#i wish i was around to watch nimona's development

[filipinosamflynn]

How it started...

V.S. how it's going!

[a-dumb-sarcastic-bisexual]

I got bored again so you get Nimona headcanons

I’m fully convinced that Bal is denser than a neutron star

He’s liked Ambrosius ever since he met him and when he was a teenager he was fully convinced those feelings were unrequited  

All the while Ambrosius was asking him out like every other week and making plans for their damn wedding 

Poor babe had to be kissed on the fucking mouth for him to even consider that Ambrosius liked him back

When he finally caught on he woke up half the institute with his realization because he literally screamed 

He got really excited and asked Ambrosius “So you love me yeah?” 

Ambrosius was out here looking for hidden cameras because no way in Hell can this man be that clueless

He let Bal believe that it was a new development because he didn’t have the heart to tell Bal that he was just slow on the uptake 

He accidentally let it slip to Nimona and she never let him live it down

The boys absolutely made breakup playlists during the movie 

Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift were their best friends during that time

When the dust had settled and they forgave each other and themselves they played the playlists and laughed about how stupid they were (and they both pretended not to notice the tears in their eyes)

I’m fully convinced that the trio has the dumbest sense of humor (which is my sense of humor) 

Bal has a bad habit of taking his arm off and leaving it in the most random places 

Whenever someone asks where his arm is he’ll say “Which one?” Or “I don’t know love where is my arm?”

At first it caught Ambrosius off guard but now he just chuckles and says “Fine be like but don't ask me for help when you can't find it later” 

Bal will normally scoff and tell him he won't (they both pretend the conversation never happened when Bal asks him to help him look for it)

One time they were watching a firework show and Nimona turned to them and said “Remind you of anything?” 

The boys just sat there not knowing if they wanted to laugh or cry so they took turns doing both 

They kept making that joke and Ambrosius threatened to call them firecracker if they kept it up

All they could say was “You act like that isn’t a sick ass nickname” 

Whenever the smallest inconvenience happens Ambrosius always says “I wish the director stabbed me that day” 

Like this man could misplace his keys and look down at the ground and say “Do me a favor come back and kill me for real please”

The first time he said that Bal spit out his coffee and all Ambrosius could say was “You’re not helping this situation hun”

Honestly, I have no clue how old Ambrosius and Bal are but if I had to guess I would say 20-26

And because they’re both really young and Nimona hasn’t matured past 14 I feel like they would have a very complex relationship with her 

They have very paternal instincts when it comes to her but they also act like older brothers 

They’ll threaten to ground her if she sets another piece of bubble gum on fire (which she laughs at) but they also aren't afraid to mess around and roughhouse with her 

Sometimes Nimona and Ambrosius will be messing around and jokingly picking on each other and the next thing Nimona knows he’s being picked up like he weighs nothing and tossed on the couch 

Whenever Nimona annoys the Hell out of Bal while he’s working Bal will just pick him up and place him outside of the lab

And there have been plenty of times when Ambrosius isn't scared to tackle his little ass to the floor 

Oh she’ll make sure they regret it because she could easily snap them both in half like a twig but sometimes it’s just fun to play fight (Ambrosius calls them her zoomies)

They’ll bicker over who actually cleans up around the house and whose turn it is to wash the dishes 

But they’re also able to have these incredibly deep conversations that go late into the night 

They’ll get into very intense fights and then five minutes later Ambrosius will walk into Nimona’s room and leave a tray of cut fruit without saying anything 

Whenever the boys are working from home Nimona will hang out with them

She jokes that she’s “blessing them with her presence” and most of the time they let it slide because she doesn’t really do anything 

She’ll bring snacks drinks games and a phone charger but she doesn’t talk a lot she just hunkers down and waits for them to be done with work

Whenever the boys ask why she does this she’ll shrug her shoulder but the truth is she finds their company incredibly comforting

[ben-talks-art]

Nimona was so great I wish it was a show

After seeing the trailers and clips and hearing about the premise I was really excited about watching this movie.

It looked fun, the main lead looked awesome, the animation seemed charming, it just looked like it was going to be a good time while exploring a very relevant theme even for today.

And long story short, that's basically what it was, just a really good fun time exploring a really relevant theme. It was as super solid movie with a super solid main character.

I don't think it's perfect but it did what I hoped it would do, showing this tiny girl with a sharp-teethed smile being awesome and kicking ass.

(Spoilers for the movie below)

For those who don't know the premise, the movie tells the story about a man about to become an official knight who gets framed for a murder and ends up getting hated by the whole kingdom forcing him into isolation.

Once Nimona finds out about this she considers the idea of becoming friends with him since people also hate her for things she never did, so at least they could be hated and hunted down together.

The guy doesn't trust her at first but with time they start to get along and develop some absurdly charming chemistry and eventually through their combined efforts they managed to make people see that neither of the two is as bad as everyone thinks.

At first I was a little skeptical since I didn't want to see yet another "Last of Us" or "Logan" story about some grumpy old dude learning to be a father after taking care of a spunky little girl, a trope that I'm just freaking sick to death of seeing so much, but they handle it really well in here by instead of making it a father-daughter relationship it's more like just two outcast friends hanging out.

He's not raising or taking care of her. Heck, if anything, she's the mentor figure making him realize his views of the world aren't as simple as he thinks.

And like I said, they have such a great chemistry. At first it's the usual "simple character gasps at weird character" routine, but they drop that after some time and it becomes more about him just going along with her antics and joining in on the fun.

The best part of the movie is just these two hanging out and being weird together. I could watch a whole show about them just having fun doing whatever, I just love seeing them that much.

Their interactions are so enjoyable to watch, a lot of it coming from the voice acting doing a perfect job showcasing their personalities. I just adore hearing them talk to each other. There is so much emotion and character in their voices that I feel they could just be reading a phonebook and still would be fun to listen to.

Which kinda brings me to my one problem with the movie...

The two leads work so well together and are so likable and charming... That they kinda make the rest of the story feel just a tiny bit lacking.

The major plot involving the crime mystery is... sadly not that interesting in my opinion.

You've seen these scenes before, you heard these lines before, you know what's gonna happen and how they're gonna solve the conflict, you know exactly who the culprit is and why they did it the second they appear on-screen.

It's the usual "who's the real monster" story and "people who fear what they don't understand" plot.

It's not bad, and it's sadly still relevant to remind people that they shouldn't hate on things just because they're too afraid of the unknown, but it's just a story we've seen so many times already and there isn't really that much new here.

They play around a little with the idea that the kingdom is always trying to be under the light because they are afraid of what they can't see in the shadows with several shots of the knights being literally under sources of light at all times and in the climax of the movie we see a being literally hides their true self under several layers of shadows, and stuff like that is handled really well, but when you come down to it it's still the usual story about the dangers of making assumptions under the wrong or lack of information.

One thing they addressed that I really really liked was how they point out that kids are taught from an early age to discriminate as if it was a normal thing to do and why it's so hard for adults to let go of this discrimination since it's basically like rejecting what your entire life has taught you.

I think the story should have leaned more on that. Instead of being about solving the mystery of "who did it?", it would have been, in my opinion, more interesting if it was about Nimona showing her friend how he's been slowly brainwashed his whole life, kinda like what happened in How To Train Your Dragon where the main lead has a scene of him realizing that everything he knew about dragons was wrong, or even in this movie's creator's other work, She-Ra, where the female lead, Adora, realized she and many others were being lied on by the bad guys her whole life.

Or heck, they could have turned this into some sort of "Beyond Good and Evil" setting where our two leads go around finding proof about the lies of the government and work underground to collect evidence and show the citizens the true colors of the kingdom and through that bringing the people to their side.

I don't know, I just feel like the idea of having these two working together to reveal other truths would be more engaging than just the usual "scared people do dumb things" plot.

Again, the scenes with these two working together once they got on the same page were my favorite parts and I really wished I could have more of that.

But I know why we can't have more of that. This is a movie with three acts and we need to do the usual movie with three acts thing, establish the conflict, explore the conflict, and solve the conflict, all while introducing all the relevant characters, setting up their motivations, and having them go through some character development by the time we reach the end so we can pass on the moral of the story.

And sometimes when you need to focus on all that you end up with not enough time to focus on other elements, which is why I really feel this would work even better as a show so we could have more time dedicated to the two leads just being great and doing cool things together, exploring this world and maybe even adding other characters for them to interact with.

I feel like Nimona's biggest flaw is that its leads are way more interesting than the story they're in.

For instance, the fact that Nimona has shape-shifting powers is freaking awesome and leads to tons of cool and creative scenes of her just going from one shape to another... But it also feels like a bit overkill for the problems they come across.

I kept waiting for some sort of big epic battle where she would have to face some sort of squad of super-enhanced knights or something, or maybe they would go How To Train Your Dragon 2 and reveal they also have a secret evil shape-shifter on their side for her to fight, or maybe they would do it like in the series Kipo and have the big villain copy Nimona's power so they could have a transformation fight in the same way they did it in the Sword on the Stone movie.

I don't know, I just feel like Nimona's antagonists are kinda boring for how cool she is. She barely even interacts with them when I think about it.

But yes... I know that's not the point... It's not about Nimona punching some cool bad guy in the face as if we were in a Marvel movie...

it's about sending the message of how adults keep trying to find faults and problems in things that have no faults and problems just because of their upbringing, fear, lack of guidance, or outside manipulation, and how much that behavior needlessly hurts the innocents who have no means to resist and how that corrupts the young into following their example and keeping the cycle going.

It's about how when you treat people like monsters they start to consider becoming monsters as well, showing how powerful our actions and their consequences can be even if we don't think about it.

It's about how hard it is to sometimes see that we are making a big mistake that's keeping us from stepping into a whole new world of possibilities that might be even better than the world we have now because of how scary it is to leave your clear comfort zone and adventure through the unknown.

It's about a whole bunch of relevant themes and messages that can help people become even better people...

That said... It is a little hard to look at a character THIS cool and not go "I wish she would fight something cooler."

Like... Look at all the promotional images of her grinning while starting to shift into a dragon and tell me you don't want to see her in some super big epic battle against some really cool villain. (Or maybe that's just me? 🤔)

But... Then again, that does fit into the message of Nimona not having to be what people think she is or want her to be and instead learning to accept her for who she really is, just a girl that wants others to stop finding non-existent problems with her.

So, yeah, I'm not gonna get angry at a movie for not being exactly how I wished it was when the whole idea is that we often get too angry at things for not being how we think they should be.

Bottom line, I like Nimona. I love the leads, love the voice-acting, the transformation scenes, the chemistry between the characters, the interactions...

The message is kinda "been there done that", but many people still need to hear about it even today so, who am I to complain...

I just wish I could see the leads hanging out more and doing more things outside of this main plot. I feel like this works as a great pilot for an ongoing story with these two and would be more than happy to follow them in other adventures (the movie literally ends with the walls to a whole new world breaking down ala Attack on Titan).

So... Can I get a sequel or a tv show, please?