Archive for category Animation

F*ck trees! The bastards.

The Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation – (1985)

Director: Dale Schott
Starring: Hadley Kay, Cree Summer, Maxine Miller, Dan Hennessey
Screenplay by: Peter Sauder

Why, you may ask, did I decide to tackle the sequel to The Care Bears Movie? Was the first one so incomplete that it warranted a viewing of the second one to feel more wholesome? Is my childhood so disappointing, so mundane, that I needed to force myself through another enterprise of excessive “caring” and “sharing” and “feelings” to warm my neglected heart? Am I an emotional sadist?

Like I’ve said in the past, I’m watching everything I watched as a kid, no if’s, and’s, or bu’ts about it. As I mentioned in my previous review, I was surprised that, at the very least, the first film developed a relatively straight-forward adventure of the cutest degree, even if the ending just wasted everything that preceded it. And besides, I’m still jonesing to find that ridiculously sad song I remember on of these movies having, even if I have to shove a trillion hearts, stars, and rainbows deep into my eyelids. I’m doing this all for you, dear readers.

NOSTALGIC LENS: Nothing distinctly from the first one. Both movies are the same blur of cute animals and clouds and hearts. I can’t remember anything significant that stood out from one movie over the other. Except. That. SONG.

DOES IT HOLD UP: I am a sucker for fantasy-created backstory. It always amazes me to experience the history/background of made-up characters, even if said characters are lame and bear-ly endearing (see what I did there?). While certain developed backstories are just obvious fluff and fanboy-based powergaming (Person X fought off the government/secret society/evil demons/cast of According to Jim), a solid, over-aching history really presents how creative and clever a writer can be. How well one thinks and showcases a real, devised world really brings weight and direction to any main story.

A New Generation does just that. It’s a prequel more than a sequel; it posits to tell how the Care Bear and the Care Bear Cousins came to be.

After, uh, GOD gives “Noah” Bear and his wife (or significant other—the gender is never made clear) a place to live among the clouds, the two are given the task to care for the cubs (who are orphans) as well as the typical “help those in need” tasks. Darkheart causes chaos below on Earth to capture the Care Bears, so to protect the children, True Heart Bear and Noble Heart Horse divide and separate them—the Care Bears are taken to Car-A-Lot, and the Cousins are deposited in the Forest of Feelings.

Sauder spends a bit of time working the history of the characters here, which I actually admire. I was surprised to see him describe how the originals and Cousins got separated; and while there’s a couple of huge, temporal mistakes in trying to piece the first movie with the second one, it’s still an ambitious task that’s managed as well as I suppose it could have been.

Which is a problem, because once you enter the road of background information, you’re only opening up a huge Pandora’s Box of questions: where originally did the Care Bears come from? Where were they going when they were on the boat? Who abandoned the Bears originally? What did True Heart and Noble Heart do that was so special to deserve high-apple-pie-in-the-sky status? How long does it take them to grow?! (Although– I do have a theory of how to make this work: time in the Kingdom of Caring moves MUCH faster than on Earth.) Of course, I’m exaggerating. I don’t have any major investment on the details. But it would have been really exquisite if Sauders managed to not only weave a seamless backstory here, but also leave some perfect wiggle room to fit the events from the first one into this one.

Mainly because that’s really the only interesting part of this movie. A New Generation reaps rewards in the Care Bear history but misses completely on an interesting main plot. I suppose it starts off okay—Christy sells her soul to Darkheart to become the Camp Champ, only to have to help the evil force capture the Bears later in the film. But this idea is never taken anywhere, even in the simplest, pre-school terms. For a good twenty minutes, Darkheart doesn’t even bother to exploit Christy’s tête-à-tête, but just opts to chase them around, like an inept dogcatcher.

Beyond that, the story jumps all over the place. Tender Heart and Noble Heart chase Darkheart for what seems like ages; when they realize it’s just its shadow, they return in twenty seconds. The Bears are supposedly disappearing—but they’re not. And then, they are, all at the same moment when Christy pretends to be stuck in a canoe (the scene here is really fucking designed like crap—it’s a visual, confusing mess). Christy saves Darkheart, a flying, transforming force of hatred and evil, after he knocks himself out on the boat like a moronic klutz. The final fight between the Bears/Cousins and Darkheart is lame, with red lighting bolts missing everything, and the mundane power of the stares/calls just being a nuisance. And seeing Darkheart show sympathy for Christy at the end, you know, since she saved his life, coupled with the “We Care” chant at the end (in which the viewer is supposed to participate), just puts the final cap on the most inane, boring story ever, even at children standards. There’s no sense of travel or adventure here, which leaves any sense of exploration or discovery; any chance of the older crowd finding any avenue to enjoy this flick is fairly insignificant.

(An aside: there is a juicy bit that implies Christy’s desire to become a Camp Champ was not for a selfish caving to win, but to indirectly protect John and Don, two random, “master race” twins. But with a lack of a defined relation between Christy and John and Don, and with the most frustrating and constant repetition of plot points this side of Heroes, it’s never taken anywhere interesting. Which is too bad.)

BUT.

The final five minutes of A New Generation is gloriously beautiful. The song I sought for so long is here, and it’s as heart-wrenching as I remember it, but made doubly-so with an soft, evening-mood atmosphere coupled with a montage of the Care Bears enjoying their simple, un-requited childhood, before being pushed into their roles of saving the world of love. Even these cute, cuddly creatures of caring can’t return to the times of pure innocence, and if any moment in film represented the overall feeling I had while doing this “Childhood Revisited” feature, this moment is it:

IN A NUTSHELL: Overall, this movie is just a waist, save for the beginning and the end. Hell, I’d say this entire movie was made for that final song sequence alone. When a movie makes you feel the pain of the freaking Care Bears growing up, something was done right.

While I won’t be reviewing CB3, I’ll probably watch it on my own on the side—it looks like it’s more of a generic adventure than something with ultra-love-caring pushed upon the audience.

November 9nd: The Secret of NIMH
November 16th: Home Alone

Black extras? In an animated film? In 1985? PROGRESS.

The Care Bears Movie – (1985)

Director: Ama Selznick
Starring: Mickey Rooney, Jackie Burroughs, Billie Mae Richards
Screenplay by: Peter Sauder

I return from a surprisingly disappointing vacation and a three-day sickness a bitter, angry man, perturbed at the world for their utter enjoyment of life and health as I suffer through another daily grind of unfriendly coworkers and apathetic bosses. My rage seethes slowly and I wish they all could know the suffering that I felt.

But Lo! The Care Bears, with their ever-watchful eye over the suspecting public, have come to me upon their cloud-cars and rainbow-teleportation devices to teach me about sharing, caring, and, uh, bear-ing, softening my heart, and leaving me a cheerful, happier person. I am healthy, and now I only say “Fuck you” to myself instead of out-loud. This is how you defined progress in the 80s, people. Besides, their movie made $23 million, the highest grossing non-Disney movie at that time. Somehow, caring, love, and friendship is profitable. Now only if Facebook could figure out that formula…

NOSTALGIC LENS: Besides a number bears doing their belly thing, which is called the “Care Bear Stare” (WHAT?), I don’t remember too much about it. I do know that either this or the sequel have an incredibly good, sad ending theme, and that I had cried while listening to it (I was rather sensitive when I was young, shut up). As an aside: the modern Care Bears is a joke; while a decent enough show, it only has five characters – the original C-Bears numbered in the twenties. That’s when we had time to memorize that kind of thing.

DOES IT HOLD UP: I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this. I was preparing myself to be bored by the excessive love/friendship preaching that’s notorious for these kinds of childhood fluff-balls. But then I remembered an incident about a year ago, while over a friend’s house. As a joke, he put on My Little Ponies, another show notorious for its cuteness. However, the villain, whose name escapes me and, sure, I could look it up, but we’re talking about MY LITTLE PONIES here, was actually a legit bad guy who seemed hell bent on a little more than stopping kids from hugging each other. He wanted to turn the Ponies into his personal killing army with black magic. Whoa.

And so, while The Care Bears Movie doesn’t exactly push into that intriguing realm of darkness, it does surprise with a somewhat engaging adventure story. Sure, it starts in the typical way: nice old man telling a cute story; delightful theme song with light, goofy antics, the Care Bears replying to some lonely, introverted orphans.

Some nifty stuff starts to happen, though; a magic book corrupts the all-around fuck-up Nicholas and turns him evil. Well, not evil, just uncaring; which spreads and causes the home of the Care Bears, Care-A-Lot, to fall apart. They try to send the orphans home but in the midst of the transport, shit goes wrong and they disappear.

Before I continue, I want to note a few things. Firstly, the Bears are a pretty competent unit that’s put together for such a mediocre and essentially worthless task. They seem to have a structure and clear-defined roles, and they work together rather well to do the most abstract thing in the universe; to make people care. But this goes beyond just being magically nice cuddly-toys. Their land and society EXISTS and THRIVES on caring. They do what they do to save themselves. Sure, it’s nice to learn a few lessons about love and friendship, but let’s not be naïve; they need to save their very existence. Believe me, if the only way to save America is to kiss babies eighty times a day, well, we’d be puckering up a lot.

With their world in danger (and, I guess, some kids to inspire), a ton of bears, lead by Tender Heart, go on a mission to find the missing orphans. On their quest, they enter the Forest of Feeling (yeah, this kind of name-thing continues throughout the picture), and while there’s really nothing exciting that happens, it still manages to drive some action forward, with the Bears or the orphans getting into some sort of trouble, and some of the Forest of Feeling-ers (Feeling-ites?) would arrive and save them. The entertaining value here is seeing the new characters and how they help the Bears, and yet, at the same time, seeing the Bears pull their own weight and do some saving themselves. There’s a really good balance here.

The exposition is bad, and the music isn’t too much better (although, there is something nice about the songs; they’re composed well, if lacking quality lyrics, singers, and instruments). But the action trade-offs in those two clips are quite nice, and might keep the parents from going too crazy.

… until the third act. The lameness, which was kept at bay for the most part, comes full force at the end, with Nicholas running around like an idiot trying to find random park junk for a spell. And he chases the orphans to the worse song ever written, ever. The trade-off in the action of the Bears and the Feeling Folks (that sounds creepy) is gone, and their powers become worthless when the orphans bitch about love and junk, winning over Nicholas’s heart. It’s disappointing, too, especially since you’d think the climax would contain the most badasseray, with some crazy magic spells, some evil beasts, maybe a dead Bear. Well, not so much the last point. But instead of a cuddly but aggressive fight, we’re left with the power of WORDS. In this case, words indeed do hurt– the person is pain just happens to be the viewer.

Also… “Aren’t parents great!?” This is an actual line in the movie.

IN A NUTSHELL: The storyteller is actually Nicholas all grown up. Bitch about that “spoiler” all you want—you weren’t going to see it anyway. I wouldn’t recommend it, either, if even for the nostalgic desire. The animation isn’t that great, the songs go from mediocre to downright horrid, the voice work likewise, and the story is barely competent. But it… works. IMDB has it at five stars, and, yeah, that’s about right. I admit, though, I found it more enjoyable than I expected, but I think it’s because I had really low expectations.

November 2nd: The Care Bears Movie 2: A New Generation
November 9th: The Secret of NIMH