142 - This is my En-rant-o 🚫✨
Hey there, !
I loved Encanto. I know it's a film for children, and it has great visuals, a stunning soundtrack and a cute little story.
But because I like to suck the fun out of things (sometimes) I have lots of questions. Super 'CinemaSins' vibes, so if you're not into that jump to the Recommendations section!
Anyway, let's start (also I don't remember all their names so sorry about that):
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Okay so, to start, let's talk about their powers. Everyone in the family has powers, except Mirabel and the Grandma (Abuela). So, question:
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What's Abuela's power? She doesn't have one, right, so what kinda room does she have in the house? Did the house grant her just a super boring room, since all of the rooms are supposed to reflect the person's power?
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If Maribel didn't get a power, why was the Grandma such a bitch to her about not having one, since Grandma doesn't have a power either?? Why not take her under your wing and be like 'yo, you don't have to have a power, like me!'
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Okay, sure, the rest of the family has powers and they're needed for the community, and the whole message of the film is that Grandma is holding expectations that are too high for the whole family. But still - no-one chooses to ask 'what the hell do YOU bring Abuela??' Being head of the family is...a role but is that it? Controlling the rest of the family is the 'power' she holds? Paraphrasing the words of Betty White in Community - "I'm going to use my super strength to attack you, and you use controlling the family to defend yourself."
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Next, the powers are supposed to be for the rest of the community, and The Family are the main people who are able to help everyone out
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Except...some of them have way higher utility powers than others. I mean, super strength (Luisa?) shits all over the brother who can become a doppelganger for others. The only time he ever used it (that I remember) was to be the same height as another dude to put up a banner. Is that it?? What else could you be used for? Like - get him to pretend you're at home, when you're actually out cheating on your wife? How does he help the community??
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Even the auntie who controls the weather is just like...weird. Like, it doesn't seem like it's very controllable other than when she gets really angry or really happy. So how do farmers control their crop yields? Do they optimise how mean they are to her, or how many presents they give her to make her happy/sad on command? What a screwed up life - which is probably why she was so neurotic...
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Why does everyone revere the Madrigals?
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Maybe I'm being really Lex Luthor / Batman about this, but what's to stop strong girl Luisa from destroying everything? Are you trusting that the mum is only going to heal you - what if she hates you and wants to poison you? What if the flower girl uproots all your crops because she's just so coooooool? I'd honestly be trying to come up with ways to defend myself if they go craaaazy.
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The whole community has to trust that the entire family is going to be benevolent, all the time. What happens if the family snaps and decides they won't help? Has the community worked out how to live without the Madrigals? Crap, the church is leaning over - can we work out how to fix it ourselves? The donkeys are gone? Let's get together and find them! Instead, it all just gets given to the Madrigals. Lazy.
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They literally have the big house on the top of the hill. I'm reminded of Emperor's New Groove where he just wants to have the biggest house on the nicest hill, all the way at the top, ruling over their subjects. Which is kinda what's happening here, right? A ruling royal family that gives out gifts to their peasantry...class supremacy at work right there if you ask me.
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A funny thing just came up in my mind - how did Abuela know all the rituals that were required to open the doors?
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There's a whole ceremony and ritual that they have to do - bring the candle and the person to the door - did she make this all up? How does she know the miracle candle is going to do anything at all on a particular day in a person's life? How do they know that Mirabel isn't going to be able to open another door when she's a year older? How do they know all the conditions for The Doors?
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(This is just really me being like - if I was there I would scientifically try to work out the rules around this Miracle Candle. Does it work on anyone not from the Madrigal family? Did they even try, or did they just jealously guard the Miracle Candle for themselves? Does it work anywhere else in the town? What happens if water gets on it / wind blows too heavily and it goes out?)
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Has the town been secluded from literally everywhere else? Is everyone okay with that? No-one wants to leave?? No-one has stumbled across them or seen that 'hey there's this weird town over there that I've never seen on any map before?' Are they an uncontacted tribe?! What happened to the village that Abuela came from? No-one was like 'hey this mountain wasn't here yesterday'?
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Bruno's been in the walls for years (Mirabel was a kid, and then was a teenager - so what, like 9 - 10 years). Are you telling me in that entire time, the girl who can hear everything, everywhere in town isn't able to hear Bruno talking to his rats? Also, if you say 'well Bruno never had to say anything' okay sure but then his voice would be fucked up from underusage, right? Also, where's his toilet? Does he ever leave the house?! FML man it's like Parasite all over again.
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What are the limits of their powers?
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Like, super strength girl seems to be real strong (she literally pushes a church back into shape) - and holds up to 8 donkeys on her back. If it's magical, why not 9? or 10? Does she have an 8 donkey limit?
- Also, classic Superman / Spiderman conundrum - if you have unlimited power how come you aren't destroying everything you touch?
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How far can the mother's healing go? Can it heal cancer? How do people die?
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Can the weather girl control the tides? The moon? What are the impacts on the ecosystem if the weather is dependent on a human's moods?? How would crops know what season it is?
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What can doppelganger dude turn into? Anything he's seen before? Can he imagine he's a dinosaur and become a dinosaur?
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The flower girl seems to add a crapton of flowers everywhere - someone has to clean all that shit up right? Like there are SO MANY flowers that I assume die - who cleans that up? What happens to all the plant matter? You've just added a crap ton of matter to the biosphere (literally defying the conservation of energy / matter which has consequences! Or at least, it should)
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Honestly Dr. Dolittle dude is the best, but still unsure his value to the town. He can...enslave animals and tell them what to do? Or maybe they magically just want to do everything with their little dude? Cute.
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Bruno just needed a marketing person to work out how to communicate the future, rather than just panicking about it every time.
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WHY ISN'T ANYONE TESTING ALL THIS MAGIC?! They really need a scientist in there...
/endrant
Chat soon :)
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✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Lasagna Lab - cool place in Windsor that does some fascinating versions of lasagna. I went last week for this DELICIOUS duck, taleggio and macadamia lasagna that blew my socks off. It was so SO good - the service was great, the portions were generous - 100% recommended. Next on the list is to try 1800-LASAGNA which I have heard great things about too!
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instax mini 11 - a popular, small instant film camera that I got for my birthday - look out for some #instaxcontent! Super easy to use, the film is...relatively expensive (as compared to literally just using your phone) but it's nice to have as a keepsake. I will have to go roaming with it I think!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Bees Are Officially a Type of Fish, California Judges Say - the weirdest, funniest headline I saw this week. They're classified as a type of fish so that a particular piece of legislation covering endangered species of fish can be applied to bees LOL. Just Late Capitalism Things.
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Don't Wordle - actually so hard, essentially you have to try and LOSE at Wordle. I failed so many times - see how you fare?
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A Guide to Asking Robots To Design A Stained Glass Window - traveling down the DALL-E 2 lane again, checking how it creates different stained glass windows, and what types of words it can parse. Wish it was easy to access this stuff - I should really put aside some time to work out how to play with these things.