Category / Disney

by hutchwp

Star Wars Celebration Europe 2016 – Day 2

Day two at the Star Wars Celebration was far more busy than the first. A sold out ticket allocation meant that queues were slightly longer, walking from A to B was slightly more stressful and events were slightly more over-subscribed. That didn’t really matter though. Because Star Wars.

The day kicked off with the familiar dash for wristbands for the headline events in the Celebration Theatre. If you’ve never experienced this at a convention before, it is my understanding that this is about as mellow as it gets. You just need to be there on time and know what you’re looking for.

Panel – ‘The Creatures, Aliens and Droids of Star Wars: The Force Awakens’

Chancellor Villecham, Wollivan and Quiggold


The first port of call was the panel discussion titled ‘The Creatures, Aliens and Droids of Star Wars: The Force Awakens’. Hosted by Warwick Davis (who acted as Wicket and Wollivan, amongst others), this was truly spectacular. Where else would you get a chance to hear an hour-long discussion with several members of the team behind the practical special effects in Episode VII? The panel included Neal Scanlan (Creature Effects Supervisor, Force Awakens); Brian Herring (BB-8 puppeteer, The Force Awakens); Vanessa Bastyan (Supervising Animatronic Designer); Chris Clarke (Animatronic Designer); Maria Cork, (Hair Department Supervisor).

The key moment here was the reveal of a new character from Rogue One, provisionally called Space Monkey. Portrayed by Nick Hennings, he had a bit of fun misbehaving on stage and throwing some of Warwick Davis’s Ewok paraphernalia around.  

There was also demonstration of some Force Awakens characters, including Wollivan, Chancellor Villecham and Quiggold. The intricacy of the animatronics involved were easy to be missed in their blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearances just didn’t do them justice.

Exhibition – The Costumes of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Three Shoretroopers line up in the costume exhibition

There is an exhibition all weekend featuring the costumes of Rogue One, which was fascinating for anyone keen to get more of a glimpse of the new film.

Moon?

The detail in the costumes is something missed when watching films anywhere but in a cinema so getting a chance to take my time with them was a unique experience that was only really afforded due to the close proximity of the venue to the recently-wrapped filming at nearby Pinewood Studios.
Panel – ‘Anthony Daniels: Without Protocol’

Anthony Daniels provides a reading from C-3PO: The Phantom Limb

‘Anthony Daniels: Without Protocol’ was a wholly different and bizarre experience. It started off like any other Q&A session before quickly descending into chaos, with Daniels and Warwick Davis trying to direct audience members on stage in a recreation of a scene from A New Hope. He then gave a reading from the recent C-3PO comic book that finally explained the red arm that has been on everyone’s minds since the film was released. 

Exhibit – Star Wars High-Performance RC Experience

The RC Experience was, in all honesty, not worth checking out. It was something a bit different, but unless you’re a huge fan of remote control helicopters it will pass without any wow factor. Sorry guys!

Panel – ‘The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The concept artists behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens


The final panel of the day was a discussion between some of the concept artists behind the development of The Force Awakens. This was a really interesting one hour that I’m glad I attended. Hosted by, there were several artists involved in the discussions, including Doug Chiang (Executive Creative Director, The Force Awakens); Rayne Roberts (Lucasfilm Story Group); Phil Szostak (author, ‘The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens’).

There were a few revelations. One image seemed to reveal that Rey used to be called Sally in an early stage of the film. It was interesting to hear how many ideas were scrapped along the way, but the artists didn’t seem to care about that and were candid in explaining their thought processes around each of their drawings.

There was a surprise visit from Rogue One director Gareth Edwards, who were spotted looking uncomfortable in a Stormtrooper outfit throughout the panel. He asked a ridiculous question in a very broad northern-England accent (I think) and laughed as the panel looked on nonplused. A great moment!

Gareth Edwards creates a storm


Mark Hamill?

Stop! Hamill Time!


Mark Hamill surprised fans as we left by appearing on the Star Wars Show stage and entertaining guests until we were all ejected. A nice surprise given we were heading for the exit anyway!!

by hutchwp

Star Wars Celebration Europe 2016

I’ve just arrived at the Star Wars Celebration Europe event in London, a weekend of fun for anyone who loves all things Jedi!

It was a bit of a rush this morning but we’ve managed to get on site, pick up our tickets and get wristbands for two popular events:

– An Hour With Mark Hamill

– Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

With about an hour to go until the pandemonium that is the opening of the hall, we couldn’t be more excited. Our group is setting each other small trivia questions, most of which result in a correct answer (eventually). Apart from any answered by me – I couldn’t even tell a Magnaguard from an Imperial Guard.

I just feel sorry for the guy who came dressed as adult Anakin for the cosplay event. Why?!

See you around here.

by hutchwp

Film review – Zootropolis (Byron Howard and Rich Moore, 2016)

Zootropolis is the latest in the Disney Animated Studios classics range that certainly holds its own alongside its older brothers and sisters, with a well realised universe and some extremely likeable characters. It may not have the staying power of the greatest films of the studio, but serves as a fun way to entertain children for a couple of hours in the earl summer.

The film stars Ginnifer Goodwin as Judy Hopps, a tiny rabbit that has aspirations to go to Zootropolis to become a police officer. Driven on by a childhood incident, she finally reaches her goal via a fairly snappy montage sequence. Dsappointingly assigned parking duty by her new boss Chief Bogo (Idris Elba, providing a voice that doesn’t really match the character), she sets out to prove she is more than a small fish in a big pond. Striking up an unlikely love-hate friendship with sly fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman in an impressive role), she uncovers a clue to solving one of the city’s biggest mysteries: the location of a missing otter and a growing number of other missing predator mammals in the city.

Goodwin’s portrayal of Judy Hopps is delightful. Her voice is perfect and brings some distinctive characterisation to life. There’s clearly a lot of chemistry between her and the well-cast Bateman. When they fall out midway through the second act, you feel it, and the target audience will too. She has an unmistakable likability in her voice that’s hard to pin down – perfect for this kind of role.

The film excels in its underlying messages of racism and stereotyping, making it a timely release. Each main character’s driving force is as a result of some kind of prejudice they’ve had to fight against. Make no mistake – there is little effort to hide it, to the point of it feeling a little ham-fisted. Anyone who wants their cinematic experiences compartmentalised by separating pure entertainment from thought-provoking commentary may need to double-check the age rating on this film. 

Where it falls down is its lack of foresight in terms of future generation’s appreciation of it. The greatest animated films have been enjoyed for almost a century by parents and children alike. They always have a timeless quality to them, much like fairy-tales, allowing a Snow White or Cinderella to be picked up now and not feel of-its-time. For Zootropolis, one has to wonder how the children of 2040 will feel about the overused phone apps that are featured, or indeed the Breaking Bad and Frozen references that are thrown in for cheap laughs.

For now, however, Disney will sit back and count this as a huge success. It is now the highest-grossing film of 2016 and the 28th of all time (as of 16th May 2016).

by hutchwp

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Bonus Features

I received my copy of The Force Awakens in the post earlier today and have busied myself watching a handful of the bonus features.

For fans of the film, or of Star Wars in general, there is plenty on offer to warrant a purchase. All the things imaginable are covered and have details galore far beyond what you’d have heard before.

The deleted scenes are largely disappointing. There’s no Constanble Zuvio and Chewbacca doesn’t rip anyone’s arms out of their sockets. There is a nice little scene with a chase on a snowspeeder, complete with Phantom Menace-level CGI. There’s also a cool clip featuring Kylo Ren searching the Falcon and sensing Han Solo.

Watching them and their limited nature makes me feel like there are some more completed scenes out there that might surface as an Extended Edition at a later date.

The centre point of the disc is by far the one titled ‘Secrets of The Force Awakens: A Cinematic Journey’. It’s a four part, hour-long documentary feature that takes you on the journey from concept to final product. Do yourself a favour and make sure you watch this. Treat it like a proper film.

The first read-through feature is a little disappointing. It’s nice enough but with a title like that you might be forgiven for expecting video footage of the whole script read. It is less than five minutes and is just the cast reminiscing on that special first day.

Elsewhere, there’s a mini feature on BB-8 and another on the creatures from the film, plus ones covering the music and ILM.

Overall a disc worthy of your time if you’re the type of person who wants to learn as much as possible about such a fantastic film.

by hutchwp

Film review – Deadpool (Tim Miller, 2016)

Deadpool may be many things. Some call it a superhero film. Some will call it an action film. Some will call it a romance. Some will call it a comedy. It may be all of these things, but one thing it doesn’t do is take itself seriously.

Deadpool has opened with the largest first weekend takings of an R-rated movie ever ($132.7m). Both the taking and the rating are well deserved. Where its superhero counterparts have sanitised the violence portrayed, Deadpool plays to it. There are beheadings. There are dead human carcasses splattered at high speed into road signs. There is terrible, offensive and graphic language. The violence is non-stop. There’s even more after the opening scene. Later, we visit a strip club. Indeed, there’s a sex montage that lasts about five minutes and is played for laughs. Nothing is off-limits.

It never loses its sense of humour, and at the centre of this achievement is Ryan Reynolds who proves that he’s the right guy for the job after all. We have seen Reynolds’s take on Deadpool once before, albeit in what is generally regarded to be a butchered take on the comic book character. His first appearance as the chatty bad ass was in 2008’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in which he was inexplicably not able to talk once he became Weapon XI / Deadpool. It was seen at the time as a missed opportunity by fanboys of the comics, though in hindsight it is hard to pin the blame on Reynolds. What else could he do with a silent character, especially acting alongside will.i.am?

This time around he is actively encouraged to pastiche other superhero films. Several times the fourth wall is broken to humorous effect, usually to take a poke at the previous Marvel films, the messy timeline involved in the X-Men franchise, Hugh Jackman himself and, most frequently, that underwhelming Origins film.

It’s refreshing to see a superhero film not taking itself very seriously. It was also great to see a director – a first-time director at that – given the ammo to do exactly what he wants with a film and not be told to fit it into a larger universe. We can only wonder if Ant-Man could have been this good if Edgar Wright was allowed to finish it.

Tim Miller has directed one short film prior to Deadpool. It was an animated short film from 2004 called Gopher Broke. You can view it here:

Supporting Cast

One of my favourite X-Men characters as a child was Collossus (Stefan Kapicic). Here he is given yet another outing on the big screen in a CGI creation that is well realised visually if not in terms of characterisation. He is present as one of Deadpool’s sidekicks solely for comic relief rather than to provide any real threat, and as a result it’s difficult to see him having any room to manoeuvre in future X-Men films.

The other sidekick character making up the lead trio is Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand). An emo-styled young mutant, she at least has some potentially useful strength. However, she is also on the receiving end of some great one-liners from Deadpool and doesn’t offer much to suggest she might ever become a fan favourite.

deadpoolcolossus

These two supporting X-Men were clearly only ever seen as a bit of background built around the requirement for a subplot in the final battle sequence. A joke is made at one point about the studio not being able to afford any more X-Men. There is doubtless some truth in this.

Elsewhere, the supporting cast also includes the annoyingly evil Ed Skrein, who does a good job of making the fairly generic character Ajax quite dislikable. Morena Baccarin is well cast as the romantic interest, though it’s a shame we saw yet another an initially headstrong female character dissolve into a damsel in distress. Hopefully she will be given more prominence if a sequel is made – if they stick to the comic books she will become the mutant Copycat.

Conclusion

It is a very good film, almost a great film. It’s brash, it’s offensive and it’s graphic. It’s almost like a superhero film from an alternate reality, where the primary goal isn’t to sell action figures and lunchboxes. Its failings are more than made up for by how refreshing it was to see a completely different take on the genre.

If nothing else, at least now we can say a film has done justice to the Deadpool franchise.

Deadpool is out now at cinemas globally.

by hutchwp

Film review – The Good Dinosaur (Peter Sohn, 2015)

Pixar’s latest effort The Good Dinosaur is a by-the-numbers buddy comedy set in an alternative history where the asteroid that would have wiped them out has missed Earth completely, meaning dinosaurs and Neanderthal humans live side-by-side. It concerns a timid dinosaur called Arlo (Raymond Ochoa) who is split up from his family has to befriend a dog-like human called Spot to survive and return home.

The Good Dinosaur was destined for problems before it was released. Originally scheduled for a Christmas 2013 release, it has been put back several times, each time causing confusion and issues for the other Disney films on track for their respective releases. According to Denise Ream, one of the film’s producers, the primary reason for the rescheduling was “the story was not working, period, full stop, it just was not where it needed to be.” The director Bob Peterson, who previously found success with Up, was removed and replaced with Peter Sohn, allegedly because he was too involved with the film.

The upshot of it all is that it has found itself living in the shadow of the excellent Inside Out, which has barely left the cinemas, and is competing for shelf space in the various toy stores across the land with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which is set for release less than a month after The Good Dinosaur. It was also released in the middle of a school term, drastically reducing the opportunity to go and see it for anyone with children in school. So does that make the target audience parents who aren’t working and have children old enough to go to the cinema but under the age of 4? I guess so… [1]

The film itself feels like an unfinished product. It is the first time I’ve watched a Pixar film and genuinely felt like they’d given up on it. It feels like a last-gasp chance to recoup on a project that will, at best, break even.

The character design is uninspired. None of the dinosaurs offer any of the individuality or appeal audiences have come to expect from a Pixar or Disney film. The beautiful environment goes some way to make up for this, but only Spot himself felt like a fully realised character.

If the reports are to be believed, then the problems with the film lied in the final third. This is, then, presumably where the cavalry came in to take over and save the day. Sadly for Peterson, this is exactly where the film picked up a bit and paid off on some of its promise.

Two scenes stuck out as being particular highlights. The first was a beautiful montage scene where Arlo and Spot ran through an open plane full of birds was vintage Pixar. The second was an emotional scene in which Spot is effectively adopted by another Neanderthal family at the encouragement of Arlo.

Perhaps both of these were Peterson’s work. Will we ever know?

As a 31-year-old man, I know I’m not the target audience for this film. I do have an appreciation for all good animation though and this falls a long way short. The best critics are the children. Four days after its release, the cinema was about 10% full. The children present seemed restless and disinterested. A few parties left. Maybe they went home to watch something more enjoyable. Or, you know, fun.

The Good Dinosaur is currently on release at UK cinemas.

[1] In my local cinemas only one screening was achievable for workers and people at school, which was a 6:30 screening at a Cineworld. I don’t know how many people were at earlier screenings.

by hutchwp

Sanjay’s Super Team (Sanjay Patel, 2015)

If you were keen enough to get to the cinema early enough before The Good Dinosaur, one of the worst Pixar feature films thus far, you’ll have been treated to Sanjay’s Super Team, one of the worst Pixar short films thus far.

Sanjay realises just how bad The Good Dinosaur is.

The story, based on the true memories of director Sanjay Patel, revolves around him as a young child and the conflict between him wanting to enjoy a superhero TV show and his father wanting him to join him in prayer. Frustrated when his father turns the TV off and forces him to pray, Sanjay uses his time of reflection to daydream into a strange world where his Hindu gods are more like superheroes.

The cel-shading technique used in the daydream sequences is a bit of a let down and feels like a quick solution, despite the best efforts to make it look as colourful as possible. I couldn’t help but imagine how good it would have looked with more attention to detail.

This is a film about a child having doubts over his beliefs and a clash of cultures. Whilst many won’t understand the precise religious and cultural aspects at play, most will appreciate the story from the position of a child not wishing to have to follow in the footsteps of the parents. In principal I don’t agree with using religion as a basis of children’s entertainment, but it works well in this case to create a story for the older audience members.

Unfortunately, the overall result is a bit bland. There was no dialogue, the brilliantly coloured dream sequence lacked any real wow factors and it didn’t move fast enough to make use of the lengthy running time for a short film. The children in the audience voted with their restlessness and disinterest. 

In this sense, it was the perfect warm up for the main feature.

by hutchwp

Riley’s First Date? (Josh Cooley, 2015)

If you loved the Pixar animated feature film Inside Out then chances are you’ll… like “Riley’s First Date?”, the short included as a bonus feature on the various Blu-ray versions of the release.

It centres around a mysterious boy showing up at Riley’s household to take Riley out, with most of the jokes coming from the parents’ reactions to interacting with him. If you’ve seen Inside Out itself, it is essentially an extension of the final sequences of the film, popping in and out of the characters’ heads in rapid succession for quick laughs.

It lacks any of the emotional pull that made the film a huge success over the summer, but it does succeed in getting a few jokes that make it worth a watch. It can’t go down as a reason to purchase the Blu-ray – you don’t need any more reasons than the fact it’s the best Pixar films released for years.