Hi, my name is Timothy, I really like space, pirates, and a ton of other stuff.
Mage of Space.
Battlenet tag: Teddy#12809
3DS Friend code: 044810448284
you know who’s to blame for shit like this? The higher ups and ADs and the fact that the industry, especially triple A studios, are mostly bro dudes. That’s not to say we all are, but it drives out those of us that aren’t. We burn out and give up because no one listens to us.
So one of my favorite things about WALL-E is how, even though it takes place in a future where humans have screwed up the Earth big-time, and we’re living in this impersonal complacency dystopia and everything, all the human characters (or at least the ones we meet at the time of the narrative) are good people.
And like, in that vein, I love Captain McCrea’s arc—his sense of wonder at discovering the vast, complicated beauty of our Earth; his shift, when his romantic notions are shattered, not to despair but to heroism; the way he takes on the true meaning of what has been a cushy figurehead position, and becomes a real decision-maker and leader.
But another thing that always really catches my attention is the little scenes when WALL-E meets John and Mary. WALL-E doesn’t look or act like the Axiom robots, so they both react to him with some confusion—but at the same time, they automatically return his politeness. Just by the simple act of exchanging names, they accept WALL-E’s invitation to engage with him, and they begin to count him as a friend. John and Mary don’t do anything big to impact the main conflict or anything. But it means a lot that when their routines are interrupted by a strange robot, their first impulse isn’t to be annoyed or suspicious, but to be friendly and nice without a second thought.
And these positive qualities aren’t limited to the humans that have been directly touched by WALL-E’s eccentricity. When the deck tilts in the climactic scene, everyone reaches out and tries to help each other. Everyone cheers for the captain when he stands up to AUTO; everyone feels for WALL-E and EVE in their moment of tragedy. And everyone seems excited and hopeful about the prospect of returning to Earth and starting something new.
I just really love the optimism in this movie. I love how the story posits that being kind and caring and curious and brave really is the natural state of humanity, and it’s just that sometimes we need a little push to remind us of that.
This analysis actually made me cry almost as much as the movie.
Hi, welcome to my Ted Talk, today we will be dealing with something that has bothered me about Disney’s Robin Hood since I was a kid and I still cannot get over to this very day.
And it all stems from THESE THREE PEOPLE:
Maid Marian, Prince John, and King Richard
I’m going to preface this entire thing by saying THIS version of Robin Hood is very very VERY different than the source material, much like all Disney animated films, but it wasn’t really DISNEY who did the big changes… those just came over time with making things more… I’m just going to say “normal for society”, which is ultra double lame.
BUT that’s not the point, because that stuff happens everywhere and with everything, and if I started to complain about THAT we’d be here all day, and I’m already going to take more of your time than needed to complain about something SUPER unimportant from a children’s animated movie made in 1973.
ANYWAY!
So, in the movie the titular character, Robin Hood, is a fox. Makes total sense, foxes are crafty, hard to catch, cunning, and known for getting into and out of situations that other animals would have difficulty with. Take that and turn it into an anthropomorphic character and you’d get someone who would easily be against the normal laws, not BAD, but would do BAD to do GOOD. Robin is a show off when he wants to be, and quiet when he has to be.
He’s a pretty perfect Robin Hood, especially in the case of animated kids movies, his characteristics just work SO WELL with his personification as a fox. GOOD STUFF, if I do say so myself!
Little John, meanwhile, is a bear. Not just any bear, but a big ol’ lovable brown bear. This plays on the idea of Little John being a cheeky nickname because Little John is a big, strong, and above all the calm, cool, and rationally smart one of the two. Robin may be clever, but John is the big picture guy. Pun intended.
These two designs and animal choices work SO well with each other, and it’s because these two are so different yet they get along and honestly NEED one another that makes the differences so perfect.
ALAN-A-DALE IS A ROOSTER. BRILLIANT. I don’t even have to go into this, do I? What a GREAT call by making Alan-A-Dale a rooster. Though, I feel a bit of his characteristics were also borrowed from Will Scarlet for the Disney version, but even that still fits everything. And, honestly, I don’t mind the blending of Alan and Will, it kinda works? Especially with the movie being as short as it is.
ROOSTER BARD. ROOSTER. BARD. So good, I mean c’mon. It’s perfection.
The Sheriff of Nottingham being a wolf is… okay. It’s okay. I get it though, having the wolf hunt the fox. Haha. Cheeky. Cliche, but cheeky.
I really have nothing to say about him, he’s just…okay. Dude’s a cop, so whatever. Not a fan of bootlickers, and the fact that they’re dragging wolves in the mud by making a wolf into a cop is… whatever. /He’s A Wolf Cop/
Personally, I don’t like Friar Tuck as a badger. It really doesn’t make sense to me, and I lowkey hate it that they totally missed so many opportunities. DOVE OF PEACE? LAMB OF GOD?Like FOR REAL, you coulda done something super cute like that, but NOoOoOoOoOoO… he’s a badger. And they kinda pick on him for half the movie, for no reason, and I don’t like that.
Still, Friar Tuck is cute, and a really fun character and they do some clever animation stuff with his “badger”-ness. Still a bit of a missed opportunity.
OKAY NOW THAT WE’VE GOT THESE OTHER BIG ONES OUT OF THE WAY, IT’S TIME FOR MY ACTUAL PROBLEM!
MAID FRICKIN MARIAN IS A FOX.
WHAT THE FRICKEN FRICKITY FRACK?!
ABSOLUTELY NOT! Disney did this JUST because they wanted Maid Marian and Robin Hood to be THE SAME ANIMAL, and that’s ABSOLUTE BUNK!
WHY? Well there’s two BIG reasons that is irks me!
First, the idea that they HAD to be together because they were the same animal or they were made to be the same animal so it wouldn’t be “weird” that they were together.
LAME! UNINSPIRED! BULLSHI-
*ehem* Nonsense. Nonsense.
And it’s even MORE nonsense because of this little fact…
PRINCE JOHN AND KING RICHARD ARE HER RELATIVES!
MAID MARIAN THE NIECE OF PRINCE JOHN AND KING RICHARD!
Okay, you could argue that Maid Marian was adopted, or that King Richard married a lovely fox woman and the fox woman’s relative had a daughter and THAT was Maid Marian. And YES, that would make the situation plausible…
EXCEPT!
This is MEDIEVAL ENGLAND and they are ROYALTY and that kinda stuff wouldn’t fly even IF King Richard is the King.
WHAT I’M SAYING IS…
DISNEY ARE COWARDS FOR NOT HAVING A BIG LIONESS LADY DATE A TINY FOX MAN AND WE WERE ROBBED!
thank you, ancestors, for passing down detailed and cautious instructions on how not to get seduced and stolen away by mischievous female spirits, which I have lovingly transformed into How To Find Me a Wife Real Quick manual
I’m not the most eloquent writer, but I’ve had this idea kicking around for a while and figured I’d put it out into the universe.
A lot of the basis for the “humans are space orcs” stuff is the idea that we’re pretty durable compared to many species, yeah? When it comes to physical trauma, we can bounce back from most things that don’t kill us outright, especially given the benefit of hypothetical space-age technology, and adrenaline is one heck of a drug when it comes to functioning under stress.
But that doesn’t make us unkillable, and even though we can survive debilitating injuries and not die from shock, it doesn’t mean it’s fun. Dying of shock sucks, but at least it’s probably quick.
So - Imagine a ship, adrift in space, slowly being drawn into a star or something. In order to save the ship, someone has to repair the hyper-quantum-relay-majig on the hull or in the engine or whatever. Bit of a problem though- there’s a ton of deadly, deadly radiation (Wrath of Khan style) or poisonous fumes or, I dunno, electrical current, between the crew and the repair. Like, enough to kill most species instantly, so the crew is just like, ‘welp, guess we’ll die then’. But then.
BUT THEN
They ask the human. Because everyone’s heard the stories - you’re basically unkillable, right? Could you survive long enough in there to fix it? And their human goes real quiet for a second, but still says ‘Yeah, I could fix it’. And the rest of the crew is like, ‘Whaaaaaa, it won’t kill you?’ and the human repeats “I can fix it” (which isn’t an answer, but no one catches that, not yet at least), so they send ‘em in. And the human fixes it, they come back, the ship flies to safety, and the crew is thrilled to survive. If the human is a little quiet, well, they’re entitled after pulling off a miracle. Everyone else is just excited to get to the nearest station’s bar to tell their very own human story, cuz, ‘those crazy humans, amiright?’.
The good mood keeps up until the human is late for their next shift. At first it’s just faint unease, but- but they earned a bit of a lie-in, right? No reason to begrudge them some extra rest, even if it is a little weird for them to oversleep. They’ll be fine. Humans are always fine.
(Right?)
(…Wrong.)
-What is… help. Help!-
- ake up! You have t-
- been days. You need sleep, you-
- nother transfusion. We could-
- out of sedatives!-
A week later, the crew finally reaches the station. They stumble into the bar, haggard and haunted. And over the next months and years a new rumor about humans starts to make its way through space. A rumor unlike any before.
‘Be careful with your humans’ it whispers. ‘Their strength is not always a blessing. Be sure they don’t do something they can’t come back from, because when a human dies… they die slowly.’
The thing is, humans can be tricky. And if they’re sufficiently pack-bonded with a ship’s crew? And that crew is in danger? They’ll willingly offer themselves up to make sure the crew survives.
They won’t tell their crewmates that whatever danger it is will just kill them slowly, that they can endure the exposure but not the long-term effects.
But the idea that humans can be fragile? Can die later from exposure to radiation or toxins or electricity or even smoke inhalation?
It seems preposterous!
There are too many stories about humans surviving all sorts of conditions that would kill their other crewmates. A human dying slowly, later, lingering and in agony? It’s a creepy story but of course it’s not true.
But then… another crew shares their own story. Their human volunteered to go into the danger zone to fix what needed to be fixed. Or maybe she had to retrieve a critical component or resource. And she lingered. Wasted away. Later the human doctors told their medical team there was nothing they could do but make sure she was comfortable, ease her pain before the end.
And yet another crew, whose human plunged through smoke and ash to make sure his crew could escape. He choked and coughed and couldn’t get enough air. Their medical commander performed an autopsy and found his lungs and throat and sinuses all coated in black soot and blackened mucus and red blood.
So the stories spread. Just because they don’t die of shock, just because they don’t die right away doesn’t mean it won’t kill them. They linger in agony or unconscious or waste away slowly.
But what’s most horrifying of all?
When other humans hear the stories from the traumatized crewmembers?
They aren’t surprised or horrified.
They say “Of course”
They say “I would have done the same”
They say “it was the Right Thing to do”
And they’ll smile (what the crew’s human would have called a sad smile) and toast to the dead. For making “The ultimate sacrifice for the folks they loved” and every human listening will say the name and drink a shot of liquor.
Aang, forming the Gaang: I need the best possible teachers of water-, earth- and firebending if I’m going to be ready to face the Fire Lord when the comet comes
Korra, forming the Krew: I need a beautiful genius girlfriend and a pair of just the SEXIEST himbos
