I watched this toward the beginning of the challenge for the first time and did enjoy this. A bit jealous you got to meet the author!

Travis and I just finished Star Trek:The Animated Series last night (which were a lot better than I imagined they would be and in fact tons better than season 3!). I know we hadn't discussed too much when we were going to catch the movies, but I was hoping for a break. I love Trek, but too much Trek can get a little old!

I'm up for that! Maybe in a couple weeks we could watch them.

I'm a fan of both He-Man & the Masters of the Universe and Thundercats. Usually, I tend to favor the older shows, but I actually like the reboot of Thundercats better than the original.

Cool! I'll have to look into it. I really liked the character design, but I typically stay away from cartoon remakes.

Watched two great films today: My Neighbor Totoro and Dumbo.

This was my first viewing of My Neighbor Totoro, and I completely feel in love with it. While preparing for this challenge, I realized that their were three Miyazaki feature films I hadn’t seen (the others being Ponyo and Kiki’s Delivery Service). I’ve always thought of myself as a Miyazaki fan, but I think for me that really means that I’m a huge fan of Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, and Howl’s Moving Castle which are the only films of his that I’ve rewatched again and again. The others I’ve seen once. So I’ve decided to remedy this and watch the ones I’ve never seen and revisit a couple that I haven’t seen in college.

My Neighbor Totoro is a slow, meandering film that still sets up a great world and really endearing characters. Every thing is measured, and the exact nature of the supernatural elements is never concretely established nor are they overused. It was such a different experience from the relentless bizarre spectacles of Spirited Away or Castle in the Sky. I also think Miyazaki really captured the feeling of being an imaginative child. I’m really glad I watched it.

After this, I finally watched my BD of Dumbo which has set unwatched on my shelf for a few months. There are many Disney films that I will eagerly watch at any time. The “Renaissance” films of my childhood immediately spring to mind, but I could also watch The Great Mouse Detective or Atlantis: The Lost Empire and their ilk at almost any time. Even though Dumbo is a brilliant film (and oh-so-much better than those latter two films), I don’t find myself revisiting it like other Disney films. I cannot articulate why until I rewatch it and find myself sniffling. It is depressing and even becomes grotesque (if you’ve seen it, you know to what I’m referring). The storytelling is spot on, and I’m always transported to my days as a bullied elementary/middle-school kid when Dumbo

Dumbo’s plight is made more tragic by his lack of agency. He is a passive character who is too young and timid to change his situation so he is entirely at the mercy of those around him. The other elephants, the clowns, the ringmaster, the crows, those terrible children have all evolved (devolved? stayed exactly the same?) into Internet commenters, political pundits, etc. They are often cruel, sadistic, and close-minded; they also have all the power. Anyway, I was glad I watched something joyous (though also a bit of a tearjerker) before watching the big-eared elephant cry.

On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve also been watching an fluffy Gakuen Heaven: Boy's Love Hyper. Yes, I have much better things to watch, but there is something so relaxing about watching a bunch of schoolboy tropes have adventures. Keita Ito is a normal guy who is transferred to an elite school for awesome boys, populated by a bunch of tropes with a lineup of anime hairdos. There is a running gag where the dialogue and suggestive visuals imply two of the guys are having sex only to reveal that they are doing something else (eating, admiring china (which may be gayer that having sex ), fixing a leaky roof, etc.). Anyway, it is the exact opposite of the films I watched.

Glad you finally saw TOTORO. Now, you've GOT to see KIKI, definitely one of Miyazaki's top 4 (with TOTORO, CASTLE and MONONOKE). You should see the Japanese language version, which has two beautiful songs (by Yumi Arai) at the beginning and end. Those songs are not in the English dub.

I've already posted in this thread the story about how Miyazaki came to bless the showing of TOTORO at the Museum of Modern Art in 1999, so I won't repeat it, but I will say that I've shared TOTORO with lots of parents and kids since I discovered it in 1992 and they've all loved it equally. My first copy was in Japanese with no subs. and kids sat entranced through its entirety.

my personal opinion, the top 4 are:

TOTORO
KIKI
NAUSICAA
SPIRITED AWAY

In case it's of interest, Amazon Instant Video (currently) has the first four - Nickelodeon - seasons of Doug streaming for free to Prime members...

Went in a few radically different directions for my viewings today. Thanks to suggestions from the thread I watched The Lion King and Dumbo. As mrcellophane pointed out, Dumbo does not have a happy story but at least it has a satisfactory happy ending. It was cool to watch the evolution of animation between when Dumbo was released and The Lion King. I have a friend who hates this film with a purple passion and while I do see the criticism (i.e. racism, a little homophobia) I completely disregard it because of the music. I love the songs, I love the score, I just can't help it!

Moving away from Disney I watched Akira a film that did confuse the crap out of me the first few times I saw it but now I think I get the gist of it. I really, really, hope they don't make a live-action remake of this - it just won't go well.

Yesterday I broke into my DVD set of Superfriends: The Legendary Super Powers Team, and watched the first episode. The two part Bride of Darkseid. I think I finally have found a carton that I can get back into watching, as I actually enjoyed it. I wish my copy of Challenge of the Superfriends didn't have such a scratched up Disc 1 or I would revisit that as well. After Legendary Super Powers Team, I have a collection of the Superfriends Shorts, and Galactic Guardians.

I just can't get past the fact that it's highly derivative of 'Kimba the White Lion' ...

I watched Kiki’s Delivery Service so all I have to do is track down a copy of Ponyo. As expected (from its reputation and the comments here), it is a spectacular, beautiful film. Every time I watch a Miyazaki film, I fall in love with the visual style all over again. I guess that goes for all aspects of his filmmaking. The story is well-crafted. There is a seemingly unnecessary scene where Kiki meets another young (snooty) witch. However, the scene sets up the fact that witches have specializations as well as the implication that witches tended toward smaller towns rather than larger cities. And this is expounded on later when from the first moment Kiwi flies in with her broom, Miyazaki makes the city simultaneously joyous and daunting.

I stated earlier in this forum that I tend toward English dubs of anime, but this applies more to anime series rather than films. Usually, I watch a film in its original Japanese and will only watch an English dub my second or third go. I guess a series marks a greater commitment of time so I want to be able to look away from the screen and still get the dialogue. It may have to do with the fact that Cartoon Network shows English dubs and that was my conscious introduction (didn’t realize I had watched Japanese series as a kid) introduction to the genre. Anyway, is there any reason to watch the English dubs for Kiki or Totoro? A friend told me that she remembers Jiji talking incessantly in the dub of Kiki, which sounds absolutely awful.

I have a few friends who are working their way chronologically through Disney's animated features (and a few direct-to-video films). I've never done that, but it would be cool to see that evolution play out over decades of films.

I've heard the criticism of The Lion King, but I frankly don't care. I love it so much! There is an interesting video on YouTube called "Disney Needs More Gay" which casually looks at the way Disney employs gay stereotypes in its films. The Lion King comes up a couple times in the discussion (Scar's foppishness and the domestic partnership of Timon and Pumbaa).

Sometimes I wonder if people don't spend too much analyzing of Disney movies. It's almost like they have to find a hidden message. To me, sometimes a movie is just that, a movie. And a cartoon at that. Sometimes a singing, dancing lion is a singing, dancing lion. Are there sometimes underlying themes? Yes. It was made by a human and humans always have agendas. But, when I watch a cartoon, I'm more interested in the story than any hidden meaning.

I'm not saying Disney is perfect, far from it. They need stronger female characters that aren't out just for the guy (I think they're getting better, though-Brave comes to mind) but they have some of the best animation out there and I love that they can bring a really strong voice cast to a movie. Nathan Lane, for instance, as Pumbaa, is one of those voices that stick with you.

Sometimes I wonder, hey, when they were drawing this, did the animator go, I think gays are bad so the evil guy is going to be gay? Or is it unintentional or just using a stereotype to further the characterization of the "actor"/animal? I don't know, maybe I'm wrong and someone did think that, but for me, a cartoon is that-a cartoon meant to entertain and not have a deep philosophical debate about what animated lions represent.

So yeah, I've been trying to clear up some of my unwatched pile while waiting for my next batch of movies from the library. Trying to focus on things I haven't watched recently or ever in my collection. I picked up not too long ago, The Pink Panther: Classic Cartoon Collection. I'm almost done with disc 1, just one more section to go, and I'm really liking it. I blind bought this as I've never really watched it. I may have seen the occasional one here or there but probably not more than a few.

I'm very glad I did get this! I've laughed more at these shorts than most of the other things I've watched so far this challenge. You have to be impressed with these shorts-so much gets shown without a bit of dialogue. I think I was about 5-8 shorts in before they had any talking.

I'm not sure I'll finish the collection this month as I'm kind of in a weird mood and going all over the place, but I do think I'll be pulling it out more often.

Last night after watching some Superfriends, I decided to revisit Justice League, as it is on Netflix. It is interesting to make comparisons between the Superfriends of the 80s, and those of the 90s-2000s.

Not long ago, I took a class in which we read many of Jane Austen's novels, and had a discussion about entertainment vs. analysis. The professor was pointing out that while the novels are very entertaining and well-written, they present a flawed society with troubling implications. Several people had problems separating their feelings about the novels from the discussion which highlighted the very complicated relationship between people and their entertainment.

To me, analysis (academic or otherwise - but especially the former) is not about finding a hidden message/meaning or "figuring out" the film/book/song/etc. Recently, I watched a documentary entitled Room 237 which featured some ludicrous people spouting off about the "hidden messages" in Kubrick's The Shining. They fell into the trap of authorial intent (important but not paramount) and kept insisting they had "solved" the movie as if life were a Dan Brown novel. It was appalling to think that this was how they approached critical analysis.

I believe that looking critically at our entertainment and how information is communicated to the audience is necessary. While I really don't think that any of the authors of Disney films intend to vilify homosexuals or enact racist stereotypes (esp. in later films), a lot of our storytelling is based in communicating information through racist or homophobic tropes. Thus, The Lion King's Scar is presented as the other by making him a little gay and European. That being said, you can bet that ten-year-old me knew every bit of Scar's dialogue and practiced my Jeremy Irons' voice and scowl in the bathroom mirror. 'Cause Scar is freakin' awesome!

Yesterday, I was delighted to introduce two of my friends to Millennium Actress which is one of my all-time favorite animated films. I was a bit trepidatious since my first viewing of the film left me perplexed and confused (albeit enthralled and emotional), so much so that I had to rewatch it the next day. Thankfully, they both enjoyed it, and we had a great discussion about it afterward. To me, it is one of the best films about film - up there with Cinema Paradiso and Day for Night. The film explores the relationships and intersections between entertainment, politics, national identity, fandom, and the lives of all involved. I love the scenes where the characters write themselves into films. That idea is so central to my understanding of entertainment - be it my friends reading Austen and imagining themselves attending a country dance or ten-year-old me thinking how awesome it would be to say "screw the destiny of kings" and rebel, all with a British accent.

Maybe it has to do with the times we are living in now, but I noticed one very important difference between the Superfriends, and the Justice League. All around, it seems like the Justice League was darker and grittier. I can't say about Justice League Unlimited, as I haven't made it to that series yet.

I totally missed out on Scar being gay because he was weaker than Mufasa, British and single. I just thought he was a bully/coward who moved lethargically and they chose Irons because he had a great villainous voice. Oh well, learn something wrong everyday.

You are in for a treat! Unlimited is just great!

Good news, everybody! There's a Futurama sheep game coinciding with this challenge!

I'm sure there is a lot of overanalysis going on with Disney movies. (1) They're generally viewed by kids, and people are protective of their kids. (2) Disney is a huge brand/conglomeration and subject to much scrutiny. (3) Parents watching a movie for the 20th time need something to occupy their minds.

Very well said! I intellectually know this and examine something too closely myself, but sometimes, I just think it gets way over analyzed.

Very true.

Today while watching the Superfriends, I realized something. I noticed Batman's voice sounded very familiar. Lo and Behold, when it was signing off, Adam West was in the credits. It seems in the 84-85 seasons of the Superfriends, the studio brought in Adam West to do the voice of Batman.

I don't believe in the concept of "over analyzing", nor do I give a pass to anything because "it's just a cartoon". Ask the ghost of Boss Tweed about the power of cartoons!

For me, the relevance of thematic content is in the realm of triggers. Whether a writer, director or actor intended something is only important in the context of assigning blame. What really matters is whether something triggers a viewer. It's easy to say that someone else is "reading too much" into something if you're not the one with the life experiences that are sensitive to the matter at hand. That's the definition of privilege.

Let's take The Lion King, which I just re-watched myself on (gorgeous!) Blu-ray earlier in the week. I never gave any thought to the idea of it being an anti-immigration or racist film. I saw the hyenas as natural adversaries of lions, so it made sense to me that they'd be the villains. (Whether hyenas are actually adversaries of lions, I don't really know, but it sounded right.) But then, I grew up a white Kentuckian in the 80s and became a teen in the 90s. To the best of my knowledge, I only had a couple of Hispanic schoolmates, and none in any classes I personally took. I graduated in 1997.

Since then, I've become much more attuned to the experience of immigrants. We had a large customer base of Mexican immigrants who came into my family's consignment shop on a regular basis. One of my best friends married an Israeli immigrant ten years ago, and I got to know her and her family. Social media has put me in touch with a much more varied group of people than I ever got to know in my community.

So watching The Lion King in 2013 was a different experience from watching it in the 90s. Am I reading too much into it today, or was I oblivious then? I'm sure if I hadn't lived in such an insulated community when I grew up, I wouldn't have been as oblivious as I was. I'm equally sure that someone with experience as an immigrant or even as a minority would roll their eyes at my younger self and that the themes of the film would be plain as day to them. Who am I to say that they would be wrong?

Conversely, I'm much more sensitive to portrayals of mental health than the average viewer. My own well documented experiences with depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies aren't things that a lot of people have experienced firsthand (though, sadly, too many are familiar with them). I don't expect someone who hasn't dealt with these things to be triggered by a portrayal of them, or suggestions of them, the way that I am.

It has never occurred to me that Scar might be gay.

I find it mildly offensive that it's yet another case of a film where the hero(es) are American and the villain British, but that's entirely separate...

It's not that anything is "just a cartoon" in and of itself, its merely a continuation of the Freudian statement - viz: "[B]sometimes a cartoon is[/i] 'just a cartoon'."

And, whether facetiously or earnestly, it is always possible to over-analyse anything. The intriguing, semi-legitimate but clearly flawed - cat, pigeons - concept of the "death of the author" effectively gives a (conspiracy) theorist, earnest pseud or playful troublemaker licence to project anything they like onto anything they like or dislike and claim it as a valid reading.

It'd be a potentially dangerous statement to suggest that certain people's certain opinions are "more legitimate than others," but it must be objectively obvious that that is true. Particularly if you take as one extreme a well-researched and documented theory, and as the other a deliberately ludicrous fake opinion-baiting projection.

But you're falling into the opposite trap of dismissing the dismissal because it can be sometimes used inaccurately. That you can brand someone's opinion "over-intellectual" (oxymoronic) to undermine it does not mean that some such 'opinions' are inaccurately reading fiction filtered through smoke and mirrors.

Quite. It's not suggesting that any interloper would lay waste, merely that specific ones - scavangers rather than hunters - would undermine a carefully-balanced ecosystem.

Whether or not hyenas would destroy a lion-centric kingdom in reality, it is the case that introducing problematic elements can disrupt an ecosystem. Grey squirrels, rabbits, etc.

It's tricky, because some of this gets dressed up in terms of "right' and "wrong," when it's really valid opinion vs. valid opinion. But being able to find parallels between an experience and a work of fiction doesn't mean that the fiction has anything to do with it - it could be referencing a similar experience, appear to parallel it because different stories share similar story beats or be a complete coincidence.

With films, you obviously have even more potential layers, because what was overtly or covertly in the source material may or may not make it into the script, what's in the script may or may not make the leap to the film due to an actor's acting or a director's direction... Things could be coded in at any stage, or lost at any stage too.

True.

However, given that different people experience the same things in different ways (and vice versa), finding something that strikes a sympathetic note with a particular individual can surely sometimes pop up through coincidence and happenstance as well as deliberate intent.

I think this statement is valid on any movie, not just Disney and not just "cartoons". I rarely, well actually never, watch a film of any type looking for hidden meaning or agenda. If any are there I tend to ignore them or attribute them solely to the motivations for/of the characters in the film. I watch a film on its own merits and with me it fails or suceeds based solely on whether or not I liked the story. For example, The Day the Earth Stood Still is a allegoical story of the "Cold War" and the "Atomic Age" with parallels to Christ - but I did not see any of that until I read some critiques on the film. I just saw a very good SF film.

There's only seven(ish) stories, so it's said, which means such parallels are always going to be there. Because of plot limitations, that parallels can be sought out doesn't (necessarily) mean anything at all. And heroic story has parallels to all other heroic stories; any story about strange visitors from another planet/time/reality/etc. necessarily shares elements with the story of Christ. They can't not!

But, to pick a famous example, if there are deliberate or coincidental hidden undertones to the original story of Superman, it's been convincingly argued that they are about immigration first (both creators' parents were immigrants), and the potential religious parallels are a distant second.

But it's also perfectly reasonable to argue that it's primarily/entirely JUST a fictional STORY.