I am a Connecticut-based blogger, writer, occasional artist, and amateur cartographer in whom the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan, and Ursula K. LeGuin ignited a lifelong passion for the fantasy genre that is now the primary subject of my blog.
You can find more of my writing at https://www.illuminerdi.com!
Who doesn’t love a good old Disney animated movie? The studio’s recent mini-Renaissance has given us what are (arguably, I suppose) instant classics like Tangled, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana, and Frozen II, and hopefully we can soon add Raya And The Last Dragon to the list. But another film from the acclaimed studio is quickly upcoming, and now, thanks to reporting from The DisInsider, we have a title to tentatively attach to the project: Encanto.
nerdist.com
Encanto, the Portuguese word for “charm”, may only be a working title for the film, but it certainly feels appropriate considering what little we now know about the story itself: Encanto is supposed to center around the story of a Brazilian family who all possess magical powers – all, that is, except the protagonist, a young girl whose name is still unknown. Should this storyline survive into the final film, the heroine will join several other notable women of color in the Disney roster; though it is not known as of yet whether she will be considered for a spot amongst the Disney Princess line-up. Of course, there are several rules about just who can and can’t be an official Disney Princess, and we don’t yet know if the heroine of Encanto will pass the test.
As for other plot details, we simply don’t know anything yet. The Portuguese-language title means the film is probably set sometime during or after the 1500’s, when forces of the Portuguese empire first settled in Brazil. Most of Disney’s most popular animated films, from Snow White all the way to Frozen II, have been historical pieces, so I’d be a little surprised if this one isn’t – but a historical setting, in this case, might require Disney to tackle the issue of slavery: as a colony, Brazil was built on the suffering of Black slaves, who made up much of the country’s population. Brazil was actually the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1888. The easy solution, then, would be to set the film in modern day Brazil. The much harder, but possibly more rewarding, solution would be to try and tell a story that doesn’t gloss over this shameful period in Brazilian history, but instead addresses it with sensitivity and awareness.
Colonial Brazil | smarthistory.org
On that note, it’s interesting that the film is supposedly being directed by Byron Howard and Jared Bush: the duo behind the mega-successful phenomenon that was 2016’s Zootopia, a film with very cleverly written but family-friendly social commentary in a stunningly animated, entertaining package. Joining them will be singer/songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda, who I guess isn’t ever going to get around to developing that Moana sequel we were all asking for at one point? Miranda’s involvement does, obviously, suggest that this film will be another musical – lending some credence to the theory that the heroine will be a Princess. Charise Castro Smith, a writer and producer on The Haunting Of Hill House, will co-write the script with Bush.
The matter of a release date is still somewhat up in the air, like pretty much everything else in Hollywood right now. Assuming the coronavirus crisis doesn’t necessitate any more calendar-shuffling mayhem, we might expect to see Encanto around Thanksgiving of next year.
So what do you think? How excited are you to see this new Disney animated film? Share your thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!
From my understanding, the Artemis Fowl books are supposed to be pretty good. For my part, I never really got into them all that much – I read the first book (though, to be honest, I think I page-skimmed it), never picked up the sequel, and forgot basically everything that happens in the story fairly quickly. So I went into this new Disney film adaptation without any pre-conceived notions of what Artemis Fowl ought to be about.
Artemis Fowl, the movie, has a special place on the sadly long list of films that are somehow all plot and no plot at the same time. On the one hand, there’s oh so much going on: people are being kidnapped and ransomed left and right, shady deals are struck with the worst sorts of people, there’s an entire civilization of ancient Celtic fairies living in the center of the earth and they’ve lost a magical golden…vaguely acorn-shaped…thing…and some of them want to use it to…um, destroy the human race, I think….and there’s a whole subplot about who took the golden acorn thing in the first place and whether or not he was a traitor, but it’s hard to tell because this subplot is also only ever subtext despite being intrinsic to what I think was the main thrust of the story – and then on the other hand, this movie is basically just set up for a sequel which is never going to happen, because almost none of the story threads begun in Artemis Fowl actually end; they just peter out in the last twenty minutes of the movie, in a weirdly long, slow section of nothing happening.
This problem might never have occurred if the movie were about someone other than Artemis Fowl himself. Fowl, played by newcomer Ferdia Shaw, is a singularly uninteresting character who apparently is a masterful strategist, though we never get to see him work out any of his strategies – those are all explained to us with the help of some helpful narration from Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad) the giant, treasure-hunting Dwarf who claims to be the true hero of the story so many times that, by the end of the movie, I was convinced he should have been. Fowl, unfortunately, has all of the bark but no bite – for a boy who boasts loudly that he’s a criminal mastermind and struts around in suits and dark sunglasses like a miniature runway model, he doesn’t actually commit many crimes or do anything particularly cool. Everything that’s supposedly going on inside his enigmatic mind is firmly outside of the audience’s grasp, and the attitude he projects outwardly – that of a bratty, too-cool-for-school aristocrat – is unappealing and grating after a while.
Domovoi Butler and Artemis Fowl | polygon.com
The film might have benefited from being reworked around a supporting character in the plot, Holly Short (Lara McDonnell). Short, a talented, up and coming officer in the fairy militia, is better written than her above-ground counterpart, and she has a more interesting story to tell, as the daughter of the fairy responsible for the whole mess with the golden acorn thing. And, while this might not be a deal-breaker when it comes to choosing your protagonist, she is also cooler than Artemis Fowl – she has mind-control and healing powers (underutilized, of course), a snazzy green outfit and wings, and technologically-advanced weaponry. She’s also one of the very few highlights of the film, and one of the only truly memorable performances.
And I say that with all due respect to Josh Gad and Colin Farrell (Farrell, never one to miss out on a Disney Dad role, is playing Artemis Fowl Sr.). Judi Dench is here and there throughout the movie as the fairy commander Root, and she has some good line delivery, but more could have been done with her character’s rough-and-tough personality and extensive vocabulary of imaginative insults. Nonso Anozie plays Domovoi Butler, the Fowl family’s bodyguard and butler (get it? Because his name is Butler?) with complete apathy, making it unintentionally comical when his character is supposed to break down in tears during “dramatic” moments. Then again, he’s given such wretched dialogue to work with, especially during his first few scenes, that I can’t honestly blame him for being unable to force out any emotions.
Judi Dench as Root | theguardian.com
There’s a villain, but this is the type of villain who only works through clueless cronies and thus has virtually no real impact on the plot. Artemis Fowl never even has a confrontation with this character – presumably, that was being saved for the hypothetical sequel – and only ever gets to fight a few fairy soldiers and a troll. The former are dispatched with a variety of magical weapons in a bizarrely edited sequence that seems to operate on the principle that action is more exhilarating if it’s just sped up, and the latter is pointless, but takes so long to defeat that you begin to wonder if it’s actually the final boss battle of the movie, and then you realize that it is and so it’s yet another disappointment to add to the list.
As I watched the film, I was looking for something, anything, to compliment: at last, I had settled upon the music. It was Celtic, if a bit stereotypically so, and I like Celtic music. But then I made the mistake of listening to it as it plays over the closing credits, and that’s when I realized that the reason I liked it is because it’s virtually copied from Howard Shore’s brilliant “The Breaking Of The Fellowship”. It’s not completely identical – it’s nowhere near as good – but the similarities are unmistakable and made me dislike it too.
And while I may not know the books very well, I do happen to be an avid reader of Celtic, and particularly Irish, mythology, and so of course I was offended by the film’s reworking of ancient pagan folklore. The basics are there: the Tuatha Dé Danann were driven underground by humans long ago, and have diminished into the stuff of fairytale. But the modernized twist, with the fey folk now carrying modern weapons and listening to modern music (I was hoping beyond hope that the fairy music would have been provided by real Celtic musical artists, but I was, wait for it, disappointed yet again) felt like shoddy worldbuilding. The only bit that was clever, in my humble opinion, was the unusual but illuminating reveal that David Bowie was apparently a member of the fairy race.
Artemis Fowl | ign.com
This film, simply put, is a disaster. There is little to no cohesion; characters feel half-baked; scenes are shot and edited poorly; it’s definitely not Kenneth Branagh’s finest achievement as a director, and even without any real knowledge of the books I’m positive it’s a let down for fans of the popular series. Though the film ends with a hook for a sequel, I doubt very much that this incarnation of Artemis Fowl will ever return to screens big or small (and on that point, I’m glad this film skipped theaters and headed straight to the Disney+ streaming service, so I didn’t have to risk catching coronavirus just for this). Instead, let me console you with the truth that, no matter what was planned to come next, it would likely have been just as disappointing as this turned out to be.
The seventh and final season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is suddenly delivering on everything I wanted it to: not only are the tie-ins to the Marvel Cinematic Universe abundant and cleverly constructed in the third episode, but the character work is excellent, the writing is mostly superb, and the setting – Area 51 in the 1950’s, at the pinnacle of the Space Race and America’s obsession with aliens and UFOS – is utilized wonderfully.
From the moment the title card appears, changed to fit the new historical period and accompanied by some classic eerie sci-fi music, I knew I was in for a good time. And yes, this season is still suffering from a few flaws – mainly, that the exposition is often, though not always, delivered through straight-up monologues of boring, nonsensical information that never fail to stop a dramatic scene in its tracks – but the good far outweighs the bad this week. The episode, titled Alien Commies From The Future!, leans heavily into comedy and has no problem poking a little fun at itself, or the tropes commonly associated with the 50’s. Sleek, “All-American” diners in the middle of the desert; the threat of “Stalinites”; CIA coverups. It’s all there, and it all works.
Phil Coulson and Jemma Simmons | tvline.com
Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) are, both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, the comedic MVP’s of the week – it’s surprising because they rarely ever get paired up with each other, but it’s also unsurprising because whenever they do, they have brilliant banter. Do you remember the scene on the train all the way back in season one, when they pretended to be a father and daughter on vacation? The scenes they share in this episode have shades of that hilarious interaction.
But the drama and the social commentary, though subtler, is handled surprisingly well. In particular, there’s a scene in which Coulson is rambling excitedly about all the great things happening in the 50’s, only to have his teammate Daisy Johnson (Chloe Bennet) shut him down with a gesture toward the back of the aforementioned diner, where it’s hard to miss the signs indicating segregated bathrooms. Race relations come up again later in the episode, when the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. capture a Department of Defense official for interrogation, only to discover he’s a nasty bigot and is more threatened by the idea of spilling secrets to a Black man than he is by the thought of betraying his country. So they send in Deke Shaw (Jeff Ward), who, after some grumbling about “stupid white privilege”, does in fact weasel information out of the prisoner. The prisoner in question is released by the end of the episode, and gets his just desserts – running, screaming, through the desert and rambling about communist aliens.
Daniel Sousa | newsbreak.com
On a more personal note, there’s drama and comedy to be found in the interactions between Simmons and one Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj). Simmons, in order to infiltrate Area 51 undetected, riskily disguises herself as none other than Director Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Peggy Carter, only to run into Sousa, Carter’s former work partner and post-Steve Rogers love interest. Though I would have liked to have seen Carter turn up in the flesh (and there were rumors that she would, or perhaps still could), Simmons frantically trying to keep her cool as she figures out that Sousa isn’t buying her disguise is possibly just as good a scenario. Sousa doesn’t have very much to actually do in the episode – his role is limited to following the Agents around and trying to figure out who’s working for what – but it’s nice to see him reprise the role he had on the short-lived Agent Carter series. Next week’s episode will apparently also star Sousa, as the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. have to decide whether or not to save him from HYDRA assassins.
Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) and “Yo-Yo” Rodriguez (Natalia Cordova-Buckley) are also featured prominently in the episode, as they are tasked with breaking into Area 51 – it’s never actually explained how they do that, but I digress – and stopping a Chronicom suicide bomber from activating some sort of nuclear explosion. But May is suffering from severe trauma and breaks down in a rare moment of vulnerability for her character, while Yo-Yo is apparently still unable to use her Inhuman superpowers. They do defeat the Chronicom eventually, but their fight with her is brutal, claustrophobic and punchy: significantly grittier than May’s usual, elegantly-choreographed action sequences.
Melinda May | purefandom.com
The Chronicoms are still just there. What are they even trying to do at this point? We get a little hint, as a new Chronicom leader is introduced early in the episode, but everything still feels slightly confusing: why don’t the Chronicoms infiltrate multiple timelines simultaneously, forcing the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to spread out? Why do they even care so much about S.H.I.E.L.D. anyway? There’s still far too many questions about them, and not enough answers.
But let’s not end it on a negative note: I loved this episode. I’m a little nervous to see what happens next week, since I don’t like the idea of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. watching from the sidelines as Daniel Sousa is killed, but I’m also cautiously optimistic: Daisy Johnson almost had Wilfred Malick killed in the 1930’s – could she rescue Sousa in the 50’s? Could she sneak him onboard the Zephyr One, and they could fly off and have more adventures? Sign me up for that spinoff.
It’s pleasantly coincidental that this bit of news has arrived during Pride Month, just when it’s most relevant. Though the character of Hercules has long been rumored to join the ranks of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s heroes (we discussed theories that he would be the lead character of The Eternalsover a year ago), this time seems like it could be for real: the Olympian demigod is apparently set to enter the MCU in one of the studio’s upcoming film or TV projects, and could bring some much-needed male bisexual representation to the superhero franchise.
pinknews.co.uk
As of yet, these new rumors give us very little to go on: we still don’t even know when Hercules will appear, though there are almost limitless opportunities. The Eternals is an epic which will span thousands of years of human history, and blend reality (well, the MCU version of it) with mythology, so that seems like the earliest point at which the Olympian could make his debut. The Loki series on Disney+ will also explore different timelines, and quite possibly different worlds across the universe. Thor: Love And Thunder is perhaps the likeliest option, as Thor and Hercules are best buddies in the comics and fans have been rooting to see them onscreen together for quite some time. And the She-Hulk Disney+ series could feature Hercules’ companion Amadeus Cho (a.k.a. Smart Hulk), allowing for Hercules himself to show up as a supporting character alongside Cho before upgrading to leading man status later on – though it’s not clear whether Herc will actually headline his own series of solo films, or if he will only be a supporting character. His backstory is rich with detail, so there’s plenty there that could be used to design an entire trilogy, but there’s also an argument to be made that he’s too similar to the MCU’s Thor for that to ever happen.
But the most interesting bit of information about this new report is something that actually leaked on the internet even before the rumors of Hercules’ imminent arrival. Yesterday, several insiders hinted through social media posts that the character of Hercules would be openly bisexual whenever he finally appeared in the MCU, and could very well be in a relationship with the X-Men’s Wolverine.
Both characters have a history of being bisexual, though only in alternate universes in the comics – well, technically, in Hercules’ case, he’s been bisexual since his origins in ancient Greek mythology, but that’s something people have tried to ignore for quite some time. More recently, Marvel faced backlash after definitively stating that the version of Hercules in the comics’ main timeline was, in fact, still straight, something which fans contested. But if Marvel does choose to adapt the character now, there’s a good opportunity for them to fix their publishing division’s mistakes, and add bisexual male representation to the MCU.
thegww.com
Hercules will likely not be the first LGBTQ+ superhero to show up in the franchise: Phastos, a major player in The Eternals, will be an openly gay character and be in a same-sex marriage; WandaVision on Disney+ is almost definitely going to introduce Wanda Maximoff’s gay son Billy Kaplan, and his boyfriend Hulkling; and one of the subplots of Thor: Love And Thunder will follow bisexual heroine Valkyrie, newly crowned King of Asgard, as she goes looking for her queen. But Hercules could be the MCU’s first male bisexual hero – and male bisexual representation (or bi representation in general) is exceedingly rare anywhere, thanks to persistent bi erasure.
So what do you think? Where do you hope the Olympian appears first? Will he be bi, or are we just getting our hopes up? Share your thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!