Macross Frontier Episode Guide 02: Hard Chase
After the previous episode’s cliffhanger, we pick up the action once more as Alto, Ranka’s brother Ozma, and Alto’s friend Michael battle against the Vajra that have invaded Island 1. Alto proves to be a surprisingly skilled pilot as he manages to keep Ranka safe even as the two of them face a variety of dangerous situations beyond even the attacking Vajra. Back on the ground after the battle concludes, Ranka attempts to express her thanks, but Alto is more concerned with the gruesome scene he witnessed earlier.
The next day, as life for most of the residents of Island 1 slowly begins to return to normal, Alto is instead whisked aways from his school classroom by Lieutenant Glass for blood tests and questioning over his part in the battle. Just as it appears Alto will have no choice but to join the military, Ozma appears to pull him out of the fire. Ozma brings Alto back to SMS headquarters as the various SMS crew members want to hear how Giliam died. Alto doesn’t get the chance to relate that story, however, as a few Vajra that hid on the underside of one of the ships in the Frontier fleet make themselves known and begin a new attack.
Meanwhile, as all this has been occurring, Ranka too had to have some health tests due to her close contact with the Vajra. On her way back home, Ranka gets flagged down by a disguised Sheryl. The famous idol has become lost on Island 1 as she searches for one of her earrings that fell when Alto caught her during her concert the previous day. Sheryl lets Ranka lead her around the city until nightfall where the two of them watch as Valkyries launch from SMS headquarters. In a very poignant moment, Sheryl finally reveals her true identity to an awestruck Ranka. Just then, Alto stumbles across the two girls both of whom are looking to talk to him, but before Ranka gets the chance to express her thanks and before Sheryl gets to ask about her earring, a flight of Vajra begin their attack nearby!
Specific Scenes I Loved:
Alto and Ranka reaching for each other in midair. This scene is highly reminiscent of a scene from SDF Macross and was a huge bit of nostalgia when it occurred. It was also just beautifully animated!- Ozma punching Alto when the later all but demanded to be given a military Valkyrie to fly when the Vajra reengaged the Frontier fleet. Sure, Alto seems to be a pretty good pilot, but as far as we know he has not had any formal combat training so it just makes sense that military veteran Ozma would have him thrown out rather than handing the skilled amateur the keys to a powerful weapon of war.
- Sheryl and Ranka’s time together. Sure, Sheryl spends most of that time fishing compliments out of her unaware fan, but she pays Ranka some compliments as well. The moment that Sheryl joins in with Ranka’s singing is just a spectacular, emotional scene. The look on Ranka’s face and the tears in her eyes as she realizes she’s just spent much of the afternoon with her hero is so, so good.
Episode Impressions:
This episode was somehow maybe even more exciting than the series opener! The first half of the episode is exhilarating. Alto’s piloting within the confines of the city streets was spectacular. It was also nice how the episode did a good job of highlighting some of the aftermath of the Vajra attack. That Alto was affected by Giliam’s gruesome death instead of just having that moment forgotten was a great touch of storytelling.
The second half of the episode slowed down a good bit, but the shift from fast paced combat to character moments was well done. Ozma seems pretty practical and level-headed about things even if he is keeping his real job a secret from his sister. That Cathy (Lieutenant Glass) and Ozma seem to know each other seems like it might prove interesting. It was nice seeing Sheryl out on her own. She was a good deal less haughty and reserved once she got away from her handler and escorts. She does maybe bask in Ranka’s admirations a bit too long, though. But that final scene where she reveals her identity made whatever else she’d done worth it.
It’s also nice to see an enemy that is kinda smart. Instead of straight up retreating, the Vajra managed to hide themselves and relaunched their attack. We still don’t know what they’re after, though. We haven’t even seen anything from the Vajra’s point of view yet. Maybe that will change next episode. In both SDF Macross and Macross 7 we saw a lot from the enemy’s point of view, so, if nothing else, it’s interesting we haven’t gotten that yet in Frontier.
Take note of the way the primary red Vajra seemed to look away from Ozma and be distracted directly after Ranka did her scream in the cockpit with Alto. It was almost like the Vajra was either distracted or maybe even concerned for Ranka.
Sheryl’s missing earring may seem like a small distraction, but it will drive a fair amount of plot and interaction over the next few episodes and is not just a one episode ploy that will instantly be forgotten.
Moment To Moment Notes:
0:46 -The view of things outside of Island 1’s dome is pretty neat.
4:16 – Picking up the girl and running away is another one of those tropes that happens a few times across Macross shows. This time, it is a pretty direct homage to similar events in SDF Macross.
4:22 – With a couple of notable exceptions (for instance, in Macross Plus) Valkyries have always been directly controlled by their pilots. I can’t ever recall talk of neural implants or the like. It would seem impossibly hard to pilot a giant robot that is also sometimes an airplane with just hand and foot controls… but whatever. It looks cool!
4:46 – I feel really sorry for that guy in the car! 😛
5:14 – At first I was wondering how much Alto was going to owe for blasting out a couple of hundred windows on that building… but then the Vajra slammed completely through it and crashed out through the roof… so, never mind.
5:25 – Having the arms shot off a Valkyrie and having to catch a girl is also something of a Macross trope. Again, this scene is a close homage to the original SDF Macross. Back then, Hikaru flew downward and scooped a plummeting Lynn Minmay into the cockpit of his borrowed fighter. So… similar scene here in Frontier, but opposite direction of movement. The animation here in Frontier is really good.
7:45 – Those Vajra sure are tough. And sure, gun pods and missiles don’t tend to kill them, but a charged knife does? Heh. Why not?!
8:31 – There was an instance in the original Macross where a Zentradi commander was blown out into space, but instead of dying, he walked along the outside of his ship and reengaged the good guys’ Valkyries after making his way back inside of an airlock. Though most Zentradi are several generations removed, their ancestor were specifically designed for combat. Apparently, that included some resilience to vacuum. That’s what Alto means when he says Ranka is tougher than she looks thanks to her Zentradi heritage.
8:45 – If it seems like Ranka’s hair sometimes moves on its own… that’s because it does. Apparently it has something to do with being part Zentradi. We haven’t seen this type of movable hair before in Macross…
14:43 – The music Ozma is listening to is “Totsugeki Love Heart” (Charge Love Heart) by Fire Bomber, the band who stared in Macross 7.
15:47 – I like that Sheryl’s cell phone has a holographic “talking” indicator when she speaks. Also, look closely at her replay of the concert and you’ll see her earring go flying off towards Alto. That’s why she is so interested in finding him!
16:24 – Look closely at what’s on that crate. In the lower left, among Gilliam’s things, is Sheryl’s earring.
16:45 – Sheryl dressing in big sunglasses and a floppy hat so as to conceal her identity is similar to what Lynn Minmay did so she could sneak away from her life as an idol and spend an afternoon with Hikaru in SDF Macross.
16:50 – These roaming vending machines have been the bane of people’s existence since the original Macross! They’re always interrupting conversations or bothering people. 😛
18:23 – Female officers on the bridge of Macross class ships is a long held (anime) tradition. They are affectionately referred to as “bridge bunnies” by Macross fans. Over the course of each Macross show, the various bridge bunnies have gotten sometimes more and sometimes less individual character development. Frontier’s get about as much attention as any. They have names and even personalities, but will rarely be seen off their bridge.
Looks like we’ll see some more combat next episode. Also, looks like we’ll get to see Ranka sing but it’s unclear if that brief glimpse was in the current day or part of a flashback. The most interesting part to me was where Alto stomps on the “in case of emergency” button and he, Sheryl, and a possibly injured Ranka jump down into something. An emergency shelter to protect them from the Vajra attack, maybe?
Bite-sized Backstory 51: The Mutiny
The Awoken’s political troubles have finally come to a head. Those Awoken that had been threatening to leave in order help the people of earth actually carry out their threats. Despite the best efforts of Mara and Sjur, the first ship of those who wish to break away manages to depart the reef. Mara even tries to send a shutdown command to the ship in a similar way she had absolute control over the Hulls that took her people away from the Distributary, only to find out that it will not respond to her commands. It is one from Humanity’s golden age, not one based on the Hulls Mara’s people brought from the Distributary so her overrides have no power over it.
Once the first ship breaks away, Mara recognizes that the worst that can happen has happened, and that trying to prevent the other ships from leaving will just cause unnecessary deaths. So, Mara orders Sjur to broadcast to the other rioters that they will be allowed to leave peacefully as long as they go now. Again, we see some of the special magic possessed by the Awoken and by Mara in particular. Sjur replies that there is no need to tell them because she and all the rest of the Awoken heard Mara’s proclamation directly!
We take a little look ahead here, a little extended look at what these Awoken accomplish after the split away from Mara’s group. We’re told that they go down to the earth with a level of technology and knowledge that save thousands of lives even in just the first year. These Awoken are seen almost like angels with their glowing skin and impossible tech and strong desire to help. For the first time in years or decades, the people of Earth are able to look up into the stars and know that there’s more than just doom up there. Over the next few centuries these Awoken integrate into what’s left of human society and over time their attachment to the Distributary and the Reef and Mara fade. But, we’re told they always have a little connection to Mara, some little tie that they can still feel. I think there’s still a bit of Awoken magic linking them back to Mara Sov.
This split of Mara’s Awoken into two peoples has some immediate implications for the Reef. For one, Mara finally listens to the advice and criticism everyone around her has been dumping on her. She stops trying to treat her people as equals and finally takes her place as the Queen of the Awoken. Following the example set by Alis Li so many thousands of years ago, Mara designates the Techeuns, a group of scientists and thinkers, to explore the mysteries of the universe, and a group of Paladins who will lead the Awoken’s security and defense.
And then the Fallen attack! A single Ketch spotted the earthbound Awoken and tracked their course back to the asteroid belt. The Reef spots the large warship coming and makes it’s power known by gutting it in an instant using some of their limited supply of weapons they brought from the Distributary. But, it turns out that the Fallen are just a bit smarter than that. The Ketch didn’t just fly in confident of a sure victory. Instead, its Baron pre-deployed all his dropships so even though his ketch is destroyed in an instant, his attack force is still largely intact.
Mara, freshly crowned Queen that morning, takes to the personal defense of her people. We’re told that Sjur is encased in a full combat suit, but that Mara fights in the open. She knows that her people need to be able to spot her and be able to see her vulnerable so that they will rally to her side. And it works. With Sjur handling the larger threats, and Mara serving as a rallying force, and Uldren watching his sister’s back, the Awoken of the Reef once again put aside their differences and come together as a people.
While Mara and her brother are busy inside, Sjur is busy outside engaging the Fallen Baron and his forces in zero-g combat near the exterior of the Sacred Fire. The Fallen had attached a Spider Tank to Awoken’s largest habitat ship and it was up to Sjur to stop them. I’d love to see this scene rendered by cutscene studio Blur or someone. Sjur and a large Fallen Baron leaping among asteroids and debris. The Baron and his spider tank trying to pin Sjur down. Sjur finally ending the Baron with a single well aimed arrow through the throat. But, even with the Baron dead, Sjur still has to stop the tank from destroying the Sacred Fire.
It’s here that Sjur knows she is going to die. Remember, she told Mara that her death would be doing something incontrovertibly heroic. Her only chance to save thousands of her sisters and brothers is to hastily place an explosive charge down the tank’s main gun. When it fires next, it will detonate in a devastating backfire that Sjur knows she will be unable to get clear of. And it does. And Sjur is engulfed in the blast. And Sjur is… not killed. She’s not even harmed! How is that possible?!
Earlier, before the Fallen attack, before Mara became Queen, her lead researcher had revealed more about the research they have been doing into the Awoken’s special form of magic. Not only can every Awoken subtly affect outcomes, Mara herself seems to be the source and concentration of that power. And those subtle effects seen in other Awoken are massively increased for Mara. Simulations show that Mara’s subtle magic is so powerful that even things like weapons and bombs don’t work properly around her. The fundamental physics that would normally control a trigger mechanism of a gun or bomb are literally thousands of times less likely to function correctly if triggered near Mara Sov.
This is what saved Sjur. Mara focused her power and instead of dying, Sjur is thrown safely clear of the blast. As Sjur wonders what happened she see’s Mara’s face projected into her mind and she knows who saved her.
Next time, we’ll look at some of the more obscure connection to past Destiny lore and reach the end of the Reef’s beginning.
Chapters Referenced:
Review: Toy Story 4
Toy Story 4 did it! It managed to continue the series’ nearly twenty-five year legacy of excellence. What could have been a disappointment or a money grab instead turned out to be a fun adventure and an even more fitting conclusion for one of the franchise’s most important characters.
When I first saw the announcement of Toy Story 4, I was saddened because I was afraid that making a 4th movie in the franchise would tarnish the other three. Toy Story showed us what our toys do when we are out of the room, and ushered in the concept of fully CGI films. It changed the animation industry forever. Toy Story 2 was an excellent followup that explored the world of mint condition toys and toys that get outgrown by their owners. And Toy Story 3? To me, it felt like the proper end of a long era. It advanced time forward so that we saw Andy grow up. It took a fun look at the hyperactive toddlers that toys sometimes have to endure. It provided a peak at how toys might feel to be replaced by the same model. And it provided a tearful passing of the torch from Andy to the incredible cute Bonnie. Andy’s toys were safe with a new child and had another lifetime of adventure ahead of them. What more needed to be said?
Well, as positive as the Toy Story films were about the way our toys view us, the previous movies left a few dark corners unexplored. In Toy Story and Toy Story 2, we’re given the impression that lost toys and toys without a child to play with them are destined to be bitter or emotionally traumatized. Toy Story 3 showed us one way our toys can still be happy once we outgrow them. That by passing our toys down they can continue to be there for a child. But it also left open a cycle of happiness but with an ever looming sadness on the horizon. But now, Toy Story 4 has shown us that even the toys we lose track of can have happy endings. By showing us additional positive outcomes for toys without owners, Toy Story 4 earned it’s place among its predecessors.
Toy Story 4 did this by giving Woody an even better ending. I think it took a lot of effort and talent for Pixar to recognize that Woody’s story never really had a happy ending before. It wasn’t that Woody wasn’t happy to be passed down to Bonnie, he was, but was that enough for the character? I think someone must have come back to Woody’s quote from Toy Story 2 and realized that it left some little dark corner unfulfilled for the character. Near the end of Toy Story 2, Woody says, “You’re right, Prospector, I can’t stop Andy from growing up, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” This was a great decision for Woody in the moment, but even after being passed down to Bonnie, this same statement delays the inevitable for Woody. Or maybe it too strongly linked Woody’s happiness to the times he has an owner. By the end of Toy Story 4, Woody no longer has dark times ahead of him. Toy Story 4’s ending is also in line with Woody’s character. Woody was always helpful and heroic, but was also always afraid of being left behind and even somewhat afraid of not being in charge. All of those fears are wiped away by the end of Toy Story 4.
Along with wrapping up Woody’s story, Toy Story 4 also excels at everything the series is known for. It is prettier than ever. Having only seen it once, so far, I can’t give a lot of examples. Thing just looked amazing in general. I can’t wait to get this film on Blu-ray to pause and admire the sheer amount of artistry Pixar has put into this movie. Also, I didn’t catch many of the classic Pixar Easter eggs, so I can’t wait to hunt those down as well.
Toy Story 4 is also well written, very funny, and is tearfully touching in the moments it wants to be. The story team did not check out for the fourth movie like I feared they might. I think the only things I wasn’t 100% happy with was the way that Buzz got just a little stupider between Toy Story 3 and 4, and the presence of Forky. Buzz not quite grasping the concept of his inner voice was hilarious but also slightly disappointing given that he seemed much more together in Toy Story 2 and 3. And Forky? He was a funny character and an amusing twist on the question of why toys even are alive… but ultimately I think they could have left him out and had some other toy lead our heroes to the antique shop just as easily. Is fun but unnecessary really want we wanted out of a new character four movies in?
Overall, maybe Toy Story 4 fails to find a new big issue to address, but it more than earns its keep with its clever, heartfelt writing, laugh out loud humor, and a second look at some of the more subtle troubles past movies set up. Visually, it looks as amazing as any Pixar movie made and storywise it stays consistent to its characters while finding new, positive solutions to their problems. This time around, Pixar showed it could continue to make Toy Story films after achieving a near perfect conclusion in Toy Story 3. Because of that, I think I would welcome a Toy Story 5 with much less trepidation that I greeted 4 with. It is beyond hard to find any entertainment property that has a string of four outstanding successes. But with Toy Story 4, Pixar has somehow managed to make a thoroughly enjoyable movie that does right by its predecessors. When the work you are being compared against is the Toy Story franchise, that is some of the highest praise that can possibly be given.
I enjoyed Toy Story 4, and I hope to see it again soon.
Bite-sized Backstory 50: The Plight of Earth
All night, following Uldren’s return, Mara isolated herself from her brother. From her advisors. From even Sjur. What Uldren’s scouting mission had discovered was both inspiring and devastating, and it left Mara with a weighty decision to make. By morning, Mara had made up her mind, but now she had to tell her people. And it wasn’t going to be easy.
Mara called together the elected representatives of her people to the Sacred Fire, one of the largest ships they had salvaged from the Golden Age reef. Set up in a large room with a holo projector, Mara and her brother present what they have found.
“We’ve found Humanity,” she tells them. “We’ve found our ancestors.”
Uldren snaps his fingers and a holographic recording from his ship lights up the room. The disorienting view plunges down through the clouds then skims the terrain until it comes across the beginnings of The City and, above it, the battered remains of the Traveler. The Awoken in the room gasp and marvel. This is something out of their fairy tale storybooks, out of their ancient history they weren’t complete sure was real. And now it is real. But, for Mara, this thrilling scene is dangerous. She knows what her people will want to do, and she knows what she will have to tell them.
One of the Awoken in the gathered crowd, the historian Esila, voices that danger:
“What are we waiting for?” she calls. “That’s everything we came to find! They need us, and that’s where we belong!”
With a look from his sister, Uldren continues the playback from his fighter’s cameras. From somewhere nearby, the trees rumble and a red-brown aircraft shaped like a fat, wingless, furiously angry dragonfly bursts from cover and climbs to intercept. It launches a swarm of missiles at Uldren and he has to pull a tight, high-g turn to evade.
“Those are Fallen,” Uldren says. “They’re a species of interstellar scavengers and subsistence pirates. They’ve been here for a long time, and they’ve sacked most of the large settlements that survived the original fall of Humanity. There may be more Fallen than there are Humans left on Earth.” He lifts his chin to bare the pale scar across his throat. “I landed and went looking for prisoners. I was ready when he pulled two knives on me, but it turned out he had an extra set of arms.”
Mara steps in to further emphasize the point. Not only are there likely more Fallen in the solar system than there are Humans, they aren’t the only threat. Mara tells her people about the Cabal occupying Mars and about Mercury lost the to Vex, an enemy that Humanity had encountered back during its Golden Age.
Elisa speaks up again:
“So they need our help, don’t they? We have to go to them! Our ships, our technology—we could make all the difference.”
Now comes the part Mara struggled with. The part she had been dreading the previous night. She stands there and tells Elisa and the rest of her people “no.” Mara explains to them that while it’s true they could provide some assistance, that doing so would leave them vulnerable. It would allow the Fallen to track their ships back to the Reef. It would see their expedition destroyed before they could really accomplish their goal to save Humanity.
Elisa responds from the crowd once more:
“Mara, with all my respect, all my genuine gratitude for bringing us here,” Esila sighs, “who died and made you Queen?”
Although she doesn’t speak it, Mara knows the answer to that question. All of them died and made her queen. But, remember last time? Mara is not trying to be a queen to her Awoken. She is treating them like equals. She and her brother right now are standing before a crowd of elected representatives. And, right now, those representatives and the public opinion they represent are all trending against Mara.
After the conclusion of the gathering, Mara meets with her brother and Sjur in private. Sjur is busy patching up more of the wounds Uldren suffered during his scouting mission. She and Mara hold a conversation as she does so. Things are bad, Sjur confirms. Almost a full third of the Awoken have indicated they want to split off from the Reef and head to earth. And worse, among the highly influential Awoken that hail back to the 891 who were reborn remembering their past, that number rises to almost 80%.
What this all means is that Mara has a significant political problem. Maybe her first in the thousands of years that have passed since she awoke on the Distributary. If a third of her people split away, it will leave the Reef with a shortage of technical skills and will diminish their somewhat fragile gene pool. That alone would do great harm to Mara’s mission. If, in heading to earth, her people alert the Fallen to their location, it could destroy everything. Sjur, certainly thinks that it will.
“I know,” Sjur says, heavily. “That’s when I’m going to die.”
Mara, of course, declares that unacceptable, but Sjur figures her death is inevitable. And she predicts that it will be when the Fallen soon come for them. After all, she is the Queen’s body guard. If she is going to die at all, it will be in a moment of great heroism. Mara objects, reminding Sjur that she has not taken the position of queen. But, to Sjur, Mara denying her own position is part of what is causing her so many political problems in the first place. And Sjur says so.
We don’t get a real response from Mara on that political point, but to Sjur Mara responds:
You won’t die. I won’t allow it.
Chapters Referenced:
Macross Frontier Episode Guide 01: Cross Encounter
First off, a programming note. There are multiple versions of the initial episode of Macross Frontier. One was an early release with incomplete effects. Another was a slimmed down version for its regular tv slot. What you’re looking for is the Yack Deculture edition. It’s a little longer, at around 31:39 or so, and has a few more character scenes than the other versions. If your version is shorter than roughly 32 minutes keep looking as you’ll be missing out on some content.
Episode Summary:
When Macross Frontier debuted, it had been 14 years since the last full Macross series, Macross 7, and more than six years since the first episode of the five part OVA series Macross Zero had come out. Nobody really knew what to expect from this new series. SDF Macross had been about a lone Human ship on the run from an overwhelming force of enemies where our culture that included things beyond hatred and warfare had saved the day. Macross 7 had been about getting a very alien set of enemies to open their hearts to the power of rock. Macross Zero had been about the effects of the modern world intruding on a primitive island culture. So, what about Macross Frontier? What would it be about?
When Frontier opens, it does so back in space. Macross hasn’t been in space for almost a decade and a half! We get a beautiful view of the Frontier fleet and we first meet a young woman named Sheryl who is excited to see a ship containing an ocean out the window of her approaching starliner. Apparently, Sheryl is a songstress known as the Galactic Fairy, and she is ending her long tour with a series of concerts on Frontier.
We’re quickly introduced to our second main character, Alto Saotome, a young man who enjoys flying and aerial acrobatics but who is oddly bitter at the limit of the sky within Frontier’s main city being too low for his liking. Alto’s friends also tease him a little about looking like a girl and it is briefly mentioned that he used to be a kabuki actor. If one knows anything about Kabuki, one has got to wonder just what kind of role Alto played. At one point in time all parts in Kabuki dramas, even the female ones, were played by boys!
Soon, we get our first glimpse of our third main character, the somewhat younger green-haired Ranka Lee. She works at a restaurant called Nyan Nyan, and seems a bit clumsy, but we also learn that she is related to a pilot in an elite part of the Frontier’s military. Other than that, though, Ranka’s role in Frontier’s story is still very unclear.
Finally, part way into the episode, the Frontier fleet has what seems to be its first encounter with a new alien force not yet seen in Macross. Ranka’s brother and Frontier’s president seem to know them as Vajra. Ranka’s bother in particular makes a comment that seems to indicate he’s been waiting for this day. Possibly to get revenge?
This episode has everything it needs to make it a true Macross show. It has fighter pilots and transforming fighter planes and missiles and gunfire going every which way. It has what could be the very first stages of a love triangle between Sheryl, Alto, and Ranka. And, it has music galore thanks to an impressive opening number performed by Sheryl.
Macross 7 had been very repetitive using the same animation loops and songs over and over again across nearly fifty episodes. Macross Zero had been visually impressive and had good characters, but it’s pacific island setting had left fans wishing for a return to space and politics and more typical social interactions. So far, Frontier seemed to be checking all the boxes. Fans were impressed with the first episode of Frontier, but there were still a lot of unknowns about the series and its characters.
Specific Scenes I Loved:
- The introduction of the Macross Frontier fleet. The initial exterior shot shows just how massive a collection of ships Frontier is. There’s a main “Island 1” at the head of the fleet and then several (I counted 20 or more) smaller pill-shaped islands stretching along behind. Just from a rough guesstimate, I’d put the pill-shaped islands at maybe five miles long each with the main island being a little bigger. That’s a whole lot of land area complete with seas and mountains and at least one main city with a population that must be in the millions.
- I also love that initial shot of the trolley car and surrounding city. We’ll see even better shots of the city as the series progresses, but that long pan up the street along with the traditional trolley car makes it clear that the city is large and high tech, but is also a place where tradition and familiarity is at least as important as technology.
- The little history lesson at the beginning. Macross Frontier has these short segments near the start of its first few episodes in order to help get views up to speed on a few different aspects of the Macross universe.
Sheryl’s concert. The concerts in SDF Macross, and Macross 7 were far more static affairs probably due to budget and animation challenges of the times. Macross Zero did not have a typical pop/rock music idol as its songstress, so while most of the OVA’s animation was very impressive, there just wasn’t much to animate music wise. Only the trippy, psychedelic holographic performances of the artificial intelligence Sharon Apple in Macross Plus comes close to the level of art and animation that Macross Frontier just demonstrated. - Alto climbing into a downed Valkyrie seems to be a close parallel to Shin Kudo doing much the same in Macross Zero.
Episode Impressions:
Overall, I like this episode. It’s a little fast paced and certainly it doesn’t stop to explain every little thing, but it sets up our three main characters. The alien attack that is still in progress seems to be pointing the way to the overall conflict that the Frontier fleet will face. The artwork has some problems here and there, Alto flying with his paper airplane has what should be 3d buildings instead drawn as 2d textures on the ground and it’s a bit jarring, but aside from a few other minor animation errors most everything else looks excellent. We were left in something of a cliff hanger at the end of the episode, so it will be interesting to see what happens next.
I also like this opening. The song points very heavily to there being a typical Macross love triangle between Alto, Ranka, and Sheryl, but the imagery from the traffic on a busy street to the hectic battles in space are all pretty awesome. I think my favorite part is the Valkyrie taking off right beside Alto as he is launching off the roof of his school in his Ex-gear.
Since this is only the first episode, there aren’t a lot of plot points that need to be called out. Or, maybe, being the first episode, nearly everything that happens is important? The one standout plot point that this episode threw us was the reveal that the “Galactic Fairy” Sheryl refers to herself as and is known as Sheryl Nome. We could be in for a wild ride if Sheryl is somehow related to the Nome sisters of Macross Zero. Their bloodline nearly saw the earth destroyed by a left behind alien guardian, after all.
Aside from that, here are the moment to moment notes I jotted down during the episode. There were a couple of fun Easter eggs and a few good callbacks to past Macross series along with some lovely background animations that are worth admiring.
0:00 – This episode opens with the phrase “Yack. Deculture.” This is a Zentradi phrase that has a number of meanings. Back 50+ years ago, when the Zentradi attacked earth, this phrase of theirs was almost always used as an expletive. Zentradi would speak it when they saw something they could not comprehend or yell it when their fighters or ships were about to be destroyed. Since the end of the war, the Zentradi have largely integrated with humanity and the meaning of the phrase has shifted and softened. By the time of Macross Frontier, it has a wide range of uses from surprise, to excitement, to being a compliment. In rare cases, it is still used in its original connotation.
1:08 – The Frontier fleet is beautiful and massive. It’s one of my favorite all time fleets because of its size and complexity. Note that there are several “island” ships trailing the main “Island 1” in the distance. Surrounding the fleet is a large number of support vessels including quite a few carriers and warships. Though never directly stated in this series, the Macross colony ship fleets are always supported by a sizable military escort because even 50+ years after “Space War 1” back in 2009, there are still an unknown number of rogue, warlike Zentradi fleets in the galaxy. Traveling on a long term exploration mission without an escort would be ill-advised.
2:13 – The scene here depicts a scene in the Macross movie “Do You Remember Love?” where several of the main characters were captured and spoken to / interrogated by the leader of the Zentradi fleet that attacked Earth. On the left is Hikaru, a Valkyrie pilot and the original show’s protagonist. In the middle is Roy Focker who also appears in Macross Zero and Misa Hayase who plays a somewhat similar role to Lieutenant Glass who escorts Sheryl on Frontier. The original show’s main singer, Lynn Minmay is being held in the Zentradi’s hand to the right.
4:42 – The fourth listing on the flight schedule “Satelight” is one of the two animation studios that worked on Macross Frontier.
5:27 – Nome? As in Sara and Mao Nome from Macross Zero? Up to this point, Frontier has only referred to Sheryl as “Sheryl” and here it drops the big twist that she might be related to the islander sisters who helped UN forces finally put an end to the destabilizing anti-UN forces a year prior to the launch of the original Macross ship at the beginning of Space War 1.
10:30 – The thought is that the Frontier fleet doesn’t make a lot of hyperspace folds because of just how huge it is. Instead, it makes long jumps from one candidate star system of potentially habitable worlds to the next, then it stops for long stretches at a time to refuel and resupply from asteroid belts and gas giants before making its next big jump.
14:14 – Looks like AI controlled Ghost fighters, which were in the initial prototype stage back in Macross Plus, have come into widespread use after all! Ace test pilot Isamau Dyson was so against the Ghost program that he went AWOL to earth in order to shoot down the first prototype Ghost fighter so as to prove that human pilots were better. That Ghost fighter was more than a match for Isamau and his rival/friend Gould, but they don’t do very well here thanks to the powerful jamming.
15:15 – I love the constant sparkling presence of the skycars traveling along their paths on Island 1’s outer dome. We’ll get brief up close glimpses of those trams and their shell stations later on in the series
15:41 – Nyan Nyan was the restaurant that Lynn Minmay worked at in SDF Macross. It was run by her uncle. I guess it survived and expanded into a franchise! Remember, anything that survives the original SDF Macross show or the “Do You Remember Love?” movie is very remarkable because the vast majority of the earth was destroyed in a single Zentradi fleet wide orbital bombardment.
15:53 – Ranka’s little song ends in “Deculture”, demonstrating one of the ways that phrase has slowly merged with everyday life. Now, what was once an expletive, is just part of a restaurant’s marketing jingle and its meaning has shifted to reference the quality of the food and dining at the restaurant.
16:43 – I love the carrier here that can launch fighters from the top and bottom decks. We saw some other novel launch methods in previous Macross works, but I think this one is by far the best as it uses spaces’ 3d nature to good effect.
21:48 – “Super Packs” are additional modules fitted to a Valkyrie that give it extra maneuvering thrusters, fuel, and armaments meant for space combat. “Armor Packs”, are similar but are more weighted towards the armament side of things. You can see the pilot that chases the red Vajra into Island 1’s dome jettison his pack just before he enters.
22:05 – Note that Sheryl’s appearance changes from an elaborate outfit to what almost looks like a skin tight diving suit when the evacuation order is issued. By this point in the Macross universe, full body holography is a thing. We saw it in “Do You Remember Love?”, the followup movie that retold the original Macross’ story, and saw extensive use of holograms in Macross Plus where the virtual idol “Sharon Apple” put on very trippy holographic concerts. It seems that Sheryl might not always be as provocative on stage as she first appears.
23:09 – Skull Squadron, first featured in SDF Macross, has a long history of being the best of the best within Macross. It also has a history of its leader dying. We’ll see how that goes.
27:32 The scene of the tanks shooting at the Vajra is an almost direct homage to an extremely similar scene in the original Neon Genesis Evangalion. Right down to the enemy firing back and obliterating the entire block.
29:41 Yep. Another inexperienced pilot climbs into a Valkyrie in the middle of a battle. This happens a lot in Macross. It happened in the original, in Macross Zero, here in Macross Frontier, and will happen again in Macross Delta, the show made after Frontier. It’s almost a trope unto itself now. It usually doesn’t go super well for the new Valkyrie pilot in their first outing… but maybe things will be different for Alto?
Normally, this is where I would pretend to speculate on what’s in store during the next episode based on the ending teaser, but for whatever reason, I don’t have a Next Episode section on the end of the Yak Deculture edition. So… I guess we’ll find out together!
Bite-sized Backstory 49: The Long Unquiet Night
The transit through the portal back to our normal universe all but trashes the specialized ships Mara and her Awoken had designed for the voyage. The advanced materials making up their ships’ hulls were stretched, and warped, and torn away by the passage through the micro singularity, not to mention the five ships that had suffered missile impacts and still survived the journey. Perhaps even worse, transitioning between realities devastated many of the Awoken’s electronics. From AI’s Mara’s Awoken made it back to our solar system, yes, but they did not arrive with a powerful post-Golden Age fleet. Instead, they limped to our asteroid belt in search of resources and shelter.
The first ship they find is an old, Golden Age, AI controlled “habitat tender”. That is, it’s a forest ship! During our Golden Age, this ship went out, snagged a comet, then built a domed forest on its surface. It would have been the perfect starting point for the Awoken if its forest had not caught fire some time before. Still, the ship had reactor power and gravity and was even continuing to support life in the form of insects and rats. I love this section because it is a reference back to one of the more cryptic original Destiny 1 Grimoire Cards “Ghost Fragment: Awoken”.
Soon, Uldren’s scouting flights find a large collection, a Reef, of other ships that had tried to congregate together for survival during the Collapse. Mara orders that they strip what remained of the Awoken’s battered Hulls in order to fix up this reef of still partially functional ghost ships. Once they restore gravity and power, the Awoken will be able to start building habitats and industry and start having children. Remember, the Awoken in our solar system number in the tens of thousands at most, and have no warships and few weapons. They do have some powerful personal and ship-based maltech weapons from the Distributary, but most of those are far to powerful to be used within the confines of delicate starships adrift in space.
Mara, being Mara, is serious about the whole thing, but Sjur is giddy. She’s already thinking about forging bladed weapons since they don’t have the spare resources to build firearms, and she is considering how to get ship to ship communications and sensors up and running without any spare fuel to launch satellites. It’s then that she starts talking excitedly about launching things into orbit around their ships and asteroids and even the sun without using rockets or explosives.
Amusingly, Sjur’s excitement is contagious and even gets Mara into the spirit of things. Even with serious work to be done, Mara can’t help but think of the sight of her partner straining mightily against her bow and launching communication satellites off the surface of their ships. Sjur is having the same thoughts:
I’ll be the first woman in the universe to place a comsat in heliocentric orbit with a longbow.
“You’re absurd,” Mara tells her, but even she is looking forward to exploring and rebuilding this new Reef with Sjur at her side. Somehow, even though Mara is outwardly calm, Sjur picks up on and comments on her excitement. Normally, this would just be a sign of two people knowing each other very well and picking up on subtle signs, but Mara responds with an odd question:
Sjur, can you hear what I’m thinking?
At first, Sjur begins to deny it. As special as the Awoken are, and as close as she and Mara have become, they cannot read each other’s minds… but then, Sjur gasps mid-sentence and scolds Mara playfully for something that Mara apparently just thought at her. One can only imagine what could cause that sort of reaction in Sjur.
As the Awoken start the long work of making the Reef habitable, they also begin experiencing strange, almost life-like visions. Faces and images of people they know or knew appear to them as they work and as they sleep. Some of these seem so real that they even drape shrouds over their statues to prevent the real, physical works of art from being mistaken for visions. All the Awoken feel a strange new hum of energy in their bodies, as if they are connected to something new and different than they were before. And many of these vision concern Mara.
Around this time, two amazing discoveries are brought to Mara’s attention:
The first comes from Kelda Wadj, the head of Mara’s Techeuns. “We’re all a bit magic now,” she tells Mara. She and her fellow thinkers and scientists have found evidence that the Awoken now have a small but measurable amount of acausal power. This limited ability for the Awoken to violate the laws of physics seems to be tied to their thoughts and emotions. This slight acausality will eventually be the reason that the Awoken persist and remember each cycle of the Dreaming City when a normal human or alien would have been reset each time the city goes through its loops.
As usual, Mara seems to have some greater insight to this new power, but she says very little about it. Mara briefly mentions that this magic likely comes from the Traveler and possibly the Darkness or the mixing of the two, but she keeps whatever else she knows to herself. Kelda Wadj is more interested in how they will classify this new magic. Do they try to describe it in terms of physics? Do they just accept that it is space magic? But if this power can be influenced by thoughts, how exactly does one teach it or explain it? Kelda is like a scholar trying to decide how to explain the newest mystery they have fund.
At one point during their conversation, Kelda Wadj calls Mara “your majesty” to which Mara recoils. Mara says that she doesn’t wish to be called that. She insist that the Awoken are now part of a democracy. Sjur, Kelda Wadj, and the others around her all roll their eyes. After all, it was Mara’s multi-thousand year plan of cunning and ruthlessness and compassion that brought them all back to our solar system.But Mara still seems to seriously want to treat her fellow Awoken as equals. This will have some serious, disastrous implications within days or weeks. But first, the other amazing discovery barges into the room in the form of Mara’s brother.
Uldren has just returned from a scouting mission to Earth, and shockingly, he has a serious slash wound across he neck! But this is Uldren we’re talking about. Stubborn and adventurous. He’s holding a makeshift bandage of cytogel to his bleeding neck while grinning an excited grin.
“Aliens!” he rasped. “I found aliens, and one of them cut my throat!”
Chapters Referenced:
The Best Keynote In Years?
I’m still trying to take in everything Apple announced at 2019’s WWDC Keynote. It was a lot, and a lot of it was awesome. Here’s my personal highlights:
The new Mac Pro.
The old “trash can” Mac Pro was always a baffling head scratcher. When it was new it was… interesting, perhaps even somewhat powerful, but it always felt constrained. Even Apple’s talk about it’s heat dissipating core never really overcame it’s small size and the feeling that it might not scale well. And then Apple forgot to update it and it languished for half a decade.
This new Mac Pro feels much better. Really, it feels like Apple back in the days of the Bondi Blue Power Mac G3 or the Graphite G4. Where form and function worked together to make Insanely Great machines… instead of form embarrassingly beating out function in the trash can’s design. What the new Mac Pro actually reminds me the most of is the glorious G4 Cube. The way the outer enclosure slips off revealing everything inside is just so familiar. This Mac Pro is the G4 Cube reborn as it always should have been, with overwhelming amounts of power, expansion potential, and airflow. (What was that old Crazy Apple Rumors prediction? Something about the Son of Pismo and the G4 Cube’s return. Whatever it was, I think we’re there now!)
I totally can’t afford one of these Mac Pros. I don’t even want to afford one, but the fact that it exist at all is heartwarming to those of us who longed for Apple to get with the program.
SwiftUI.
Just the other day Craig Hockenberry, among others, was talking up how neat it would be if the next Apple UI frameworks was based around declarative programming, and here we are with SwiftUI operating in a manner that almost feels like Swift merged with HTML or CSS. Creating a Table View in SwiftUI looks more like declaring you want a list, and then adding in modifiers and additions to it until it looks and behaves the way you want. I think somebody must have let the cat out of the bag a little early. As someone who mainly sticks to his Storyboards and Auto-layout, SwiftUI looks very cool, and also very mind bending.
When Apple showed the short story’s worth of code that made up a traditional Swift Table View and then showed the small paragraph of code needed to do the same thing in SwiftUI, I thought it was a misdirection. Sure, you can declare and style the view a little in that paragraph, but that can’t be it, right? There’s some mass of helper functions hiding in some other file, right? Not according to Apple’s SwiftUI tutorials! I do wonder how flexible SwiftUI will be out of the gate, but I also figure Apple probably knows what it is doing. I can’t wait to explore this more.
Oh, and that interactive tutorial page is one of the cooler things I’ve ever seen on the web. I don’t care if you can’t program, just scroll through it and watch as it shows you how to build an app scroll by scroll and step by step.
The Odds and Ends.
There’s so much other stuff that got announced, from the death of iTunes to ARKit 3 that supports walking in front of and behind the virtual elements, to Apple Maps finally getting its version of Street View in Look Around. But the thing that interested me the most is the new Find My app.
At first glance, Find My is just a combination of the Find iPhone and Find Friends apps. But then Apple threw in something really cool:
The new Find My app combines Find My iPhone and Find My Friends into a single, easy-to-use app on Mac, iPadOS, and iOS devices. Find My can help you locate a missing Mac — even if it’s offline and sleeping — by sending out Bluetooth signals that can be detected by Apple devices in use nearby. These devices then relay the detected location of your Mac to iCloud so you can locate it in the Find My app.
It’s all anonymous and end-to-end encrypted so no one, including Apple, knows the identity of any reporting device. And because the reporting happens silently using tiny bits of data that piggyback on existing network traffic, there’s no need to worry about your battery life, your data usage, or your privacy.
Wait… what?! So, if someone walks off with your MacBook Pro, you can go to the Find My app and when complete strangers walk by your lost laptop while using their iPhones those iPhones will pick up on signals being sent by the MacBook Pro and relay it’s location to you. All without breaching anyone’s privacy… except maybe the thief’s?! That’s really cool. Now some companies like Tile have been doing this for a while. If you stick a Tile onto something and then use their app to mark it as lost, other people with the Tile app installed would passively help you find it in much the same way this Find My feature works. Problem was, how many people really used Tile and its app vs the tens of millions of iPhone users that will be able to help you track down your stolen MacBook Pro?
Find My is also a little scary, but no more so than everyone’s iPhones working together in a privacy preserving fashion to give iOS users real time traffic reports even in smaller cities like mine. It will be interesting to see a list of which Macs this new Find My feature works with.
There’s been some good Macworld and WWDC keynotes over the years, but I can’t remember one as interesting and packed full of seemingly spot on decisions since maybe the iPhone’s 2007 debut. Apple is back in the Pro game. Apple is writing awesome frameworks for the future. It was never like Apple wasn’t doing cool, dare I say innovative, things over the past several years. But this year feels different in the best way.
Just like with the Music/Calendar/Safari/Dock-enabled iTunes shown on stage today, I think Apple just Nailed It.
Review: Pirates Outlaws
This morning, I ran aground on a fun new game for my iPhone and iPad called Pirates Outlaws. I’ve always had a soft spot for turn-based games, and always wanted a good card-deck-baed game that I didn’t have to struggle too much with collecting the cards or battling real people with way more time on their hands. Pirate Outlaws has fulfilled both of these wants for me. The game bills itself as a turn-based, card deck building, roguelike. That last part is important, because instead of being something like Hearthstone where you need to build up your decks and strategies over long periods of time, in Pirates Outlaws, you deck resets at the end of each adventure you take.
On a basic level, Pirates Outlaws is a fun turn-based game where you battle AI controlled pirates across islands and beaches. Your single character is on the left, while up to three enemy pirates fill the right side of your screen. At the bottom you have five randomly chosen cards in your hand. Some cards attack and do damage to the enemy. Some apply defenses like armor or dodging to your character. And a wide variety apply buffs or debuffs to yourself or your enemies. Some cards are free to use, while others cost ammo that you generally get by playing an ammo card. It’s up to you to strategize on the fly from one round to the next in order to get through the battle.
At the end of very battle, you gain some Gold, and are given three new cards to add to your deck. Over the course of a single adventure you’ll go through several battles and, if luck is on your side, you’ll be able to tailor your deck to match your chosen character’s skill set.
Characters? As in more than one option? Yes! Although you start off as the Gunner class who generates one unit of Ammo per round, it doesn’t take long to unlock the second character, a Sword Master who converts 25% of the damage she deals to health for herself when her hp is below 50%. The six other characters will take longer to unlock, but each of them has their own unique skills that feel like they have a lot of promise.
In terms of gameplay, Pirates Outlaws has a similar loop to FTL: Faster Than Light. You start at a sea map of battles, taverns, and markets and have to pick and choose your way towards the top of the map where a random final boss waits. Your ship only has so much endurance so you need to pick your routes wisely. You can buy more health or a range of new items at the taverns and markets. A full game usually lasts from ten to twenty minutes, and when you are finally killed you receive a last round of Gold and Repute based on how far you progressed.
Overall, I’ve found Pirates Outlaws to be that perfect mix of turn-based decision making, card building strategizing, and roguelike freedom to screw up knowing that you’ll be free to give it another go next time around. The game cost $.99 on Apple’s App Store and is also available on Android. It has a variety of In-App Purchases to speed your way toward unlocking new characters. It looks like there’s also new world maps you can buy as well, but so far I’ve found the game to be very enjoyable with just the two early characters and the one randomly generated map.
One key for me is that the game runs without an internet connection. You can’t buy more Gold through in-app purchases when not online, of course, but other than that, it will happily play anywhere at any time.
So, if you’re looking for a fun, easy to play turn-based game that has a surprising amount of depth, you should check out Pirates Outlaws.
Bite-sized Backstory 48: Departure
When we next see Mara Sov, she is far from former Queen Alis Li’s retreat and far above the perfect Awoken world that has been her home for the past several thousand years. Mara, and all that have chosen to take up her call to return to earth, are aboard the massive starships Mara spent millennia working towards.
Embedded in her sensorium, all Mara has to do is think and the systems built into all the ships in her fleet respond to her whims. With nothing but a thought of the banyan trees far below her, Mara opens a channel to the rest of the fleet and starts a final systems check. This plays out much like our rocket launches of today, where Mara as the Flight Controller queries each team leader and gets a go or no go from them. FIDO (Flight Dynamics Officer), Guidance, INCO (Integrated Communications Officer), GEOD (ground tracking?), BIO (life support systems?), Sensors, and Weapons all report go for launch.
With everything ready, Mara takes one last look at the perfect world she is leading her people away from. Through the virtual, all encompassing point of view that the sensors and cameras of her sensorium provide her, Mara gazes back at the Distributary:
There it is. The world of her rebirth, shining water-blue and beautiful, wrapped like a gyroscope in its twin rings. World of laughing Corsairs, world of breathless forest hunts, world of mountains flickering with pale Cherenkov fire, world of sweet berry-stained lips and mathematical insight pure as a rhodium chime. She will never see it again.
And then, Mara thinks of her mother, and we learn that Osana decided not to go with her daughter on this new journey. For a moment, Mara finds herself caught up in the memory of the night her mother told her.
The two had shared a late night of drinks and conversation at Osana’s ranch, but as the sun began to come up, Mara’s mother broke the bad news. To Mara, it was like a nightmare come true. She never really considered carrying out her plan without her mother somewhere close by. When Mara asks why, her mother replies that Uldren isn’t speaking to her anymore.
“Because I already told him I wasn’t coming with you. I’m happy here.”
“Mom,” Mara says, with rising anger, “I’m happy here too. That’s not the point—” A conversation that did not so much end as beat itself to an unsustainable emotional pulp, hours later. No catharsis. No closure.
And so, after what seems to have been a long, painful argument, Mara and her mother are left hanging and disconnected from one another as Mara sets off to fulfill her plan.
Back in the present, Sjur’s urgent voice comes over the comms.
“Flight, Sensor,” Sjur Eido calls. “I have anomalous starfield occlusions, bearing—”
“Intercept!” Mara shouts. “They’re missiles!” It had to happen. Someone had to try to stop the departure, someone good and Paladin-pure who believes they are saving tens of thousands of Awoken from madness and doom.
Uldren, who is in charge of the fleet’s weapons warns Mara that they won’t be able to shoot down all the missiles. This forces Mara to make a painful choice. She orders Uldren to redirect their defensive fire to target the missiles aimed at the gateway that will take their ships back to our normal universe. It means that they will lose ships and hundreds if not thousands of brave Awoken who volunteered to go Mara’s mission, but it is either that or have the gateway destroyed and the mission stopped before it can even start.
With her next thought, Mara sends a command to the fleet ordering all of her ships to abort from the planned countdown and skip directly to launch. Mara’s fleet strains as it accelerates towards the gateway they built above the Distributary. Some of the ship are hit, damaged, maybe even destroyed, but the gateway remains undamaged by the attack.
We don’t get to see the implications or consequences of this new wave of Awoken on Awoken violence. Someone decided to attack Mara Sov, the most powerful figure in Awoken society. They killed hundreds of their own kind and I can only imagine what sorts of justifications and accusations will play out back on the Distributary once Mara is gone. Maybe this attack is smoothed over and the Awoken in their pocket universe go on about their peaceful lives? Or, maybe this violent act shatters Awoken society once more and the Distributary descends into a new civil war? We just don’t know.
Back on her ship, Mara braces against the hard acceleration. Her final thoughts, before her ship reenters the singularity that brought her to this strange hidden dimension, center on her mother. In response, her sensorium tries to open a channel to Osana, and the last thing Mara sees is the error:
No connection. No connection. No connection. Cannot connect to Osana.
And with that, Mara Sov and her Awoken are on their way back to our universe and our solar system.
Chapters Referenced:
Palingenesis I
Review: Aladdin (2019)
When the credits began to roll on the Aladdin (2019) showing I went to see, there was a small, but significant amount of applause. There were children and adults dancing to the music. On the way out of the theater I heard someone mention to someone else that they were glad that they had come to see the new movie. Unfortunately, I did not share the enthusiasm that gripped many of those around me. I came away from this new, updated version of Aladdin entertained, but also fairly disappointed.
For the past few years, Disney has been remaking some of its most famous animated movies into live action films. This current wave of Disney remakes started, more or less, with 2014’s Maleficent which was highly successful and is soon getting a sequel. The Jungle Book in 2016 and 2017’s Beauty and the Beast were both worthy takes on their animated predecessors with the new version Beauty and the Best now ranking as one of my favorite films of all time.
In large part, I have enjoyed these Disney remakes. Some argue that there’s no point in updating classic films with live actors and large doses of CGI, but I think Disney has made some great choices so far, and added new scenes, songs, and substance to the films they first released decades ago.
Until now.
The long and the short of it is that this live action remake of Aladdin lost something. Honestly, I think it lost a lot of things that hurt it in a number of ways. Let’s start with the obvious. Yes, Robin Williams is dead. Yes, he was missed. But, contrary to my expectations, Will Smith did an ok job and even had some fun new moments of his own. The movie would have been better with a reprisal by Robin Williams, for sure, but Will Smith’s genie is not a reason to avoid this movie. I was never really worried about that. I think if Disney knew anything, it knew that it needed a strong performance by whoever it choose to replace Williams. And I think Will Smith mostly delivered.
Interesting, Aladdin is one of the biggest reasons I was disappointed by this movie. The animated version of Aladdin was clever, resourceful, honest, and, for the most part, charming. This live action version of Aladdin lacked those last two traits. 2019’s Aladdin got a lot of milage of being a great pickpocket, but I think maybe he got too much milage out of it. Aside from a few resourceful costume changes as he infiltrated the palace, this new version of Aladdin showed almost no smarts at all. Time after time, I longed for him to charm his way out of a situation, but time after time he either bumbled along until everyone else in the scene got fed up with him, or he managed to get Genie to bail him out at the last instant. The animated version of Aladdin wasn’t a brilliant charmer, but he had enough charisma that he could usually talk his way out of the trouble he got himself in. The more I saw of this updated version of Aladdin, the less I liked him. It’s not that Mena Massoud was bad in the role. He did a good job with what he was given. I think it was just bad writing that did not give him anything clever to do aside from a few instance of slight of hand that were almost never on camera.
I also didn’t like that they put more emphasis on Aladdin’s lack of moral character. 1992’s Aladdin wasn’t unimpeachable, he was lying about being a prince, after all, but this more modern Aladdin certainly succumbed more to the lure of power and greed than the original did. It was with sadness that the animated version of Aladdin told the Genie that he could not set him free. Live action Aladdin? His motive were both more about himself and he was somewhat more mean and less sympathetic about it. That made me sad because I feel it actually did some small amount of harm to the character.
Naomi Scott as Princes Jasmine was a lot better written. She was smart. She was capable. She was resourceful. I largely appreciated the attempt this film made to expand Jasmine’s story. In the 1992 movie, she really didn’t have much of a role other than not being “a prize to be won.” This new, updated version of Jasmine had the intelligence and ambition to succeed her father as Sultan, if only her father and the law would let her. I don’t think Jasmine’s transition from trophy princess to potential Sultanness was quite as successful as expanded role Belle got in the new Beauty and the Beast, but I think Aladdin (2019) had a far lesser 90’s animated character to start with and did an ok job at trying to modernize her. I didn’t think Jasmine’s new songs fit anywhere near as well as the new songs in the 2017 version of Beauty and the Beast, but there’s no denying that Jasmine’s final song about not staying silent had some real power behind it.
If Aladdin’s character was poorly written, I think the second disappointment of this updated movie was the songs. The music and updated lyrics were both ok. There were some lines in “Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali” that weren’t as good as Robin Williams’ in the animated version, but mostly it was the visuals, not the lyrics, that disappointed me. There were more visuals in the 2019 version, to be sure. 1992’s “Friend Like Me” has a surprising amount of blank, one color backgrounds. The 2019 version didn’t have that problem. There was a lot of stuff to see in every frame, but I felt like they didn’t do enough with that stuff. It’s 2019! Disney has all the money in the world! And yet it felt to me like both “Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali” had less spectacle and less fun than their animated versions.
For instance, in 2019’s Prince Ali, the line “strong as ten regular men, definitely” was not accompanied with Genie granting Aladdin the brief ability to lift several men above his head. I was looking forward to that in live action to see how they’d do it. Likewise, in the same song, they replaced giant elephant Abu kicking open the palace door in exchange for the entire song pausing until the Sultan picked up the beat. I thought it was almost a fair trade, but the animated version was just a little spectacular. Even “A Whole New World” suffered a little, too. In the animated version, Aladdin, Jasmine, and Carpet do more loops and changes of direction. Their flight above the clouds and among the birds felt a little more magical. The live action was disappointingly tame by comparison.
Lastly, I felt that the 2019 movie just lacked some of the great pacing and scenes than were in the 1992 version. Just a few examples:
- I missed the moment where Jasmine made the same rooftop jump as Aladdin and then declared that she was a fast learner. In the 2019 version, she stops short and clings to a pole on the near side, instead. They actually managed to cut one of Jasmine’s few strong character moments in this new film.
- Aladdin and Jasmine’s conversation overlooking Agrabah was great in the 1992 version. Their back and forth and their contrasting views of life in the palace worked very well interleaved with each other. Most of that wonderful scene was lost in the live action version.
- Aladdin telling Genie about Jasmine for the first time is an excellent scene with good voice acting and animation in the ’92 version. It just wasn’t as good in the ’19 version.
- I was sad that we didn’t get to see Jasmine pretend to fall in love with Jafar like she did near the end of the 1992 film. Maybe it wasn’t in this new Jasmine’s character, but I was hoping to see that scene. The silly things Jasmine says to compliment Jafar in the animated movie was just delightful. She mentions his eyebrows and the gaps between his teeth and the line “Your beard is so… twisted.” was delivered amazingly well. Now, it’s not even in the 2019 version of the movie.
- We also didn’t get Jafar’s “Prince Ali” refrain which I was hoping to see.
But more than those specific scenes, I felt that the new movie changed too much of the pacing. Not just in the new scenes or the added gags. Much of the movie felt off to me. Ultimately, while the new version did make an attempt to add in the idea of the responsibility a leader should have towards his or her people, I think the animated version had a stronger, cleaner storyline that was lost somewhere along the way.
I didn’t hate this movie. It was nowhere near as disappointing as some other live action movie adaptations I’ve seen in recent years. (Ghost in the Shell, I’m looking at you…) It had a few great moments and plot points that I enjoyed. The Genie’s romance with Dalia, Jasmine’s handmaiden, was a highlight of the movie, for instance. And, even though Aladdin was overly defined by his slight of hand, it did generate some tender moments here and there. I also enjoyed that Jafar described himself as the same sort of pickpocket street rat as Aladdin, and that he was just one who fully gave into a need for power. And, you know what, turning the Genie into a human at the end did us the favor of sparing us a Return of Jafar or Prince of Thieves. That might be the best move the 2019 movie made!
Aladdin (2019) is not a movie that must be avoided at all cost. Kids will enjoy it, for sure. But, they will enjoy the animated version just as much, and the animated version is just all around a better movie. If you want to see a classic Disney movie redone in live action, I’d highly recommend 2017’s Beauty and the Beast. I thought it updated and added to its animated predecessor in ways that this new version of Aladdin largely failed to do. This new version of Aladdin more or less just made me wonder why it even existed.