MovieChat Forums > Encanto (2021) Discussion > Cliche story that borrows from several o...

Cliche story that borrows from several others we've heard before


Let's see....

1.) Magical house - oh gee, haven't heard of that one before (looks at "Beauty and the Beast," "Beautiful Creatures," and several other fantasy stories that have magical, living houses/castles).

2.) Each family member has magical powers - Didn't they already do this in at least 3 or 4 different superhero films? They just weren't called "magical" powers.

3.) Main character has no powers - Wow, haven't seen that before (looks at films like "Up, Up, and Away," "Sky High," at least 2 or 3 Disney princess films, and at least 2 or 3 Harry Potter films). Chances are very high that she's got a super-super magical power, more powerful than anyone else in the family that lay dormant and she had to use the adventure to unlock it. If they want to really piss off the audience, they can do what "Up, Up, and Away!" did and have her "magical gift" simply be "believing in herself." Gee, that would go over well.

4.) Goofy side-stories in the adventure (looks over at "Moana," "Raya and the Last Dragon," and pretty much every other "ethnic" Disney cartoon from the past 5 years).

6.) Pandering to Latinos - Didn't they already do this with "Coco?" The Chinese loved that film more than the target audience!

7.) House is going haywire and everyone's losing their magical gifts - *yawn* seen that at least 4 or 5 times in both film and in books. Nothing new here. Chances are someone's messing up the magical environment, or some curse has come back to haunt the family, or they got their magic through some promise from an ancestor that was broken, and now the current family has to suffer for it.

8.) Main character is "plain" with glasses - HP already rocked the glasses. Not gonna work this time. Plus, she looks suspiciously a lot like a nerdy, less pretty version of Moana.

Just another current formula film that will be forgotten, nothing to see here.

reply

And looks too Luca-ish in a way that having a movie set in other country has to take ALL and EVERY aspect of said country to your face.

Luca was great when they were under water. It looked fresh. A mermaid (merboy / merlad?) movie BUT set in Italy. Very cool! But then they go up and everything has to be super duper "Italy" all of sudden.

Why can't they just make a movie set in a foreign country and leave it at that? Frozen was based on Norway, yet it didn't need to scream "Norway" or anything Scandinavia in every possible circumstances. Beauty and the Beast was supposed to be in France, but there is nothing "France-y" about the movie.

reply

What an uncultivated posting! You MUST be American...

reply

Even Aladdin did not scream "Iraq" or "Saudi Arabia" it's just somewhere in the Middle East but also somewhat India.

reply

Many people don't know that in the original tale, Aladdin was Chinese:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin#Plot_summary

reply

I didn't know that, thanks for sharing.

reply

Iraq and Saudi Arabia are pretty new states. The tale of Aladdin is much older. As old as Italia, which was even there 2000 years before America was colonized. So there is no need to scream "Iraq" in Aladdin. But there IS a reason to celebrate a culture that's much older than effin' McDonald's...

reply

You just made me snort my cola lol, I did think Aladdin screamed the Middle East, the Arabian desert for sure. I loved The Arabian Nights (or One Thousand and One Nights) tales as a little girl, my dad used to read them to me. Of course they were more pre-Islamic Persian stories, the culture was vivid and beautiful. I feel sorry for anyone who lets racial prejudice stop them from enjoying what other cultures have to show us.

reply

Hollywood ran out of ideas years ago.

reply

Sometimes formulaic is ok

https://moviechat.org/tt0076929/Wizards

reply

All fairytales, everywhere, have common themes, it's not so much taking from other stories as it is that people from all over the world are alike in our humanistic experiences.

reply

7. I can't stand when this happens

reply

So name movies that don't have any tropes in them. Encanto was great, it's meant for kids not adults who hate children.

6. Coco wasn't targeting the latino audience, it was targeting the non-racist actual humans audience.

reply