FInal Blog Post: The American Tale, and The Real American Dream:

As for my last blog post for the semester, I am going to end it on a good note and talk about the movie that we watched in class last week and how it compares to real American history. The movie that we watched was “An American Tail.” This film follows a family of rats that flee from oppression brought on by cats in their home country of Russia, and end up making their way to the west to America in hope to start over with the idea that there are no cats in America. On their way over on the ship, one of the youngest in the family gets separated from the rest and ends up having to fend for himself for most of the movie. The youngster who is known as Fievel starts looking all over the place in the city of New York for his family who at this point think he is dead. Well push comes to shove, they end up reuniting and all is well. This is just a quick synopsis of the story so anyone that hasn’t seen it can be caught up. What I am going to delve into for this post is the message that this movie gives off and how it is very similar to what the people that immigrated to this country had to go through.

Well first, what is interesting to me about this film is that the rats that are coming over to America have just about the same feeling towards America as people did during the immigration period. The rats thought that they would be free from the oppression of the cats, just like people thought that they could escape the things that were happening in their own country. This whole idea that the rats had about there being no cats in America and the streets were paved with cheese is not as ridiculous as it may seem. When people were immigrating over to America they all had this concept of what was known as the “American Dream.”

But when they got over to America, there was still a lot of hardship. The rats still had to work hard to provide for their family just like the people did, and there were cats as well. Now, based on the cats being there they represent a good message. That message is hardship. Whether it is rats or people they both wanted to get away from the hardships that plagued them, but when they made it to America the hardship continued. But even though there was hardship, that did not stop the rats from doing what they needed to do in order to provide for themselves this is the same for the people that immigrated to America they didn’t stop just because it got a little hard.

The other thing that I wanted to talk about is the idea that this movie seems to be directed more to older kids who are in a middle school or high school History class, but does have a story for younger audiences as well. For the younger audience, it is about a little rat that has to find his family. That is pretty cut and dry and is easier to understand. For the older crowd, there is a bigger picture which is, the idea that a family is facing the hardships that I discussed earlier and there was this idea of what we discussed in class, the “American Dream.” I believe that this film does a very good job conveying that message over. And also, it seems to be more accurate in the story than that of what Disney did with “Pocahontas”.

When Disney made “Pocahontas”, there were many inconsistencies with it and the real story. I have a blog post that you could refer to that would show you all of these inconsistencies. As for “An American Tail,” even though it is about a bunch of rats trying to go to America to escape cats and start over, it is more accurate as to what happened back when immigration was a big thing. Even though this film is much darker than “Pocahontas” I think that it is the better of the two because of its historical significance.   

With that I will close out this blog post and leave it open for discussion and will be willing to read your comments.

Blog Post 12: Pocahontas: Did Disney Do it Right?

Well I have to say that when we watched Pocahontas in class the other day; I could see how that film could be shown in a classroom for educational purposes. BUT after further research, I have to say that almost this entire movie is totally inaccurate. The reason for this rant is because following the viewing of the film I did research and the movie does not ad up to the real history and also the depiction of the Native Powhatan tribe was completely botched. When I looked up the real history of Pocahontas I was surprised to see that her name was not even Pocahontas and also she was in fact married to Kocoum. In the movie she is about to marry Kocoum, but ends up falling for Smith. But in real life, she was married to Kocoum when she was in her teens and when Smith arrived she was around 10 or 11. This is interesting due to the fact that most of the Disney princess movies including Pocahontas make all of the princesses look like they are older that way they don’t send a message to kids. This is understandable, but still needs to be taken into consideration when making a history movie. Also there is another thing that is interesting about this film. Due to the fact that we all think that she is going to run off with John Smith. Well this obviously is completely messed up it isn’t John Smith that she ends up with. She ends up getting captured and gets taken back to England and was converted to Christianity. Following this, she ends up marrying John Rolfe who was known for his introduction of tobacco to the settlements. The last thing that in my mind at least I found to be a little offensive was the way the Powhatan Indians were depicted. There was a discussion in class that brought it to my attention that the image of the Native Americans in the movie looked more like the Mohawk tribe rather than the Powhatan. In a way I feel like this is a little offensive due to the fact that I am half Native American and I know quite a bit about my own heritage based on research that I have done. I feel like that there could have been more research done on the different tribes in order to have a more authentic feel to the movie. In my opinion I think that this is one movie that could be redone just because of all of the things that were done wrong. But that is just my opinion. I had only watched this movie one other time aside from class and even then I had mixed feelings about the movie, and after seeing it a second time I can safely say that it is definitely my least favorite.    

Blog Post 11: Appreciation for Animation:

          

         Well I have to say that following the project that was assigned to the class on creating an animation I have developed a greater appreciation for animators and their jobs. I mean even to create a thirty second animation, give it story, give it sound, and make sure it all flows well it did not seem like much to me, but I could not believe how much time was involved in each scene that I created. I constantly found myself tweaking my animation here and there making sure that it was the best that I could make. (Yes I may be somewhat of a perfectionist.)  But I guess animators need to be perfectionists with their own work in order for them to sell their work.  The program that I used had everything that I needed in order to create my animation. The site that I used was “GoAnimate.com.”  This site had everything that a beginner needs to have in order to create an animation. There was a downside to it though. The downside was that I was only allowed as a free user to create a thirty-second video. But there was an upside to it. The upside was that it really tested me as a beginner to cut down timeframes on different scenes in order to create a good animation. Also there was a great tool that enabled me to have a good conversation between the two characters. I was able to use this to do a scene-by-scene conversation, which in my opinion turned out great. I know what I created is very small-scale in the big scheme of things but I was amazed as to what my finished project looked. There may be a few chops in my video, which is to be expected. But I was happy nonetheless. If anyone that has kids that need to do a project or just want to be creative, this is a site that has everything that they would need and has a very simple tutorial to teach you everything you need to know. I highly recommend it. Also by the way I am posting a link to my video following this. you may have to watch it more than once to see the text but like I stated earlier It was very difficult to work with thirty seconds. Hope you like it.

A Fighter's Worth

Blog Post 10: Educational Animations During the Cold War:

“There was a turtle by the name of Bert

And Bert the Turtle was very alert

When danger threatened him he never got hurt

He knew just what to do”

            Anybody that grew up during the Cold War may remember this little jingle. This was a message on how we could prepare ourselves if an atomic bomb were to have ever been dropped on the United States. The message was created by Civil Defense Administration to show just what you need to do in case there ever was an attack. Following our discussion last class on wartime animation, I went looking for this little educational video because of when I saw it in my high school history class. This always interested me due to the fact that based on what we know now, I know that even though we might listen to what Burt the Turtle did and ducked and covered more than likely we would end up being blown to smithereens anyway. But do you want to tell a bunch of kids that? I highly doubt that. So with that being said, this is why this little gem came to be. What is interesting about this is that it shows the kids in the classroom and people around the country just in fact that there could be a possible atomic bombing at anytime and it could come without warning. So how should they go by relaying this message? Well, look no further than Burt. Even today we are still faced with the real situation that there could be an attack, but we are far more prepared than we were back in 1951. What interests me even more though is the fact that things escalated so quickly during World War II and afterwards. If people would have heard someone talking about a weapon like this prior to World War I perhaps, they may look at you like you have three eyes. Fast-forward what really is not too much time when thought about and you have this. It really is amazing that something like the atomic bomb was created, and then to have to find a way to relay that message to kids, well it seems near impossible to do due to the fact that if you told a kid that everything they had could be gone in a literal flash it would scare them to death. So I applaud the creators of this film due to the fact that it gives kids a way to deal with something as real and as monstrous as a nuclear attack.        

Blog Post 9: Toy Story 3 Review:

             Over the weekend I went back and watched a movie from a series that many of us in class grew up watching when we were kids. That movie was “Toy Story 3.” This is the third installment in the series that many of us have come to know and love. For the purpose of this blog I will attempt to give a review on the film and convey the message that I took away from the movie.

            In this film, we see the characters that we have all come to love trying to deal with a situation that was inevitable. The situation is that their owner Andy has grown up and is leaving for collage. The toys have no idea what will happen to them because of this situation and their hope is that no matter what they will trust Andy in making sure they will have a good home. Following this, the toys end up almost being mistakenly thrown away in the trash, but end up in a daycare facility where they think they are safe. But, this feeling would soon go away due to the fact that there is a toy that is running the show there and makes sure that the toys are dealt with in a way that the toy does not have to worry. Oblivious to this situation the toy that we have all come to love Woody is able to get out of the daycare and manages to get out and find his way to a little girl’s house where he would find out the truth as to what is going on there. Having found out, Woody gets back into the daycare where he proceeds to break the other toys out and try to get back to their owner Andy. Woody manages to free them and following this there are a series of events to follow where their demise seems to be almost certain. But the toys end up making it back to Andy’s house the day he is leaving for collage. Woody gets the toys all packed up as if they had never left and leaves a message to Andy. Andy reads the message, which happens to be the address of the little girl that Woody was carried home by. Andy ends up going to the little girl’s house and gives her the toys he loves and grew up with. But there is one that he does have a hard time letting go of that toy being Woody. Andy ends up trusting her with him and the other toys and ends up having one last playtime with them before he leaves for collage.

            This movie is downright one of my favorite movies of all time. In my opinion it was a great way to end the series that we have all come to love. This movie is the most polished and refined of the three using the evolutions in animation that have happened over the course of the 15-year period that these movies were produced. What I really enjoyed about this movie is that even though there were a few toys that had absolutely no affiliation with the other movies, they were able to give them all just enough back-story to make them seem like they belonged in the film. Following a quote that I read in the “New York Times” review, the action scenes have a look to them that you may see in a movie out of the “Bourne” series. Also one other thing that I have to agree with that the ‘New York Times” says about the film is that even though the movie is about a bunch of junky plastic that many of us never bat an eye towards now that we are adults it is a movie all about love. Love being the love that a boy found within these toys and the love that the toys gave back unknowing by the owner. I am sure that most of us had at one point in our lives a toy that we loved and didn’t want to let go, but this movie has a message to those of who did.

            The message is that it is ok to let these toys go and that they will be ok with someone that we can trust them with and they will be able to love them the same way that we did. The final scene is one that yes even though I am a grown man the kid in me cries every time I see it. The scene is the little girl who was trusted with the toys puts Woody’s lifeless arm up and waves to Andy. When Andy sees this it saddens him to know that this part of his life has come to a close, but he knows that he can trust the girl with them to be the owner that he once was. In conclusion, “Toy Story 3” is a ride that if you have not been on you need to go on. It was a great way to end the series that we all love and that even though I am giving this movie a great review it still does not do it justice. You have to see it to appreciate it.