trailers

The Tale of 3 Terrible Trailers

| Rachel's Reviews

After an epic day yesterday I wasn’t going to post today but we got a new trailer from Dreamworks and I couldn’t hold back my feelings.  Dreamworks released their trailer for the Fall release of Trolls and what a stinker of a trailer it is!  Don’t get me wrong, the movie could somehow be good (I didn’t like Peanuts or Lego trailers and loved those films) but everything from the dancing, to character design to everything looks awful.

It’s extremely frustrating when I know Dreamworks can produce quality work (seeing Kung fu Panda 3 tonight which has great buzz so I’m excited!).  The Panda and Dragon films are quality franchises and they’ve made amazing stand-alone films like Rise of the Guardians, Prince of Egypt, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron.  Even Mr Peabody and Sherman I really enjoyed but then they squander all that talent on twerking dolls and annoying alien movies.  Why Dreamworks?  Why?

Unfortunately that wasn’t the only terrible trailer to come out for 2016 animated film.

We got a new Angry Birds trailer this week and it looks awful too.  I actually thought the teaser looked ok, better than expected, but this longer trailer looks at best on a Rio level of quality.  The battle between the pigs and the birds just doesn’t look good to me!

And then we got a Secret Life of Pets trailer and it was also very disappointing.  I was actually impressed with the teaser trailer enough to put it on my anticipated of the year.  Boy is that out the window with this new trailer.  I was so deflated to see Kevin Hart is the lead of the story and it is about organizing pets in some kind of rebellion.  That is such a tired concept and I am so sick of Kevin Hart.

So, needless to say my anticipation level for 2016 animation just sunk a little lower.  It could be a rough year folks!  At least we have Zootopia, Moana, Finding  Dory and Kubo and the Two Strings to look forward too.

And as I said there are bad trailers for good movies so we will see!

Am I being too tough on these 3 trailers?  What did you think?

Here is my youtube review of these trailers:

Zootopia Full Trailer Review

| Rachel's Reviews

We all had a fun surprise this morning with the first longer Zootopia trailer released!  I haven’t been 100% on board with this film but I am now.  I loved this trailer!  I love the story it appears we are getting with Judy Hobbs being the lead character.  She is trying to prove her worth to the police force by solving a case in 48 hours.  That sounds great! It looks like it is not just going to be a comedic movie but have real heart too.

Here is my review of the trailer

The actual trailer

What do you think?  I’m so excited to see the film.  It looks creative, fun and different film from Disney.  Let’s hope so at least!

Zootopia Sloth Trailer Review

| Rachel's Reviews

Hey guys!  Just thought I would share with you my thoughts on the new Zootopia trailer.

Here’s the actual trailer

Long and short of it is I didn’t really like this trailer.  It’s more of a clip than a trailer and I didn’t think it was that funny.  It was like a joke on the Simpsons that gets stretched out way beyond where the gag needed to be.  It doesn’t make me very hopeful for the comedy of the film.  I’ve always felt it looked a little Chicken Littleish, which makes me very nervous and this trailer didn’t calm my nerves in that regard.  I hope it will be good but so far nothing I’ve seen from Disney has won me over on this film yet.

What did you guys think of this trailer?  Are you excited for Zootopia?

Finding Dory Teaser Trailer Thoughts

| Rachel's Reviews

So I wasn’t going to do a review to the Finding Dory teaser trailer released today but after some rest felt well enough to put out a few thoughts.  If you haven’t subscribed to my channel I’d really appreciate it and if you like the video please give it a thumbs up.  Thanks!

Basically the trailer is more of a clip than a regular trailer.  It gives us a scene with Nemo finding Dory sleep-swimming because she is remembering her parents.  One of the interesting things is that clearly Finding Dory is going to take place very soon after Finding Nemo because Nemo is still little in this film.  That surprises me a bit but it makes sense when you think of all the stimulation Dory received while looking for Nemo.  She was able to remember details like PT Sherman and so perhaps her brain is remembering lots of things it had forgotten.

There is a little side of me that is nervous about this film.  It’s just a worry that side characters like the recent Minions can’t uphold their as the lead to their own movie.  Now I think the team behind Finding Dory is a milion times stronger than Minions but there’s still that worry.

However, I am mostly excited to see Marlin, Nemo and Dory back in the ocean on an adventure.  I love the oceanscapes of Finding Nemo and can’t wait to see how beautiful the ocean looks again.  The cast they have on board looks great including returning favorites like Ellen Degeneres, Albert Brooks and William Defoe.  And we have new characters voiced by Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Ty Burrell and Ed O’Neil.  Andrew Stanton is back directing and writing (a lot of people forget that Nemo was nominated for Best Screenplay not just Animated Feature Film).  So, hard to not get excited about such talent involved on every aspect of this film.

Really I think the trailer was more for people outside Disney and Pixar fandom who aren’t aware of the project and to just introduce to them that the Finding Dory is coming next June.

What did you think of the trailer?

If you haven’t had a chance to watch it here it is

Good Dinosaur 2nd Full Trailer Review

| Rachel's Reviews

spot comforts arloYou guys all know how much I love Pixar (and if you don’t look at my series of Pixar Reviews). So it is such a treat this year to have 2 Pixar movies!!!!  And the cool thing is they are both so different. Inside Out we got a thoughtful, funny, moving story of the inside of a little girls mind.  And in Good Dinosaur we are getting a Finding Nemo-like adventure of a dinosaur named Arlo trying to find his family.  He meets a boy named Spot who becomes his travel-mate and he also meets a group of t-rex dinosaurs who he appears to be friends with.

I don’t know a whole lot else about the story but they just released a new trailer yesterday and it looks like a beautiful film.  I am so impressed with the realism of the plants, water, and other scenery.  I am also excited about the relationship between Arlo and Spot.  It looks like it is going to have a ton of heart to it.  The only thing I am not sold on yet is the design of the T-rex dinosaurs.  They look a little unfinished for Pixar so I hope they are still working on them and will be better in final film.

What did you guys think of the new trailer? Here are some more of my thoughts.

International Trailer

US Trailer

Jungle Book Trailer Review

| Rachel's Reviews

Hey guys!  I got a chance to watch the Jungle Book trailer today and it was pretty good.  It wasn’t as jaw droppingly awesome as some people had led me to believe out of D23 but it  looked good.  Then again, the folks at D23 saw over 3 minutes of clips including clips of Christopher Walken as Louie and Bill Murray speaking as Baloo.

I’m really excited about this video because I’ve been conquering the behemoth that is Adobe Premiere.  Normally I pick up a software with ease, even software that is tough for others I get very quickly.  But Premiere has been very difficult for me to learn.  I used a few lectures from Lynda.com but mostly through playing around with it and not being intimidated.  Today’s breakthrough was I learned how to place still images within the video and I don’t even need a green screen!  Hooray!!! (I know it might sound like it but it was really hard!).

Here is the actual trailer.

I’m most hopeful they will change the ending because I hate that in the original animated film.  I am also curious how much of the music they are going to use.  I wonder if it will be like in Cinderella where she just hummed a few of the songs but they weren’t ever sung as musical numbers.   If they are going to move away from the  musical they must be embracing the book more because there isn’t a ton of story to the original film.  I just hope they get it right because they are playing with fire because ending aside I love the original film.

What did you guys think of the trailer?  Are you excited or cautiously optimistic like I am?

Good Dinosaur Trailer Review

| Rachel's Reviews

Quick post this afternoon to share with you my thoughts on the new Good Dinosaur trailer.  LOVED IT!!!!  It looks stunning especially scenes like the fireflies and the lushness of the grapes and leaves.  I thought the terodactyl looked awesome and the scene with the snake should be great!

It was such a well designed trailer not giving away the story while still giving us tons of images to excite us.  I’m really looking forward to the relationship between Arlo and Spot and hope it is something like Dumbo and Timothy Q Mouse which I know director Peter Sohn is a huge fan of.

What a treat we are in for this year with Inside Out and Good Dinosaur.  Great time to be an animation fan!

Here’s my reaction video on my youtube channel.  Would love you to take a look and give a thumbs up/subscribe to my channel.  Thanks so much!

Here is the trailer if you haven’t seen it.

What do you guys think?

Kung Fu Panda 3 Trailer Review

| Rachel's Reviews

This is just the week of the animated trailer release! Today we got the Kung Fu Panda 3.

I may be in the minority on this one but I am not a fan of this trailer.  To me it is more of the same from Dreamworks.  A bloated celebrity voice cast, lots of lame jokes and cheap sentimentality.

Kung Fu Panda was charming with a solid script if not particularly original story (Basically the Ugly Duckling meets Karate Kid).  It had just enough humor and sweetness to carry the day and I enjoyed it.

I know some on this blog disagree with me but I thought Kung Fu Panda 2 was a significant upgrade.  Not only was the animation much better (some of Dreamworks best) but it ditched a lot of the humor for a pretty cool quest story.  The villain was very creepy and I loved the way we actually got to see the Furious 5 fleshed out.  Instead of being background for Po we saw why they were legends and got to get their personalities, weaknesses and strengths.  It was pretty fun.

So after that big step up to get a retread of the first one is a major letdown.  I mean how many times have we gotten the estranged son trying to bond with his Dad scenario…so much so they made fun of it in Toy Story 2.  I always try to have an open mind and it is just a teaser but my initial response was definitely not excitement for Kung Fu Panda 3.

Dreamworks why do you hate me!