ANI-MOVIES, *Gandahar

The third and final feature-length animated movie by Rene Laloux of Fantastic Planet legend was Gandahar from 1987. Released in English under the title Light Years, this French film was based on a 1969 sci-fi novel written by Jean-Pierre Andrevon, but the translated version was adapted by none other than Isaac Aasimov. The dub had several high-profile celebrities in it including Glenn Close, Jennifer Grey, Christopher Plummer, John Shea, along with awesome original voice of Mumm-Ra, Earl Hammond. Some of the animation does look slightly stiff, especially with the robots, although there is particularly unique mecha and character designs.

Set in the land of Gandahar, the biologically enhanced citizens are being attacked by an army of automated soldiers called the Men of Metal, so an agent of Gandahar name Sylvain is set out to investigate them. On his journey, Sylvain runs across a tribe of abandoned Gandahar humanoids branded the Deformed each of which has their own physical mutation, although they all have limited precognition. Sylvain also comes across Arielle, a survivor from the Men of Metal attacks who petrify all their victims. The dark droids worship an entity known as Metamorphis who is a giant sentient brain. Once confronted with this by Sylvain, Metamorphis claims innocence to the Men of Metal's inhuman crusade which turn out to be coming from a thousand years in the future where the older Metamorphis has sent these soulless soldiers to collect fresh DNA. Sylvain is frozen for a millennium by present day Metamorphis to terminate his corrupted future self to bring peace to Gandahar, even though the land is still largely decimated even after the time paradox is resolved.

Gandahar was not a success at the box office and was considered buried for several years. However the US version has recently been restored for streaming, but this time the unedited version as well as the original release has a few minutes removed because of mature material. This isn't for younger viewers as there is an abundance of nudity in it, but it makes for a forgotten science-fiction epic with its amazing music and creative concept art.

My Little Pony: A Streamlined Timeline

My Little Pony is starting a new series in 2027 which is just the tip of the iceberg. The Brony fandom has been active for decades now but really became a phenomenon with the start of Generation 4 where cartoonist, musicians, artists, writers, cosplayers, and gamers found a new source for their creativity. The life affirming message of peace and harmony have created friendships all over the world. Given that, let’s give the toy line and animated shows a streamlined history.

MLP originally started out as My Pretty Pony in 1981 from Hasbro under their Romper Room label. This was part of a trend of franchises in the early 80s featuring cute characters like Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and Get Along Gang, although those were all started out as a line of greeting card mascots. They were created by Bonnie Zacherle first under the title of My Pretty Pony where the figures were bigger than their MLP descendants which spun off into its own brand in 1982 which made up G1. Bonnie Zacherle had already left Hasbro at the time G1 had started, so Liz Knight who was VP of their girl’s toys department, was just starting out.

Two years later, Hasbro had the first animated TV special by Sunbow Entertainment and Toei Animation titled Rescue At Nightmare Castle, which was followed up in 1985 with another special titled Escape From Catrina. In 1986, My Little Pony: The Movie came out 2 months before Transformers: The Movie making it the first Hasbro film based on their toys. This was followed by a TV show titled My Little Pony And Friends that ran for a single season, the first half starred the Ponies, while the second featured animated shorts of other Hasbro toys like Potato Head Kids and Glo Friends.

G1 continued into 1992 with My Little Pony Tales which removed the fantasy elements of the 80s show and remade it in a modern setting with a different batch of ponies who were suburban teenagers. Despite what a lot of people think, this was not part of the G2 toy line which ran from 1997-2003 which never had its cartoon series. Hasbro had bought out Kenner and assigned their people to design G2.

G3 started in 2003 with a new animated series done by Wang Film Productions and SD Entertainment along with a series of made-for-video movies. This lasted until 2008 when the revamped G3.5 was launched with webtoons and the formation of the Core 7 which focused on a specific group of ponies that had different character designs.

Hasbro decided in 2010 to create a G4 of MLP but this time with genuine worldbuilding and its own narrative, so they got animator Lauren Faust to map out this new interpretation. She used the idea of the Core 7 and turned it into what is called the Mane 6, and added Friendship Is Magic to the title so it could be seen as its own distinct entity separate from the previous MLP shows.

MLP: FIM premiered on The Hub which was Hasbro’s own channel that had original programming based on their products such as Transformers, GI Joe, and Littlest Pet Shop. MLP was animated entirely in flash by Allspark Animation and was the biggest hit on The Hub which eventually became Discovery Family in 2014 and was one of the few shows that continued after the channel was rebranded.

After 3 seasons, there was a spinoff titled Equestria Girls where the Mane 6 exists as humans in a more earthlike parallel world. This launched with 4 movies, TV specials, and a web series.

The main FIM series went on for 6 more seasons including a second MLP: The Movie, a pair of TV specials, and some web cartoons. Following this was a chibi-fied reboot of FIM titled Pony Life that played on Discovery Family. It was also the first time MLP had its own comic book line which became a bestseller.

G5 began in 2021 with the premiere on Netflix of a new CGI movie titled MLP: A New Generation, which missed getting a theatrical release due to the covid lockdown. Netflix followed this up in 2022 with a series titled MLP: Make Your Mark. Running along this was a chibi-fied web series called MLP: Tell Your Tale from 2023 that continued the story even after Make Your Mark concluded.

G6 is coming out with a new series titled MLP: Forever Friendship on YouTube in 2027. There are also plans to do a “live-action” movie from Amazon MGM Studios that will probably be like The Lion King live-action films. Hopefully future installments of MLP will gather the kind of numbers that G4 did.

ANI-MOVIES, *Wildwood

Fathom Events which normally has special limited theatrical presentations grabbed the reigns and distributed the latest offering from Laika in their sixth cinematic release, Wildwood. Not having anything to do with the New Jersey town of the same name, Wildwood is based on the New York Times Bestseller novel by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis which is their longest feature at 132 minutes and has Travis Knight returning to direct for Laika after handling the Masters Of The Universe live-action reboot. Laika bought the film rights to Wildwood a week after the book first came out in 2011, so this project was in the works for over 15 years, and for a stop-motion-animated movie you can see it in every detail. What the film lacks in originality when it comes to the story, the animation itself is a life-changing experience once you see it in the theater. This is not just a movie, it is an event to be witnessed at your local cinema, although Fathom's distribution isn't as wide as your average DreamWorks or Disney cartoon, so make sure you get yourself to your nearest picture house.

Taking place in Portland, Prue is a girl who has been left in charge of her baby brother Mac while their parents go to a fair with the explicit instruction that Prue never take Mac outside of their house. Like most teens, Pruse brushes this off and takes Mac out for a bike ride with him in a wagon, and she runs into her dorky schoolmate Curtis. Suddenly, a massive crew of crows snatch Mac away from them and fly him into the dark forest called the Impassible Wilderness, with Prue and Curtis chasing after them. Curtis gets captured by an army of talking coyotes while Prue seeks help from the governor of this magical realm which is sealed off from the rest of the world. The two of them have their own separate journeys with the various factions that occupy the enchanted woods. The coyotes are led by a traumatized dowager governess named Alexandra who is the one that orchestrated Mac's kidnapping and uses witchcraft with plans to sacrifice Mac to bring her back her departed son. The acting governor only cares about keeping order, so he has Prue locked away, but she's freed by the bird principality while their brave general dies taking Prue to mystic hippies who communicate with a giant tree that is the pillar of the whole forest. Curtis escapes Alexandra's dungeon along with some imprisoned bandits who are also against the governess' dungeon, all while Prue briefly returns to her parents to learn the truth about her and Mac's origins. Armed with this new knowledge, Prue goes back to the Impassible Wilderness to save Mac in a climactic battle which will decide everyone's fate.

Wildwood is total perfection in all visual respects with the entirety of Laika's effort on full display which shows all the time they took to create it with every intricate detail that make this possibly the greatest stop-motion animated film of all time. Despite its practically flawless execution in lifelike imagery, the drawback to this is the plot which throws every possible fantasy cliche into the mix. There's several allusions to various other fantasy sources like Wizard Of Oz, Narnia, Labyrinth, Secret Of Mana, and Lord Of The Rings which gives people the impression that the screenwriters just picked a bunch of story tropes out of a fishbowl and went with whatever they thought would fit. The original novel might have had a more solid structure with strong archetypes, but none of those transfer to the movie with mirky plot devices, stock characters, and large expositions given to nearly everyone's backstory. For Laika to have achieved such a vivid masterpiece for the eyes, it seriously missed the mark when it came to writing a cohesive storyline. Stay for the visuals but put your brain on hold when it comes to all the overwhelming plot inconsistencies.

R.I.P. Patrick Stewart

ANI-MOVIES, *Batman: Knightall: Part 1-Knightfall

In the mid-90s, DC Comics decided to replace their Big 3 with some replacements. Where The Death Of Superman "killed off" the Man of Steel and replaced him with four understudies, Knightfall went a less lethal route by having Batman getting critically injured and replaced by someone who wasn't a Robin. Like Crisis On Infinite Earths, Warner Bros. Animation decided to turn this adaptation into a trilogy, even though there still isn't a collected Blu-Ray of all three movies, so you might not see a box set of the entire Knightfall trilogy for some while. This first part is titled Knightfall which is of course the beginning of the Batman: Knightfall saga, but it looks strange to have the same name twice in a single title, plus this isn't part of the any of the other DC Universe animated project since the Tomorrowverse concluded in 2024. The character designs are straight out of the 90s comics event and captured Norm Breyfogle's vision along with Kelley Jones' gothic cover art, so anyone who grew up on reading this story arc back in the day should be satisfied.

It opens with Batman encountering an armored assassin called Azrael who was brainwashed by the hidden Order of St. Dumas to exterminate the guilty, and Batman takes in the young man named Jean Paul and tries to deprogram him along with Tim Drake who is the latest Robin. Prior to this, an unnamed child survived growing up in a Caribbean prison and becomes the test subject of an experimental steroid called venom which increases his strength and intellect. With these new abilities he takes on the name Bane and escapes to Gotham City with the intent of defeating Batman and taking over all on his own. To do this, he busts all the inmates out of Arkham Asylum, so Batman runs himself ragged trying to catch all the escaped lunatics, even though Joker is suspiciously missing from the mayhem. Robin takes Azrael to find out who caused the outbreak in the first place, but Azrael starts to give into his bad habits and spirals into despair. Robin is caught by Bane who says he already knows his and Batman's secret identity, however Robin gets free and makes it to the Batcave where Batman gets angry and fired him. Bane then breaks into Wayne Manor, knocks out Robin and Alfred, then proceeds to give Batman a stone-cold beatdown and breaks his spine, dropping the Dark Knight onto a city of onlookers.

This first part of Knightfall compresses a lot of the original preliminary build up to the comic book, like greatly shortening the Azrael introductory mini-series, plus Tim Drake's freshmen run as Robin gets thinned out. One major factor that was abandoned for the movie is that building up to before Bane arrives in Gotham, Batman was working his fingers to the bone just keeping Gotham together which went on for weeks, whereas here it's only two days. For Batman, two days isn't even slight overtime as he's gone whole weeks with no sleep in the comics, so it's hard to believe in this abridged version of the story. The animation is up to specs, especially the boss fight between Bane and Batman, despite the fact that the movie's take on Bane has him being twice as big here as he was on the comics. The movie could have been longer by an extra couple of minutes to fill in some of these inconsistencies, although it is a decent intro to the trilogy going forward.

ANI-MOVIES, *I Am Frankelda

For being Mexico's first full-length stop motion animated film, I Am Frankelda was still a little rough around the edges in terms of production quality. The brothers Arturo and Roy Ambriz had worked under Guillermo del Toro and started their own production company called Cinema Fantasma, and put their talents into the original TV series Frankelda's Book Of Spooks which played on HBO Max. The series only lasted 5 episodes and was an anthology of gothic fantasy stories told by the ghostly Frankelda who is trapped inside a castle along with her talking book Herneval, plus each episode was only 15 minutes long, so we didn't get to find out much about our horror hosts that are still imprisoned at the end of the series. The Ambriz brothers planned on doing a half-hour special to act as an origin story for Frankelda, but it was instead decided to turn it into a complete motion picture prequel which was picked up by Netflix. The movie is given an English and Spanish dub, with the talented Mireya Mendoza performing the voice of Frankelda in both languages. The surprise of this film is that it's also a musical with grand sweeping numbers that completely capture the audience's heart, and they are amazing in both English and Spanish. Similar to the works of Henry Selick and Laika Studios, I Am Frankelda was painstakingly done in stop motion which is a long process, and even though not totally up to the high standards of Kubo And The Two Strings or The Nightmare Before Christmas. You can still see the time and heart that were put into it, especially with the detail that was brought to the camera as it captures each frame like a work of art. The film was originally intended be shown in Mexico, but since del Toro had gotten his version of Pinocchio picked up by Netflix, he convinced the streaming service to add this movie on their platform as well, which already had benefited from taking risks with animated films such as Nimona and K-Pop Demon Hunters. I Am Frankelda went on to win several animation awards and became a modest hit on Netflix.

Starting out in Mexico during the mid-19th Century, Francisca Imelda lives with her grandmother after her mother passed away when she was young, and she has plans to be a horror writer. She has her efforts dashed by her overcritical granny and the other kids who don't understand her. What she doesn't know is that what she writes about is actually happening in a parallel dimension called Topus Terrenus ruled by the owl-like king and queen whose son Prince Herneval finds a way to the human realm and overhears Francisca's stories. The world of spooks is slowly disappearing because their singular nightmare maker Procustes doesn't write with the kind of creativity to keep their reality from vanishing. Once Frankelda is slightly older, she lives on her own, but dreams of being a writer are met with opposition, so she nearly gives up. Fortunately, Herneval arrives to invite her to Topus Terrenus to become their new nightmare writer, so Francisca changes her name to Frankelda, although Procustes sees this as a threat to his station, so he leads a revolution against the royals with the heads of other nation backing him up. From here, there is a great deal of treachery, manipulation, and intrigue where nearly nobody trusts anyone, and unfortunately divides Frankelda and Herneval's clearly budding romance. The film ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, although it leads into the TV series where Frankelda's spirit along with Herneval are sealed away in a nightmare while at the same time Frankelda's living soul is free to write stories in the world of the living.

I Am Frankelda is a triumph for the future of stop motion animated projects, both short and feature-length. The full film is 113 minutes long and some of the scenes go on longer than they might have need to be. The Ambriz brother have a promising future ahead of them and hopefully will continue the Frankelda saga since it was unconcluded. This is treated like a genuine musical in both languages, and you will probably pull you in considering how memorable each song is. The stop motion is all that smooth, so it doesn't have the polished look of a Laika production which is relevant for a project of this scale. If you were ensnared into the fantasy vision shown in Pan's Labyrinth, then I Am Frankelda will totally blow you away.

Spider Jerusalem and Isaiah "Krash" have the same optician.