#i feel like some twisted version of scooby doo where i unmask the monster but the mask stays on cause IT'S BEEN A MONSTER ALL ALONG

[firewindmill]

Nemo, my buddy. My guy. Please PLEASE tell me that “Voltron remake” is just me hallucinating or having nightmares. 😩 Please tell me people are not actually pulling this racist bs and even calling Shiro fxcking ‘Hachiko’.. I can’t...

I ACTUALLY HAVE THOUGHTS ON THIS AND TWEETED ABOUT IT IVE BEEN STEAMED ABOUT IT THAT ITS PUSHED ME TO SPEAK ABOUT IT ON MY DAMN RADIO PROGRAM HANG ON OH MY GOD. I was like..should i say this on this hell site…okay I’m gonna give you my 2 cents and more, from both my radio and art account where the salt leaks. 

I tweeted this earlier over here:

How do I say this…we should be thankful for the content that we didn’t get as kids NOW and fight for what we want NOW for future generations in the areas of ideal representation in media. It’s never going to be perfect in the beginning because it’s never been done before. Everyone has to crawl before they take their first baby step, walk and then run. It’s just how things work, or you put the work you wanna see in the world with your own original work. That’s what I’m seeing these days for queer representation in media, on TV or cartoons.There’s a lot of stuff big companies are not gonna pick up on and many people want different things but you need to celebrate those baby steps and encourage more work CONSTRUCTIVELY to take things places it hasn’t been before.Also put your money where your mouth is. And don’t attack queer people while playing fake progressive and using outdated queer tropes that harmed our communities or weaponizing other tropes without understanding what they actually mean when applied.

Then after hearing more about what the fucking reboot was doing, I had this to say this over here and its sad because Lance isn’t even my top favorite character, I love him now but he isn’t my favorite compared to Pidge, Hunk, Keith and Shiro.

Lmao can unaffected latinx folks not speak over latinx folks that are affected AND offended by renaming L*nce to Le*ndro.Y'all not get the nuance and history of getting easy to pronounce names for English speakers vs a “Spanish” sounding name. When my mom was a kid, her brothers all had different but traditionally Hispanic names as it would go, my uncles Octavio, Raul, Jesse, Gerardo.Teachers would mispronounce Raul as “Roll” “Rall” & kids would call my uncle Octavio “oco the taco man”My mom didn’t wanna fuck w that. So when she had my sister and I, she named me after my(her) godmother Sara (this is now my deadname because I’m queer) and named my sister Elizabeth(she prefers Lizard now) because she didn’t want her kids to go through that shit. So uh, its racist to be searching for a more “Spanish” sounding name for our identities to be exploited for whites to jerk off to cause it’s “exotic” and “different”. Don’t talk to me if you disagree and stay in your lane. I could never stand w that bigoted side of fandom, hesitated to call it what it is but bigotry bleeds into everything we do, even in fandom spaces & I will not associate with anyone who’s “okay” with it.AU’s are one thing.Reboots consisting of bigoted entitlement is another.

You’re not hallucinating and quite frankly, I’d be keeping receipts on this since their racism is out in the open publicly and keep it up to hold them accountable if they’re gonna change and serve as a reminder of the monsters they once were. But I’m not fucking surprised considering the atrocious way they’ve treated other fans, treated their own fellow shippers, treated US, many that are in the groups that identify with Shiro one way or another whether we’re queer, disabled, Asian, mentally ill or a mix of 2, 3 or all of these aspects, the REAL, tangible and quite frankly the most progressive I’ve seen in any form of media because it’s INTERSECTIONAL and not based on disgusting tokenism. Some folks are saying oh I wanted to give it a chance, give it the benefit of the doubt…let me tell you something that hasn’t steered me wrong.

Never give the benefit of the doubt. People will tell you what they want you to know, and what these people want us to know is that they want their old fashioned stereotypes where queer people are predators, poc are their stereotypes, are the same, and will exploit identities like the latest jerk off material for their fake woke points. I’ve thought to myself…Nemo…you shouldn’t be using academic language on prejudice and oppression in fandom spaces…these are fictional and that’s real life.

But now I’m gonna say what I’ve held to myself for literally since the  beginning of the discourse because I was here when Voltron was being talked about in articles, BEFORE it launched on Netflix

Antis in fandom are experiencing extreme cognitive dissonance and fragility that is commonly seen in privileged groups. They say one thing but disagree with the idea when its presented to them in an actual realistic manner and what they’ve done, and always have done is reacted in a series of defensive moves when they’re challenged on their bigotry and supremacy, internalized or otherwise, then self-destruct as they’re doing now, showing the faces that many of us have already known or seen. Some are just realizing it now but its better now then never seeing or acknowledging it. Contrary to popular belief, sometimes fake liberalism is just as if not more harmful than straight up alt-right people being open about it because the former sneaks up on you and kills you if you let it, and that’s coming from someone who’s lived in the culture of the passive aggressive midwest of the United States all my life. 

I’m so sorry this got so fucking long but mark my words, I’ll never accept any form of bigotry in my personal online spaces, and will be muting the tag and unfollow/block anyone i’m following as I see fit because I cannot and will not stand by that behavior.

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Scoob! (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: Alright so this isn’t the type of movie that really warrants two separate reviews, but because it was only released recently I feel a spoiler warning is warranted as I will be talking about specific points in the movie. So if you haven’t yet seen Scoob! and don’t want anything ruined before you do, go and watch then come back.

General Reaction:

So, I’m having a hard time really getting to grips with my enjoyment level of this movie. Because while I don’t think this was a bad movie by any means, I always wouldn’t rank it as one of my favourites particularly with this new wave of nostalgia-based movies that seems to be a thing in recent years.

Maybe the problem is I am not an avid Scooby-Doo fan, a lot of people may think that is sacrilege and I did grow up watching the original Scooby-Doo shows and movies, but I wasn’t as into it as I was other Cartoon Network shows or even other Hanna-Barbera properties.

On that note, something that fascinated me about Scoob! in its promo campaign outside of it being a stunning CG-Animation movie was the inclusion of other Hanna-Barbera properties. In the trailer it is simply Dynomutt, Blue Falcon and Dick Dastardly, the former two who I believe were spin-off characters of Scooby-Doo originally and Dick Dastardly who of course is Dick Dastardly. Wacky Races and its spin-off Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines were shows I was an avid fan of, but once you see the movie and you realise that Warner Bros. Animation is really pushing for a Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe to stem from this with the amount of references and cameos of other characters and properties it is fascinating to me.

For instance, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 attempted something similar by effectively shouting about the fact that this movie was supposed to not only set up a third Spider-Man movie but also a Sinister Six movie and a Black Cat movie, then it was revealed Venom and Carnage were supposed to come into play, but then the whole thing got canned because the movie tried doing too much too soon.

Here though, they are subtle references that, unless you know the characters, don’t really register. I mean one or two are really obvious like having this universe’s version of Captain Caveman be somewhat of an antagonist here...I will be talking about him further down...but there are also just simply posters and name references that catch your eye if you know the characters. I don’t know every Hanna-Barbera character but the one that did catch my eye was a cardboard cutout of Hong-Kong Phooey.

As for the actual movie from a storytelling perspective, again I never really thought there was anything that grand about Scooby-Doo in terms of how they told a story. It was one of the first “monster of the week” shows in how formulaic it was and there was almost always a predictable formula in how each character would play their part.

In hindsight to that, I do appreciate both this movie and the first live-action Scooby-Doo movie for actually making that a satirical plot point, but in not having that much of a plot to base the movie on...I mean you can tell this is really an origin story of sorts in that if they are planning a cinematic universe this is that first rock, but unlike Iron Man they never had that hook that made you want to see the story continue.

I guess you could compare it in-house to what the DCEU did with Man of Steel. I didn’t really need more from after seeing that movie but I did want to see what this universe’s versions of some of my favourite DC Characters would be like, in a way this is similar.

It does sound stupid but the plot very much feels like a Scooby-Doo movie plot, in that the movie opens with that classic “monster of the week” unmasking, but the main threat of the movie is a real monster with some type of supernatural mystical twist.

But also, in adding the entire universe of Hanna-Barbera characters to that, you also have the most blatant in-movie Warner Bros. promo campaign with so many of the studio’s other properties being name-dropped it was borderline laughable.

In terms of the actual movie experience, this isn’t the first time I’ve watched a movie for the first time not in the cinema but knowing that the movie should have been released in cinemas rather than me simply not seeing it for any reason was rather surreal and, I do feel that this is the type of movie that warrants an audience viewing rather than just me watching it in my bedroom.

I also feel I would have enjoyed it a lot more with an audience, particularly an audience that doesn’t mind slightly dated, cheesy or somewhat really obvious plot points at times. I kind of predicted every major plot twist in this movie, although a couple of them I feel the audience is supposed to know from the get go otherwise why make it so obviously unless your pandering to a really young audience that don’t have two brain cells to rub together and tell that Fred with a really sinister grin full-naming Scooby is really the main villain in disguise particularly when you just saw him do the same thing ten minutes before.

But anyway, rather then going character by character in this spoilery section I’m going to break it down into what I liked and what I didn’t like. There was nothing I loved but also nothing I hated.

What I Liked:

But in terms of the overall message of the movie, Scoob! really hammers home that old-school notion of Man’s Best Friend, and not just with Shaggy and Scooby which is all I will say on that.

Alright so this movie is obviously called Scoob! and focuses on Scooby as effectively the main character as well as his friendship with Shaggy. The two really are one character in that you can’t really imagine one without the other, and the movie really explores that in both good and bad ways...we’ll get to the bad.

As a dog lover and dog owner myself, this movie really spoke to me on that level and the bond that Shaggy and Scooby share I finally understood. In all other media for me it’s more a case of Scooby and Shaggy just being friends but here that bond goes deeper because you see them meet and you see them essentially become family.

I really didn’t like the plot device of making them fall out only to have them make up later, it just is a very lazy trope at this point particularly as I’ve already seen it in a Scooby-Doo property before.

But they do kind of explain why it is necessary and why it happens because while they do have their friends at Mystery Inc. Shaggy and Scooby had no one before having each other, so when one feels like they’re drifting apart something flips and they get very possessive.

Also that ending, I mentioned this movie has a lot of things thrown in but while Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. references are kind of in sync with this movie, how about Greek mythology to the point where they effectively summon the Underworld to Earth!

I’m a massive Greek mythology fan, and seeing the main monster of this movie actually being from Greek mythology and animated so beautifully is why this is in the good section, even if the Underworld actually looked like the Cave of Wonders from Aladdin.

The voice cast for this movie is also unexpectedly brilliant. A lot of people may complain that the original cast who are still all alive, I think, weren’t asked back but outside of Frank Welker as Scooby I don’t think you really need them.

Zac Efron is one of those actors at the moment that can do no wrong for me, he can do comedy, he can do musical, he can do drama, he can do serious gritty drama. I really loved him as Fred here.

Will Forte didn’t fool me into thinking it was Matthew Lillard returning to the role because I feel his voice here wasn’t as squeeky or high as Lillard’s, but he still did a great job, Ian Armitage voicing the kid version was great too.

Gina Rodriguez is a choice for Velma not just because like a lot of these characters the classic Velma’s voice is very distinct and almost iconic but to actively race-bend the character and make her Latina I thought added some much needed diversity to this movie and the Hanna-Barbera universe in general.

Jason Isaacs as Dick Dastardly was really a fantastic choice both for the actor and for the character. There were times particularly towards the start when he made Dick sound like Captain Hook and even his design here is very Captain Hook/Gru esk rather than the lanky Dick Dastardly design, and I was missing his classic hat. But for me Jason Isaacs is at his best when he’s playing a villain.

On that note, Dee Dee Sykes and Dynomutt I thought were absolutely wonderful here, I’d actually say these two and Dick Dastardly were my favourite characters. All the D’s apparently.

Not only was it a teachable moment for me because I had to look up someone I was pretty sure was someone I thought they were in terms of me knowing Dee Dee originated in Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, but here was on Blue Falcon’s crew with Dynomutt and no reference to Captain Caveman whatsoever I was okay with.

Also, I cannot believe I am saying this but, this movie actually made me like a Ken Jeong performance. I cannot stand this man, I do not find him funny, I do not find him entertaining, yet something about him voicing Dynomutt who originally I swear what meant to have the brain capacity I associate with Ken Jeong, but to make me like the character was impressive.

The final thing on my good list to mention is that opening sequence, after the very heartwarming opening scene of Scooby and Shaggy meeting and a Halloween setting of the team first coming together to battle a monster of the week in a It inspired haunted house, they show a shot-for-shot remake of the opening credits for the OG cartoon which is rather clever.

The only other voice actor to mention in the good section for me is Simon Cowell, not only do they have Simon playing himself in such a brilliant way but also his son Eric also voices a character, very brief and not central to the plot, but really a cute moment. Also I don’t know why but Simon in voice over sounds almost like a parody to Simon in live-action.

What I Didn’t Like:

Alright so these are really knitpicks but I think they’re worth noting in terms of moving this universe forward.

Scooby Doo is a dog, a talking dog yes but a dog none the less...so why the heck does he talk so much. I mean granted this is a universe with a robotic dog and a biped martial arts vigilante dog...but they never genuinely explain how Scooby can talk and while it’s understandable in the original cartoons as it’s mostly groans and the odd mispronounced word...here he was having monologues...also as a puppy he should have had a puppy voice, just saying.

As mentioned, I never really got into this franchise when I was younger so outside of Scooby and Shaggy I don’t really know these characters...but was Fred always so weirdly obsessed with the Mystery Machine? I get being happy with your vehicle but I thought Fred and Daphne were supposed to be the ship of this property...not Fred and the van.

I really really really really really really really really did not like the cop out ending they had, I didn’t let them get away with it in Stitch Has a Glitch and I am not letting them get away with it here. This big dramatic heartstring pulling thing happens, yet it’s almost immediately rectified with no solid explanation other then “we need to wrap things up”.

So to see one of these properties not authentically translate I thought was annoying, by which I mean Captain Caveman. Looks wise he is on point and I am fully aware that Mel Blanc is not going to rise up from the grave to voice him again, but the very essence of him being a caveman in his speech was not there for me here.

It would have been better if they allowed some time to go past and let the heroes stew in their sorrow before somehow discovering a way to fix things, but no it is literally as soon as the bad thing happens we are supposed to believe this was thought out?

My final thing is this. The Hanna-Barbera properties I grew up with are Scooby-Doo which I liked, Top Cat which I loved, Wacky Races which I loved, The Jetsons which I wasn’t as acquainted with as I would have liked to be, The Flinstones which I loved, Hong Kong Phooey which I liked and Captain Cavemani which I liked.

I’m sure Tracy Morgan is a likeable comedian, but then play on the comedy of the character and have him be like he originally was.

Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe:

I would love to see The Flinstones, Top Cat and the other Wacky Racers get this movie treatment. In fact if they market it correctly, Warner Bros. Animation could have a different genre movie for each property, be that comedy for Flinstones, action for Hong Kong Phooey, maybe a heist movie for Top Cat, sci-fi for the Jetsons, the list goes on.

As mentioned before, I do not see that groundwork for a cinematic universe here. Rather than it showing signs of being like the MCU I think it does stick more in-house as the DCEU by simply giving me the want to see other Hanna-Barbera characters inhabit this universe.

Do I feel this is the start of something big? No, do I feel there is potential here absolutely.

Overall I rate the movie a solid 7/10, it’s enjoyable, it’s cute, it’s family-friendly and I believe that’s its USP. It’s not a groundbreaking movie but it does have that cinematic universe potential and, as mentioned, I do look forward to see if more Hanna-Barbera properties get the same treatment.

So that’s my review of Scoob! What did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews and other posts.