High School Musical
Okay, let's start by saying I love High School Musical. That having said, I think people are stupid. Not because they hate on shows and / or movies like High School Musical without even watching it, but for condemning people who actually do love these shows.
There's a reason TV Tropes has a special tropes page for it, and have it a subtrope of Hate Dumb. To me, it's okay to not like High School Musical, yes, even if you haven't watched the movies. But I think it's fairly stupid to hate the people or kids who like it.
Sure, High School Musical is for kids, mostly for those of young age. But who cares? I don't berate you if you like to watch The Godfather, I know a lot of people who find the trilogy boring as hell, me being one of them. I actually applaud you for liking In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege's Tale, one of the few Uwe Boll movies I happen to like. I have a big disliking to certain stuff that's mostly a local trend. I have a very disliking towards Hannah Montana, but mostly due to the fact that Dutch dubs are pretty stupid. I absolutely think Lost is terrible, just like Sex And The City and Desperate Housewives. But I can understand if people like any of the above. These series or movies were made for a specific demographic. Most are not made for people like me. There have been a lot of crappy kids cartoons on television, but then I think, I'm not a kid anymore. Sure, I love Phineas and Ferb, Filmore! and Kim Possible, and they're not exactly made for me. But still, most of these shows are up to the kids themselves to decide. When I was younger, I knew which shows I liked and which I didn't, so I am pretty much sure that kids nowadays still have their own opinions about television kids shows (although they don't really have a perfect judgement about everything, seeing as the kids top hits list is still filled with kids unfriendly songs).
Thing is, I like High School Musical. What do I like? At least it's not the plot, seeing as it's pretty generic for the first two. To me, it's mostly the songs and the dynamic between the actors. And the third does have a rather unique take on the entire plot. It most definitely is a Disney worthy movie. It's not really that I can't explain why I think High School Musical is great. It's that I shouldn't, because you have to make up for yourself why you like or don't like it. Although I do have to say that to like it requires you to look past the stereotyping of each character for the first two movies. The third movie throws any form of stereotyping away, as it is a conclusion to the first two movies.
To someone who doesn't actually watch the movies, only see the movies, it seems as if it promotes shallowness. That's partially true for the later movies and pretty obvious in the first movie, but throughout the movies this image gets thrown into the garbage disposal unit more and more as time goes by. It also doesn't really glorify high school. Sure it draws a more perfect image of high school, but what movie doesn't do that? It's pretty close minded to not allow your kids the pleasure of seeing a perfect world, just to shield them from disappointments. You don't protect them, you only make them more pessimistic, therefore ruining their chances of actually trying to get better. It's this perfect image of a world that thrives kids to actually achieve a happy ending for themselves. Sure, a lot won't make it to such ending, but it's the journey towards it that makes it all worth while, even if you don't achieve your goals. It's the dream that pushes us to actually live.
But anyway, I'm pretty tired. I don't need to do this. I don't need to tell people that it's fairly stupid to call on people just because they like something you don't. It's common knowledge.
There's a reason TV Tropes has a special tropes page for it, and have it a subtrope of Hate Dumb. To me, it's okay to not like High School Musical, yes, even if you haven't watched the movies. But I think it's fairly stupid to hate the people or kids who like it.
Sure, High School Musical is for kids, mostly for those of young age. But who cares? I don't berate you if you like to watch The Godfather, I know a lot of people who find the trilogy boring as hell, me being one of them. I actually applaud you for liking In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege's Tale, one of the few Uwe Boll movies I happen to like. I have a big disliking to certain stuff that's mostly a local trend. I have a very disliking towards Hannah Montana, but mostly due to the fact that Dutch dubs are pretty stupid. I absolutely think Lost is terrible, just like Sex And The City and Desperate Housewives. But I can understand if people like any of the above. These series or movies were made for a specific demographic. Most are not made for people like me. There have been a lot of crappy kids cartoons on television, but then I think, I'm not a kid anymore. Sure, I love Phineas and Ferb, Filmore! and Kim Possible, and they're not exactly made for me. But still, most of these shows are up to the kids themselves to decide. When I was younger, I knew which shows I liked and which I didn't, so I am pretty much sure that kids nowadays still have their own opinions about television kids shows (although they don't really have a perfect judgement about everything, seeing as the kids top hits list is still filled with kids unfriendly songs).
Thing is, I like High School Musical. What do I like? At least it's not the plot, seeing as it's pretty generic for the first two. To me, it's mostly the songs and the dynamic between the actors. And the third does have a rather unique take on the entire plot. It most definitely is a Disney worthy movie. It's not really that I can't explain why I think High School Musical is great. It's that I shouldn't, because you have to make up for yourself why you like or don't like it. Although I do have to say that to like it requires you to look past the stereotyping of each character for the first two movies. The third movie throws any form of stereotyping away, as it is a conclusion to the first two movies.
To someone who doesn't actually watch the movies, only see the movies, it seems as if it promotes shallowness. That's partially true for the later movies and pretty obvious in the first movie, but throughout the movies this image gets thrown into the garbage disposal unit more and more as time goes by. It also doesn't really glorify high school. Sure it draws a more perfect image of high school, but what movie doesn't do that? It's pretty close minded to not allow your kids the pleasure of seeing a perfect world, just to shield them from disappointments. You don't protect them, you only make them more pessimistic, therefore ruining their chances of actually trying to get better. It's this perfect image of a world that thrives kids to actually achieve a happy ending for themselves. Sure, a lot won't make it to such ending, but it's the journey towards it that makes it all worth while, even if you don't achieve your goals. It's the dream that pushes us to actually live.
But anyway, I'm pretty tired. I don't need to do this. I don't need to tell people that it's fairly stupid to call on people just because they like something you don't. It's common knowledge.
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I dont annoy people with how much I think things suck, people ask if I like naruto, I say I never liked it, and then they say I suck for not liking it.
no you suck for telling me I suck for not liking something, I don't like a lot of popular things. I don't like Napoleon Dynamite, I didnt really like Recess or Filmore (I never understood filmore) but I see why some people like it. My thinking is, you are entitled to your opinion, but I don't necessarily want to hear it, don't tell me if I didn't ask.
YOUR OPINION IS WRONG AND I AM RIGHT! PWN!
Thing is, I pretty much dislike the fact that people just find people who like HSM are "ghey".
So some people might try to convince you, which, I agree, is extremely annoying.
And when lots of people all like something, and you hear about it all the time, you can develop some kind of rejection or disgust for it. Take Harry Potter. I started reading them in 98 or 99, when it wasn't that big, so I escape the huge wave. But after it became so popular, even I was getting fed up with some of the fans.
My best friend never read the books because she was just turned off by the whole thing. She admits it's silly to refuse reading something just because of how popular it is, but it's just visceral, and I can totally understand it even though I'm sure she'd love them.
So sometimes, the whole "I'm sick of this thing" might leap from the thing to the fans, I guess.
Either way, it's ridiculous. Of course everyone has their own tastes, and you shouldn't go "shame on you" because someone likes or dislike something that happens to be "cool" right now. Whether they discovered it before or after it was cool is also irrelevant (I'm so sick of the people who go "I liked X before it was cool, so I'm better than you". You can't be aware of everything that exists, and sometimes you hear about things when they're already famous... That makes perfect sense. Nobody is less of a fan just because they discovered something later than someone else did).
I think in both cases, what happens is people feel personally insulted or even assaulted. In the case of someone who doesn't like what you live for, you might feel like they're telling you your whole life revolves around something stupid, and get annoyed with that. And in the case of people who love something you don't like, hearing them talk about it all the time can definitely get on your nerve.
Just trying to explain why I think it happens. Then of course there is mob mentality, for the people who just follow something because it's cool, or go against it because it's cool to be against cool things. You know what I mean. These people just base their tastes on what other people like or dislike, so of course it's going to matter to them what you like or dislike. Not that I'm trying to excuse them, I think it's pretty silly to do that in the first place, rather than base what you like on just your own feelings. But you can't deny there are a lot of people like that.
And finally, if you're talking about the Internet, don't forget that being abusive is almost the neutral tone on the Internet. People get over enthusiastic about things, and it's easier to evacuate your rage when there isn't an actual person in front of you that you might be afraid to hurt. I say that because I'm guilty of it, too, sometimes I get extremely emotional, use very strong words and then I'm too ashamed to come back to a specific forum for days or week. Not that I think I tend to try and convince people to like or dislike a specific thing or else they're stupid, but you never know, I might have done that, too.
Well, I can see I'm not the only troll here.
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But then again, What disney have made previously will always be available, so it's really not that bad.
Personally, i really dislike HSM. I tried watching it when HSM2 was on the TV a while back. I tuned in during some song about sunbathing or something, and i just felt the singing, the lyrics, and the american high-school-ness of it were just awful. I turned it off after 2 minutes. Maybe if i had given it a little longer, i might have mildly better feelings towards it, but i really despised it.
Actually, I never saw it as the symbol of 'new' Disney. Instead, I saw it as the symbol of Disney Channel, which I despise (I did enjoy Kim Possible and House of Mouse, though), and I've always seen the creations of Disney and Disney Channel as two different things. Disney made The Princess And The Frog, Meet The Robinsons, Enchanted, etc., and I can still enjoy some of them, while Disney Channel made High School Musical and all those pre-teen stuff.
Oh, and Pixar's still here, so there's nothing to worry about.
The Princess and the Frog is out in the UK (it's showing in cinemas now).
Pixar has been owned by Disney for a few years now. John Lasseter is the head of both studios.
Maybe one factor in Pixar's consistent awesomeness is that they've been making movies for a much shorter time than Disney, hence less time to screw up the track record.
First: I hate musicals. I can't stand that genre of movies. I can't understand why some people actually think that the Sound of Music is a great movie. There's annoying woman and annoying kids singing even more annoying songs. And there isn't enough words to describe how much I hate Travolta's Grease, which has most effeminate "cool guys" I have ever seen.
Second: While I have nothing against teenagers in general, but I hate those loud mouthed people who hang in the malls. And I also hate this MTV/Disney teen culture and I would rather gouge my own eyes out than watch an episode of My Super Sweet 16. That culture seems to have values which are near the opposite of my own values.
But everyone has their own preferences and I don't condemn anyone if they have different taste than I have.
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody is still fun though for a television series aimed at pre-teens. Also, Phineas and Ferb premiered on Disney Channel, and I happen to like it. Probably so do a lot of people from all ages apparently.
The thing that also grinds my gears though is the hate Disney receives and the fact that people who like Disney are suddenly "ghey".
Yeah, Meet the Robinsons aren't that good. But i love how Disney can make fun of themselves in Enchanted.
I freely condemn shallow TV shows by Disney and Nickelodeon. It's wrong (WRONG) to influence kids to aspire for fame and money and superficial relationships. I hate it. With a passion. I literally feel sick when I realize that my younger siblings not only have to deal with peer pressure at school, but also pressure from large corporations who promote shallow motives on TV in the name of being fashionable and cool in the eyes of kids. It's disgusting.
Now, I haven't seen High School Musical, so I can't say whether it falls into this category or not, but I've seen enough to condemn Disney and Nickelodeon for what they're doing these days. My sister is almost thirteen, making her the target audience for TeenNick. Right now, TeenNick has a link on their front page to Make-Out Mash-Ups, the purpose of which is to allow kids to make a music video using clips from Nickelodeon shows with kids making out. Meanwhile, a spoiled Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) is making a fortune off her song, "Party in the U.S.A.," in which she references such wonderful role models as Jay-Z and Brittany Spears, and sings about how she wants to fit into the world of fame and excess. It's all so ridiculous and unbelievably shallow. How can anyone support any of the garbage that's being pushed at kids these days?
Yep, I agree that it goes bit too far sometimes. I think that these days kids learn about adult stuff too early and sometimes the consquences are just awful. Like in the case of the little sister of that Cyrus girl, who was dressed up like a prostitute, in the tabloids few days back. Tabloids were trying to create moral outrage and I have to say that it's easy to agree with tabloids this time (even though I generally disagree with the tabloid people), because many conservative people (like me) find the idea of dressing up little girls to adult clothes disgusting. Celebrities are horrible role models for children, because their values are so far from the normal values.
But my point still stands, and perhaps even emphasises it a little. Whenever a popular company changes it's marketing target, they will always have alot of hatred by the established fanbase towards them, and that product. Take Nintendo and the wii. They changed their marketing to attract new gamers, with the likes of wii fit etc. They continued to make games for the 'core gamer' at pretty much the same rate (albeit they messed up on their timings a little), but everyone is blinded by their hatred, and the wii is nought but a target for hatred, even amongst nintendo fanboys. In fact, Disney/nintendo are quite similair in that respect. Both have a huge library of established films/games, most of which are still playable/watchable (DVD special editions, Virtual console/built-in-GC).
It's funny you should say this, because for me, The Lion King was when Disney jumped the shark. Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin - I loved 'em. But Lion King was the beginning of the end.
I've never seen High School Musical, but I'll admit to being annoyed by the hype. I do like the TV show Glee. But I usually fast forward through the songs.
HSM is basically Glee without two very important components: irony, and Jane Lynch.
I loved Lion King. And Mulan. But pretty much nothing in between... Then Brother Bear, and the Pixar movies... Chicken Little was nice, but in a completely different way, still doesn't feel like a Disney to me. I think the 3D is for a lot in that, I just can't enjoy a 3D movie in the same way.
Although I liked Beauty and the Beast, I never liked Little Mermaid, and I disliked several of the oldest ones, too, despite watching them quite often. In my opinion, Disney started going down with Mulan. Mulan: fail. Hercules, Hunchback: fail. Mulan got them back up but since then good Disney movies have been few and far between.
Oh, and Tarzan wasn't bad, especially compared to the book.
As far as the old ones go... Although they're classics, I never liked any of the fairy tale ones (cinderella, sleeping beauty, snow white), although Beauty and the Beast is different because of the genius of the talking items. Lumière and whatever Big Ben is originally called (something -worth I think) saved the movie. I never liked pinocchio and I dislike most of the animal ones, although I liked them at the time.
Actually I realise there aren't many that I still like. And I owned them all (except for Bambi, which I watched a few years ago for the first time. I really wish I could have that hour and twenty minutes of my life back).
I'd say Disney mostly went downhill when they decided to make sequels for everything. I can't think of a single "something 2" that was really worth it. They're at best okay, and usually horrible.
Wow, can you elaborate more on that? Was it just because it wasn't your typical movie about princesses and evil sorcerors, or was it because it used CGI in the stampede scene? For me, The Lion King is one of Disney's greatest masterpieces. It has all of those elements that make a story great, from a hero you can empathize with to great comic relief, offset by tragedy and a cunning villain. (Although Scar was actually a bit of a basic loser in the second half.)
And what about The Hunchback of Notre Dame? It's completely Disney's most mature story. It took its audience seriously. (except for those friggin gargoyles which drive me up the wall) Again, IMO, it had the best villain and character development Disney ever had, and none of the scenes were wasted. Again, IMO, a masterpiece that has unfortunately been swept under the rug. Sorry, but your statement just completely blew me away. Then again, I look at a film not just basically, but I study the art, the movement, the expressions, the writing, everything. For me a film is well made when all of those things fit together, like a puzzle.
I guess I just felt that Notre-Dame is a good book, so changing it wasn't a good idea... See, Aladdin is totally different from the story, but that's a good thing. Similarly, Tarzan differed in good ways (in my opinion).
However, making Phoebus a good guy just makes no sense to me. He's one of the main villains! And Frollo only makes sense as a Catholic priest who has to fight between his sexual attraction towards Esmeralda and his belief that as a priest, he can't have sex, and just being attracted to her is a sin, the opposition between the two driving him to madness. Turning him into a lawyer of some sort? Where is the contradiction then? Lawyers are allowed to be sexually attracted to people.
He was scary because the simple fact that Esmeralda existed caused him to be attracted to her, and therefore to sin, in his mind, therefore, she needed to die. Without having ever interacted with him, she was a threat to him because he saw her dance. That was powerfully scary.
Now I realise that it being a Disney, they had to change a lot of things. They couldn't have the original thing: everyone lusts after Esmeralda, who is innocent and doesn't really realises what's happening, but gets killed because of the men who desired her - Frollo because her existence threatens his religious beliefs, Phoebus because he needs his wife to have faith in him again.
But then, why choose that as a Disney movie? Might as well pick Romeo & Juliet or Les Misérables. Some stories are famous because they end badly, turning them into a happy story can only change the whole point of them. It kinda worked with some of the stories (the Little Mermaid for instance) but for some I think it's removing the whole point of the story. As I said, Romeo & Juliet, if it ends well, is just one of thousands of love stories, it's because they both die that it's so famous.
Anyway, didn't realise it was meant to please the French. I don't know a single French person who liked that movie. Beauty and the Beast was done much better I feel, if you want to go into the whole "based on something French" thing. Which you don't have to, really. Actually I think people are even more critical if it's based on a story that's part of their culture, so I don't think it appeals to a country more if you adapt a story from there.
See, you're nitpicking for nitpicking sake. Disney has every right to adapt the story, and if you don't like it, then you don't have to watch it. However, I like the changes they made more than the original, outside of Frollo being a lawyer. However, Frollo wasn't really a lawyer, he was a judge. And back in those days, judges had a lot of power over the people and the city. The whole reason Disney made him a judge was to give him more power so they could actually make him MORE frightening and believable as the villain, because they felt that how he was in the book wasn't villainous enough. In the movie, he ended up WANTING to love Esmerelda. He literally gave her an ultimatum. Love me or be burned to death.
Frollo saw the lust he felt as a sin against God, and saw all lust as such. You don't need to be a priest to have twisted beliefs and morals. I think the fact that he burned down a city, murdered many, tried to burn her at the stake, eradicate a people, and tortured an innocent child makes him a pretty strong villain, and if anything Disney took a risk adapting the story as they did at all. And they know that, and that's why they've swept the movie under the rug so to speak. I'm not a purist. I don't need to see it exactly how it was in the book. If they made it how it was in the book, the movie would have been six hours long and rated NC-17.
Pheobus is a villain in the book. He's not a villain in the movie. In the movie he's a different character, and I liked his character in the movie. I also liked his character in the book. Everything in the movie just fits for the sake of the movie, and everything in the book fits for the sake of the book. Both versions work.
I really need to read the book. What you've said makes sense. To relate it to something else, a similair (well kind of) thing happened with the new startrek reboot. There are quite a few trekkies who hate it, claiming that it disregards canon (the whole change the past change the future thing was totally ignored, for example). I for one really enjoyed it, seeing it for what it was;a tribute, and a reboot.
No, I'm not. I agree that they had the rights to change it however they wanted to, like they do with all their movies. And I happened not to like the changes they made. I tried to explain why to you in my previous post, but ultimately, it doesn't matter much since it's opinion.
I disagree that making him a judge gave him more power. There wasn't any separation of Church and State at the time, Frollo had plenty power in the original story. I hated that change because it felt to me like Disney was just afraid that people might think they were criticising religion, and chickened out.
The other changes wouldn't have annoyed me quite as much. If you're turning a sad story into a happy story, obviously you need less villains and more good guys. It just added up, I guess.
I can see how you need to see the movie in its own right, and that's why I said I feel it would be enjoyed less by French audiences. Because French audiences are more familiar with the original work, and changing it might affect them more. While someone seeing the Disney movie as a first introduction has no reason to be upset about the things I didn't like.
But it's really a matter of taste. I wouldn't say they changed the original story more than they did Aladdin's, definitely not. Yet I liked the changes for Aladdin.
I don't consider myself a purist. If you adapt something, I might like it, I might not. I didn't in that case. And it's not just because it was a classic, I liked the musical adapted from the book for instance.
I guess I really dislike that change because among all the stories of people who are good because they're religious, having one where the main villain is a villain not despite being religious, but because of it, while the good girl is a pagan, was a nice change. If you remove that part the story just lose its main feature as far as I'm concerned, so of course that wasn't a change I liked.
And I appreciate your point of view too. I don't think one of us is wrong and the other is right, when it's about liking or disliking things there is no right or wrong choice anyways.
If I see the movie again I'll keep your comments in mind and try to watch it as its own thing.
Was it any good? Does it feel like it's Star Trek movie or does it just feel like a random big budget sci-fi movie?
While I have problem to imagine how James T. Kirk could be James T. Kirk without Shatner's mannerisms, I consider that I might get it on DVD anyway, because I haven't seen any even remotely decent new sci-fi recently.