OUAT vs. Other Fairy Tales: Compare & Contrast

[KingOfHearts]

13 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I guess I'm a little tired of dystopian shows.  Not that "Once" succeeds but it provides a little bit of HOPE.  I want to get immersed in a fantasy world where everyone isn't dying all the time.

At least on The Good Place, everyone is already dead!

[Shanna Marie]

8 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I guess I'm a little tired of dystopian shows.  Not that "Once" succeeds but it provides a little bit of HOPE.  I want to get immersed in a fantasy world where everyone isn't dying all the time.

That's what I'm feeling from the stuff that's produced by the various streaming companies. It's all so dark and bleak. I guess it's that typical dark=good thing, and once creators are turned loose with a decent budget and with a lot of creative freedom away from the traditional networks, what they produce tends to be very dark. Or else Netflix, Amazon and the like are into the dark stuff because of the prestige. I've started watching The Man in the High Castle because I read the book years ago, but I have to space out episodes. I can't binge it. I watch one episode, then watch some travel documentary about the idyllic English countryside. Even The Tick, which is cute and quirky, still seems to take place in a kind of dystopian setting, given that there are supervillains out there and even the heroes are causing trouble for bystanders.

Fortunately, Amazon has tons of programs about the English countryside. I just finished watching a fun series about settings associated with various famous authors, tracking the places the authors lived and the real settings that inspired elements in their novels.

[Camera One]

I know we're all really looking forward to A&E's next show, but I don't know if it will ever be as fun to discuss as this one.  I had a hard time coming up with stuff to say about "Dead of Summer".  I couldn't care less what was going on at the summer camp and I didn't like any of the characters enough to discuss them.  The weird thing is I don't care about most characters in Season 7 but it's still interesting to talk about.

Edited April 3, 2018 by Camera One

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

Is anyone going to try "The Crossing"?   You know, "From the network that brought you Lost"?  

I might PVR it but it seems like that type of show that will be cancelled and then there's no payoff.  It also seems really generic.

I watched it.  It wasn't anything that special.  No strong feelings about it either way.  It will probably go onto the 1) if nothing else is on or 2) background noise while cleaning list.

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

I didn't know she was in it.  Okay, that makes me a little more likely to watch it now. 

I guess I'm a little tired of dystopian shows.  Not that "Once" succeeds but it provides a little bit of HOPE.  I want to get immersed in a fantasy world where everyone isn't dying all the time.

Its not so much dystopian I'm sick of.  I am sick to death of the misunderstood or sympathetic bad guy.  I have been since every show tried to do it because Sopranos got critical acclaim.  Had I known  OUAT was going to go that route, I would never have gotten attached to it.

 

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

I know we're all really looking forward to A&E's next show, but I don't know if it will ever be as fun to discuss as this one.  I had a hard time coming up with stuff to say about "Dead of Summer".  I couldn't care less what was going on at the summer camp and I didn't like any of the characters enough to discuss them.  The weird thing is I don't care about most characters in Season 7 but it's still interesting to talk about.

A&E are going on my will not watch new shows from them list. 

[Souris]

23 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Fortunately, Amazon has tons of programs about the English countryside. I just finished watching a fun series about settings associated with various famous authors, tracking the places the authors lived and the real settings that inspired elements in their novels

Ooh, what's the name of that series? I wanna watch it!

I'm not generally into dark, but I binged the hell out of Man in the High Castle. And Handmaid's Tale. So clearly if I love a show, dark is OK.

[Shanna Marie]

12 minutes ago, Souris said:

On 4/2/2018 at 8:39 PM, Shanna Marie said:

Fortunately, Amazon has tons of programs about the English countryside. I just finished watching a fun series about settings associated with various famous authors, tracking the places the authors lived and the real settings that inspired elements in their novels

Ooh, what's the name of that series? I wanna watch it!

It was something like "Rural Britain: A Novel Approach."

Tonight's de-stress viewing was something about finding the best garden in Northern Ireland. It was just two people, an older lady and a youngish man, walking around various gardens and discussing their good points and flaws in lovely accents. I think I was particularly stress-averse today.

I'm going to have to re-read The Man in the High Castle because I remember very little about the book other than the overall situation, and I can't tell if the series is merely inspired by it -- using the situation -- or truly based on it -- actually following the plot/characters.

[Souris]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

It was something like "Rural Britain: A Novel Approach."

Thank you! I just put it on my Watchlist.

[tennisgurl]

So, this is kind of hilarious. The Magicians, a show we previously discussed, had its third season finale tonight, and something went down that should be rather familiar to us... *Spoilers for season 3 finale. Seriously, big time spoilers*.

Spoiler

The gang gets magic back, but are betrayed and have their memories wiped, powers taken, and are set up with new lives and memories and put in random places around the country (maybe?), presumably as part of a deal the betrayer made with the magical Library to get the heroes out of the way, without actually killing them. So, probably not quite the same as the Once memory wipe, but it certainly sounds similar, right? People with magic have their memories wiped and are given new, muggle lives without powers and without knowing their friends and families anymore by some malicious magical power, stranding them in the regular world? With one (maybe two) people who still know the truth? Sound familiar?

I dont know what will happen next, but I think the show will make it really engaging, dramatic, exciting, and fun, in ways that Once has long since stopped doing. Cant wait to see what they do with this trope!

[Shanna Marie]

21 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I dont know what will happen next, but I think the show will make it really engaging, dramatic, exciting, and fun, in ways that Once has long since stopped doing. Cant wait to see what they do with this trope!

Now that I've seen it, oh, yeah that would have been interesting to do something with on Once. I think I have a new mental fanfic for when I get bored or can't sleep.

Hmm, I wonder if we could start an "alternate realities" thread in the "fun and games" section for bringing up scenarios that we wish the show had dealt with and playing what if -- not full-blown fanfic all written out (though some could surely come from it), but just our own chance to go "wouldn't it have been cool if ..."

[tennisgurl]

8 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Hmm, I wonder if we could start an "alternate realities" thread in the "fun and games" section for bringing up scenarios that we wish the show had dealt with and playing what if -- not full-blown fanfic all written out (though some could surely come from it), but just our own chance to go "wouldn't it have been cool if ..."

That sounds super cool! I would so participate in that. 

[Rumsy4]

I have no idea what is the context, as I haven't seen the movie, and now, I don't want to see it even more. But this sounds like the writing on Once Upon a Time.

Edited April 6, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Shanna Marie]

I thought they did show Luke's reaction. There wasn't a whole scene about it, and it's possible that there was an additional scene that was cut, but there was definitely a subtle reaction, I thought as much as he would have been willing to show a near-stranger under those circumstances. Mark Hamill can get pretty snarky, and there's a whole contingent of people who are very committed to vocally hating the movie who will pull out every little quote out of context and use it as proof of how "bad" the movie is, but Mark Hamill has also gone on the record repeatedly that he's totally okay with how the movie turned out and has jumped in to defend Rian Johnson on Twitter when the trolls go on the rampage.

And there are different expectations for what you can show in a two-hour movie compared to a TV series. When you have 22 hours (minus the commercial time) a year, you can let things breathe a lot more.

[Rumsy4]

6 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

that there was an additional scene that was cut

I believe that was the case. 

[tennisgurl]

The Last Jedi had issues, but I dont think it lacked human emotion. I do wish we had gotten that cut scene though. I bet it would have wrecked me in the best way possible. 

[KingOfHearts]

I hate Last Jedi, but I agree with @tennisgurl. It didn't lack human emotion, at least with Luke's plot. The problems with the movie aren't really the same as OUAT's. Huge amounts of time were wasted on pointless subplots, but that was because there wasn't much going on. I didn't get the sense that we missed out on a bunch of important scenes. On OUAT, everything interesting happens offscreen. With The Last Jedi, the very few interesting things did happen onscreen, but there wasn't much to begin with.

Edited April 6, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[tennisgurl]

23 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Now that I've seen it, oh, yeah that would have been interesting to do something with on Once. I think I have a new mental fanfic for when I get bored or can't sleep.

 

I also think its interesting that this isnt really supposed to be a "curse" exactly, in the way that it is on Once. A lot of people have questioned how terrible this curse is supposed to be (oh no! Forever trapped in a quaint town in Maine with indoor plumbing and Netflix! Truly the darkest of curses!) and while I can certainly see how its a sucky situation, this really makes more sense. Its just a way to get the heroes out of the way so the new bad guys can do their thing without the gang doing what they do best: somehow stumbling into defeating evil through snark, booze, and as much actual magic as they can muster. 

Spoiler

And, as @Shanna Marie said in another thread, this actually works so much better than this season and its memory wipe. Its more like in the first season, where we know the characters and their relationships already, so we can actually feel sorrow about them being separated from each other, and not having their lives and real personalities back. We`ve been with the characters and seen them grow as people and grow closer to each other, so we actually give a damn that thats all been taken from them, and can root for them to find each other and get their memories back. With the Hyperion Heights stuff....who cares? We dont know these people, we dont know how they really are, we dont have an investment in their relationships and from what we`ve seen, their lives in HH dont seem much worse than when they were in the EF, and their cursed personas are basically the same as their EF ones. Its like they kind of got what worked about season one, but didn't REALLY get what made it work. It will be awesome to see actually competent writers give this a shot!

Edited April 7, 2018 by tennisgurl

[Rumsy4]

2 hours ago, XrystalPond said:

It is hard for actors to find character motivation and whatnot if they also watch the show. It gives them an odd perspective of knowing things that are going on in their character's world that they would not otherwise know. Some can do that, but it adds a struggle to acting. 

Many will binge watch later if they are interested or need to watch. Some won't even read full scripts because they don't even want surprises ruined. This can be hard since things are filmed in of order. 

My actor friends say they are too critical of their own performance and know too much about  the making of to really enjoy like a fan. Still, they watch to be able to do interviews or promo work. 

Interesting. The only reference I have for this is LOST and OUAT. I haven't really bothered with cast interviews for many other shows. Naveen Andrews (who played Sayid) on LOST never watched the Show. I don't think Matthew Fox did either, becasue he had to live watch the finale for a media thing and he said it was rather odd to see himself on-screen. The actor Mark Pellegrino said he didn't even own a TV (lol). Evangeline Lilly (Kate) after a time would only read her part of the script to preserve the suspense, as you said. But some of them like Jorge Garcia and Michael Emerson were fans of the show and the former even did a podcast in the last two seasons. 

I think the actors for OUAT were required to have a social media presence during their centrics at least. And I get the impression that at least some of them like Colin kept up. But I'm sure Carlyle didn't bother. haha

Edited April 8, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Camera One]

6 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Interesting. The only reference I have for this is LOST and OUAT. I haven't really bothered with cast interviews for many other shows. 

Cast interviews are weird.  Sometimes, their interpretations of the characters are so different that I wish I didn't watch the interview, so I too avoid them for the most part.

I think some actors avoid watching their work because it's difficult for them to see themselves and not be critical.  Watching Season 7 would be different since Jennifer, Josh, Ginny and Emilie are not in it.  With some shows, actors are excited for the scripts since they want to know what happens next.  I wonder if the cast members who left were excited to find out what happened to Rumple, Regina, etc.  I guess we have confirmation that 2 of the 4 (at least) couldn't care less, LOL.

[jhlipton]

On 3/30/2018 at 12:37 PM, Shanna Marie said:

I'm not even sure the writers have the slightest idea where things are or what the timeline is.

I'm not sure they ever did!

On 4/2/2018 at 5:41 PM, Camera One said:

Is anyone going to try "The Crossing"?   You know, "From the network that brought you Lost"? 

It's pretty bland, and there's a child actress who is fairly awful (can we just make clones of Scarlett Estevez?).   Fairly cliched characters and plot.  I won't miss it once it's gone but my wife likes it.

[Shanna Marie]

The season finale of Legends of Tomorrow was like a glimpse of what the Untold Stories stuff could have done.

Spoiler

We had a Roman Legion, Blackbeard and his pirates, and a band of Vikings all attacking our heroes in an Old West town. Also, in a previous episode, Helen of Troy, who was really tired of men being idiots around her, got dropped off on Themyscira, and now she's back to help our heroes as a fully trained Amazon warrior. It got really wacky from there, too wacky even for Once, but I couldn't help but think of what they could have done with the Vikings and Musketeers squaring off, or if a princess had ended up getting warrior training from someone from another kind of story, or became a mad scientist, or something like that. Oh, now I really want a princess mad scientist.

[CCTC]

Objectively, Legends of Tomorrow is not a great show, but it somehow embraces the lunacy and does not pretend it is great art and the relationship angst does not bog the show down too much, so it can he a fun show to watch.  Probably more than it should be.  Of the CW hero shows it might be the most entertaining (unless you throw iZombie into the that mix, but that might be in a decline at this point.  The first season or two of iZombie was great).   Legends remembers it is a comic book show and tries to have fun and is not all doom and gloom. 

Gotham falls into that category as well --it embraces its comic book over the topness (although it might be getting past its expiration date and starting to repeat things).  Not sure it would be considered a superhero show, but Legion is in its own league.  It is like one big fever dream.

Edited April 10, 2018 by CCTC

[jhlipton]

35 minutes ago, CCTC said:

"Legion is in its own league.  It is like one big fever dream."

"We take a chainsaw to history!"

[Mabinogia]

1 hour ago, CCTC said:

Legends remembers it is a comic book show and tries to have fun and is not all doom and gloom. 

I wish Once had more fun with the fact it's about fairytale characters. I think it was almost there in the beginning, but seemed to start to take itself more and more seriously as time went on. It lost it's whimsy and wonder. I think that's part of why I like Alice/Tilly. She, more than any of them, seems like a fairytale character trapped in a mundane world. The rest seem to be fairytale characters in name only. Even in the flashbacks they just don't have that sense of enchantment. They also don't seem different in HH than in the EF. IDK, it's just not enchanted anymore. It's just another drama with characters who are named after fairytales. 

[tennisgurl]

1 hour ago, CCTC said:

Objectively, Legends of Tomorrow is not a great show, but it somehow embraces the lunacy and does not pretend it is great art and the relationship angst does not bog the show down too much, so it can he a fun show to watch. 

See, I would say that, while its maybe not Breaking Bad or anything, LoT actually is pretty smartly written, and is probably more consistent in arc, theme, and character than any of the other Arrowverse shows. Looking beyond the wackiness, it has allowed its characters to really grow and develop, and their relationships with each other, and their personal issues, are usually taken quite seriously, even in the midst of all the crazy hijinks, and you can tell the actors and writers really know their characters well at this point. Much of the fun of the show is just putting the characters into these weird situations, and just seeing how they react. It knows that its comic book crazy and it embraces it, but its not just just throwing everything at all the wall to see what sticks, like what happens with Once. You can usually tell that they have some kind of plan, and an arc for the season, and that arc makes sense at its conclusion. There is method to their madness. I think. Plus, it allows the characters to dictate the plot, and not the plot to dictate the characters. And I think thats a huge up on many of the other shows. 

[jhlipton]

22 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Plus, it allows the characters to dictate the plot, and not the plot to dictate the characters.

The scenes with Damian Dahrk (or Dhark or whatever) and Ray show this.  In another show, the switches that DD does would come out of nowhere but here they make sense.

[KingOfHearts]

I don't know if anyone else can relate, but whenever I see a movie or new TV show now, I feel compelled to compare it to Once Upon a Time somehow. (Especially when it's something bad.) I saw Ready Player One today, which had really nothing to do with OUAT. Sometimes the "1980s fetish" that A&E have works, and other times it doesn't. Ready Player One had a pretty strong case of it, both in the book and the film. It's pretty integral to the plot, so it's not shoehorned by any means. I didn't grow up in the 1980s, but I got exposed to its music and culture at a young age. It's some of my favorite stuff. I've just gotten jaded by it because it's in almost every recent scifi movie or series. It's not so weird when the setting is in that decade (Stranger Things) or it's purely a stylistic choice. (Thor: Ragnorak)

A&E miss the mark on it because it's never consistent and it influences the characters in the wrong way. In the Welcome to Storybrooke flashbacks, you see an old Dr. Pepper ad and Ronald Reagan in the headlines. Other than the car models, that's really all they do to show it's 1983. None of the characters are dressed differently. Regina still looked like she was in 2013, when she could have had shoulder pads or bigger hair. (One of the many things they could have done with that wasted potential of a flashback. But you know - epic car chase!!) The Tron posters and lunchboxes just feel like A&E promoting themselves, since they wrote Tron: Legacy. Star Wars has always been popular, so it's not like that's a relic of the 80s either. Henry's meant to look like some geeky genius by mentioning all the LucasFilm sequels. Speaking of him, his obsession with the time period should have been tied to his childhood in backward Storybrooke, not some offscreen scenes with Neal. The writers never capitalized on how messed up or dated Henry's upbringing was. They just retconned what all three of his parents died, whether through memory altering, scenes we didn't see, or verbal whitewashing. But, I digress.

It's interesting that in some media, references are satisfying. Then in others, like in OUAT, it's cringey and feels like the writers want us to pat them on the back for how nerdy or knowledgable of pop culture they are. It's a fine line that films such as Ready Player One try to toe.

[Guest]

21 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

It's interesting that in some media, references are satisfying. Then in others, like in OUAT, it's cringey and feels like the writers want us to pat them on the back for how nerdy or knowledgable of pop culture they are. It's a fine line that films such as Ready Player One try to toe.

I think it comes down to it being cringey when writers are bending over backwards to make sure the audience gets the pop culture reference.  They forget that the reference has to make sense or have some emotional impact even if the viewer is unfamiliar with that part of pop culture.  So they over explain it like that makes it work instead of cutting if its not working.

I'll use a vague reference to Legion, which is so littered with referential material that I probably don't get eight percent of it. 

There was a scene where a character had to sing to solve a problem.  It was funny because the character was embarrassed and poignant because it was an upbeat song in a sad/fraught situation that brought up a memory/flashback.  It worked if you had no idea what that song was.  And I bet the majority of the audience had no idea what that song was.  An earworm that couldn't be placed at best. 

I happened to recognize it because when my niece was born, I was looking up kids shows from my childhood and found one from before I was born that was in reruns when I was a kid and whose theme song I remembered.  The name of the song tied into the situation playing out on screen and was quite clever of the writers.  But on Legion, they don't kill a moment to take credit for brilliant little details.  They didn't even go to the words in the song when they could have or show the TV show to lead the audience to figuring out the clever reference.

On OUAT, more often than not they will stop and have an entire conversation about the Tron lunch box that is meaningless.  Because it would be horrible to them if only a portion of the audience noticed the Tron lunchbox and whatever meaning is was supposed to convey.

[Camera One]

23 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

1 hour ago, Souris said:

I wonder if they're going to be realm-hopping through a bunch of the realms they visited over the years? We know they go to the Wishverse. They could also hit up Neverland, Wonderland, Oz....

That should have been the final season, rather than just the final two-parter episode.

Lost related comment:  

I wouldn't have minded a time travel season like they did for Lost in Season 5.  Or flashsideways like Season 7. 

Heck, if they're going to rip other shows off, might as well go full out.

[jhlipton]

16 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

There was a scene where a character had to sing to solve a problem.  It was funny because the character was embarrassed and poignant because it was an upbeat song in a sad/fraught situation that brought up a memory/flashback.  It worked if you had no idea what that song was.  And I bet the majority of the audience had no idea what that song was.  An earworm that couldn't be placed at best.

Now I'm curious -- what was the song?

[Guest]

4 hours ago, jhlipton said:

Now I'm curious -- what was the song?

 

What was clever about it Legion spoilers, relatively minor

Spoiler

There is a character whose power is that two characters reside in the same body.  There was a development that on of the characters got stuck and didn't fully reabsorb into the other character.  The solution was to sing tra la la and recall a childhood memory to separate/split them.  Tra la la is the theme to the Banana Splits show.

Edited April 13, 2018 by ParadoxLost

[jhlipton]

59 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

OMG -- It's like the Monkees meet The Nairobi Trio!

[Camera One]

The live action Mulan will have a different villain - the big bad will be a powerful female witch.

Did A&E take hold of production and insert Mother Gothel?

[KingOfHearts]

Can we stop with the "powerful witches" already? We don't need more Coat Hangers.

Edited April 14, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

I just started Season 2 of "The Magicians" and I thought it was weird that there was a Candy House with a "witch" in Fillory.  And then, this week, we found out there was a Gingerbread House in Oz as well.  

[KingOfHearts]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

I just started Season 2 of "The Magicians" and I thought it was weird that there was a Candy House with a "witch" in Fillory.  And then, this week, we found out there was a Gingerbread House in Oz as well.  

Its a franchise, like The Tavern.

[tennisgurl]

17 hours ago, Camera One said:

I just started Season 2 of "The Magicians" and I thought it was weird that there was a Candy House with a "witch" in Fillory.  And then, this week, we found out there was a Gingerbread House in Oz as well.  

Hey, considering there seems to be identical or near identical stories in the regular Enchanted Forest, the DisEnchanted Forest, the WishVerse, Oz, and who knows what else, I guess its not that surprising that they exist in other fantasy worlds too!

[Shanna Marie]

I just watched an interesting version of the Cinderella story on Amazon Prime Video, called Not Cinderella's Type. I was in the mood for a fluffy teen romantic comedy, and this one came up on their "recommended movies" list, so I thought I'd give it a shot since I sort of "collect" Cinderella retellings. It's a contemporary non-fantasy telling of the story, with a girl who has to go live with her awful aunt and uncle and their two awful daughters when her single mom dies. She has to live in the attic, even though they have a six-bedroom home, and she has to do all the cooking and housework and isn't allowed to leave the house other than to go to school. while her aunt and uncle constantly criticize her and remind her how much she owes them. The hot, rich guy on campus is interested in her, but she doesn't think he's her type, especially since her awful cousins trail around after him all the time. Still, he starts to become her friend after some stuff happens, and I figure I can see the rest of the movie coming -- he'll ask her to prom, her aunt and uncle won't let her go, and someone will help her get the dress, etc. Meanwhile, I'm snarking about how unlikely this kind of story is in a contemporary setting because surely someone would contact child services about the way she's treated.

Spoiler

Well, turns out that "Prince Charming" is the son of a child psychologist, and when he hears what her life is like, he knows something's wrong and talks to his dad about it. But since his dad is a professional, once he knows about suspected abuse, he has to contact the authorities. So instead of Cinderella going to the prom, the psychologist is kind of the "fairy godmother," swooping in to get her out of that house, and he's a licensed foster parent, so she can stay with his family, and the whole thing goes through the court system. It was a lot more serious than I was anticipating, but it was rather interesting, and it made me wonder how Jacinda's curse memory backstory would have gone. Did Victoria abuse her, and how was nothing done about it?

[KingOfHearts]

There's this line in "Ready Player One" you can hear in the trailer, where the female love interest says, "Welcome to the resistance." It made me laugh when I remembered it, because in the movie, there isn't much of a "resistance" at all. Other than her, you see a some people walking around a building. That's it. It's not about them at all. I thought of OUAT S7, and how the resistance was basically just a camp full of people with nebulous motivations. I didn't get the point of having a whole resistance in either instance, when it's only the main characters that matter or do anything. (And the resistance does little to affect their actions.)

Meanwhile, there's stuff like Star Wars and The Hunger Games, where the "resistance" is pivotal to the story.

Edited April 20, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

33 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I just watched an interesting version of the Cinderella story on Amazon Prime Video, called Not Cinderella's Type

That sounds interesting. I’m going to check it out. I have Prime as well.

[Camera One]

I just watched the trailer.  I doubt it can live up to the epic story of Jacinderella.  

[jhlipton]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

I just watched the trailer.  I doubt it can live up to the epic story of Jacinderella.  

It does raise a HIGH bar!

[Camera One]

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

It's a contemporary non-fantasy telling of the story, with a girl who has to go live with her awful aunt and uncle and their two awful daughters when her single mom dies. She has to live in the attic, even though they have a six-bedroom home, and she has to do all the cooking and housework

I just watched it and while some of the dialogue was really bad, it was interesting to see this take on Cinderella especially after the non-Cinderella we've been watching.

Spoiler

It seemed to have the opposite problem where the first third was very Cinderella-ish, and then it totally became something else entirely.  I didn't even see the psychologist as the fairy godmother.  I guess instead of crashing a motorcycle into a carriage, we got a speeding car hitting a cat?  How was that a good premise for a relationship.  I had to laugh when Indy started the movie listing the different cliques in the school, à la Henry.  Speaking of Henry, that lame-o best friend of hers reminded me of him.  At first I thought the aunt was pretty funny as the Wicked Stepmother-esque character.  She was treated like a servant, but I can see why she wouldn't be reported.  No one would know.  It did get pretty serious... the main character needed serious help, since she had no idea she was being emotionally abused.  But then they spent half the movie on her essentially dating two different boys, which was just weird.  

What the movie did tell me was how easily A&E could have tried to incorporate more Cinderella-esque situations into Jacinda's life, rather than just telling us she was Cinders and showing us nothing Cinder-like except that iconic blue dress.

[Shanna Marie]

Oh, that movie is definitely not a masterpiece. It's obviously low-budget and the acting is iffy. I think the lead actress was quite good and seemed like a relatively realistic teen girl. They might have done better if they'd switched the actors playing the best friend and "Prince Charming" because I thought the best friend actor handled some really klunky dialogue fairly well, while I always got the sense of "I-am-reciting-the-lines-that-I've-memorized" from the other guy. The actors playing the aunt and uncle seemed to be in an entirely different movie. Either they didn't get the memo that this wasn't a broad farce comedy or they were auditioning to play the Thenadiers in a local theater production of Les Mis. They might as well have been inserted as cartoon characters. They were Disney Channel sitcom "clueless adults," which didn't fit the more serious tone.

But it definitely had me thinking of how the elements of the Cinderella story would fit into a modern setting.

Incidentally, last summer I had this flash of an idea of Cinderella as a resistance fighter, where she wanted to run away from her awful home, but when she did she ran into the resistance group who convinced her to go back so she'd be in place as an operative, and the "fairy godmother" was the person who helped create undercover identities. She went to the ball in disguise to spy on the royals. I was seriously irked when season 7 had Cinderella going to the ball to kill the prince and joining the resistance movement. Now I think that this plotline was so underdeveloped that I think I might be able to get away with doing that story without it looking like I got the idea from this show.

[Camera One]

If Disney had acquired 20th Century Fox a little earlier, A&E could have paired Henry with Princess Anastasia.  Henry crashes his motorcycle into Anastasia's carriage as she's about to go to an event to kill Rasputin for killing her family.  We later find out his tragic backstory, separated from his family by the Witch Baba Yaga.  In Hyperion Heights, Anastasia is under the thumb of her CEO stepfather Mr. Raspute, who we think is the villain, but the real villain is actually Baba Yaga and her BFF Mother Gothel.  They could still have Tiana as Anastasia's best friend.  Roni falls in love with Claude, who turns out to be Frollo, and they bond over their regret over burning villages, but it becomes a love triangle when another village burner Shan Yu enters the picture.  Pocahontas and Tiana open a fusion restaurant, called Colors of the Bayou.  

[jhlipton]

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

If Disney had acquired 20th Century Fox a little earlier, A&E could have paired Henry with Princess Anastasia.  Henry crashes his motorcycle into Anastasia's carriage as she's about to go to an event to kill Rasputin for killing her family.  We later find out his tragic backstory, separated from his family by the Witch Baba Yaga.  In Hyperion Heights, Anastasia is under the thumb of her CEO stepfather Mr. Raspute, who we think is the villain, but the real villain is actually Baba Yaga and her BFF Mother Gothel.  They could still have Tiana as Anastasia's best friend.  Roni falls in love with Claude, who turns out to be Frollo, and they bond over their regret over burning villages, but it becomes a love triangle when another village burner Shan Yu enters the picture.  Pocahontas and Tiana open a fusion restaurant, called Colors of the Bayou.  

I would actually watch that!

[KingOfHearts]

On 10/29/2017 at 8:28 PM, Camera One said:

Unfortunately, I would have to say I didn't like the animated movie.  I liked the beginning with Tiana & New Orleans, but once it became all frog, it lost me.  Everything was forgettable, but I do remember I thought the climax was weak and not satisfying.  

This was one of the few mainstream animated Disney films I hadn't seen. I watched it tonight, and I have to agree - it went downhill after Tiana turned into a frog. I enjoyed the setting and the music. Naveen was my favorite character. His Pepe LePew aura made me laugh more than once. Other than those things, the plot wasn't exactly easy to follow and I didn't buy any of the chemistry between Tiana and Naveen. Their romance was super rushed and banked too hard on the "opposites attract" philosophy. While Facilier's character design was neat and his villain song was pretty kick-ass, he was still pretty weak as an antagonist. He was nothing more than an opposing force. Usually, animated Disney films have tight pacing that works like clockwork, but this movie really began to lag in the second act onward. The random firefly funeral didn't get me at all.

Once again, A&E didn't capture the core spirit of the source material. Tiana may be abrasive workaholic, but she has a reason to be. She's had to work from the bottom up her whole life while being constantly kicked down. On OUAT, she's a princess who doesn't even bother to change her clothes outside of the palace. In HH, her characterization is too inconsistent. Naveen doesn't come from a rich family on the show, and that yanks out what make him himself. In the film, Facilier is only powerful because of his dealings with his "friends on the other side". He's a charlatan who depends on dark forces to do everything for him. But on OUAT, he's just throwing magic around like anyone else. He doesn't have a clear weakness, and that's what makes him Rumple Lite. It would be more interesting if he had to depend on the unseen realm, but he just kind of does whatever. Voodoo dolls and tarot cards only scratch the surface. It's unfortunate that we haven't seen him strike a deal with the devil, since that would foreshadow his demise well, as it did in the movie.

[Mabinogia]

10 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Once again, A&E didn't capture the core spirit of the source material. Tiana may be abrasive workaholic, but she has a reason to be. She's had to work from the bottom up her whole life while being constantly kicked down. On OUAT, she's a princess who doesn't even bother to change her clothes outside of the palace.

I really don't get their making Tiana a princess. I don't really think it was necessary. She could have been the cook working for some royal house, almost a Tiana/Cinderella hybrid. Then we could get rid of Jacinda, make Tiana Henry's love interest, make Tremaine et all Tiana's family and give a better actress a more prominent role. I'm sure there are some issues with making that work, but no more than trying to make Henry and Jacinda work. I mean, nothing is going to fix them as a couple.

[Shanna Marie]

Sabine is actually closer to being movie Tiana than Tiana is. Sabine is (apparently) less privileged, having to work her tail off to try to have her dream (not that we ever saw her actually working before she decided to go into business for herself). I think she said something about Drew's family having a restaurant, so I guess that means he's got a leg up (though it really doesn't translate to "spoiled prince," since everyone I've known whose family owned a restaurant had to work really hard, and often not get paid for it). Show Tiana has absolutely nothing to do with the movie, and while show Naveen was a prince, it didn't seem at all like he was a lazy playboy, since he was out tracking the monster that killed his brother and threatened his kingdom (though wouldn't you think that Princess Tiana would have heard of the prince of a kingdom close enough that he could track an alligator from there?).

[Spartan Girl]

Has anyone seen the Broadway musical version of Aladdin? I did this last week, and it's great! It's a MUCH better "alternate take" of the story than that pathetic one OUAT churned out.

[Camera One]

3 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

Has anyone seen the Broadway musical version of Aladdin? I did this last week, and it's great! It's a MUCH better "alternate take" of the story than that pathetic one OUAT churned out.

I saw it for the first time over Christmas.  I thought it was fun.