saw the live action flounder poster QRTed again and had a few separate but related thoughts
1. how do they make a toy of this
live action flounder is... just a fish, that looks either near-dead or at the very least is dealing with an amount of atmospheric pressure their body wasn't meant for. no matter the character, the toy department still has to do their work - so how will they manage that without giving kids nightmares
the easy option would of course to be just make new toys based on animated flounder - which i'm sure they'll do as well, but i think they probably have to at least try with what the live action version gives them. but that leads on to...
2. who or what is this for
my go-to, cynical answer is that these are for trademark renewals, but i think it goes beyond that
i think back to when i was a kid. 101 dalmatians (animated) was one of the few disney movies we owned on VHS (along with the lion king 2 and a handful of others that were never vaulted before we got to them).
do you know what films i never, ever wanted to see?
that's right, the live action version, as well as its sequel 102 dalmatians1
looking back, more than likely the only reason the animated version was allowed out of the vault at that time was from the bump it would get from or give to the live action version
the vault no longer exists (at least in terms of home video, it absolutely does for potential theatrical rereleases), but i think the strategy is pretty similar - pre-roll ad before the live action film for watching the original on disney+, new merchandise based on animated designs - just a very expensive marketing boost
3. i am oddly more excited for lilo & stitch
this was a thought i wasn't expecting to have, and i'm not normally in the camp of thinking darker/edgier/grittier media is better - but even if the live action version is effectively shot for shot, a realistic stitch is going to push things a little more towards a horror angle, and flounder shows they can do a pretty good horror angle when they're not trying to
i'm not see it in the cinema interested, or subscribe to disney+ interested, but unless they really fuck something up, i will watch a supercut of how they handle him extending and retracting the extra arms/antennae - and that's the most interested i've been in one of these as a film rather than avatar (blue version)-like pieces of ephemera that are never mentioned again the second they have left cinemas 2
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despite the fact that I 100%-ed the tie-in game where cruella attempts to inanimate TF dogs using plush goop 3, but that's primarily because it was basically a sequel to the animated film
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have you ever seen a TLK-sona based off the live action film rather than either the original films or the lion guard
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yes, this is the actual plot of 102 dalmatians: puppies to the rescue
