Snarking Horrible Movies
Nothing like sitting in your room in your in your underwear (to better facilitate fittings) while sewing and watching GODAWFUL movies on your laptop. The best part is, if the dialogue gets wonky, you can run your machine over it and drown it out.
Here, I sarcastically lambaste these travesties.
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
When free movies appear, you don’t ask questions, you just take them. Unless, of course, it’s The Little Mermaid II. Then you ask a LOT of questions.
I was absolutely terrified of Ursula when I was a kid. Woman was flipping scary. Big Boobs. Purple. Tentacle Rape. Her sister is not as scary. Because she is not as fat. Part of the reason I was so scared of Ursula when I was a kid was because she could like, sit on you. And kill you. But this Sea Witch is about as intimidating as Michelle Pfeiffer.
Two decades or so after she has left the sea to live with possibly the most moronic prince in all of Disney history, Ariel the mermaid-turned-human has a precocious twelve year old human daughter, Melody, who cannot suppress her genetic predilection to paddle around in the ocean--despite the fact that this is expressly forbidden to her, lest she fall under the thrall of Ursula the Sea Witch’s anorexic sister.
After giving birth and raising a daughter, Ariel still looks sixteen. Everyone is sad, because when Ariel was a mermaid, she wore far less clothing. Unfortunately, this movie still does not answer my pressing childhood question, “How do mermaids pee?” I was also troubled to learn that Flounder (NOT A FLOUNDER!) went through puberty, gained weight, and asexually produced.
Watching this movie led me to conclude that A) It is made for dumb people or B) I do not do enough drugs to enjoy this kind of movie. In the opening song of the movie, schools of fish repeatedly sing the lyrics “Ariel is Coming! Ariel is Coming!”
Then, Ariel produces a baby.
Perhaps I have a dirty mind. But. ew.
The animation on this piece is very cheap and horrendous. The ocean looked beautiful in the 1989 movie, but in this film it just looks like someone was playing with render lighting effects in photoshop. The plot also makes no sense.
If manta rays could take down Crocodile Hunter why can't they take down Prince Eric? And the townspeople of the kingdom are not at all troubled by the fact that they have culturally assimilated with fish people? Also, for whatever unintentionally hilarious reason, whenever King Triton is happy, his triton (ugh) ejaculates a rainbow.
Most damnable of all: When Prince Eric brings his armada of ships to the epic battle (I’m sorry. One ship. He brings one ship. To the epic battle to end all worlds.)...he brings his DOG. Why the HELL would anyone bring their DOG? To a naval battle? (And the dog doesn’t do anything besides get rescued. Sad.)
I mean, all things considered, all disney movies have relatively improbable plot lines. Cinderella should have been tried for fraud. And Beauty and the Beast is kind of sketch, because I mean, she fell in love with him with no idea he would turn into a human again, so how was that going to work? But yeah. This movie...confused me.
Okay, honestly. I don’t know about you, but I would totally freak out if my mom came swimming up to me with a fish tail, wearing nothing but a bra made out of sea shells.
Just my two cents.
Mulan II
Mulan, I’ll have you know, actually existed. At least, records of her existence, whether legend or truth, have been around since 600 A.D. 花木蘭 did dress up like a guy to take her father’s place in the army. She retired and was only discovered when her old comrades came to visit her. The original movie was obviously Disney-ified, but had some mythological and historical truth to it.
So I don’t know what the hell happened here.
In which Ancient China seems disturbingly like modern day individualist America. Thank god for the communists. ::rolls eyes:: So apparently before Mao Zhedong, Mulan and her boytoy were the heart of China.
A good thing about Mulan is that Disney hired Asian American actors to do the voices, which was nice since otherwise most people don’t like to hire Asian American actors. The sad thing is, pretty much every single known Asian American actor at the time is in this thing. For example, Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, and Lauren Tom are arguably the most well known English speaking Asian American women in Hollywood--behind Ming Na Wen (who plays Mulan) since, at the time, Lost hadn’t come out yet. The sad thing is, I feel like while Mulan did a great job with this, Mulan II horribly stereotypes Chinese cultures.
Plot: The Mongols are coming. To avoid war, Emperor Mr. Miyagi decides to send his three daughters to wed princes in a neighboring kingdom, solidifying and alliance to repel the hordes. Mulan and her fiance Captain Shang are sent to escort them, but Mulan is morally against arranged marriage. Meanwhile, little dragon Mushu, because he is a selfish bastard, wants to break up the couple to continue his cushy lifestyle.
One thing that bugged me about the dialogue in the beginning was that whenever something weird happened, Mulan’s Father would spout some random platitude that made no sense. Because Chinese are a repository of random platitudes and metaphors. Not far from the truth, as anyone who has had to suffer through a class of Chinese 成語s can attest. But also preposterous. Americans have idioms too. And we don't blurt them out randomly. It’s not like your parents went around saying “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” or “Elvis has left the building” randomly.
Anyhow, for the mission Mulan and Shang decide to bring their three male soldier friends from the first movie along to guard the princesses. In a real life situation, this would kind of be like setting the princesses up to be raped. Of course, in this version, everyone falls in love. At least, a case of extreme Stockholm Syndrome is misinterpreted by Mulan as true love. And the princesses are encouraged to shirk their duty and run away with Mulan’s soldier friends.
I'm sorry. Was there a war?
I understand that this movie is trying to teach kids to break tradition and follow their hearts. But it just doesn’t set good examples for it. It seems to push that the American way is right and other ways are wrong, with no respect or regard for customs or traditions.
To it’s merit, there is one very good, emotionally charged scene in the movie where Mulan decides that she is too different from her boyfriend to be with him. This could have been an interesting moral to teach kids--work through your differences and you are *that much* stronger. Unfortunately, in the end apparently the differences were manufactured by Mushu and the two of them are actually clones and everything is okay! Yeah...okay. Another great scene involves Mulan and Shang dangling off a broken bridge. Shang realizes the bridge can’t support them both and lets go and falls down a chasm.
This would have been a great scene, even if you knew that they wouldn’t really kill the guy. But instead of finding a “good” way to save him, they just have him survive a 300 foot drop?!!
I think the saddest thing about this movie is that nothing in this soundtrack stands out. There’s a cute reprise of A Girl Worth Fighting For from the original movie that connects very well, but everything else, sucks. There is no “Reflection” song.
Moral of the story? If your country is being invaded. Do not do the ONE thing. That will prevent it from being invaded. Go get laid instead.
The end credits is a song called "I Want To Be Like Other Girls." Apparently, in order to be like other girls, one must give up platform shoes. My, it sucks to be a socialite.
Eragon
Oh. My. God.
I can forgive a fifteen year old for writing a slightly rehashed novel. I cannot forgive adult screenwriters for failing to improve on it. Unless the source material is really that bad. Because. Dear God.
Who'd have thought that a hatched dragon would grow up (literally) in 2 minutes, and have the telepathic voice and attitude of SUPER NANNY?
Wooden acting has cursed the land. Slow pacing and complete, utter lack of wit or charm. The film follows the exploits of a farm boy named Eragon, who looks like Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and has found a dragon egg. Along the way, he rescues a princess, gains a cocky man friend, and loses his wise old mentor. Sound familiar?
He is pursued by a feisty albino named Durza.
Admittedly, Eragon wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’d heard just terrible things...
But it was still pretty bad.
The novel itself has some pretty big detractors. A lot of people like to criticize young author Christopher Paolini because his vegan female lead, a beautiful elf, wears leather armor. Thankfully, this oversight is corrected in the movies, where instead she wears a foofy dress, and makes a gaspy orgasm face whenever she forges her telepathic bond with Eragon.
(By the way, if only Dragon Riders can use magic then how did the girl use magic?)
Other people like to criticize Paolini because his parents published his book for him, and paid for a ridiculous book tour. Normally, self published books are teh suck, but he caught the eye of Knopf, who decided to market him for his age. Some people like to criticize Paolini for being overblown and derivative, leaching off the plot of Star Wars and the world of LOTR.
I shall not criticize him for any of these things. (Enough people are doing it.) But I shall criticize him for um. Wanting to be his own character.
Eragon was an author surrogate. That is LAME. And egotarded. Shameless self insertation/promotion. That’s the difference between fan fiction and actual writing. If you want to be your protagonist you're either an egotard, or you haven't put your protagonist through enough shit. If you haven't put your protagonist through enough shit, then the stakes aren't high enough. If the stakes aren't high enough then there's no story.
Look, I'm no expert. I haven't written a bestselling fantasy novel. But even Harry Potter hates his life. No one genuinely wishes they could be Harry Potter--the kid was orphaned and Voldemort is constantly trying to kill the guy. Not even Harry Potter wants to be Harry Potter. His life sucks; that’s why the stakes are so high. And Harry Potter has tons of flaws.
Eragon is Paolini’s Tyler Durden. And it’s kind of gross. =/
Okay, well, about the movie...
"Our story begins one night," says the opening narration. Dear lord. It’s a visual movie. We can tell that it is night. Perhaps they were worried the audience would assumes that it was daylight and perhaps just extremely overcast? AND IT's the BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE. Even if it was/is in media res, the story is BEGINNING. ::dies::
Openning dialogue of the movie. Evil Emperory Galbablablah says:
"I suffer without my stone. Do not prolong my suffering."
Anyhow, the potential castrati sends his minion to retrieve his testicle. Which inexplicably hatches into a dragon. Eragon is not at all freaked out by the fact that the thing he thought was a rock is actually an egg. He then, in an attempt to guess what the thing that has hatched out of his egg is, he astutely observes that "you are not a bird."
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK.
:_:
There is a crouched sunset scene just like Luke in A New Hope. Eragon very homoerotically wrestles with his cousin, who I could have sworn was named Moron (at least that’s what it sounded like on my very low quality pirated cam). The adoptive uncle is killed and he is taken in by some old dude. At one point, his dragon flies away and, Eragon emotes about how dreadful it is that EVERYONE IS LEAVING HIM. (Do you blame them?)
A week ago Eragon didn't know what Dragon Riders were. Now he's like, "I'm the Dragon Rider, so you must listen to me!" and telling other people, "YOU AREN'T ACTING VERY DRAGON RIDER LIKE."
Murtagh, the character with Peter Petrelli hair and only character possibly more emo than Eragon, shows up and is promptly locked away to squeal "LET ME OUT LET ME OUT!" Which is sad because he might have made an interesting character. Murtagh has a scar and a mysterious past. He got it from his dad, assistant to the evil Emperor. He says it has made him who he is or whatever crap.
Uh, right. Logan Echolls could kick his ass, and Aaron didn't even have a dragon.
There is just a battle. There is no strategy. Just a lot of yelling people, and not even Gandalf the white in the end to save the day without making sense. The good guys win because...they’re the good guys.
It would have been ballsy to kill or capture the dragon. But...they don't. Nothing ballsy happens in this movie. It is very safe. I don't know, after reading George RR Martin you just can't come back to shlock like this. It's like a glorified Dungeons and Dragons game brought to life. Except there is no life in any of the characters. It’s all very wooden and dead, and the sad thing is it had the budget and the potential to be good.
I think the saddest thing about these three movies is that they really had the chance to be good. They had the financial backing and the talent. I mean, Eragon even had John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons. But instead, all three vehicles come off as derivative. It was like watching really bad fan fiction play out on screen. And sewing, of course.
Here, I sarcastically lambaste these travesties.
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
When free movies appear, you don’t ask questions, you just take them. Unless, of course, it’s The Little Mermaid II. Then you ask a LOT of questions.
I was absolutely terrified of Ursula when I was a kid. Woman was flipping scary. Big Boobs. Purple. Tentacle Rape. Her sister is not as scary. Because she is not as fat. Part of the reason I was so scared of Ursula when I was a kid was because she could like, sit on you. And kill you. But this Sea Witch is about as intimidating as Michelle Pfeiffer.
Two decades or so after she has left the sea to live with possibly the most moronic prince in all of Disney history, Ariel the mermaid-turned-human has a precocious twelve year old human daughter, Melody, who cannot suppress her genetic predilection to paddle around in the ocean--despite the fact that this is expressly forbidden to her, lest she fall under the thrall of Ursula the Sea Witch’s anorexic sister.
After giving birth and raising a daughter, Ariel still looks sixteen. Everyone is sad, because when Ariel was a mermaid, she wore far less clothing. Unfortunately, this movie still does not answer my pressing childhood question, “How do mermaids pee?” I was also troubled to learn that Flounder (NOT A FLOUNDER!) went through puberty, gained weight, and asexually produced.
Watching this movie led me to conclude that A) It is made for dumb people or B) I do not do enough drugs to enjoy this kind of movie. In the opening song of the movie, schools of fish repeatedly sing the lyrics “Ariel is Coming! Ariel is Coming!”
Then, Ariel produces a baby.
Perhaps I have a dirty mind. But. ew.
The animation on this piece is very cheap and horrendous. The ocean looked beautiful in the 1989 movie, but in this film it just looks like someone was playing with render lighting effects in photoshop. The plot also makes no sense.
If manta rays could take down Crocodile Hunter why can't they take down Prince Eric? And the townspeople of the kingdom are not at all troubled by the fact that they have culturally assimilated with fish people? Also, for whatever unintentionally hilarious reason, whenever King Triton is happy, his triton (ugh) ejaculates a rainbow.
Most damnable of all: When Prince Eric brings his armada of ships to the epic battle (I’m sorry. One ship. He brings one ship. To the epic battle to end all worlds.)...he brings his DOG. Why the HELL would anyone bring their DOG? To a naval battle? (And the dog doesn’t do anything besides get rescued. Sad.)
I mean, all things considered, all disney movies have relatively improbable plot lines. Cinderella should have been tried for fraud. And Beauty and the Beast is kind of sketch, because I mean, she fell in love with him with no idea he would turn into a human again, so how was that going to work? But yeah. This movie...confused me.
Okay, honestly. I don’t know about you, but I would totally freak out if my mom came swimming up to me with a fish tail, wearing nothing but a bra made out of sea shells.
Just my two cents.
Mulan II
Mulan, I’ll have you know, actually existed. At least, records of her existence, whether legend or truth, have been around since 600 A.D. 花木蘭 did dress up like a guy to take her father’s place in the army. She retired and was only discovered when her old comrades came to visit her. The original movie was obviously Disney-ified, but had some mythological and historical truth to it.
So I don’t know what the hell happened here.
In which Ancient China seems disturbingly like modern day individualist America. Thank god for the communists. ::rolls eyes:: So apparently before Mao Zhedong, Mulan and her boytoy were the heart of China.
A good thing about Mulan is that Disney hired Asian American actors to do the voices, which was nice since otherwise most people don’t like to hire Asian American actors. The sad thing is, pretty much every single known Asian American actor at the time is in this thing. For example, Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, and Lauren Tom are arguably the most well known English speaking Asian American women in Hollywood--behind Ming Na Wen (who plays Mulan) since, at the time, Lost hadn’t come out yet. The sad thing is, I feel like while Mulan did a great job with this, Mulan II horribly stereotypes Chinese cultures.
Plot: The Mongols are coming. To avoid war, Emperor Mr. Miyagi decides to send his three daughters to wed princes in a neighboring kingdom, solidifying and alliance to repel the hordes. Mulan and her fiance Captain Shang are sent to escort them, but Mulan is morally against arranged marriage. Meanwhile, little dragon Mushu, because he is a selfish bastard, wants to break up the couple to continue his cushy lifestyle.
One thing that bugged me about the dialogue in the beginning was that whenever something weird happened, Mulan’s Father would spout some random platitude that made no sense. Because Chinese are a repository of random platitudes and metaphors. Not far from the truth, as anyone who has had to suffer through a class of Chinese 成語s can attest. But also preposterous. Americans have idioms too. And we don't blurt them out randomly. It’s not like your parents went around saying “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” or “Elvis has left the building” randomly.
Anyhow, for the mission Mulan and Shang decide to bring their three male soldier friends from the first movie along to guard the princesses. In a real life situation, this would kind of be like setting the princesses up to be raped. Of course, in this version, everyone falls in love. At least, a case of extreme Stockholm Syndrome is misinterpreted by Mulan as true love. And the princesses are encouraged to shirk their duty and run away with Mulan’s soldier friends.
I'm sorry. Was there a war?
I understand that this movie is trying to teach kids to break tradition and follow their hearts. But it just doesn’t set good examples for it. It seems to push that the American way is right and other ways are wrong, with no respect or regard for customs or traditions.
To it’s merit, there is one very good, emotionally charged scene in the movie where Mulan decides that she is too different from her boyfriend to be with him. This could have been an interesting moral to teach kids--work through your differences and you are *that much* stronger. Unfortunately, in the end apparently the differences were manufactured by Mushu and the two of them are actually clones and everything is okay! Yeah...okay. Another great scene involves Mulan and Shang dangling off a broken bridge. Shang realizes the bridge can’t support them both and lets go and falls down a chasm.
This would have been a great scene, even if you knew that they wouldn’t really kill the guy. But instead of finding a “good” way to save him, they just have him survive a 300 foot drop?!!
I think the saddest thing about this movie is that nothing in this soundtrack stands out. There’s a cute reprise of A Girl Worth Fighting For from the original movie that connects very well, but everything else, sucks. There is no “Reflection” song.
Moral of the story? If your country is being invaded. Do not do the ONE thing. That will prevent it from being invaded. Go get laid instead.
The end credits is a song called "I Want To Be Like Other Girls." Apparently, in order to be like other girls, one must give up platform shoes. My, it sucks to be a socialite.
Eragon
Oh. My. God.
I can forgive a fifteen year old for writing a slightly rehashed novel. I cannot forgive adult screenwriters for failing to improve on it. Unless the source material is really that bad. Because. Dear God.
Who'd have thought that a hatched dragon would grow up (literally) in 2 minutes, and have the telepathic voice and attitude of SUPER NANNY?
Wooden acting has cursed the land. Slow pacing and complete, utter lack of wit or charm. The film follows the exploits of a farm boy named Eragon, who looks like Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and has found a dragon egg. Along the way, he rescues a princess, gains a cocky man friend, and loses his wise old mentor. Sound familiar?
He is pursued by a feisty albino named Durza.
Admittedly, Eragon wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’d heard just terrible things...
But it was still pretty bad.
The novel itself has some pretty big detractors. A lot of people like to criticize young author Christopher Paolini because his vegan female lead, a beautiful elf, wears leather armor. Thankfully, this oversight is corrected in the movies, where instead she wears a foofy dress, and makes a gaspy orgasm face whenever she forges her telepathic bond with Eragon.
(By the way, if only Dragon Riders can use magic then how did the girl use magic?)
Other people like to criticize Paolini because his parents published his book for him, and paid for a ridiculous book tour. Normally, self published books are teh suck, but he caught the eye of Knopf, who decided to market him for his age. Some people like to criticize Paolini for being overblown and derivative, leaching off the plot of Star Wars and the world of LOTR.
I shall not criticize him for any of these things. (Enough people are doing it.) But I shall criticize him for um. Wanting to be his own character.
Eragon was an author surrogate. That is LAME. And egotarded. Shameless self insertation/promotion. That’s the difference between fan fiction and actual writing. If you want to be your protagonist you're either an egotard, or you haven't put your protagonist through enough shit. If you haven't put your protagonist through enough shit, then the stakes aren't high enough. If the stakes aren't high enough then there's no story.
Look, I'm no expert. I haven't written a bestselling fantasy novel. But even Harry Potter hates his life. No one genuinely wishes they could be Harry Potter--the kid was orphaned and Voldemort is constantly trying to kill the guy. Not even Harry Potter wants to be Harry Potter. His life sucks; that’s why the stakes are so high. And Harry Potter has tons of flaws.
Eragon is Paolini’s Tyler Durden. And it’s kind of gross. =/
Okay, well, about the movie...
"Our story begins one night," says the opening narration. Dear lord. It’s a visual movie. We can tell that it is night. Perhaps they were worried the audience would assumes that it was daylight and perhaps just extremely overcast? AND IT's the BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE. Even if it was/is in media res, the story is BEGINNING. ::dies::
Openning dialogue of the movie. Evil Emperory Galbablablah says:
"I suffer without my stone. Do not prolong my suffering."
Anyhow, the potential castrati sends his minion to retrieve his testicle. Which inexplicably hatches into a dragon. Eragon is not at all freaked out by the fact that the thing he thought was a rock is actually an egg. He then, in an attempt to guess what the thing that has hatched out of his egg is, he astutely observes that "you are not a bird."
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK.
:_:
There is a crouched sunset scene just like Luke in A New Hope. Eragon very homoerotically wrestles with his cousin, who I could have sworn was named Moron (at least that’s what it sounded like on my very low quality pirated cam). The adoptive uncle is killed and he is taken in by some old dude. At one point, his dragon flies away and, Eragon emotes about how dreadful it is that EVERYONE IS LEAVING HIM. (Do you blame them?)
- Eragon: Why would a dragon choose me for it’s rider? I am just a lowly farm boy?
Me: GOOD QUESTION.
Eragon: How does a dragon choose it’s rider?
Me: Inventive, strategic, military prowess?
Saphira the Dragon: Nope.
Me: Myriads of skirmish experience?
Saphira the Dragon: Nah.
Me: Wisdom?
Saphira the Dragon: Oh, posh.
Me: Emotional maturity, then? Devastating good looks? Stunning intellect?
Saphira the Dragon: Eragon, a dragon chooses it’s rider for his HEART.
Eragon: Oh WOW. ::beams::
Me:...oh. okay then.
*Eragon and Saphira huggle*
Me: Then why the hell did a dragon pick evil GalbaEmperor!?!?!
A week ago Eragon didn't know what Dragon Riders were. Now he's like, "I'm the Dragon Rider, so you must listen to me!" and telling other people, "YOU AREN'T ACTING VERY DRAGON RIDER LIKE."
- Obi-Wan: Don't talk to strangers.
Eragon: *promptly goes and talks to strangers*
Fortune Teller: Someone close to you is going to die. Real soon.
Eragon: Oh.
Obi-Wan: DAMN YOU ERAGON!!!!
Murtagh, the character with Peter Petrelli hair and only character possibly more emo than Eragon, shows up and is promptly locked away to squeal "LET ME OUT LET ME OUT!" Which is sad because he might have made an interesting character. Murtagh has a scar and a mysterious past. He got it from his dad, assistant to the evil Emperor. He says it has made him who he is or whatever crap.
Uh, right. Logan Echolls could kick his ass, and Aaron didn't even have a dragon.
There is just a battle. There is no strategy. Just a lot of yelling people, and not even Gandalf the white in the end to save the day without making sense. The good guys win because...they’re the good guys.
It would have been ballsy to kill or capture the dragon. But...they don't. Nothing ballsy happens in this movie. It is very safe. I don't know, after reading George RR Martin you just can't come back to shlock like this. It's like a glorified Dungeons and Dragons game brought to life. Except there is no life in any of the characters. It’s all very wooden and dead, and the sad thing is it had the budget and the potential to be good.
I think the saddest thing about these three movies is that they really had the chance to be good. They had the financial backing and the talent. I mean, Eragon even had John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons. But instead, all three vehicles come off as derivative. It was like watching really bad fan fiction play out on screen. And sewing, of course.