With the Avengers: End Game movie coming out and the focus on the Avengers here at Ghosts of the Stratosphere all week, I thought I’d take an opportunity to provide my take on the History of the Avengers. I’ll put a disclaimer on this now that it’s only my interpretation of the history of the Avengers so I’d be interested in any comments from any … Continue reading Jab’s Deep Dive: History of the Avengers, Part 1
Here’s something a little bit different- these reviews will more or less sum up and review the “Collections of Shorts” era of Disney features. The Story: Falling fortunes and World War II put a lot of studios in dire financial straights, and Disney was no exception. Therefore, some cost-cutting measures were taken with the next handful of pictures, starting with Saludos Amigos. These are the World … Continue reading Jab’s Disney Reviews: Disney’s Collection of Shorts
SAILOR MOON R- PART TWO Sailor Moon R is split into two separate bits, the first one a mini-arc I just reviewed, meant largely as “Filler” to move things along while they waited for Rumiko Takahashi to write more of the manga. The fact that the enemy used “Draining Energy” as their core concept was a big sign of that, as that’s the point of … Continue reading Jab Reviews: Sailor Moon R (60-62)
DUMBO (1941) Dumbo came on the heels of a couple of financial failures (Pinocchio & Fantasia), and so was one of the first Disney movies made “on the cheap”. However, this cheapness in animation allowed the directors to focus on acting rather than showing off fancy backgrounds, and so we got one of the more personable tales. And this one’s a doozy of an iconic film- is there any more … Continue reading Jab’s Disney Reviews: Dumbo and Bambi
FANTASIA (1940) One of Walt’s big “Doing It For The Art” pictures, Fantasia was high concept even for the new art form of Animated Film (like, this is the THIRD Disney feature). Walt REALLY wanted to add some culture to the genre, and so did a series of shorts based around pieces of classical music- stuff so elaborate it needed entirely new sound systems placed into theaters. … Continue reading Jab’s Disney Reviews: Fantasia
Sailor Moon R continues with the second half of “Part One”, continuing the “Filler Arc” High School students An & Ail are actually SPACE ALIENS, and they’re out to gather human energy for the “Makai Tree” that is their home. However, despite being lovers, they are drawn to humans Usagi & Mamoru, who are also Sailor Moon and… NOT Tuxedo Mask. Because Mamoru still doesn’t … Continue reading Jab Reviews: Sailor Moon R (52-59)
PINOCCHIO (1940): Written by: Carlo Collodi (original serial), Aurelius Battaglia, William Cottrell, Otto Englander, Erdman Penner, Joseph Sabo, Ted Sears & Webb Smith Pinocchio was the second Disney film produced, and now one of the most iconic, though like most of the post-Snow White canon, it initially failed at the box office due to World War II, and only made its money back through the “every seven years” … Continue reading Jab’s Disney Reviews: Pinocchio
SAILOR MOON R: The Makai (Demon… sorta) Tree, looking like a flying womb-tree-thing. Which isn’t far from what it actually is. Sailor Moon R is the name given to the second “Series” of Sailor Moon in Japan- the different arcs actually have different titles, rather than “Season 1/2/4/whatever” like you’d see over here. With the previous threat (and really, the Sailors’ ENTIRE REASON FOR EXISTING) … Continue reading Jab Reviews: Sailor Moon R (47-52)
Pictured: Literally the greatest end to a Series ever. It’s pretty hard to top “The hero’s friends love her SO MUCH that even DEATH can’t stop them from coming to assist her in killing a giant green deathbitch.” Aaaaaaaaaaaaand we’re back for the finale!! Since I’ve included a LOT of episodes-per-post, I created some fairly long articles that I’m sure some people TL; DR’d. Well … Continue reading Jab Reviews: Sailor Moon 44-46 – Season Finale!
Prince Endymion- our new General, and the brainwashed love interest of our heroine! How’s THAT for angst? And so we come to another review! We last left off with Episode #36, and we now learned that Usagi/Sailor Moon was the resurrected Moon Princess from an ancient Moon Kingdom that they’d been searching for all along (rendering a HUGE chunk of the show redundant), she now … Continue reading Jab Reviews: Sailor Moon 37-43
Nippy13 draws the BEST Disney Characters! SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937): Written by: Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Reedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Dick Rickard, Earl Hurd, Ted Sears & Webb Smith This is pretty much the single-most influential animated film of all time, being the first full-length animated feature EVER. Hell, this was the first time anyone had tried to animate full-scale realistic … Continue reading Jab’s Disney Reviews: Snow White
Sailor Venus- the fifth and final Sailor Guardian of the main cast. And we’re back!! When last I left off with these Sailor Moon reviews, we’d finished 29 episodes. Nephrite died a hero’s death, rejecting a lifetime of villainy, and our new general is the effeminate, vain Zoisite, who is after the Seven Rainbow Crystals, which the writers have clumsily told us is the ACTUAL … Continue reading Jab Reviews: Sailor Moon 30-36
WALT DISNEY PICTURES: I wasn’t always a huge Disney fan- in fact, for a bunch of my teen years, I’d had the typical “Disney is LAME, yo!” reaction of a spiteful teen, but had a growing fandom since then, after revisiting many of the older pictures of my youth. I’d yet visited Disneyland as an adult (I’d only gone as a teen), and hadn’t seen … Continue reading Jab’s Disney Reviews: Walt Disney Pictures
THE NEW MUTANTS: Mutants As Metaphor: -The idea that Mutants were a perfect metaphor for one’s Teen Years came to me a little late. Early on, it was a simple metaphor for prejudice- using a fictional minority to show the absurdities and horrors of man’s inhumanity for “the others” among them. And of course, it WORKS for that, and will pretty much always stay relevant … Continue reading Jabroniville Deep Dive: New Mutants
Welcome back! When last we let off, three Sailors had been assembled (the whiny Sailor Moon, smart Sailor Mercury, and grouchy Sailor Mars) by the talking cat, Luna, and sent against the Dark Kingdom. One general was now dead, but Nephrite was now in charge of the invasion. However, he was opposed by the scheming Zoisite (and her lover, Kunzite), and also befuddled by the … Continue reading Jab Reviews: Sailor Moon 23-29
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