Strange World

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Disney's Divinity
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Re: Strange World

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D82 wrote:Well, it's not Disney's first gay protagonist,
We're talking about WDAS....
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Re: Strange World

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D82 meant that Ethan is not the protagonist here. His dad is.
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Re: Strange World

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Oh, yeah. I'm just so used to someone pointing at some random live-action film or Star Wars movie that nobody gives a crap about.
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Re: Strange World

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Dennis Quaid, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union and Lucy Liu join the cast of Strange World and will play Jaeger Clade, Ethan Clade, Meridian Clade and Callisto Mal respectively!

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It was confirmed in Annecy (via clips from the film) that the character of Ethan Clade will be the first openly LGBT character in a Disney Animation production.
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Re: Strange World

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Jennifer Lee wrote:"The ‘we’ is more important than ever as our studio can only truly shine when everyone feels welcome, feels the pride & responsibility of our legacy, and feels inspired to create, together.”
https://twitter.com/DisneyAnimation/sta ... clRjw&s=19
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Re: Strange World

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Lucy Liu as Callisto Mal, head of Avalonia and leader of the exploration into the world of infinite mystery!
https://twitter.com/DisneyAnimation/sta ... YAfjw&s=19
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Re: Strange World

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This confirms Meridian is the wife and Callisto another explorer unrelated to the family. It also confirms that Callisto is Asian and not Indigenous. Did they specify what Ethan is at Annecy? Is he gay, non-binary or both?
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Re: Strange World

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Sotiris wrote:D82 meant that Ethan is not the protagonist here. His dad is.
Yes, that's what I meant.
Disney's Divinity wrote:Oh, yeah. I'm just so used to someone pointing at some random live-action film or Star Wars movie that nobody gives a crap about.
That's OK. I should've specified I was talking about WDAS.
Sotiris wrote:Did they specify what Ethan is at Annecy? Is he gay, non-binary or both?
According to Wikipedia, Jaboukie Young-White, the actor who voices him is gay, so it's likely the character is too. The first clip screened at Annecy also seems to suggest so. Here's an article that includes footage description and new details about the plot:

https://www.slashfilm.com/899567/strang ... ck-annecy/
Last edited by D82 on Fri Jun 17, 2022 12:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Strange World

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Annecy 2022 Recap: Walt Disney Animation Studios Gives First Look at “Strange World,” “Baymax!,” and “Zootopia+”
Heading to the big screen on November 23rd, Walt Disney Animation Studios’ 61st animated feature was introduced by producer Roy Conli, who began his presentation speaking French (his long list of credits includes The Hunchback of Notre Dame, animated at Disney’s Paris studio). Inspired by turn-of-the-century pulp novels by Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and H.G. Wells, Strange World tells the story of a family on an incredible adventure, directed by Don Hall and co-directed by Qui Nguyen (Raya and the Last Dragon), who also serves as writer. Both directors were inspired by their relationship with their fathers as well as how they raise their own sons.

Roy Conli walked us through the story, presenting what feels like the first act of the film. The story starts in Avalonia, a valley surrounded by mountains so steep that any explorer who has tried to climb out has never returned. Jaeger Clade (Dennis Quaid) and his son Searcher Clade (Jake Gyllenhall) set out on an expedition to discover what lies beyond the mountains, but get in a fight when Searcher discovers a magical plant that could benefit Avalonia, wishing to abandon the mission and take the plant home. During their right, Jaeger proceeds on the quest alone, never to be seen again, while Searcher returns to the valley.

Flash forward 25 years when the plant, named Pando, has created a prosperous community. Searcher and his wife Meridian (Gabrielle Union) run a Pando farm with their teenage son Ethan (Jaboukie Young-White) and their three-legged dog Legend. In the first sequence we were shown, Ethan’s friends pull up in a hover truck with a new pack of collector cards. Ethan is clearly shy around Diazo, who seems to return his affections but both boys are too shy to make the first move. Ethan is bummed that he gets a farmer card, so Diazo offers to trade him his explorer card, adding that it seems more like him. Searcher interrupts the conversation, excited to finally meet Diazo and being adorably over supportive of his son, whom he seemingly tries to be best friends with.

Conli filled in the gap between that scene and the second one we were shown. Something bad happens to the Pando crops and they are all dying, sending Avalonia into peril. An explorer named Calisto Mal (Lucy Liu) leads an expedition beneath the planet’s crust to find out what’s going on and Searcher agrees to join her. Ethan is desperate to go, but Searcher refuses to put his son’s life in danger. In the clip we saw, Calisto pilots a unique ship through caverns beneath the surface when a vessel flies behind them and calls for them to stop. It’s Searcher’s wife Meridian warning them that she believes Ethan stowed away. Sure enough, Ethan and Legend are discovered on board just as the ship is attacked by pink winged creatures. They send the ship into a free fall and it plummets, breaking through a rock barrier and bouncing into a spongy colorful world seemingly at the center of the planet. During the turbulent landing, Searcher and Legend fall off the ship and get separated from the rest of the expedition.

In the final sequence we saw, Searcher and Legend begin exploring the terrain, soon finding a character named Splat, a squishy blue blob with many appendages. Earlier in the presentation, Roy showed some test animation of Splat walking on 6 legs, 2 legs, and hiding in plain sight. He’s a really fun character and one that he promises will become a fan favorite. In several ways, he reminded me of Morph from Treasure Planet.
Source: https://www.laughingplace.com/w/article ... -zootopia/
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Re: Strange World

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Thanks for posting, Farerb! That article is even more detailed than the one I posted. I'm still trying to understand the story, though. Does all the film take place in a different planet and later in an underground world inside it or is it Earth?
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Re: Strange World

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D82 wrote:Does all the film take place in a different planet and later in an underground world or is it Earth?
From what I understood, the Clade family lives in Avalonia, a valley surrounded by mountains that's presumably on Earth. The "strange world" from the trailer is a place underground where they end up crashing. I think the twist is going to be that the place they are living, Avalonia, is on an alien planet or a living organism of some kind and not on our Earth. The fact that it's surrounded by mountains so steep no one has ever been able to travel outside it and therefore its inhabitants had no contact with the outside world seems to suggest that Avalonia is not as it seems.

In any case, from those clip descriptions, the movie seems like a rip-off of Atlantis and Treasure Planet, but without the charm or appeal. The Morph-like character is especially egregious.
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Re: Strange World

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Sotiris wrote:From what I understood, the Clade family lives in Avalonia, a valley surrounded by mountains that's presumably on Earth. The "strange world" from the trailer is a place underground where they end up crashing.
OK, I wonder how long they have been living there and if they remember where they came from.
Sotiris wrote:I think the twist is going to be that the place they are living, Avalonia, is on an alien planet or a living organism of some kind and not on our Earth. The fact that it's surrounded by mountains so steep no one has ever been able to travel outside it and therefore its inhabitants had no contact with the outside world seems to suggest that Avalonia is not as it seems.
Yes, it's clear there'll be some twist. I bet you're right about your guess. Them living on a living organism and then getting inside its body would make sense according to what we know so far.
Sotiris wrote:In any case, from those clip descriptions, the movie seems like a rip-off of Atlantis and Treasure Planet, but without the charm or appeal. The Morph-like character is especially egregious.
Well, some common elements are to be expected since it's the same genre, but the plant making the community prosperous in particular reminds me a lot of Atlantis. And yes, the blue creature is similar to Morph, though I doubt it has the same ability to transform into different things. By the way, could the name of the plant, Pandor, be a reference to Avatar's Pandora?
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Re: Strange World

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That story description has me more excited, for sure. Like I said before, at least it's more of a group or family road trip, which makes it the third film along with Raya and Encanto from WDAS to break to degrees from the formula. Keep breaking, little by little! :D Still, the designs are disappointing no matter everything else. I'm grateful Ethan has an actual love interest, I didn't expect that; I assumed the film would just be a father-son conflict and they'd copout on actually showing anything.

The part of them being between mountains too high to traverse is like the house/village in Encanto being hidden between mountains.
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Re: Strange World

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Roy Conli produced both Treasure Planet and Strange World and I'm sure there are artists working on this new film who worked on that one. So is it a rip-off when you're repeating elements from a project you worked on before? I'm sure Conli would be the first to bring up similarities between the two movies in production meetings.
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Re: Strange World

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Personally, nothing I've seen really reminds me of Treasure Planet or Atlantis--God knows the designs don't, the designs for Jim and Silver especially wipe the floor with anything seen here. I mean, yes, this is an explorer film...but even Ariel was an explorer character. The film centering on a father-son relationship isn't something unique to Treasure Planet (where Silver became a pseudo father figure for Jim to replace the deadbeat dad who ran out on him and his mother) either. Most of the films since the 2000s have been explorer / roadtrip type films. In fact, I'd say the fact that there's a multi-generational conflict (the father and grandfather were also at odds) is fairly different.
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Re: Strange World

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The presentation of Strange World pleased me more than I expected after the recent reveal of the teaser trailer which left me a bit disappointed, especially because of the designs of the male characters and their kind of cartoony Sony's like eyes.
At the end, it didn't bother me that much as we got to see much more at Annecy festival yesterday.
It may sounds like a cross between Avatar, Jules Verne novels and Atlantis but with its own flavor so it didn't bother me at all nore that I thought about those movies during the presentation.
Character poses, live reveal of the cast, montage of concept arts, brief of the story, animation tests and 3 clips more or less finished were shared to the audience I attended.
And now, I am as excited as any other Disney animated movie before!!
Roy Conli, whom I know since I worked at the french ex-studio in Paris, told us that of course there is much more to that strange world that the characters will discover, meaning probably a big twist or reveal.
The overall settings are fantasy like, a bit steampunk.
The heart of the film are the relationships between dads and sons.
Jeager and Searcher are complex and difficult while Searcher and his son Ethan are positive and supportive.
To sum up my biggest feeling while it's only a backstory set in the 1st act that has nothing to do with the expedition adventure all along the movie, is the fact that Ethan is openly gay.
I knew for a long time there might be a LGBT character in this movie but with no more informations since.
I didn't expect it to be that clear and positive and just... normal!
Ethan has some friends, including Diazo, and it's obvious they have a crush on each other and they look attentive while shy to each other. It's very cute, typical teenage like, and Searcher comes to meet Diazo while his son is embarrassed like any other teen whom his parent wants to meet his crush. Searcher is clearly supportive. Nothing to add, no specific words to put. They just be and I was personally so moved to tears in the room because I hoped to someday see a main character in a Disney animated feature who is gay and it finally happens and it's so well done.
if you have specific questions about what we saw at Annecy, don't hesitate and I will try to answer within the next days. ;)
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Re: Strange World

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From what I recall, Raya's design changed a bit from the trailer / first images to when it hit theaters. In that case, I liked the changes less (I preferred the thin, sleek design she had to the more Moana-lite one in the finished film, and also preferred the original sword design to the Mulan-esque one they changed it into), but perhaps in this film's case some changes could happen here to improve the characters before release. *crosses fingers* That picture of Ethan all excited in the passenger's seat never stops looking like the Once-ler from The Lorax to me, only with darker skin. The mother's design makes her look like a bland background character.

EDIT: I forgot to say that it's nice to see Lucy Liu in a Disney film. But at this point I'm assuming Chalamet is no longer involved or he's playing a secret character that's revealed late in the film?
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Re: Strange World

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We're Back :D
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Re: Strange World

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Seems like animators are finishing up their work on the movie:
https://twitter.com/Tonymation/status/1 ... NBPJA&s=19
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Re: Strange World

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so far Im not feeling this movie. I agree I don't like the character designs...looks almost interchangeable with the ones from Lightyear. Also why do the male characters look so damn muppety?! Im sick of these nerdy male leads with big comically balloon noses. Bruno had one too. Nerdy guys with big noses have become a common trope with these CGI animated films that has really become overused.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/new ... 36/517.png

The planet's environment lacks mystery, mood and atmosphere. Everything is very round and bright pink-orange. Hopefully the whole film doesn't look like this.
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