#Not necessarily targeted (though it kinda is) I just need these plushies to be BETTER.

[qstarhalo]

Cartoon companies should let me design merch. Please. Not just because I wanna but because what are you actually doing STOP.

[gavillain]

How do you feel about the recent Disney movie Encanto?

Overall, I liked it. I thought it was a pretty good movie with enjoyable animation, good music, and a good story. Is it in the top tier of Disney movies? No. Will it be one I necessarily need to rewatch? Also no. But is it one that I'm glad I saw? Yes. I'd say it's one of the best of the Revival Era. Definitely better than Tangled or Frozen. Not as good as Moana. It did admittedly feel lacking in stakes, and I also feel like the whole way the magic of the household works should have been explained a bit more. A lot of it felt vague, and while I'm a big proponent that magic doesn't necessarily have to be explainable, if the crux of the story is that the magic is fading, there should be a stronger throughline with it and what it all means so that the plot doesn't feel like it's meandering about trying to figure out how to solve its own arbitrary dilemma. I get that they're going for a "the family has lost sight of the purpose for their magic" scenario, but with so many characters dealing with so many dilemmas, it just kinda feels all over the place. I feel like Abuela's relationship with Mirabel, if it was going to be the crux of the family conflict, needed to be a relationship that we saw a lot more of. Something more like Merida and Elinor's conflict in Brave felt more like what they should've gone with here. This is a movie where I genuinely feel like a villain would have REALLY made this a better move with more stakes. If the house's magic was being sapped away by an outside force of evil, and the way to stop it was for the broken familial bonds to mend and strengthen the magic again. But for what it was, I thought it was nice. And aside from that, I didn't really have a problem with this one. I think the family was fun, and I liked seeing them sort of learn that they were more than just their gifts. Bruno in particular was the most interesting character, imo, and I agree with the rest of the internet that "We Don't Talk About Bruno" is the BEST song in the film. Bruno and Mirabel's relationship was really cute, and I liked seeing a positive portrayal of an uncle in a movie since uncles are right up there with stepmoms in the de facto villain category. I also think they did some really creative stuff with the pocket dimension rooms that everyone has in the house. The colorful jungle room, the sandy desolate Bruno room, Isabel's floral paradise - they were all very awe inspiring and kept my attention. And while part of me isn't fond of the fact that they never gave a reason for Mirabel not getting a gift, I also understand and appreciate WHY they didn't. It's an allegory for disability, and how Mirabel is just different, not necessarily anything wrong with her or anything that can be explained or "cured." That's a neat approach that I'm sure a lot of differently abled kids appreciated. Overall, it's not a return to Disney's golden days, but it's a pretty good movie for what it is. It wasn't made for me as its target audience, but I understood that going into it. If this is the future of Disney, then, hey, they could do (and have done) a lot worse. Weird thing that really bothers me though: in Luisa's song she sings about Hercules, and an image of Hercules appears for a brief moment to illustrate her feelings. WHY WHY WHY didn't they use their design of Hercules from his own movie??? It would have been a great cameo that everyone would have loved, and they wouldn't have had to completely design a new character just for a brief snippet of the song. I miss the days where Disney used to cameo their other movies in new movies like the Stitch plushie in Treasure Planet or Sebastian and Pinocchio in Aladdin.