Tink Week and A Half: Day Eight

So, you're a large animation studio and, after a series of disappointing DVD releases and toy sales, you decide that a series that brought in 330 Million Dollars in video sales ALONE needs to be shelved.  You decide to scrap the last two movies and just put out one more.  It's the last hurrah for these characters for the foreseeable future, so how are you going to go out?

Well, obviously you need to go out big.  a huge, "save the world" scale event.  You need to be able to use all the neat tricks your animation studio has learned over the years, so you're going to want some neat creatures to animate.  You're going to want at least one big name guest actor to do a voice.

And you're going to want to shelve the main star of most of the movies for a character who has, to this point, been woefully underdeveloped.

...wait, what?

Yeah, I know, it doesn't have the title on it, but that's a pretty great poster.

Tink Week and A Half: Day Seven

I remember seeing some advertisements for Secret Of The Wings when it was coming out on DVD, and before that I knew that the Disney Fairies were a franchise for Disney, but I didn't really realize just how big it became until this movie came out.

I saw ads for this EVERYWHERE.  It was in books and on TV, there were trailers for it before movies, I had to watch the trailer before I could watch Youtube videos.

And yet, somehow it all still went past me without my even casting a curious eye towards it until just recently.  Which is too bad, because if I had started with this, it might have been on my "best of the year" list last year.

Tink Week And A Half: Day Six

In 2011, a 22-minute short taking place in the midst of the other Tinker Bell stories aired on television.  Pushing the main character of the series into the background, the story featuring a jack paired with the biggest "girly girl" in the land in order to compete in a series of contests is, for lack of a better phrase, great.  It's that simple.  It's great.  It's character-driven, small scale (no pun intended), and filled with humor and action.

The fact this didn't become a full-length movie saddens me.

It's The Pixie Hollow Games.

Tink Week: Day Five

Does it bother anybody else out there when the entire plot of a movie and all of its dynamic twists are revealed in the trailer or commercial?  It can't just be me, but for some reason studios just can't wrap it around their heads to not let people reveal important plot points before everybody sees their work.

I mean, sometimes it's an outside company, like the fact that LEGO keeps spoiling movie plots by revealing toy sets early, or the people who made the DVD sets that include trailers showing all the scenes in the upcoming season you're about to watch, but studios also spoil all of their own stuff all the time.

It's why I was puzzled why Disney would create a movie called "The Secret Of The Wings" and then blatantly advertise everywhere that the big secret is "Tinker Bell has a sister!"  ...okay, I mean, granted, there's one more secret to the wings, but that's still a pretty huge secret.

If they had just stuck with this, it'd be fine.  This is an awesome poster.

Tink Week: Day Four

So far we've had a movie that gave us a standard superhero-style origin story (argue all you want, it's true) and an action adventure film involving dire stakes for an entire kingdom.  Not really what you might think of when you first hear the name "Tinker Bell" but hey, if Disney's not afraid to try new things with these characters, more power to them.

We're now getting into what I call the "better" Tinker Bell movies.  The first two were good, but a bit limited by animation and lack of character development.  This film, we get LOTS of character development and a more personal story, but there are still some extremely high stakes.

Oh, and Vidia's back, so bonus points.

Tink Week: Day Three

Last time, we discussed the first film in the Disney Fairies franchise.  It was a pretty decent story that introduced a science-focused heroine with a group of uniquely gifted/powered friends.  It was clean, well-written, and left the doors wide open for a sequel that would help flesh out the secondary characters and expand the world.

Instead, we get kinda-sorta half of that, with an action-adventure film that develops exactly one (1) character and takes us completely away from Pixie Hollow.

This is Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure.

Tink Week: Day Two

So yesterday I quoted Peggy Holmes, the director of Secret of the Wings and The Pirate Fairy when she talked about why audiences love Tinker Bell and the other fairies.  The full quote from the Hollywood Reporter article is, "What we've heard from our audiences is that they love the fairies because they have power and talents.  The fairies are superheroes to them."

Looking back at the films, I see it.  Whether it's something "mundane" like being able to grow flowers or something a bit more "action-y" like controlling water like you fell out of Avatar: The Last Airbender, controlling light, talking to animals, or, well, Tinker Bell's gift, it's still something that makes you special and unique.

And, like all superhero stories, you always start with the origin even if it has already been told several hundred times across all media so that people can get to know your character.

Hence, our first movie.

Tink Week: Day One

I remember when cartoons for girls were atrocious.  I had a younger sister (still do, in fact), and so while I'd get to watch some of the shows I thought were cool like G.I. Joe, He-Man, and James Bond, Jr. (I never said I had good taste), I also had to sit through programs like Jem, She-Ra, Pound Puppies, and others that, looking back on now, were much, much worse than I remembered them being at the time.

Then again, I didn't mind Orko way back in the day, and that opinion's sure changed.