Hotel Transylvania 2

YES.

A TRILLION TIMES YES.

Forgive me if I'm being overly dramatic, but the man explicitly said it was his destiny. Hell, he was taught by a Popeye animator for God's sake!

To take away a man's destiny is to be an uncool person. 😤

EDIT: Goddamn page topping...

edited 2nd Oct '15 7:19:51 PM by TargetmasterJoe

Oh, I finally got around to seeing Hotel Translvania yesterday. It was pretty fun. Only downside was that Mel Brook's character didn't get enough screen time.

It should be a crime to give Mel Brooks so little screentime.

I'm kind of surprised they got away with comparing the 90's Dracula wig to a boob, though,

I greatly enjoyed this one. Given how I usually talk about animation needing to work on the story, the pure gag-a-minute formula of this one plays to Tartakovski's strengths as a director. Admittedly, some of the cutaway gags were weak, but I did like a lot of the jokes. That, and it continued what I liked about the first movie of not everyone being a colossal jerk.

Favorite part is how it's an allegory for race relations. My favorite joke is when Drac's on his road trip and comes across the couple who the husband is trying not to be racist, but ends up being anyway. I feel it's nice and timely. So overall, despite my comments on animation as of late, this ended up being very good, so I'm not as mean as I seem.

Of course, given the next movie won't have Tartakovski direct...

I really wonder what the third one will look like since Genndy isn't working on it.

Probably something cliche. I've found most cliche animated movies tend to have unknown talent working on them. Stuff like Wreck It Ralph was done by complete unknowns, and the story wasn't that great on that one. One of the writers had experience on Saturday Night Live. The other is Adam Sandler.

Shame, really. I had high hopes.

Genndy might lend a few ideas for the third film, but I'm not holding my breathe on any of them being considered.

Maybe Chris Savino will direct it?

Beats me. I would be surprised if David Fiess directs it to be honest.

Chris Savino was the guy who took control of Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls after Tartakovsky and Mc Cracken left to work on their newer shows (Samurai Jack and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, respectively).

He fucked them up badly.

If Savino directs them (and I doubt he will since he's working on a show for Nickelodeon that actually looks good), then it'd be history repeating once more.

I dont think Savio is at Sony(is he?). If he is and does direct Ht3, then history had repeat itself there.

I was trying to make a joke out of it, but I realize I botched the execution. No, he won't be directing it. He's busy at Nickelodeon right now anyways.

Just saw this today, and it was awesome!

Did they have this many visual gags in the first one? The werewolf (I forget his name but I know he's voiced by Randall Boggs).

Also, I was cautiously optimistic about this one. I loved the first one but knowing how quite a few animated movie sequels tend to be nowhere near as good as the first one (the Toy Story sequels, Shrek 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, and How To Train Your Dragon 2 were just as good as the originals, even though I prefer the original Toy Story and Shrek over their sequels). But I can say this falls in the group of sequels that are about as good as the original.

Also, if you can't tell by my avatar and sig, I love Mavis. She was really awesome in this one.

Steve Buscemi is the werewolf.

Character's name is Wayne.

Thanks.

I knew that Randall voiced Wayne when I rewatched the first film. Same with David Spade as Griffin.

The plot of the film was kind of aimless. It drifts around for the first act, lacking a concise direction, but that worked. It had a Slice of Life sense to it that made it work. The second act had a more clear direction, but lost its way by the time the third act rolled around, whereupon the film felt the need to introduce a villain way too late just to have an action sequence to end on.

Mavis and Johnny were fantastic. Nearly every scene with the pair was great because they were able to really establish themselves. No longer burdened by the crushing constraints of being the Courtship Characters and having to retrace the typical "Boy meets girl and they fall in love" interactions, Johnny and Mavis were able to be as engaging and entertaining around each other as they were around Drac in the first film. The chemistry between the characters really worked as a result, and we also got to see some of the conflicts that arise from being in a relationships - a rare treat given that most stories prefer to revolve around the conflicts of setting up a relationship.

Drac and his crew were the same characters you know and love from the first film and every bit as entertaining. For them, it's the same but more.

Johnny's mom is a perfect example of the casually offensive yuppie wife. She's so polite and so kind, and yet her choice of words still manages to communicate so much hostility to anyone who exists outside her little bubble of acceptability. That she's married to a Deadpan Snarker Straight Man who never hesitates to stick a pin in the illusion of geniality she's trying to manufacture makes her work.

Vlad fell terribly flat. The film spent the first two acts alluding to how terrifying and unyielding he was in his beliefs, and yet he was convinced to let go of his prejudices almost effortlessly. Drac himself in the first movie was harder to win over than Vlad - a fact that was only disappointing because every time he's mentioned prior to his arrival, the film hammers in the fact that he's basically Vampire Hitler. In the end, Vlad doesn't have enough screentime to live up to the hype the film gives him, having to squeeze his entire character arc into the first half of the third act so that the climax can start.

And the climax was just awful. The first movie was able to build a climactic finale out of the mechanics and characters it had spent its run time establishing. It didn't need to have the characters fight someone because there was nothing to fight; the villain of the piece was Dracula's fear and resentment toward humans.

This film, however, introduces bat monsters in the third act so that they can have an active climax where all the characters fight them. The bat monsters are never adequately explained; they just sort of came with Vlad. That's all the explanation we receive. They're a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere popping out of the woodwork to menace the characters and the film suffers dramatically for it - both in terms of its characters whose development is cut short by the need to fight these monsters and also in terms of the themes; despite the last two films exploring the idea of combatting intolerance by learning to appreciate that people who are different are just like you, the bat monsters provide a counter-argument that sometimes people are just intolerant assholes and should be defeated with violence.

Overall, the film had a lot of narrative potholes dragging it down, but the returning characters were in solid form and consistently entertaining whenever they were onscreen, more than making up for a confused and aimless plot incapable of getting its own themes straight. It's far from perfect, but it's a good way to kill a couple hours.

Necro time.

So...you guys remember how we are supposedly getting a tv show on this?

We got a preview for that.

What's the verdict, fellas?

EDIT: Thanks, Pan-Pizza!

edited 29th Apr '17 7:08:52 AM by TargetmasterJoe

I'm glad the original scream team is gonna make small appearances- we won't just get Mavis' new friends.

The scaring starts on June 25th.

Also, more info.

First image related to HT 3.

Also, synopsis:

Also also, it's coming July 13, next year.

(In case anyone still cares about SPA at this point...)