Netflix Retrospective - Dragons: Race to the Edge - Season 1 Episodes 10-13

Pixar Playlist #2 - A Bug's Life

Ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not: The Pixar Playlist

Goddamn it, I thought I’d gotten away from Kevin Spacey, f*ck this guy! I guess it’s time for A Bug’s Life! Released in 1998, A Bugs Life is notoriously started a spat between Disney and Dreamworks, as Disney conveniently stated the release day for A Bug’s Life on the same day as Dreamworks’ Antz film. The result of this is for another day, maybe…

But A Bugs life has a pretty positive reputation, a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an average 7.9/10 and a respectable 79% audience score with an average 3.3/5. It made $380m on its $120m budget, which is a big budget considering the first movie had ¼ of that.

I won’t lie, I don’t like this film very much, so let’s start with the narrative

Netflix Retrospective - Dragons: Race to the Edge season 1 episodes 7-9

 

Mini Review - Elektra

I was hoping to make a long review of this, but upon a rewatch, I didn’t think I had the material to do that. My thoughts on Daredevil have somewhat changed, but I’m leaving the details for something special next year, for now, just know that Elektra Natchios was introduced in that film and because of the relative success of Daredevil, a spin-off was released in 2005 with Elektra as the star

Elektra was not successful in any way, it scored a meagre 10% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average 3.8/10, it has an audience score of 29% with an average 2.6/5, but worse than that it made only $56.7m on a $43 budget, which when you factor in theatre cuts and marketing, results in a net loss for the studio. This film has a certain infamy as one of the worst (the worst is coming, we’ll get to it) but it that entirely warranted? Let’s take a look.

Netflix Retrospective - Dragons: Race to the Edge - Season 1 Episodes 4-6

 

Guilty Pleasures #54 - Pacific Rim: Uprising

There’s something about giant robots fighting giant monsters that’s just awesome. It’s why shows like Power Rangers, Transformers, Voltron and various anime still last till this day. I said I’d be awaiting this sequel with interest, and so here we are. Pacific Rim: Uprising.

Pacific Rim Uprising had a troubled development, there was a dispute over something or another (likely budget) between the distributors Universal Studios and the production company Legendary Pictures that lead to production being delayed by a year. Guillermo Del Toro, although instrumental in getting the film off the ground, was not directing this one (he was doing The Shape of Water, he got the better end of that deal) and a rewritten script by Steven S DeKnight (who also directs), Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder (no relation to Zack or Scott Snyder) and the soon to be infamous on Rage Issues T S Nowlin

The film had a budget of around $190m and made $270m at the box office, a significant downgrade on its predecessor and likely a financial failure for the studios. Critics and audiences gave it a mixed response with 44% and 41% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes respectively with average scores of 5/10 and 3/5. So, what is it about this one where people drew the line where they didn’t last time? Let’s take a look and find out.

Netflix Retrospective - Dragons: Race to the Edge - Season 1 Episodes 1-3

How to Train Your Dragon has been a great success for Dreamworks and whilst the latest film is to bring the film trilogy to a close, there may still be life for it on Television. Dreamworks’ Dragons began as 2 20-episode series, the first titled Riders of Berk and the second Defenders of Berk. I would have covered these but I don’t have copies of them and they’re not on Netflix, but the follow-up: Race to the Edge is, so we will be covering that. Whilst there are a few story beats that carry over between the series, there’s nothing that makes the show difficult to follow so without further ado, let’s begin this Retrospective on Dragons: Race to the Edge.