mintho

I was craving some new Sci-Fi content, so I gave this show a try. The premise of an alien artefact landing on earth and humanity mounting a mission to explore its origin far away seemed interesting enough, the production value looked good to boot, so I went in with at least some hope for a fun watch.

Boy was I in for a surprise. I won't even get into all the plot holes and bad science, just a few examples to give you an idea:

• Relativity is not taken into account. They move at the speed of light, yet there is no time dilation.

• Dark matter isn't actually dark but invisible, so the fear of running into a hidden planet in a cloud of dark matter is idiotic, you'd see any planet perfectly fine.

• Defining RGB colours in hexadecimal numbers is a human convention, so aliens using our convention is already unrealistic to start. But it gets worse, the colour they encode is white, which in hexadecimal RGB is FFFFFF. Apparently the Aliens translated that hexadecimal into binary which would be 111111111111111111111111 and then transmitted it via sound. Seeing a pattern here and then recognising that it's an RGB code is virtually impossible. And of course the geniuses in the show identify zeros and ones in the sound wave which gives them the idea that it might be binary code, when really there wouldn't be any zeros.

Those are just three examples, there are countless more. While this may sound nitpicky, the point is that these are all important things that move the plot along. The plot is only driven by conveniences. When the ship is supposed to be fragile, a primitive alien gnawing through a single cable can almost blow up the entire thing. When the ship needs to be sturdy, a highly intelligent alien with superior technology and capabilities cannot finish the job. In the same way, the scientific baloney and the plot holes are just a lazy way for the writers to move the plot along. They need the plot to move from A to B, but instead of weaving a compelling narrative, they just make up stuff, often contradictory or outright illogical. It's infuriating.

But I haven't even talked about the worst part: the characters. If the characters are good, a lot can be compensated. Unfortunately, in the case of Another Life, it's the opposite. Every single character is annoying, all of them act in an unbelievable manner, not driven by a halfway realistic personality, but again by plot convenience. They all look out of place and out of depth and make one stupid decision after another.

This is supposed to be the most important endeavour in human history. In reality, this would be a military operation, crewed by the cream of the crop, experience veterans who will function under pressure. What we got instead are all the stereotypes of a high-school drama, all of whom with some serious mental issues and way too young to be believable. We have the gender-fluid, androgynous doctor, the black woman with an attitude, the crypto-gay, overweight nerd, the over-confident, white jerk, a high-school love triangle, an AI that can't deal with its emotions, etc.

None of these characters feel authentic. They're all just tropes and terrible ones at that. They are all self-absorbed idiots, not fit to crew a float on the pride parade, let alone a spaceship that is on the most crucial mission in human history. The only person with at least a hint of competence is in fact the captain, but she too is too mentally scarred to ever be in the running for such a mission, she too makes a lot of questionable choices and clearly does not have the necessary leadership skills.

I actually suffered through the entire first season of this horrible show, it was such a train-wreck that I couldn't look away for all the wrong reasons. And I guess that in the back of my mind I was also hoping against all hope that the underlying story arc would culminate in something at least vaguely satisfying. But of course it didn't. The season ended just as stupidly and riddled with plot holes as it began.

Unfortunately, I never watched Droids as a kid, I was a little bit too young at the time of the release and I never came across any re-runs later on.

So while I've heard of the cartoon in the years since, I only watched it when it hit Disney+. And I have to say, my inner child loved it. I know that I would have been all over it as a kid.

As an adult, it's a bit more of a mixed bag. The writing is a bit campy and very typical for the time. The ways in which the plot unfolds is always very convenient and the villains always cookie-cutter characters who are equally evil and incompetent.

The story arc was probably a bit special for the time. While each episode tells a self contained story, Droids features story arcs that span 4 to 5 episodes. At the end of each story arc, R2-D2 and C-3PO are transplanted into a completely new setting with a new master and new surroundings.

Personally, I think that may have been a bit too much variation. I would have preferred it for the Droids being in a more stable environment from where they launch into their adventures. That way, it would have been possible to establish the characters some more, have them grow over time, etc.

But since there only was one full season, that probably wasn't in the cards anyway, so I guess it's all right.

I do love the animation however. The backgrounds are often really well done, there's a lot of details with all the technology and widgets and I generally love that 1980s style of animation of which Droids is actually one of the better ones.

The writers often had interesting ideas and concepts that would make their way into other Star War vehicles later on: Jann Tosh's Wheel Bike looks a lot like the vehicle of General Grievous in Revenge of the Sith, the Landspeeder Race in episode 4 seems to have inspired the Pod Race in The Phantom Menace, the Rebel Spy Kea Moll from the first story arc feels a lot like Rey and we have an evil crime lord called Kybo-Ren.

Too bad that there is only one season and a 1 hour special. Apparently it was really expensive back in the day to produce one of these episodes. Maybe with the Streaming war going on, there's a possibility of reviving it again, given that compared to other content, this would probably be a relatively cheap way to bolster your content. But then kids these days seem to prefer the 3D animated stuff, so it will probably never happen. Very unfortunate.

I remember loving the Ewoks cartoon as a kid but hadn't seen it in more than 30 years.

But as it is available on Disney+ now, I had to rewatch the entire series again. The closest comparison I have is Disney's Gummi Bears, although to be fair, the Gummi Bears is a much better show.

The Ewoks sport the typical 1980s animation style. Personally, I love it, though that might be because that's the sort of thing I grew up with. The Disney stuff is even better/smoother in terms of animation of course, but otherwise, I take your scruffy 80s animation over 3d renderings like the Clone Wars any day.

As for the content, I found it interesting how different seasons 1 & 2 were in terms of character development. They've really revamped their characters. In season 2, they were way more cliché than in season 1, every Ewok has his or her stick that defines them. I get what they were going for and given another season or two they might have found their voice, but it never really found its footing in the first two seasons for me.

Similarly, pretty much every episode had their bad guy of the week which eventually felt too contrived. In season 1, that was still slightly better with the evil witch Morag as the main antagonist, but unfortunately, they got rid of her at some point.

The writing is average, the characters cute, the Star Wars connection virtually non-existent save for the penultimate episode. The world building is a bit too much "out there" as in it being quite convenient that there's a place, a race, a villain, etc. Nearby for any whim the writers may have.

Ultimately, it's an average 80s cartoon with its typical episodic nature, cookie cutter characters (at least in season 2), convenient writing, etc. Definitely for kids, though for people like me there's of course also the nostalgia factor which is why I watched it to its end.

Wall-E begins on a deserted earth, where our little robot friend seems to be the last functioning unit of a once giant army of waste disposal machines. Humanity has long left the uninhabitable earth, yet Wall-E is still relentlessly doing his job.

But Wall-E is more than just a robot, he has a personality which becomes clear early on as he interacts with his pet roach. He has his own little home where he has a huge collection of items that are either useful (like spare parts for himself) or just seem to be interesting, like a collection of lighters or an old video he regularly watches. However, watching the movie also makes Wall-E feel rather lonely as he realizes that he's all alone on this entire planet (save the roach).

However, fate seems to smile upon little Wall-E as some day a giant space ship lands on Earth to drop off a probe (Eve) which seems to be searching something specific. Wall-E immediately falls into robot-love and tries to make contact with Eve which at first isn't as easy as it sounds.

When Eve finds what she has been looking for, Wall-E and Eve go on a long trip to where the rest of humanity retreated and it's up to the two of them (with a little help) to save the day.

So much for the story. First of all, let me tell you that from a technical point of view, this movie has the best animation you'll find out there. If it wasn't for some characters like the cockroach and the humans who were (purposefully) cartoonish, this movie would look almost real. Especially the first part of the film which takes place on Earth looks completely believable. Also, as always with Pixar, the individual shots are beautifully composed - again, it were especially the scenes on Earth that stood out. The Pixar guys really worked hard to make it look as if this flick was actually shot with a real camera.

Still, this time, Pixar didn't blow my socks off. It was daring to make the first half of the movie basically silent, as it is only in the second half when it turns into a talkie. For me, this actually worked pretty well but I don't know how kids with a short attention span would react to that. Still, I was somewhat relieved when humans first came into play and the pace of this film increased.

But that relief didn't last very long as the unfolding story really wasn't very intriguing, but rather a frame for a series of gags. Ultimately, the quality of Wall-E is its technical aspect combined with some scenes of comic relief. It is however not as clever or witty as previous Pixar productions.

Still an above average film: 6.5/10

This movie has one of the worst adapted scripts I've ever seen. To be honest, I've never read any original novel, so maybe it would be easier to follow the movie for me if I did, but that can't be the objective of any film. The movie has a lot of things going for it. It has nice costumes and sets and it really delivers this 1900 atmosphere. Plus, the idea of a gentleman thief could really be promising.

But oh my god, how bad is that script...It looks like they had three scripts from which they chose whatever they thought to be the best, leading to a series of events that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. All the time during this movie you keep asking yourself: How did they get there? What are they doing there? Why are they doing what they are doing?

There is just too much going on. There are two girls, two villains (actually there are three, as it turns out that Beaumagnan isn't really working for the royalists) and there are at least three endings of which the final one is the most disappointing of them all. So as you can imagine, there is no time to properly introduce all the characters, let alone develop the different strands of the plot.

I've seen this movie in the theater with a couple of friends last year. When we were talking about the movie on our way home I realized that I was the only one who really liked it. I guess that if you are watching this movie with the expectaition to see a realistic pirate adventure you are going to be disappointed. When I saw the movie I was instantly reminded of my favourite computer game of all time: The Secret of Monkey Island. If you know what I'm talking about you basically know what to expect. I gave it 8/10