MAYvel 2021 (Streaming Edition!); The Falcon and The Winter Soldier: And you thought Black Panther was political

 With 2020 causing all the cinemas to shut, and movie schedules are still up in the air when it comes to getting a theatrical release, the world turned to streaming services, and for this MAYvel, so will I. No movies this year, instead it's all about the shows on Disney +. Two that are directly connected to the MCU, and two that are... well, they're there... maybe... kind of waiting on Ms Marvel to see what they're doing with them. Anyway, let's look at the newest of the shows, while it might still be possible to cash in on Google's Algorithm. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. 

 
While Wandavision (next week) was focused more on the after-effects of Endgame on a smaller scale, Wanda's reaction to what happened, Falcon and Winter Soldier focuses on the significant scale effects of Endgame. The world is a mess; refugees worldwide are without a home, thanks to all the people who disappeared after Infinity War returning and continuing as nothing had happened. Borders are returning, and because of this, a political extremist group known as the Flag Smashers is out to try and return the world to the way it was in the five years between Infinity War and Endgame. "One World, One People." What makes this group more intimidating when compared to similar organizations in the real world is that many of its members have been given a working version of the Super Soldier Serum, and have the powers of Captain America. There is one main difference, though, their physical bodies don't change in size, compared to Steve Rogers transformation in the first Captain America movie. What happens, though, in the chase to try and stop the Flag Smashers is a mix of parties with conflicting agendas. Sam and Bucky work alongside Barron Zemo (the main villain from Captain America: Civil War), which results in Wakanda sending in the Dora Milaje to recapture Zemo he killed King T'Chaka. The American Government promotes John Walker and turns him into the new Captain America, who, alongside his friend Battlestar, is trying to capture the Flag Smashers and the Serum. Zemo wants to destroy the serum. Another villain, MCU "newcomer" the Power Broker, who initially funded the creation of the new serum, wants to regain their lost property from the Flag Smashers, and that's all for the A Plot of the series. There's a lot of stuff in these six episodes. They're dense with story, and yet this mess of plot threads are held together, thanks to the B Plot. 

 

The B plot of the show focuses on Sam and his journey into becoming the new Captain America, as was Steve's intention in Endgame when Sam was given the shield. However, it isn't without its hurdles, thanks to John Walker having the shield and sinking further into madness resulting in him killing a Flag-Smasher, instead of the original intent of arresting them, in broad daylight, on international soil, with the shield. Encase that wasn't enough of a political message forced down your throat, we also learn of the darker history of the shield after Steve was frozen in the ice. These story threads are where the comparison to Black Panther is inevitably created. While that depicted a fantastic version of Africa, a city free of colonization in the form of Wakanda, this show tackles racism in America head-on to Isaiah Bradley. While his story is slightly toned down for the series, the only thing different between his comic book history and his MCU history was that he was a trial run in the comics before they gave it to Steve.

 

In contrast, here, he was already frozen, and they were trying to recreate it. While the exact specifics aren't something I can personally attest to, due to what minor differences there are between the racism of America and the racism here in Australia, this still hits hard because of the situation. The show is very respectful to the character and doesn't hold back in showing how badly black people were treated then, and even how bad black people are treated now as Sam himself interacts with racist people on screen. This series was initially meant to air in August last year, and I can't help but wonder how the previous year's events would have impacted how people view this character as the racial tension due to George Floyd's death would have only been two months old by then. 

 

The production values are surprisingly consistent, considering this was in post-production during COVID Lockdowns. It's what you'd expect from a Marvel movie. However, I will give an honourable mention to Madripoor. It's probably one of the most exciting places they've made for a Marvel production so far that doesn't lean heavily on the sci-fi aesthetic (compared to somewhere like Wakanda or Sakkar). The translation of Sam's Captain America costume from the comics to real life is also very impressive. It's a great looking costume, and I appreciate the white accents to break up the blue, compared to something like Steve's costumes from the movies, which look very monotone in retrospect. But, with how similar MCU projects are in terms of presentation (there have been 25MCU movies and two canonical shows. I think you can get a good idea as to how these things look and sound), I'll be ending the review of it here. This show was a great watch, thanks to the character interactions and how the world around the characters interacts with them. Would I recommend binging them now that all six episodes are out? No, these do feel catered to the release schedule Disney + has, that being one a week (most of the time). The show is worth a watch, though, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens next for these characters in the MCU.
 
The Mediaholics Toybox is joining in on the MAYvel fun this year with Marvel Legends reviews. For those interested in that, you can check them out at any time, with new ones going live on Sundays. In the meantime, I'll see you next week for Wandavision.

Frozen 2: At least they kinda broke the trend of sequals sucking?

Remember when the idea of Disney making sequels was code for "this is going to suck, don't buy it!"? These things were seen as absolute disasters, cheap cash grabs that only exist to capitalize on direct to home media. While they've certainly improved on this, my guess is that the Frozen Shorts were akin to the traditional Disney Sequels, acting as placeholders until this movie came out, and got rushed to Disney+ when the DVD and Blu-Ray sales were going to tank due to the lockdown. Was the 6 year wait worth it though?

Disney Afternoon Marathon; Ducktales (2017): Season 3 Excluded

While a large part of the delay has been real-world stuff, it's hard to think with a phone going off every few minutes, the other reason for the delay has been to try and include the opening of Season 3 into the review as well. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened, so if you're wondering what my thoughts are on those episodes, you won't find them here. Around September 2017, I did a review of the opening few episodes of the reboot to Ducktales, something that I was really impressed with as it looked to encompass the feeling of the original show, while also modernizing it with some slice of life elements, a making some needed improvements to the cast (but to be fair, anything is an improvement over Scrooge, Launchpad, the red one, the blue one, the green one, the girl one, and the old lady). With the allure of the mystery of Della Duck, the promise of Magika DeSpell, and more including a third season that is taking as much of the Disney Afternoon as it can possibly fit (and didn't already use), this review is more of an addendum to the first. Did it keep up the momentum? Is it worth the watch now that more episodes are out and we're all killing time while we wait for the world to return to something resembling what it used to be?

Disney Afternoon Marathon; Goof Troop: Oh scrap, we're in peek 90's now!

Before getting started, I do have to make a quick announcement. Due to the state of the world right now, I've revived a Patreon account to try and ease the blow that is basically the world shutting down due to the Coronavirus. It has affected me pretty hard, due to my main work being Events Operations, so if you do enjoy the work that I do (which should be coming out more consistently due to all the extra free time I have), and you are in a position where you can help, please support me on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/mediaholics), and hopefully, the state of the world isn't like this for too long. If you start seeing an influx of older toys, older shows, movies, games, etc in the coming months from both sites, this is the reason why. Anyway...

 When things weren't all about dark, edgy, moody, and all the depressing tropes of the '90s, they were about "Kewl" (I cannot believe Grammarly didn't want to autocorrect that to Cool) kids and their dorky parents, with all the companies trying to stay relevant by catering to the kids wanting to be hip and radical. Disney, was no exception to this, and while there are other examples of the Disney Afternoon trying to do that (Quack Pack), there is only so much '90's I can take in one shot, so we're looking at Goof Troop.

Compared to the other shows reviewed for this marathon, Goof Troop is more of a slice of life comedy. No big villains, no saving the world, heck the first episode is just about Goofy and his son Max moving to a new house. The thing is though that taking Goofy and Pete, and giving them a supporting cast that is designed to play off of their personalities, it's going to lead to many comedic, borderline chaotic situations. Even something as mundane as studying for a test has a comedic edge to it, albeit in a cruel way, as Pete's aggressive parenting that takes all the tropes of what a child thinks of an overbearing parent and drastically amplifies it, combined with Max's drastic tutoring technique traumatizes Pete's oldest child P.J and makes him afraid of chocolate bars and eggs. It's just a delight to see and watch, similar to the Loony Toons when WB tried to put them into a more domesticated setting.

A part of what makes this work so well is the writing and the comedic timing. As much as a groan at the Slice of life shows made by Disney, focusing on the child while the parents are either embarrassing and overbearing, the jokes help sell this for me. One of the ones that sold the show for me was when Goofy was telling Max that he doesn't need to fish in the sink anymore, something I was confused about as their caravan looked to be near a lake. Turns out that was a fake background hung between two buildings. That's just amazing in terms of stupidity.

Visually, I'm not a fan of this. The backgrounds and character designs look really ugly when compared to almost every other cartoon I've seen (not Flash animation bad, but certainly bad by a lot of). But that being said, the character movements are great, and fun to watch, like all the budget, went into them, which I'm not against, but it's a shame that the backgrounds were this badly hit, at least early on in the season. Compared to the other Disney Afternoon shows I've watched though, the lack of quality in the backgrounds is really jarring, even if it's only a minor thing in the grand scheme of things in order to make the character animations better.

I guess my expectations were low for this one, due to previous experience with Disney's (or rather Disney Channel's) Slice of Life shows, but I really enjoyed this one. It's a SoL that still remembers it's a cartoon and mixes the comedy that comes with it into the stories. While we're all stuck inside anyway, it's worth a watch, and is a nice way to cap off the Disney Afternoon Marathon for the site... well, at least the shows that aired in the Disney Afternoon, because I have one more show to review.

Disney Afternoon Marathon; Talespin: Ok, who got into the Disney Coke supply again?

Honestly, that's the best way I can describe this show's pitch. Why? How else do you describe the logical thinking behind taking characters from The Jungle Book, and making a show all about the cargo delivery service? I know I haven't seen the animated Jungle Book in around 2 decades, but to my knowledge, Baloo wasn't a pilot.

I mean, in terms of execution, it's fine for a slice of life show, but aside from questioning how it came to be, that's unfortunatenly not the only issue the show has. With the exception of Shere Kahn and the new Sky Pirates, I wasn't a fan of the cast as a whole, especially Molly. Normally I base these reviews on early episodes, giving somewhere between 5 and 10 episodes to get a feel on how the show gets going. I won't lie, after the episode with Kit as Molly's babysitter, I started skipping over any episode that had Molly in the title. It's rare that I hate a character that much in that little time, but after that episode, she just constantly came off as "Ok, you're going to be the little, little kid stereotype. That's all you're going to be, moving on". What doesn't help at all is that after seeing Gossolin in Darkwing Duck, a kid character done right in my opinion, and the fact that the other kid character, Kit, doesn't really cancel out the problems I have with Molly, as he comes off more as someone who's just there for the ride.

Another issue I have is that it felt like a lot of the episode premises and gags rely on a lack of information, or just Baloo being a jerk to those around him. Though he has his moments when he's pulling off something clever, I don't get the same thrill from it compared to if I was watching something like Recess (better saved for another review as I don't recall reviewing it yet?). It makes the show hard to watch for me, because while the animation and score is nice (it's hard to find faults in the animation in a show made by a company founded on pushing animation as a cinematic art). It's just hard to find things in the show that I like, or feel like they're connected to the source. Everything feels like it was in a rush, to try and justify making a show about their (at the time, I'm not sure about nowadays) most financially successful movies. Hopefully fresh blood, and a new setting helps show the positives of the cast when the new season of Ducktales starts airing in April? This just makes me glad that I'm not coving some of the less favorable shows in this marathon. See you next week for Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers I guess....

Disney Afternoon Marathon; Darkwing Duck: Back when parodying superheroes was more unique

Computer: Functional again. Wi-Fi: About as stable as my network currently gets (hopefully being fixed soon?). Country: Looks like it's still on fire but it's back to being manageable. Ankle's healed, writer's block is gone, I think it's finally time to review content again!... About bloody time...

With the Ducktales Reboot teasing at the cast expanding greatly for the upcoming season, drawing more inspiration from the cartoons that ran in the same programming block that the original show aired in, I thought it might be fitting to review some of those older cartoons, especially now that it's very easy to view them. Yeah my first review of actual Disney+ content is a bunch of cartoons from the '80s-'90s and not The Mandalorian (maybe May 4th). While I could start off with something like Gummy Bears, I figure it would be fitting to start with the show refferenced the most in the Reboot, even bringing in the newest incarnation of the terror that flaps in the night, Darkwing Duck.

In a general sense, Darkwing Duck is a villain of the week superhero parody. Imagine if Will Arnet's Batman was in his own TV show basically, and you have Darkwing Duck in a nutshell. It works for a general set up, but if you're expecting something deeper then that, you're better off looking somewhere else.  Though the villains can be hit and miss at times, what works well in the show is the way the characters play off each other, something that helps bring out the best in Superhero parodies. The perfect example of this being DW and Gosalyn. Those two work off of each other perfectly, and are probably the best Parent/ Child relationship that I've seen when it comes to Disney... though considering most of my experience comes from their live-action tweenage girl shows that my sister was watching, that might not be saying much...

Due to Darkwing clearly drawing inspiration from Batman, I can't help but compare the show to Batman the Animated Series, and in terms of animation, I don't think DW matches it. Though it still looks nice, and actions have a clear weight to them in the animation and sound design, the darker colours of Batman TAS makes the action scenes look more exciting and interesting. Darkwing's animating gives off more of a Looney Toons vibe, which helps make it distinct, but again, I don't think it is a favourable comparison for DW, as the Loony Toons do it a lot better. Does this mean that I hate the animation in DW? No, I think it looks good and works for the show itself. But coming from someone who saw the show when he's 24? I can't help but compare it to works I've seen before it and works that I think do it better.

Is Darkwing Duck a bad show? No, not at all, I can see why it has it's fans, and it's something I'll probably revisit at some point. The biggest problem I have with it is my own personal baggage, the past experiences I have with shows like it. Is it a Disney+ seller? No, not a hope in hell mostly because the Darkwing Duck fans probably already have the DVD's of the show (if they even exist). But it's still a good show, one at least worth experiencing. Up next on the marathon, one of the more... out there pitches that got turned into a show, Tailspin.

Disney+: Not a review of Mandelorian

That will probably happen sometime in 2020.

It should come as no surprise that the Streaming wars have now well and truly started. Many large companies are either making their own services or partnering with other companies either with their own or working on their own, to try and give you everything you want at the minor cost of never actually owning any of their content again, data collection, and a small monthly fee on top of it. Though Australia has had Netflix for a while, and a collection of homegrown services like Stan to fill in the void created by other providers not bringing their content here, that does look to change thanks to the launch of platforms like Apple TV+, Disney+, and upcoming ones like Hulu and potentially HBO Max. Though reviews of these services may come in time, I can at least review this one, as it was staring me in the face every day I went to work for a few weeks around the launch. So while I'm housebound anyway, may as well take a look at something slightly different this time, with my review of Disney+... that was late compared to everyone else but let's be honest, when has that ever not been an issue with this site?

(Would love a Fox category... just saying...)

Starting with the launch lineup, and while it's a very strong selection of their content, even going so far back as to include the likes of Steamboat Willie, there are some noticeable gaps are depending on the series. I found it odd that The Proud Family show was not on the service, while the movie based on the show was. Same with the Muppets, the Muppet movies are here, but not the original show. At the same time though, there are many region-specific variations. By the looks of it, Australia was actually in a pretty good spot, as some movies being held up in licencing in the US are available here. As I couldn't find many sources very easily, I went through the CNet video on Youtube, going through the few placeholder spots they've found on the US version, and saw that all of them were available here. Something tells me that it's because of places like here in Australia that the placeholder icons are on the US platform, with messages like "Coming June 2021".At the same time, there were holes inside shows themselves, one glaring one to me being the two-part pilot of Ducktales 2017 when I went to do a quick check of it

There are however some issues on the more technical side of the platform. For the purpose of this review, I mostly focused on the web browser form of Disney+, as it allows me to get screenshots more easily. With this though, I noticed some performance issues, as the site appears to be very CPU and RAM dependent, at times burning through almost half of my computer's CPU when trying to play Avengers Endgame. Comparing this to Netflix, which has been an optimized service for me so far. Other Netflix comparisons are very easy to make, and none in favour of Disney+, with things like title sorting being a complete mess at times, thanks to being undecided about calling stuff Disney's *insert title here* or just *insert title here*. No option to marathon the Marvel Cinematic Universe in order, as going to the main Marvel subsection of the service, the first eight MCU movies displayed were Avengers Endgame, Captain Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Thor Ragnarok, Captain America Civil War, Avengers Age of Ultron and then The Avengers. A massive example of this is The Simpsons, which many of the services from their last streaming platform are currently missing, including things like the ability to watch all the Treehouse of Horrors episodes in a row. Even small things like the ability to press the space button to pause or resume playing something feels like a missing feature due to it not working consistently, and I can't help but wonder why.

Like with a lot of streaming services, a constant and reliable internet connection is required for an ideal experience, and during testing, my router decided to have some problems, bringing to light how the video player handles less than ideal situations regarding connections. To put it bluntly, not very well. I had to restart Endgame several times because of network dropouts either skipping sections of the video and not letting me rewind to play it properly, or just outright giving up trying to buffer. Though I could bring up minor issues, like the rather bland loading screen of videos and the Android App (I said I mostly focused on the web browser, not entirely), and the locking of pre-made avatars that no one else will see anyway so what was the point? The thing I keep coming back to time and time again is the question of "Is it worth it?"

For archives of content? While there is plenty here, sorting through it is a problem (I'm honestly surprised National Geographic got a dedicated sub-menu but Fox didn't), the content is, at least for the most part, there. Original exclusive content is lacking, but that's something that can be built on in time, and if the archive content was weaker, this would be more of a problem for me then it is now. In terms of the overall all experience though? There is still a lot of work to do, and I'm hoping that these issues get fixed sooner rather than later. Keyboard shortcuts, consistent sorting of titles, the content holes, even minor presentation touches that I'm surprised are missing from something made by a company that is normally proud of their attention to detail. It's why I can at least recommend it on a content level, if not a service level.

Kim Possible; So the Drama: At least it's a streamlined plan compared to Xemo's

I hate writer's block...

In an attempt to get back onto a consistent release schedule before the busy period of the year comes up, I'll be skipping the show this is based on, and tackle one of the movies. Due to the popularity of the show (one of the better "teenage girl double life" stories on the Disney Channel from what I've personally seen and experienced), multiple movies were made for Kim Possible, a show focused on the title character who fight's supervillains with combat skills gained from cheerleading, along with a handful of secret gadgets, with a rogues gallery including an evil scientist, a rich old man and his son, a half-human, half-monkey that has an army of ninja monkeys, a golfer, certainly a... interesting rogues gallery to say the least, and that's not including the standard "High school students are a b*!&$" members of it. A good way to tell though what you're getting into when it comes to these kinds of shows though is to look at the movies, which tend to blow up the positives and the negatives. So, welcome to Kim Possible: So the Drama. Be grateful this isn't that live-action movie, do not even bother asking because you have to actively convince me that a live-action Disney Channel movie is good.

Fillmore!: Seriously, what doesn't this school have?

Well, aside from an interesting name. X? Really?

With Disney Plus on the looming horizon, I cannot help but wonder how big the back catalogue of content will be on the site. What gets to be there? What gets cut? Will the "Disney Vault" be opened completely, all the old content released? Or will some things be destined to never be seen again? Well, it is probably safe to say we will never see Song of the South again, but in terms of their shows, that is a tricky one. As with their animated movies, many of Disney's animated shows are still held up with a lot of praise, to the point where many view the live action reimagining’s they have been doing as a disservice to the original shows. Need I say more than that Kim Possible movie they recently aired? After the announcement that Ducktales 2017 is going to become the home of the Disney Afternoon reboots, I figured I would look into some of the animated shows of theirs I grew up with, back when Disney Channel was doing something other than setting up Tween pop-stars for a life of disaster. I've got one planned that has a larger fan base, but for now I want to tackle something more niece, back when a show could star a black guy and a girl and not be called SJW Propaganda. This is Fillmore! (Yes, the exclamation point is in the title, will not be using it for the rest of this review though).

Kingdom Hearts Marathon; Kingdom Hearts 3.... D; Dream Drop Distance: So close, yet so, so far.

Kind of a low brow moment don't you think? This was the 10th-anniversary game, and to do that painful tease of calling it Kingdom Hearts 3D?

And so, with Kingdom Hearts 3 coming out this week, it's time to look at the game that's closely tied to the events of it, including pulling another Chain of Memories and justifying why Sora's back to Level 1. Kingdom Hearts 3D, the only Kingdom Hearts game on the 3DS, and lost the whole 3D thing when it went to PS4... which would make this Kingdom Hearts 3? It makes more sense then Nomura talking about it like it's 2.6 at least. Welcome to a review of that one game where two guys overdose on sleeping tablets and played Nintendogs a lot (or Pokemon Amie, your choice).

Kingdom Hearts Marathon; Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep: With the exception of Evil Mc Wigglefingers, did anyone want to know the answers to these questions?

As much as that might sound like a joke, the best way to describe Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep's plot is to ask that question because that's all this really is. Like with all the non-numbered games, it exists to answer questions. What doesn't help this though was that it was made for the PlayStation Portable, and until relatively recently, was the only place you could play it (unless it got a PlayStation Vita port on the shop, though considering how well that did, you could make the argument that my point still stands). Thankfully though, there are other ways to play it now. So how does it improve on from Kingdom Hearts 2, and the other handheld spinoffs?

Kingdom Hearts Marathon; Kingdom Hearts 2: What happened to the rails?

One critique often made against Tetsuya Nomura is that while he's great (most of the time) at self-contained stories, he struggles to follow them up with sequels and a continuous narrative. The biggest offender of this? This very franchise, because while the individual stories are relatively strong (provided you like the story structure), trying to piece them together becomes a nightmare worse than figuring out what is and isn't canon in a comic. Allow me to give you a taste of this as we tackle the sequel to Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts 2...

Kingdom Hearts Marathon; Kingdom Hearts: Time for a trip into absolute madness

My apologies for the sparatic content last month. Work, Christmas, and what happened to my grandfather took their toll on the sites and basically killed DCember 2018. The lesson of the day kids? Make a backlog, something that I will try and commit to this year. In the meantime, with Kingdom Hearts 3 on the horizon, let's begin to tackle a game series that, against all odds, somehow exists. Welcome to the Kingdom Hearts marathon.

Disney, Final Fantasy. Two things that most sane people would not think to put into the same sentence, let alone go the distance and make a game on it, and then to go even further with at least thirteen (oh Arceus I just thought of something about that... more on that next week) games, a card game, manga and novels. along with countless other bits of merchandise. It's honestly quite baffling that this exists, especially when you consider that all of this started cause one guy happened to be in the right place at the right time, yet here we are, with one of the biggest releases of the month being the Third game, while also being the thirteenth game, so long before I get to Kingdom Hearts 3 (as I still don't have the console to play it), let's look at the first game, that's also the fifth game? I think that's right at least... or maybe it's the forth because one of those is just cutscenes based on a mobile game...Kingdom Hearts.

Star Wars; The Last Jedi: Is this better or worse then Ghostbusters 2016?

I mean that in terms of the political discussion around this film. No joke, the talk around this one has been extremely hostile ever since the movie came out. What makes it feel worse is the complete split of opinions. Critics love it, general audience members are overall mixed (unlike some people I see 50% as "meh, middle of the road", so 47% is "more people hated it, but its almost a 50/50 split"). I even know people who hated the movie, and some are calling the entire franchise dead because of this film. I think some people are even blaming these new films for the death of Toys R Us (that last one I completely disagree with for the record). Is it as bad as people say though?

Guardians of the Galaxy: Why is there going to be 7 Marvel movies next year?

Seriously, why? And yes I know they're not all MCU movies, but that's still a lot of Marvel Superheros, and that's before counting the new Lego game coming. Well, what does that mean for here? Basically, it means there's going to be quite a lot more Marvel stuff this year, as I'd rather not review 30 marvel movies in a row. Along with this review, I'm going to do the Sony Spider Man movies in July, to celebrate Homecoming. Septembers are going to become Superheroes month (however until I catch up, they're not going to be limited to September. Such as in November where I'll review the first Lego Marvel Super Heroes game to celebrate the new game. You know Holywood, too much of a good thing is an actual thing. Just saying... And please don't ask me to play catch up on something like Disney movies, I will die before I catch up to those!

Moana: "What can I say except you're welcome"

I'm not above taking the low hanging fruit, and of course I was going to use that as the title.

Something tells me that a lot of people probably never heard of Polynesia. Many, like myself, have probably heard of the two largest collection of islands in the area, being Hawaii and New Zealand, Easter Island thanks to the Easter Island heads, along with potentially Samoa thanks to it being in a place prone to cyclones and flooding, but not much after that, right? I admit I'm guilty of this too, I never studied global geography during high school, let alone its culture as the most experience I had with Polynesian culture, was pre soft lawsuit G1 BIONICLE,  Lilo and Stich, Pokemon Sun and Moon, and modern marketing's interpretation of Polynesian artwork as tattoos and necklaces, but that last one could be completely off, so make of it as you will. Basically, if you're coming here to find out how accurate of a representation this movie is of the culture, you're going to be dissapointed as I am not a credible source on the matter, why do you think I didn't bring up the representation of the culture when I was reviewing BIONICLE, or even mentioning the Matoran were once known as Tohunga, and that there are reasons why the islands pre Bara Magna all end with Nui? I'm just here to review the movie, as a movie.

Rogue One, A Star Wars Story: If Rebels is 3.5, then would this be 3.8?

Oh know, we're going Kingdom Hearts levels of procrastination, even though Episode 4's been a thing for 40 years! This is going to be a pain once Forces of Destiny comes out. And yes I have seen the new Last Jedi trailer, I was never going to beat the Star Wars fans on youtube that have independently analyzed every piece of that trailer.

If Disney wanted to make Star Wars a yearly release schedule, then episode 7-9 alone wasn't going to cut it. They planned to make solo films based on other points in the Star Wars mythos and that plan relied on the success of today's subject, which from here on out I'll be referring to as just Rogue One. Encase you couldn't tell by the next movie after Last Jedi being a movie based on Han Solo, it worked. So now I get to have a solo Solo joke for 2019, hooray!

Opening Impressions: Ducktales, Woohoo

Gotta love it when the opening impressions can take up one arc. Five episodes to an arc makes it very easy indeed. So, thanks to the new reboot coming out on Disney XD soon, to give it more of a variety then Cartoon Network has going for it (we do not need 176 episodes of Teen Titans Go a week. Stop it!). I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the original show, see how well it opened up, to reasonably compare the two once it comes out.

Toys to Life: DLC given physical form

So... these are a thing... Shall we take a look at them? I should note that all I'm reviewing is what I have. I have one Skylander, being Spyro, but he's in bad condition due to being pre-owned, so to review it would be a bad sample size. Going from oldest to newest:

Zootopia: That Rac... Speciest?

It's the middle of the year, and you know what that means? New disney reviews to do. At this point I'm just going to go "screw it" and find more disney things to do for July/August. Today's target: Zootopia, the next one in Disney's animation renaissance... how many of these has there been now? May as well just be seasons. Well, lets see how this goes.