Plot: Stitch starts experiencing odd bouts of uncontrollable destruction. While everyone, even Lilo, starts believing Stitch is reverting back to his old ways, Jumba and Pleakley know the truth. Stitch’s molecules were never fully charged when he was created, and now he’s experiencing massive glitches in his programming that are causing these destructive episodes. They scramble to find a way to recharge him before he loses so much energy that he dies.
Meanwhile, Lilo and Stitch are preparing for a hula competition. Her mother won the competition years ago, and she wants to win to make her proud. However, Stitch’s malfunctioning behavior continues to get in the way.
Breakdown: I’ve never had such massive mixed feelings for a Disquel before.
The main plot is solid. Have Stitch revert back to his destructive behavior, but make it more of a Jekyl and Hyde situation based on him glitching instead of having him turn bad for no reason. There’s a lot that could’ve been done with that, but they dropped the ball pretty bad.
We have three plots running through the movie – Lilo and Stitch’s hula plot, Nani and David are having relationship issues again and Pleakley’s being an annoying dumbass trying to ‘help’ him, and Jumba is trying to make a new fusion chamber to recharge Stitch before it’s too late.
Let’s start with Nani and David’s plot because that’s the shortest and most pointless. First of all, are these two ever happy together? I don’t remember a lot of their interactions from the TV series, and I love David a lot, he’s a great boyfriend and father/big brother figure to Lilo, but he and Nani, as a couple, seem very rocky. I feel like every time the focus is on them in this franchise, they’re having relationship issues.
This time, as Pleakley puts it, their relationship is just fizzling. Nani doesn’t seem to be paying much attention for him or making time for him. David keeps making the effort, and Nani either doesn’t acknowledge it or can’t attend to it.
I know that Nani is very busy being a young single guardian to a small child, especially in the house filled with aliens they now inhabit, but she can usually make time for Lilo and does have downtime, yet never seems to be willing to give similar attention to David. Even when they’re just having a relaxing family fun night at home, he gets shafted.
The plot is mostly just David, for some reason, listening to Pleakley’s horrible dating advice, then Pleakley himself ruins it more, and Nani gets mad for some reason. The plot is resolved by David helping Nani up a mountain. Not kidding. One minute she’s giving him the silent treatment at Lilo’s hula competition, then they’re making eyes at each other when he helps her up the mountain. Truly a romance for the ages.
That doesn’t solve anything, by the way. Their relationship is still ‘fizzling’ You can’t solve actual relationship issues with goo-goo eyes.
The hula plot, which takes up more of the runtime than the glitch plot, oddly, involves Lilo and Stitch trying to come up with a hula for an upcoming competition. Her mother won the competition one year and she wants to win in order to make her mother proud of her.
A lot of this plot is montages of them coming up with ideas, creating the hula and practicing for the hula. Some parts were entertaining and a little funny, but it really felt stretched out when we got to our third montage in this hour long movie. Not to mention that I think they’re hitting the Elvis button a bit hard in this movie. I know she loves Elvis, and it does make for a good soundtrack, but I’ve seen Elvis movies with less Elvis.
There are also numerous emotional moments in this plotline because Stitch keeps destroying her plans when he has freakouts, and Myrtle and her goons keep making her feel like she’s not good enough. I also really liked the ancient story they based the hula on.
I feel like Lilo was a bit out of character with Stitch, though. I know she’s emotional right now, but she never once, until the end, even questioned if something was wrong with Stitch. Instead, she just believed him to be flatout bad, told him so and said he would always be as such. Ouch.
Speaking of the moment of realization, even though the freakout that prompted that revelation was the same as all the others, she questioned if something was wrong with him this time for some reason. He cuts her cheek, even drawing blood, and the very next shot, not but five seconds later, the cut and blood are gone. Either Disney didn’t commit to this ‘shocking’ moment, the animators got lazy or they forgot.
Either way, that was an opportunity for something emotional and impacting, like Nani freaking out that Stitch actually hurt Lilo or Stitch having a horrified look on his face after he injured her and reprised the shame later after she found him on the cliffside. But, no, just Disney magic’d it off her face.
This was meant to mirror a part of Stitch’s nightmare where he does the same thing, but, again, the impact is lost if you magic it off her face.
The ending of this plot was alright and pretty sweet. At least they didn’t go the cliché route of having her return to the competition and win, and it’s implied that Mertle definitely didn’t win because her hula was crap. I realize now that Mertle’s pretty much the only surviving embodiment of the annoying jerkass mainland tourist characters, besides the silent fat beachgoers, that they had in the original cut.
There are numerous deleted scenes from the first Lilo and Stitch movie where Lilo encounters obnoxious mainland tourists, some of which being borderline racist, but they were more or less all cut before the actual animation started. Mertle does live in Hawaii, but she’s the only white character in the entire series, and the hula implies that her father brought her family from the mainland to Hawaii to sell cheap ‘authentic’ Hawaiian merchandise.
I might be reading too much into that, but it’s interesting to consider.
Now to the actual plot of the movie, the glitch. This is the part with which I have the most problems.
First off, while it’s a solid plot, it’s ultimately wasted potential. All Stitch does is mess up a few things and give Lilo an insta-healing scratch. I didn’t want him to do too much damage or hurt people, but they had the foundation of a really decent plot here, one that could’ve been much more emotionally impacting and interesting for Stitch, but they decided to just have him be a slight nuisance.
Secondly, half of this movie would never have happened had Jumba and Pleakley just told Lilo, Stitch and Nani what was going on. I never understood why they were keeping this a secret or why they were letting this malfunctioning destruction machine stay running loose with a small girl.
If they had just told them what was happening, they wouldn’t have treated Stitch like a monster, Stitch and Lilo would’ve never fought, Stitch would realize he’s not inherently bad and wouldn’t feel like garbage, and maybe they could’ve helped save him. They also could’ve kept him contained to prevent him from causing damage and hurting people. But nope, it’s a secret for no reason.
Lastly, the resolution to this plot is so predictable it’s depressing. I predicted it by just reading the little blurb for the synopsis. Stitch causes problems, everyone gets mad at him, his glitches get too bad, death fake-out, Lilo’s love awakens him, all is well.
To make it even worse, they foreshadow the ending with Lilo’s hula story. It also has two friends being torn asunder by outside forces, resulting in one of their deaths, and love brings the other back to life.
Do I even need to mention that this lesson isn’t exactly a good one? Look, Disney, I know you love love, I know you love love=magic too, but teaching kids that love can be so powerful it can bring the dead to life is not really a healthy message.
To anyone who cares to disagree, let me remind you that Lilo is an orphan. She is probably one of the worst characters to be partaking in this trope. I just keep imagining:
Doctor: “I’m sorry, Nani and Lilo. We did everything we could to revive your parents, but I guess you just didn’t love them enough.”
I was actually going to give this moment a pass because Stitch did spend some time in the fusion chamber before he was revived in Lilo’s arms. Maybe he got enough power and then Lilo woke him up. But then we get this exchange.
Pleakley: “But…how is it possible?”
Jumba: “It’s not!”
So, the fusion chamber seemingly had nothing to do with it. Also, not only did Lilo’s love for Stitch bring him back to life, it also fully recharged his molecules.
Yay, science?
Despite all of that, I can’t say I hated or even massively disliked this movie. It has plenty of funny moments and some pretty heartwarming ones too – the aforementioned death fake-out nearly had me getting misty-eyed, especially with the song they put in there – it’s just sloppily written and disappointing.
The art and animation are better than Stitch! The Movie. It’s somewhere between TV quality and the original movie’s quality, siding more with the movie quality.
The music is also definitely better than Stitch! The Movie with many more tracks, some new, some old, and a new vocal song made just for the movie, ‘Always’ which was very nice and relaxing.
The voice acting was well-done. Most of the cast reprises their roles from the original movie, except Daveigh Chase is replaced by Dakota Fanning. She does a remarkable job, though. I couldn’t even tell the difference.
I can’t believe I never realized David Ogden Stiers voiced Jumba. That’s so awesome.
All in all, the technical quality is great, but the story falls flatter than pancakes. It’s predictable out the gate, only gets more predictable with foreshadowing and most of the problems would’ve been fixed had Jumba and Pleakley just told them about what was going on. It’s not unsalvageable because it does have its moments, but it’s still a mess. It’s definitely on the higher end for a Disquel, but firmly middle of the road for a movie as a whole.
Recommended Audience: There’s kinda blood, a little, but the wound magically vanishes. Death is mentioned and there’s a reversed death. 5+
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The Anime Madhouse 
I’ll always love Lilo and Stitch! I watched this sequel movie with my little sister a few years ago. I though pretty much the same thing. I didn’t hate or anything, but the magic death reversal was a bit much to accept.
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Despite having severe issues against Disney, I don’t hate Lilo and Stitch even though I only saw the first movie and not the sequels or the TV show. At least Disney is actually respectful toward Polynesian cultures like this and Moana. I wish they’d have the same kind of respect towards other ethnic groups or international locales, but I think you already know about that issue with two certain Disney franchises I commented on if you know anything about my opinions.
That does sound like wasted potential and reversing the death or having a wound for just 5 seconds is bad and lazy storytelling. I do agree with Lilo’s orphan status giving it an unfortunate implications moment since she’s the last character to be involved in a storyline like that.
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Yeah, I’ve been reading your comments. It’s good, but also kinda weird how they take the time out to properly research and respect certain cultures but not others. I think they’re getting better at it overall, but it took them a long time to get the hint. Creative liberties are one thing, movies that are offensive just because of the time period they were created in are one thing (And Disney even owns up to this in pre-show title cards on classic cartoons instead of just pretending these shows don’t exist, which I respect.) but they definitely crossed the line a lot in the past.
That being said, you might not enjoy my future reviews of certain classic Disney movies, even though I haven’t gotten around to them yet, because my opinions in that realm really haven’t affected my views on those movies (well, some of them – to varying degrees) For instance, The Lion King is one of my favorite movies to this day. I mean no offense by it, honestly. They just mean a lot to me.
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Gotcha. It is obnoxious to me how selective they can be when it comes to different cultures. I do applaud their portrayals of Polynesians in Lilo & Stitch and Moana, but I just shake my head when it comes to portrayals of the African diaspora, Native Americans (see: Pocahontas), or even Asians for years prior to Mulan (look at the Siamese cats in Lady & the Tramp or Aristocats). They still have a long way to go and I’m not just saying that because I happen to be of half African descent. The rest of mainstream media is guilty as well, so I don’t just only bash Disney for this and I mention this on my film review blog. Yeah, those old-school Disney movies and cartoons are so offensive. The big one for me was watching Dumbo as an adult when I worked at a film and music festival years ago and realizing how the crows acted and the lead one’s name was Jim which gave me severe douche chills.
I see and thanks for the warning. Going by your example of TLK, do you excuse what Disney did when it came to the “Hakuna Matata” trademark issue, plagiarizing several aspects of Kimba the White Lion, or even the racist aspects of the hyenas let alone how Africa at large was misrepresented? I’m just curious because I also feel like a certain set of Disney fans have bigoted views against people who look like me or darker and it may have been partially because of the imagery in that movie.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not attacking you at all. I just want to know where you’re coming from because after researching those things, that movie series became tainted in my eyes even though I used to really like it as a kid.
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My answer is probably going to be a disappointing one – those things just don’t really click with me when I watch most forms of media. I am a type of person who becomes very immersed in what I watch and read, so those factors don’t really affect my experience. One of the reasons that I tend to nitpick little things in story is because the story itself brings these things into view for me and it breaks my immersion, so I feel the need to call it out.
After the fact, when I’m doing more research, these factors come into play, but since they (likely, some things are way too blatant to not notice while watching) didn’t crop up during the experience, my rating doesn’t really change. Maybe upon a rewatch it would, but that depends on the material.
For example, I never once saw the hyenas as representative of any human group – they were just hyenas. I also never really saw the lions as human representatives of Africa. I didn’t see them as white people voicing lions (Though James Earle Jones (Mufasa) was black) I saw them as lions.
Granted, they kinda throw the concept of racism in your face in TLK2 (The ‘outlanders’ are bad, and wouldn’t ya know, any male lion in that area happens to have darker fur…) but that ultimately becomes an anti-racism message at the end.
This isn’t universal, either. My views on Pocahontas, for example, have greatly changed as I became an adult and realized a lot of offensive things about it. Granted, Pocahontas was never that close to me in the first place, I mostly just liked the songs and even those have become uncomfortable for me.
I haven’t posted this quite yet either, but there’s an African stereotype character in The Reluctant Dragon that was almost fall-out-of-your-chair racist in how ridiculous it was, and that was one of those moments where it definitely made me uncomfortable enough to affect my experience. I had to pause the movie it was so bad. Granted, that is one of those instances where you could say it’s just a product of the times (I think that movie came out in 1941.) but it was still too much.
I don’t excuse anything Disney did. They prove time and again to be terrible people at times (Especially when it comes to trademarks and copyright. I remember them either suing or nearly suing a Children’s hospital for using Winnie the Pooh characters on the walls, and they also denied the usage of Spider-man on a young boy’s grave stone to not mar the character’s image….) They deserve to be called out for everything, and I’m glad people are doing such. As long as they’re making efforts to improve (the new Lion King movie has a heavily black cast, though, again, I don’t really notice outside of Beyonce and JEJ.) that’s progress.
I know my view might be a cop-out, but it’s the way I feel. I in no way condone or excuse any of Disney’s views or actions in the areas of racism or anything that has been offensive to an untold variety of groups – but I usually take the movie experience as a contained, separate experience from everything else. It is, by and large, a form of escapism for me and many other people.
It’s probably pointless to say such a thing since you don’t know me personally (Just to be level, I am white) so you have no real reason to believe me, but I am not racist or bigoted. I find any form of discrimination against other groups to be horrible and stupid. I probably won’t live to see the day where racism, sexism etc. don’t exist, if such a thing is even possible.
As for the Kimba stuff, I won’t lie, that did leave a bad taste in my mouth. I think, after all these years, they should have at least owned up to it and said they were sorry. There’s so way they went into this without knowing about Kimba, as they claimed. No way. The company who owns Kimba was never going to sue because Tezuka had such admiration for Walt Disney that they believed he wouldn’t want to sue them, but that doesn’t excuse what they did. (And, yes, it has been stated that Disney very likely would have lost such a legal dispute if they had pursued legal action.)
I think this article did a pretty good job theorizing what might have happened https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2019/06/04/is-the-lion-king-a-plagiarism/ However, even this interpretation is questionable. If the theory at the end, that Disney was in the works of making a Kimba adaptation and then had to scrap it when Tezuka died, why not at least still get the rights from the company? As I mentioned, they were never going to sue Disney over the matter and Tezuka loved Disney, so I don’t see a problem with at least getting the rights and making their own Kimba or at least giving proper credit for inspiration.
It could be that Disney mostly worked off of public domain sources before and they didn’t want to deal with the legal muddle of adapting something that was licensed yet, but I don’t know – not that that’s a justification either. It’s pure laziness/cheapness/scumminess. They should have at least taken the opportunity of their new Lion King reboot to address this, but nope. And that’s even worse, quite frankly.
I haven’t seen much of Kimba yet (I saw a few episodes of the old reboot several years ago), but it’s enough to give me pause. The Lion King is very much it’s own thing, though, being Disneyfied. I don’t see Kimba when I see Simba or vice versa. I watched this movie 100x over before I ever knew about this, so even though this is yet another of those things that makes my heart heavy in hindsight, especially since I also love Tezuka, I think I’m, by default, too biased in this instance for even this to affect my views that much. It probably does subconsciously, but I wouldn’t be able to gauge how much myself.
Sorry for making you yet another victim to my rambling and massive text walls lol Maybe these aren’t good excuses for my opinions or the way I look at media, and I’m probably not articulating some points very well, I have a problem with that, but I hope this answers your questions.
And thanks for all of your comments, by the way. I’ve loved reading them and I always love getting feedback and discussions from people. ^_^
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That’s certainly a long text wall. I’ll see what I can do in responding to you. I take it you separate the art from the artists?
I wasn’t asking you to re-rate the movie. I was just letting you know about some of those facts and how I felt knowing about things such as African history or how misrepresented it can be.
It’s interesting how you see that, but it’s hard for me not to. The way the hyenas talked in stereotypical Black and Latino dialects give off this thuggish undertone. Just because you have James Earl Jones voicing Mufasa doesn’t give a free pass to give racist implications to the hyenas and that goes for the remake’s cast, too. It’s like saying the porn industry can’t be sexist or misogynistic because they hire women. The elephant graveyard situation became even more hurtful to me after finding out about which nationalities I got in my DNA results. Sure, I’m from an interracial family (white dad/black mom), but I have been a victim of discrimination and have been called slurs before. I remember watching a documentary which was a critique of Disney years ago (forget the title) where they talked about racist overtones and undertones. They mentioned the hyenas and a black woman talked about how some white children said her kids talked like Shenzi and Banzai, so I know there are people who sadly think that way. Researching the Congolese Genocide or the Namibian Genocide made me cry when I found out those Africans got starved out as part of their punishment. It made me wonder if Disney fans think that people like me don’t belong in the circle of life.
I’ve seen TLK II, and they did not handle the anti-racism message as well as it could. It felt so oversimplified to me speaking from life experiences.
Yeah, researching Native American history really didn’t do Pocahontas any favors especially if you really know what happened to her in real life. Just reading the works of Winona LaDuke opened my eyes to their history and plight and I’m not even Native American.
I know what character you’re talking about. They would eventually use her in the original theatrical cut of Fantasia and she’d been edited out ever since. The fact that some of the animators really liked that character gave me douche chills since she looks like a centaur made for a minstrel show. Inexcusable!
Thanks for understanding and I’m glad you appreciate people calling them out. Disney are such hypocrites when it comes to copyright. I do know about those stories you mentioned and that’s insane. They aren’t the original creators of those aforementioned characters. They even sued Marvel (before buying them out) for Howard the Duck “ripping off” Donald Duck and won which was stupid. So Howard the Duck is a ripoff, but not Scar who is TOTALLY the clone of Claw from Kimba (Does anyone think that Disney got the idea of an evil lion usurper with a black mane, dark brown fur, and a wounded left eye who has hyena henchmen by themselves?!)? Shoot, at least Simba looks different from Kimba, I’ll give them that much, but dang! They even went as far as attempting to ban the Jungle Emperor Leo 1997 movie (sequel/remake of Kimba’s adult arc) from North American distribution during the debut in Canada at the Fantasia Film Festival which I found unbelievable!
No offense, but I kind of figured it out even though I have absolutely no umbrage against someone’s skin color. I will say that society automatically accepts your humanity while I have to constantly prove mine which is a travesty in itself. If you honestly hate racism or any forms of discrimination, then PLEASE call it out when you see it. I really wished there was no bigotry.
I’m glad you thought the Kimba controversy was insane. Disney knew what that series was. Even Roy E. Disney called Sarabi “Kimba’s mother” in that 1993 Prodigy transcript. I mean, Kimba was shown in America back in the 60s on NBC, so there certainly was a decent sized audience. Even Matthew Broderick admitted to being a fan of the show and thought he was going to play the American adult version of Kimba when he signed on. Simba was even going to be a white lion in pre-production like that extra still shot in that Lion King Platinum Edition DVD! It angers me how Disney after 25 years still never owned up to this. If the situation was reversed and if Kimba came out after The Lion King, then you know Mickey Mouse would sue the ever-loving crap out of Tezuka Productions while the fans would bash it to kingdom come.
I’ve seen that article before and I’ve checked out older ones. That is questionable since Disney had no problem buying the rights to stories that weren’t public domain before (Peter Pan, The Black Cauldron, 101 Dalmations, etc.), so that doesn’t excuse what they did. Tezuka did admire Disney and it was mentioned on the will that he didn’t want to burn bridges with Walt’s company. I believe one Tezuka employee said they did want to sue, but the will and the fact that they didn’t have the money to take on that megalithic company was another factor. It’s sadly another example of a major company or entity stealing from someone who isn’t white like Inception (Paprika ripoff!), Led Zeppelin plagiarizing from several blues artists, or black inventors not being allowed to patent their works while white people stole their innovations.
Yeah, I agree that the Lion King remake would’ve been a perfect opportunity to make amends, but the fact they didn’t was salt on a long-opened wound. Not only that, but Disney got in trouble again with the remake after it was caught that Beyonce’s Spirit video stole imagery and costume designs from the Congolese-South African singer Petite Noir’s long form music video La Maison Noir which came out last year. I was like SERIOUSLY?! First, Kimba, then The Lion Sleeps Tonight, the Hakuna Matata trademark, and now THIS? Talk about blatant disrespect towards creators from two continents.
I didn’t know you liked Tezuka. I’m not the biggest fan of his works, but watching the original Kimba show was very interesting. I liked how there was the human element portrayed and there were great episodes. One episode that even touched me as an adult was where Kimba and company have to save the animals from alligators. There was a quote where Pauley (Original Zazu) thinks the alligators deserve to die while Kimba calls him out on this by saying “No matter how bad some animals may be, we must help them and not hurt them!”. He prevented a genocide and that made him such a likable character for me. Not going to lie, seeing the scene where Caesar’s (Original Mufasa) spirit consoling him from the night sky was mind-blowing with how that scene in The Lion King was shot-for-shot. I did like some of the morals shown like taking responsibility, the cycle of vengeance, anti-racism, and the human/animal dynamic of coexistence was interesting.
No problem. I just had to think of the right things to say or at least try to say with your long comment. Haha! Thanks for letting me know about what you knew and what you think. I did get some good answers.
Sure thing, Fiddletwix! I’m glad you liked them nonetheless.
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“I take it you separate the art from the artists?” Yes, that’s a great way of putting it, even though some people don’t look too kindly to that viewpoint. Also, so many people work very hard on these projects that I feel it’s a little unfair to damn the entire thing because of the bad decisions of a select one, few or handful.
I know you weren’t asking me to re-rate the movie. I was just explaining why my opinions typically don’t change my opinions or ratings because of those factors. That was probably one of the points I didn’t articulate well lol
In addition, the inclusion of James Earl Jones definitely isn’t a free pass for any racist overtones, I just wanted to be specific by bringing him up (Saying the movie’s okay to be racist because one black person is in it might as well be the movie equivalent to the ‘I have a black friend, so I can’t be racist’ defense.)
I’m not sure we’re thinking of the same character because the character in The Reluctant Dragon was male. (Are you thinking of the black ‘zebra’ centaur character?) It was during a brief shot in the Baby Weems short of the movie.
TLK2’s racism to anti-racism shift was indeed quite rushed. I mean, I’m not expecting particularly deep philosophical discussions and years of eventual mending of bridges to be shown in a direct-to-video Disquel, but still.
For what it’s worth, I think a vast majority of Disney fans don’t think that way. Media does mold us, but Disney tends to make their own worlds and their own, for lack of a better term, magic in their movies. When it comes to them, many people separate the art from the artist……unless you’re delving into their other properties like Star Wars and Marvel and then everyone laser focuses on the company in those ways, but I guess that doesn’t really count given that they were acquired properties.
At the end of the day, they’re one of the coldest corporate powerhouses you can find, but in regards to messages in their movies, I think they’ve done more good than harm. The harm is still harm, you can’t magic wounds or scars away, but there are many more good people reaching for the positives, grabbing them and sharing them. Good messages they spread to others, happy experiences they pass on to their children, stories and characters they can relate with and cherish.
There are certainly a fair share of bad people who reach for the negative and spread it, but it can’t be helped, really, from an outside point of view. Racists breed racists, sexists breed sexists, classists breed classists etc. which is one of the reasons I’m under the sad belief that the world will never really be free of discrimination entirely, but we can hope. Afterall, each generation tries to be better than the last, and I think they succeed little by little. 🙂
Maybe my perspective skews my viewpoint, but I’m not sure. For example, I’m quick to pick up on sexist overtones in movies and TV shows, and it does bother me, but unless it’s blatant or it’s ruining a character, it tends to also not affect my experience all that much. I think it’s just the way I look at things.
I really do have to get around to watching the rest of Kimba. I really liked what I saw, but my watchings tend to get buried under other projects. I really love Black Jack and Astro Boy. 🙂
I think at this point I’m blathering, sorry.
I’m glad my rambly text walls could be a tiny bit useful to you lol I tried to spare you from another one, but I think I failed lol
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Gotcha, and I may have guessed that, but I just want to be sure. As one might guess, I’m of the opposite persuasion. It really annoys me when people uphold plagiarized works or worse…works made by horrible people like Roman Polanski or Nobuhiro Watsuki but bash Nate Parker for Birth of a Nation (2016) because of a fake rape accusation and for that movie being about the Nat Turner Rebellion.
Sure thing. You were clear on it. I mean, it’s your blog of course. Haha!
That’s good how you actually know about that particular defense. That’s been said to my face before. If you really want to be technical, it’s called race buffering where racists use any POC group as a prop to deflect any criticism. Trust me, there are people who are clueless about that fallacy.
Yes, I was thinking about that centaur. Sorry about that, but you were still right about the other character though.
Yeah, the way they handled it was very rushed and haphazard. I’m glad I’m not the only person to have noticed that.
I certainly hope they don’t think that way. I’ve had some Disney fans (including some friends) who have freaked out at me when I would mention racist things in those movies. Media does form our minds for better or worse. What really hurt me was the fact that I was lied to about that movie or so many aspects of my life. I do want to believe in the intended messages and morals, but life has not worked like that for me. No, I’m not talking about magic, obviously, but so many things have not worked no matter how hard I try. One of my solutions was to write fiction where I create multiethnic casts. Positive representation is really close to my heart, so I want to make characters that break stereotypes. It was really rough not having any Disney protagonists growing up who didn’t look like me. Africa has been big for me even before finding out about my ethnic samples from the maternal side of my family since I’m sick of Africa either being seen as mud huts, jungles, war zones, or a human-free utopia which is what I call The Pride Lands Effect (patent pending). I’ve made morbid questions like “Did all the black people get exterminated before the beginnings of The Lion King or Tarzan?” because they wouldn’t try that with Europe or America unless the animals are upright and human-like (see: Zootopia, DuckTales, A Goofy Movie, etc.). I have also been feeling proud of the (authentic) music, positive aspects of history, and I’ve even been reviewing African movies on Iridium Eye which was a treat. I totally agree with how people get focused about Star Wars and Marvel though.
“The harm is still harm, you can’t magic wounds or scars away…” That’s a good line and I have felt that for a long time with so many forms of mainstream media. I wished that innocence was real and not a facade for multi-billion dollar bullying.
I wished that progress was instantaneous and not incremental. I hate how I’ve been mistreated in my life and it’s a miracle I have my sanity. Okay, I’m not as much of a wreck I may have sounded, but I’ve had so many hurts and I was forced to learn so many things by myself especially with history.
It could be cool if you watched Kimba at some point. There are good things in it and the TV show does improve over some of the stuff I’ve read in the manga which gets questionable, but the anime series and movies improve on i from what I’ve seen. Also, from that same episode I mentioned, there’s a funny quote from a British diamond smuggler who says “Next time, we’ll BE BETTER PREPARED!”. I laughed hysterically because how can anyone NOT think about Scar’s song after hearing that line? I wish the English dub didn’t resort to censoring some of the episodes though. Expect LOTS of Lion King deja vu when you watch it. Yeah, Black Jack and Astro Boy are cool.
Don’t worry about it. There were uses to the text wall. I’m actually thankful for this discussion.
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**not having any Disney protagonists who looked like me. Wow, I was WAY off in that last comment. Sorry about that, but I hope you knew what I was trying to say.
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