An Interesting Toyline from the '90s: Sonic Ranger by Soma

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I had a pretty awesome weekend as I got to spend most of Saturday with Brad, away from the house. Which was great. I'm not here to talk about that though. Instead I'm here to talk about a toyline of which I had six figures of. I haven't actually been able to find any info about them or the company that produced them, but I would like to share my memories of them because they're toys that I played with alot when I was a kid. So let's get into it.

In August 1993 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers debuted on Fox Kids in the United States and on YTV and Global in Canada. Accompanying the show was a toyline that debuted around the time the series began. Naturally the popularity of Power Rangers seeded numerous knock-off/rip-off toylines from various companies.

One of those knock-offs/rip-offs was called Sonic Rangers by Soma. Again, I can't find any information on the toyline, except for a YouTube video that shows off several figures from the line, which aside from the ones I had when I was a kid, mainly consisted of small PVC/Vinyl figures that more resembled Power Rangers by way of Transformers due to their designs. The ones I had, which are pictured above, were the larger figures that came with accessories, similar to how the Power Rangers figures came with accessories. Their design makes them look like a cross between Power Rangers and RoboCop. Which is cool. So which ones did I have? Let's find out shall we?

The first Sonic Ranger figure I got was the Red Ranger. I don't remember whether or not I got it unopened or loose, but I do remember it had all three of it's accessories, which, as you can see from the image, are a shield, a sword, which is possibly a laser sword according to the artwork on the packaging, a shield, and a gun/laser pistol/blaster, though the figure didn't have a holster included for the pistol. Which is odd, considering most figures that came with pistols in the '90s had holsters attached to them. The coolest feature is when you press the button on the belt buckle his visor lights up green. Of course, I didn't know any better, so I actually thought I was getting a Power Rangers figure, even though the iconic toyline and Bandai logos weren't anywhere on the packaging. But, considering Bandai wasn't the only company making Power Rangers merchandise at the time, I don't remember noticing the absence of the Bandai logo. 

 The next figure I got was the Blue Ranger. The reason I remember that the next figure I got was the blue one is because I got it while I was in the hospital for something. These figures came out in 1994 so it could've been any number of things that I'd been admitted to the hospital for as 1993 to 1996 were the last years that I would be admitted to the hospital for anything really serious until early 2003 when I was admitted for kidney failure. But that's a story for another time. Aside from the colour of the figure the only difference between it and the red one is that it's visor lights up red, instead of green, when you pressed the button on the belt buckle.

I don't remember for sure, but I think I got green, black, yellow, and white at the same time. Nana got them at a garage sale or something like if I remember correctly. There really isn't anything unique about these figures. They were simply the same figure repainted the individual colours without any kind of indication on the helmets or elsewhere on the costumes that they were supposed to be different. Especially because they all came with the same sword/shield/pistol accessories. But we had all six.

When we got all six, my siblings and I took them outside to be our outdoor "Power Rangers". And we used them as Power Rangers since I only had the Red Ranger, Black Ranger, and Green Ranger figures and the rule was if we took a toy outside to play with, it couldn't be played with in the house. So we kept them in an empty (and cleaned out) ice cream tub with the labels removed since we had so many figures in general. The only time we didn't use those tubs for our figures was when we had carrying cases for them as I did for my Ninja Turtles, Star Wars, and Star Trek figures, or if they could fit in our larger toy boxes. Even though there was no Pink Ranger with this line, we pretended that the White Ranger was the Pink Ranger, and kept the pretending to the Ranger colours for the first season of the show (red, black, blue, yellow, pink, and green).

So what spurred this post is that a few years ago, my buddies at Fandom Knight did an episode of the Sentai Review that focused on the knock-off toylines that came out of Power Rangers and the Sonic Ranger line wasn't mentioned. And I remembered they existed because I remember having them but I don't remember if they're still packed away in a box somewhere or if we got rid of them. Aside from the Red Ranger and the Blue Ranger, I didn't get these figures in package and we hadn't kept the packaging for the Red or Blue Rangers and I didn't remember the name of the toys. So I did a search on Google Images just after the podcast episode in question had come out. And I finally came across the figures. Not right away because I came across the smaller PVC/Vinyl figures first. But on the package that I saw in the images, I recognized the artwork, and took note of the name. So I typed the name of the toys into Google Images and hit the search button. Sure enough images of the figures that I had had in the '90s popped up and I promptly shared an image of either the Black Ranger or the Green Ranger on the Facebook page for the Sentai Review as I'd commented on their YouTube video that I remembered having a few knock-off Power Ranger figures but didn't know what they were called and I was excited to share my findings.

Alrighty folks, that's going to be it for me for today. I will be back at some point this week with more posts, but I wanted to talk about these figures as I'd been thinking of them today for some reason. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Charlotte's Web (1973) Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. The snow has almost completely melted and the weather is warmer than it was two weeks ago, but not as warm as it got last week. But still, it's kinda nice to have warmer weather now that it's late March. So last night I watched the 1973 animated classic, Charlotte's Web for the first time in thirty years and I'm here to talk about it. Let's get into it.

I feel like Charlotte's Web is a movie that people don't talk about much these days. Even when I watched it in the '90s I actually didn't know anybody who had seen it. I never forgot it, but last night was the first time I'd seen it in thirty years as we didn't own it.

 Based on the children's novel by E.B. White, which was originally published in 1952, the movie is about a pig named Wilbur and his friendship with a spider named Charlotte. Wilbur was born as the runt of his litter and was only saved initially because Fern, the daughter of Wilbur's original owner, John Arable, intervened. However, Wilbur ends up in danger again when it's realized that Farmer Zuckerman, Fern's uncle, who Wilbur is sold to, is raising Wilbur to be slaughtered. Charlotte decides to try to save Wilbur's life with the help of the barn's resident rat, Templeton. 

With last night being the first time that I'd seen Charlotte's Web in thirty years, there was so much of the movie that I didn't remember. In fact the only things I did remember were the barn animals, Fern, Wilbur, Charlotte (obviously), and Templeton and the song that Templeton and the Goose sing to convince Templeton to accompany Wilbur and Charlotte to the county fair, "A Veritable Smorgasbord", as well as the ending with Charlotte's children. But that's still not a whole lot given that it's a 1 hour and 34 minute movie. 

I think my favourite part of the movie is when Fern's brother, Avery, riles the animals up, and then falls in Wilbur's pig trough, smashing the rotten egg that Templeton had taken after the Goose's eggs had hatched. Being that this movie was produced by Hanna-Barbera, this scene reminded me of many comedic scenes similar to this in shows like The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and the various Scooby-Doo incarnations that we've had over the years. Not to mention the various incarnations of Super Friends. Which, with the exception of the Super Friends, the shows that I just mentioned are all ones I grew up watching reruns of when I was a kid in the '90s, around the time I first saw this movie.

I think the cast is spectacular. Though I'm not familiar with the work of anybody who was cast in this movie outside of it. They're all old school Hollywood actors or old school TV actors, which I'm just not as familiar with. However, I know Debbie Reynolds as Carrie Fisher's mother, so that's something at least.

Of course, the Sherman Brothers wrote the songs for the movie, so that's pretty cool. Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman are famous mainly for being involved in making the music for most of Disney's animated filmography of the '60s and '70s, as well as films such as Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Bednobs and Broomsticks, as well as contributing a song for the 1967 Disney movie The Gnome-Mobile. When I was a kid, without knowing who the Sherman Brothers were, I ended up really liking the songs in this movie because they did remind me of many of the Disney movies that I was watching on VHS at the time. That would be because Disney's song writers wrote the songs for it, and I didn't even know it at the time.

Another interesting thing about Charlotte's Web is that I'm sort of familiar with the work of the film's screenwriter, Earl Hamner Jr. In case you don't know who he is, Earl Hamner Jr. was a novelist, TV writer and producer known for The Waltons (1972-1981), which was based on his 1961 novel, Spencer's Mountain. The Waltons was a show that my family watched reruns of all the time when I was a kid. Particularly in the summer where my siblings and I would play outside after dinner and then come in for The Waltons every day, Monday through Friday. That actually surprised me when I found out that he wrote this movie because there's a big difference between that show and this movie. Still though it's a fun little tidbit.

As I said earlier in this review, I didn't own this movie on any home media format growing up. However, my parents rented it for me quite often, in between episodes of Rainbow Brite, Disney's Sing-Along Songs tapes, Barney & The Backyard Gang tapes, and movies like Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory and Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird!. However, the last time I watched the movie before last night was back in 1992, prior to it's 1993 VHS re-release. 

I finally got it on DVD when my sister gave me the Charlotte's Web Collection DVD set for Christmas. It includes the original DVD releases of this movie, it's 2003 Direct-to-DVD sequel Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure, and the 2006 live action remake, Charlotte's Web. I haven't watched the other two movies yet but I will eventually even though the sequel is Direct-to-DVD, and from what I've seen online, it isn't all that good.

My mom owns a copy of the book, and I've read it once or twice over the years. Also, when I was in kindergarten my class went to see a stage production of the story and it was the first play I ever saw that wasn't a school production that I was in. I think the only reason I even remember the stage production at all is because of how Templeton was portrayed. 

If I had to criticize one thing about this movie is the consistency of Wilbur's wailing whenever he reacts to bad news, or something bad happens. I think it was well written and well acted, but the pitch the actor who played Wilbur, Henry Gibson, used for those scenes, ended up falling into the range that actually bothers me. It's in the same range as Vicky Vale's scream in Batman (1989) and the scream/wailing voice of Serena in the early episodes of the original English dub of Sailor Moon and both of those bother me quite a bit. But otherwise I don't have anything negative to say about this movie. Although, I would like to wonder when Templeton met his wife who we see at the end of the movie. I know, it's a bit of a nitpick, but I do have to mute it or turn the sound down when I'm wearing my headphones because of the pitch used in those scenes. It's a personal thing.

Overall though this movie still holds up after forty-nine years. It also holds up well after having not seen it in thirty years. The story is wonderful, the animation is amazing, the music, particularly the songs by the Sherman Brothers, is fantastic, and I love the characters. Even though the movie has a fairly big cast, it mostly focuses on Wilbur, Charlotte, and Templeton as they're in the most scenes in the movie. If you've never seen it I definitely recommend you check it out. It's not out on Blu-ray, though the 2006 version is, but it is out on DVD, which was re-released back in 2017 so it should be available on that format outside of the 3-movie collection release that I have. 

That's going to be it for me for today. I will be back tomorrow with a comic book review and then on Friday with a review of a TV series pilot episode. I'm considering an idea where I review the pilot episode of a TV show that I have either on iTunes or on DVD or can access on Disney+ and then if I have more than one season in either format then I'll review the series as a whole (if I have the full series) or however many seasons that I have access to. I would love to do more TV content on my blog since TV is one of my favourite forms of entertainment but trying to do week to week episode reviews for all of the shows I'm watching is insane and something I've proven time and time again that I can't maintain for any length of time. So stay tuned. Until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Cheaper by the Dozen (2022) Movie Review

Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Saturday. So, today I'm here to talk about the new Disney+ Original Movie, Cheaper by the Dozen starring Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union. I will have to talk about some spoilers in this movie, so if you haven't watched it yet, please do so before you read this review. Let's get into it.

 Cheaper by the Dozen was originally written as a novel in 1948 by Frank Gilbreth and his sister, and was adapted into a movie in 1950, which stars Clifton Webb, and again in 2003, with an all-star cast including Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Tom Welling, Hilary Duff, and Piper Perabo. My siblings and I watched the 2003 version on TV alot in the 2000s, as well as it's 2005 sequel. So when I heard that Disney was producing a remake for Disney+ I was intrigued especially because I am a fan of Zach Braff from Scrubs (2001-2010), Chicken Little (2005), and Garden State (2004). Plus I loved the 2003 movie when it came out, so I was pumped for this movie.

I ended up watching it last night on Disney+ with my sister over video chat and I didn't have high expectations for it. Why would I? It's Cheaper by the Dozen, not Shakespeare, it's not meant to be high art. I thought the movie was fine.

The film follows Paul Baker (Braff), his wife, Zoey (Union), and their ten children. Technically nine, but Paul's nephew, Seth, joins the family midway through the movie. The family runs an all day breakfast place, which is my favourite thing ever, and the kids are your typical kid characters, in that they play sports, are geeks, play music, and whatever else the writers of the movie thought of for kids to do in a movie. They're also joined by Paul's ex-wife, Kate, and Zoey's ex-husband, Dom Clayton, who is a fictional famous basketball player. Things get even more chaotic when Paul gets an opportunity to expand his restaurant and the family moves to a high end neighbourhood in Los Angeles County. They also end up dealing with racial issues stemming from the fact that Paul is a white man, Zoey is a black woman, and the kids are a mix of black, white, and brown, plus there are lots of kids. 

I like how diverse the cast of this movie is. The cast of the Steve Martin version is very white, even for 2003. And it's also a very nuclear family. Whereas this version has a very diverse cast, and the family is a mix of two different families, which is very cool. One of their daughters was even in a wheelchair, which, trust me, I will get to shortly. I also liked how much chemistry there was between the cast. It actually felt like they were an actual family, which is very difficult to pull off in movies, because the cast is only together for a few months and then they move on to the next project. It's a little easier to pull off on television or in a series of movies.

I did feel like the kids were bland in this movie compared to the 2003 version and it's sequel. There's probably as many kids in the movie as there was in the earlier version, but for most of the movie I couldn't figure out who was who outside of Seth, DJ, and Deja, three of the older kids, but not the oldest, because Ella and Harley are the oldest, and I couldn't remember which was which as neither of them have much personality. The youngest kids also didn't matter that much, because they were there to be the Michelle Tanner/Ruthie Camden/Vanessa Huxtable cute kid characters. The whole family was fun to watch though.

Which leads into the biggest problem of the movie for me. Harley. Not the character herself, or the fact that she's in a wheelchair. No, my problem with her is how poorly her disability was portrayed in the movie. The movie was about diversity, and it got the racial diversity down pretty well, it just failed on the physical diversity. 

At the beginning of the movie, we see Harley sharing a room with Ella on the second floor of the house, but then a few seconds later we see her downstairs, but it doesn't show how she gets to and from her bedroom on the second floor as she uses her wheelchair in the house all the time. No crutches or walker, like I used to use when I was a kid. The only indication that Harley can get in and out of the house in her chair is that there's a ramp on the front step. However the Bakers don't have an accessible van, which is a requirement when you have someone in the family who is in a wheelchair all the time.

There is a scene where Harley transfers from her wheelchair to her parents's bed by herself for the unplanned family movie night when Paul and Zoey are trying to have a romantic night of sex, but given that we don't know what her disability even is, I don't know why she has to use her wheelchair in the house when she could be like me and only need it when going out. Which is plausible btw, because that's been me my whole life. And then once they get to the mansion they live in for the rest of the movie they mention that the house has an elevator, which is weird, even for a mansion that looks like it came straight out of The O.C. Later, when they move back to their original neighbourhood, there's no ramp on their new house at all. So it's little things like that that pulled me out of the movie. It also pulled my sister out because she grew up with me, so she understands what it's like to face these kinds of issues.

I don't normally talk about representation on this blog, because I am white, I am straight, and I'm male so I don't consider myself qualified to talk about things like that when doing reviews. However, in this instance, I do because I am physically disabled. I'm also autistic but that's not relevant to this movie. I've used a wheelchair my entire life, and outside of comic books, where I had Barbara Gordon/Oracle as a representation of physical disability, as well as Charles Xavier, though that really didn't come about for me until the first X-Men movie from 2000, fiction was not filled with physically disabled characters. Particularly ones who are in wheelchairs. Not ones that were positive representations of people with disabilities. And even when I was a teenager, there were very few characters in the shows that I watched who were physically disabled and used a wheelchair.

There was Joan's brother, Kevin, in Joan of Arcadia (2003-2005) and Jimmy Brooks (played by Drake/Aubrey Graham) from Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001-2014), but he became handicapped after the fourth season two part episode "Time Stands Still", which I reviewed on The Review Basement last year. You can read the review here. But other than those two there weren't any central characters who were physically disabled or used a wheelchair in the shows that I watched. At least, not in the 2000s. There was a girl named Donna in The Odyssey, which was a children's fantasy series that aired from 1992 until 1994 on CBC Television but I didn't see it until YTV re-ran it in the early 2000s around the time that season 2 of Digimon aired on the channel. But many of the characters I mentioned were either in car accidents prior to the start of the show (Kevin), were shot in the spine (Jimmy and Oracle), or had an unspecific disability that was never brought up (Donna). And the only one I remember they really did well with was Jimmy on Degrassi: The Next Generation.

I mentioned all of that because TV shows and movies very rarely do physically disabled people right. Even today we aren't represented very well in fiction, and when we are it's the most generic or stupid way of doing it, and I was disappointed that Harley was handled so poorly in this movie. I didn't find out the character was even in the movie, until I saw her on the screenshot used for the movie's main page on Disney+ so I got really excited there was going to be a character who was in a wheelchair as a main character in the movie. Then it became more and more apparent that she wasn't a main character and was basically there as set dressing. It's a very good example of the Tokenism I talked about with Adira and Gray Tal in my review of the fourth season of Star Trek: Discovery yesterday. It's the kind of thing that really needs to stop in entertainment.

The movie is funny though, even if the humour is predictable in places. The physical comedy isn't as prevalent as it is in the 2003 version, but that's to be expected because Zach Braff isn't big on physical comedy. At least not in anything I've seen him in. He's more about the witty comebacks and the verbal comedy than the physical. Which is fine. And like I said earlier, all of the characters work pretty well together. There are times it did feel like I was watching The O.C. instead of this movie, particularly with the women Zoey becomes friends with once they move into the gated community they live in for the majority of the movie. They all reminded me of the "Newpsies" (Kirsten's group of friends from the first season) from that show. So that was fun.

Overall though Cheaper by the Dozen (2022) is worth a watch. It definitely feels more like a Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM) than a theatrical release so be aware of that if you decide to watch it this weekend. It's also a fine movie to watch with the family, as I think the kids will have fun with it. It is a bit all over the place though and, like I said, a few things, like Harley's disabilities, were handled poorly enough that they took me out of the film in places, so also be aware of that if you watch it.

I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with more reviews and other posts. So until then have a wonderful rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Trek: Discovery (2017) Season 4 Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm going to be reviewing the fourth season of Star Trek: Discovery as the season finale aired last night here in Canada, and dropped yesterday morning in the U.S. There will be spoilers for the season so if you're not caught up yet, don't read this review until you have caught up. Unless you're not watching the show, or don't care about spoilers. Let's get into it.

Season 4 is not only my favourite season of the show so far, but it is by far the BEST season of Discovery out of all of them. I honestly feel like the writers and showrunner of this show have really taken the criticisms fans have had with the first three seasons and fixed them. They've definitely addressed most of, if not all of, the issues my parents and I had with the show during it's first three seasons, which is awesome.

An example of this is the fact that the entire season was about exploration and diplomacy, with the use of violence only being used as a last resort. Much how the crews did it in the original shows. Which is great to see, because I felt that Star Trek is the kind of show that doesn't need a singular antagonist or a universe breaking situation every single season the way the first three seasons of Discovery and the majority of the other modern Star Trek shows have done or are doing if they're still airing their season like Prodigy is right now. 

This season was also full of hope, even in the face of great tragedy such as at the beginning of the season when Book's planet, Kwejian, was destroyed by the DMA. Instead of going in phasers blazing, our characters took the time to learn about what they were dealing and how to deal with them best. Which was very refreshing to see.

Burnham has come a long way from the person who incited a war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire back in the show's pilot episode. And I think that's because she's the captain of the ship now, and she knows she has a responsibility to her crew, whereas before, she had a responsibility for her duties, first on the Shenzhou, and then aboard the Discovery. And looking back, it makes sense that the writers chose to make Burnham the captain, since that was the track she was on before she performed the ancient Vulcan Hello in the pilot. 

Another thing that I enjoyed about this season is that there's more focus on the ship's bridge crew beyond Burnham, Tilly, and Saru. So much of the first three seasons were focused on those three, that when Airiam was killed in season 2, I didn't care, because we didn't know her. This season Owosekun had several great moments, as did Detmer. Though Nilsson, Christopher, and Rhys still weren't used all that much, though they did have bigger roles in the back end of the season, leading up to last night's finale. There are several things I didn't like though.

The biggest is that Gray was written off the show entirely. Before season 3 started, CBS/Paramount hyped both Adira and Gray up as important characters as they were the first non-binary character (Adira) and the first transgender character (Gray) on Star Trek ever. Which is great, I was really happy to see that. But then they did absolutely NOTHING with them all season, following the official sanctioning of Adira as the host of the Tal Symbiont by the Trill early on in the season. Again, that's fine, because this show tends to introduce characters over the course of a season so they're in place for the following season. 

Season 4 came along, and again, the showrunner, Michelle Paradise, said they were doing awesome things with both Adira and Gray this season. And then they didn't, beyond Gray helping Discovery's sentient A.I., Zora, adapt to her new sentience in one episode, which was actually a great episode. Even Adira got shafted once again this season, not even appearing for two or three episodes in the middle of the season. I don't know if that's because of limited availability of Blu del Barrio, who plays Adira, and Ian Alexander, who plays Gray, or what. It could be any number of things, but it is disappointing when a network/studio/streaming service places actors/characters front and center in press releases, and then do nothing with them. It's not fair to the performers, who work more than 12 hours a day on the set. It's also not fair to the audience, because we want to be invested in new characters, but we can't if they don't do anything. It goes back to what I said about Airiam before. I wanted to feel something when the crew was forced to kill her, but didn't because all she was was a face on the Bridge, with no personality or backstory to her until the episode where she was killed. So Discovery Writers' Room, please do better next season.

Don't get me wrong though, I did enjoy what we did get of both Adira and Gray this season, I just wish we'd gotten more. But, I understand all too well why they didn't get much to do. And it's not because there are too many characters on the show, because there really isn't. The reason neither character got much to do is the same reason that Nia Nal hardly had anything to do on Supergirl after her initial episodes. It feels like they were added to the cast as an act of Tokenism. Which is really weird because Stamets and Culber have never felt that way. Even in the first season. So I don't really understand why Adira and Gray do feel that way even though I'm hoping that wasn't the producers's intention when they created the characters last season as that would be very unfortunate. Alrighty, so let's move on to the other two things that I didn't like about this season.

The first is the character of Tarka. Shawn Doyle did a wonderful job playing the character, but he was completely unnecessary. We had enough with Booker being devastated by the destruction of Kwejian in the season opener, that we didn't need Tolian Soran Lite as well. And that's basically what he is because he is employing similar tactics to get into an alternate universe to reunite with his friend Oros that Soran used in Star Trek: Generations in order to return to the Nexus so he could reunite with his family. In relation to Tarka we didn't all of those flashbacks to his time in the Emerald Chain prison with Oros. Why? Because it's unnecessary backstory. He mentioned it to Booker a few episodes earlier and that's all we needed to know. We didn't need to see any of it.

The problem with television these days is that they feel the need to show us everything, even though telling us would be better in terms of making the story flow better. The Book of Boba Fett did it with Fett's escape from the Sarlacc and then his time with the Tusken Raider, when a few lines to Fennic, Mando, or whoever would've been enough. Hawkeye did it with Echo, which we definitely didn't need. Even movies do it quite a bit too these days. And I don't know if that's because the flashbacks on Arrow did so well during it's first five seasons, or if it's because of the success of several prequel shows and movies to the big franchise films and shows in the late '90s through to the mid-2010s. Either way, it's an unnecessary plot device in most instances that isn't necessary.

The last thing I didn't like was the roller coaster ride we went on with the president of the Federation, Laira Rillak. She seemed like she was going to be yet another corrupt politician, brought into the show as a foil for both Admiral Vance and Burnham. But then she wasn't. Which I'm glad about, but it wasn't even treated as a red herring, and the switch from antagonistic to best friends with both Vance and Burnham was a bit jarring. So much so that when Rillak's original assessment of Burnham from the season opener was brought up again in the finale, I had completely forgotten about it. And that's just because it wasn't the central focus of their relationship during this season, even though the season opener set it up to be that way. It just didn't happen.

All of those things are just minor things in this season. As I said at the beginning of this review, it is the best season of Discovery out of the four we've had so far. The writers and producers have taken the constructive criticism and used it to make the show better. Which should be done on shows like Star Trek. And they did so, within reason. They didn't change the foundation of the show, they simply tweaked it. Which is great to see.

I think that's going to be it for me for today. I will be back tomorrow though because I'm watching the 2022 version of Cheaper by the Dozen, which dropped on Disney+ today and I plan on talking about it tomorrow. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Turning Red (2022) Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Saturday. Last night I watched the new movie released by Pixar, Turning Red, on Disney+. And I want to talk about it, so let's get into it.

 While I've never been the kind of person who rushes out to see every single movie released by Pixar Animation Studios, there have been certain ones that I've been excited to see whether I see them in theatres, on VHS/DVD/Blu-ray, or on Disney+. Turning Red was one of them. Simply because the teaser trailer featured "Larger Than Life" by the Backstreet Boys, which came out in 1999. I mean if the movie was going for a late '90s/early 2000s vibe I would be all for it. And it did not disappoint.

The big draw of the movie for me is that it's set in early to mid-2002, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I live in Ottawa, but the fact that it's set in Canada at all is awesome. Also, Mei and her friends are in grade 8 in the movie, getting close to finishing grade 8 and moving onto high school. Well, at the time the movie is set in, I was in grade 9, about to finish it off and I had friends who were in grade 8 and getting ready to move onto high school. But it's more than that though.

I was in grade 8 the previous year, facing the same challenges that Mei and her friends faced with being made fun of, finding their own identities that are separate from their parents, while at the same time trying to honour their parents. All the while feeling like nothing you do is good enough for them. In fact, it took me until adulthood to realize that my parents's expectations weren't higher than what I was capable of, and that it's not them you have to impress, it's yourself.

The music in this movie is awesome. Apart from "Bootylicious" by Destiny's Child, most of the songs in the movie are by the fictional boy band, 4Town, and it's that same kind of bubblegum pop that was pretty prevalent in the late '90s and early 2000s after it was popularized by the Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, Nsync, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears. And I love that the writers created their own fictional boy band, because there were so many obscure boy bands that popped up at the time, with almost none of them existing anymore, that 4Town could actually be a real band.

I really enjoyed this movie. It was fun, it was relatable, even for a 35-year-old white man such as myself, and it felt personal. Ever since Soul came out at the end of 2020, it seems like Pixar is allowing young directors to come in and make movies that are personal to them, but don't necessarily fit the corporate formula that has been in place since Toy Story. And I'm sure there are some of you out there who will try to tell me that Pixar has always released movies that are personal to the people making them. And maybe that's true for a film like Soul and Luca, but it's not true for most of earlier films released by the studio. Simply because at one time or another a director has been replaced, Pixar was producing the movies to fulfill their contract with Disney, or the corporate side of things, a.k.a. Disney, has come in and requested changes until the finished film barely resembles the movie the people working on it envisioned.

I definitely recommend you watch this movie. It's on Disney+ because of Disney's decision to pull it from theatres and place it on the streaming service, which is a better decision, because I don't think the masses are ready for this movie. I thought I was when I sat down to watch it last night, but I wasn't. But I'm asking that you give it a shot, because, I think you'll find something to relate to if you do. 

 I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back sometime during the week for my review of the 1973 animated feature film, Charlotte's Web. So until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Arrow: Fatal Legacies (2018) Review

Hey everyone! How’s it going? Today I’m here to talk about Arrow: Fatal Legacies, a novel that came out in early 2018 and takes place between seasons 5 and 6 of the TV series, basically bridging the gap between seasons. Let’s get into it.

Good or bad, Arrow is one of my favourite TV shows of all time. It’s also one of the most important shows of the last thirty years as it launched the current slew of comic book and superhero Prime Time live action shows back in 2012. At the time The Dark Knight Trilogy had ended in theatres with The Dark Knight Rises and the Marvel Cinematic Universe exploded into the mainstream with The Avengers. However, on the TV front things were almost non-existent in terms of content based on comic books. Particularly in the Prime-Time department. Smallville had ended in 2011, and while it had been popular, Warner Media had been unsuccessful in launching any new shows in the decade since Birds of Prey had gone off the air. And I watched it from the pilot.

Fatal Legacies, written by James R. Tuck, who I am unfamiliar with, and Arrow’s then executive producer/co-showrunner, Marc Guggenheim, is an interesting look at the aftermath of Adrian Chase’s bid to take revenge on Oliver Queen/the Green Arrow due to Oliver’s take down of Chase’s father, Justin Claybourne, who was on the list of names Oliver used during his time as the Hood in season 1.

The novel picks up where season 5 ended, with the island of Lian Yu exploding because of Adrian’s death in the season finale and ends with the Green Arrow taking down Alexander Faust in the opening scene of the season 6 premiere. It deals with how all the characters dealt with what they’d gone through in the finale, as well as Oliver attempting to reach his son, William, who he gained custody of following William’s mother’s death, and sadly it was written better than most of the episodes in season 6 of the show.

Green Arrow has become one of my favourite comic book characters since I started watching the show in 2012, and I’ve always enjoyed Stephen Amell’s portrayal of the character on the show, though it’s different than the comic book character I’ve come to enjoy. So, to have a novel with that version of the character is cool.

Every time I read the book; I can hear the voices of the actors who played the characters on the show. In fact, there are several scenes between Oliver and Felicity in this novel where not only do I hear Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards’s voices, but I can feel the sexual tension between the characters as they talk in the Bunker (the Arrowcave). Mostly because this was the period where they’d been split up following the revelation that Oliver had had a son with a woman named Samantha, back before he’d been stranded on Lian Yu, but there was the possibility they were probably going to be getting back together at some point during season 6. Spoilers: they do and end up getting married at the end of the season’s Arrowverse crossover, “Crisis on Earth-X”.

We also see the beginning of the nerve damage that plagued OG Team Arrow member, John Diggle, throughout the first half of season 6. This was a significant plotline in the season as it not only created problems between Oliver and Diggle throughout the season, but it led into the Ricardo Diaz storyline that dominated the entire back half of the season as well. While I didn’t particularly care for the storyline in the show, I did like that it established a friendship between Diggle and the new Black Canary, Dinah Drake.

Speaking of Dinah, she doesn’t play a huge role in this novel, but her plotline is substantial since it involves her getting the Black Canary costume, she wore for the last three seasons of the show. Despite how redundant Dinah felt once Laurel, albeit the Earth-2 version, became the Black Canary again in seasons 7 and 8, I honestly really liked Dinah as a character. Except for the majority of season 6 simply because, well, nobody was written well that season and it’s best if I just move on from that until I get to that season in the show, because, yes, I will be reviewing Arrow soon.

Even though she’s mentioned in the description on the back cover of the book, I was surprised that Sara Lance shows up in the novel. Mainly because she’d been on Legends of Tomorrow for several seasons at this point and the TV show didn’t really have her come back very often outside of the annual crossovers due to scheduling logistics that make it impossible for the most part. Sara has always been one of my favourite characters in the Arrowverse and anytime she returned to Arrow was something I celebrated.

The one criticism that I have about this book is that it feels almost like fan fiction. To be fair most tie-in novels to TV shows feel this way because many of them aren’t canon to the show they’re based on, but with this one it feels even more so. I don’t know how canon this book is considering it was co-written by one of the show’s showrunners at the time, and both the beginning of the book and the end of the book are canon since they’re scenes that appear in episodes of the show. But, at the same time, because these events aren’t mentioned by anyone on Arrow or by Sara on Legends, it’s doubtful that it’s canon outside of the opening and closing of the book. If it is canon though it puts to rest whether Doctor Schwartz, who we see a lot of in seasons 4, 5, and 6, knows that Oliver is the Green Arrow or not as the show leaves it ambiguous throughout her time on the show.

Overall, I really enjoy this book. It feels like a five-or-six-episode arc of the show, that take place over several months, and all the characters feel like the versions on the show. I think this is also the only novel based on Arrow where the Flash doesn’t appear, though Cisco is referred to a few times in the novel. If you’re a fan of the show, I highly recommend you pick this book up. I’m pretty sure it’s still in print, though I could be wrong about that since the show has been over for two years now and it came out four years ago.

I think that will be it for me for today, but I will be back in the not too far future to look at Charlotte’s Web (1973). Until then have a wonderful rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

How I Met Your Father Episodes 1 and 2 Review

 Hey everyone! Sorry about my lack of posts these last, almost, two weeks. I needed to take a break for a bit. I'm back now though and I'm excited for what's coming next for the blog. I've got some pretty cool ideas coming up. Today though I'm here to talk about the first two episodes of How I Met Your Father that stars Hilary Duff, which is a spin-off of the 2005-2014 sitcom, How I Met Your Mother. I know the first season is almost finished on Hulu in the US, but, it's just starting on Disney+ here in Canada, so that's why I'm only talking about it now. So without further ado, let's get into it.

I was eighteen and still in high school when How I Met Your Mother started. While I couldn't really relate to any of the characters yet, I still enjoyed it because of the basic premise of finding true love. It wasn't until the final couple of seasons that I started to relate to most of the characters. With How I Met Your Father I can relate to most of the characters. I say most, because while I'm in my thirties like the majority of this cast is, obviously I don't have the same type of job that they do. I'm not a bartender or a photographer or doctor or anything like that. I'm a writer/reviewer/blogger and I live in my parents's basement in Canada, and yet I find it just as difficult to find romantic love as some of these characters do. 

While the basic premise of this show is the same as the original, there's a bar, a group of friends, with one hopeless romantic intent on finding true love, there are also some vast differences. It's a more racially diverse cast, with a Latin woman, an Indian man, and an Asian woman, there are actually more women in the main cast than in the original, and there's a Lesbian character, which would not even have been considered in the original series. Also, there's no Barney analogue in this series. I mean there is, in Charlie, played by Tom Ainsley, but he's not entirely a Barney analogue. In fact the only similarity between Charlie and Barney, aside from their names both ending in an 'e' sound, is they both wear expensive suits. Basically because the misogynistic nature of the Barney character doesn't work in 2022 and I'm glad that not only do the producers of the show realize this, but the studio producing it and the streaming platform airing it do too.

How I Met Your Father is about a woman named Sophie, played by Hilary Duff, who hopes to find true love someday, but not in the same obsessed way that Ted did in the original show, which, again, doesn't work in 2022 like it did in 2005. Especially if this show goes nine seasons like How I Met Your Mother did. Of course she's joined by her roommate, Valentina, played by Francia Raisa, Valentina's boyfriend, Charlie, who I've already mentioned, and their new friends, Jesse, played by Chris Lowell, Sid, played by Suraj Sharma, and Jesse's sister, Ellen, played by Tien Tran.

I love the cast of this show. I watched Hilary Duff on Lizzie McGuire and in the Disney Channel Original Movie, Cadet Kelly with my sister in the early 2000s, I remember seeing Chris Lowell on Veronica Mars, and I'm familiar with Suraj Sharma because he played Rakesh, Miles's friend on God Friended Me. The rest of the main cast is unfamiliar to me, Though Tien Tran's sister,Tram-Ahn, played Tina on the children's mystery series, Ghostwriter from 1992 to 1995, so that's cool.

The framework of the older version of the main character telling the story to their children is reused here, with Kim Cattrall playing older Sophie in the year 2050. Though while we saw Ted's kids, but never Old Ted, played by Bob Saget, it's reversed here. We see Older Sophie, but not her son. Which makes it easier, because, well, they had to film the last scene with the kids in it, during the pilot of How I Met Your Mother so that if the show went on for ten years or more, the kids wouldn't have aged to the point where they aren't kids anymore when the series finale was filmed.

I like all of the characters on the show, but I think my favourite so far has to be a threeway tie between Jesse, Valentina, and Ellen. Jesse is more like Ted than Sophie is, but he's not as neurotic as Ted was. Valentina is the all over the place, destructive best friend, but not in the same destructive way that Barney was in the original show. And she's pretty great because she complements Sophie in almost the same way that Marshall complemented Ted in the original show. Because not only do they encourage each other, but they get each other into trouble too, which is hilarious so far.

Honestly, I love this show so far. It's not the biggest show out there, nor is it gripping, but it's fun to watch. It's also something I needed right now. I watch so many shows that are intense and action packed and pretty heavy in their subject matter that it's nice to watch a show that's funny and generally about nothing in particular. Plus it's an old style sitcom complete with a laugh track, which I love. The thing about many of these reboots, spin-offs, and continuations of old comedies, is that they lose the laugh track or the comedy aspect altogether. Like Bel-Air, the reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, isn't a comedy/sitcom anymore, it's a teen drama, which makes no sense to me at all. So, I am glad that How I Met Your Father is continuing the format of it's predecessor, because it's very welcomed by me. 

Anyways guys that's going to be it for me for today. I'm working on a review for the 2018 novel, Arrow: Fatal Legacies, which serves as a bridge between seasons 5 and 6 of the former CW comic book based series, Arrow. So look for that coming out in the very near future. Until then have a great afternoon and I will talk to you later. Take care.