A DNA sequence must be missing to make The Croods sequel, New Age stand out. One problem is the time it took to make this animated film. Seven years, not including the Netflix prequel, is quite the long time. One issue is because of Universal Pictures’ acquiring the DreamWorks Animation and the uncertainty which resulted. The other is handing over the directorial reigns to story artist, Joel Crawford.
This franchise created by Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco is good. Who doesn’t love a Flintstones like family trying to make sense of a changing world? The duo had ideas. Whoever said their story required the help of The Hageman Brothers, Paul Fisher, and Bob Logan to fine tune needs a rock tossed at him.
The translation of the family-adventure comedy film The Croods to a Netflix television sitcom works well enough to sate fans of prehistory’s first dysfunctional family. To see them survive being turned from a 3D to hand drawn animation in Dawn of the Croods is great. The character designs are faithful to the film’s cave drawn intro. The two that stand out are Sandy (the youngest child, voiced by Grey Griffin), who takes after the eldest, Gran (Laraine Newman), in looks while Ugga (Cree Summer) — the matriarch — tries to keep the family together Flinstone’s style. She rarely gets livid, and the best episode of this lot is with the eighth episode, “Mom Genes.”
The fantastic looking official trailer for the second movie in the How to Train Your Dragon series was released today. It shows that a danger is in store for the village of Berk. Years have no doubt passed since the first movie and as for how the television series fits in, the emphasis on the main hero becoming a confident warrior is very evident.
In the trailer, Hiccup meets up with a person from his past and the reveal will be a welcome to viewers’ eyes. Spoilers exist and it tells of what happened to his mother. And a terrifying force will invade the Archipelago. That will no doubt cause future ramifications for everyone living within this desolate land. Although the ideas seem far from Cressida Cowell’s books, maybe it is not. Perhaps the force that’s coming is another civilization looking to expand its borders.
In the books, Hiccup will no doubt unite all the local tribes and be crowned king. But in this movie, just who will he be facing is unknown. Writer/Director Dean DeBlois is helming this project without Chris Sanders and his ideas presented in the trailer look confidently strong. To not have the talented Sanders providing additional input should not affect the direction, but his artistic interpretation of the expanded world will be sorely missed.
By all indications, this trailer shows that the CGI will be just as good as the dynamic visuals produced in Disney’s Frozen. All the snow and ice sculptures look alive, and in high-definition resolution, the details are simply stunning. This movie looks like it will no doubt be nominated for technical awards in the 2015 awards season.
Whatever happened to Lilo and Stitch? The series that began in 2002 enjoyed a good five-year run in North America. After three more movies and a television series, Disney put an end to their adventures with Leroy and Stitch. This 2008 direct to video release tied up all the loose ends and set the blue fuzzy terror free. Thanks to Lilo, he learned how to be civilized.
During this run, Experiment 626 (Stitch) still had his moments of being wonderfully nasty. He was more of a selling point of the series than the subplot of building ohana, a Hawaiian term meaning family. In this series, Lilo further defines it as, “Nobody gets left behind.” In this series, she sought to find a place where each quirky experiment, a cousin of Stitch, can safely belong. A few gems in the TV series existed which reinforced this point. But the one that says it all is with “Remmy,” where Lilo tries to cope on the anniversary of when her parents died. Nani, her older sister, tries her best to raise her, but that’s difficult to do when neither have an appropriate coping mechanism in place for them to grieve. Instead, what they do is to build their familial relationships to include everyone, so that no matter where the person (or alien) is from, they have brothers and sisters to rely on when hope is needed.
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By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
By Ed Sum
How to Train Your Dragon 2 Preview Trailer Released and Analysis
19 DecBy Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
The fantastic looking official trailer for the second movie in the How to Train Your Dragon series was released today. It shows that a danger is in store for the village of Berk. Years have no doubt passed since the first movie and as for how the television series fits in, the emphasis on the main hero becoming a confident warrior is very evident.
In the trailer, Hiccup meets up with a person from his past and the reveal will be a welcome to viewers’ eyes. Spoilers exist and it tells of what happened to his mother. And a terrifying force will invade the Archipelago. That will no doubt cause future ramifications for everyone living within this desolate land. Although the ideas seem far from Cressida Cowell’s books, maybe it is not. Perhaps the force that’s coming is another civilization looking to expand its borders.
In the books, Hiccup will no doubt unite all the local tribes and be crowned king. But in this movie, just who will he be facing is unknown. Writer/Director Dean DeBlois is helming this project without Chris Sanders and his ideas presented in the trailer look confidently strong. To not have the talented Sanders providing additional input should not affect the direction, but his artistic interpretation of the expanded world will be sorely missed.
By all indications, this trailer shows that the CGI will be just as good as the dynamic visuals produced in Disney’s Frozen. All the snow and ice sculptures look alive, and in high-definition resolution, the details are simply stunning. This movie looks like it will no doubt be nominated for technical awards in the 2015 awards season.
Tags: Chris Sanders, Commentary, Dean DeBlois, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Movie Trailer