Easter 2013

Easter, and yet again SVT don't show Jesus Christ Superstar, what the hell? I need some good music with some sort of religious theme at this holiday. So instead I did what I usually does during easter, looks at movies. Since I don't have a TV it's of to Youtube and the internet looking for interesting movies (mostly animated). Well, it started already during Thursday with The Neverending Story which I have on DVD. Childhood movie with really good music and visuals. Then it went on with The Last Unicorn (sadly not available with the swedish voices), Fire and Ice, Elfie of the Blue Sea (recommended, but you need to know another languish than english, since I saw it the first time in french with swedish subtitles and now it finally exist on Youtube, don't understand most of the dialouge but I remember the important parts and it will not leave an eye dry in the end), Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, Transformers the Movie, Dunderklumpen, Puss in boots around the world and  Animal Treasure Island. So you can guess I was swimming in chocolate, tears, adrenalin and nostalgia during this weekend. The question is, when did all of this began? Why do I associate easter with watching movies, and especially animated movies?

It began many years ago. Swedish television usually shows an animated movie and others during this time. Why? I don't know. There is a specific memory of a movie that I watched as a kid. I sat down and watched. Most of the story has disappeared, but a specific memory lingers, the very beginning. A tree in the forest, the bird flees in panic, two is left behind watching their nest. The mother scarred and hides in the nest while the father tries to calm her. A predator birds appears killing both. The rest I remembered was the main characters being a red and blue bird.  It has haunted my mind for years and probably everyone has this moment. This short snippet of a movie, a series, music, but you can't pinpoint it. You don't care if it is good or bad, you just wants to find out where you saw it. The feeling of satisfaction when you do. When you see the same movie, or just a picture of that particular scene, and the lightbulb goes up. Satisfaction. You can probably guess what I found this easter. An easter miracle. I found that movie, a danish animated movie called the War of the Birds. So I watched it, sadly not in swedish, but in norwegian. 

Was it good? It has certain merits, but overall it was kinda boring, but scenes of dread when the vulture appears were kinda good, and many birds and ends with a traitor bird battling the vulture and setting both to flame. What it needed was... better animation (but that's subjective), clearer motivation and character moments. Cause as it stands now... it's boring at times. It's pushed towards children which you can see on the humor and the naiveté of the main characters. Had it been a much more mature main character it would have been good as he battles the plague of the forest that killed his parents and his foster mother. And as I mentioned, the art styles work for a children cartoon, but had they gone a different route it could have been special. At least I don't have to keep it in mind, especially since I record it here. So have fun with lost memories until next time. Also, as you probably can guess, there will be no DnD today and there was none last friday either (people seems to have a life with their families instead for playing DnD, talk about wrong priorities), but if nothing happens we will be back this friday, traversing the stars.