Critiques: Pan's Labyrinth, Big Hero 6, and Maleficent

First off, I finished reading the draft for my then-third-now-fifth novel that I wrote six years ago. Even I was captivated, surprised and moved by my own work. What a lovely confidence boost!

***SPOILERS***

Pan’s Labyrinth was a really interesting film.

Set in Spain with a Greek creature (Pan, a faun) and a Persia creature (fairy*) and other things made up for the film. Usually films stick with one place and its mythology/folklore, but I liked this holistic view.

Pan is a Greek god (a miniscule for ‘god’ because it is a common noun rather than the proper noun) whose name derives from the ancient Arcadian word for ‘panic’. Yet Pan was introduced as him being the earth, the stones, the trees etc., going along the logic ‘pan’ was an ancient Greek word for ‘all’, so this character called Pan is literally everything. It is interesting to wonder if the creators of the film put the two ‘pan’ meanings together out of ignorance or out of wordplay. I think it’s the latter because Pan did cause a lot of panic for Ofelia, the main character.

Even though the film had ‘Labyrinth’ in its title, the labyrinth was neither in the film a lot (in fact it’s seen two times proper, and one glimpse in between) nor all that important to the plot. In this sense, I think it is a poor title for the film. However, the word ‘labyrinth’ does serve to grab people’s attention which does make the name good in a marketing sense.

I saw someone complain that the film should have had a minotaur because minotaurs live in labyrinth. However, I think it was refreshing to not have a minotaur and thus not conform to the expectations of Greek mythology. Besides, both minotaurs and fauns (i.e. Pan) are half-human/half-cloven-hoofed animal (cattle and goat, respectively), which provided a tenuous but strong link to expectation.

I hated the Pale Man. Not the concept: having its eyes in its hands and then holding it up to its face with the unfurling of its hands was fantastic. It’s just the fact that he tore the fairies’ heads off whilst they were still alive! I love fairies so this was a heinous crime that I can’t forgive.

Curiosity was my after feeling. Throughout the film, Ofelia can see all these mythical creatures but everyone else can’t. are these hallucinations? Or is it because Ofelia was a fairy princess so she could see the magic whereas the humans couldn’t? With me always leaning towards fantasy, I prefer to see it as the latter.

Big Hero 6 was a very emotional film for me.

I was invested in Hiro’s older brother Tadashi from the beginning and I was not expecting his death. That hit me quite hard: I admit I almost teared up. This was quite significant because it’s the only time I’ve ever come close to crying at an animated film. (I’ve almost cried at a few live-action films, though I’ve only actually cried for two: Memoirs of a Geisha and Marley & Me.) Thus the makes of Big Hero 6 did a brilliant job.

All the characters were good characters, crafted well with full personalities and characteristics (rather than being ‘good as opposed to morally evil’). Hiro’s aunt is probably my favourite character.

I particularly enjoyed that there was no love story involved and that female and male friends were shown to have non-romantic relationships. This was refreshing. In fact, I found the entire thing refreshing.

Then at the end when Baymax asked, “Are you satisfied with your care?” By the film’s logic, Baymax shuts down whenever it receives ‘Yes’ as the answer of its question. However, Baymax continued to act after it received this command. Then at the end, Hiro found Baymax’s chip in its hand; again, this was a fault with the logic because Baymax couldn’t move or do anything without a chip in it.

However, I forgive this for two reasons. 1: it was heart-wrenching seeing it happen so it was essential for the plot; further, nurses and doctors will sacrifice themselves to save their patients, so this reflected real life, too. 2: Hiro did update and change Baymax significantly throughout the film so perhaps these allowed Baymax greater autonomy and control over his actions? Hiro would have been smart enough to work that out.

            Didn’t realise it was Marvel until the post-creduts scene with Stan Lee. I have no recollection of the film being marketed as Marvel and it was animated, which Marvel Studios don’t really do, so I had no idea it was Marvel until Stan Lee appeared. Pleasant surprise!

Maleficent was an okay film. The animation was great. The script was so-so and could have been done much better. Various concepts were great. For example, true love’s kiss being from a maternal figure. That was a breath of fresh air!

I approved that no one charged into battle. I didn’t approve of the king’s dying coughs. They were not acted well and were clearly fake coughs (obviously they were fake coughs but if the acting was better these coughs would have been presented as realistic). Further, when Aurora was woken by true love’s kiss, her eyes moved across to find Maleficent too soon after waking up.

I was very pleased with the concept that Maleficent was a fairy, yet she had feathered-bird wings like an angel. I wonder if this was a connection to the idea that fairies are fallen angels? Perhaps this reflects Maleficent’s fall and rise in character in the film, as having fallen from grace but still being able to work herself to receive grace? I found this interesting. Another link to Judeo-Christian tradition is that Maleficent was strong enough to create a spell that was unbreakable (which would mean she would have to be omnipotent), yet she didn’t have the strength to break it herself. This is a common paradox brought up by the concept of God being omnipotent.

An aspect that I really enjoyed was that all of Diavold’s transformations were crow-like: the wolf had a beak; the horse’s mane was made of feathers; the muscles of the human’s collarbone were the same shape of that of a crow; and the dragon had a snout that tapered into a pointy beak and it had feathers instead of scales. It provided consistency to Diavold’s character, denoting each transformation as clearly him.

I didn’t watch Sleeping Beauty until about a year and a half after Maleficent, so I didn’t have any expectations of Maleficent that others may have anticipated. As such, when the pink fairy said that the fairies couldn’t fly or use magic, I was confused because it wasn’t explained in Maleficent at all. But when I watched Sleeping Beauty, the reason was clear. I think Maleficent should have explained it rather than assuming that everyone who would watch it would have seen Sleeping Beauty. If it were a sequel, this would be different, but it wasn’t, so it isn’t.