Netflix Retrospective - The Dragon Prince Book 2 (Sky) Chapters 7-9

We're back for one last look at The Dragon Prince as I finally catch up with all the pre-summer releases, horray? 

Pixar Playlist #20 - Incredibles 2

Ladies and Gentlemen whether you like it or not, the Pixar Playlist

Sequels are a tricky business for Pixar, they’ve had some good ones, and some mediocre ones, and a terrible one. But this era of Pixar is continuing to pump them out and why not a sequel to a pretty popular film, the Incredibles.

The popularity of Superheroes in pop culture in the 2010s made a sequel to this feel more and more inevitable. But that is a double-edged sword as it enters into a pretty saturated market. They weren’t even safe in the animated department as Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse was due to come out in the same year, a film that would beat it to an Oscar in an uncommon loss for Disney.

But what they have to their advantage is resources. No-longer do they need to dedicate time and money for developing the physics since the technology already exists within the company, all the have to do is transfer all the models to the new software and update them. And speaking of resources, $200m is also helpful and far more than any other studio gives to their animated projects.

And the film was successful, raking in $1.2bn at the box office, this in spite of Disney swapping the schedule and losing a full year of development time. Let’s see where it fits on my list

Netflix Retrospective - The Dragon Prince Book 2 (Sky) Chapters 4-6

RageLite review - Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse

It’s the early 2000s and in an attempt to attract new readers with stories without decades of continuity, Brian Michael Bendis and a few other writers launch the Ultimate Universe, and one of the first stories to come out was Ultimate Spider-man. This Spider-man was younger, and more relatable to kids and teens, as was the original aim for Spider-man, but there came a time when this fresh start became old again, and the decision was made to kill of Peter Parker and replace him with a new Spider-man, Miles Morales. And whilst there were plenty of haters of anyone other than Peter taking up the mantle of Spider-man, Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli brought their A-game and the character was a hit with readers, so much so that when they pulled the trigger on the Ultimate Universe, he was one of maybe 2 characters spared.

Miles currently fills the void Peter once filled, whilst Peter in the comics is in his mid-late 20s, Miles is now the young Spider-man to appeal to teens. Him being bi-racial allowed him to appeal to non-white audiences who may not have seen themselves in Peter.

I have read every Miles Morales solo book, I followed him through years of Bendis, and am still following him now Bendis has moved to DC. His popularity has transcended the comics, he appeared in both Disney produced Spider-man shows, made appearances in Insomniac’s PS4 Spider-man game and got his own PS4/PS5 spinoff game. And of course, there’s Into the Spider-verse, a movie from Sony Animation Studios centred around Miles Morales.

I must admit, I was really happy to hear about a Miles Morales film coming out, but I was less ecstatic to hear that would also be a multiverse crossover with multiple spider-men and spider-women. I was concerned that with all the multiversal chaos Miles’ own story would be lost in the shuffle, but with Phil Lord and Chris Miller on board, I hoped we were in for something and, spoiler alert, we got it. This film won the Academy Award for best animated movie, and made $375m on a $90m budget, and got a pretty striking 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. Is it worthy of all that praise? Well, let’s take a look