Greta Gerwig's Barbie

I’m in the apparent minority who liked Babylon, but it’s the kind of movie where an elephant shits on a person 5 minutes in on the way to a sex party, so it was going to alienate people regardless of which gregarious actress was front and center :-)

Amsterdam sucked though.

Barbie should have more appeal than both.

At the very least, neither movie doing poorly has to do with audiences going "ew, Margot Robbie? Why would we see a movie with her in it?"

If anything, Margot Robbie is shaping up to be a pretty big box office draw.

It’s kind of interesting when you think about it. The age of the big star being a draw has been dying out for a while now, with only a few people left as active draws. Like, you don’t get people going to see movies because of Chris Hemsworth or whoever, you get people interested in the idea and then they go “oh hey, Chris Hemsworth is in it, that’s neat.” And there’s some actors who just have no draw at all. Like, most people will agree that Michael Fassbender or Jeremy Renner are good actors, but almost no one seems particularly that interested in seeing them in anything.

Margot Robbie somehow has a lot of the old style Hollywood glamour about her which is actually kinda enhanced by the types of roles she takes. Someone who can play Tonya Harding, Elizabeth I and Harley Quinn, all radically different roles, and get a ton of praise for all of them, is going to get a lot of attention. You know you’ll see a great performance from her.

With Barbie, it’s like…she wouldn’t sign on for a dumb schlocky kids movie with no substance because that’s not a good type of role, and you combine that with Ryan Gosling being involved, an actor who is generally really picky about his roles, and that’s a good sign.

Edited by Zendervai on Jan 3rd 2023 at 12:46:18 PM

Both Amsterdam and Babylon seem to have focused quite a lot on "star power" to try and get audience attention in terms of advertising and both times it doesn't seem to have worked. I mention both those two as Robbie is (one of) the stars in question.

But the teaser trailer for this is a lot more "knowing" and (IMO) interesting. The very obvious allusion to 2001 and the whole tone gets interest from people who wouldn't otherwise be interested at all in a movie about a toy.

Big day for Barbs:

• A crapton of character posters, showing a bunch of accomplished Barbies, "just Kens", and human characters
• New teaser showing more of the setting:

I like how the posters imply that Allan is an even bigger loser than the Kens, lmao.

I unironically love that whole Getting Crap Past the Radar thing they have going on at the end. Or I guess Parental Bonus, I've lost track of where we are fixing that trope...

Edit: Maybe it's not even Radar, I've found reports that the movie is pg-13, though nothing official.

Edited by jjjj2 on Apr 4th 2023 at 1:13:17 PM

I suspect most of what they've showed us so far (and indeed most of the All-Star Cast) is the first 20 minutes before Margot/Ryan bail on Barbieland and the actual plot might be more...Lego Movie meets Legally Blonde.

IDC though I'm really enjoying the whimsical pink costume/set design.

The final movie better have "I'm a Barbie Girl" in it at some point. Like, It would honestly shock me if it didn't, even as a Credits Song, if its not in the movie in some fashion.

They have already said it won’t be in the movie.

Awww.

To be fair, the lawsuit soured relations between Aqua and Hasbro.

I found the various "He's just Ken" posters very funny in their self-deprecating tone, and the Barbie posters funny too but for the opposite reason: they're trying so hard to show how accomplished the various Barbies are (up to and including President Barbie) that it comes off as a parody of the tendency to make every girl/woman character in kids' movies as much of a role model as possible. I'm also intrigued by the fact that part of the plot seems to be Barbie & Ken escaping from the doll world to end up in the real world a la The Lego Movie, however I hope this isn't yet another movie based on the multiverse concept: after Dr. Strange 2, Quantumania, Everything Everywhere, Beavis & Butthead and the upcoming Spider-Man animated sequel, I'm starting to get tired of the concept.

I guess I don't view Toon Town / Alternate Tooniverse (or toytown, in this case) the same as the ambitious "literally all possible worlds" type of multiverse in those films. No more multiversal than Enchanted.

There's the earlier joke about Ken not knowing what the point of spending the night at Barbie's is, also. I get the impression that they're very aware of the tension of Barbie being an idealised children's toy who is simultaneously sexualised and sanitised for marketability.

(And how both of those contrast with the actual user experience. My favourite Barbie is the only one who looks like she's actually been taken out of her box and played with, and I'm going to guess her arrival instigates the plot.)

I have seen some strange takes on Twitter criticizing Ryan as miscast. Which I find odd because I thought he seemed to be doing a good job and, especially, it's a bit weird to hear the words miscast when we really haven't seen much of his take yet. I just will never understand some fans.

New Trailer.

Given that tease at the end, maybe worked out the rights with the song? Or maybe it's just for the trailer...

…So I’m not the only one who didn’t think this movie was going to have mortality be a major theme? No? Nobody was expecting the Puss in Boots 2 route?

I didn't know what the theme would be.

I assumed this was going to be like the Lego Movie… make fun of antiquated and modern gender roles and capitalism. Death was the furthest thing from my mind.

I dig it.

Also, I like that they actually did sneak in "Barbie Girl" at the end to soothe the haters

Well it is like The LEGO Movie in that they have Will Ferrell as a red tie-wearing evil businessman.

Yeah, I suspect that a bunch of little kids going to see the Little Mermaid this weekend are gonna see that trailer and just be… what’s the word for it?

Also, I raised a question about a charcter pondering death in Trope Finder. Feel free to help out.

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on May 25th 2023 at 1:24:02 PM

The Little Mermaid is also a story about a young woman wanting to know what's beyond her reality. Even then, in the original Disney movie Ursula dies via ship impalement. If those kids can handle that they can handle a little pastel existentialism. (That is even assuming it goes beyond that one joke, that is one of many scenes in which Ms. Barbara questions the nature of reality.)

I never actually got the sense that this was a kids' movie in any case. Yes, the IP will mean parents will take their kids to see it, but the ad campaign's sensibilities is more in line with teens and up.

Edited by Synchronicity on May 25th 2023 at 12:26:48 PM