Tuesday's Trailer of the Week

Let’s talk about everyone’s favorite Asgardian returning to the big screen. Yes, Loki is back with Marvel’s latest trailer for “Thor: Ragnorok” and looking better than ever. Despite only having a few seconds worth of screen time the Hiddleston fangirls are sure be flooding the theaters November 3rd to catch a glimpse of the lovable anti-hero.

In all seriousness, the new trailer dons the return of “Thor” who, except for a brief cameo at the end of “Dr. Strange” we have not seen since “Avenger’s Age of Ultron”. This time, our hammer wielding hero may not be using Mjolnir for a while as one of the opening scenes shows a very intimidating female catching the hammer in one hand and then shattering it.

From what I could depict from the trailer, the story is going to revolve around Thor and his journey back to Asgard as it is being destroyed/ attacked from outside forces. This will involve him being captured and sent to a battle arena (run by Jeff Goldbloom alien, although I’m surprised at my lack of surprise at this?) where he will run in with the other missing Avenger, the "Incredible Hulk" resulting in a line that has no doubt already been made into a meme on Tumblr.

While the trailer was successful in getting, me interested in the movie, I can’t help but feel like there's something off. And I think it has to do with the music. One of the trademarks of the “Marvel” franchise has been to establish a certain  genre of music with each of their heroes. “Iron Man” was classic rock including bands like “Black Sabbath” and “Led Zeppelin” already giving you an auditory glimpse into the personality of Tony Stark. In “Captain America: The First Avenger” jazz and similar types of band music gave the audience a feel for time and emphasized the patriotism that “Captain America” is known for. The 70’s pop used in “Guardians of the Galaxy” allowed the audience to be grounded in an otherwise fantastic setting and allowed the viewers to become invested in the main character. The first two “Thor” movies had an almost Hanz Zimmer feel to them, elevating the setting to a grand and epic scale in sync with its fantasy backdrop. In this trailer however they use the song “Immigrant” by Led Zeppelin and despite the Norse mythology within the lyrics it doesn't seem to help with the character, plot or setting of the film. It feels more like someone was listening to the song and thought since it talks about Asgard that it would be perfect for the trailer. I have nothing against the song, but I feel that it was misplaced for a “Thor” trailer and was rather a sour note in an otherwise melodic symphony.

I’m still looking forward to the movie and am excited to see Thor, the Hulk, and Loki together again and hopefully the music of the movie will return to being the perfect backdrop for the fantastic story that Marvel has in store for us.I just pray that the Loki fans will not become rabid in the meantime. #TheStruggleIsREEL!

How to Fix the "Good Dinosaur"

Welcome to Cinema Struggle, where the struggle is reel…you get it? Cause you know movie reel...*clear throat* moving on.

Let’s be honest guys, we haven’t been getting the best movies as of a late. This past summer has got to be one of the most disappointing summers for the box office in a long while. Between increasingly bad D.C. movies that make us wonder why we keep getting our hopes up in the first place, to even some movies that weren’t that bad, such as “Finding Dory” and “Star Trek Beyond” that seemed to drown when coming out around the same time as “Independence Day Resurgence”, “Alice Through the Looking Glass”, “Ghostbusters” and *shudder* “Batman v. Superman”. But the truth is that we can learn just as much if not more from bad movies as we can the good ones. We can learn from the mistakes these stories made so that when we try to tell them again in the future we will have a greater chance of success. What do I mean? Well, let’s start with our first example. Ladies and gents, Cinema Struggle proudly presents, “How to Fix the Good Dinosaur”.

So, let’s start with the elephant in the room, or in this case, the dinosaur. Our story follows a young Brachiosaurus named Arlo who is the runt of his family but wants to be able to make his literal mark as his other family members have earned. Through an unfortunate set of circumstances Arlo gets separated from his family and with the help of a little Neanderthal whom he affectionately names Spot, attempts to brave the big dangerous world and return home. On paper this seems like a basic adventure story that companies such as Disney and Pixar should be able to pull off quite well. But if there’s one thing that can sink any movie faster than the S.S. Minnow it’s an unlikable protagonist.

Arlo doesn’t do anything wrong per-se, but he is awfully whiny. Add a pre-pubescent voice actor and poorly written lines and it’s going to be incredibly difficult to like your hero. Hero’s don’t always have to be great people, but the audience must relate to them on some level, and want them to succeed. With Arlo being afraid of anything and everything (with varying inconsistencies) it emphasizes how whiny he sounds. About an hour through this you start hoping that the terrifying pterodactyls eat him. Yeah, that bad.

There is a simple way to fix this and it makes Arlo far more likable. We see at the beginning of the film that despite being a large egg, Arlo was the runt of the family. Being a small dinosaur, Arlo struggles against a world that is out to eat the little guys and he desperately wants to make his mark as his bigger and stronger brother and sister have. But for some reason the writers make him afraid of almost everything. Either one of these are natural conflicts that real children and even adults can relate to. Everyone struggles with finding their place in life and there are a lot of people who are afraid of everything the world has in store. But the combination of these conflicts leave little to no room for and good qualities to show off in our protagonist. We’re spending so much time focusing on everything Arlo isn’t rather than seeing what he is.

But what if instead the writers had made him the runt and have him try to do things the “big” way like his brother, sister, and parents do. We would see him struggle trying to overcome his size and not being able to complete the challenges the same way the rest of his family could. We could then have the same relationship story between him and his father as his father tries to help him realize that being small doesn’t have to be a terrible thing and needs to learn how to do things his way. Then when Arlo is forced to make his journey with the human Spot, he could then see how Spot deals with the world despite being much smaller than most of the other dinosaurs. There is even a scene in the movie with characters that I enjoyed that are cowboy Tyrannosaurus Rex and they could have a conversation about how they have jobs that, despite being very small, they should find a way to adjust because of their large size. This scene would become more touching and would help Arlo to truly overcome his challenges while becoming a well-rounded and relatable character. By focusing on overcoming his size, rather than a fear of everything would make his struggle more relatable as many of us must overcome physical nature and sometimes have to learn to adapt them. This would even play into a traditional theme of nature itself or adaption, migration, or death giving a traditional “Pixar” spin to the movie that we have come to know and appreciate.

With a few changes to a character’s motivation you can make a protagonist go from whiny and annoying, to sympathetic and gain a desire to watch them overcome their struggles. So, for other writers out there looking to give their character’s relatable flaws, I would recommend looking closely at your story and what type of journey you want your character to go through. Giving them several weaknesses to work through does not necessarily make them understandable, and in fact can distance them from the audience if you fail to show off their strengths. I would go as far to say that if you character one flaw and focus on how that effects their everyday life, the journey to overcome it will be far more impressive.

And that was how to fix Disney and Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur” I hope you were able to learn something and enjoyed my take on the story. If you have any suggestions for my next “How to Fix” leave a suggestion in the comments. #TheStruggleIsREEL!

Tuesday's Trailer of the Week

So while I was trying to get rid of my recent rediscovery of my coulrophobia (fear of clowns) with the recent "It" trailer, I came across "Blue Sky"s newest gem. "Ferdinand" will be the latest adaptation of the classic children's story "Ferdinand the Bull" written in 1936 by author Munro Leaf about a bull who rather than competing in matador fights, was kind hearted and wanted only to stop and smell the flowers. John Cena lends his voice to the gentle bull alongside the voice talents of Kate Mckinnon, David Tennant, and Daveed Diggs (Hamilton).

What surprised me the most from this short trailer was that unlike many of the more recent animations is comical without the use of crude humor that franchieses like "Despicable Me", "Boss Baby" , and "Smurfs" have given us lately. There were a couple of scenes that made me chuckle but it was due to comedic situations that flowed naturally from the characters.

If you find yourself looking for a movie other than "Disney" to take your family to see come December, I would say definitely look for this. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to watch this again to get Pennywise's creepy voice out of my head. #TheStruggleIsREEL!

Can we fix this???

Flash and Supergirl Crossover Review

Let’s talk about musicals. Specifically, when a T.V. series decides that they have enough decent singers on their show to pull off a musical episode. These episodes are not your average episodes so episodes on shows like “Glee” or “Smash” don’t really count as musical episodes rather they are a musical series. Some of the more successful musical episodes have been “Psych the Musical” from “Psych,” “Song Beneath the Song” from “Grey’s Anatomy”, and of course “Once More with Feeling” from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.  Usually the stories of the episodes follow one of two paths. The story is either completely comical with a little serious characterization here and there like in the “Psych” episode or it’s a serious episode with a few humorous moments thrown in due to the comedic situation such as the episodes for “Grey’s Anatomy” and Buffy. Yet in one of the most bizarre ways possible the musical crossover episode between “Flash” and “Supergirl” entitled “Duet” attempts to do both.

The story follows Flash and Supergirl being trapped in a sort of a dream dimension by the Music Miester, played by fellow “Glee” cast member Daren Criss. The Music Miester wants to teach our two superheroes a lesson about love by having them play out a little musical for him. Both Flash and Supergirl have been having relationship struggles and the Music Miester intends for them to work through these issues…in a 1920s-night club…with alternate versions of their friends and family…what? And this is where the story starts to really lose me. You have these large casts of characters who can sing and you limit them inside a sort of dream… trying to help our two characters solve their love life with the help of our not-really villain. Personally, I just don’t think it flows as well as they would like.

The original songs were well written, including a very comical “Superfriends” and an emotional finale “Running Home to You”. The cast performed both vocally and physically well with wonderful melodies and fun choreography and the visuals were very creative. However, if you lack a cohesive story in this type of episode, it can make the episode hard to swallow. (I will probably post a theory later as to what I think could have worked for the episode later.)

Overall though, my impression of the episode was fun. The cast and crew clearly had fun while working on the episode and I had fun watching it and I get the impression that many others did too. My favorite song would have to be the “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” number with Jeremy Jordon, Carlos Valdes, Darren Criss, and John Barrowman.

 The song was filled with so much energy that even the Flash couldn’t help but move to the groove. The story was a little clunky but it was enjoyable and a good way to show off a musically talented cast.

For now though, I'm going to watch the guys of "Flash" do their acappella cover of the "Firefly" theme song about 20 more times.#TheStruggleIsREEL!