Next up we’ve got a Christmas movie. I think this film came up when I got the in-person recommendations since I remember someone brought up a movie that was set at Christmas, if so it means that these last two movies in the marathon got multiple recommendations.
Another really good movie. An important detail to point out early on is that it was filmed using iPhone cameras. This approach gives it a bit of a documentary feel with many of the arguments coming across like something a bystander filmed and posted online rather than typical film arguments. As iPhone cameras get better it’ll be harder to notice what films use them or not but there’s just enough of a difference in this film that it stands out in a good way.
For many actors in this film, including the two lead actresses, this is their first film and they all made a great first impression in my opinion. Their performances really add to the “this feels like something that actually happened being caught on film” feel. Also it shouldn’t be a big deal but considering this came out the same year as The Danish Girl it’s great to see a film starring two trans women played by two trans women.
If I have one criticism I don’t think the taxi driver Razmik worked as a character whose perspective we follow. It often felt like the film wanted you to feel sympathy for him but without giving an actual reason for said sympathy. He works as a character in the story but not as the third lead. Overall though the film is very good. One more film left so no wheel this time, time to fittingly end the Pride marathon with Pride.
Well this was an amusing genre shift, three movies focused on romance and then a murder mystery about a serial killer. This was one of those DVDs with trailers before you get to the menu which for some reason included the “you were gonna eat him without me” M&Ms advert.
The film was good but I need to dedicate this first paragraph to how misleading this trailer was. There are lines in this trailer making it seem like Olivia Cooke’s character Lizzie is just a potential witness who is in fear of being targeted by the murder when the entire premise of the film is built around the fact she’s on trial for potentially murdering her husband who is one of the suspects. It’s not a spoiler, other critics like Mark Kermode and Film Brain have highlighted this plot detail in their spoiler free reviews so it’s odd that a trailer would try and hide this detail of the premise.
A big part of why I highlighted that misleading trailer is a big part of what makes the story work is it’s not just a murder mystery but the story of Lizzie’s tragic life and that half of the story should be highlighted. Olivia Cooke’s performance is really great as is Bill Nighy’s, especially considering he’s taking over for a role originally planned for Alan Rickman who had to step down due to his health (the film is even dedicated to his memory).
Being a mystery I don’t think there’s much else I want to say about the film without going into spoilers (another reason I spent a paragraph talking about a misleading trailer) so I’ll just say that if you like historical murder mysteries and don’t mind seeing the gory details of a serial killer you’ll probably like this. Now for one last spin of the wheel to reveal the penultimate film in the marathon.
I know less about this movie than any of the others so far. This scroll wheel format has been pretty effective, I’ll make sure to use again it for future themed marathons where the viewing order isn’t relevant.
So I found the source of Google’s confusion about the title. An English subtitled version of the trailer got uploaded to an unofficial Netflix trailers account, has the same typo (for those who didn’t read my last review Google think’s the S in Grandma’s is a capital) and it’s the first video result so I think Google mistook it for an official upload. It also has Snapchat and screen recording subtitles so I’m using a trailer without subtitles instead.
This is a solid film but so far probably the weakest of this marathon due to a detail I’ll get to in the next paragraph. It’s a pretty effective subversion of the usual format of a family member coming to terms with the ages being the other way around, I’ve seen some reviews who consider Eva being an unlikable protagonist a flaw of the movie but it works for her character arc.
No the flaw of this movie about a lesbian grandma that I’m watching during Pride Month is it focuses a bit too much on a cis straight romance and it’s not even a good cis straight romance. I just feel the movie could have worked better if the solution to the choice between her grandmother’s happiness and not upsetting her fiancé’s bigoted family wasn’t falling for someone else.
But when the movie does actually focus on the titular lesbian grandma and her fiancé it’s a lot of fun with a decent amount of the humour translating pretty well. Their scenes together are sweet, their conflicts are better than a lot of couple conflicts in movies and I like the backstory of their relationship. So despite Eva’s love triangle subplot being mediocre I still enjoyed the movie. Next up…
The friend who recommended this one actually lent me her DVD of the movie. Only thing I know about this film is that Bill Nighy is in it since he’s on the DVD case.
Delay on the review for this one. This is a movie I’ve heard come up a few times but only knew limited details about. It’s been brought up in a few video essays I’ve seen but wasn’t the main subject of any of them so I mainly just knew it was popular and dealt with the subject of conversion therapy.
This was really good, I can see why it’s as popular as it is. One thing I’m surprised I didn’t know about ahead of time was the cast. You’ve got Natasha Lyonne of Orange is the New Black and Russian Doll fame (the latter of which I have been meaning to watch at some point) in the lead role, Clea DuVall who directed and cowrote Happiest Season and Dante Basco from Avatar: The Last Airbender, American Dragon and Hook. They’re all great in this.
The romance is also really good with less focus on the falling in love part and more how those feelings impact them individually as Megan and Graham fall for each other pretty quickly. They’re a cute couple and there are other details about the romance that stood out but they’re spoilers so I won’t talk about them.
Part of the delay of this review was that I wasn’t sure if the evening was the best point in the day to watch a movie about a subject as dark as conversion therapy but while the movie does highlight the cruelty of it this isn’t a dark movie, it’s a charming romance where the bigots may be loud with power but they’re ultimately ineffective. And I ended up seeing it in the evening the next day anyway. Time to see what’s next.
Or to use its original title; Salir del ropero. I like that not all of the films I get suggested for these marathons are English language films. For some reason Google thinks the film’s title has Grandma’s spelt “Grandma’S” despite none of the sites in the search result having that capital S.
Time to start that Pride Month marathon. Like last year all of the movies have been suggested by friends who are LGBT+ and also like last year I don’t have a planned order to watch these in. During lockdown a group of friends decided to use a Random Name Picker Wheel to choose which films and shows we’d watch that we could talk about over Discord and I remembered it recently so I decided to let the wheel decide the order for this marathon and it picked for me to start with the newest suggestion.
This was a cute high school romance movie. A neat detail about this movie is in addition to the main love triangle trio all already being out before the story even starts there’s a few points where they highlight that a majority of the people they know are somewhere in the LGBT+ community. I was also amused at the detail that Paige is trying to get into CalArts, a well known art school that known scumbag and creator of Ren & Stimpy John Kricfalusi turned into a weird insult towards The Iron Giant that these days gets used by animation snobs to complain about many of the best western animated shows, including those who never even went to CalArts. I guess it was just nice hearing the school brought up in a positive context instead of someone complaining about bean mouths.
As romances go it’s your typical “I thought I liked person A but then I realised person B is the love of my life” story with the twist being person A and person B are both sisters. The main romance is, as I said earlier, cute with both Rowan Blanchard and Auliʻi Cravalho (who you might know as the voice of Moana) working really well together.
If you like romcoms and have Disney+ (or Hulu if I have any US readers) and want a cute movie to watch in the last week of Pride Month and you don’t have a problem with teen romance tropes I think this is a good choice to go with. Now to see what I’m watching next…
I’ve heard a fair amount of YouTubers mention this film so this’ll be interesting to finally see.
If you follow enough YouTubers you’ve probably seen a few ads for the streaming service Nebula, a place where many channels are able to run their videos without ads and release the odd exclusive video that has a two for the price of one deal with fellow streaming service Curiosity Stream. Well back in May last year film critic announced that the season finale to the Charl storyline in the background of his 2020 and 2021 videos would be a movie released on Nebula expected to come out about a month after the announcement, and it just came out yesterday after being a bit more of an ambitious project than expected.
I liked it but like most YouTuber movies I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone who isn’t already a fan of the channel and any storylines that built up to it (this is also why I don’t think a YouTube movie marathon would be very fun, that and I can’t find a site with a complete list of them). This is especially the case for people whose careers are built around media criticism, a lot of jokes in this film are built around opinions Patrick and his friends have about specific movies and shows and they can be very hit or miss based on your own opinions of said media.
Something that puts this above something like the Channel Awesome movies (outside of the obvious detail that Patrick isn’t mistreating the other people working on it) is that you can tell Patrick Willems is someone who really loves filmmaking. It’s the subject of many of his video essays, he’s made videos mimicking the styles of specific filmmakers and he brings that love to this movie. Yes it’s an extended storyline segment from YouTube video series but it feels more like a movie than any other time I’ve seen that approach.
As far as being an ending to the Charl storyline goes I think it did pretty well. I like that the movie opens with a Charl version of those Odeon/AMC ads with Nicole Kidman they had when cinemas were reopening, I found Charl’s origin amusing and I think some of the YouTuber cameos were fun (mostly the ones I actually recognised). Like I said this movie won’t make sense if you haven’t watched the other videos but there is a video of the entire Charl storyline up to this point so if you have any interest in this movie and don’t have the time to watch 26 video essays you should watch that first. If I were to make a ranking image of YouTuber movies this would easily make the top 3.
For the first time since Onward a Pixar movie got a cinema release. It was understandable for Soul since it came out during lockdown and to a lesser extent with Luca where cinemas were open but could close again at any moment. But with Turning Red it really should have released in cinemas.
Meanwhile this movie probably would have worked better as a direct to Disney+ release. It’s ok but not really worth seeing in the cinema if you don’t have a cinema membership like Odeon Limitless or Cineworld Unlimited (Vue still doesn’t have one for some reason). It’s not a bad movie but it is an overhyped movie that I’ll be honest fails at its entire premise.
There are parts that work, mainly the first section of the movie where Buzz is regularly jumping forwards in time while his best friend Alisha lives a happy life with a woman she only knew because they got stranded in the first place. The montage we see most of this told in is a really effective sequence and I’m glad they didn’t cut the kiss between Alisha and her wife Kiko because the people who are angry about it are pathetic and it’s a cute moment. The rest of the movie is an average quality sci-fi movie that has its charm but probably would have worked better as its own movie not trying to be a Buzz Lightyear movie.
The framing of this movie is that it’s supposed to be a live action movie in the Toy Story universe that the Buzz Lightyear toy is based on and that just does not work in the slightest. Buzz Lightyear was clearly a toy first franchise like Transformers, My Little Pony, He-Man, Barbie and Action Man where things like the video game from the opening of Toy Story 2 and the show Buzz Lightyear of Star Command were made to sell the toys. This doesn’t fit the in-universe brand and attempts to fit elements of that brand into this story feel underwhelming compared to the previously mentioned opening and TV series and drag the story down. Also the twist with Zurg actively clashes with established lore from Toy Story 2 which would be fine if they weren’t trying to claim that it’s a movie that Andy saw before he got the Buzz Lightyear toy.
It’s an enjoyable enough movie and if this had been the direct to Disney+ Pixar release with Turning Red releasing in cinemas and they ditched the “this was Andy’s favourite movie that the Buzz Lightyear toy was based on” framing device I’d probably be a bit less harsh about it. But even then I’d still say Buzz Lightyear of Star Command is the better take on the Buzz Lightyear brand and they should just put it on Disney+ already.
In preparation to see this I rewatched all the other Jurassic Park movies as when I did my review for Fallen Kingdom I didn’t feel comfortable making a ranking image with it being so long since I watched the original trilogy. And now that I have a fresh opinion of all of them while the first movie remains the best I think people are way too harsh about the rest of them, they’re all still a lot of fun and have multiple great scenes unique to each film.
And that continues to be the case with this one. We see how the introduction of prehistoric creatures into the wild has impacted it and I do like the way all three Jurassic World movies tell a story, it really helps it work well as a trilogy within a larger series. It’s also nice that one of the child characters from a previous movie sticks around for more than a cameo due to her importance to the overall story, children have always been a big part of these movies but they’re usually only around for one movie. On that note so far Isabella Sermon’s only roles have been in the Jurassic World movies but she’s been really great in them.
Being intentionally written as an ending it has a lot of elements I suspect have been popular requests. We’ve got the Jurassic Park debut of Giganotosaurus (one of the largest known carnivores), Quetzalcoatlus (giraffe sized pterosaurs) and of course many of the dinosaurs (and other extinct creatures) introduced in this movie have feathers. These are some really neat details for anyone who likes dinosaurs and as a fan of The Doubleclicks I was happy to see a scene involving Dimetrodons. I’ve wanted to see each of these things in a Jurassic Park movie for quite some time and they do not disappoint.
And of course you also have the return of the original main cast of the original Jurassic Park not just returning but reuniting. After the disappointment of the overhyped two scenes of Jeff Goldblum in Fallen Kingdom this time each of these characters has a role to play in the overall story and it’s nice to learn more about what their lives have been like since The Lost World and Jurassic Park III. Plus for fans of specifically Jurassic World some surviving supporting characters from those movies pop up for a few scenes. Even the choice of antagonist is a neat callback being Biosyn, the company whose attempts to steal from InGen were responsible for everything that went wrong in the original film. I’m also glad they didn’t break up Owen and Claire again, they work much better as Maisie’s adoptive parents than they ever did as exes that flirt with each other.
This has been a fun series to revisit. If like me you’ve enjoyed every Jurassic Park film so far you’ll enjoy this one. And since this was written as an ending I do think this is probably a good place to end the original continuity, I understand that Jurassic Park is a pretty iconic brand and we’re inevitably going to get more movies but I think any future movies should be part of a new continuity.
With WB releasing their own platform fighting game with Multiversus it got me thinking about what a Disney game in the same genre could look like. I also really like the Build the Roster videos on the Thorgi’s Arcade YouTube channel and have been meaning to figure out a fighting game roster of my own and this was one I liked the idea of.
So what rules did I set myself. Well for the size of the roster I needed something to compare it to and fortunately due to datamines we have a good idea about how many characters are expected for Multiversus and I think Disney would at least want their game to have a comparable roster to WB’s. So just looking at the datamines and no other leaks that’s 39 characters, to round things up I’m going to go with 40 characters. With the size limit in place I was then able to figure out the limits to my choices.
When making my image of the roster it was in one row of four and five rows of seven. Each row has a theme to the characters in it and for three of them I decided to go with one character per movie/show in order to cover more franchises. Of course there were certain franchises that needed their own rows so this restriction didn’t apply to them. Two rows also have a bonus character that is somewhat connected to the theme but I’ll get to them when I highlight them. There’s a fair amount of characters I had to leave out and I’m sure that will include some of your favourites, trust me many of my favourites have been left out too.
With those details explained let’s get to the characters. I’ll also throw in what I think their stage could be as a bonus detail for any fans of the characters to enjoy though I won’t go into detail about them.
01 Mickey Mouse Stage: Partners Statue
Mickey Mouse in a Disney game premise? What a shocking twist. Jokes aside Mickey has picked up a pretty decent selection of abilities and weapons over the years that could make an interesting combination. Yen Sid’s paintbrush from Epic Mickey, the marbles from Mickey’s Wild Adventure/Mickey Mania, his Keyblade from Kingdom Hearts and of course Yen Sid’s hat from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
02 Donald Duck Stage: Donald’s House Boat
Another obvious choice. His he would have a moveset mostly built around his temper but with some of his magic from Kingdom Hearts for projectiles, perhaps working the same way Sora’s magic works in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate by cycling through Firaga, Thundaga and Blizzaga. His ultimate attack would of course be Zettaflare.
03 Goofy Stage: Bigfoot’s Forest
And of course you need the whole trio. Goofy would mainly have abilities based on being clumsy but his defense would make use of his Kingdom Hearts shield and he could use his Mirrorverse boomerang as a projectile. His ultimate attack should be The Perfect Cast.
04 Scrooge McDuck Stage: Money Bin
Scrooge has a gaming history with the classic Capcom DuckTales game and its WayForward remaster. Of course he’d use his cane like a pogo stick like in the games as well as for regular attacks.
05 Sora Stage: Hollow Bastion
The first bonus character. This is a premise for a Disney crossover game and Sora is from a Disney crossover game, it’s the perfect fit. He’s even been in a platform fighter already with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. With Kingdom Hearts 4 in development maybe some abilities from that game could be thrown in too.
06 Elsa Stage: Northuldra
Onto the movie characters and we have another character I figured was a must-have considering just how popular Frozen is. Her moveset doesn’t even need to just be her ice powers as she could also summon Marshmallow and ride the water spirit.
07 Fa Mulan Stage: Emperor’s Palace
Next is a character that makes perfect sense to use in a combat focused Disney game. Mulan has a decent range of weapons with Shan Yu’s sword, a training staff and fireworks. She’s got even more weapons to choose from if you look at the live action remake and Disney Mirrorverse, in fact the latter could be a good source of an ultimate attack.
08 Stitch Stage: Lahui Beach
This chaotic genetic experiment was another must-have character. He could use a bunch of different alien weapons, call his fellow experiments for assistance, use a pole like in his fight with Leroy and of course use his extra arms.
09 Wreck-It Ralph Stage: Game Central Station
Being a video game character Ralph made a lot of sense to include in a game premise. He’s of course use his fists a lot but he could also have classic gaming inspired moves and abilities that use sprites from the Fix-It Felix game. I went with Game Central Station since considering my plans for some other characters in this roster it might be nice to have some Capcom characters hanging around in the background.
10 Beast Stage: Beast’s Castle
He could attack with his claws, use a roar to push opponents back and use his charge from Kingdom Hearts. Despite being so iconic he almost didn’t make the cut as I considered swapping him for a Pixar character as I only added two of them. On that note…
11 Mr. Incredible Stage: Metroville
I knew I had to use one of the Incredibles and Mr. Incredible made the most sense. He’s got his super strength making him a good tank/brawler and there is a scene in Incredibles 2 where he uses Jack-Jack’s laser eyes like a laser gun that could be a fun way of mixing up his abilities. As for why I didn’t use Elastigirl I have another stretchy character in mind for this roster.
12 Merida Stage: Ring of Stones
When it came to Pixar characters to include after one of the Incredibles Merida was the next obvious choice. She’s of course use her bow for most of her moves but she’s also got a sword to mix up her combat a bit.
13 Anne Boonchuy Stage: Wartwood
Disney crossovers have often neglected their newer TV shows so starting off the TV animation section we have Anne from the recently concluded Amphibia. In addition to sword fighting she’s got her tennis racket that she can sometimes duel wield with her sword along with her blue powers from the Calamity Box, the series finale even introduced a great idea for her ultimate attack using said powers at their full potential.
14 Amity Blight Stage: The Knee
After watching her fight with Hunter in Eclipse Lake I knew Amity was a must-have for this premise. Her use of abomination magic really sets her apart from other magic users. Plus I didn’t want every character to be the main character from their series/movie since Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl picked characters like Nigel Thornberry, Hugh Neutron and Helga Pataki over the main characters of their shows.
15 Perry the Platypus/Agent P Stage: Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated
Perry is the perfect example of why these Disney crossover games should use TV characters more, he’s the perfect fit for them. He’s a secret agent that’s a platypus, what else to I need to say?
16 Kim Possible Stage: Middleton High School
With the 2020s and 2010s decently covered (including another character later in this list) let’s have someone from the 2000s Disney shows and the best choice has to be Kim Possible. She’s got a bunch of crime fighting gadgets plus her cheerleading moves mixed with martial arts.
17 Darkwing Duck Stage: St. Canard
When talking about characters from Disney’s animated shows you have to include someone from the Disney Afternoon and the perfect choice was the terror that flaps in the night. He’d have a lot of the same abilities Batman would have in WB/DC fighting games and is amusingly the third character in a row to use a grappling hook.
18 Goliath Stage: Castle Wyvern
And of course the next choice for a Disney Afternoon character has to be Goliath. At first I was worried I was using too many buff brawler characters but Goliath, Beast and Mr. Incredible have all be playable in the same game before so it shouldn’t be an issue here.
19 Bart Simpson Stage: Springfield Elementary School
The second bonus character. I wanted The Simpsons to be represented in this game in some way and the TV animation section was the best spot to place that rep. Bart felt like the best choice with his slingshot and Bartman persona, plus he’s the most marketable Simpson.
20 Spider-Man Stage: Daily Bugle
Time for the Marvel characters and this was really difficult to limit to 7 characters. But no matter who I picked I had to start with your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. I think a lot of the Marvel characters should use their moves from the Marvel vs. Capcom games and Spidey has some neat moves in them. I considered suggesting Miles as an alternate costume but he’s got enough abilities that are unique to him that making him play exactly like Peter didn’t feel right.
21 Thor Stage: Asgard
Choosing a character to represent the core Avengers lineup was especially tricky but I felt Thor was the best choice for a character whose abilities wouldn’t be better represented by a character under the Disney brand. Jane Foster’s Thor is also similar enough to regular Thor, especially if we use Marvel vs. Capcom as a template, that I think she’d work well as an alternate costume.
22 Wolverine Stage: Xavier Institute
Choosing an X-Men character on the other hand was easy. He’s also the main reason I think the Marvel characters should use their Marvel vs. Capcom moves, Wolverine needs Berserker Barrage. Like the last two I considered using a legacy hero as an alternate costume but like Miles Laura is different enough that it didn’t feel right, she even has her own Marvel vs. Capcom moveset.
23 Ms. Marvel Stage: Terrigen Mist
The only Marvel character in this lineup who hasn’t been in a Marvel vs. Capcom game. Kamala is the best choice to represent Marvel character created after Disney bought Marvel, especially with her own show airing in a few days. I would have her use her powers from the comics but while I don’t like that the show has given her new powers they could still be a good source of abilities to add moves from.
24 Deadpool Stage: Wade’s Apartment
While tied to the X-Men brand Deadpool is enough of a stand out character that I felt he was still worth including. I like that in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 he uses things like his life bar in his moveset and I think a similar method of representing his 4th wall breaking could be fun, though adapted to the different format.
25 Ultron Stage: City Ruins
The first villain of this roster and the reason I didn’t go with Iron Man to represent the Avengers. While the Marvel vs. Capcom game he was introduced in was the unpopular Infinite I do think it’s still a good source of inspiration for his abilities. Design too, while I liked Age of Ultron more than some people I don’t like that the main Ultron body ditched the iconic face for something more humanoid.
26 Thanos Stage: Titan
More than any other character I felt Thanos was probably the best way or representing the MCU versions of characters, perhaps by having his Infinity War outfit as his default costume. I still think his Marvel vs. Capcom abilities could still be used but they’re not as iconic as Spider-Man and Wolverine’s so I also think his fights in Infinity War and Endgame would work really well as inspiration for moves.
27 Rey Skywalker Stage: Jakku
Time for the Star Wars characters. Since most of these characters use lightsabers I had to figure out which ones had the most unique ways of fighting with them. I went with Rey over characters like Luke or Obi-Wan because I like the idea of her switching between her lightsaber and quarterstaff, perhaps as a stance character where the different stance is a different weapon.
28 Ahsoka Tano Stage: Siege of Mandalore
In addition to being a fan favourite Ahsoka has her duel wielding as a reason to include her. There’s not much else I need to say about Ahsoka, she’s got a pretty easy to explain reason to be here.
29 Din Djarin Stage: Hanger 3-5
The Mandalorian has a wide range of weapons at his disposal and while he does wield the Darksaber it’s not his main weapon which is the detail that sets him apart from other lightsaber users and what makes him the best choice out of the Mandalorian characters.
30 Chewbacca Stage: Kashyyyk
Of course I didn’t want every Star Wars character to use a lightsaber and when it came to which character to use Chewie was the best option. The Force Awakens makes a point about his bowcaster being particularly powerful, he’s had a few other weapons such as those he uses in Solo and of course as a Wookie he’s strong on his own without any weapons.
31 Yoda Stage: Dagobah
While he does have his flips from his fights in the prequels I think most of Yoda’s abilities should be him using the force. He could throw a number of different large objects at players from rocks to debris to Luke’s X-Wing.
32 Maul Stage: Theed Power Generator
The former Darth of course has his double bladed lightsaber as a reason he has to be included but even without it his own hallway scene (something that’s becoming pretty common in Star Wars now) is a good source of memorable attacks to make into a moveset.
33 Darth Vader Stage: Emperor’s Throne Room
But of course the most obvious choice for a Star Wars character is Darth Vader. Even without his status as one of the most iconic villains of all time he’s got a lot of things that make him stand out. His force choke would make a good grab, he throws his lightsaber and most recently he set Obi-Wan Kenobi on fire.
34 Maleficent Stage: Forbidden Mountain
This final batch of characters are all villains. I often feel these crossover platform fighters have a disappointing villain selection and Disney has some of the most iconic villains that they deserved their own section. And of course when you think Disney villains one of the first characters you think of is Maleficent. Her abilities would mostly come from Sleeping Beauty and Kingdom Hearts but I do think her wings from the live action movies should be involved in some way.
35 Ursula Stage: Ursula’s Lair
Another one of Disney’s most iconic villains. Being a sea witch she’d be another magic user but she’d also be able to attack with her tentacles, Flotsam & Jetsam and of course have an ultimate where she uses Triton’s trident to turn giant.
36 Jafar Stage: Jafar’s Throne Room
Speaking of magic users Jafar was another must-have villain. He’s even the main villain of the Disney villain team up in House of Villains, a role normally belonging to Maleficent. He also has some iconic transformations to use with his snake and genie forms.
37 Bill Cipher Stage: Weirdmageddon
Arguably the most powerful Disney villain so far and the only part of this section not from a movie. Bill has a huge range of bizarre abilities to use from the various transformations he’s used to the otherworldly horrors he’s summoned or created.
38 Hades Stage: The Underworld
Another regular in the Disney villain lineup. His abilities would mostly be fire and smoke based but he could also throw Pain and Panic and have an ultimate where Cerberus is summoned.
39 Dr. Facilier Stage: Dr. Facilier’s Voodoo Emporium
I’m still surprised Dr. Facilier hasn’t appeared in a Kingdom Hearts game, he’s the shadow man making him the perfect choice for a character that commands Heartless. But even without any Heartless he’s still got a great selection of abilities that set him apart from the other magic users from his use of shadows to of course his friends on the other side. I also like that this roster has two Keith David characters in it.
40 Captain Hook Stage: The Jolly Roger
The villains in this lineup have been some pretty powerful individuals. A deadly robot, an alien with a reality altering gauntlet, a former Sith crime lord, a Sith Lord, a fairy sorceress, a sea witch, a sorcerer turned genie, an other worldly reality warping nightmare creature, the god of the underworld and a witch doctor with friends on the other side. I figured for this last slot we needed a less powerful but still iconic villain and Captain Hook was the perfect fit.
And that’s the roster, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I know Disney are unlikely to actually make a game like this but it was fun to figure out. Of course there’s still a fair amount of characters I wish I had room for so as a bonus here’s some honorable mentions in the form of DLC.
Buzz Lightyear, Luz Noceda, Homer Simpson, Captain Jack Sparrow, Indiana Jones and Raya
These are all characters I considered including but didn’t have room for with my limits. They also work well together as a DLC season covering a nice range of areas of Disney. I could post more characters but that’s enough for this list. I might try my hand at another one of these at some point, maybe one for a Microsoft answer to Super Smash Bros. and Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale or some hypothetical Capcom crossovers. Plus staying connected to Disney I am thinking of doing a wishlist for franchises to add to Kingdom Hearts 4.
It looks like Teen Titans Go! movies are becoming a regular thing now, especially crossover movies with this being the third after they crossed over with the original Teen Titans and Space Jam. As for DC Super Hero Girls I’ve not seen the show itself but I like the designs and what I’ve seen of the characters from the existing crossovers these shows have done.
So this film’s trailer is pretty misleading. This is less of a full crossover and more of a DC Super Hero Girls movie with a guest spot from the Teen Titans with a framing device involving Control Freak thrown in to add more scenes of the Teen Titans every now and then. And outside of Raven the Titans themselves don’t really impact the story that much.
As for how this works as a DC Super Hero Girls movie it’s pretty good. It has the show’s introduction to some pretty iconic parts of the DC universe including the Justice League and Legion of Doom, solid story arcs for half of the team and a main villain that hasn’t appeared outside of comics before. In fact I’m genuinely surprised the CW Supergirl series never used Cythonna, still this is a great introduction to the character and I’d be interested to see if she pops up again in any other media related to Kryptonian characters.
Considering the crossover episodes these shows had before were Teen Titans Go! episodes I’m glad we got one that’s the other way around but considering all the crossover scenes are in the Teen Titans Go! universe it’s not that different from those episodes, it would have been nice to see the Teen Titans in the DC Super Hero Girls universe for once, maybe they could even meet their counterparts or at the very least taken part in the final battle.
If this had been a full crossover I probably would have ranked this above the crossover with the original Teen Titans as both shows are animated in a way that suits the other but as a crossover story it’s much better. Of course at some point I should watch the other DC Super Hero Girls movies to see where this movie ranks against them, I can see it working much better there. But as far as DC franchise marathons go I might want to save that until I’ve at least seen all the Superman movies. Speaking of marathons it’s time to start a rewatch marathon.
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