(no subject)
I was in the basement this morning and finally found my Wii. So I brought it upstairs and set it up. My intention was to play Wii Boxing, because I really, really need to get back in shape. But I can't find my Wii Sports disc. So...I'm using it to watch movies instantly from Netflix instead.
My first Wii movie: Anastasia.
My granddaddy took me to see this in the theater. But we got there late, so I didn't come in until the part with adult!Anya asking for a sign and finding a puppy. Which means I missed all the backstory. Which was kind of nice. It made it a little bit more of a mystery. I was familiar enough with storytelling conventions by then to know that Anya was almost certainly going to turn out to be Anastasia, but since I missed the direct confirmation and most of the "who am I?" setup, I could believe that maybe the movie was going to do something original. I kind of wish it had...
A couple of years later, we watched it at school. But because of time restraints, we skipped the beginning. And started with Anya in the snow, asking for a sign. Well, after missing the beginning a second time, I started to get curious. Not curious enough to rent it myself, but curious still.
Eventually I met Ops, who had the movie on video, and we had princess time one day and watched it. Only she had taped it off the TV, and the first few minutes were cut off. Guess where it started. Go on, guess.
So today I decided to watch the beginning.
I do like this movie. The animation is nice and clean, although the faces sometimes look a little funky. The voice acting is very nice. If you've missed the beginning, it comes off as pretty well written. Rasputin is a good, creepy villain, in spite of the historical inaccuracy. I could have done without Bartok the bat, but that could have been worse. The Anya/Dmitri relationship plays out nicely, and I can see why they would like each other in spite of (maybe because of) the initial bickering. A lot of the action scenes are genuinely exciting (I'm thinking of the train.) Now that I'm randomly interested in fashion, I love Anya's costume changes in Paris. And this thing has some great songs.
Well, now I've seen the beginning.
Wow.
Once upon a time, Imperial Russia was a magical, sparkling fairytale where no one was unhappy, and everyone really loved the royal family and totally didn't want to overthrow them and put them in prison. Then Rasputin, who was absolutely not a crazy priest or the Tsarina's closest friend or the guy who "magically healed" Alexei's hemophilia (okay, so he lied about that, but at least he kept the Tsarina from getting all hysterical about it) sold his soul for...some reason and magically made everybody hate the royal family. And there was a revolution that night and the whole family just kind of disappeared instead of being thrown into prison for a year and then being shot, and the bullets awesomely bouncing off of Anastasia and Maria because of the jewels hidden in their corsets and the guards getting all freaked out because of it and totally not being surprised by reports that one of the princesses might have escaped because they obviously had supernatural protection. Also Anastasia was actually eight years old instead of seventeen. Then she randomly got amnesia.
And then there's a song about how everybody's really sorry about the revolution because they're all bored and working in factories.
I'm pretty much offended by how wrong all this is. I mean, it's not as bad as The Secret of Anastasia.
Those musical instruments in the bottom there? That's the royal family, transformed by magic to escape their execution or something. What upsets me most about this is that all three of Anastasia's sisters are combined into a single character. Olga, Tatiana, and Maria were amazing girls and really have the potential to be awesome characters. Not that I ever wrote any alternate history stories about them in high school. That would have been dorky as all getout. (And they certainly didn't discover the secret of time travel and have adventures with Cleopatra and Elizabeth I. In a postapocalyptic dystopian future.)
My first Wii movie: Anastasia.
My granddaddy took me to see this in the theater. But we got there late, so I didn't come in until the part with adult!Anya asking for a sign and finding a puppy. Which means I missed all the backstory. Which was kind of nice. It made it a little bit more of a mystery. I was familiar enough with storytelling conventions by then to know that Anya was almost certainly going to turn out to be Anastasia, but since I missed the direct confirmation and most of the "who am I?" setup, I could believe that maybe the movie was going to do something original. I kind of wish it had...
A couple of years later, we watched it at school. But because of time restraints, we skipped the beginning. And started with Anya in the snow, asking for a sign. Well, after missing the beginning a second time, I started to get curious. Not curious enough to rent it myself, but curious still.
Eventually I met Ops, who had the movie on video, and we had princess time one day and watched it. Only she had taped it off the TV, and the first few minutes were cut off. Guess where it started. Go on, guess.
So today I decided to watch the beginning.
I do like this movie. The animation is nice and clean, although the faces sometimes look a little funky. The voice acting is very nice. If you've missed the beginning, it comes off as pretty well written. Rasputin is a good, creepy villain, in spite of the historical inaccuracy. I could have done without Bartok the bat, but that could have been worse. The Anya/Dmitri relationship plays out nicely, and I can see why they would like each other in spite of (maybe because of) the initial bickering. A lot of the action scenes are genuinely exciting (I'm thinking of the train.) Now that I'm randomly interested in fashion, I love Anya's costume changes in Paris. And this thing has some great songs.
Click to viewWell, now I've seen the beginning.
Wow.
Once upon a time, Imperial Russia was a magical, sparkling fairytale where no one was unhappy, and everyone really loved the royal family and totally didn't want to overthrow them and put them in prison. Then Rasputin, who was absolutely not a crazy priest or the Tsarina's closest friend or the guy who "magically healed" Alexei's hemophilia (okay, so he lied about that, but at least he kept the Tsarina from getting all hysterical about it) sold his soul for...some reason and magically made everybody hate the royal family. And there was a revolution that night and the whole family just kind of disappeared instead of being thrown into prison for a year and then being shot, and the bullets awesomely bouncing off of Anastasia and Maria because of the jewels hidden in their corsets and the guards getting all freaked out because of it and totally not being surprised by reports that one of the princesses might have escaped because they obviously had supernatural protection. Also Anastasia was actually eight years old instead of seventeen. Then she randomly got amnesia.
And then there's a song about how everybody's really sorry about the revolution because they're all bored and working in factories.
I'm pretty much offended by how wrong all this is. I mean, it's not as bad as The Secret of Anastasia.
Those musical instruments in the bottom there? That's the royal family, transformed by magic to escape their execution or something. What upsets me most about this is that all three of Anastasia's sisters are combined into a single character. Olga, Tatiana, and Maria were amazing girls and really have the potential to be awesome characters. Not that I ever wrote any alternate history stories about them in high school. That would have been dorky as all getout. (And they certainly didn't discover the secret of time travel and have adventures with Cleopatra and Elizabeth I. In a postapocalyptic dystopian future.)