Sadly, nowadays, the kids' entertainment space is in dire straits. Never mind that the whole entertainment space is dire, with glimmers of hope, but we're talking kids' entertainment, and that one is terrible.
Remakes of classics, dumbing down, and refusal to engage kids at their level or at least treat them with respect so that they could gain knowledge of what is coming are just growing at an increasing pace.
It's gotten to the point that the only family films that come out are just the remakes. Yes, I'm including the HTTYD remake too since American regard of animation is designated for children and no one else and not as a medium.
Remakes are literally everywhere. It's even infected the Japanese video game space, where FFVII and the Persona games, at least 3 and 4, are getting remakes. Hey, at least P4's spinoffs aren't getting remakes, and I can't believe that's the silver lining.
Kids' movie media is not in a good spot. Sure, for all the animation hybrid and stylization, Disney is no longer the frontrunner of ingenuity and heart.
Elio was just okay. Nothing about it offers much to adult audiences. It's just downright tragic what Pete Doctor says that Pixar will do to appeal. Like the rest of the Disney empire, they are just in either a slump era or plateauing altogether, only saved by sequels and remakes, and even that's short-term.
On a sidenote, why the hell are people supporting the movie? Don't hate-watch it. Just pirate it if you want to watch it. If you buy a ticket other than someone being an internet online critic who makes money from their reviews, you are still supporting the shit. Look at Snow White. Do that and just pirate the shit out of it.
Anyhow, I think there’s more than just stupidity behind the decision to make the live-action Lilo and Stitch get a sequel. The marketing is once again fearsome alongside serious nostalgia.
I don't count Kpop Demon Hunters as that's aimed at a teen audience. At least teens have a choice of media. Kids don't have that, never mind what parents are taking them due to nostalgia, one way or another. My cousins have their own Disney+ account for the whole family.
Aside from the 'animation is for kids' bs, the usual suspects are the ones handling the family media more than ever. However, I feel that Pixar is appealing less to adults now and more to kids. Elio was just okay, but there isn't much about it that I can recall that speaks to a more adult audience. For Pixar wanting to appeal to everyone, it just feels generic and bland, not enough bite to it. If the Disney movies of the present are toothless, then Pixar is just plateauing. At least Elemental found an audience.
I only remember the first fifteen minutes of Brave and the Merida speaking scene to the rest of the kingdoms, and even that one is just vague. And at least it has something for adults. Inside Out 2 might be the very last one with adult maturity content in Pixar's current library until Pixar gives a voice again instead of doing this generic human thing, because I have no other words to describe it.
It's gotten to the point that American kids' media is just not in a good place, and elsewhere can be found. Bluey is Australian for Godoka's sake. If that's the case, kids have to seek foreign media in a time where MAGA is in power and destroying anything they see as unfit in their regime, and the progressives have to take the win and continue to fight
Honestly, waking up to the continuous nightmare that is our current administration is just numbing. The very fact that they see anything virtuous as something awful, and can be bought by an organization, as they did.
While kids' media have their ups and downs, this feels like the lowest.
Kids only have what they can take, that isn't talking down to them. For all the advancement in Sony's direction of animation and how they are going for a wider audience in different movies they are planning, the same could not be said for animation television and movies handled by big leagues that are flooded by conservative families and investors.
Anything even has death or something 'adult' would scare the shit out of these people of the current day.
Not knowing that Disney has had deaths in the past, and they are still regarded as some of the best. Avatar: The Last Airbender's live-action show has purity culture written all over it, plus actual sexism. That show is not going to get any better.
I mean, when we are living in fascist America, there needs to be conservative values within a corrupt and cruel administration that is willing to protect the evil of their world and deny anything to those who put them there or not.
Children do deserve better, especially when they are getting better stuff. Power Rangers degrading to pure elementary school kids' stuff without any of the teeth of the good ones is just one of the many examples.
Children deserve better than what is being pumped out by the big studios and what adults say that children can't comprehend now; they misunderstand their intelligence.
With the media of today not even wanting to touch the adult subjects, even written well-written or executed perfectly, it does not matter to them.
To them, it's just something that should've never existed because kids should never learn any of this.
With PBS and so many others losing their public funding to fund their cruel initiatives, it’s more important than ever to support them.
Media literacy is at a low, American education is on the line, and AI is used as a shortcut.
Kids of this generation deserve better than to have an oligarchy that cares for itself and no one else.
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