The Lorax 2012 predictions

I am a huge fan of Dr. Seuss. I can quote facts about him and honestly I just love his stories. I've seen more of his stories then the average person, though I'll be honest I haven't seen everything he has done. I saw the new Horton Hears a Who in theaters and really liked it. When it came out on DVD I bought it as soon as I could. I know The Grinch starring Jim Carrey hasn't gone over well with a lot of fans. (At least that is what I hear fans say) But I think they did Horton right.

Now if there is one thing I am known for IRL it is "wishing" for certain things to happen and they actually happening. More of I guess I can predict what sort of things will be adapted. I predicted Tomb Raider Anniversary, a new(ish) Ocarina of Time, The Sword of Truth getting a visual adaptation (TV show) and several other books to movie adaptations. When I say predict I mean I say "wouldn't it be cool if..." at least months before such projects are announced. So after I saw Horton, I began to think about other Dr. Seuss books especially my favorite The Lorax. I did in fact utter "I wish the guys who did Horton Hears a Who would do The Lorax."

Now I didn't think that this would actually happen. The Lorax is known as being a controversial book and people tend to shy away from that sort of thing. Besides that really was wishful thinking, so to make myself feel better I created my own original take on The Lorax. I figured for a full lenth movie you would need to give the Onceler a face, so I redesigned him. I gave him green gloves and boots for his green hands and feet, and gave him slick black hair which I thought suited his personality. I didn't forget gold eyes that peak out at the beginning of the book, and went with a combination of a suit yet uniform outfit with the theme black and green.



This drawing and design of The Onceler is copyrighted to me

 I also worked on fleshing out his personality and gave him a first name.

This is Jeremy Onceler. He is foolish and stubborn, but not evil. He traveled and along his travels came across these beautiful Truffula Trees which weren't like anything else he had ever seen. He wished to share these trees somehow and misguidedly chopped one down and turned it into a thneed. This is when the Lorax appeared before him and scolded Jeremy for chopping down the tree. Jeremy hadn't thought about the consequences of his actions, but something about the way the Lorax scolded him made him angry and brought out his stubborn side. Over the years his business grew, and he did indeed listen to the Lorax when he came around to complain, but every time his heart would soften stocks would shoot through the roof, or something else would distract him. He became greedy and justified what he did, saying "if I don't do it someone else will so why stop?"

I won't go on about the details of my version, but the point I'm trying to make is even though the story is called The Lorax, the story is really one of the Onceler. His tale of greed and how he allowed his foolishness and stubborn nature to destroy a beautiful land, and eventual redemption that came too late and how he passed the chance for hope to the next generation.

Once again my prediction was right. The Lorax is going to be made into a CG movie and actually will be done by the same guys who made Horton Hears a Who. My first reaction when I heard the news? I was estactic.

Then a little time passed and some actual info came out. I've gone from happy.... to outright worried. Now I know that there hasn't even been a trailer out for this movie yet, but from all the information I've been able to gather so far what I've seen I don't really like. I'm not a complete purest and if something works I'm more then willing to accept changes. There are times though when it isn't the color of a characters eyes changed, a minor character dropped or a new subplot added that adds extra drama to the story that are the problems. Harry Potters eyes are blue in the movies, plenty of characters have to be dropped in huge stories, and ever read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? A man never approaches Charlie in the book trying to get an everlasting gobstopper, but it really works in the movie.

No, the things I can't stand getting changed are themes, or points. The Lorax is an environmentalist story. It is about ruining the world for the future to make a quick buck now. So what has me worried about this movie? First, some of the voice actors. Now Dani DeVito is going to be the voice for the Lorax. THAT is awesome. His voices sounds exactly how the Lorax's voice is described in the book. No it is the other . . . people that are in the movie. Ed Helms is going to be the Onceler.

What?

I had to look him up to find out who he is. Now he seems like a nice enough guy, and from what I can find he seems pretty funny. And his voice isn't bad, but it just doesn't seem to fit the image of a greedy business man that was so stubborn he ruined an entire land. Fine though I'll let that pass, maybe he will surpise me and be amazing in his role. Voice actors are able to change their voice for different characters, to the point some are able to be multiple characters in a single show and watching you'd never know. (yeah I'm talking about you Futurama) So I'll hold out hope for him.

Then I saw two other people listed on the credits. Zac Effron will be playing the boy that the Onceler told his story to in the book named Ted in the movie after Dr. Seuss. -.- Look I've never seen any movies Zac Effron is in, and sure he is a competent actor. But I take one look at him and think "pretty boy" that is mainly there to drag teenage girls to the movie. I'm not advoiding Zac Effron either, he just never appears in any of the movies I want to see. But even this I can ignore, up to this point I was still really excited to see this movie. It was the two things I found out next.


Most important character in The Lorax didn't you know?
It's why there as many images of her as there are for the Lorax


Audrey will be played by Taylor Swift.

Who the hell is Audrey?

The summary of the movie (as found on an "official" site)
The animated adventure follows the journey of a boy as he searches for the one thing that will enable him to win the affection of the girl of his dreams. To find it he must discover the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world.

Oh right, the love story. Who could forget the love story that was the whole point of The Lorax? Um, how about "what love story." Look first I know to turn a short story into a full movie things need to be added, but why a love story? Doesn't that ruin the point of the message if it isn't "we need to be responsible with our world, and when things get bad fix it," but becomes "saving the world will get you a girlfriend?" What if the girl doesn't care about the enviroment? Should we then not care either since it won't make us "look good?"

Also. Taylor Swift? Really? Look she is fine at what she does, singing. I might not own any CDs by her but I've heard a song or two on the radio and didn't hate them (not my style, but not bad.) But why hire a singer for a voice actor job? She isn't an actor, or at least a good one from what I've heard. Is the movie going to be a musical? There are plenty of good voice actors out there so why pick someone with no experince and can't act? Okay besides name recognition.

I was really excited when I first heard about this movie, but as more and more information comes out it seems to be less about the original message and more of an attempt to just get teenagers in the theater. I'm not for being too preachy, there shouldn't be a scene where someone faces the camera and says "pollution is bad." We know that already, we don't need to be talked down to, but the message shouldn't also be drowning in cliche's and whats hip.

The very last thing about the summary. Did anybody notice the lack of mention for a certain someone? Someone I mentioned at the begining of this blog being the real main character of the story?

What about the Onceler?!

I'm also betting that they take away the Onceler's cigars in this new movie. Can't have smoking in a "family" film now can we?

(P.S this blogger would like noted she knows about the parallel between the real life story of The Lorax and sorta understands what the movie is going for. I still don't support it. Want to make a movie about Dr. Seuss's life? Fine, just don't ruin a good story for some cheap symbolizim or meta humor. Whatever you'd call it)

Not Quite "Limitless"

I liked the idea of the movie Limitless, and ended up renting it as soon as I was able. The movie was actually pretty decent, and I liked it well enough. Not something I'll buy but was well worth the rent. I start off stating I did enjoy the movie because from here on I will be pretty harsh

Quick disclaimer this is not a review, but an analyse of the movie so there will be spoilers.

The story goes, Eddie is a writer down on his luck. He can't even get the first sentence down for his book, and his girlfriend dumps him. He ends up running into his ex-brother-in-law who is a drug dealer and who gives him a drug that will "allow him to use all of his brain" and not seeing how his life could get any worse he takes the pill. It works and he finishes his book, and gets involved in the stock market.

I personally really like some of the artistic directions this movie took. When Eddie takes the pill everything gets brighter and more lively, and some of the special effects are just really cool.

I think the use of narration was well done as well. Having Eddie narrate his own story made sense, and helped make things more clear then they otherwise wouldn't have been.

The story itself..... is where I have problems. There are many points in the story where plot threads are brought up and either dropped or not fully explained. Not to mention a few other problems. We find out when Eddie drops the first 60 pages of his novel on the desk of an/his editor that he was given an advance. No other books by him are brought up to suggest he had proved he could write, and honestly what editor would give an advance to a "writer" who not only didn't have a single page written, but didn't have a summary or real idea? The movie made clear that Eddie couldn't even articulate what he was "writing" to anybody when asked. I find it highly doubtful that he would have really been given an advance, not to mention being able to be so chummy with an editor.

One of the problems with this movie is that despite supposedly having an extremely high I.Q when he is taking the pill Eddie doesn't act very smart. Sure "math became useful" and he can make thousands on the stock market in a single day, but he lacks any sort of common sense. First he gets a loan from a very shifty loan shark, and then forgets to pay him back fast enough. If the movie was trying to make a point that knowledge doesn't make up for sense (histories greatest minds often have emotional and social problems) then that would have been a legitimate thing for him to do if it was along with his personality. Unfortunately the movie never tries to make any such case and it just becomes a situation where we are told a character is smart but they continue to act stupid.   

Not only does Eddie not paying the loan shark on time cause the shark to end up with one of the smart pills, but Eddie is never able to come up with a way to get rid of the guy who now comes to him for more pills. Eddie at one point in the movie claims the pills allow you to "see the answers" but seems unable to figure things out for himself.

This movie also has a sexiest edge to it as well. Which I am very sad to say. When Eddie gets dumped by his girl friend we are supposed to feel sorry for him, which is fine. He is the "loser with a heart of gold" if you will and the main character. What bothers me is his treatment of women through out the movie. The first thing Eddie actually does when the smart pill takes effect is help his landlord's wife with a collage essay... and have sex with her. If I recall correctly Eddie had just been dumped, a few hours previously and he is already sleeping around. He doesn't show any remorse or even being shown as being so crushed by being dumped that he didn't care. (Not that I would condone it anyway) Look I'm not a prude, but the fact is he immediately commits adultery as soon as he is dumped and goes on a parade of sleeping around with random women thanks to his high I.Q. He is never called out on this and is in fact seen as a good thing.

He ends up back with his girlfriend after he gets his life back together. Am I suppose to be happy about that? Besides the fact they were dating at the beginning of the movie there is no way to know they actually "love" each other. The girl comes and goes in Eddie's life as she pleases so I don't feel any real commitment from her either. She dumps him for being a loser, gets back together with him when his life is going right, then leaves him again when she finds out it is all due to pills. 

Now don't get me wrong, this may seem like a huge amount of things "wrong" but it is easy enough to ignore them while watching the movie. The ride is fun enough.

This movie does do one thing that really bothers me. The very, very beginning where the movie starts we find Eddie standing on the edge of a building with men trying to get in. He then goes into the all famous "how did I end up here you ask?" which sends us to the real beginning of the story. I really hate beginnings like this, one is because it just seems really cheap, I am already watching this movie. I'm at least this invested, so unless the movie is that bad I'll probably be sitting through the whole thing. It's also cheap because it is such an obvious hook. Like the film makers needed to wave something in my face and go "LOOK!LOOK! SOMETHING COOL REALLY DOES HAPPEN IN THIS MOVIE!! LOOK!"

Someone might be looking at that scene and wonder where is he? Is it something important? Has he been caught doing something he shouldn't? The building looks neat enough, and maybe he has some plan so it will only look like he jumps or something. At least that is what I thought. Sadly though the location served no other purpose besides, looking cool and giving us a hard to break through door so Eddie could stall for time. There is a brief scene in the movie where Eddie is looking at the apartment and says "I'll take it." Just for the scene at the beginning to look cool. And be featured on the poster I suppose.

I'll leave this analyse with just a list of plot threads dropped, or just never fully answered instead of going on and on about them. Oh and I say BS to people who say that any of the "lost plots" are part of the point.

+Who killed Eddie's ex-brother-in-law?

+Did Eddie kill that women on the night he can't remember?

+If he didn't then who did?

+Why was the one guy sent to kill Eddie (not the shark)

+No really, why was the one guy following Eddie, willing to kill random people on the street and his girlfriend?

+How did the guy's boss find out about Eddie having the pills if that is the answer?

+Why did it suddenly get dropped as a problem as soon as the old guy died?

The ending was pretty okay. I liked Eddie's solution to the pills, but I'm not to fond of him running for a political office. Eddie may have been "smart" but he was never overly honest and never seemed to care about others. Besides him proclaiming he wanted "to change the world." Change doesn't mean for the better though.

End feelings: Overall I liked this movie. The actor was charismatic, and the visuals were very nice. The plot only stalled for a little when Eddie was going through the wish fulfilment section of the movie where we are supposed to wish we were him. Besides that it was always at least entertaining enough. The main problem with the movie was with the lack of a point. Is knowledge what you make of it? Does great genius come with great drawbacks? Or no matter how smart we may become we are always the same person inside and will continue to make bad choices because of who we are? I would have liked some kind of theme, besides "being smart makes everything better" which isn't true. In fact it wasn't true for Eddie who continued to make really stupid choices but this is never truly addressed. It is supposed to seem at most just a run of bad luck. Worth a watch if it the idea sounds like someones kind of movie, but not one I'll be rewatching any time soon.

The Little Nostalgic Mermaid

For my first review I'll tackle my favorite childhood movie. Trust me I can be objective.

The Little Mermaid as told by Disney. Growing up I wanted to be a mermaid, I practically breathed The Little Mermaid. I still know the whole movie almost by heart.

I shouldn't have to lay out the whole plot of the story, but here it is breafly. Ariel is a mermaid princess and is facinated with the human world. After sneaking up to the surface she spies a human prince and falls for him. She ends up rescueing him and making a deal with a sea witch, but is tricked by the witch. It all ends okay though (come on it is Disney.)

First because I have to mention it, the soundtrack is AMAZING. I am actually listening to it right now, and I kid you not the movie is playing in my head. Not just the songs with singing, but the whole thing is amazing and really brings the story to life. Onto the actually story though.

Don't worry this won't be just fangirl gushing, though I will indulge from time to time.

This is one major problem that this movie suffers from and I'll be honest nearly every Disney story does too, it is Princess Syndrome. Now it is true the original little mermaid was a princess too, but Disney has a thing for making every (important) girl character a princess. Either by birth or marriage. Now it does work in this story and is relevant to the plot, but the problem still stands. Why do only real princesses matter? The desire to wait for a "prince" to come along and sweep us girls off our feet is not a healthy one. (Beyond my standard fantasies ;p) Honestly though I do applaud Ariel for being the first princess who actually went out and chased down her prince and did something.

No matter her flaws I love Ariel. She has such a spunky attitude but is also just so likable.

Speaking of flaws though, the major concern I hear brought up against this movie is what Ariel does to get her guy. Namely give up EVERYTHING to be with him and even risk eternal imprisonment/slavery/turned into a worm thing. Eric (the prince) on the other hand doesn't have to give up anything to get the girl in the end. Ariel has to leave her home, her family and in fact everything she has ever known to be with Eric. Now this is a little bit related to reality though, and I can respect that. First at the time period when a girl married she did leave everything behind to live with her husband, and for modern times it does represent the change of growing up. Not to mention that part at the end always gets me teary.

Eric himself was actually fairly well done, especially considering he was the first prince to actually have a personality. I did like how at a certain point he gives up on the "fantasy" girl he isn't sure even exists, and allows himself to fall for Ariel. It showed that he fell for Ariel the person, not the fantasy.

Though, yes, falling in love in that short period of time is a bit much. I'm not overly fond of any "love at first sight" stories. Real relationships take a bit more work then, "hey I looked you in the eyes lets be in love forever."

The character that I think is the most loved though (next to Ariel) is the sea witch Ursula. Which is kinda funny if you think about it. It just seems Disney is so much better at creating interesting villains then regular characters.

Ursula wants to take over the underwater kingdom, and uses Ariel to try and achieve those ends. One thing that drives me nuts about these kind of villains though is how many want to "rule the kingdom/world" or what-not. One simple question, why? Like with Ursula, why is she so interested in ruling the ocean? This is never answered in the movie, but in the Broadway play Ursula is King Triton's sister. That of course makes a lot more sense than a random sea witch randomly wanting to rule the ocean. In fact that itself sounds like a really interesting story, one I'd love to hear. Moving on though. Ursula's character has a lot of charisma, and is just a lot of fun, even if her motives are never explained in the movie. She is just enjoyable as she is.

Last there of course is the visuals. The animation for this story is stunning and over 20 years later holds up really well, and if I'll be honest is often better then more recent movies. The world that was created was also beautiful, with bubbles constantly swirling around underwater, and all the little details that went into it.

My final thoughts: I can understand why others might dislike this movie, but for me all the flaws cannot dampen the beauty and energy this movie has. Every time I watch this movie I fall in love with it again.

In which I claim to Know a lot

I love stories. It really doesn't matter the medium, and I'm pretty broad in what I like. I'll watch live action movies, cartoons, devour books and comics like no tomorrow. If there is one thing I've come to realize though with each story I finish.

I notice too much. Not everything of course, but at the end of a book or movie I can go, "okay I really liked that story, but..." and list off several things that the movie could have done better. I also have a long list of things I like about the stories too, and I try to be as fair as possible.

The point of this blog will be "reviews" but not the typical reviews where the writer gives a rating at the end and tells readers if they should or shouldn't see/read what they are reviewing. My reviews are a bit more in depth, and will actually discuss various things at length. I will never recommend not checking out something I review. My opinion is I can state my own opinion, and give an indepth analysis of something but I can't say with any kind of certainty what someone I have never meet will like or dislike. I will have spoilers in my reviews because of the nature of the kind of reviews I will do. I of course have a huge list of stories to review, but recommendations or titles that someone wants my opinion on are welcome.