#more like a collection of halfbaked thoughts

[lediz-watches]

Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir the movie

Put shortly: I liked it. It was good times. Great animation, good storyline, good use of the characters, good time.

Put slightly longer: I feel way more satisfied after watching this movie than I did watching the mid-season of the season 5 on Disney+, but I think that's saying more about where the series currently is than the movie itself. So let's focus on that!

Spoilers below the cut like WHOA.

Starting off with my in-movie notes, because I haven't felt the need to do that since watching The Winchesters, so why not?

Oh, they kept the voice actors. Thought they’d go with new ones

But they didn’t use Christina Vee for Marinette’s singing voice, which is very strange

Also, this song is lovely, but is not matching the movie. It’s a pop song, and I dig it, but it’s tonally wrong for the movie, which wants a full on Alan Menken with much brighter orchestrations. And Marinette’s voice is higher than this.

I like that Marinette is the one rejecting other people in this movie. This makes so much more sense for how she will suddenly become super popular once she’s Ladybug

CHLOE MY BELOVED BITCH WITH SOCIAL MEDIA AWARENESS. The Kardashians would deign to meet with you

Alya, you well meaning bitch you. This is why people struggle with you so hard

I really prefer the character designs for this movie. Not just the facial designs, but these actually look like kids with a healthy weight and proportions. (Series!Marinette's limbs freak me out)

I really like how the other kids act around Marinette. Aside from Chloe, the bullying really is all in her head – people are just looking at her, not judging. I like it.

Adrien studying at lunch! Another characterisation I like. And him running away when he’s confronted with people being a bit weird and him feeling like he’s on the verge of being awkward. Or at least that’s what I guess he was doing? They don't actually explain his actions here.

Oh, Garbiel’s beginning is nice. I like it.

“a nice screaming exchange like two civilised teenagers!” oh Chloe I adore you

Knowing what I know about the spoilers, this line “who saves a life saves the world” feels pointed, and could have been a great theme in the series

I love Tikki already

This 'You are Ladybug' song seems very nice, I love the beat, but again, Marinette’s singing voice is so distracting

Oh, goddammit Adrien.

GodDAMMIT Adrien.

Oh, boy, please, calm down. I love you but wow, boy… This is why I love you, even, but WOW

And watch as he immediately falls for the first girl to act like showing him attention isn’t a big deal

I love these kids so much. They’re so 14. Such brats.

See, Adrien’s singing voice actually fits him, despite still sounding like a pop song. Actually as a general rule, this song is just more suited to the movie and the moment, too. Maybe it's just Marinette's singing voice I'm struggling with

Did they change Plagg’s voice?

I prefer the change to Doosoo’s, though

Oh, Gabriel. I love you, you ham.

I also like that there are already supervillains in Paris, even though we don’t actually know about them.

THESE KIDS.

This Mime villain is actually genuinely menacing

I also like the way Tikki acts here. She’s more chaotic and doesn’t feel entirely ‘good’. In the sense of being a goody-two-shoes, I mean. She feels aggressive, violent. Much more like creation.

And Cat Noir’s powers being rougher and more physical, compared to Ladybug’s quick thinking and grace. There's balance in these characters, not just together but also in themselves.

I like Adrien’s arc as a superhero here. Main character syndrome immediately failed, he relegates himself to being a sidekick, and never realises he’s legitimately a hero in his own right because no one ever realises his stupidity is ALWAYS the result of poor mental health responses. Someone who is not a destructive spirit intervene in this boy's mental state!

Gabriel… is falling apart. I would have liked to have seen more of that.

Okay. Pause a second. Because I’ve reached the part of the movie where Ladybug rejects Cat Noir, Adrien rejects Marinette, and she’s singing about… something? I’m not quite following what the narrative intention of this song actually is, but it’s hitting an interesting point that I’m suddenly distracted by.

So something that’s always kind of been annoying to me in the series is that Marinette went from being the worst, most hopeless and unpopular girl in school to being its superstar just by being Ladybug. This movie actually does a really good job of showing that she was never that bad, she just didn’t believe in herself and sabotaged herself, and so when she stops sabotaging herself she excels. And I actually think it would have been super cool if there was an arc where she thought it was all about being ladybug, and became OVER confident because of it, and assumed that being Ladybug meant EVERYTHING should go her way. And so this set back—Adrien not just falling in love with her because she wants it that way—completely destroying her world view? Causing her a crisis of confidence? Making her fail as Ladybug, because she suddenly realises it’s not just luck and super powers, but her? That would have been a great plot. I would have liked that a lot. I’m not sure that’s what’s happening here, but I would’ve liked that a lot.

Yeah, this song is just skipping that plot and her going straight to starting to realise she’s enough.

Yesss Fallen!Gabriel, I enjoy this

 Adrien, as always, your timing is terrible

…Hawkmoth, how are you doing any of this? How does it relate to your power set? Is this supposed to be what happens when you akumatise yourself?

I do like this resolution to the Gabriel villain story though. Including having Adrien actually being the solution to the problem, living out his role as the heart of the story to resolve the real problem, while Ladybug takes the spotlight as the ‘active’ hero.

CHLOE I LOVE YOU, YOU BITCH

Okay, so on a technical level, I love this movie's character designs, the animation is gorgeous, the direction is beautiful, the voice acting is (as always) amazing. With the exception of Marinette's singing voice, which was aggressively distracting, this movie is technically excellent.

And seems to have been delivered to schedule. Now that's the real shock.

Pacing wise, it was really good for a movie that was trying to encapsulate the scope of two heroes developing over like... what was supposed to be, six months? Very fast, maybe a little too fast, but not bad for its scope. But I do think that the only reason some of it worked is because we know these characters and could fill in the scenes. On his own, movie!Adrien wasn't developed beyond 'melodramatic BOY' (Nino did a LOT of heavy lifting for developing Adrien's character in like three lines), and movie!Marinette was pretty one-dimensional as 'underconfident'. But it was... fine. Ladybug and Cat Noir were a little better developed, and since they were the same people... meh.

Narratively, however.

I like Gabriel's story in this movie. I like him basically having a breakdown, and I like that it is only resolved when he is forced to see the damage he's done to his own son. I like that it's implied that Adrien's response is what actually saves him.

I also like how Ladybug and Cat Noir function together in this movie. They're stronger together, both literally and figuratively, and they have different functions that work, and the movie showcases it working. Ladybug is more visibly capable, but she's only able to be so BECAUSE Cat Noir is rushing around, taking the brunt of the chaos, distracting people, distracting HER from it all being too much. He can't do anything on his own, but neither can Ladybug, really. I really like how this movie ended that way, too - Cat Noir is unconscious, but still distracting the villain while Marinette sorts herself out. And once she has, she basically gets shunted off to the side, because the only way to solve this is with an emotional focus, and that's Adrien's job in their partnership. But AS FAR AS PARIS IS CONCERNED, Ladybug is still somehow the actual and only hero.

I suspect that after the series is over, I shall rant about the yin/yang and balance and what the series is trying to do, but for now...

Normally, I don't like movies that can't exist on their own. But in this particular case... I think I wouldn't enjoy this movie so much without the series to contrast against, and I think this movie showcases something really beautiful about the world of Miraculous. If it leads into a series of movies telling the Miraculous story...

Honestly, I wouldn't be mad.

Nice work, Mr Zag. It's good for what it is.

[kozykricket]

i think honestly mojang is in a cycle where they're CREATING people who are unsatisfied. when you keep adding extrinsic rewards and jingling shiny keys for people to go collect, then its like. yes those are fun! but they run out. especially when its just one or two really really well developed and thought out shiny thing every year. gonna be real if you want to go for Shiny Shiny Stuff, then you gotta go for quantity over quality in some way tbh. because ...people have become accustomed to new shiny things to collect, but then that leaves them feeling unsatisfied that there isnt MORE its like, the sniffer but on a larger scale; the sniffer having only two plants makes people disappointed that there isnt like, 15 different plants from it. the expectation is "oo yesi love this i want more!!" but if it had none in the first place, then. okay. people wouldn't have the disappointment of lack of plants they wouldnt be asking for more plants

and likewise, i dont think people would be asking for more cool things to seek out and find in minecraft, if they werent being given little bits of new adventures to go on with new shiny rewards it realistically started all the way back in 1.11 when the focus became more on exploration, but the jingling of keys began in .. hm. 1.16 or 1.17, probably. 1.16 is an exception because the nether was a nothingburger beforehand, tbh. and it doesnt leave much of the nether feeling lacking because... well, the dimension is MOSTLY covered in new stuff! by proxy of originally being nothing! but the overworld already has tons of stuff, and . being given more stuff... just. mm i cant word things correctly but. more new places to go with new things (sherds, echo shards, now resin) is like. that just makes you wish for more. and its insatiable to keep that up forever minecraft is becoming a halfbaked terraria, in terms of adding more extrinsic goals

can the game succeed past this? yeah

but i think its in an extremely awkward state of being right now