious that poor Captain Hook is just looking for some justice against this maniac youth who thrives on chaos.