I just watched
Epic, that BlueSky Studios animated film that everyone kinda heard about and then forgot to go and see. It was...ugh, man. You ever see a film and think, "this could've been my favorite film of all time, if x y and z had been done differently?" That's how I felt about
Epic. This movie was one giant mishmash of wasted potential.
Epic had so much going for it: phenomenal concepts (Leaf people! Riding
saddled hummingbirds!), unbelievably gorgeous designs (look at
this!), vivid photorealistic animation, an amazing setup for interpersonal drama...and the writers STILL managed to f*ck it up
The film opens on a group of Fern Gully-esque people living in the forest. We meet the Queen of the woodland people, who is voiced by freaking BEYONCÉ, and is the single most gorgeous and amazing thing to grace the screen. She's warm, and delightful, and full of life and humor - oh yeah, and did I mention she's a DARK-SKINNED WOMAN IN A POSITION OF SUPREME POWER? Yeah. Basically, I instantly fell in love with this character. And how could I not? Look at that dress. Look at that regal bearing. Look at her walking on magical pond scum.
She's just got such an adorable, fun-loving attitude. She radiates equal parts joy and snark. How is that even possible?
<( "smiiiile!" )
Oh, and did I mention she's a badass who can literally bend the forest to her will and use every plant and flower and tree to fight?
Cause she can. UNFFF.
Right away, it becomes clear that she's got this
thing going on with the captain of her guard (look at his fantastic leaf armor. Look at it!)
In just a few scenes, the film manages to convey their entire relationship and back-story brilliantly. Their childhood friendship, her light-hearted teasing, his serious attitude and dogged belief in duty over personal satisfaction, her attempts to get him to treat her like an equal, the distance he's put between them because of the difference in their stations.
Also, insane flirting.
Vine bondage. Kinky. 
They're basically just an awesome battle couple, and I want fanfiction for them. Right now.
HUMMINGBIRD STEED, BITCH 
Meanwhile, outside the forest, we meet our cast of human characters. We have a girl named MK who, through a conversation with a taxi driver, reveals that she's going to live with her father for the first time in many, many years.
Turns out MK's mom has recently died, and since she's not yet 18, she has no choice but to go and live with her father until she reaches the age of majority. As soon as she reaches her father's dilapidated property (the cab driver describes it best when he says..."that's not a house, that's termites holding hands"), it becomes clear that her father is, well, kind of a fruit loop. The former professor has one foot in "eccentric" and the other foot in "very, very mentally unstable" - he paces constantly, is jittery and distracted, and cannot carry on a conversation, even with his own daughter.
Turns out he SAW the woodland people many years ago, and it turned into an obsession that ruined his career, his reputation, his marriage, and his relationship with his only child. After his wife left him, he became even MORE obsessed with proving the existence of the woodland civilization, because he fixated on the idea that if he could just find evidence, his wife would come back to him. Of course, he was
right about the forest civ, but he acts so delusional that nobody is willing to take him seriously - and since (as we later learn) the leaf people actually exist slightly out of sync with human time, proof has eluded him despite all his desperate searching.
I instantly connected with these two characters because they're both so tragic and isolated in their own ways. MK is trying to deal with her mother's death with no emotional support, while her father is this frail, almost pathetic lost soul who lives in a reality that he cannot convey to anyone else. (They also have this adorable, half-blind, 3-legged pug dog that is just too ridiculous for words. Naturally at this point, I'm like "hell yeah, bring on more of this film!") Anyway, after her father repeatedly ignores her pleas for human connection in favor of chasing fairies, MK decides she's had enough. She prepares to leave, but her dog runs off into the woods, and she has no choice but to chase after him.
Meanwhile, around this same time, the leafmen are engaging in a ceremony to choose the next queen. Apparently, a queen serves as the "life spirit" of the forest for 100 years, at which point she chooses a successor to take on the role when she retires. She selects a special bud from among hundreds grown on a sacred pond; when it blooms, it magically selects the next queen and endows her with all the powers that go along with the position.
The selection ceremony is a dangerous time, because if the ritual is interrupted and a successor is not chosen, the balance of power in the forest is destroyed. You see, while the queen represents/controls regeneration, growth, and life, there exists an equal and opposite king who represents/controls decay and destruction.
He has a funny hat
And, incidentally, a rather adorable relationship with his evil son.
The dark king and his minions are constantly at war with the leaf people, as both sides - growth and decay - struggle to gain the upper hand, ultimately maintaining balance between the two forces. This is a fairly cool concept, in my opinion, since it's an environmental message that isn't centered around the anvilicious "humans are evil and are destroying nature!1" moral. As MK rushes into the woods, the baddies attack the queen's succession ceremony, and it looks like all the various factions are going to come together and get the party started.
And then, 28 minutes into the film...they kill off the queen.
She dead.
Yup, that's right, folks. We don't need a kickass, funny, likeable nature goddess in this movie. You know what this film needs? An angsty teenage white boy with daddy issues.
Enter Nod - who, I kid you not, has had all of 2 minutes of screen time up until this point. And the film just goes downhill from there. This guy is
such a jackass. He consistently makes stupid decisions throughout the ENTIRE movie, deliberately disobeying both direct orders and common sense, thereby putting the welfare of the whole forest at stake. But hey, we couldn't have a film without a poorly written and unnecessary teen romance, amirite? After all, at this point MK has been shrunk down to leafmen size (before dying, the queen transformed MK and instructed her to help protect the magical bud). And now that she's tiny, she needs a tiny boyfriend, amirite?
F*cking BITE ME.
I cannot stress how unnecessary this character and this romantic subplot are, especially since the romance NEVER GOES ANYWHERE. In my opinion, the film never recovers from the decision to kill off the queen and give her screen time to such a cliché and boring character. A number of other writing issues crop up around the same time, and it REALLY makes me wonder about who was making the executive decisions on this script. I can't help but scratch my head and ask, "whose fault is this trainwreck?" There are still a number of clever and exciting moments in the remainder of the film, but the characters never click as a team and the writing just feels...off balance. Many plot threads are left hanging - the dark king's son dies, but it's kind of played off as a joke; the captain of the guard never really gets the chance to mourn the death of his beloved, and the focus of his development shifts instead to his pseudo-fatherly relationship with Nod (a relationship that is boring as hell, btw). The relationship between MK and her father IS explored and his beliefs ARE eventually validated, but it's crammed into a quest plotline that is weirdly zany and replete with inappropriate comic relief characters. And by the end, the antagonist is definitely portrayed as pure evil, rather than as the yin to the queen's yang.
Basically, to experience this movie is to experience a slow descent into disappointment. And it's so frustrating, because it could've been SO GOOD. They already had a romance with the queen and the captain of the guard, so there was no reason to throw in another one with MK and Nod. His character added NOTHING to the film - it would've been infinitely better if MK, the queen, and the captain had been the main trio. MK would've benefited from the queen's motherly love in the wake of her own mother's death, and it would've been fun to watch the queen and the captain re-negotiate the restrictions on their relationship in light of her upcoming retirement. Being with the leaf people would have naturally changed MK's perception of her father, and the time that was allotted to her romance with Nod could've been allocated to her dealing with her grief and/or seeing things from her dad's perspective. As for the rest of the plot, I wouldn't have even
cared if the movie devolved into a good-vs-evil slugfest with poorly timed comic relief, so long as the main characters were compelling.
Just...why? Why, Hollywood, why? WHY must you kill off the kickass black queen and focus on the whiny, self-entitled guy who thinks he knows better than everyone else? Why must you waste such gorgeous animation and such great voice acting on such a mediocre product? Why can't you just take a risk for once and write something
different? Sigh.
I'm going to bed.
~*Mara*~ = ^.^ =
He annoyed me soooo much in Iron Man 2... I was glad to see him get what he deserved.
Pigquet
