#the song itself was kinda mid as most of the original songs from these remakes are but i liked that they expanded him a bit

[thefabelmans2022]

i have so many thoughts about the little mermaid (2023) and it's like. oh my god who cares.

[2bstudioblog]

Konami’s wheels are turning... slowly

Lot’s of interesting news heading to our heads this Monday from what I heard from Yong Yea’s video about Konami wanting to outsource their IP’s to 3rd parties.

Obviously, Akira Yamaoka has kinda given away a strong hint that he’s working on a project with Bloober which in this case would be the long awaited SH remake or the direction they had with PT before it got cancelled. Akira Yamaoka also decided that (too late) he wanted to amend the article from his interview and release it later down the line. It’s very unusual that these news happen, but we all know Yamaoka is most famous for his music in Silent Hill.

Which brings me to a funny story about my own involvement of a Silent Hill game. I mentioned this on a podcast that I was part of 2 Konami-owned IP’s that went into another direction and killing off their franchises which have been like dead bodies in a morgue for the last 7 years.

I got the request to write industrial-metal music for a Silent Hill (of course at this time I only knew the IP and their most famous version of the game has been Silent Hill 2.) game. First I was of course very excited to be part of the series, but I jumped to early until I found out it was a Pachinko-machine (A japanese style pinball-game mixed with a touch-screen and a one-armed bandit and a slot-machine in one.), and my heart sank a little. I think I produced 4-5 cues for the machine, but I’m glad that nobody will be able to hear my “mediocre” masterpieces because all you would hear are metal-balls falling into a tray. But the thing about this machine, it had taken cut-scenes from Silent Hill 2, upscaled or even re-mastered/remade the graphics which would have looked great if it was its own game. But it was the same thing they’ve done with all their other IPs when those transfer over to this kind of entertainment. All what was left of it, Jim Sterling turned the game into a Meme and all I can hear is the -”HIT THE LEVER!” and the effects overpowering the music behind it. But I’m glad it didn’t go further then that. Technically here, Silent Hill(s) died with the arrival of the pachinko-slot machine and the series have tried to re-establish itself ever since.

Another game I was a part of was a Castlevania (Dracula in Japan) themed Pachinko-slot machine, with the revolutionary phrase “Erotic Violence” in it’s PR material and video-commercial. I mean, they took the music production part of this machine very seriously because I wasn’t aware of the “EV” part. I just thought it would be a machine praising the history of Castlevania. I was assigned to re-write and re-orchestrate a few songs from Neo-classical Metal music into more Progressive Metal style, and I was super-proud of this one because they had the sheet-music already available for me. All I had to do was re-arrange some parts for a string-quartet (1 cello, 2 violins and 1 viola) and I believe it was engineered and recorded by famed engineer Kenji Nakai who was under and working with famed engineer Mr Bruce Swedien (Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones).

From that moment me and Mr. Nakai stroke a friendship because he has a passion for Progressive Metal and he asked me if I could send more songs his way. From this we both have been incredibly busy on both of our ends, but I hope we can be able to work on something in the future. I have a feeling that might be soon.

So a long story short, Konami spent a lot of money for recording, they approved everything and we were done. But when it turned out to be a pachinko-machine and not a world-wide videogame release, I just had to facepalm myself, asking the question why they keep doing so many poor decisions. Why leaving all those fans out in the cold and really start making Castlevania mean something. This void of “lots of fancy things, but no substance” started right here...

Konami are turning their wheels a little bit too late and too slow until now. After they got rid of Hideo Kojima (Who I believe was thinking of the international-market rather than the domestic one), Konami had only one thing on their minds: Making money quick and domestically. No more wasted time on translations, straight for the gambling crowd. No need to write interesting stories. No need to introduce kids to this adult material. They wanted to earn it back as fast as possible. But we all see their decisions put them on the map as a “black-company”, who mistreat their staff, shaming them out in the office for overstaying their lunch-breaks. Moving staff from one business to another, from a programmer to a Konami-fitness Center-staff, or as a toilet-cleaner at a Konami-owned pachinko-slot gambling hall. The management of the company has been horrendous for the full-time employee. I’m glad I was not part of these later projects and only wrote stuff for them for Pro Evolution Soccer series from 2009-2012. (My work on 2010-2012 was unfortunately un-credited work. :(

Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain In My Ass

When the playable teaser called Metal Gear Solid - Ground Zeroes, came out on the PS3 and later on the PS4, it was an introduction for the new graphics engine designed by Hideo Kojima’s team, simply called The FOX-Engine. Basically this “game” was more of a demo rather than a full-product. But it looked great and with a fantastic score by Akihiro Honda, Ludvig Forssell and Harry Gregson-Williams, it had everything going for it to become something really awesome. It became a standard approach from Hideo Kojima now to produce “Playable Teasers” to show a great concept while offering a 3-4 hour short campaign, showing off the engine’s graphical capabilities.

Still, the story was under progress and I knew early on that Hideo Kojima really didn’t want to do it after he always felt that Metal Gear Solid 4 was final. But here is the curse of the die-hard fans, and I’m sorry to say it. No matter how many Iron Man movies Marvel crams out, at the 3rd movie, I started to feel “This does not feel like Iron Man anymore”. But that’s what the fans wanted and is a standard in the movie industry. Always produce a trilogy. Indiana Jones has always been the 3 movies from 1981-1989. The 4th one doesn’t really need to be called Indiana Jones at all. It was there I felt, just like with Metal Gear Solid V, they were beating a DEAD RACE HORSE.

I can’t deny the talents on display for Metal Gear Solid - Ground Zeroes. It laid down some really cool foundations for the gameplay, but I still believe the better game-series for stealth was beaten by the likes of Splinter Cell and most recently Thief. Stealth in MGS has always felt a little bit childish and I only really enjoyed MGS 1, MGS 2, tried to play MGS 3 (still have it one my Vita!) and will try to finish it. MGS 3 has felt like the TRUE Zeroes experience, with the inception of the story and lore behind the cloning of Big Boss. MGS 4 finally brought it all to a great finale and I felt, there is NOTHING more to tell. MGS 1, 2 and 4 is the Trilogy, MGS 3 serves as the Prequel and I see nothing wrong with that.

Mission - Erase Kojima’s Legacy

The making of MGS V - The Phantom Pain is kinda true to it’s title. Can you feel the nostalgia? Or are we just imagining the sensation of a Metal Gear Solid game past it’s prime? The missing link? The missing limb? And with the worlds biggest cop-out  of everything that had to do with story was completely missing.

Each mission is playing out every time the same, with an intro to a TV-show, giving away massive spoilers to who would appear in the mission, you do your thing (not so much of story, just a “go-here, do that approach, sneak back out, head to pick-up) rinse and repeat. I wonder how much of this was Kojima’s fault? I don’t think he was up to it. I’m sure he fought for more story but the big heads didn’t want to listen to what makes a MGS game a MGS game. The new management had now already played the hand to disown the man who put Konami on the map for games since the mid 80s.

The game is no longer marketed like before. The tagline “A Hideo Kojima Game” no longer exists and will never be part of Konami’s mission of erasing the person who gave them their fame and the recognition that a game carrying the name Konami was a brand of quality for any gamer out there. Me myself, personally only played PES because of the stellar animations, but its recently since 2012, I stopped playing the series. FIFA had already cheapened itself, PES likewise. Updating the graphics, but the same old animations have been recycled back to the PES3 days. Maybe there’s been an update in the collision engine, but otherwise everything stayed the same, with the huge amount of data collected from previous years of motion-capture, why do it all over when its all about the brand recognition? Saving money on processes wherever possible. Simple Math. And here it is. MGS V is not a MGS game.

We already knew it was going to be a massive budget behind the game of MGS V. But what can Konami do to save money on MGS V? They already have the Fox Engine running from Ground Zeroes. The assets for “Snake” (I’ll let you know why I put quotation-marks around it) and standard models will extend somewhat. Oh, yes, let’s save money on a character that doesn’t speak (Quiet), over-sexualize the character to start a fan-base of people who just dig character design, animated a sexy “shower” routine for the character for boys to go nuts over. What about voice? Let’s not really try to sync the voices to the mouths. Let’s have the guy from “24″ record his performances onto tape-logs. Kiefer Sutherland would have been a good “Snake”, but I understand now that you are not “SNAKE”. The game explains pretty soon at the end that you are just a Medic and all the tapes you’ve been listening to is the original Big Boss. You never where the character of Snake. Even though this all could have been handled better, Konami wanted to save money wherever possible. We also knew David Hayter was not asked or put forward to return as “The Voice of Snake”. But in this case I start to wonder myself, David Hayter might have dodged the biggest bullet in the most expensive, commercial and very controversial game of all time once Konami decided to kill everything that built up their reputation.

Even during production Kojima managed to start working on PT. The game Konami “silenced” after it was released on the PS-store. Guillermo Del Toro and his friendship with Hideo Kojima’s dream-game was put on ice. All because Kojima was about to get frozen out of the company that was according to Konami “Wasting too much bloody money”. I might get blacklisted for saying this, but once the new management started to mess with the other IPs for just domestic/gambling market, that’s where everything went sideways. Konami wasn’t treating their heritage with respect.

It took them 7 years to realize their mistake! And now, for those who wants to be part of 3rd party developers who would get a crack at a new Castlevania, a new Metal Gear Solid (remake I hope), Konami has realized that the only way they will survive (Yeah, Metal Gear Solid Survive killed them HARD) is to let other’s take over. Maybe my dream of scoring a Metal Gear Solid game would be somewhat more possible now rather than working in the confined space of limitations posed by the higher ups at Konami. Let 3rd party developers breathe life into the IPs because I know there are smarter ways to tell a story and I would gladly like to see the return of David Hayter in the seat, without having to deal with the blank-face approach that he was faced with every time he had to audition for Snake in MGS 2, 3 and 4! David Hayter is a fantastic writer, actor and voice-actor. He has the chops and I think we are all ready for either a re-make or a better follow up to MGS 2 and the time between that one and MGS 4.

[aarontalksmusic-blog]

A Top 30 Horror Movies

This is Halloween! This is Halloween! There are a lot of awesome horror movies, but I picked just 30 that qualify as my favorites. 

#30 - The Conjuring

So this movie isn’t perfect. The last 20-30 minutes kinda turn into a mess as the demon gets more confrontational. But, the first 90 minutes are a near perfect slow build of tension and smart visual storytelling. All the actors do a good job, even the kids. This movie has insured I never play Hide and Clap.

#29 - Paranormal Activity 2

In my opinion superior to the (still pretty good) original, PA2 moves faster than its predecessor and uses the audience’s curiosity against them in interesting ways. You’re always looking to the edges of the screen for something or someone out of place, and as the movie progresses, that curiosity rattles the nerves more and more.

#28 - The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

One of the only modern horror remakes that improves and expands on the original. The Hills Have Eyes hit when I was a junior in high school. It is gleefully gorey and deranged. People die in awful ways, and the protagonist (seen above) spends most of the last half hour drenched in blood. It’s a lot of fun if you’re into that sort of thing.

#27 - Event Horizon

Space Horror is a hard genre to get right. Event Horizon knocks it out of the park by getting the slow build right. There are gruesome and bloody images from time to time, but the majority of the movie is built on tension and dread. Having Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne leading the cast adds some dramatic weight to the proceedings.

#26 - The VVitch

The GOAT 17th Century rural horror movie. This movie gets real weird and leaves a lot up to the audience’s imagination. The less said about it the better if you haven’t seen it. But, even for the 2010s renaissance of horror, this one stands out.

#25 - Hereditary

This is a list of my favorite horror movies, not the scariest. If it were “scariest” this would be top 10, maybe top 5. The second half of this movie is some of the most uncomfortable and relentlessly horrifying storytelling I’ve ever seen. Across just two feature films, Director Ari Aster has proved himself a master of the horror genre. We’re all worse off for it.

#24 - Return of the Living Dead

The first movie on this list that is more funny than scary, Return of the Living Dead is laugh out loud hilarious at times. Somehow, it still manages to be a more effective zombie movie than most serious ones. Great punk rock soundtrack and highly quotable, this is great for people who scare a little too easily.

#23 - Friday the 13th Part 2

Basically improving on the original in every way, Friday the 13th Part 2 is iconic even without Jason’s hockey mask making an appearance. The killer instead keeps a lumpy bag over his head the whole time. The movie lets you know early on that its going to be ridiculous, when the Part 2 logo literally smashes through the Friday the 13th title card. Great representation of the slasher genre.

#22 - Suspiria (2018)

I’m a sucker for lore in movies, and Suspiria is full to the brim with details that expand on the world. Led by great performances from Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson, the movie is highly intelligent and occasionally brutally violent. The fact that the director’s prior movie was “Call Me By Your Name” shows that he’s a talented filmmaker no matter the genre.

#21 - Halloween (1978)

Michael Myers is iconic. The music is iconic. Jamie Lee Curtis is an all-time great horror leading lady. Halloween is a must watch for horror genre fans. 

#20 - Get Out

This movie is so well written it won an Oscar. Get Out is both hilarious and brutally tense. The acting is awesome across the board. Who knew Jordan Peele would use his comedy talent to make a career in scary movies? 

#19 - Shaun of the Dead

A classic comedy filled with so many jokes that it takes about 3 watches to catch them all. Not scary in the least, but uniquely playful in the genre. Also made Simon Pegg a star. Nothing but greatness here.

#18 - The Descent

I’ll always remember my first watch of this movie. It slaps you in the face with trauma in the first 5 minutes. Then spends three quarters of an hour building tension and claustrophobia before suddenly becoming a solid monster feature. Though it fizzles a little at the end with some wtf moments, the first 3/4ths are very effecting.

#17 - Nightmare on Elm Street

Nightmare on Elm Street is just a cool as hell idea for a horror movie. It takes the occasional predictability of Halloween or Friday the 13th and flips it. The kills are inventive and visually interesting, the effects are very cool, and you get to see Johnny Depp get brutally murdered. win-win-win.

#16 - Saw

Saw came out at a perfect age for me. Seeing this movie at 16 was a great experience. Even as the sequels got worse and worse, the whodunnit nature of the original held up. People were literally drowning in gore by Saw 3, but this is a solid movie that knows when to tone things down. Great watch.

#15 - Evil Dead 2

By turns hilarious and unsettling, watching Evil Dead 2 allows the viewer to marvel at the special effects done on a shoestring budget. Bruce Campbell is an absurd and talented physical actor, and singlehandedly carries this movie into the hall of fame.

#14 - IT Chapter 1

Chopping the 1,000 page Stephen King book in half allowed the first half of the IT saga to thrive. Bill Skarsgard is a fantastic Pennywise, and the child actors all do well. A slightly repetitive series of scares keeps this one from perfection (and would be the downfall of Part 2), but its still an amazing peak of the genre.

#13 - Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Fast zombies. Zack Snyder directing before his head got too big. Hilarious musical cues. Apocalyptic imagery. This movie is one of the best of the zombie genre.

#12 - Fright Night (1985)

One of the most simply fun movies on this list, Fright Night is straight out of the mid 80s. It never takes itself too seriously, but it still has some good scares sprinkled in. An essential vampire movie, and the remake with Colin Farrell wasn’t half bad either.

#11 - The Omen (1976)

One of my early favorites, The Omen is another lore filled film that gradually ramps up the twists until the dramatic finale. Probably one of the least scary films on my list, its built on Gregory Peck being a great actor and a few pretty messed up deaths.

#10 - An American Werewolf in London

Another favorite from childhood, this is the best the werewolf genre has to offer. Made by John Landis who also did Animal House and Blues Brothers, American Werewolf balances 80s level of gore with award winning special effects and clever music (every song featured has moon in the title).

#9 - It Follows

One of the newest (and most original) movies on the list, It Follows is one of a kind. It’s terrifying, has great cinematography and halfway through the movie you have absolutely no clue how it will end. Must see.

#8 - Midsommar

This is absolute newest film on the list, and one I’m anxious to rewatch. Midsommar sets itself apart by being 95% in broad daylight and providing a wealth of backstory to the “bad guys”. Also Florence Pugh shows that she is an amazingly skilled actress, particularly in the final 10 minutes.

#7 - The Exorcist

^That guy is scary. He’s also only in the movie for like 3 seconds. Obviously this is a classic. If you haven’t seen it and like horror at all, it will still amaze you, almost 50 years later. I would’ve loved to be a fly on the wall when it was in theaters watching people lose their minds. Still a masterpiece of the genre.

#6 - The Blair Witch Project

I watched The Blair Witch Project for the first time alone in my room at age...I believe 14. That was a mistake. While the mistakes of the hikers become a bit hilarious on multiple rewatches, the night scenes are still tense af. The last 15 minutes are uniquely terror-inducing. Everybody’s seen this one, but if you haven’t, maybe watch it with the lights on?

#5 - The Evil Dead (2013)

This movie is one of the most intense and relentless horror movies ever. Nail guns, rusty knives, a turkey carver, a chainsaw, a machete: people get literally ripped apart in this movie. But, here’s the thing, its really really fun to watch. You’ll be out of breath when its over, but still.

#4 - Cabin in the Woods

Cabin in the Woods isn’t THAT scary. It flirts with scary. It has some shocking and frightening moments But mostly its a shitload of fun that plays on every trope of the horror genre. It also has one of my favorite final moments of any film on this list.

#3 - The Thing

Underappreciated upon its release, The Thing has become the standard by which body horror is measured. Its delightfully paranoid and lets the audience sit and think as gruesome deaths pile up. 

#2 - Alien

One of the first movies to terrify me, Alien is one of the greatest horror movies ever made. The monster design is iconic. The kills and set pieces are one of a kind. It has a kick ass female heroine played by Sigourney Weaver. What more do you want?

and finally

#1 - The Shining

YEAHHHHHHH Here’s a brief list of iconic Shining scenes: - An elevator full of blood - The old woman in room 237 - All work and no play make Jack a dull boy - The snowy hedge maze - Here’s Johnny - Danny’s vision of the twins - The house of horrors finale featuring the man in bear costume featured above and of course - REDRUM This movie is a masterpiece, made by one of the greatest directors of all time, starring one of the greatest actors of all time and based on one of the scariest books by the defining horror author of our time. Its damn near perfect.

[antialiasis]

Dumbo

Before I convinced Shadey I wanted to watch it before seeing the remake, I actually had not ever seen the original Dumbo and had only the vaguest idea what happens in it. Watching it for the first time now was kind of fascinating. Even aside from the jarring old-timey racist bits, there's something really distinctly old-fashioned about its style and storytelling - a crystal-clear sense that this is a movie from back when animation was still relatively new and mostly comedic shorts rather than serious narratives, and it would never play out the way it does if it were being made today.

For example, Casey Jr. the train is randomly animate, where no other objects are; this seems a fantastically weird choice today, when we generally expect that objects are not alive and don't talk unless it's a movie about objects being alive, but in Dumbo, they just sort of casually made this one steam engine sentient, just because they wanted to animate a lively steam engine. The animation has an exaggerated style where everything moves and squashes and stretches as much as possible, because look, we're making drawings and they can move! Animated storks - not representations, but the actual storks - fly over a map of the US complete with names written on it, as if this were literally what it looks like - it's weird and quirky and exactly like something that'd be in old animated shorts and exactly like something that wouldn't be in modern animated movies.

The actual story is structured really strangely. The movie is only 64 minutes long. It opens with a fairly long sequence, I think literally ten or fifteen minutes, about a stork delivering Dumbo to his mother and singing happy birthday to him. None of this is in any way relevant to the rest of the film, beyond the fact that Dumbo was born; it's just a cute sequence that they thought of. After this, Dumbo is mocked and made fun of, his mother is locked up for trying to defend him, and Timothy the mouse befriends Dumbo and inspires the ringmaster to make him the centerpiece of a new act, which is only all the more humiliating and miserable. Dumbo is briefly comforted by his imprisoned mother before unknowingly drinking some alcohol-laced water, hallucinating the highly disturbing "Pink Elephants on Parade" song, and then waking up in a tree. By the time we actually see Dumbo fly, with the help of a supposedly magic feather, there are only a couple of minutes left of the runtime. Immediately they go back to the circus, Dumbo tries to fly during his act only to drop the feather, Timothy tells him in mid-air that the feather wasn't actually magic, Dumbo successfully flies without it, and then it's closing credits montage time. The montage shows that Dumbo and his mother stay with the circus, despite how abusive they consistently were to them, only he's famous and privileged now so it's fine, I guess.

Whatever you think of the original film, I immediately pinpointed several things I expected would definitely be different in a modern retelling. In any conventional modern movie, Dumbo would learn to fly much earlier; he'd spend some significant time believing that he could only fly because of the feather, the revelation that the power to fly was inside him all along would be during the climax, and surely after that we'd actually see Dumbo using his feather-free flying ability in some heroic way - to save his mom, say. And he'd definitely not be made to stay at the circus at the end, unless we got to see some concrete evidence that the circus had changed: the circus people in the original were one-dimensional assholes, and by any system of morality that doesn't just sort of automatically assume that animals exist for human entertainment, he should have ditched them.

Tim Burton's live-action remake made all the changes I'd been expecting - but also a whole lot more that just kind of baffled me. The original Dumbo is clearly mostly a story about bullying and ostracism, in that fairly conventional form where it turns out the feature everyone bullied Dumbo for actually gives him a special enviable talent - and mostly, Dumbo is ostracized by the other elephants. The story is mostly about the interactions between the animals, who comprise most of the speaking cast, though Dumbo himself doesn't speak. In the remake, though, for some baffling reason they decided to make the animals nonverbal in general. Instead, a host of human characters are added - the circus performers are meant to be sympathetic, one of them is a tragic army man whose wife died with two children who serve as the main protagonists, there's an amusement park owner villain, a rich banker... Meanwhile, Timothy Q. Mouse, the deuteragonist of the original, is relegated to a tiny cameo as a regular mouse in a cage. There are no other elephants (or I don't think so? If there are, they are nonentities). Dumbo is ostracized and mistreated only by humans - but that just doesn't quite have the same meaning as him being rejected by his own kind.

Instead, a loose adaptation of the original film (save the revelation that he doesn't need the feather) takes place within the first half of the movie, and the second half is an entirely new plot about the circus being overtaken by an evil corporation that wants to make Dumbo do shows at their giant theme park. At the end, the kids and the circus people help Dumbo and his mother escape to India, the entire theme park burns down, and the circus becomes independent again and stops mistreating animals. The overall theme isn't really about bullying at all; it's more about the idea of the weirdos and misfits coming together and supporting each other against the cruel, conventional mainstream. That's a fine theme in itself, but it's very much not the theme of the original Dumbo.

As an adaptation, therefore, it's a strange one. It isn't telling the same core story - some of the same events are involved, but it's just not at all about the same thing as the original. As its own independent film... well, it's still a pretty strange and confused one, rooted in cliché, and full of things that are just obvious frustrating nonsense. The circus gets a full tent of people excited to see a regular old baby elephant, and they think Dumbo's adorable; then they see his adorably huge ears and... not only does the entire tent of people start loudly mocking him, they start chanting "Dumbo, Dumbo, fake, fake, fake!" What on God's green Earth. For one thing, Dumbo's ears obviously only make him cuter, who are you people. For another, why would you loudly jeer at a fucking baby elephant, what is wrong with you. But perhaps most audaciously... even if Dumbo's ears weren't real (and why would you think they're fake, when the circus had initially made every effort to cover them up), he is still a goddamned baby elephant, exactly what they came here to see! What are you complaining about! In the original Dumbo, the people are pretty simplistic and cartoony in behaviour, but he got laughed at when he tripped over his ears into a puddle, and then there were a few asshole teenagers making fun of the ears - not this entire audience of bizarre aliens in human suits just all getting together to bully a baby animal.

It's all like this - just the weirdest writing choices. The feather doesn't work psychologically on Dumbo by convincing him that he can fly because he's been told it's magic. (Dumbo himself doesn't really have much of a personality or drive the story.) Initially he flies for the first time because he accidentally sucks the feather into his trunk and this makes him sneeze, which sends him flying off the ground. Then as the movie proceeds he stops actually sneezing and starts just taking off on his own after sucking the feather into his trunk. At this point there is zero reason for anyone to think the feather has anything to do with this, but even the girl who's obsessed with science and experimentation doesn't think to question this until the end. Meanwhile, after learning that a baby elephant can fly on its ears, the amusement park owner somehow decides he wants Dumbo's act to involve a fully-grown woman riding on his back, and expects this to just work, and then absolutely nobody questions whether maybe Dumbo can fly his own weight but not the additional weight of an adult human. (He is a baby! He's small! Nobody would expect an animal of his size to carry an adult on the ground!) The woman, who's supposed to be sympathetic, literally gets on his back and expects him to take off before these people have even seen him fly on his own at all! Why is nobody asking the reasonable questions here, not even the, again, girl whose sole character trait is her desire to be a scientist? It was just bizarre and enraging, and only made it harder to see any of these people as actual human beings. Instead of "Pink Elephants on Parade" being a nightmare dream sequence, it's just a while of Dumbo staring up at a circus act involving elaborate soap bubbles that kinda sorta look like elephants changing shape; it doesn't mean anything or say anything for the story, it's just a "Hey, technically we've got this song from the original movie in here, sort of!" For anyone who hadn't seen the original, this bit would just be baffling; for anyone who had, it's a pathetic imitation removed from the entire context of it.

So all in all, the live-action Dumbo was a strange, strange film. The original Dumbo genuinely could have used a remake - but instead of focusing on improving the ways in which that story faltered, the remake just tried to do its own unrelated thing, and that thing was just pretty weird. The message is cute in itself, but this story did not need to be about Dumbo, and Dumbo did not need to be turned into this.