Author: Megan Williams

When a Stars Wars spin-off series was announced for Disney+, I remember rolling my eyes; at the time, Solo had been released and plans for a solo Obi Wan Kenobi film was still in the works. And, personally, it was too much. Since Disney had bought the rights to Star Wars in 2012, they have completely sucked the franchise dry. So, when I got Disney+ I was, at first, uninterested in watching the series, named ‘The Mandalorian’, despite the good reception it had received while premiering in America. But I never like to judge something that has received praise without watching it first. 

Created and written by Jon Favreau, ‘The Mandalorian’ is an 8-episode series set in the Star Wars universe. After a bounty hunter rescues an alien child from possible experimentation, they go on the run from mercenaries who want it for themselves.

‘The Mandalorian’ is a refreshing, and well-needed, entry for the Star Wars brand. 

Right from the start of Episode 1, it’s established that the Mandalorian’s never take their helmets off in front of people. This limits the lead’s (Pedro Pascal) acting, meaning everything he does is through voice acting and body language, and Pascal does this effortlessly. The helmet rule also gives the Mandalorian a sense of mystery and inhumanity. Despite this, episodes like the second and fourth ones, show viewers that he is human and is caring towards other characters, especially Baby Yoda. Flashbacks occasionally show the Mandalorian’s horrific childhood and it’s clear that he only wants to give Yoda a childhood that he never got. This is all a far cry from the only other reference of a bounty hunter we have, which is Bobba Fett. 

This series is perfect for someone like me, who had gotten tired of the familiar faces and names in Star Wars. While a couple of characters and references are recognizable from the main franchise, the series separates itself from the main franchise by its setting, music and stories. By setting the series in between the two film trilogies, it means that forces like The Empire and The New Order don’t exist, with some characters cleaning up the mess that The Empire had left behind. Episode two gives us a glimpse of the remaining members of The Empire, and Storm Troopers hiding away in the shadows; they aren’t as feared as they once were. The iconic score also never makes an appearance, something that I’m appreciative of. The score does sound like Star Wars, by using woodwind instruments and drums frequently, but it’s unique at the same time. 

The series, at times, is filmed like a Western film, especially with its establishing shots and battle scenes. Given the settings of desert and forest planets, this also blends in seamlessly and, while the battle scenes aren’t frequent (replacing battles for character development), they are fantastically choreographed. It’s clear that, despite the fall of The Empire, the Mandalorian’s are well-trained, and can still be an unstoppable force if they have to be. 

The series isn’t without its humour though! Even during battles, the humorous dialogue between the lead and other characters occasionally creeps in and comfortably breaks up tension, when it’s necessary to do so.  

If you have not watched ‘The Mandalorian’, I would say watch it, even if the charm of Star Wars has worn off for you. It’s a well-needed entry into the brand that started to get too familiar with reoccurring characters, themes and stories.

With the continuous rise in quality films (and the buying of existing properties), it’s hard to believe that Disney have had huge flops. However, the company have had their fair share of box office failures…but none as big as ‘Mars Needs Moms’.

‘Mars Needs Moms’ was released in 2011, and is a motion capture animated feature, based on the book by Berkeley Breathed. After Martians kidnap his mum, Milo travels to Mars in order to rescue her, with the help of human Gribble and rebel Martian Ki. He also learns to appreciate and love his mother along the way.

The film took two years to make, using state of the art motion capture to make the CGI animation as realistic as possible. Unfortunately, this is mainly where the film’s downfall was, as the realistic approach made the animation creepy, plus most of the budget went towards this department. In summary, the budget for ‘Mars Needs Moms’ was $150million, and it grossed just over $39million worldwide at the time of writing, making it one of Disney’s biggest box office flops and the 22^nd worst box office opening ever.

While the film definitely has its flaws, I enjoyed it.

The plot is interesting and, at the time, unique. The voice acting is also fantastic; Seth Dusky brings a mischievous charm to Milo and, while it’s a little difficult to sympathise with him at the beginning, he grows into a likeable character. Dan Fogler (Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them) voices Gribble, a man who’s been trapped on Mars for 20 years. Because of this, he still has the child-like charm and wonder that is delightful. Both voice actors have great chemistry together that immediately works beautifully. 

However, like previously mentioned, ‘Mars Needs Moms’ isn’t without its flaws.

The first aspect that needs to be talked about are the visuals. While the background animation is excellent, the realistic character animation is unsettling, and the mouth movements of each character is even a little out of sync at times. This is something that occurs throughout the film. Instead of going for a realistic approach, ‘Mars Needs Moms’ should’ve followed in the footsteps of 2006’s ‘Monster House’: using motion capture as a reference, then overlaying it with a cartoon-ish structure. The fact that Robert Zemeckis was involved in both films meant that this film could’ve been great. However, that’s not the case unfortunately.

‘Mars Needs Moms’ has pacing issues, especially in the second half of the film; a lot of scenes serve no purpose to the story and should’ve been left on the cutting room floor, while a few others go on for far too long. An example of this is Gribble’s introduction, which seems to drag on; all that that scene needed to do was introduce him and reveal that he had created a Martian translator. But, instead, the film wastes its running time on this one scene, when Gribble serves as a key character in the plot. His story arc is interesting, but should’ve been revealed slowly: he was the previous child who lost his mum to the Martian’s procedure, but never made it back to Earth, thus spending 20 years trapped there. 

While ‘Mars Needs Moms’ has its glaring flaws, it’s a fairly decent film. The voice acting and music is fantastic, and the plot is interesting. But it could’ve been a lot better with another edit, and less of the budget going towards the animation. 

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker – Disney+ Talk

Last week, on May the 4^th, saw this year’s Star Wars Day occur. And Disney+ immediately grabbed the opportunity to put the latest film in the Skywalker Saga on the platform now that they’ve owned the property for 5 years.

‘Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker’ is the conclusion to the Skywalker Saga, the main story arc in the Star Wars universe. After hearing a transmission from the long-thought dead Emperor Palpatine, Fin, Poe and Rey journey to familiar lands to find the truth behind these transmissions.

Let’s get the first issue out of the way: this film summarizes a problem that Disney has with its Marvel and Star Wars films: characters in these films are never really dead, especially since ‘Rise of Skywalker’ brings back Emperor Palpatine. This was a character that died 40 years ago in ‘Return of the Jedi’ and has now been resurrected to once again try and rule the galaxy. 

Another classic character that returns is Lando Calrissian, with original actor Billy Dee Williams reprising the role. And, while his performance is a welcome sight, he’s given nothing to do. This film feels like it’s pandering on nostalgia and nothing else, purely because ‘The Last Jedi’ left nothing, plot-wise, for this film to do. While I hated ‘The Last Jedi’, I would’ve been happy if that film was the Saga’s conclusion and Rey had joined the Dark Side. If that had occurred, there would no need to scramble a plot together for ‘Rise of Skywalker’. It would’ve also made the new films different.

While I hated ‘The Last Jedi’, I will happily admit it’s the best-looking Star Wars film in the recent trilogy. So, I expected ‘Rise of Skywalker’ to have the same visual style, and was disappointed to see how dull it looked. Vibrant colours are replaced by murky browns and greys and even the lightsabers have lost their shine. Where ‘Rise of Skywalker’ does shine, however, is in its action sequences and sound design. The action scenes are fast-paced and exciting and, for some of the runtime, made me fall in love with the franchise again. The sound design is also fantastic, with some unique sound effects being introduced in this film. 

And lastly, ‘Rise of Skywalker’ really stretches what The Force can do. The Force has never been fully explained, making it mysterious. However, the downside to this is that the films can do anything they want and say it was The Force that was causing such actions. An example: ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ has sequences featuring ghosts of past characters, and hallucinations that can, somehow, pick up solid objects. This occurs numerous times, especially in the third act, and makes no sense the more this ‘ability’ is stretched. 

Overall, ‘Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker’ was enjoyable, but a waste of time. While the action scenes were exciting and the sound design was fantastic, it doesn’t cover up the fact that the Skywalker Saga should’ve ended with ‘The Last Jedi’. 

Disney+ also includes various documentaries from National Geographic, and a particular one that immediately caught my attention was ‘Bizarre Dinosaurs’.

I have been fascinated with dinosaurs ever since I was little. Summers would be spent visiting the Natural History Museum in London, and the dinosaur exhibit was my favourite area. I had tons of books on dinosaurs and watched BBC’s ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ religiously. This interest has never left me so, when I saw that Disney+ had a documentary on dinosaurs, I obviously decided to watch it.

‘Bizarre Dinosaurs’ is a 45-minute documentary looking at different, and strange, appearances of some dinosaurs and what the purpose for their appearance might have been.

This program is a good introduction for people who want to learn about some of the lesser-known dinosaurs. It’s accessible to audiences of a young age and older, by using simple and understandable narration/ interviews from various palaeontologists. Through these interviews, we are introduced to a variety of strange-looking dinosaurs and given different opinions on why some were given a specific appearance and what they think some of the features were used for.

Since I’ve held onto a certain amount of knowledge of some dinosaurs, it was interesting to see that some of what I had been taught as a child was now proven wrong. For example, it is now believed that the dome-shaped heads of the Pachycephalosaurus was not used for fighting, as the head is made of thin and fragile bone, but was actually used to attract a mate. 

New creatures have also been discovered, e.g.: the Raptorex, a smaller version of the T-Rex that lived during the same time as T-Rex; the Saurapoda, a disproportionate version of the Diplodocus with an even longer neck, and the Dracorex Hogwartzia, which looked similar to a dragon, hence the Harry Potter-influenced name. These species were all new to me, and it’s fascinating to learn about these unique-looking creatures that I hadn’t heard of until now.

The program uses CGI to show us what the specific dinosaurs’ appearance, movements and behaviour would’ve looked like in its environment, and this CGI unfortunately resembles that of Playstation 2 graphics. The animation is the only aspect of the program that felt out of place because of this. While National Geographic documentaries are known for this style, it would’ve looked better if hand-drawn animation was used instead. It would’ve also made the actual dinosaurs stand out from their backgrounds; in some animated scenes, the foreground blends into the background and it’s difficult to see what the dinosaur truly looks like.

‘Bizarre Dinosaurs’ is a fascinating documentary that gives its audiences some new information and arguments on the dinosaurs we thought we knew so well. If you have an interest in these prehistoric creatures, then I would recommend it. I would also suggest Disney+ add more dinosaur documentaries as they’re an interesting species to learn about.