Frozen

So, two weeks ago (same time as the final of melodifestivalen) I finally sat down and watched the latest animated movie from Disney, Frozen. The good parts is that is very good animation, the music works alright (of course Let it Go is one of the better songs) and it's fun to notice the small throwbacks to other Disney-movies. Most oblivious is the wall painting dresses during the first song. There's a golden Belle dress, a blue Cinderella dress, a red Sleeping beauty and the mulch-colored Snow White dress. Or I believe it's hinted at those dresses.

Is it something wrong then in the movie? Too many damn songs. This is the reason I started disliking the Disney Renaissance in the 90's since there was song after song and it felt like love songs or how do you feel. Of course that could also be due to me turning into a teenaged boy. Really, it was huge for me that Atlantis didn't have a single song. But that's nothing compared to here when the songs literary stacks up on each others. Then the story, it works fine about sisters love for each other, what does true love means and love at first sight etc. but compared to the original story of the Snow Queen where this lonely girl travels all the way to the north pole to save her best friend from the clutches of the Snow Queen as he's slowly dying from the mirror shard turning his heart to ice and only through the girls love (more akin to friendship) his heart un-melts and they escape. 

And my sister mentioned they intended the snow queen to be evil in the beginning, but after doing Let it go, they changed their mind (which I clearly saw as that scene ends on Elsas "evil sexy grin"). They should have kept that, show some more disaster of the eternal winter brought upon them and ended with Elsa realizing her wrongs and sacrificing herself for her sister, forcing her childlike sister to grow up (seriously, she annoyed me quite a bit about her behavior and attitude) and if we still need a happy Disney ending move forward a year next winter and Elsas restored to herself with the first snow of winter since... she is the snow queen, the end everyone's happy. And freaking show how cold-hearted Elsa has become and don't let the driving conflict of the story be a simple communication problem between them. That bugged me as well. Maybe I'm to old for Disney movies these days.

15 days later

What happened? Last I can remember was watching the final of Melodifestivalen and then right before the result my mind is completely empty, who won? Sanna Nielen won with two measly points with a ballad over the more energetic Ace Wilder? It's the Eurovision debacle of 2003 again when Sweden undid the chance for Belgium to win by not giving them a single point. The swedish people has a lousy taste. Well, that shows my thought on that spectacle, why didn't I write about the final 5 episodes of the mysterious cities of gold? Well, the renovation of my parents house now reached the stage that it's impossible to live there so we recorded the episodes, but as things look I won't be able to see them until May. If they were recorded properly.

 

So what have I been doing in the meantime? Well, after much searching I was able to find the whole series of Peter Pan no bouken (trans. Peter Pan's adventures or Peter and Wendy), an anime from 1989 which I watched on Fox Kids (which later become Jetix and later transformed into Disney XD). Now, as a child I only watched a couple of episodes, and most were from the second half of the series, which had very little to do with the original story (or the disney movie which I'm more familiar with. Mostly the final episodes when they are in Maze Castle and the ending. Although until I watched the series from start to finish I thought I missed the final episodes, and I can see way cause it feels rushed. 

The first half is the kids coming to Neverland, fighting Hook and establish the characters, but this format changes when.Hook fools Tinkerbell, kidsnaps Wendy, traps Peter and blows up their hideout. Only by the sacrifice of Tinkerbell Peter prevails. So they set out looking for her and suddenly there is a dark magician destroying the land, a princess Luna who tries to help them and battles her own destiny. The ending occurs at the dark castle as the dark magician and Luna has fused and actively tries destroying Neverland forcing Hook firing a cannonball causing Wendy and Luna fall into the black mirror. Inside a battle for Luna's soul occurs with Wendy being knocked unconscious and Luna's inner child stabbing her evil side turning the black mirror white. Then it pretty much sends the children home, we jump a few years into the future and Wendy's daughter Jane follows with Peter instead.

There's no resolution to plots like John and Tiger Lily (she even disappears after the first half and are mentioned twice) and the ending feels to short, after they exit the white mirror and the new Queen Luna appears it directly cut to her waiving goodbye to the others as they fly away on their ship. No moment to reflect or explain in more detail what happened or so. Aside from that it was a fun nostalgic walk down memory lane, sadly only japaneese voices, but probably for the better since I found one episode with the Swedish dubbing, my god. I would probably prefer the English, if I could find more than snippets of episodes.

Endgame

So what happens? Well I must have missed part of the beginning since they seem content with the situation trying to get out of the desert together. Meanwhile Mendoza search for the kids and gets attacked by bandits sent out by Zares. Of course he beats them and give chase for their leader. Sancho and Pedro follows. They all meet up outside the temple and enters, discovering that the place is booby traped by some madman and it gets worse as Zares attacks. Mendoza fights him of for amoment until Zares corners him at a gore. Sancho and Pedro tries to help, but are thrown besides Mendoza and then Zares strikes the earth throwing the men to their doom. The kids hide and then falls into one of the traps by the madman and Zares is seemingly chrushed by a boulder (I would presume he survives).

Now who is there to save them? Ambrosius who tricks the madman and puts him to sleep with some gas and we learn that they have been mislead since the eyes they searched for originated in the Himalayas, Shangri-La anyone? Ambrosius heads of and Tao follows him believing the spaniards are dead and the culmination of the Mu-Atlantis conflict. Estaban and Zia searches and eventualy finds them (it's a children show after all) in a opening in the mountain. They head of and reunites with Ambrosius and Tao, which also leads to the resolution of the conflict. 5 episodes to go.