The Summit Simulation Workshop helps build support for strategies to address climate change via interactive testing of a cutting-edge simulation model. The resulting experience is hopeful, scientifically-grounded, action-oriented, and eye-opening.
Participants discuss their actions at any level — business, community, country, or region — and then use the En-ROADS simulator to learn of the global impact (e.g., can we limit warming to 2 degrees?) if the action spread widely. Many report surprises — some strategies are much higher leverage than we think (and likewise).
The workshop is designed to be run by facilitators with a wide range of skills and is widely accessible — the simulation and materials are all "open source." Events can last from 30 minutes to three hours and include 3-100 people.
It has been run at Stattnet in Norway, the Energy Transition Forum in London, HSBC bank in New York City, MIT Sloan School of Management, the U.S. Climate Action Network, the Climate and Energy Funders Group, and on a climate education cruise to Antarctica.
The Climate Interactive team runs the workshop for partners. However, many more events happen by other facilitators using the free, open-source materials. Recently, MIT Professor Jason Jay ran an event at an energy conference and Stephen Heintz, the Executive Director of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, led the workshop for a group studying climate science.
The workshop was particularly effective at the 2018 Climate and Energy Funder's Group Annual Meeting in Miami. As the kickoff plenary presentation with the title of "Reality Check", it received the most mentions as the "highlight of the conference," ahead of "networking", which had won every other year of the meeting.


text:
Q: I am new to RegEx and need help pulling a string (sku) within a string in Tableau The string is delimited by underscores and it could be as simple as taking the seventh _ and pulling the SKU from there. Ideally there would be a way of finding the text that looks like a SKU and pulling that out in tableau. I can't seem to figure out how to actually execute this.
Client_RT_Sample_PRODUCT_Men_Apparel_Hoodies_SMZM1047XL_160x600
Client_RT_Sample_PRODUCT_Men_Apparel_Hoodies_SMZM1047XXL_160x600
Client_RT_Sample_PRODUCT_Men_Apparel_Hoodies_SMZM1047XXL_300x250
Client_RT_Sample_PRODUCT_Men_Apparel_Hoodies_SMZM1047XXL_728x90
Client_RT_Sample_PRODUCT_Men_Sunglass_Lifestyle_DFPPBRMT_300x250
Client_RT_Sample_PRODUCT_Men_Sunglass_Lifestyle_DFPPBRMT_728x90
Client_RT_Sample_PRODUCT_Men_Sunglass_Lifestyle_DFRPGNMB_300x250

A: If this is an Excel or CSV file this is really easy with Tableau 9. In the Data Connection window click the arrow next column and select split or custom split. The latter will break it into as many separate fields as you want.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
/* ----------------------------------------------------------------- */
/*             The Speech Signal Processing Toolkit (SPTK)           */
/*             developed by SPTK Working Group                       */
/*             http://sp-tk.sourceforge.net/                         */
/* ----------------------------------------------------------------- */
/*                                                                   */
/*  Copyright (c) 1984-2007  Tokyo Institute of Technology           */
/*                           Interdisciplinary Graduate School of    */
/*                           Science and Engineering                 */
/*                                                                   */
/*                1996-2013  Nagoya Institute of Technology          */
/*                           Department of Computer Science          */
/*                                                                   */
/* All rights reserved.                                              */
/*                                                                   */
/* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or        */
/* without modification, are permitted provided that the following   */
/* conditions are met:                                               */
/*                                                                   */
/* - Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright  */
/*   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.   */
/* - Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above         */
/*   copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following     */
/*   disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided */
/*   with the distribution.                                          */
/* - Neither the name of the SPTK working group nor the names of its */
/*   contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived */
/*   from this software without specific prior written permission.   */
/*                                                                   */
/* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND            */
/* CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES,       */
/* INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF          */
/* MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE          */
/* DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS */
/* BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,          */
/* EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED   */
/* TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,     */
/* DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON */
/* ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY,   */
/* OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY    */
/* OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE           */
/* POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.                                       */
/* ----------------------------------------------------------------- */

/************************************************************************
*                                                                       *
*    Calculation of Average                                             *
*                                                                       *
*                                       1996.1  K.Koishida              *
*                                                                       *
*       usage:                                                          *
*               average [ options ] [ infile ] > stdout                 *
*       options:                                                        *
*               -l l     :  frame length        [0]                     *
*               -n n     :  order of sequence   [l-1]                   *
*       infile:                                                         *
*               data sequence                                           *
*                   , x(0), x(1), ..., x(l-1),                          *
*       stdout:                                                         *
*               average                                                 *
*                   , (x(0)+x(1)...+x(l-1))/l,                          *
*       notice:                                                         *
*                if l>0, calculate average frame by frame               *
*       require:                                                        *
*               average()                                               *
*                                                                       *
************************************************************************/

static char *rcs_id = "$Id: average.c,v 1.26 2013/12/16 09:01:53 mataki Exp $";

/*  Standard C Libraries  */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#ifdef HAVE_STRING_H
#  include <string.h>
#else
#  include <strings.h>
#  ifndef HAVE_STRRCHR
#     define strrchr rindex
#  endif
#endif

#if defined(WIN32)
#  include "SPTK.h"
#else
#  include <SPTK.h>
#endif

/*  Default Values  */
#define LENG 0

/*  Command Name  */
char *cmnd;

void usage(int status)
{
   fprintf(stderr, "\n");
   fprintf(stderr, " %s - calculation of average \n", cmnd);
   fprintf(stderr, "\n");
   fprintf(stderr, "  usage:\n");
   fprintf(stderr, "       %s [ options ] [ infile ] > stdout\n", cmnd);
   fprintf(stderr, "  options:\n");
   fprintf(stderr, "       -l l  : frame length       [%d]\n", LENG);
   fprintf(stderr, "       -n n  : order of sequence  [l-1]\n");
   fprintf(stderr, "       -h    : print this message\n");
   fprintf(stderr, "  infile:\n");
   fprintf(stderr, "       data sequence (%s)      [stdin]\n", FORMAT);
   fprintf(stderr, "  stdout:\n");
   fprintf(stderr, "       average (%s)\n", FORMAT);
   fprintf(stderr, "  notice:\n");
   fprintf(stderr, "       if l > 0, calculate average frame by frame\n");
#ifdef PACKAGE_VERSION
   fprintf(stderr, "\n");
   fprintf(stderr, " SPTK: version %s\n", PACKAGE_VERSION);
   fprintf(stderr, " CVS Info: %s", rcs_id);
#endif
   fprintf(stderr, "\n");
   exit(status);
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
   int l = LENG, num = 0;
   FILE *fp = stdin;
   double *x, xx, ave = 0.0;

   if ((cmnd = strrchr(argv[0], '/')) == NULL)
      cmnd = argv[0];
   else
      cmnd++;
   while (--argc)
      if (**++argv == '-') {
         switch (*(*argv + 1)) {
         case 'l':
            l = atoi(*++argv);
            --argc;
            break;
         case 'n':
            l = atoi(*++argv) + 1;
            --argc;
            break;
         case 'h':
            usage(0);
         default:
            fprintf(stderr, "%s : Invalid option '%c'!\n", cmnd, *(*argv + 1));
            usage(1);
         }
      } else
         fp = getfp(*argv, "rb");

   if (l > 0) {
      x = dgetmem(l);
      while (freadf(x, sizeof(*x), l, fp) == l) {
         ave = average(x, l);
         fwritef(&ave, sizeof(ave), 1, stdout);
      }
   } else {
      while (freadf(&xx, sizeof(xx), 1, fp) == 1) {
         ave += xx;
         num++;
      }
      ave /= num;
      fwritef(&ave, sizeof(ave), 1, stdout);
   }
   return (0);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Coventry Development Corporation, in conjunction with ExxonMobil, proposed to develop nearly 400 acres of land into a corporate campus composed of 20 office buildings with associated parking garages, drainage systems, and numerous pedestrian facilities. Upon completion, the corporate campus and all its amenities will support over 10,000 employees.
TCEQ Tier 1 Water Quality Certification, Unified Stream Method Evaluation, Threatened and Endangered Species Survey, and Cultural Resource Survey. The firm also incorporated riparian buffers along ephemeral, intermittent, streams into the mitigation conceptual design plan.
With Berg♦Oliver's wide base of knowledge and experience in dealing with various governmental regulations on a daily basis, the firm was able to expedite approvals in order for Coventry Development Corporation and ExxonMobil to stay on schedule.


text:
Invest Europe AISBL ("Invest Europe"), an international non-profit association under Belgian law with office at Place du Champ de Mars 5 (Bastion Tower), 1050 Brussels, registered under number BE 0424.557.716, is committed to safeguarding the privacy of the visitors to its Site www.investeurope.eu (the "Site"). This privacy policy (the "PrivacyPolicy") sets out the terms on which Invest Europe processes any personal data (i.e. data relating to an identified or identifiable individual) relating to you, as a visitor of the Site, either because Invest Europe collects this data from you or because you provide it directly to Invest Europe. In doing so, Invest Europe acts as controller in the sense of the law.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
UFC 5 Release Date | When is UFC 5 Coming Out?
UFC 5 is the newest addition to EA Sports UFC game series, which has become one of the industry's hottest titles. The Release Date for this title is July 9th, 2018 and will be available on PS4 & Xbox One.
The "ufc 5 release date 2022" is the year of the game's release. The "ufc 5 release date" is when a game will be released in its entirety, and it will be available to purchase.
The release date for UFC 5 has been circulating on Social Media and UFC 4 was recently released, so when will UFC 5 be released? Or these are simply UFC 5 release date rumors. Take a look at what we're going to talk about in this post.
You may also be interested in: Minecraft Forge 1.16.5 Installation Guide
In the video gaming world, the UFC series is highly popular, and EA Sports just published the UFC 4 game. UFC 4 was released in November 2020, and there have been various rumors and leaks about UFC 5, but are they true?
MMA bouts are entertaining to watch, but they're much more so when we get to experience them via video games and it'll be the icing on the cake if you get to play UFC 5 on a next-gen device like the PS5. For everyone, it will be a completely distinct experience. Although not everyone is capable of participating in cage battles, video games allow you to do so without risking injury. UFC 5 is here to satiate your MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) cravings.
You may also be interested in: Minecraft 1.16.5 Mods: A Simple Guide
Last year, EA Sports published UFC 4, the fourth installment in the UFC series. Because no other game comes close to the UFC series, the UFC series becomes the most well-known of all. EA Sports has never received negative feedback or criticism for the UFC, as they do for the most of their products. All they have is 100 percent favorable feedback from UFC users and fans for the UFC series. Since a result, it's critical that we inform you about the UFC 5 release date, as it'll be one of EA's most anticipated games in the UFC series.
We've got you covered on all the latest UFC game news, including the UFC 5 release date, leaks and rumors, the UFC 5 trailer and gameplay, and so on.
When Will UFC 5 Be Released?
No, there hasn't been any official confirmation or even a leak concerning the UFC 5 release date. EA Sports has said that they will concentrate on UFC 4 for the time being. However, UFC 5 is already under development and will be released shortly. However, they also said that they do not have a plan for UFC 5 at this time, but that they would consider it shortly.
According to various news sources and media reports, the UFC 5 is already in the works and might be released by the end of this year, in November or December of 2021. However, we do not anticipate the UFC 5 to be released too soon, since the UFC 4 was released in late 2020, and the UFC 5 might be released in 2022, pending official confirmation. We're simply speculating on the UFC 5 release date, and as soon as we learn more about it, whether it's official or unofficial, we'll let you know by putting it here on.
As of now, all we can say is that you should not believe any rumors that are circulating on social media when the game is released, we will inform you; all you have to do is keep visiting our website.
So that was everything about the UFC 5 game; if you have any questions, please post them in the comments section.
You might also read: Ghost of Tsushima 1.19 Update patch notes (Jan 24)
We hope you like our approach to UFC 5 Release Date | When Will UFC 5 Be Released?
The "ufc 6 release date " is the question that everyone wants to know. The UFC 5 Release Date has not been announced yet, but we have an idea of when it will be.
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Breathing Space has already helped more than 1000 people through our programme of courses, classes and retreats teaching Mindfulness Based Approaches (MBAs).
We want to help thousands of people in the years ahead. Your donations could ensure that we can do this.
Our programme is run by the London Buddhist Centre (LBC). As a registered charity, the LBC relies on donations from individuals and organisations to help run our extensive range of courses, classes and retreats.
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Your donation will go towards the general running of the LBC, including Breathing Space.
Make a donation to Breathing Space, the LBC's health and wellbeing project.
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text:
Tag Archives: Angelina Jolie
Failed Critics Podcast: Episode 250 – The Human Cinematipede
After quite literally years of podcasting, and uncountable hours of work going into it – the Failed Critics Film Podcast has reached its 250th episode! We know it's just three or four blokes who have gotten to know each other quite well over the past five years, talking about films, but we're pretty proud of it and hope that you enjoy listening to our little show as much as we've enjoyed reaching this milestone. If you think we show any promise at all, please subscribe and spread the word.
The Failed Critics Podcast – Episode 250: The Human Cinematipede
Yes, for this very special edition, we've gone all retro. Hosts Steve Norman and Owen Hughes managed to convince both founding members James Diamond and Gerry McAuley to come out of retirement for old times' sake.
Our rather serendipitous main release review this week is The Lego Batman Movie; a convenient call back to our review on the 100th episode. In fact, most things here are call-backs to past episodes, as you may notice from the featured image and bumf above, taken from the very first podcast published way back on the 25 April 2012.
However, some things never change. There's still a quiz to kick us off (with added questions and catch-ups that I'm sure you're all dying to hear about) and we end with the recommendations. One in particular which will no doubt crush you on this Valentine's Day. What We've Been Watching has as eclectic a mix as ever: Owen watches Hearts of Darkness, the "best film about a film"; James explains why Brent: Life on the Road was such a disappointment; Steve is impressed by yet another Jack O'Connell performance in Angelina Jolie's Unbroken; and Gerry squanches all over Rick and Morty.
Thanks to everybody who has downloaded this podcast – or any of our podcasts. Your support, feedback and kind comments have been the motivation for us to keep doing this. Who knows what we'll be doing in another 250 episodes, but we hope you'll still be listening – and hope you still find us idiots entertaining to listen to.
http://rss.acast.com/failedcritics/failedcriticspodcast-episode250-thehumancinematipede/media.mp3
Angelina Jolieapocalypse nowBrent: Life on the Roadepisode 250failed critics podcastGerry McAuleyHearts of DarknessJack O'ConnellJames DiamondRick and MortyRicky GervaisThe Lego Batman MovieUnbroken
19/01/2015 Callum Petch	2 Comments
Firstly, sorry for the sudden two week break. I had a mountain of university essay work to do and, like a pillock, I don't pre-write these. So, anyway…
Last year, DreamWorks Animation celebrated its 20th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Callum Petch has been going through their entire animated canon, one film a week for the next 30 weeks, and giving them a full-on retrospective treatment. Prior entries can be found here, should you desire.
22] Kung Fu Panda 2 (26th May 2011)
Budget: $150 million
Gross: $665,692,281
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%
Jennifer Yuh Nelson is one hell of a director.
If I have one major regret about my work throughout this series so far, it's that I haven't talked anywhere near enough about direction. Part of that is due to my own personal biases with regards to DreamWorks Animation before embarking on this project, with myself having spent much of my life subscribing to the belief that DreamWorks, way more so than Disney or what have you, was a factory that pumped out films collectively rather than individually. Jeffrey Katzenberg seemingly having his fingers in damn near everything we've talked about so far didn't really help in my attempt to dissuade myself from that notion as we've journeyed forth.
The rest is because I am very much learning as I go. Yeah, to tear down that Wizard Of Oz curtain here, I am not an expert on animation. In fact, quite frankly, I know very little about the medium, the process, and the history of it all. If I were to show my work to somebody who has dedicated their life to studying animation, like, say, one of my university lecturers, she would probably make it to about paragraph 4 of the first entry before attempting to gut me like a pig, such is the butchery I have likely committed with regards to talking about animation.
But all of that is OK because a) I have never attempted to claim that I am a super-expert on animation (except when I was a bit younger and much more stupid) and b) I am actively trying to learn and better myself. For example, I spent a lot of last year referring to different layers of animation, specifically where characters would be animated obviously separately to the background, as "Chroma-Keying" which, as it turns out, is incorrect. The process, as detailed to me by the Hullaballoo production blog, is actually known as "Compositing". See, I've learned something – and now so have you, more than likely, yay! – so I don't feel bad about having gotten it badly wrong beforehand.
Hence why I haven't referred to directing too much during this series. Animation is an extremely collaborative medium, where tens to hundreds of people all work on the same project and any of them can make decisions that can alter how something ends up in the finished product. I was reticent, therefore, to praise specific directors for parts of these films that I liked. After all, how could I be sure that it was their choices and their quirks and not Visual Effects Artist #5? But somewhat recently I got to thinking: isn't that the same thing with live-action films? And why do I subscribe to this thinking with regards to DreamWorks, yet I will get giddy at the prospect of a Lauren Faust animated film?
Besides, although auteur theory is very much passé and disproven in film and television nowadays, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. To shift from DreamWorks for a minute, I have recently been making full-on observations as to how I can tell that some of my favourite animated shows are made with certain people at the helm. In that, yeah, it's a team effort, but theirs is the creative voice that stands out the most. For example, Genndy Tartakovsky – who incidentally just turned 45! Happy Birthday! – is the creator of Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack, and both shows carry the same deliberate pacing that works long beats, pauses, and repetitions into their DNA for both dramatic and humorous effect. It also shows up in The Powerpuff Girls, even though that's a show by Craig McCracken, because the two were friends and Genndy had a significant hand in shaping that show. Future shows have shown McCracken to have a faster and slightly tighter voice than Tartakovsky – Wander Over Yonder, for example, wastes not one moment of any of its episodes.
In the end, it was a combination of those and Oliver Sawa's excellent reviews of The Legend Of Korra over at The AV Club that managed to make me realise that I really should have referred to direction more in this series. So, with that in mind, we circle back around to our opening statement.
If you've been following along with this series, the name "Jennifer Yuh Nelson" should be relatively familiar to you. Yuh has been with DreamWorks Animation since 1998, starting as a story artist on Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and the first Madagascar before progressing to Head of Story on Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Her true breakthrough came when, as a fan of martial arts movies growing up, she asked to work on the first Kung Fu Panda and was subsequently made Head of Story there, as well as getting to direct the opening hand-drawn dream sequence. She won an Annie Award for her work on it – which, as we saw back when we talked about it, was more than deserved – and Katzenberg personally approached her to direct Kung Fu Panda 2 as a result of her work.
Hence why Kung Fu Panda 2 looks so damn incredible. Yuh's love for martial arts films is on full prominent display, both in terms of individual shots and scene construction – which is what most of this week's article is going to be, just a heads up on that department – and overall pacing and tone. Now, I must admit that I am not too familiar with Wuxia and other sorts of Martial Arts films, but I do have enough of a grasp on the style and tones of them to realise that Kung Fu Panda 2 bleeds martial arts films. It's one of those (worryingly rare) action animation films that has each frequent action scene actually mean something instead of just marking time. It's a film that deals with its character work through equal parts dialogue and action, with both working equally well.
As an example, look at the fight sequence between Po and Master Croc & Master Ox. No, seriously, look at this thing, I'll wait.
(You'll have to follow this link, I'm afraid, as it turns out that embeds for the clip have been disabled.)
It's not just a fight scene for the sake of a fight scene. It's a fun way of livening up what would otherwise be rather dry and boring sequence of Po pleading for help. The dialogue is written in a way that perfectly complements the action, the music takes on this 70s funk tinge to counterbalance the cheese with some coolness, and the choreography pitches itself as this purposefully silly and slightly cheesy releasing of each character's various emotions in order to make that sad, defeatist walk into the cell next door an act that has a genuine sadness attached to it rather than just being understatedly humorous. It's its own thing whilst still clearly indebted to the classic Hong Kong martial arts films Yuh loves so dearly.
Which, in fact, is very much a running theme throughout the film. Kung Fu Panda 2 is one of those heavily-indebted animated films that actually takes full advantage of the fact that animation increases the visual and storytelling capabilities to stage things that couldn't be done (or done this smoothly and naturally) in live-action beyond the whole "talking animals" thing. For example, look at the rickshaw chase scene that comes immediately after the prison cell fight. No, seriously, look at it right now. Do it.
There's a certain wilful excessive escalation going on in this scene – I'm specifically thinking of everything to do with the basket of baby bunnies – that I could see also occurring in Kung Fu Panda 2's live-action equivalent, but not with the same sense of flow and believable madcap energy that animation can achieve. For example, the moment where Po's rickshaw flies off into the air and he has to spin it around in order to catch the flying children could be pulled off in live-action, but would require multiple frenetic cuts (compared to the controlled, calculated, and varied three shots that it takes up here) and likely a whole lot of distracting green screen work to pull off. Again: indebted yet its own thing.
Or how about the dragon costume disguise? Once again, something that wouldn't feel out-of-place in live-action yet takes full advantage of the medium by utilising the smoother flow and faster possible speed of animation to turn it into an excellent gag. Not to mention the way in which the film finds every possible spin on the gag that it can and blazes through them in quick succession. The first time utilising the squash-and-stretch capabilities of animation to create a genuinely inspired piece of toilet humour, the second time playing the image against the kid's confused horror, the third time using the launched goons for projectiles, and the fourth and final time using clever boarding to create an image reminiscent of top-down arcade maze games, with Pac-Man being the intended but not sole reference.
But, I have wasted too much time on the direction of the comedy. Instead, the sequences that really impressed me, as in they got me to genuinely say the opening sentence to this entry out loud as the film was still ongoing multiple times, were the more dramatic character revelations and breakthrough sequences – the dramatic stuff, in other words. For example, much of the dramatic thrust of the film revolves around Po discovering that he is adopted, a revelation played for laughs and legitimate drama without either undercutting the other, and his desire to learn what happened to him. His slightly overbearing father, Ping, and Po's eating habits have mostly been a source of comic relief up to this point, but then one exceptional sequence is able to recontextualize the pair of them into genuinely emotional character traits, again without losing the comedy.
Yes, you know what to do now.
It's the subtle direction choices that make this scene. How every shot is saturated in this bright, warm golden glow to signify nostalgia which firmly sets us in Ping's mind without overdoing it to send the technique into parody, the frequent usage of slow dollies into the faces of Po and Ping to connect them both so totally even within a few moments of their first meeting, James Hong's soft-spoken and deliberately underplayed delivery in sharp contrast to his usual ham-and-cheese, Jack Black's similarly underplayed reaction to Po's disappointment at having no concrete answers, the music melting into the very background to let the words and pictures tell the story.
It's a scene of enormous confidence. Most animated films are very much content to overcook everything, or just have the characters loudly state the themes or what have you without it fitting their characters, but this scene ends up being typical of Kung Fu Panda 2. It has the nerve and the confidence to realise that not every joke needs to be a giant laugh-out-loud gutbuster, that a score doesn't have to force its way to the forefront of the mix to render emotion, and that the viewing audience will get exactly how sad or upset a character feels without having to force their voice actor to strain for emotion or to have the animation flail around wildly.
The best example of this confidence in the viewership, undoubtedly, comes from when Po, under the guide and care of The Soothsayer, finally confronts and accepts his traumatic past. I mean, just…
First of all, and because you just knew I was going to go straight for this, just look at the transitions between the CG world and the cel-animated memories. Like, look at them! The vivid exaggerations of the cel animation, coupled with their bright primary colours that give way to progressively darker shading as we get further and further in, brilliantly convey the dream-like lost childhood memory nature of the revelation that Po initially saw it as. Note how the wolves themselves seem more demonic, rabid, and dangerous than the snivelling, mangy versions that we've been used to seeing in the movie up until that point. And then how we switch from cel animation for the flashbacks to CG once Po has fully accepted what happened; that these are no longer horrible nightmares, but genuine fragments of his past. How he has grown to accept the reality of the situation and how they are a part of him.
The score ends up being the most powerful piece of the entire film, striking exactly the right balance between nakedly emotional and spiritually uplifting, the dialogue cuts out literally any line that is not 100% necessary to proceedings because too many words would simply undercut the drama, and the mood remains serious the entire time as Yuh and her team trust the audience won't grow restless as we deal with this major character breakthrough. Then there are the actual transitions, the way that the match cuts and smooth pans and camera moves between animation mediums never jar because they utilise more subtle gestures – like the rain drop in CG that substitutes into the hair bun of Po's mother in cel. And finally there's the mini-clip-show which is lingered on precisely long enough to achieve maximum impact without once invoking wonders of unnecessary repetition.
Seriously, Jennifer Yuh Nelson's direction of this whole film is exceptional, but that sequence is frickin' virtuoso. It's a sequence that heavily reminds me of Avatar: The Last Airbender – in fact, the whole film reminds me a tonne of that and The Legend Of Korra, especially with how Lord Shen is portrayed as a dark mirror version of Po who turned to rage and violence when confronted with parental abandonment – yet feels of its own, its own uniqueness, its own style. It's powerful, it's inspirational, and it couldn't have been handled better. Undoubtedly a team effort, but clearly guided and controlled with such skill and passion by one woman.
I could sit here for the next 10 or so A4 pages gushing over Kung Fu Panda 2 and its every last facet – I am pretty much adamant in my belief, by this point, that this is DreamWorks Animation's masterpiece – but my deadline and word count limit aren't too far away, so I'm going to wrap up by talking about, what else, the female lead of a DreamWorks Animation film. Now, in the first Kung Fu Panda, The Furious Five are very much minor characters who exist in service of Po's story and little more. We get a tiny insight into their various personalities but not much more than that. The same is mostly true of the sequel, just with the switching of Go-To Comic Relief from David Cross' Crane to Seth Rogen's Mantis, barring one crucial difference.
Tigress is now co-lead.
Now, one could be cynical and claim that this is only due to somebody at DreamWorks remembering that they got Angelina Jolie to voice one of their characters, and that if you've gone to that much trouble, you should probably make actual usage of her. However, I feel that that is severely underselling the character of Tigress in Kung Fu Panda 2. One of the frequently recurring themes we've seen throughout this series – of articles, not the Kung Fu Panda films specifically – has been DreamWorks' constant voluntary torching and diminishing of any female co-lead they come up with. Fiona in Shrek, Gloria in Madagascar (although that one hasn't bothered me so much yet), Marina in Sinbad, and of course Astrid in How To Train Your Dragon; these are (bar Gloria) all females who have their own agency and character and plot arcs, only to have said agency and arcs ripped from them as they suddenly fall for the gravitational pull of the lead male's genitalia (METAPHORICALLY) and need saving from there on out.
Tigress is a step-up from those, a vast step-up, if not a clean break. She gets her own plot line and arc, as she learns to slowly defrost that icy demeanour and let people into her life, although it does relate around Po and her relationship to him. Crucially, however, "relationship" in this case very much points towards "platonic" rather than "romantic." It would have been very easy to twist her and Po's various interactions with one another into romance in order to close out the film with yet another Marina-type scenario, but it instead resists. Po is an affectionate guy, constantly hugging and professing his love for his friends, and Tigress' slow releasing of emotion ends up coming as a result of his influence: hence the hug. It's not romantic, it's platonic, a sign that she cares as a friend, further enhanced by her hysterical statue-reaction to being on the receiving end of a proper Po hug at the end, the unfamiliarity for her of that hug robbing the sequence of almost all intended romantic subtext.
Yes, she also gets captured, but only because she thought her one true friend had been killed and she had lost the will to fight, just like the rest of The Furious Five. Yes, her plot and arc are tied to Po, but she still has her own agency and nobody questions her or her abilities. Yes, she's a terse emotionless, mostly humourless girl, but that part of her arc was dealt with in the first film and this one expands her character, softens her edges so that her arc feels more gradual instead of monumental. There are even times where she gets to display genuine agency, like during the final battle where she takes Lord Shen's shot meant for Po with no guarantee that she would get out alive. I'm reminded a lot of Mako Mori from Pacific Rim in terms of how her character is handled, albeit not that revelatory. It's not perfect, but it is a major step-up for a company that, as we have touched on multiple times this series, has had a recurring problem with the female gender.
Two months ago, I covered the first Kung Fu Panda and noted how I would never truly be able to love it, despite recognising that it's a great film and desperately wanting to love it, because I had too much prior life baggage attached to it, although I noted my high hopes for Kung Fu Panda 2. As you may have gathered, those hopes ended up being more than fulfilled. I actually finished the film mildly angry, because it turned out that I had spent nearly 4 years voluntarily depriving myself of a modern masterpiece. Kung Fu Panda 2 is insanely good, the kind of sequel that recognises and improves upon what worked in the first film and jettisons what didn't, that gets more ambitious, more confident in being able to go darker and have the audience follow along no matter what, and the kind of film where a strong directorial voice is able to elevate an already great film into something even more through their vision and drive.
So I'll say it again, loud and clear, Jennifer Yuh Nelson is one hell of a director! Thank the Maker she's coming back for Kung Fu Panda 3!
A hit with the critics and a runaway smash overseas, albeit a major underperformer at home – a fact that we will touch on again in a few weeks – Kung Fu Panda 2 solidified DreamWorks' third potential franchise as one that would stick around for the long haul. Their other film for 2011 would attempt to re-invigorate the Shrek brand by spinning-off the series' non-Donkey breakout character into his own franchise. Surprisingly, the move worked with critics and even did decent business at the box office. But was this all justified? Next week, we pay one last visit to the Shrek universe and look at Puss In Boots.
A new edition of DreamWorks! A Retrospective will be posted here every Monday at 1PM BST!
Callum Petch is doing all that he can to be a warm-hearted man. Follow him on the Twitters (@CallumPetch) and listen to Screen 1 on Hullfire Radio every Monday at 9PM BST (site link)!
2011Angelina JolieanimationCallum PetchDavid CrossDreamWorksDreamWorks AnimationHow To Train Your DragonJack BlackJennifer Yuh NelsonKung Fu PandaKung Fu Panda 2MadagascarPuss In BootsretrospectiveSeth RogenShrekSinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas
This year, DreamWorks Animation celebrates its 20th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Callum Petch is going through their entire animated canon, one film a week for the next 30 weeks, and giving them a full-on retrospective treatment. Prior entries can be found here, should you desire.
09] Shark Tale (1st October 2004)
Budget: $75 million
Ever since I started this little project, I was dreading the moment when I would have to do Shark Tale. Its presence on the "To Watch" list hung over the entire venture like a dead rotting albatross, never letting me forget its existence even whilst I was really enjoying myself with DreamWorks Animation's other, really very enjoyable films. Shark Tale, you see, has a reputation. Despite taking $367 million worldwide and being the 9th Highest Grossing Film of 2004 Worldwide, you will find nobody who is willing to admit to liking Shark Tale. It is widely seen as one of the worst animated films of the decade, a distillation of everything that is wrong with animated movies and DreamWorks Animation, and would have faded into total obscurity if it weren't for obsessive asshats like my good self dredging it back up every so often to ensure that nobody forgets it, lest they end up making the same mistakes and subjected a new generation to unspeakable horrors.
Yet, though I approached my task with wary and weary resignation, I entered with a good sense of curiosity overriding everything else. If you've noticed a common thread with regards to this series by now, it'll be that this endeavour is just an excuse for me to take an in-depth look at animated movies and spend multiple A4 pages explaining why they do or do-not work, why they were or were-not successful at the time, and to go on for hours about the history of animation, a subject I know much less about than you think I do. And let's not short-sell it, Shark Tale was a giant success at the box office with the public. It was even nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (2004 was not a good year for the medium, granted, but this over The Spongebob Squarepants Movie?!). Obviously it must have done something right. I even had the DVD and watched the film a few times as a kid. Seeing as I remembered nothing about it, I decided to go in with the hopes that it couldn't be as bad as it had been made out to be, and that I was going to try and figure out why this movie became so successful yet faded into memory.
Below, you will find my reaction to Shark Tale whilst it was running and for a good half hour after it finished.
Shark Tale is one of the worst films that I have ever seen. This is not an exaggeration, one made for comic effect and to flanderize my true thoughts on the movie. Shark Tale is one of the worst films that I have ever seen in my entire life. At the 22 minute mark, I genuinely paused the film with the intent of shutting it off and never returning to it. I have only ever (metaphorically) walked out of a film once due to it being absolutely dreadful (read: no outside circumstances, like power cuts or needing to be elsewhere), said film being Disaster Movie, and Shark Tale came this close to joining that club. I don't even know how I'm going to touch on everything wrong with this movie within my usual allotted space. This is a total failure on every single level and there are no redeeming qualities anywhere. That sentence should probably give you a strong indicator as to why I was all set to just quit at barely the 1/4 mark.
But, I persevered, for I set out to watch every single DreamWorks Animation film and over-analyse them like a nit-picky internet jerk. Plus, it would look really bad if I missed a week and just moved onto Madagascar without saying anything about this. So, with the remainder of our allotted time together (because you are busy people with places to be and better things to be doing than watching a 19 year-old man complain about Shark Tale for an eternity), I will attempt to explain what is wrong with Shark Tale. The result will likely end up covering just a fraction of the problems with this film. Be grateful this isn't a video or audio-based series, as the end result would probably be about 90 minutes long and have at least 40% of the runtime consist of me sputtering futilely like an enraged-yet-despairing Looney Tunes character.
Let's start with something easily tangible that we can all notice together: the animation and, most specifically, the character designs. The animation itself is mediocre to poor: there's a lack of detail pretty much everywhere, the water doesn't look or feel like water, colours are muddied instead of decently shaded, and movements are pretty dreadful. Whenever character movements aren't being too jerky, less the artistic decision to make it "pose-to-pose" (like in the TV series Clone High) and more "this character needs to be in this position from that position, but lunchtime is coming up and I can't be arsed, so I'm only going to do, like, half of the frames the job needs," they're instead being way too smooth and lacking in weight; it never feels like anyone's actually in liquid of any viscosity, let alone the sea. It's bad and, yes, it does come off even worse considering the fact that Finding Nemo came out 18 months earlier.
But the animation is not the main issue with the look of Shark Tale. That would be reserved for the character designs. Now, there is a reason why one does not try and accurately make animated characters look like the people voicing them. Actually, make that two reasons. The first is that you're going to look very silly if you design a character to look like Brad Pitt and then Brad Pitt doesn't show up to play him. The second is that a more cartoony and stylised art design for the rest of the film and a really accurate facial likeness of a celebrity don't mix, meaning that your character is going to look hideous, terrifying, and completely ill-fitting with the rest of the world. Apply the knowledge that you've just learnt, then, to answering this question: why do you not try and design a cast of fish to have faces that resemble the people playing them.
Answer: because you get Jellyfish Christina Aguilera.
This is more terrifying than anything that Annabelle will cook up
That's the most extreme example, but the rest of the cast are honestly not much better. Oscar's face is noticeably off-looking from a good majority of angles, due to his eyes being too wide and his facial features trying to resemble Will Smith. Lola's lips are stuck in this weird halfway house between fish and human, like they desperately tried to capture the effect of Angelina Jolie wearing lipstick and failed miserably, and just end up distracting as a result. Sykes, meanwhile, is basically the result of copying a photo of Martin Scorsese's face without glasses, circa 1978, and pasting it onto a puffer-fish, with the unholy result being what you spend 90 minutes viewing. And the way that their fins move like human arms and hands is just unnervingly creepy. These are bad, ugly character designs; the kind that makes even the film's nicest character, Lenny, look like a knock-off tie-in toy for the real character rather than anything loveable or even bearable to look at for 90 minutes.
I'm probably not going to get any better of a segway than that last paragraph, so let's transition over to the voice acting. Now, stunt casting in animated films was absolutely nothing new in 2004. Hell, Shrek 2 heavily indulged in it about six months prior to Shark Tale, and let's not forget the all-star cast lists of other DreamWorks films. And whilst I will sit here and grumble irritatingly about how professional VAs never get any chances in big budget cinema-focussed films nowadays, I will cease my complaining if the cast are really good or fit their parts well. Basically, as long as they were cast for reasons that amount to more than "they're big now, right?" then I don't have a problem. You'll notice that this is why I didn't moan about the overabundance of big-names populating Shrek 2, they may have been given garbage material but they were all at least trying to make it work.
As you may have guessed by that entire preceding paragraph, I am building up to the earth-shattering revelation that almost none of Shark Tale's cast are any good or even trying at all. There are those in paycheque-collecting mode (Robert De Niro who almost reaches the depths he plumbed in The Adventures Of Rocky And Bullwinkle just 4 years earlier), those who are flatter than Flat Stanley (Angelina Jolie who, goddammit, is supposed to be playing a sexpot, for crying out loud), those who are trying but being directed poorly (Jack Black is the only one of the main cast who actually tries putting on a voice, but he can't stick with it the whole way through), and then there is Martin Scorsese. Before watching Shark Tale, I firmly believed that I could listen to Martin Scorsese talk about anything for hours. The man is just so excitable and passionate about pretty much anything that he could probably read the phone book and hold my interest.
Then, about 11 minutes into Shark Tale, this happens.
Look, maybe there's a way to make that exchange funny. Scorsese did not know how. That was my first indicator that my long-held belief with regards to Scorsese was going to be put to the ultimate test. The man, quite simply, is out of his depth (he he, sea puns) and I realised that he would not be able to elevate garbage material. That, incidentally, is the only clip of Shark Tale that I can find on YouTube with Sykes prominently featured in it, which is a pain for me trying to illustrate my point, but a blessing for you, the reader. See, that means that you don't have to see or hear Martin Scorsese attempting fist-bumps, gangster lingo, dreadful mafia movie references, or "that one dance move where you lick your finger, place it on your butt and hiss like steam is going off" and you get to go through life without having those images permanently seared into your subconscious because DEAR GOD WHY!?
So it probably won't surprise you to find out that Shark Tale was written by white people, yet keeps attempting to work in references to hip-hop, gangster, and lower-class New York life. It also probably won't surprise you to find out that their every attempt to tap into those sub-cultures is embarrassingly cringeworthy and gives off the strong impression that their only experience of primarily black culture was The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. Fitting seeing as Will Smith is playing the lead, but it leads to this continual feel of people trying to tap into sub-cultures that have become popular without actually understanding them. Or, in fact, knowing anything about them at all beyond a ten-second Google search and an afternoon watching MTV Base. It's like if your Granddad tried to prove that he is "hip" and "down with the kids" by using those very phrases earnestly.
Plus, those references don't gel with the gangster movie that Shark Tale also wants to be. In fact, Shark Tale is a confused and aimless movie with no general point to it. It keeps trying on all of these different hats, all these different plot threads, all these different thematic threads, but it never settles on one. Not once does the film seem to know what it's trying to be. Is it a mafia story about a father who is passing on his empire to his sons? Is it a rags-to-riches story about a lowly schmuck who has dreams bigger than his current standing in life? Is it a cautionary tale about how lying will only make things worse for everyone or about not letting success go to your head? Is it a film about grief? Is it a film about social standing? Is it a film that uses the thinnest of metaphors for homosexuality and coming out to your parents?
Truth is that Shark Tale is about every single one of these and none of them whatsoever, because it tries to do them all at once and schizophrenically hops between them from scene-to-scene doing absolutely none of them justice. As a result of this indecisiveness, the film lacks a thematic core, a central reason as to why all of its events are happening. Of course, I'm pretty sure the problem is not indecisiveness. The entire vibe that Shark Tale gives off, more than any other, is a desire to earn a quick buck. A light bulb moment from everyone involved higher-up at the company: the realisation that Shrek may be a winning formula and a desire to milk that "edgy kids' animation" udder as hard and as fast as is humanly possible. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the film was greenlit after somebody walked up to a man in charge one day with a list of A-list actors and a note saying that rap culture was in right now, with everything else just being made up on the fly after the fact. It would explain the total over-stuffed mess that we ended up getting.
It would also explain how we ended up with one of the most inadvertently unlikeable heroes I have ever met in an animated movie. Seriously, Oscar is a giant jerk-ass. He is selfish, manipulative, a compulsive liar, gambler and overall degenerate, lazy, uncaring of his friends, and only helpful when it serves his own personal interests. Now, I get that this is supposed to be the point, he starts a jerk and then gets better when character development kicks in, but there are two stumbling blocks to this. 1) He begins too unlikeable. There is a difference between "a jerk who is entertaining to watch" and "a jerk who I would like to see flambéed immediately" and he is most definitely in the latter category, despite Will Smith's natural likeable charisma. 2) His big heroic act near the end, rescuing Angie and revealing his lie, is still being done out of selfish desires, a desire to pork Angie, so he's actually learnt nothing. His making amends with the sharks feels crowbarred in purely to try and make that complaint hold little weight, instead of anything natural.
That "pitch" that I mentioned two paragraphs back would probably also explain why the film's "jokes" are so utterly non-existent or just-plain-terrible. As a little mini-case study, let's all watch the fake shark attack sequence together.
Notice how most of this sequence is not built on broad physical comedy, character work, or at least contrasting the fake performance with how it looks to the bystanders. Notice instead how it primarily attempts to get its laughs from random pop culture references. Yes, references. Lenny singing a bastardisation of the Jaws theme to himself (which is not a call-back, despite the joke having already been used with a different character earlier in the movie, because it's the same joke), the battle taking place in a very-thinly veiled version of New York, and then there's that bit where Oscar just starts shouting phrases from classic movies. None of them have any reason for being said in the context of the scene, and there's no rhyme or reason as to their delivery or choice; the lone exception being "YOU HAD ME AT 'HELLO'!" because, hey, Renée Zellweger starred in Jerry Maguire so ha.
The scene has no actual jokes. Lenny eating Oscar could have been a funny sudden gag, but it's dragged out too long, leads into an overly-tangential rant by Oscar, and the animation is too low-quality to truly sell it. Otherwise, it's just pop culture references and a performance that's too absurd and too long to be funny. When concocting a scene where two characters are putting on a fake display of some kind, you need it to be absurd enough that it's funny for the viewer, but not dragged out too long as to make them start wondering why nobody in the film's world has cottoned on. There also need to be jokes. Shark Tale's is absurd, but it goes on for way too long and lacks in jokes, making one wonder how anyone could be buying this. (For an example of how to do this kind of thing right, I point you towards this scene from Avatar: The Last Airbender.) Instead of there being actual jokes, Lenny gets punched through a billboard for Jaws. Ha. Ha. Ha.
And that kind of quote-unquote joke abounds everywhere throughout Shark Tale. From its casting (hey, look, it's Michael Imperioli who is here because he was in Goodfellas and The Sopranos), to its billboard parodies (more on those in a sec), to brick jokes that should be funny (a shrimp that Lenny spared earlier in the movie returns in the climax quite literally so that it can say "Say hello to my little friends!"), to pretty much any usage of music. What do I mean by that? When Oscar seems to have outsmarted the sharks, he immediately gets up on the table and sings Can't Touch This by MC Hammer, complete with doing the dance (which was the moment I realised why Oscar's character design was the way it was). When Lola is introduced (and I could write something like 20 paragraphs on this film's usage and treatment of women, so be glad we're near wrapping-up time), the soundtrack plays Gold Digger by Ludacris, to just ram that point home as hard as is humanly possible. And then, there's this.
Oy vey indeed, Robert De Niro. It's all just so goddamn lazy, completely devoid of skill or effort, and done with a near-total contempt for the audience the result ends up in front of. Then, much like in Shrek 2, there are the jokes aimed only at children, because attempting double-coding properly like in the first Shrek was just too much work for everyone involved at DreamWorks Animation in 2004. You know: fart jokes, inherently funny words being repeated endlessly for no reason, wacky comic relief that pops up with a joke any time that a scene gets in danger of being too serious (funny that the first Shrek lampooned this Disney trope and yet DreamWorks couldn't stay away from it, isn't it), more fart jokes, wacky comic relief based around racial stereotypes that everyone involved hopes that children are too young to realise are racist, something gross occurring, even more fart jokes, poorly-done physical humour, and sudden music cues because WACKY! Wanna take a guess how this all turns out?
One last thing and then I will let you leave. I get that Shark Tale is supposed to be set in an underwater equivalent to New York City. I get that that means that there will be a temptation for the animators to create parodies of famous brands and advertising billboards and the like, littering them around the set. When the parodies are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, to such a degree that I spent a good half of the movie thinking that there was genuine product placement going on for Coca-Cola until it got a close-up, though, you have failed at your job. There are not-100%-intrusive places for product placement in movies. An animated film aimed at kids' about undersea life is not one of them. This should have been cut down immediately in the concept stage of the film's lifespan, especially since it's one of the quickest ways to figure out exactly when the film came out and the culture it spawned from.
Well, we're out of time. I hope you enjoyed this systemic breakdown of just a small percentage, about 14% tops, of the ways that Shark Tale is a complete and total failure, a blight on DreamWorks Animation, the animation industry as a whole, and the world in general, and a completely creatively-bankrupt exercise in cynical cash-grab movie-making. Fortunately for us all, despite being one of the year's highest grossing films, we have been spared any further adventures in the world of Shark Tale as, apparently, it didn't play well overseas. Which is demonstrably false, but I guess is better for business than just admitting that everyone at DreamWorks done f*cked up and would prefer that we never speak of this again. A sentiment that I will be happy to oblige…
…right after I subject you all to The Dance Party Ending.
See you next week, folks!
2004 was the year that DreamWorks Animation forcefully staked their claim to the feature-length animation landscape. Two giant financial successes, one of which also being a critical smash, will do that to your standing. The company would spend the next few years solidifying its position as one of the major players in that field, albeit mostly at the cost of the critical acclaim that stood them out from the pack of pretenders at the beginning of their career, keeping up a steady output of two films every year for almost the entire remainder of the decade. Next week, we enter 2005 and look at the beginnings of their second mega-successful franchise, Madagascar.
Callum Petch might not ever get rich, but it's better than digging a ditch. Follow him on the Twitters (@CallumPetch)!
2004Angelina JolieanimationAvatar: The Last AirbenderCallum PetchDreamWorksDreamWorks AnimationFresh Prince Of Bel-AirGoodfellasJack BlackJawsjerry maguireMadagascarMartin ScorseseRenée ZellwegerretrospectiveRobert De NiroShark TaleShrekShrek 2The GodfatherWill Smith
Failed Critics Podcast: X-Critics: Hours of Future Mutterings
Welcome to this week's bumper Failed Critics Podcast, ans the usual suspects and special guest Carole Petts get in touch with their younger selves and combine their efforts in attempt to stop catastrophe: Steve winning the quiz and picking a film worse than Cutthroat Island…
They also find time to review new releases X-Men: Days of Future Past and Maleficent, as well as a clutch of teen-focused dramas in What We've Been Watching, including Short Term 12, The Selfish Giant, and The Kids Are Alright. Not only that, but we even find time to discuss the departure of Edgar Wright from Ant-Man, and the recruitment of Gareth Edwards for a Star Wars spin-off.
Join us next week for reviews of Edge of Tomorrow and A Million Ways to Die in the West.
http://rss.acast.com/failedcritics/failed-critics-podcast-x-critics-hours-of-future-mutterings/media.mp3
Angelina JolieAnt-ManBryan SingerDays of Future PastDisneyEdgar WrightGareth EdwardsHow I Live NowHugh JackmanIan McKellenJames McEvoyJennifer LawrenceMaleficentMarvelMichael FassbenderPartick StewartPixarShort Term 12Star WarsThe Kids Are AlrightThe Selfish GiantX-Men
Maleficent is both far better than it sounds and nowhere near as good as it promises to be.
'"The movie is gorgeous to look at, and the last 75 minutes are really entertaining," [producer Joe Roth] says. The issue is the opening, which is being reshot over eight days.'
That was from an article posted on The Hollywood Reporter back in October concerning reshoots for Maleficent. I'm really rather hoping that Disney didn't pay too much for those reshoots because the first 30 minutes of Maleficent are really not good. When your film begins by featuring a child actress who is straining so very, very hard to act with every fibre of her being, whilst her character is being sickeningly nice and sweet as that "acting" is going on, first impressions are not going to be very favourable. Fortunately for all involved, Maleficent does get better. In fact, you can pretty much pinpoint the exact minute the film starts getting good, when it settles into its groove and starts doing the stuff it clearly wanted to do from the beginning.
Unfortunately, though, Maleficent has been cut down to within an inch of its life. Running at a svelte 96 minutes with credits, and with a really poor opening 30, this is a film that breathlessly sprints through everything it has to offer at 300MPH and only laying the barest groundwork necessary for its big emotional arc and switcheroo finale to work; instead relying on Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning to carry them through. It almost works. When the film settles into its groove, it's a very good re-imagining of Sleeping Beauty and its emotional beats do land. Unfortunately, that groundwork is full of bags of potential that never get realised because of the poor opening and the extreme shortness of its runtime.
That opening, for those that are interested, concerns a child Maleficent who lives in the forest kingdom and is the kindest and nicest fairy who ever lived a life of being kind and nice. One day, she encounters a human child, Stefan, who snuck into the forest kingdom and the two become friends, apparently, and later lovers, apparently. The years go by, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) and Stefan (Sharlto Copley) grow older and further apart, with Maleficent leading the defence force of the forest kingdom from a human army who wish to wipe them out because… humans are dicks? Anyways, the king, on his deathbed after a battle with Maleficent, puts out a hit on her and the opportunistic Stefan uses his old friendship with her as a way in. Unable to pull the trigger and straight kill her, Stefan instead steals her wings, takes the throne based on a lie and leaves Maleficent a woman scorned and determined for revenge.
Yes, that does sound like the film bending over backwards and then some in an attempt to make Maleficent a sympathetic protagonist. Stay with me, we're almost at the part where it starts getting good. King Stefan and his wife eventually give birth to Aurora (who eventually grows up to be Elle Fanning) and Maleficent shows up and curses the child to fall into a deep sleep if she pricks her finger on a spinning wheel any time before the day after her sixteenth birthday, from which only a true love's kiss can rouse her. Stefan panics, because both he and Maleficent don't believe in such a thing and sends the girl away to a remote cottage near the forest kingdom to be raised by three fairies. Maleficent, however, follows, discovers where the baby is being kept and becomes sort of a far-distance trickster godmother to Aurora until, one day, their mutual curiosity leads to a face-to-face meeting and you can probably guess the rest.
Here's the thing, that part of the film is great! I mean, I'm a sucker for this kind of plotline anyway (ones that focus on mother-daughter relationships just kind of get to me), but Maleficent still pulls it off with aplomb thanks mainly to Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning. Jolie looks like she's been building to this role for her entire life and she mostly nails it. Not only does she look the part (seriously, the work made to get her to look like the title character is superb), she's also mostly fantastic. She's weakest in the beginning (what a surprise), but as soon as she appears at Aurora's christening she is off to the races. When she needs to be the loud hammy villain, Jolie hits those notes excellently, equal parts dead straight and having the time of her life. When she needs to sell the growing affection she has for Aurora, she sells it totally, as note-perfect deadpan gives way to genuine warmth. The film puts the attempted curse revoking far too early in the narrative's chronology for it to register as genuine, but Jolie still gives it her all, regardless. She's a commanding screen presence, equally convincing when making humans tremble in fear as when she's shrinking back into herself when surrounded by lethal iron. It's that instance of dream casting where the performance ends up exactly as great as it sounded on paper; I can't imagine anyone else playing this part in live-action now.
Jolie will get a lot of much deserved plaudits and praise thrown her way, but hopefully that won't mean that Elle Fanning is left out in the cold, either. I mean, after all, it takes two to sell a maternal relationship and Fanning is more subdued than her co-star but no less great. See, Fanning has to be happy and cheerful practically all of the time, a saint in all but name, and that can often lead into precociously annoying (after all, it happened with child Maleficent at the beginning of the film). Fanning, however, finds that sweet-spot where she's both believably nice and cheery and friendly, and not punch-ably-annoying. She's endearing so, even though the film short-changes the whole relationship (we will get back to that, hang in there), it's still easily understandable how Maleficent would start defrosting due to spending time with her. I really do wish that the film spent more time on this part, but Jolie and Fanning still force a section that would otherwise operate at half-strength (at best) come close to the level of most films that spend way longer on such character relationships.
Similarly recovering from a poor start is the character of King Stefan who spends the movie succumbing to his paranoia regarding Maleficent's curse. We don't check in with him too much, but we do so enough to both nail down both the tragic aspect of his villainy and how his paranoid delusions turn him into a horrible, selfish and often vile human being. He doesn't just turn evil so that we can have our final setpiece, his slide into what he becomes remains rooted in character work set up beforehand which keeps it from feeling jarring (unlike certain other blockbusters that I don't much care to mention). A nod of approval should also be thrown Sharlto Copley's way, too. Unlike his villain turn in last year's Elysium, he resists the urge to go full-ham and instead pitches his performance as more of a pathetic and weasely character who only got into his position through greed and whose paranoia seems to be just as much, if not more so, rooted in his own wellbeing than that of his daughter. At first I was disappointed (I actually really like Copley's hammier turns), but the more I reflect the more I grow to like it. It's understated, and I can dig that.
Oh, it would also be remiss of me to not mention the fairies that look after Aurora (played by Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and Lesley Manville). Well, I say "look after". In Maleficent, they're very self-absorbed and care more about the fact that they're, direct quote, "wasting the best years of our lives" on their charge. They're also sometimes comic relief, although that mainly comes from Maleficent messing with them than jokes about their negligence in raising Aurora (that, surprisingly, is a well they only go to once and it's required to set up the beginning of her and Maleficent's relationship). It's a rather fun deconstruction, in all honesty, and it fits well with the mildly deconstructive nature of the rest of the film, too. Ditto the stuff with Prince Phillip which is short, and cribs from Frozen, but is still very much appreciated.
See, all of this stuff is good. Great, even! However, it's also cut to within an inch of its life. There is the bare minimum of content to each of these themes and plots and scenarios which works fine for King Stefan (it checks in precisely enough times to get the message across), the fairies and Prince Phillip (whose ideas and themes benefit from the reduced screen-time as it keeps them from being beaten over the audience's head), but is almost killer for Maleficent and Aurora. Again, it hits the bare minimum of points and scenes in order to make the emotional beats connect at least partially, and even then it's mainly down to Jolie and Fanning to do most of that heavy lifting, but that's it. It goes no further. For an example, it takes pretty much one scene after the two meet for Maleficent to defrost to Aurora when she's brought to the forest kingdom. It's that kind of speedy manoeuvring of plot pieces that makes what should be a huge, giant heartwarming ending, the kind that leaves a glow of pure joy emanating from my heart for hours on end, instead a mildly uplifting one. The power isn't there because the time hasn't been put in.
Instead, we spend the opening 30 minutes very, very, very awkwardly setting up Maleficent's back-story. It's got everything! Dreadful child actors, poor attempts at Lord Of The Rings-style fantasy battlefield action so that there's something in the advertisements to hook the boys in with, montage after montage after montage, clunky foreshadowing, "a woman scorned" as the primary motive for the lead's descent into darkness (although the film quickly distances itself from this after the 30 minute mark, so I'm not as bothered as I could have been), extremely clunky explanations of how [x iconic character] got [y iconic accessory] (Diaval was saved from hunters by Maleficent and is now her humble servant, if you were just dying to know)… They're all present and they're all correct and, dear Maker, they are so badly done and so at odds with the rest of the film. These go more for fantasy epic than the smaller scale relationship-focussed story the film pivots on after the first half-hour, and the switch between the two is equivalent to a really bad truck driver awkwardly attempting to shift gears. They're that at odds with each other and in terms of both tone and quality.
And it sucks up so much precious time! Look, Maleficent never drags, that's the beauty of its 96 minute length, but the film did not need to waste half-a-gorram-hour very awkwardly and painfully setting up Maleficent's back-story, because it takes away from the central relationship that drives it! If Disney and the filmmakers wanted the film to be 96 minutes, they should have started the story at the point in which Maleficent crashes the coronation and left her back-story to be a mid-film reveal, summed up in a five minute montage. It would get the point across, we'd lose nothing because the film is that bad at the entire section as it is, and it would have left more room for development of the Maleficent/Aurora relationship. You could even catch viewers off-guard by slowly subverting the typical Maleficent and Stefan images before hitting the audience with the back-story to make the tragedy of it all sting that much more. But, no, instead it takes about 30 minutes for the film to get out of its rut and get to the bloody point, which is a third of the film wasted!
Look, Maleficent is a mess. I will not dispute that. The overly-streamlined runtime coupled with the drastically different opening third creates a film that seems to be either the product of a whole bunch of people trying to make separate films and only successfully getting on each other's page for its final third (where it applies the Sleeping Beauty story to the universe we've spent the last hour in, and which is way better than that sounds), or the product of filmmakers who got bored a third of the way into their uninspired Lord of the Rings cribbing and, realising that you can't just throw that kind of money away, decided to staple it onto the first third of a much better film, instead. You can practically see the seams at the exact minute that the film comes alive.
But when the film comes alive, it displays so much potential that it realises just enough of to be a satisfying film, but not enough to keep me from being disappointed. This should have been an excellent film; Maleficent is a whole bunch of scenes that are likely currently residing on the cutting room floor and a good editor who knows what to keep, what to toss and what to re-attach away from being a damn great film. The blueprint is there, the framework is there, say the word and it will go straight for the emotional jugular! But those opening 30 minutes are bad and they've stolen away the 30 minutes required to make Maleficent a great film instead of a maddeningly good one. Jolie is excellent, Fanning is nearly on that level, Copley is superb, the story and script are clearly wanting to go great places, but the sum is not greater than or equal to those parts, I'm afraid.
So, so maddeningly close.
Callum Petch walked with you once upon a dream. Follow him on the Twitters (@CallumPetch)!
2014Angelina JolieDisneyElle FanningFrozenMaleficentNew ReleasereviewSharlto CopleySleeping BeautyThe Amazing Spider-Man 2


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