Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Thoughts on the Movie `Epic'

My family and I went to see the movie `Epic' this morning.  We didn't really know anything except that it was about tiny people, the cinema was showing it really cheap, and after such a rough couple weeks a movie seemed like a good idea.

I loved it.  (And I'm going to talk about it here, so if you don't want to risk spoilers now would be the time to bail.)

First off, the graphics were stunning.  Someone put a huge amount of thought into what a society of tiny people would be like -not just the ascetics but also the underlying logic of the world.  They made a war between what are basically flower fairies and the fairies of fungi believable.  That's hard to do.

Second, the characters are easy to relate to.  Even the villain has some humanizing touches, which shocked me in the best way.  I was expecting a Redwall villain -scary with no redeeming qualities.  It was nice to know even evil fungi fairies care about their family.  And the comic reliefs managed to be funny without being annoying, which was another pleasant surprise.  

The heart of the story is parent/child relationships.  The heroine is a human girl who has just come to live with her absent-minded-professor father.  She thinks he's delusional because he believes in tiny people who have an advanced society somewhere in the forest.  After a falling out with him, she gets shrunk and has to go on a quest to help the leaf-men (what they call the flower fairies' army.  The tiny people are never CALLED flower fairies, but some of the graphics are obviously based on the Victorian flower people).  It's the only way to regain her regular size so she can reconcile with her dad, who thinks she's run away from home.

The male lead is an immature leaf man who doesn't want to be part of the army.  His commander raised him when his father died in battle, and both of them have a hard time separating their working relationship from their personal relationship.  The fact that the commander hates admitting that he has personal relationships doesn't exactly help.

 It's amazing how many really good CG animation movies are out there: Tangled, How to Train Your Dragon, The Incredibles, Megamind, and now Epic.  I was around for the Golden Age of Disney, when The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Rescuers Down Under, and Beauty and the Beast all came out one after the other.  It's kind of like that again -as if the storytellers in Hollywood suddenly remembered, `hey, we don't have to talk down to kids!  We can create interesting characters and amazing stories!'  

I just hope it lasts.
 


9 comments:

  1. Yeah, I hope it lasts, too. I do enjoy kids' stories, as long as they are neither too preachy, nor too simplified. I don't mind stories that are inherently simple, but I don't like ones which are simpler than they really should or need to be. {odd smile}

    Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

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  2. Of the movies you listed, the only ones I have not see are Epic and Megamind. I'm so out of the movie loop that I never even heard of either. Megamind does not have a title that hooks me, but I'll look into it.

    I do think you could add Up to the list. That movie made me cry. And it may have been silly, but Kung Fu Panda (have not seen any sequels) is worth listing as well.

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  3. Anne Elizabeth: Oh yeah, preachy can just kill a movie, especially when the point is already painfully obvious like `littering is bad', or `don't be mean.' (Sigh.) I'm not saying those messages can't be done well, but only if you're not talking down to your audience.

    Tia: I haven't seen Up yet, though everything I've heard about it is good. I love Kung Fu Panda and the sequel. The reason I didn't list them is that I was afraid if I kept listing movies I like it'd get too long. :) Megamind is a lampoon on super hero movies. You'd probably like it since you enjoy Jennifer Estep's `Bigtime' books. (Though Megamind is obviously for a much younger audience.)

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    1. Yes, stories with messages can be done well, but it's quite tricky. As you said, you can't talk down to your audience at all. You also can't push the message too hard. If you run the message into the ground, the only folks who will listen are the ones who don't need to. {lop-sided smile}

      A.E.B.

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  4. And even they might be annoyed. One thing that really drives me crazy is when I agree with a message but wish I didn't because the way it's delivered makes me cringe.

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    1. Good point. Sometimes I like a message but... did they have to say it THAT way?!? {WINCE, smile, Smile}

      Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

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  5. Sorry it took me so long to answer. I couldn't think of anything to say but `I agree.' Then you could say, `I agree with your agreement,' and I could say `I agree with the agreement that you agreed with' -and that would be entirely too like the vultures in the Disney cartoon version of `Jungle Book.' :)

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  6. {Chuckle} That could be funny, but... {smile, SMILE}

    Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

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