Disney/Pixar In General

I liked De La Cruz a lot.

Generally the better 'twist' villains are the ones that are blatantly wolves in sheeps clothing from the beginning. While it means you can see their plans a mile away, it also means you get glimpses of their ambitions and motives from the start and how they come forward.

Clayton was an okay obvious twist villain, even if he was generically profit motivated, his personality and contrast with the hero is built up the entire film, even when he's posing as a hero.

Stinky Pete was a good abrupt twist villain since he was one of the first, making it a real Shocking Swerve, not to mention he still vented out palpable motives and frustrations in that briefer amount of time he was a villain.

Right now we just have loads of abrupt but obvious twist villains that don't really get a lot of exposure either way. Bellweather turning out to be a cliche sinister Smug Snake I suppose had humorous contrast, but after tons of films already doing this to death, she just looked generic in the end.

edited 22nd Jun '18 5:21:57 PM by Psi001

One's a result of the other, I think. The reason the current crop of Disney films seldom have well-developed villains is that the current formula needs room for two main characters with significant arcs rather than just one. In past Disney movies, the antagonist tended to, in effect, fill the slot of the second-most well developed character in the movie and be the protagonist's main foil. Now, that role is typically filled by the secondary protagonist of the opposite gender from the principal protagonist.

The twist villain thing is often sloppily executed in Disney's recent films. I'd argue the only time it was done well was with King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph. Part of the reason it worked well there was because the character's villainy was unveiled gradually, with us getting information about his manipulations and motives in bits and pieces before the big reveal. It allowed the reveal to be shocking while still letting King Candy be a character who we got to actually know and understand throughout the movie.

Character reveals like Hans or Belwether feel like they're trying to use shock value as an excuse not to develop their character. Once you've gotten over the small moment of "OMG CHARACTER X IS ACTUALLY EVIL!!!1!", what remains is just... a not terribly interesting bad guy, one who's no more morally complex than your average Disney Villain, but doesn't get to act theatrically evil.

It also has the side effect of looking like they picked up the Idiot Ball, since Hans and Bellweather's arguably one vibrant characteristic after The Reveal is that they're very arrogant due to their deceit...and then got outdone comparatively quickly due to falling to all the old cliches like stopping to gloat and toy with the hero. Which looks kinda cheap for a character that's supposed to have been playing it shrewd for a very lengthy duration of the film.

It doesn't really stand out when Disney already has tons of manipulative Smug Snake villains with way more spotlight and charisma.

edited 22nd Jun '18 5:28:38 PM by Psi001

I think it's done slightly better with Hans, since we get a brief scene where he's expressing fake grief to the other noblemen after we've been shown that he's evil. It at least gives the impression that Hans is indeed a Master Actor who can turn on the charm even after we've been informed he's a bad guy, which makes him a bit more interesting, and even slightly creepy.

I do think Zootopia would had been better off revealing earlier that Belwether was a villain. Like, in her case we can sort of infer an interesting character who's been turned evil by her resent of her social stereotyping — sort of a foil to Judy — but that character's not really depicted in the movie. It's at best something we can read between the lines. Revealing Belwether's true intent earlier, or just not making it a twist in the first place, could have given the film a means to actually make her interesting.

I'd say similar things about Callaghan... like, he's given solid motivations that even make him a clear foil to the film's hero. But the film doesn't explore this at all. It doesn't use the strong character premise to actually make Callaghan a strong or memorable character, since he barely even interacts with Hiro after he's been revealed as the villain. Maybe if we'd had less "WOMAN UP!" and generally less of those awful meme-bait characters who make up four sixths of the movie's title, we could have had something really interesting there.

edited 22nd Jun '18 5:42:38 PM by DrDougsh

Bellweather would have been more interesting if her character had been kept as a villain, like she was genuinely bitter and calculating due to her backstory, but she thought she was doing the right thing and was genuinely hurt Judy didn't see things her way. But no, they just bring in the shadows and reveal her to be another smug self serving villain who sadistically watches Judy get "killed" and suddenly talks like Al Pacino from The Devil's Advocate.

Again the problem is that after The Reveal, they all act like the same gleefully evil Smug Snake, which we already have tons of more memorable versions of.

edited 22nd Jun '18 5:47:28 PM by Psi001

A new Disney animated series called "The Legend of The Three Caballeros" has just premiered on the Disneylife App in the Philippians. Apparently, it's supposed to premier in the US sometime in 2019.

I'm having a feeling Disney might announce this coming to the US when they finally give more info on the Disney Streaming Service.

Man, that looks really cool. We don't see shows with that kind of classic-looking art design any more.

The art style actually reminds me of the House Of Mouse/Mickey Mouse Works and the commercial for Kellog's/Disney Mickey Magix Cereal.

Nice to see some classic style animation again (was a bit disappointed the Duck Tales revival didn't go for that).

Donald is sure getting some exposure right now. No wonder Anselmo has had to hand over some of his roles.

edited 22nd Jun '18 6:03:45 PM by Psi001

It does. Which surprises me, because I thought it was written in law that all 2D shows had to have artstyles that were either super angular or super round these days. Seeing a show that just looks like... classic, Golden Age Disney is both surprising and exciting.

I'm so glad April, May, and June from the Carl Barks comics appears to also be in the series.

Would this be their first animated appearance, if that's them? Daisy's there, so it could be that they're travelling to... Mexico (?) along with their aunt and her boyfriend.

They made their first animated appearances in one of the episodes of The House Of Mouse. But I think this will be their first speaking role.

That's interesting. You know since they are getting a series. They should introduce this guy after he was scrapped when the third movie was cancelled.

http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Miguelito_Maracas

I wonder if this series came about due to Disney wanting to build up goodwill with Latin America, since the U.S. government's... not really making that a huge priority right now.

From those images, they appear to be teaming up with Not!Wonder Woman.

Who knows? However, a new goodwill tour will be a good thing. It's tradition I say.

...

.... if Disney Television.

Can't afford or would rather not stick with the classic-style animation look and movements for Ducktakes and Big Hero 6...

....... how come it's suddenly okay for The Three Caballeros?

I am so confused.

Wow, I didn't see that coming, but I'm happy to see that anyway! A Three Caballeros cartoon sounds like a neat idea.

Like the classic Disney-style they're using, too. It's kind of refreshing after all of the other Disney reboots (like the Mickey Mouse cartoons and Ducktales '17) went the more stylized route (not that I dislike their stylized art-styles or anything, obviously).

edited 22nd Jun '18 9:10:31 PM by kablammin45

Hans is a terrible twist villain. Honestly, I spend the whole time watching Frozen thinking: He is the villain, right? Please, don't let him be the villain. If he is the villain it would be a terrible twist because none of his actions really make sense if he is the villain.

The ones which worked for me was the one of Monster AG because he was the first and genuinely surprising back then, King Candy, because the twist there was not that he was the villain (that was clear from the get go) but how they seeded his backstory and Callahan, not because it was in any way surprising, but because his backstory was interesting and he kind of slipped into being a fully fledged Disney villain in terms of dramatics.

The others...meeeeeh.

I think the first was either the one in Tarzan or Toy Story 2 actually.

Bellwether generally gets a pass from me because Zootopia is very much a send up to buddy cop and cop action movies in general, and the eureka that the case is completely unlike what the heroes thought followed by the ambush by the surprise villain which explains the true story is a staple of that genre. The surprise is supported by the kind of story, and a large part of that is the fact that the mystery of it all is a vital part of that story from the very beginning. Rather than someone just turning out to be evil, the fact that there's a villain afoot and we don't know who it is is the lynchpin of the whole investigation.

Hans, on the other hand, doesn't for much the same reason. He's also a textbook example of a genre trope, but in this case it's something that's been tired for a while. He's the standard Romantic Comedy "I seem to be the perfect love interest for our heroine, but then she meets the dashing but uncouth rogue and I turn out to be bland / a jerk / evil." And unlike Bellwether, he really is just good when the story needs him to be good, and an asshole when the story needs him to not be good any more, with nothing much more to him. It doesn't help that the romantic arc he's involved in turns out to be pointless, either. Ultimately, all he is is someone to push Anna towards Kristoff for the obligatory romance to be wrapped up, and to provide some kind of negative force against the sisters for a final confrontation given that the movie's actual main antagonist (Elsa) isn't the kind of person to actually provide one.

edited 23rd Jun '18 2:50:43 AM by KnownUnknown

I'm not sure I'd call Zootopia a send-up of the buddy cop genre so much as just a straight example of one.

I agree that Hans is a terrible twist villain. The movie outright lied to the audience to make the twist happen.