Shadowgirls

I am seriously killing myself trying to find the poster of this. I know it's out there somewhere...

Now if you’ve paid attention at all over the last few years, you’re well aware that I’m a big fan of Disney movies. Sometime during the latter half of the Disney Renaissance (which is the period of 1989-1999, or ‘The Little Mermaid’ through ‘Tarzan’), Disney tried to shift gears and get away from the stuff they do good, and we were given crap like the very deplorable ‘Brother Bear’. Seriously, I would rather sit through a Uwe Boll film festival than sit through that dreck again. Sometime after that disaster of a film, the Then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner came forward and said that 2D animated movies were dead, and that Disney would push forward with 3D animated films in it’s place. (This has since been rescinded with the appointment of Stanley Iger and John Lasseter into the creative roles at Disney.) This however, was not much better, as movies like ‘Chicken Little’ and ‘Valiant’ showed us that it’s not the medium of the movie, but the content that determined if it was any good. I’m going to be as blunt as I can here: For the large majority of the 2000s, Disney productions that didn’t involved Pixar and Johnny Depp… Sucked. And sucked badly. There are some wonderful exceptions like ‘Lilo and Stitch’ and the ‘Emperor’s New Groove’. But for the most part, it wasn’t really all that good. When Disney announced they were going to do a new 2D movie, a lot of us got really excited, and couldn’t wait to see the movie. We hoped Disney learned from their mistakes and could we be seeing the start of a new second Disney Renaissance.

But when ‘The Princess and the Frog’ came out, while it was nice, it felt… Off. Like it was missing something. I’m sure there are tons of people with theories on why it wasn’t a better, more popular movie, and while some have validity and some do not, I think the answer is simple: The movie wasn’t that great. It was… “Just okay”. I don’t hate it, if it came on TV, I wouldn’t change the channel. But it felt just acceptable, but not exceptional.

It was like... Sooo close. Yet, not.

I felt… Old. Like I was becoming one of those bitter cranky fanboys that hate anything that’s not from when I was a kid. (I seriously have a fear of becoming one of those people.) Seriously, you know the types. The ones that when they make a new movie or cartoon of something they grew up on when they were a kid, they get all bitter and angry about it, because it not the same. I remember a few years back, when they made the new He-Man cartoon that was on Cartoon Network, some friends of mine were literally pissed off angry because they switched the Iron Cross on He-Man’s bandolier to a more stylized original symbol. (Which I didn’t realize until later was a stylized “H”.) Or the fact that they changed the Sorceress’ costume, or Man-At-Arms may not have been Teela’s father… They ignored the fact it was actually a good show, and just obsessed over the changes. If it’s not exactly how it was when they were kids, then they’re pissed. It comes across almost like they’re not just being nostalgic, but trying to find a time machine to make them younger, to relive their youth. And I was starting to worry I was becoming like that too. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the recent ‘Star Trek’ reboot, I actually prefer the Tim Burton ‘Batman’ over ‘The Dark Knight’, and ‘Clone Wars’ has been driving me away with their sheer ham-fisted commentary about politics, as opposed to showing clones and wars in my CLONE WARS. (Seriously though, I DO like the Dark Knight very much. I just liked Batman more. That‘s all.) Yet, at the same time, when people are ranting and raving over new stuff coming up like the new Tron movie, or ‘Megamind’ or even ‘Sym-Bionic Titan’, I just sat there going… Meh. I was getting worried I was becoming that cynical bitter man-child that hates anything fun.

Then I saw ‘Tangled’.

I saw it on Saturday, and I saw it again on Sunday, and I want to see it a third time. I love it. Oh my God, do I love it. I cannot emphasize how good of a movie I thought it was. There was a young boy in me, just yearning to get home and draw and sketch and create. The same young boy that was there when I saw Sebastian telling Prince Eric to “Kiss Da Girl”, or seeing Tarzan rescue Jane from a horde of vicious baboons. The characters were designed amazingly, the music was charming, the story was good, and as a whole the entire movie was just… Fun. It was probably the best movie I’ve seen all year, and probably the best animated movie I’ve seen in almost twenty years. I went into the movie expecting something along the lines of ‘Enchanted’ or even at best “How to Train your Dragon”. I certainly did not expect to see what is probably now my second favorite animated movie of all time. (Right behind the Little Mermaid.) I mean, is it perfect? No. There’s no such thing as a perfect movie, except Ghostbusters. Like anything, if you go into it, like one of those cynical dicks, purposely looking for flaws, you’ll find them. But if you’re looking for a movie that is all ages, funny, clever and even enchanting… Then you’re not going to find better.

The chameleon is awesome.

I bring this up for one reason. Not just to tell you that Tangled was a great movie and you should go see it. (You should.) But in all creative processes, creators will hit a lull point, and it happens to all of us. You have to work through the problems and figure out the solutions, and there are no magic fixes. You just gotta plow through them. Sometimes, they don’t break out of that lull, and if you’re not careful, you can start to realize that they may have ALWAYS been off their game, and we just accepted it because it was different. (See Frank Miller’s Sin City) It’s like that philosophical debate that you need evil to happen, to help you appreciate the good. If we didn’t have ‘Batman and Robin’, when we would have never gotten ‘Batman Begins’. If Van Halen didn’t give us ‘5150’, we would have never gotten ‘For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge’, and if Disney didn’t give us ‘Brother Bear’, then we would have never gotten ‘Tangled’. I used to complain about 3D movies, about how it’s not the same as 2D. I knew 3D could be well done, but I still had that stigma of “it’s cheating!” going through my head. And there was justification for it, because bad 3D is noticeably bad, as Shrek proves. I was so obsessed with them trying to get things back to how it was, when “things were good” that I didn’t even notice the “new good” that was phoenixing in it’s wake. I’m not saying newer is always better, but older doesn’t mean it’s flawless either… Otherwise people wouldn’t have stopped doing it. I don’t know. I do know that the answer isn’t status quo or going back. You got to push forward, but remember how you got there. It’s all a work in progress.

Maybe it’s the holiday season, or maybe it’s just the really good mood a certain someone put me in lately. But right now…

I feel young.