Not only does the brave little toaster have a song where cars in a junkyard sing about how worthless they are before they are crushed to death but one of those cars drives himself onto the conveyor belt before the magnet can put them there because he wanted to die on his own terms.
People talk about how stuff from the 80s and 90s was nightmare fuel, or too uncanny to be charming, or just plain strange. I contend that there was more creativity in the 80s and 90s and we were seeing performance artists and craftspeople at their absolute peak. When I look at something like Dark Crystal and compare it with something like the latest sterile CGI pixar or dreamworks movies, I feel sad.
I fear for the day Hollywood decides to remake Labyrinth. Amazing movie with some of the greatest puppetry ever. Today it would probably be a 3D CGI crapfest. Also who could ever replace Bowie? Somehow I think they’d get Will Smith in there.
I don't know, they did a solid with the Dark Crystal prequel.
Fun note: we bought a dragon puppet at renfair from a guy who made puppets for Jim Henson's son.
We also have the caterpillar and Ludo from Labyrinth on our oddities shelf. Oh, and I named our dog Fizzgig because that's what he looked like as a pup: all mouthface no body.
Labyrinth is one of my favs, I rewound the tape so many times it broke. But I don't see a movie getting made today about a grown man kidnapping a baby so that his 16 year old sister will come be his captive "obedient" lover in his castle where he keeps his riding crops but no horses. Just sayin.
The people that animate and come up with character designs didn't choose to make the movie they're making. The studio decided that based off of market research and focus group testing. I'm sure the artists and animators who worked on Trolls would have loved to do something maybe a little less baby and a little more "kid-edgy".
Side note: it never fails to miff me, that bible bashers burned women and children alive at the stake, and instead of seeing that as a travesty, media backs up the bible bashers and demonises witches. People who were mainly midwives and healers. It hurts my brain.
Pfft whatever. I grew up with super friends. It was the most watered down, sanitized version of super hero action you can get. My daughter watches kids superhero stuff and they actually fight all the time. She reads the warriors books that have parts where cats rip each other to shreds.
Things are different these days of course, but this post is horseshit.
The witches. Mother fuck that movie. This scene, and really the whole movie gave me the creeps as a kid. Charlie and the chocolate factory weirded me out too. Fuck Roald Dahl.
I used to love his books as a kid. It was only as an adult that I realised that torturing and murdering children was his favourite theme in his kids books.
It is also OK not to be the best, or even to be the worst!
It is OK to acknowledge your behavior or thoughts are bad and to really experience your negative behaviors and thoughts - you can regret or feel sadness about them without looking away to escapism.
Finally, even if you are the worst among your peers, at least you aren't as bad or sad as characters of old fashioned tragedies and cautionary tales which are meant to give kids intuitive understanding of the three principles above.
Y'all youngins had it easy. Give Rikki Tikki Tavi a spin. Orson Well was a horrifying narrator for a children's cartoon. I had nightmares forever behind that show.
It is not for kids. Deliberately made to be a fantasy story for adults. The puppets don't mean it is for kids but, like cartoons, puppets got lumped into a "kids" categories for literally no reason.
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