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New Escapist Column! On “The Mandalorian”, Continuity and Brand Synergy…

Posted on December 4, 2020 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. There’s been a lot of Star Wars continuity dropped into the second season of The Mandalorian, with Boba Fett returning to the show following his apparent death in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, and the live action introduction of characters like Bo Katan and Ahsoka Tano from The Clone Wars.

This is interesting, in large part because the first season of The Mandalorian was comfortable aiming for a broader sort of Star Wars nostalgia, things that looked like existing elements of continuity, rather than things that were existing elements of Star Wars continuity. The second season is much more heavy of Star Wars cross-promotion, populated with references designed to push viewers towards supplementary material. This is a nice illustration of transmedia storytelling in the streaming age, where it isn’t enough to attract fans, services have to retain them.

Streaming services hold on to existing subscribers by adding value, and Disney appear to have figured out that continuity offers its own added value. In its second season, The Mandalorian increasingly feels like an advertisement for the other riches that the streaming service has to offer, and a promise that any subscriber who doesn’t cancel once the season is over will have a treasure trove of archival material to binge at their leisure.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: canon, continuity, disney, star wars, streaming wars, subscription, the mandalorian | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special

Posted on November 17, 2020 by Darren

“The past is the best present,” promised the trailer to The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special. That seems to be the special’s statement of intent.

The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special is the latest example of Disney’s efforts at brand consolidation within the Star Wars franchise, arriving just as the second season of The Mandalorian has begun folding characters from animated series like The Clone Wars and Rebels into live action continuity. The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special is not so much about bringing another marketed part of Star Wars history into the larger tapestry of the Star Wars franchise. Instead, it is effectively about replacing The Star Wars Holiday Special, the famously terrible special from 1978.

“Life Day comes around so fast…”

The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special seems designed to effectively neutralise a lot of the stench of The Star Wars Holiday Special by repurposing the core concept and idea in a manner that is easier to package and distribute without potentially harming the overall brand. It largely works. The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special is a much better production than the earlier iteration. Crucially for Disney, it is also much less embarrassing. The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special is an iteration of that foundational Star Wars text that can stream on Disney+ without harming the brand.

That is perhaps the best thing that can be said about The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special. It is a perfectly serviceable piece of Star Wars content.

The hole issue with modern Star Wars.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: disney, film, Lego, Movie, non-review review, review, star wars, star wars holiday special, the lego star wars holiday special, the star wars holiday special | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Escapist Movie Podcast – “Digging Deep on the Manda-lore of The Mandalorian”

Posted on November 1, 2020 by Darren

The Escapist have launched a movie podcast, and I was thrilled to join Jack Packard for the tenth episode. The big news this week was the return of The Mandalorian, but we also talk a little bit about Ben Wheatley signing on to direct The Meg 2 and Tomb Raider 2, along with Michael B. Jordan making his directorial debut with Creed III.

You can listen to the episode here, back episodes of the podcast here, click the link below or even listen directly.

Filed under: Podcasts! | Tagged: baby yoda, Ben Wheatley, disney, jack packard, podcast, the mandalorian | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Escapist Movie Podcast – “We Finally Have An Excuse To Re-Watch Willow”

Posted on October 24, 2020 by Darren

The Escapist have launched a movie podcast, and I was thrilled to join Jack Packard for the ninth episode. It was a light enough week for film news, so we talked about Disney’s new content warnings on some its older and more dated classics, the announcement that there was a Willow television series coming, and discussed the latest version of The Witches.

You can listen to the episode here, back episodes of the podcast here, click the link below or even listen directly.

Filed under: Movies, Podcasts! | Tagged: disney, jack packard, podcast, the escapist, the witches, willow | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Escapist Movie Podcast – “The Excellence of The Haunting of Bly Manor”

Posted on October 17, 2020 by Darren

The Escapist have launched a movie podcast, and I was thrilled to join Jack Packard for the eighth episode. It was a light enough week for film news, so we talked about Disney’s pivot to streaming, the rumours about the upcoming sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the joys of The Haunting of Bly Manor.

You can listen to the episode here, back episodes of the podcast here, click the link below or even listen directly.

Filed under: Podcasts! | Tagged: disney, escapist, film, ghost stories, Movie, podcast, streaming, the escapist, the escapist movie podcast, the haunting of bly manor | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “TRON: Legacy” as a Disney Princess Film for Boys…

Posted on August 14, 2020 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With news that Disney have commissioned another sequel to TRON, it felt like the right time to take a look back at the last attempt to revive the franchise in TRON: Legacy.

TRON: Legacy is a fascinating film, a product of a strange time at Disney – it was between the purchase of Marvel Entertainment and the release of The Avengers, and before the purchase of LucasFilm. So Disney was trying, with films like John Carter, The Lone Ranger and Tomorrowland to craft live action blockbusters that would appeal to young male audiences. Legacy was the earliest of these examples, perhaps the most successful and the most fascinating: in large part because it tried to translate what Disney did so well in animation into live action.

Legacy is effectively an effort to reimagine the classic animated princess story as a big tentpole blockbuster. It doesn’t entirely work, but the results are fascinating. You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: disney, films, Movies, studio blockbusters, the escapist, tron, tron: legacy | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Mulan” is Coming to Disney+, and Studios Are Leaving America Behind…

Posted on August 5, 2020 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist earlier today. With the news that Mulan will be streaming on Disney+ – for a hefty $30 fee – it seemed worth discussing the real story.

A lot of the discussion around Mulan releasing on Disney+ has revolved around the studio’s plan to charge an additional fee, on top of the subscription, for it. This is reasonable. It is a big shift in the American cinematic market. However, it is only part of the story. The video-on-demand release of Mulan will not be enough to turn a significant profit of itself, and it’s clear that the decision to release Mulan at all is rooted in the fact that the international theatrical market is coming back to life. Disney are banking big on Chinese box office.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: box office, disney, escapist, escapist magazine, mulan, streaming | 1 Comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Hamilton” Bringing the Theatre Home…

Posted on July 24, 2020 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Hamilton was released earlier in the month on Disney+, and has managed to reignite all manner of debate about the musical.

In the case of the streaming release, one of the most heated discussions concerns the question of whether Hamilton is actually a movie in the conventional sense. This misses the point somewhat, as it’s immediately clear that Hamilton is not packaging the story for audiences, it is instead trying to offer a simulacra of the experience. It’s designed to replicate, as faithfully as possible on screen, the texture and tempo of a theatrical performance. Ironically, this is something that cinema has been trying to do for years, so it’s fascinating to see streaming pull it off so strongly.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: disney, disney plus, hamilton, lin-manuel miranda, streaming | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Artemis Fowl

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Darren

Artemis Fowl is only ninety-three minutes long, but it feels much longer. In more ways than one.

As with Scoob! or Trolls World Tour, there’s something slightly cynical in releasing Artemis Fowl direct to streaming. The film feels like it might have wallowed in a theatrical release, with little to distinguish it from other young adult adaptations like The Maze Runner or The Mortal Engines. Although derived from a series of beloved children’s books, the cinematic adaptation of Artemis Fowl was never going to be this generation’s answer to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone or The Hunger Games – despite the belaboured sequel hooks.

Fowl play.

The most interesting question that occurs when watching Artemis Fowl is at what point this became clear to the production team. Artemis Fowl has the look and feel of a movie that has been fed through a meat grinder. It is appreciably shorter than most would-be tentpoles, even though there is a seemingly continuous voice-over delivering reams of exposition. The plotting is haphazard. The character arcs are broad. There is a palpable sense that something happened in getting from page to screen, and the real mystery is where in the process things went so wrong.

Watching Artemis Fowl becomes almost an interactive mystery of itself. Was the project always this disjointed and chaotic, or was that something that happened in postproduction? More than that, was that process something that happened before or after Artemis Fowl was earmarked for a streaming release? When exactly on the creative process did everybody working on Artemis Fowl just give up completely?

A flying finish.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: artemis fowl, books, disney, film, Movie, non-review review, review, streaming, streaming service | 8 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Lady and the Tramp (2019)

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Darren

Lady and the Tramp represents a new frontier for Disney’s reimaginings of their animated classics.

The studio has had great success adapting those older films for younger audiences with a hybrid of live action and computer-generated remakes, with Aladdin and The Lion King ranking among the highest grossing movies of last year. Mulan looked like it might have been on course to continue the trend, and the studio is working away on a new version of The Little Mermaid. However, what makes Lady and the Tramp so interesting is that it is not going to be one of those theatrical blockbusters. Instead, it was released directly on Disney+, the company’s streaming service.

A completely identical meatball game.

There are two ways of looking at this. Disney might have been hoping to give Disney+ a bit of a boost by offering an exclusive brand-name and star-driven family-friendly film. Alternatively, the studio might have accepted that Lady and the Tramp was never a viable theatrical release to begin with, whether because it didn’t scratch the right nostalgic itch or because of the quality of the adaptation simply wasn’t up to snuff. In reality, it seems like a combination of the two factors.

Lady and the Tramp is fairly standard as these adaptations go. It is hurt by the push to verisimilitude and by the decision to expand a tight animated story into a bloated live action one. It is also very visually, aurally and tonally flat. It’s a film that seems built around the ethos of “just enough”, often feeling like a television movie that has somehow earned a theatrical special effects budget. Lady and the Tramp is not the worst of the Disney live action adaptations, but it may be the most lifeless.