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kichimiangra · 6 years

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Random thing I occasionally think about that still bugs me # 57811

If I had any say in the behind the scenes of the animated film “Strange Magic” I would have played a few scenes differently.

-While singing and collecting flowers for her corsage thing Marianne accidentally flies into the dark forest where Bog King is overseeing the removal of the Primroses by his minions. Thinking she’s here to steal the Primrose petal for a love potion he attacks her. She puts up a decent fight with a stick (showing visually that she could be a great sword fighter if she stopped to hone her skill) but Bog still overpowers her. In the film Marianne and Bog don’t ever encounter each other until the 40 minute mark.

-Having her pinned to the ground Bog realizes that she was making the corsage thing and she’s wearing a wedding dress and steps away from her, telling her to get up, go to her wedding, and never return to the dark forest or he’ll tear her wings off. (Because he may have banned love like a dick in HIS kingdom but he still has a tiny soft spot and isn’t going to just kill her on her wedding day). She quickly leaves.

-She encounters Roland and tries to tell him she was just in the dark forest. While he freaks out about superficial things like how she could have gotten an unattractive scratch she says that after she’s queen she’s going to try and make peace between the two kingdoms because clearly the Bog King isn’t completely unreasonable considering she did trespass yet he let her go. She mentions an interest in being a warrior queen and Roland takes his sword away and tells her it’ll never come to that because he’ll be king and totally protect her with his awesome army and just ‘Liberate’ the forest from the Bog Kings ‘Tyranny’. (He means ‘take over’. There is no way Roland wasn’t looking to be a conqueror. He seemed less bothered about not being a king and more about not getting an army.)

-When the audience is introduced to Dawn and Marianne asks if she thinks Roland loves her and much as she loves him instead of saying “Who wouldn’t love you! You’re so...Totally... LOVABLE!” She says “Who wouldn’t love you! You’re so...totally... DIFFERENT!” setting up a precedent for Marianne being tomboyish prior to the wedding, and that she just downplays it to be more ‘feminine’ for Roland. This makes her completely uprooting her so-far-seen on screen ditzy love sick personality to become a badass during “Never fall in love again” look less shallow, as if she is embracing her true nature and hobbies that she suppresses to be a more ‘girly girl’. As it is without knowing much of Marianne prior to the plot starting it somewhat reads that she was more like Dawn, and Rolands infidelity caused her to reject her previous persona and craft a new badass one out of spite or fear of being hurt again, rather than rejecting a focus on finding and attracting Love and more putting a focus on embracing herself, who she is, and what she likes to do. Bog likes her for the character that she is for most of the movie but if that ‘character’ is just a persona she made to spite Roland or to ward off other suitors to avoid finding love again and isn’t her ‘true self’ it sadly makes the romance of the Main OTP of the movie look less authentic. There are a few pre-’Never fall in love again’ hints: Marianne swinging a stick like a sword when talking to Roland, her character model having tattered edges to her wings, etc. but they’re kinda missable.

-Now we can do a short reprise of “can’t help falling in love” duet with Roland. Not the whole song just like one verse and a chorus. Keep it short.

-We now see Dawn and Sunny together for the first time. The conversation is mostly the same but I wish Dawn would give us a better sense of how much time has passed between Mariannes wedding and now.

-Later at the spring ball add a small bit of dialogue from the Fairy King to make it more clear that he has no clue what happened between Marianne and Roland. He refers to it as the “Misunderstanding” but how much does he know?

-Change the Dialogue between Roland and Sunny. As it is in the film Sunny was too quick to give into Rolands sweet talk of a love potion. His first concern after being prompted was that it was a great idea to use a love potion but that only the Sugar Plum Fairy can make them. If the dialogue was changed to make Roland more convincing like “A love potion?! But... but that love wouldn’t be real...” “What are you TALKING ABOUT? Of COURSE it will be! Love is about being HAPPY and if a love potion makes her LOVE you then SHE’LL find her ‘Somebody’ and be HAPPY and she’ll love you so YOU’LL be happy!” LOVE is about making each other HAPPY!” For someone who is supposed to be Dawns friend he is very quick to think something to take away free will was a good plan to use on her. He didn’t falter on the idea. He only truly has regrets after she gets kidnapped by Bog as a RESULT of getting the potion, rather than of using it on her. He didn’t have much of a character arc.

-Pear? Pare? Y’know that big guy? He joins Sunny later to retrieve the potion from the imp. Afterwords he pretty much vanishes. He does really nothing for the story outside of singing a few lines of “Crazy little thing called love” and that’s it. He is expendable. Either remove him from the plot or expand his character usage. Have him be the opposite to Roland in relation to Sunnys character arc. Whereas Roland says “Go use a love potion!” Have Pear just be like “So why don’t you just go and tell her you like her?” Have Pear be this older married guy who tries to give Sunny love advice and Sunny being this young guy is like “You just don’t get it Pear. No offense man but you married an elf who runs a bakery. I’m in love with a FAIRY PRINCESS! She’ll never see anything like that in me. She’s way out of my league!” “Relationships are built on trust Sunny... maaaaybe using a love potion is a little.... distrustful?”

-The imp was a big deal for a little while. It’s only motivation seems to be using the love potion on people and then when caught is done with that and joins Sunnys party. It’s a plot device and nothing else. It could be downgraded in importance to the plot and lose basically nothing. Change how the love potion gets lost and it just happens to bounce around the wilderness dusting people randomly before hitting the ground. Sunny and Pear go looking for it and fined it pretty easily, but the imp shows for maybe the first time and takes it and runs. They chase and collect randomly dusted animals like the large lizard and a few others before the imp ends up dusting himself and joins the party of funny animals, Sunny and Pear. Maybe keep his role as Sunnys guide to Sugar Plum but then let him fall back.

-Sugar Plum Fairy. Why does she look like a little ghost and not a Fairy? I mean I know that in the Ye Olde days Fairy was an umbrella term for like.... basically every fantasy creature but this narrative has set up that Elves are little people, Fairies have moth/butterfly wings, and the things in the Dark forest are Goblins. Why does the Sugar Plum Fairy look like a ghost? Maybe keep her base design but change it so that she follows the same standard set by other fairies? Like with legs? I don’t hate it it just pulls me out of the story to wonder why she’s the only one who looks like that?

-At the Elf dance Bog shows up to retrieve the potion and takes Dawn captive as a bargaining chip. Marianne and the King are immediately held down during the song “Mistreated”. As much as I don’t doubt that the larger goblins could effectively hold a Fairy Marianne's size down, she is supposed to be sorta a badass swords woman who can go toe to toe against Bog himself. I’m not asking her to be able to easily break out of the Goblins hold, but maybe have a little fight choreography during the song. Marianne tries to fly to Dawns rescue but the goblins on Dragon flies keep knocking into her, keeping her low and making it a no fly zone. She has to fight her way on foot to the stage and does well right up until she gets Flanked by the large goblins and held down screaming for the return of her sister. Bog notices her and nochalantly asks uf they’ve met (Referencing the earlier change of them meeting on the wedding day). The rest of the scene plays out normally.

-Marianne enters the forest to go after Dawn. She sees some spooky stuff. Could be done Spookier though. The ferns that unravel could get her tangled like they’re reaching to grab her. The spider web she could get caught in for a moment and the sight of the spider scare her enough to struggle out. Just more visual scary stuff could be done.

-”I’m coming Straight on for you” that Tazmanian devil bullshit in the choreography. Make it stop and actually animate them fighting instead of spinning around.

-Dawn knows something about love and wants to sing about it..... despite the fact she’s spent a huge chunk of the movie dusted and the other chunk of the movie not knowing who she liked. Also Sunny didn’t earn the conclusion to his story arc. At least that’s my opinion.

-That Kaleidoscope thing at the end of “Wild Thing”. It just felt like something weird to go out on.

-I wish I knew more about this world created for the movie because there was some elf racism coming from the Fairy King at the end there. Like Marianne and Bog are shocking but A-OK, but Sunny and Dawn are faint worthy. I know I just said Sunny didn’t earn his ending and the King has every right to be like “THAT GUY STARTED THIS WHOLE MESS NOOOOOO!!!!?!?!” But he didn’t say “Sunny!?!?” he didn’t say “The elf?!” He said “An Elf?!”

#Random thing I occasionally think about that still bugs me #kc rants about kc stuff #Strange Magic

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