What Movies Have You Seen Recently?

Thank you for sharing this with us, Toadettefan. I personally felt that Friendship Games was by far my least favourite of the four movies, but still enjoyable in its own right, and it sounds like you feel the same (or at least as far as the first 3 movies go; you haven't seen Legend of Everfree yet iirc but I recommend you do since that one was my 2nd favourite after the first Equestria Girls).

Your review is very well written and raises many good points about the movie for better or worse, which I almost entirely agree with, except that I did like ACADECA and Unleash the Magic quite a bit - nonetheless I do consider this film's soundtrack the overall weakest in the tetralogy. I also agree I wish they kept the duet version of "What More Is Out There" and moreover wish that Sunset had been given more development as well as Sci-Twi.

One thing I noticed you didn't mention was the appearance of the human versions of Cadance and Shining Armour. I personally found them a bit odd and felt Shining Armour was very underused, but Cadance was ok and good to balance out from how mean Cinch is. What did you think, Toadettefan?
 
Princess Zatanna said:
Thank you for sharing this with us, Toadettefan. I personally felt that Friendship Games was by far my least favourite of the four movies, but still enjoyable in its own right, and it sounds like you feel the same (or at least as far as the first 3 movies go; you haven't seen Legend of Everfree yet iirc but I recommend you do since that one was my 2nd favourite after the first Equestria Girls).

Your review is very well written and raises many good points about the movie for better or worse, which I almost entirely agree with, except that I did like ACADECA and Unleash the Magic quite a bit - nonetheless I do consider this film's soundtrack the overall weakest in the tetralogy. I also agree I wish they kept the duet version of "What More Is Out There" and moreover wish that Sunset had been given more development as well as Sci-Twi.

One thing I noticed you didn't mention was the appearance of the human versions of Cadance and Shining Armour. I personally found them a bit odd and felt Shining Armour was very underused, but Cadance was ok and good to balance out from how mean Cinch is. What did you think, Toadettefan?
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I felt Cadence was quite nice, which helped to balance out Cinch's personality. I wish Shining Armor had more screentime as well, since he could've acted as a motivator for the recovery from her transformation alongside Spike.
 
Toadettefan said:
Equestria Girls: Friendship Games (2015)

I thought the third installment of this series was very fun, and had a decent story. I think Sci-Twi has a well-written personality, since she's a lot more introverted compared to the Twilight from Ponyville. She also has a good amount of flaws as well, including being pushed around by her classmates, and giving into peer pressure without thinking of the consequences. While I didn't like her unknowingly stealing other students' magic with her pendant, her transformation into Midnight Sparkle had me on the edge of my seat.

I felt that Sunset Shimmer's writing toke a turn for the worse here. In fact, when she confronts Sci-Twi regarding her pendant, she has an angry outburst that's reminiscent of her personality in the first Equestria Girls film. So this scene not only felt out of character, but also made me feel sorry for Sci-Twi even more. Before I saw this film, I also saw some deleted scenes from it, including one where Sunset has a chat with the Twilight from Ponyville regarding her homesickness for Equestria. This made me wonder if an earlier draft had equal focus on both Sunset and Sci-Twi, which would've made the film's plot get into a proper flow.

The songs here are mostly alright. The only two that stood out to me are What More Is Out There? and Right There In Front Of Me. The opening song sets the tone for the movie, but isn't unique enough to stand on its own merits. ACADECA is quite uninspired, Unleash The Magic is a good villain song, but I've heard better ones from the first two films. The CHS Rally Song starts off ok, but it gets listenable once DJ Pon-3 adds her own music to the composition. But having seen the deleted scenes, I wish they would've kept the duet version of What More Is Out There in, since again, it would've gave Sunset just as much development as Sci-Twi.

A lot of the film's new characters from Crystal Prep are interesting, but a lot of them had too many flaws and not enough strengths. The Shadow Bolts have cool designs, but they don't get much time to fully introduce themselves, so we only see their signature traits. I don't like any of them because of how mean they are towards Sci-Twi. Principal Cinch could've been a well-rounded secondary villain, but the plot doesn't make her seem threatening enough. She also kind of gets away with her intentions, since we don't see her after the climax concludes.

However, there are still some fun scenes, and the competition's events were quite fun. I also liked when Sunset's friends were helping out Sci-Twi, as it showcased how welcoming they are compared to the students at Crystal Prep. Overall, I'd give Friendship Games a solid 7/10. It's certainly not a bad movie, and has enough good things to make it suitable for its target audience. But the previous two movies had a lot more going for them, which only make the flaws of Friendship Games stick out more. Still, I had fun watching this film, and am looking forward to how Legends of Everfree continues this series.
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Hmm, I'm still on the opposite end from you in terms of how I'd rank each of these three movies (and from MiracleDinner). I actually found Friendship Games to be my favorite Equestria Girls movie up to its point, with it feeling really immersive and novel to see the movie entirely focusing on Sci-Twi instead of Twilight and how her emotions and powers work, and I found Sunset Shimmer's arc to be the most interesting out of the first three movies. I also found the new school's setting and characters to also add more suspense, I liked the overarching competitive feel to the songs such as ACADECA actually even though you found that one to be weak, and I also loved What More Is Out There, and it had by far my favorite climax out of the three movies which felt really touching to me seeing the two characters interact. I remember the scene where Sunset got angry not bothering me as much because she was under stress and I felt it showed she still had flaws she needed to work on, as Sci-Twi did do something that had erratic results. I remember thinking Cinch was a decent villain, as a good reason for Sci-Twi's behavior, although I agree that she should have gotten consequences for her actions. I did think the Shadowbolts could have been used more too, but liked their contribution to the atmosphere of suspense. Overall here, I think you have some good points, and I'm curious to see what you'll think of the fourth movie.
 
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Despicable Me 3 (2017)

I know this movie got mixed reception, and while it's my least favourite of the series so far (I've seen all of the Despicable Me / Minions films except Despicable Me 4), I still somewhat enjoyed this movie in its own right.

I thought the villain, Balthazar Bratt, was kind of cool, and there were plenty of funny moments involving Gru, Lucy, the girls, and the Minions. The movie provides interesting expansions to the lore of Gru's heritage and reveals that he has a twin brother, Dru. I found interesting Gru's moral conflicts about returning to his heritage of villainy vs. his commitment to staying good, and the contrast between how Gru was seen by his mother and father.

The main issues I have with this film are that I didn't really like Dru as a character, and certain things like the pig farm and the cheese festival (explicitly confirmed non-vegan since we actually see the cows being milked on-screen) felt weird because I'm an ethical vegan, and speaking of which I also didn't like story with Niko. I would rate this movie a 7/10 or so.

Mr. Peabody and Sherman (2014)

This is a movie I'm coming back to for the first time in over a decade. I do remember seeing and enjoying it when I was a kid (I believe 11 years old, the movie came out a few weeks before I turned 11 but I probably saw it after my birthday), but remembered very little about it, so a rewatch was long overdue. And my goodness, I forgot how great this movie is.

Mr. Peabody is a very entertaining character, having a witty personality coupled with superhuman genius and talent for many, many feats. I also liked Sherman, Penny, Penny's parents, and plenty of the historical characters. I think the movie tells a heartwarming story about parent-child love, in this case an adoptive relationship between a single father and an only son, as well as a touching enemies-to-friends story between Penny and Sherman. There are lots of fun scenes involving Mr. Peabody's genius moments, and lots of fun hijinx with the time-travel plot, and an entertaining climax that had me on the edge of my seat. It's also funny how the time machine is called "WABAC" which reminds of the Wayback Machine which is used for "time travel" by archiving web pages.

I have a few gripes with this film, namely a few historical errors (e.g. highly inaccurate portrayal of Maximilien de Robespierre), a few characters who are portrayed favourably when in reality they did a lot of messed up things (e.g. Mahatma Gandhi), limited portrayal of people of colour, the movie is mostly Western-centric and has no visits to cultures such as the Aztecs, the Mayanas, ancient China, etc., no LGBTQ+ representation, and problematic portrayal of women
E.g. Grunion is permanently taken back to the past against her will by Agamemnon, who is in love with her, and then is seen marrying him later back in the Trojan Horse, which undermines womens' agency and portrays the harmful idea that women can just be taken by men who desire them at first sight and will end up falling in love with them.

But despite these issues I'd say I had a really fun time watching this movie and am definitely glad I came back to it. I would rate Mr. Peabody and Sherman a 9/10.

The Dark Knight Trilogy (Batman Begins 2005, The Dark Knight 2008, The Dark Knight Rises 2012)

I also recent rewatched the trilogy of Christopher Nolan Batman movies, and I thought they were all very entertaining, since they are very dramatic and high-stakes. My favourite was The Dark Knight, but I also liked the other two. I definitely think these movies are better than The Batman (2022). I also noticed that the plot of The Dark Knight Rises was similar to the "No Man's Land" arc during the end of Gotham TV series (2014-2019). I don't think these movies are perfect and have a lot of issues with some things that I won't fully go into as this post is long enough, but I will say that I enjoyed this triology and would rate the three movies an 8/10 or so.
 
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@Wonder Woman I was kind of wondering what things Mahatma Ghandi did that you have an issue with. I thought he was really peaceful and an advocator of peace and I don't remember reading about him doing anything wrong or questionable, but I wonder if there's anything bad he did that I don't know about that I will agree with you when you mention it wasn't right.
 
I rewatched Rogue One: A Star Wars Story last night because the TV show Andor ties directly into it, and I really think it hits entirely differently after having seen that show,
plus the ending is soooo cool, the Vader's Rage sequence is (probably) my favourite scene in the whole Star Wars franchise
 
@Wonder Woman By the way with the Mahatma Ghandi thing, whatever you tell me he did wrong, I'm going to be very busy over the next two days and won't be able to be on here much so it may be a while before I respond, but I promise I will once I have time. I happen to be very busy with school today.
 
Classic Sonic said:
@Wonder Woman I was kind of wondering what things Mahatma Ghandi did that you have an issue with. I thought he was really peaceful and an advocator of peace and I don't remember reading about him doing anything wrong or questionable, but I wonder if there's anything bad he did that I don't know about that I will agree with you when you mention it wasn't right.
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Gandhi was racist. He made prejudiced comments about people of African heritage and used insulting racist slurs.

Though Gandhi opposed Nazism, he opposed fighting against the Nazis with arms, made a lot of extremely problematic comments surrounding this topic. He said in 1940 "I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted." He said in 1946 "the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.". Gandhi also once said "Hitler is not a bad man." When asked by Jewish-American journalist Louis Fischer "You mean that the Jews should have committed collective suicide?", Gandhi replied "Yes, that would have been heroism."

Gandhi was an anti-vaxxer. He described vaccination as "a savage custom", a "poisonous superstition", a "filthy remedy" and "sacrilege." He engaged in harmful scientific denialism by claiming that smallpox wasn't contagious.

Though Gandhi expressed some positive views on women, he was vehemently against both birth control and abortion (describing the former as "criminal folly", and the latter as "clear as daylight .... a crime"), both deeply harmful and fundamentally anti-feminist stances. He did incredibly creepy things with his own teenage great-nieces and said horrendously cruel things about female victims of sexual assault.

Gandhi refused to allow doctors to treat his ill wife with medicine which he considered "alien", resulting in her death. Yet when he himself became ill he willingly took medicine and surgery to treat his health.
 
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@Wonder Woman Yeah that is all pretty bad. Yikes; I didn't know any of that stuff about him. Wow-this all makes me see him in an incredibly negative light. He really isn't as good as people say he is. I guess a lot of people don't know about any of that.
 
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Well, anyway, I'd like to move this conversation on to more pleasant topics, so most recent movie that I saw recently I think is "Darkest Hour". about Churchill and the British people standing up to the Nazis just before World War II and saying they would never surrender. I love that movie. Churchill and the British people were so brave to do such a thing. They wouldn't give up.
 
Classic Sonic said:
Well, anyway, I'd like to move this conversation on to more pleasant topics, so most recent movie that I saw recently I think is "Darkest Hour". about Churchill and the British people standing up to the Nazis just before World War II and saying they would never surrender. I love that movie. Churchill and the British people were so brave to do such a thing. They wouldn't give up.
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I haven't seen that movie but I, too, indeed respect the bravery of the many thousands of people who gave their lives to fighting the Nazis, and never gave up. May we never forget their courage.
However, I'm sorry to tell you Sonic, but Winston Churchill was also very much a racist person.
 
The Brave Little Toaster To The Rescue (1997) (first time)

Since I liked the first The Brave Little Toaster movie so much I decided to watch the sequels, starting with the second film in the trilogy, The Brave Little Toaster To the Rescue.

In my opinion this movie isn't as excellent as its predecessor but it's still pretty fun in its own right.

This movie is set after the events of the first film, where Rob (aka "The Master") is still in a relationship with Chris and is about to graduate college, but has an unexpected disaster when his thesis is deleted by mistake (good lesson - ALWAYS keep backups of important work!), meanwhile the main antagonist of the film, Mack, secretly plots to sell away Rob's animals to a labatory (all of whom are newly introduced in this film): Maisie the cat and her three kittens, Sebastian the monkey, Alberto the Chihuahua, Ratso the rat, and Murgatroid the snake. Of course, there is also the returning cast of household appliances who, unbeknownst to humans, are animate and able to move and talk including Toaster, Lampy, Radio, Kirby the vacuum cleaner, and Blanky the blanket. This movie is also the debut of Wittgenstein, who is an interesting character that I notice Jamey (@Wittgenstein ) uses as her pfp and/or username frequently (including right now). The household appliances and the animals despite their differences and quarells at times, team up to stop Mack's scheme and to help out Rob's dire situation.

Though the movie is a little on the shorter side compared to its predecessor I thought it tells a gripping story with interesting twists and turns, especially
Radio and Rasto co-operating to get the tube needed to save Wittgenstein, but in a resulting argument they break the tube, so Radio sacrifices himself to use his own tube to save Wittgenstein.

The climax and ending of the movie is pretty fun and leaves me looking forward to the next movie, and it's nice that
Rob and Chris got engaged and Radio got revived

This movie has four songs - the same number as the previous movie - I overall found them a little weaker than those in the first movie, but still nice. I recognised Chomp and Munch from Jamey's various videos and memes (e.g. "Chomp and Munch but it's sung by Barack Obama").

I also found it interesting how this movie presents technology such as the internet, the computers, and Wittgenstein, seeing as this movie came out 28 years ago so technology then was very different, at the time the internet was very much a novelty.

While I didn't this movie had quite the same charm as the original it was still very enjoyable. I would rate it an 8/10 or so. I'm looking forward to the third and final film, The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars, very much!
 
Minions (2015)

I'm actually quite late to post about this, since it was a couple weeks ago that I watched it. This is a movie I had seen once before, but a very long time ago (around when it came out, I was around 12-13) , so it was good to revisit and I didn't remember much about it. I personally found this to be one of the weaker films in the series, mainly because I'm not that much of a huge fan of Kevin, Stuart, and Bob (or moreover the minions as a whole), and I always enjoyed Gru as my favourite character in the Despicable Me series rather than the minions - and this is the only movie in the series where Gru doesn't have a substantial role. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the plot and found plenty of the humour funny, and I especially liked the main villains, Scarlet Overkill and Herb.

Cats & Dogs (2001)

This is another movie I rewatched recently having not seen it since I was a child (likely 9-10 at the oldest), and I only very faintly remembered it from childhood. It's fun how the DVD main menu lets you choose between the Cats side and the Dogs side and accordingly styles the main menu as your chosen side's headquarters - I do remember going with cats since I had a cat as a kid (and it just so happens that more recently I've leaned a bit into liking cats more, in large part due to my paternal granddad's passing last year and the difficult experience I went through with having his cat put to sleep, as well as subsequently discovering that the cat I'd owned as a child was a direct descendent of one of his old cats), so I went with that option again. This movie definitely makes me feel bad for being a cat lover, since the cats are the villains and the dogs are the heroes - both species, unknown to humankind, are highly intelligent, able to talk, and have secret headquarters and lots of spy gadgets.

All in all though, and despite the nostalgia aspect, I have to admit this movie is probably decent at best. It's kind of hard to say why, but I guess in between all the cool spy stuff the plot and characters just aren't all that interesting, like the cats are evil and want to take over the world and the dogs are good and have to stop them. It feels too simplistic in that regard. As far as I recall, there's really only one genuinely entertaining plot twist and that's

The cats revealing their plan is to reverse the dog allergy cure to make the entire world allergic to dogs, thus upping the stakes.

I also feel like the final battle didn't really make much sense and that the dogs really only won because of plot armour, like the cats are doing their crucial plan to overtake the world in their secret base, you would expect it to be heavily guarded by trained cat combatant experts but no, a handful of dog agents manage to easily sneak in and foil their plan completely while it's really only their leader Mr. Tinkles who fought back.

Nonetheless, I did think there were some things to enjoy about this movie, from the talking animals to the cool spy stuff to some funny and well written scenes. I moderately enjoyed revisiting this childhood movie, but I don't really see myself coming back to it anytime soon if ever.

Nimona (2023)

Holy smokes this movie is BRILLIANT. I watched this today with a close friend of mine (who discovered it through one of their friends), and it was a ton of fun! It has a really interesting setting which is a fusion of a medieval kingdom with knights and a high-tech futuristic city. The storyline is highly captivating and full of gripping suspense and exciting twists and turns, as well as moving emotional moments. The music and animation are also very good. It's also great for LGBTQ+ representation and
I was delighted to see a gay kiss at the end
My favourite characters were Nimona and Ballister. The writing is fantastic and effectively conveys humour, seriousness, and sadness alike, and Nimona's quirky and energetic yet at times complex and torn personality in particular was allowed to shine through her excellent lines and voice acting. In many ways I found this film personally relatable, not only for the LGBTQ+ aspects but also things like being unfairly disliked and misunderstood by others - including for being different, feeling like a "monster" sometimes, finding healing from past mistreatment or bad experiences, etc.

While I've never seen the graphic novel this movie was based on, I can confidently say that Nimona is an exceptional film, and one that I can easily recommend to anyone who hasn't yet seen it.
 
The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars (1998) (first time)

Well, I've finally reached the end of the wonderful The Brave Little Toaster trilogy, finishing with another great film.

This movie begins by introducing the newborn son of Rob ("The Master") and Chris ("The Mistress), Robbie ("The Little Master.") I kinda would've preferred if he had a more unique name rather than just a diminutive/alternate form of his dad's name. But anyway, I did enjoy Robbie's part in this movie and how the film focuses on him more, and how the appliances show as much loyalty and care to Robbie as they did for his father in the previous films. It is weird though that none of Robbie's grandparents are even mentioned when I'd think they'd be keen to visit to meet their grandson, especially Robbie's paternal grandmother who was in the first movie.

While the second film introduced talking animals, Ratso is the only animal in this movie since he's the only one that Rob and Chris kept as a pet at the end of the previous film, which is kinda a shame especially considering Maisie's kittens would be adults by now. On the other hand, I really appreciated seeing Wittgenstein return in this movie, although his role is a bit more minor this time.

My favourite new character was Tinselina because I liked her design and thought she had a nice personality and an interesting backstory of a Christmas fairy stuck on Mars who's never seen a Christmas tree, and because as soon as I saw her I was instantly reminded of when my friend Jamey (@Wittgenstein ) themed as her in December 2019, which at the time was shortly after we'd become friends. She's probably my favourite character in the series outside of the main cast and maybe Wittgenstein.

I thought the plot was very entertaining, starting off with introducing Robbie and the other new characters, then
Hearing Aid initially seeming like he was going to be a bad guy, but it turns out he wasn't he was just trying to get to Mars, but Robbie is sent instead, so the appliances reach out to Wittgenstein who helps them get to Mars - I love how whimsically bizarre and unrealistic it is that their way of getting to Mars is literally just popping corn in a microwave to power a fan.

Then on Mars they meet Tinselina and find that there's a society of appliances who want to destroy Earth because of how humans mistreated them and Toaster runs and wins an election against their Supreme Commander, who is then revealed to be Hearing Aid's long lost brother who was also owned by Albert Einstein, and he has a change of heart.

The team return to Earth and bring Tinselina and Supreme Commander with them, but Supreme Commander somehow forgot to disarm the missile (it felt weird to me he'd forget that), so Toaster takes him off the spaceship to stop the missile which seemingly dooms them to be stuck on Mars, but Tinselina uses her hair and part of her dress to provide extra fuel so they can bring them home to Earth. And I felt really sorry for Tinselina in the scene where she tried to throw herself in the trash afterwards, that hit too close to home, but thankfully she was saved by Rob's family. Finally, the Christmas ending is really wholesome and a perfect way to end the trilogy.

I enjoyed all of the original songs in this movie, especially Floating which I found extremely catchy and Home Again which is a lovely song about how heartwarming it is to come home after a long adventure to a safe home and a family who loves you.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars and although I didn't like it quite as much as the first movie, I'd certainly say I enjoyed it more than the second. Really though all three of the movies are great in their own right, and together they form a wonderful triology that I can easily recommend to anyone. I'm kinda sad it's over now but I'll be sure to keep revisiting these movies in the years to come.
 
Memelord2019 said:
KPop Demon Hunters
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I also saw that recently too and I liked it a lot but not quite to the (very high) extent that some of my friends enjoyed it!
 
The Little Mermaid (1989)

I recently revisited this movie for the first time in about 5 years (although I saw the live action remake 2 years ago) and it was very fun, super nostalgic as this is one of the movies I most strongly associate with my early childhood, and entertaining all the way through. I'm still a big fan of a lot of the songs in this movie, especially Kiss the Girl. I definitely think that this movie is the strongest of the trilogy by far and between the original movie and the remake I easily like this version more. I definitely hope to continue rewatching this special movie at least once every few years.

The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (2000)

Having grown up on the original movie as a kid but never having seen the sequel, it was kind of surreal to finally experience it. I wasn't sure what to think going into it because I've heard mixed to negative things about it, but I actually ended up enjoying it a fair bit. I think it's easy to enjoy it if I just see it as a fun adventure of its own rather than a proper successor to the original film - this movie doesn't live up to the original film for sure, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it.

I found the story very enjoyable. I enjoyed Melody as a new protagonist and found her experiences EXTREMELY relatable, without specifics I too had things about myself that I absolutely deserved to have known hidden from me by my parents until I was exactly Melody's age (12), and subsequently feeling shocked, upset, and lied to. I found forgiveness eventually but it took me a long time. The movie is also an interesting inversion of the plot of the first film, this time Ariel forbids Melody from exploring Atlanta against Melody's will out of a desire to protect her, similarly to how Triton forbade Ariel from going to the surface world to protect her even though Ariel wanted to in the first movie. The final battle and ending was cool as well. Another thing I like about the movie is that most of the original voice actors return, except mainly for Eric, Flounder, and Grimsby.

However, I wasn't a big fan of the villain Morgana (it feels lazy and weird that they just introduced Ursula's sister who is also evil and very similar to Ursula and does very similar things) and would have much preferred a more original villain, and I wouldn't really say that any of the songs stood out to me, they were all just okay tbh.

The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (2008)

Like The Little Mermaid II, I never saw the prequel movie as a kid and I saw it for the very first time earlier today. So likewise, it was surreal to finally see a prequel movie to The Little Mermaid.

I'd say this was probably my least favourite in the trilogy though. It has fair few good songs, and it was good to see more of the characters such as Sebastian, Flounder, Ariel, and getting to know Ariel's sisters who we didn't really get to know in either of the previous films. But I found that the story was just too simple, slow, uneventful, and non-climatic compared to the original movie and the sequel for me to be able to place the prequel on quite the same level. I also found the main villain, Marina Del Rey, underwhelming, although her constantly changing fashion choices are certainly interesting for better or worse.

This movie also shows how Ariel's mom Athena died, and I have to say I always suspected she was killed by humans hence Triton's resentment of humankind as seen in the first movie, but I kind of found this underwhelming because like it seems like it was clearly just an unfortunate accident and not that the humans killed her intentionally, which would make Triton's hatred of humans less understandable than if it was a deliberate murder. It also really wasn't worth risking anyone's life for an anniversary present that can be replaced, when she can't. And the way the scene is cut makes it seem like she could have escaped. Speaking of Athena, it seems kind of forced that Athena looks nearly identical to Ariel as an adult and not like any of Ariel's 6 sisters who look different.

Another really interesting thing is that 3 out of 6 of the voice actresses for the main cast of DC Super Hero Girls G2 show up back-to-back in the credits, Tara Strong (voiced Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Ursa, and Cheetah in DCSHG, and Adella and Andrina in this movie), Grey DeLisle aka Grey Griffin (voiced Wonder Woman, Giganta, and Lois lane in DCSHG, and Aquata and Arista in this movie), and Kari Wahlgren (voiced Zatanna and Star Sapphire in DCSHG, and Attina in this movie).
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Overall, I really enjoyed watching through the Little Mermaid trilogy to experience once again a childhood favourite movie and to experience for the first time the sequel and prequel, which even if the first movie is still the best by a longshot the other two are still good and I'm glad I got to see them. In a way, it's a shame that I didn't get to see them when I was growing up, I probably would be able to appreciate them more if I had. I also found out recently that there's a Little Mermaid TV series, which is also a prequel to the original movie, and I definitely plan to watch that one day!
 
Zootopia* (2016) (second time)

Just re-watched this movie for the second time in my life in celebration of my half-birthday today, since the first time I watched it was around my half-birthday when I was 13 and a half (I believe that's pretty much the first time I ever noted/celebrated a half-birthday), which was a very transformative and special time in my life as I was just about to start at a completely new school. And I remember seeing Zootopia and finding it very enjoyable and perhaps even inspiring, if only I had embraced its lessons more at the time.

I thought this movie was very fun and had a great time revisiting it. Judy is a great protagonist and I found her pretty relatable in a lot of ways. She says she was 9 in the flashback and 15 years have passed, meaning she's 24 years old, so I found it nice to have a Disney protagonist who's actually close to my own age but a little older. Nick is a very fun secondary protagonist as well.
The ending of the movie and the trailer for Zootopia 2 implies they got together as a couple, and I guess they have good chemistry, however Nick is 32 (confirmed by him saying he did his shady business since he was 12 and Judy saying it's been two decades) meaning there's quite an age gap between Judy at 24 and Nick at 32, I don't think that age gap is enough to be outright problematic or creepy but it is enough to be a little bit strange in my opinion, and I definitely wouldn't want to be in a relationship with anyone in their 30s when I'm still in the first half of my 20s.

The plot of the movie is really enjoyable as a family-friendly detective mystery plot with increasingly high stakes and some horror elements.
I also enjoyed the plot twist where Mayor Bellwether is revealed as being the true protagonist, and the "final battle" and climax was very entertaining, especially when it seems that Nick was turned feral and is about to kill Judy but it turns out it was an elaborate act and they switched the Night Howler serum with blueberries, and I especially enjoyed the callback to the play at the start of the film.

I was watching with a friend who likes Breaking Bad and they really appreciated the Breaking Bad reference in this movie, but I didn't even realise it at all since I'm totally unfamiliar with that franchise.

I feel that this movie could definitely be interpreted as a positive allegory for fighting sexism, racism, transphobia (especially what I related to was seeing the campaign of scapegoating and fearmongering against a targeted minority because they're allegedly "biologically predetermined" to be predators, which is highly reminiscent of transphobic tropes used against trans women to smear us as "predators" and could likely also be likened to racism and homophobia - when those stereotypes aren't at all true and minority groups don't deserve to be seen as a threat), and of course as a proud vegan and animal rights activist a movie focusing on animal characters and emphasizing messages of extending empathy to all creatures big and small, and to recognize that "change starts with you" is something I'm glad to see.

But moreover and most importantly, the movie has many morals about how anyone can be anything they want to be, everyone has flaws and makes mistakes, to be understanding of one another, to challenge prejudice and harmful stereotypes, and to recognise that people have the potential to change and grow - I really appreciated Gideon's character, while I was never a malicious bully the way Gideon was I too have done a lot of things in the past I'm not proud of, but I am proud to have become a better person. All of these are excellent morals and I hope that they have inspired many young people to make the world a better place, and I hope I can too.

I totally love the animation style in this film too and the way that all the animals look was very well pulled off. I've also always loved the song "Try Everything."

After this movie I went on to watch the Zootopia+ shorts, which were totally great and add entertaining context to a lot of characters and scenes in the film (I was confused about the one titled "The Godfather of the Bride" because Mr. Big is Fru Fru's father, not her godfather, until my friend explained that it was a reference to the gangster movie "The Godfather" with which I was also unfamiliar), as well as the trailer for Zootopia 2 which looks ok but not necessarily as good as the first movie, but, as Zootopia teaches us, we shouldn't judge a book by its cover and perhaps, hopefully, Zootopia 2 will be just as much fun. I will definitely try to go and see it when it comes out.

*known in the UK as Zootropolis for trademark reasons. I don't hugely mind the name change but do prefer "Zootopia."
 
ParaNorman (2012)

I'm so glad I came back to this, I had a great time with it. This is the second time I'm seeing this film, the first being 3 years ago. I only ever saw it because it came in a DVD bundle with Coraline (also a stop motion animation film by Laika Studios) but I don't remember liking it much then, but decided to give it a second try and it was so much better than I remembered, though still not as good as Coraline.

I loved the compelling and relatable story, as someone who has also been misunderstood for being different. Especially near the end it became very moving. The writing is funny and has good humour, and I think the animation was very good too.

A very cool and interesting fact about the film is that it has the first openly gay character in a mainstream animated film, which is mentioned at the very end. It also has a canonically vegan character, which is something I hadn't remembered from my first watch through (I wasn't vegan then.)
 
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