“The BFG” Brings Together Disney, Steven Spielberg And Roahl Dahl For A Family Fun Adventure
“The BFG” is a modern day fairy-tale that tells the story of a young orphan girl who goes on an adventure with a giant into his world of Giant Country. That’s how to sum it up in one sentence but there is much more to the story than that.
Ruby Barnhill plays the brave Sophie.
The movie starts off where we see that Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) is awake while the rest of the orphans are fast asleep. Sophie hears a disturbance in the streets and against her better judgement looks out her bedroom window and is startled by the sight of a giant (Mark Rylance), rummaging in the street. The giant notices that Sophie has spotted him and decides to take her away to Giant Country because he fears that she will reveal his existence. Sophie soon discovers that the giant does not intend to eat her for a late night snack but is actually a Big Friendly Giant, or BFG, and they soon become friends and Sophie convinces BFG to take him on his adventures. While in Giant Country, Sophie and BFG come across much larger giants that are not friendly at all and have a taste for human flesh, yup, I said human flesh, and they especially like the taste of children. Both Sophie and BFG help each other conquer their own fears to help each other out and the rest I’ll leave in the SPOILER section.
The classic children’s book by Roald Dahl.
When this movie was first announced, I was shocked and excited to learn that this movie was actually happening. The biggest shock for me was that Steven Spielberg was directing the movie. Spielberg and Disney have never had the best history together, but in recent years both have softened. Also this was a Roald Dahl children’s book being adapted for film. Dahl is best known for writing Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, but he has also wrote some other children’s classics such as Matilda, The Witches, James And The Giants Peach and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. I have read several of Dahl’s books, but unfortunately have not read The BFG and wish that I had now to see how this movie compares to the actual book. I doubt Spielberg would stray too much from the source material and have heard that this does come close to the novel. Dahl’s books do seem to have a common theme in them. Well, one is they mostly involve children as the hero or heroine and the come from either a poor or broken home. They usually overcome great odds and find courage in themselves to overcome their obstacles and triumph in the end and The BFG is no exception.
Steven Spielberg and actress Ruby Barnhill on the set of The BFG.
This would seem to be the perfect marriage of one of the greatest directors, who really shines when it comes to working with young actors, and one of the classic children books’ author, Roald Dahl. Well, it is and it isn’t. I did really enjoy the movie, but at two hours long it did seem to drag at times. And then there are times, it felt like some parts were missing. This really was not your typical Spielberg movie. In fact, if I didn’t know who was directing this movie I would have guessed Tim Burton. The movie is very dark at times. Both in tone and visually too. The mean giants were scary at times but if your kids can handle The Wizard Of Oz, this should be a cakewalk for them. With Steven Spielberg attached to anything, you can’t help but expect more and for me it felt like this was not his best effort. John Williams composed the musical score for the film which was a nice surprise and his score is excellent as always. I will say that as soon as this movie started, I got an instant Harry Potter vibe from it. Similar Williams’ tune, takes place in London, with double-decker buses driving buy and an outcast kid with glasses. I was waiting for an owl to be delivering post. The BFG reminded me of King Kong as well, well, the later adaptations. Sophie is taken away from her home, spends most of her time in the giant’s hand, but eventually learns that he has a good heart and they both become friends and rely on each other.
Actor Mark Rylance bares a striking resemblance to his CGI character counterpart, The BFG.
Ruby Barnhill does an excellent job portraying Sophie and our heroine. She is smart, brave, loyal and adventurous and felt she was a great role model for children. And to think that she was basically acting alone in front of a blue screen is quite an achievement for such a young actress. Mark Rylance is outstanding as the BFG and he becomes a very lovable character for children. I am sure that a lot of that credit should go to the wizards at ILM. The BFG is completely CGI but you can definitely see actor Mark Rylance in his characterization. One thing that I was worried about is after seeing several trailers and TV spots for The BFG, it appeared that the giants looked too CGI and were noticeably not on screen with the human actors. But in the actual movie, that is not the case, and they seem to blend in well with Sophie and the landscape.
BFG doesn’t appear very giant-like next to the other residents of Giant Country.
OK. Getting into SPOILERSnow.
As I had said before, this movie seemed to drag at times, mostly because they had so much going on. The BFG spends his time searching for dreams. The dreams are kind of like glowing Tinkerbelles with various colors. Red meaning bad dreams and blue meaning happy and so forth. BFG catches these dreams and places them in a jar and then goes back to his workshop and blends certain dreams together to come up with very nice dreams for children and sometimes adults. Once the process is complete he goes into town, and with the aid of his trumpet, he blows these dreams into children’s minds. I kept thinking, how did he learn that, who told him that was his job? BFG is a lot smaller than the other giants and they actually seem like giants to him when they are all on screen together. Wondered if there was any reason for that? BFG has a task of creating dreams but the other giants dont? They mention that some children have been missing and it is assumed that those children have been eaten by the giants. For some reason the big mean giants are afraid of water, but the BFG is not. What is the deal with that? Sophie has an idea to convince Queen Elizabeth to help them defeat the evil giants and prevent the giants from ever eating children again. So BFG mixes up an elaborate dream for the Queen so that when she meets Sophie for the first time, she will understand the severity of Sophie’s request. Sophie and the BFG eventually sneak into Buckingham Palace but for me the Queen is convinced a little too easily. A this point I realized that this took place in the 80’s since Queen Elizabeth phones The White House and tells her staff to have Nancy wake Ron up and thought that was a nice touch. The Queen invites Sophie and The BFG to have a meal with her and it is a fun way of seeing this big giant interact with people, the expensive antiques and furniture in Buckingham Palace. One thing I hate in movies is fart jokes and there is a few in this movie. But the kids in the audience seemed to really like that scene, so maybe I’m just an old grump. Sophie’s plan is to have the BFG concoct a nightmare for all of the bad giants to scare them and then have the British military attack them in Giant Country. I know it is a kids book and it’s a children’s movie but the military defeats the giants with no weapons? And just used ropes to carry them away to a remote island by helicopters? I felt that they could have fired weapons at the giants and not have the weapons have any affect like the old Godzilla movies. Would have seemed better to me. At the end, Sophie is adopted by one of the Queens representatives but we no barely anything about her except for a few smiles and glances that she displayed to Sophie while meeting with the Queen. Just felt that some scenes could have been fleshed out more and some cut out all together to make it a more enjoyable movie.
End Of SPOILERS.
Fleshlumpeater. Not a BFG at all.
I had the feeling that Disney was hoping that this movie would be a huge blockbuster and I could really see one scene in particular being turned into a ride in the Disney Parks. I imagined we would go to Giant Country, maybe being similar to the vehicles in Dinosaur, and be in BFG’s home as Fleshlumpeater and his crew of mean giants search the premises for a snack. We would have to hide from the giants during several close calls without being seen. Unfortunately, it does not appear that this is going to do big box office, so we could forget about any ride in the future. But maybe with a good word of mouth and some help from overseas box office, it could turn itself around.
The BFG shows Sophie how he catches dreams.
Overall, I did enjoy the movie. It’s not my favorite movie of the year, but far from the worst either. I’m the kind of person that it usually takes about two viewings of a movie for me to come up with my true opinion of the film and I have a feeling I would enjoy the movie much more a second time around. Everyone in my audience applauded at the end of the film and for me that is always a good sign. It’s Disney, it’s Dahl and it’s kind of Spielberg. The BFG is a fun family film that I think both kids and adults will enjoy, but it drags at times, it’s a bit trippy at times and raises a lot of questions during the last third of the film. I wouldn’t expect Zootopia or The Jungle Book going in, but who knows? You may be surprised and The BFG may make a big connection with you.
Pretty sure no one saw this coming but according to Jenny Salesa, a member of New Zealand’s Parliment, the character Maui is too fat and portrays Polynesians in a negative light.
From Jenny Salesa’s Facebook page:
“When we look at photos of Polynesian men and women from the last 100-200 years, most of our people were not overweight and this negative stereotype of Maui is just not acceptable, no thanks to Disney. The environment our kids grow up in and what they are exposed to have a role to play. Disney movies are very influential on our children. It is great that Moana is the lead. However, it is disappointing that Maui, one of our beloved historical ancestors from hundreds of years ago, who was a very strong man [and] a skilled navigator, is depicted to be so overweight in this kids’ movie.”
“Maui” as potrayed is Disney’s “Moana”.
People are taking sides after Salesa’s comments and some are defending her while others think she is overreacting. Here are some Twitter reactions:
“Maui The Demigod”
I did some research into Maui and above is you traditional portrayal of the demigod Maui from Polynesian mythology. These depictions do show Maui to be incredibly strong (Maui lassoed the sun and pulled it down from the sky! For crying out loud!), he is very cut and he is in really good shape. So maybe for some Polynesians, that is how they always imagined him to be and I can see it being a bit of a shock to them.
“Maui” getting ready for action!
My personal opinion is that I dont think Disney is portraying the character Maui to be fat. In the above picture, he doesn’t look fat at all. He’s a big guy but he definitely is depicted with some big guns.
Some professional powerlifters. “Maui” says hi.
To me, Maui looks like a lot of guys at my gym and they are called “powerlifters”. A powerlifter is not looking to get cut or have killer abs but what they want to do is increase their strength and maximize how much they can lift. They focus on such routines as squats. deadlifts and bench pressing. A lot of linebackers in the NFL are powerlifters and have a similar physique.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson voices the demigod, “Maui”.
Also Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is portraying Maui and I am pretty sure if he was offended by Maui’s depiction, he would have spoken up and said something.
So what is your opinion? Do you think that Disney’s depiction of Maui is disrespectful to Polynesian culture or is this another case of someone making a big deal out of nothing?
Making Star Wars has revealed that next Friday, July 15th, ABC will air a new 3 minute trailer for “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”. According to the site, the trailer will debut during the 1 hour special, “Secrets Of The Force Awakens: A Cinematic Journey” which will air on ABC at 8PM.
Don’t be surprised if the trailer appears online prior to the special. We will post the trailer as soon as it is made available.
Dwayne Johnson has just shared on Twitter the first official movie poster for Disney’s newest animated film, “Moana”. Johnson also mentions that we will get a look a the first teaser trailer this Sunday!
Get ready for more Star Wars Battlefront because on June 21, EA is releasing the Bespin digital expansion for season pass owners. The content will then be made available to everyone else just two weeks later.
Players will get to battle it out through four all-new maps featuring iconic areas such as Cloud City, the Administrator’s Palace, Bioniip Laboratories, and carbon-freezing chambers.
In addition to the new maps, players will gain access to a new hero, Lando Calrissian, and a new villain, Dengar the bounty hunter. Both characters will have blasters, as well as their own unique abilities. Lando will be able to “use tricks against his enemies”, while Dengar wields a DLT-19, making him “the first Hero with a heavy blaster so far”.
Two new weapons will be added to the game’s arsenal, the X-8 Night Sniper and EE-4 blaster, though not much else is known about these weapons. Below is a picture of the EE-4 blaster.
Stay tuned for more Battlefront news as we head into E3 week.
Disney has just released the first trailer for their upcoming animated film, “Moana”. Looks like Maui is sporting “The People’s Eyebrow” for fans of The Rock. Check it out:
“Finding Dory” Is A Good Sequel To A Great Movie; “Piper” Short One Of Pixar’s Best
Can you believe it’s been 13 years since Finding Nemo was released? And I thought Alice Through The Looking Glass was a long time to wait for a sequel…
When last we saw Nemo, Marlin and Dory, everyone was happy. Marlin learned to have faith in his son’s judgment and that his son no longer needed his constant protection. Nemo was given the freedom to do things on his own and it created a better bind between father and son. Dory was accepted as a new member of Marlin and Nemo’s family and it was nice to know that she actually was part of a family when previously she just kept swimming aimlessly having no real attachments. Basically it was your definition of a happy ending.
When Finding Dory was first announced I was concerned because I felt, “Does this movie really need a sequel?” The original ended perfectly. Why mess with perfection? I was also tired of Pixar going sequel crazy and not coming up with original animated features, which long ago they were known for. It brought back painful memories of Cars 2. I was not a huge fan of Cars, but the sequel really made things worse for the franchise. In Cars 2, Pixar had a supporting character become the lead in the sequel, and that really ruined the movie. Mater was a clueless, naïve character that was tolerable in the original movie in small doses, but once he became the lead in the sequel, he quickly became annoying because he was always meant to be just comic relief. I was afraid that Pixar did not learn from it’s mistakes and we were going to see history repeat itself.
The good news is that after seeing Finding Dory I did not feel the same way as I did about Cars 2. It’s a good movie, well written and a fun story. The only thing I would say is that I still feel a sequel to Finding Dory was never really needed, but it does nothing to harm the original and Finding Dory itself can stand on it’s own as a good Pixar movie. I would say it is not in the league of Toy Story, Monsters Inc or The Incredibles, but it’s not at the bottom of the list either. It’s somewhere in the middle.
As traditional with Pixar films, we are first treated to their newest animation short, Piper. Piper is a beautifully animated film and in my opinion even more so than Finding Dory itself. Piper is a young sandpiper that struggles trying to overcome his fears of the big world ahead of him. It’s nice to see a movie with talking animals but sometimes it’s even nicer seeing animals being able to communicate to us without words and that is what Piper does as we witness his world from his point of view. Piper does an excellent job of conveying the story with just expressions and emotion and the short is very reminiscent of the best classic silent movies. Hopefully we will get to see more of Piper in the future. I really think that the next Piper could progress to a full featured animated film. Finding Dory may not be ranked at the top of Pixar’s movies but when it comes to it’s short films, Piper definitely is up there.
Finding Dory begins shortly after Finding Nemo where we find Dory(Ellen Degeneres) now living next-door to Marlin(Albert Brooks), Nemo(Hayden Rolence) in the coral reef. Certain words and objects activate memories for Dory of her past that include the memory of her parents (Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton). Remembering that she had loving parents makes Dory journey to find them. Marlin and Nemo join Dory on her quest along with some old familiar characters and some new favorites. Does Dory find her parents? Do we have another happy ending? You’ll have to see the movie yourself to find out.
I’ll get into the good first. Find Dory is not a rehash of the original’s story. It’s a smartly written original story. It can have it’s emotionally sad moments at times, but it focuses more on it’s comedy. Even though the movie is called Finding Dory, Dory is never really lost and I would say a more appropriate title would be Finding Dory’s Parents. For the most part, the original voice cast returns and performs another excellent job.
The movie is a definite upgrade, animation quality wise, from the original. The original was beautiful, but it’s like the animators learned how to fine tune the underwater world to make it even more visually striking. Certain things that I noticed this time around were the reflections of the fish as they came closer to the surface. It looks more realistic and really glad that they found the time to focus on such detail.
The humor is even better than the first. Some of the new characters are very funny, especially the sea lions (Idris Elba and Dominick West) and Becky, the whacky loon. Hank (Ed O’Neil), the octopus that we have seen in trailers, is a real visual treat. I doubt Pixar could have accomplished such a technological marvel in the original, but due to the advancements in CGI animation, Hank movies all of his appendages very realistically and cleverly blends into certain objects with the use of his camouflage-like abilities.
OK, so here is the bad. I felt the movie becomes overly complicated at times. I kept thinking, “How is a kid able to follow this story?” I just think they could have cut some of the scenes out and made it a little more direct. It seems a little bit like Mission Impossible where Dory has to do several things in specific order to get to a location she believes that is where her parents are. Then when she does get there, it’s the wrong place but there are clues to where the right place could be.
Another thing is Dory’s forgetfulness. One of the first scenes has Dory awakening from her sleep going into Marlin and Nemo’s home, the anemone, and being shocked over and over again and repeating the process due to her forgetfulness. It could have been three times, could have been four, but it stopped being funny after two. You meet baby Dori, who is really cute, but just as forgetful as Dory. We get several long conversations with Dory and another character and then Dory is distracted, turns around and says to the character, “Hi. I’m Dory”. It happened a few times in the first part of the movie and I was afraid that this joke was going to be constantly used throughout the film. Fortunately, as the movie progressed, so did Dory’s memory.
We also meet two new characters, Destiny the whale shark (Katlin Olson) and Bailey, a beluga whale (Ty Burel). They looked nice and will sell a lot of merchandise but I honestly think they weren’t needed and didn’t add anything to the plot. I felt that they could have been cut out all together and made the movie tighter. The great composer Thomas Newman returns for the musical score but it lacks the emotional weight and memorable pieces from the original.
The bottom line is Finding Dory is a fun movie that both adults and children can enjoy, just don’t expect it to be better than the first.
I give Finding Dory 3.5 out of 5 stars. Would have been a 3, but Piper is that good.
On Sunday evening, EA held their E3 event called “EA PLAY”. During the show, the company laid out the future of their Star Wars games for the next few years.
Throughout the rest of 2016, EA will continue to support games like Star Wars Battlefront, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, and Star Wars: The Old Republic with tons of new content, some of it will even be free! In December, Battlefront will receive a new premium DLC that has yet to be specified, leading most to speculate it will be a Rogue One tie-in.
Things start to get really interesting in 2017, when developers DICE and Motive release a new Star Wars Battlefront game, presumably Battlefront 2. The sequel is said to include a single-player campaign, which the first one lacked. For now, EA has just said that the game will include “significant additions”.
In 2018, players will get the Star Wars game that everyone has been so eagerly waiting for. The team at Visceral, makers of Dead Space, will be bringing an action adventure Star Wars game that is set in an all-new Star Wars universe. The game is expected to have a large emphasis on great story telling, thanks to the collaboration with writer Amy Hennig (writer for the Uncharted series).
Finally, EA mentioned that Respawn Entertainment (creators of Titanfall) is hard at work on a new third-person action Star Wars game. No specific release window was provided for the game, though it was mentioned that this Star Wars title will take place on a different timeline that has not been visited before in anyother Star Wars game.
Disney has released the official poster for it’s upcoming live action film, “Pete’s Dragon”. The trailer for Disney’s Pete’s Dragon will debut online tomorrow!
To celebrate, Bryce Dallas Howard will go LIVE on the Disney Facebook page this afternoon to present an exclusive sneak peek.
A reimagining of Disney’s cherished family film, “Pete’s Dragon” is the adventure of an orphaned boy named Pete and his best friend Elliott, who just so happens to be a dragon. “Pete’s Dragon” stars Bryce Dallas Howard (“Jurassic World”), Oakes Fegley (“This is Where I Leave You”), Wes Bentley (“The Hunger Games”), Karl Urban (“Star Trek”), Oona Laurence (“Southpaw”) and Oscar® winner Robert Redford (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”). The film, which is directed by David Lowery (“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”), is written by Lowery & Toby Halbrooks based on a story by Seton I. Miller and S.S. Field and produced by Jim Whitaker, p.g.a. (“The Finest Hours,” “Friday Night Lights”), with Barrie M. Osborne (“The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” “The Great Gatsby”) serving as executive producer.
For years, old wood carver Mr. Meacham (Robert Redford) has delighted local children with his tales of the fierce dragon that resides deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. To his daughter, Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), who works as a forest ranger, these stories are little more than tall tales…until she meets Pete (Oakes Fegley). Pete is a mysterious 10-year-old with no family and no home who claims to live in the woods with a giant, green dragon named Elliott. And from Pete’s descriptions, Elliott seems remarkably similar to the dragon from Mr. Meacham’s stories. With the help of Natalie (Oona Laurence), an 11-year-old girl whose father Jack (Wes Bentley) owns the local lumber mill, Grace sets out to determine where Pete came from, where he belongs, and the truth about this dragon. Disney’s “Pete’s Dragon” opens in U.S. theaters on August 12, 2016.
Ruby Barnhill does an excellent job portraying Sophie and our heroine. She is smart, brave, loyal and adventurous and felt she was a great role model for children. And to think that she was basically acting alone in front of a blue screen is quite an achievement for such a young actress. Mark Rylance is outstanding as the BFG and he becomes a very lovable character for children. I am sure that a lot of that credit should go to the wizards at ILM. The BFG is completely CGI but you can definitely see actor Mark Rylance in his characterization. One thing that I was worried about is after seeing several trailers and TV spots for The BFG, it appeared that the giants looked too CGI and were noticeably not on screen with the human actors. But in the actual movie, that is not the case, and they seem to blend in well with Sophie and the landscape.
