Reviews

As I am a fan of the works of Cartoon Saloon (especially Puffin Rock, which I praised for taking the intelligence of young children seriously), this was naturally on my list.

The animation in the movie is rock solid, stylish, even daring at times and provides a great result.

The voice acting was decent, Sean Bean put on his Lord Stark voice and everyone else delivered decent performances. The casting choices matched their characters.

Music was good, wouldn't say they were memorable but they fit the tone very well.

The story was ''meh''. Not terrible, but nothing of real value either. Character development was non-existent - the plot took too long to get going, specific conversations repeated several times without anything different about them and the themes (e.g. Christianity vs. Celtic Mythology) was watered down to a ''Christian Man bad, misinformed and dumb - Celtic people good'' argument. it's a shame, because a lot could've been done with it.

That's not to say its bad - the pace was good. The place in time it takes part in (directly after the English Civil War), and how the Irish/English relations were, were done properly. The characters are a product of that time, and that was very well done. The Celtic symbolism was excellent and superbly detailed, it's just a shame they put in 0 effort for the Christian side of the conflict and their justifications except ''well, God wants it this way I guess''. It's also a shame there was 0 tension, since nothing dramatic actually happened where you might think "I hope character X will make it."

I guess that's the core problem; the story didn't dare to do anything with its plot, characters, themes and lore. Robyn didn't have to go hunting for rabbits or deer and kill them for food and have inner conflict about it. The mother didn't die. Ned Stark survived. (Sean Bean surviving, that's a new one for me). That daring is something movies like Princess Mononoke did, and that is such movies are stronger.

All in all, good movie, nothing legendary like the Lion King or Pinnochio, but I would let my child watch this.

If you're a parent and are looking for something to show your 3-12 y/o kids on the dark evenings before Christmas, I can recommend you to show them this movie. I will list a few of the good parts of this movie and a few of the bad parts of this movie so you can decide for yourself. If your child likes farms then I can truly recommend it. And given that I'm a more grumpy person than Scrooge and a notorious critic when it comes down to children stuff (and I tend to smash down films that offend the intelligence of kids) I think that will hopefully say something.

The good:

• The relationships in this movie are very genuine, especially between the main characters Billy and Annabelle. They are well build up, sweet and have meaning behind them, especially in the decisions they make and how they care for each other.

• A cheap gimmick often used in other children movies (I'm looking at you, Care Shits- I mean, Bears) is that a child has ''suffered'' from something just to make it all dramatic, but in the end it is all contrived, doesn't make sense and means nothing. In this movie however, there is actually build up to events that happened to Billy and they are shown to the audience. - The struggles the grandfather of Billy is going through are very well understood and have a lot of meaning. - The dramatic moments are very sweet,genuine and can cause tears, and are not forced in.

The bad:

• the trick behind characters in stories for young children is to make archetypes so they are more easily understood. This often gets confused for making stereotypes, and this movie sometimes falls into that trap, especially with Slim the pig and with the chickens. Fortunately though those character do not matter a whole lot except of being filler to fill up the animals needed on a farm.

• With 53 minutes I still find it a tad short. I wouldn't have mind learning more from our main characters. - The designs are rather bland and the animation is not the best ever. This does really impact the experience, however.

• Some emotional scenes drag on too long while others are, in my opinion, too short.

In conclusion, despite a couple of flaws, it is a very sweet and genuine tale that actually can move a person, and I believe children can enjoy it. For adults it may seem a bit bland, however.

The premise of the show: a group of exotic pets in a day-care/pet shop and a teenage girl that goes Dr.Dolittle-mode that cares for them. You might think 'how more stupid can it get?' and yet, they pulled it off ingeniously.

To understand why this series is so good, you have to read between the lines. Then you can see that this series in fact heavily (and subtly) borrows Alice in Wonderland-themes. Not just by the fact that the dumbwaiter is the rabbit hole, but also because of the villains of the show; they are two rich high school girls by the names of Whitney and Britney who are in fact a combination of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb characters with the evil queen of hearts. The best element, however, is that they used literary nonsense in the series, and it worked out amazing. Here is a link if you want to read more about that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_nonsense

So, when it comes down to it, comparing this series to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is absurd. It would be like comparing Narnia to Alice in Wonderland.

The characters are also nicely written. The main character Blythe Baxter, who for unknown reasons can talk to animals, is a well- defined characters that loves fashion and has her own faults, failings and habits. The same goes for every single pet in the pet shop.

That does not mean, however, that this series is without failings. It is never discussed where Blythe's mother is or even if she is still alive. Then there is the fact that nobody ever develops its character, despite the fact that the series gave them many reasons to. This especially goes for Whitney and Britney. It makes the conflicts in the series lose their value.

But other than that, I conclude here that this is the best series at the moment that DHX Media produces. This is 1) because MLP has gone downhill rapidly over the course of 2013 and 2014 with season 4 and that incredibly painful and destructive Equestria Girls movie and 2) because Pound Puppies as is, despite being a nice series, is still weaker than this show.

So, I really recommend for you to let your child watch this. It's a nice series with interesting stories and meaningful characters.

A pity though that, as with a lot of Hasbro's toys, the toys of course have nothing to do with the series.

Most people who down-vote this movie do so because of songs they don't like, the cuteness and other stuff like that - I want to focus on another aspect that I believe damaged this movie greatly, and that is the ponies themselves.

They are not the main characters of this movie.

Let's take a step back here - we know the plot of the antagonists, the witches. It was explained that they lost the land when the ponies came in and made everything green, and just want it back. Hydia also wants to give her girls a bad upbringing and has failed that, and the two daughters don't know how to deal with this. Their story is well understood.

The Grundles, under the lead of their king played by Danny DeVito, also have a subplot that they want their land back that the witches took from them. Their story is also well understood.

But the ponies really don't have anything. They were just enjoying themselves in that spring festival of theirs and were just minding their own business. They only got a plot halfway-through because the Smooze came in to eat everything! And the only thing they do is run for help to the Williams siblings (Megan, Molly and Danny) and later on the Flutter ponies. Both of these groups really have no reason to do anything, and I really don't understand why the ponies gave Megan the Rainbow of Light since they needed it and Megan didn't need it at all.

It could have worked out though - the ponies have some skilled folks at their possession. The movie could have a subplot with Magic Star, an Earthling/Earth pony who was known for her magical abilities and here finally could prove herself. Or Wind Whistler with her intelligence and 'Spock' attitude, or Mimic who is the most powerful unicorn in all the land, or perhaps even Shady or Sundance who could use this situation to get over their respective self-esteem issues.

But no, the focus is on Baby Lickety-Split. Why you may ask? For no reason; the only thing she does is being a freaky annoyance and then the Smooze locks her up, so she got nothing to do with anything, and thus is only a waste of time with really bad songs to boot where she is more yelling than singing.

And thus, no pony actually got some time to shine.

And the way the plot gets resolved is completely stupid. First off, earlier on the ponies think they lost their home (Dream Castle) so a new home, Paradise Estate, is introduced. Then it turns out the Smooze didn't destroy the castle, so they now got two homes... and that issue doesn't get resolved. The second is the Grundles; they still haven't got their home back, and only get a ham-fisted moral that one should not judge them based on their looks. That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard, since their entire plot didn't revolve around that.

So, when it comes down to it, this movie should have been called "Hydia, Reeka and Draggel; a witches adventure", since this is all their story. If you want to see something that actually focuses on specific ponies, watch the G1 series or Friendship is Magic.

I have never seen CGI this bad in my entire life. This is CGI that, if it were to be handed in as an assignment at any art school for first year students, would fail. And that is not an exaggeration. For one, the unwrapping is horrendous; Nothing connects together and it is completely broken. One example is on a bridge, where the underside of the bridge is the exact same at the up side, and where the sides of the bridge do not connect together with the up- and underside of the bridge.

(If you don't know what unwrapping is, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYW0y8y2hk0)

The CGI materials are also enormously inconsistent; sometimes they use bump or specular mapping, sometimes they don't, despite them being the same kind of object. (such as wood or dirt on the ground) That is not how one does CG. And the placement of the objects themselves... there are trees that clip right into the ground with no trunk whatsoever.

And the story... it's not worse than the 80s movies, which were already insanely bad, and the story actually focuses on one specific Care Bear that develops his character throughout the story, which is a godsend for this franchise. Still, there is nothing interesting about it and the narrative falls apart in its own plot holes and contrivances.

So, unless you want to punish your child, do not let him/her watch this movie. Put on the original Winnie the Pooh instead.

There is no way to provide redemption for this show. It fails completely at storytelling basics. For example; in stories plots are the goals characters are pursuing. Therefore, plots are character motivations. When plots intersect, like the one of the protagonist and the one of the antagonist, conflict arises.

The problem thus with the series is that the antagonists don't have a single rhyme or reason to do anything. They are just mean and give the idea that they have borderline or something. Oh, and there is a gigantic Transformers-outcast called Captain Slaughter that wants to kill all the puppies. Why you may ask? Never explained! And the daughter of the main villain, I think she is around age 10, has a crush on that guy. I wish I was joking here.

The story itself is also completely unclear; I found it very hard to understand what was going on. That is really bad, since clarity is very important in storytelling, namely that the audience understands why things are the way they are and why characters are behaving a certain way.

The characters themselves are also completely forgettable. Nothing makes them interesting, except perhaps for Whopper's fantasies.

Fortunately though, the creators realized that they didn't have a story whatsoever, so they started trying to improve the series in the second season, with new designs and whatnot. The problem here is that nothing connects anymore with what came before. The villains first wanted to destroy the pound, now they suddenly rule over it and try to frighten every puppy… just because. All without any explanation whatsoever. And they don't have any motive. They removed captain Slaughter though, so that is why I'm giving them a 2 instead of a 1.

Oh, and the puppies? They're not normal quadruped dogs. They are anthropomorphic dogs with clothes on. How does that connect in any way to the toy franchise it was supposed to represent? Isn't that what these kinds of series are for? You know, create a context children can get lost in that they then want to have toys based on that? Like they did with Transformers, G.I. Joe and My Little Pony?

And the lore itself feels like someone was smoking marijuana. For some reason there is 'puppy power' which allows dogs to talk to children with pure minds.

So, yeah, it's bad. Stay away from this.

No, the title is not a joke. I literally fell asleep. I wish I was joking here. It has never happened to me before, not even when I was a little kid, but it happened; I fell asleep. This movie is so boring, it has absolutely nothing going for it. The mouth animation that shows us the cat is speaking is dumb, because it only shows us... a moving mouth that is black inside with no tongue, teeth or anything. I'm serious here. I could literally do better than that and I am very bad in movie editing.

The constant reuse of scenes and music is horrendous We see some exact same scenes be used a dozen times throughout the story, even the movements of characters like the cat! And the pacing is awful. A third of the entire screen time is just the movie setting up a scene. There is even a scene where the fat guy drives with his car which takes a minute for him to get to his destination with nothing happening! (That's the part where I fell asleep by the way) The long scenes with very little development also really don't help here. The movie could've been 15 minutes and still have the exact same story.

And the constant noise of the same cheery music, even while that doesn't fit the tone most of the time doesn't work either.

And the story? It is all based around one gimmick; a cat that can talk once to a person and that cat uses that to help those around him. Now this can be amazing, but we got absolutely nothing. We don't even see the cat do things, like poking people to get them to do something. The only thing he did was hanging around here and there and then give a few half-assed hints. Some didn't even make sense, like the girl having to look on her computer that suddenly showed an article that would help her out, even though the cat remarked he doesn't understand anything of computers and we didn't see him open that page. What?

And other than that, the story got nothing going for it. The characters are one-dimensional, they almost only use clichéd lines, there are no jokes and even entire plot threads get forgotten; for instance, in one plot thread there is this girl who wants to go to college because she is smart and good at programming but her mother is too poor. But then the mother gets something that potentially would make them rich enough to move to a bigger house... but not to spend it on her daughter's college. The daughter doesn't even remark it. She never even tell about it anymore. It was just dropped and forgotten, even after the rich guy offered her a job and thus could potentially pay for her studies.

On a side note, even the programming stuff didn't make any sense. First she said she made a source engine. Okay, cool. But later the rich guy said that the girl made an application. Uh... there is a difference between a source engine and an application, they're not entirely the same... at all. Great. And programming is normally done through iteration. She could probably only test on her own wardrobe, so it is very unlikely that it would work anywhere else so iteration by testing with dozens if not hundreds of wardrobes is necessary. But nope, not even the genius programmers cannot think of that.

And the conclusion of the story? Don't worry kids, your parents remarrying isn't a big deal. O, and that cat without owners is staying and not leaving... because. Heh, maybe those Abrams-flares really did manipulate him.

In short; stay away from this thing. It will only hurt you and damage your brain.

Good children shows are relatively hard to come by. This is mostly because a lot of people think ''it is for children! Therefore, it is allowed to be (slightly) rubbish''. I see that as an insult towards children and I'm under the believe that this is bad for their cognitive development. The stories should be simple, not broken.

So, when I heard about Friendship is Magic and the quality it had in terms of the story, its characters and how nicely the fantastical world of Equestria was build up, I was delighted to hear that. I became a fan of the first 3 seasons, and I recommend sometimes that kids should watch this show, but I tend to try to stay away from the internet periphery demographic.

When the main character Twilight Sparkle became a princess at the end of season 3, I saw that as a way for the narrative to get into routes no one has ever gone before – think about Aesop's regarding the mistakes of micromanaging, Aesop's about what makes a leader different from a boss on the work floor and all that stuff. And that Twilight can grow as a character could make this the best build-up ''princessy'' of all times. I mean that.

But then came… this movie. What kind of idiotic producer at Hasbro asked for this? Okay, I understand that little girls drool over high school musicals and over ponies. But combining them? That is like saying boys like dinosaurs and cars so we're going to make a movie regarding Autobots getting into the past defending themselves against dinosaurs. Although that may sound appealing to some people, it makes no sense in context and gives no room to make a coherent story with interesting characters, themes and lore. And that's exactly what happened here.

But anyway, let's get to the movie.The movie starts off with the mane 6 going to the Crystal Empire where, after arrival, they're instantly shoved off to bed by Celestia so the next plot point can take place instead of using this moment to properly set up the plot.

Then Sunset Shimmers comes in and steals the crown Twilight has for the Elements of Harmony and goes back into a portal after the crown fell through it to go after it.

After that everyone comes together and Celestia explains that the portal leads to another world. This portal would open every 30 moons (or, 2.5 years) and that Sunset was a student of hers before Twilight. Although… Twilight was a student of Celestia since she was a little filly and Sunset and Twilight seem to be the same age. But that is not the worst of it. Let's take a step back here.

The portal opens every 2.5 years. Sunset left Equestria before Twilight became Celestia's student, and Twilight had never seen or heard of her before. Strange, since being a student of the princess is a kind of a big deal, especially when you suddenly disappear. but now comes the worst part. Let's say that Sunset left 2 iterations ago that the portal opened, so 5 years. This means that she left years before the Nightmare Moon event at the beginning of the series. So, she isn't supposed to know a thing about the Crystal Empire where the portal was moved to, she doesn't know about the Elements, doesn't know Twilight is a princess, that she was there for that Princesses summit, that she had the crown with her, where she slept and so on and so forth. This has got to be the biggest plot hole I've seen since those in Mass Effect 3's ending.

The rest of the movie is also filled with plot holes. Why for instance does Sunset Shimmer know that bringing an Element to another world would cause it to change? Why does an Element of freaking Harmony cause a big hole in the ground? Why can it be corrupted by a school girl where even Discord could not manipulate it? and of course there are the insulting hand waves to push off any questions regarding the lore of the world. And of course the Element of Magic now can work alone, thus rendering the other elements obsolete.

And then there are the characters. Sunset Shimmers has no personality besides being a bitch. There is no remorse, no pity, no understanding why she got that way or anything. But after she got defeated she starts to cry and feather fall to the ground and suddenly all is forgiven… wait, what?

And I don't have anything regarding Flash Sentry becoming Twilight's boyfriend. In fact, a nicely set up relationship would be awesome! It could work out in season 4 - have Twilight share things with him, develop their characters, have their flaws sometimes create a bit of conflict but let the romance and caring and friendship always shine things through. That is what was supposed to happen. But no, Flash is just the regular clichéd High School good guy and has no personality besides being ''nice''. This is NOT why I was a fan of the series.

And after everything got resolved, the entire audience knows that Twilight has to hurry up to get home but decides to stay for a while and dance. I could not have any appreciation for that scene, because I was only thinking "get back home you moron!".

So, also with Season 4 in mind which is also insultingly bad, the lore of Equestria is gone. Just. Gone. Any form of magic which is supposed to be consistent is toast or destroyed. There is nothing of value anymore. And that is a complete shame because the end of Season 3 gave it so many possibilities.

And now I need a drink.

So, I've watched Pinocchio. So, what do I think about it? Let's begin with the good parts. We have Prague, Český Krumlov and Croatia serving as the sets, I adored that, and it makes the movie better because of it. The music matches the tone of the scenes and gives a nice feeling to it. The puppet of Pinocchio is also a nice piece of professional craftsmanship and is properly used in the movie production. And there is Martin Landau playing as Gepetto and it is obvious he's doing a good job at it.

But then everyone with a human brain that is properly functioning and isn't here for a cheesy half-dead experience starts to think about what the movie shows them. And then this movie falls apart. The writing is bad and that is obvious. I'm not going to do a scene analysis but just going to pick the biggest sore points I saw in this movie.

For instance, we have Pepe the Cricket. I think he is supposed to be reminiscent of Jiminy Cricket in some way, but he is not helping Pinocchio really as a supporting character. I think Pinocchio just found everything he needed to know out on his own and Pepe did not really help in that. His jokes also aren't funny and he is just plain annoying. And whereas with the Disney version we clearly understood why Jiminy was doing what he was doing because the Blue Faerie asked him to do so, Pepe is just a stalker doing things for no reason or motive whatsoever.

The second problem is Pinocchio's quest to become a real boy. It is contrived and comes out of nowhere and only seems to exist ''just because all Pinocchio versions are based around that''. But here there are no promises regarding him becoming a real boy if he fulfills a certain condition (like the Blue Faerie gave him in the Disney version after he was made alive and in the book at a certain point in the story), but here it is blatant wish-fulfillment and because miracles come from the heart. Yeah, that is a great idea for writing.

The third problem is the lore of the world in general. Lore is information we learn about the universe of the story and what makes it tick. Some parts are nicely set up, like how Gepetto's emotional impact on a tree makes the magic in it alive so he could years later find it again and make a puppet out of it. And of course there is the water that turns people into animals they are mostly in common with and how Pinocchio escapes that by the holes in his body. It could've been done better but we understand why things are the way they are. However, there are major holes that a bit of rationalizing aren't going to save. This is mostly due to poor exposition. For instance: at the end of the story we learn that Lampwick was turned back into a human because he did a lot of good deeds. Wait, what? We only were told that the water turned people into animals, not how to resolve that. If we as the audience could learn about what the solution was against it, and it turned out to be good deeds, then we understood what their next plan was and how Lampwick could resolve his tiny problem. And also, if good deeds are the answer, wouldn't any hard-working donkey-kid turn back after a certain amount of time? Weird. And then there is the problem regarding the foreman turning into a monster – wait, that isn't an animal. Why not a vicious wolf or bear or any other animal that can fit his metaphor?

The fourth problem are Volpe and Felinet (get it? Fox and Feline. Yeah, great satire here.) Whereas in the book they were brilliant and deceitful, and in the Disney movie they had a clear motive to what they were doing, they're suffering here from the same problem as Pepe; what are they doing anyways? I understood the part with Lorenzini because of the money and all that, but afterwards they don't really seem to have a purpose except for staying on screen and annoying everybody. O, yes, they're supposed to bring him back to Lorenzini but they're not trying to do that. Strange.

And my last big problem is the teacher. If I were a teacher back then, I would have noticed that there is a boy in my class that isn't a student of mine, and, o yeah, is A WOODEN PUPPET. He does never question it but only remarks the nose, like he had more wooden puppets before as students. Great.

Anyway, for those who were TL; DR: the atmosphere is good, the acting is decent but the story falls flat on its wooden face. And stories are kind of important.