#Prep And Landing

[disneytva]

In honor of Disney Television Animation's 40th Anniversary, the studio did an art gallery by artists from the multiple crews from the studio.

Featuring artwork pieces by

Emily Vera ("Prep & Landing: The Snowball Protocol")

Mauro Flores ("Sofia The First: Royal Magic")

Janice Rinn ("Sofia The First: Royal Magic")

Gabi Rodea ("Big City Greens" franchise)

Camille Bautista ("Hailey's On It!", "Prep & Landing: The Snowball Protocol")

Christina Chi (Disney Television Animation Development)

Ashlyn Anstee ("Sofia The First: Royal Magic")

and more!

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[lovewillthaw-j]

Some random characters I spotted in Once Upon A Studio:

The Christmas elves from Prep and Landing

John Henry (from the eponymous short film), Lewis' adoptive mother Lucille from Meet the Robinsons, and Kida from Atlantis.

The Godfather and his daughter from Zootopia, Shank from Ralph Breaks the Internet and Namaari from Raya.

[merry-melody]

[lemondoddle]

SEASONAL BLORBO EVERYBODY GIVE IT UP FOR SEASONAL BLORBO‼️‼️‼️

[tophthedaydreamer]

disney's making a new prep and landing special next year?

[mr42]

Did not know who these guys where until doing research. I have not seen prep and landing. I honestly thought Arthur Christmas was a disney movie for a hot second

[synthc0re]

last 2 self ship commissions i completed!

[nicholasmoorethetwittermigrant]

Gotta admit, the biggest pop in Once Upon A Studio for me was probably seeing Lanny & Wayne. Would’ve made total sense for them to not show up but I’ve always been a massive fan of that first Prep & Landing short.

[miss-bvnny]

We're finally getting another prep and landing and its coming out in the worst era of Disney

[kosher-martian]

The NATO-fication of Christmas, I guess

A few disclaimers:

I'm only giving myself about 90 minutes to write this because I have work to do, so if it seems like a bunch of disorganized ideas that need further revision, it's because this really needed a second draft.

No, I'm not one of those "Russia is fighting wokeism" guys.

No, I'm not one of those "Putin is going to rebuild the Sovi-YEET Union" guys.

No, I'm not a "we need a preemptive strike on all the BRICS countries" guy.

I'm not your strawman. I'm arguably not even the best person to talk about this. I'm just your friendly neighborhood Jewish muppet.

This is about US culture. This is about the fragile American psyche. But most importantly, this is about movies... funny pictures... I'm talkin' about the silver screen, y'all.

I'm sure some jackass with a substack will stumble across this later and articulate it better than I have (or given that I'm not terribly original and nearly two weeks late, they already arrived at the same conclusion), but can we talk about the NATO-fication of Christmas movies?

This is actually NOT a response to that weird Russian commercial where the Russian military shot a SAM at Santa, but a response to being forced to watch Red One, that weird Xmas movie with The Rock with a friend who has great taste in bad movies.

The plot, which I will be relaying to you in breathless post-9/11 terms to better illustrate my point, is that our beloved Commander in Christmas Cheer (Santa) has been kidnapped by dangerous foreign adversary Gryla the scary Russian-coded terrorist Christmas Witch. Side note... Christians, is this a real thing? Is Gryla a made up character for this film or does she have a place in somebody's folklore? Never heard of this particular character before.

In order to secure the battlespace save Christmas, retired operator and current Secret Service agent ELF (North Pole Security) agent The Rock must leverage the military power of NATO MORA (the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority), team up with a unpatriotic Christmas-hating soy lib smirking rapscallion scumbag hacker, and win the hearts and minds of moderate Syrian rebel Krampus. I've heard of this character before! Thanks American Dad. Along the way, we also teach that smirking rapscallion scumbag hacker the true meaning of patriotism and securing American interests abroad Family and Christmas.

On its own, this just seems like an adorably stupid action movie with a Christmas theme. And yes, that's exactly what it is in isolation, but I want to also loop in another Xmas film which is also a weirdly militarized take on the Santa mythos: 2011's Arthur Christmas.

That movie, which came out a shocking 13 years ago (G-d I'm old), is the Tony Blair to Red One's Bush.

It's take on the Santa mythos is militarized sure, but also mixes in some aspects of the British Royal family (the role of Santa being passed from father to son, the idea of delivering presents as a sort of national service to the country and a rite of passage to "earn" the position of Santa, and also lovable failsons).

The movie does make sure we don't forget the awesome power of the Military Industrial Complex by having Santa's sleigh shot down by a real life military drone and all, but really this movie is more about whether we lost sight of the military objective and now we're just causing mass suffering in this totally cooked up boondoggle out here in the desert sands the true meaning of Christmas: the oil the joy of gift giving.

Look, I'm being a bit of a cynical jerk here and applying my own post-9/11 brain worms (of which I have sooooo many) to these movies, but would you really argue against my theory when we have at least two films forging a somewhat consistent new Santa mythos with:

Advanced military technology (both)

General military vibes (both)

No seriously, why on Earth are these movies with elves and candy canes trying to evoke the imagery of Black Hawk Down?

A clandestine international deep state Christmas conspiracy (Red One)

Arms dealers / data brokers (Red One... admittedly I did not get into this in the retelling of the plot, but yeah there is a Nick Kroll character who is a gross dark web data broker... in a movie about Santa)

A weird reverence for and mild fetishization of the nigh-impossible logistical undertaking of delivering presents across the globe (Both, but more so in Arthur Christmas)

Missiles (both)... why are there missiles!?!

A General Atomics MQ-1 Predator drone (Arthur Christmas)

Santa (and other characters) wearing military-reminiscent / tacticool clothing (Both but I mean c'mon, in Arthur Christmas the older brother is wearing red and green camouflage. Why does the Christmas-equivalent of the Prince of Wales need camouflage!?!)

Wait... hold on. I forgot about those cartoons Disney did about the SEAL team elves... Prep & Landing.

When did it come out? Wait there are THREE of these? Yep. One in 2009, one in 2010, one in 2011, and according to the Wikipedia page for the last one they will release a fourth one of these later in 2025. So actually the NATO-fication of Christmas movies has been going on since 2009!?! Christians, you have some splainin' to do!

So what is the root cause?

Is it some vast deep state conspiracy over the last 15 years (or 16 by the time the latest entry in the Prep & Landing cinematic universe is released) to have filmmakers acclimatize the general public to auctioning off Xmas to the Military Industrial Complex?

Is it part of the broader trend (starting, I would argue, with the X-Men movies or if not that DEFINITELY Batman Begins) to take the fantastical & fun and try to explain them away in gritty "realistic" terms (Because wake up, kids! 9/11 happened and now we can't have fun in a post-9/11 world.)? I mean for Pete's sake Christopher Nolan turned the Batmobile into a tank (though I guess you can technically blame Dark Knight Returns and Not-Batman Fights Al Qaeda author Frank Miller for that one).

Is it just that filmmakers are unusually fascinated with the idea of an immortal (or not-so immortal as hinted by Arthur Christmas) ghillie suit-clad gift-giving wizard and his army of night vision goggle-wearing elven operators bringing peace, freedom, and security to a chimney near you (sponsored by Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, and Raytheon)?

I don't know. My 90 minutes are up (actually at this point I spent 2 hours on this).

Just something to think about.

[disneytva]

Disney Television Animation 40th Anniversary is in ONE MONTH!

[sidetable-drawer]

If I had a nickel for every piece of media I've seen where Dave Foley played a character thinking he's getting a promotion at the beginning only to find out it went to someone else, I'd have two nickels.

Which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice.

[happyunbday2u]

On the 4th Day of Christmas an artist gave to me…

Wayne and Lanny from Prep and Landing

[merry-melody]

[thefly1ngarrow]

That time of year when I wonder once again:is Lanny from Prep and Landing neurodivergent?