Sunday, August 12, 2018

Shrek 1 Plothole!

      Seventeen years later, I finally see it. And it's only in the first five minutes. The old lady has Donkey on a rope, she's going to sell him, and she expects big money because he can talk. So Donkey's trying to keep quiet, until the jar of fairy dust smashes him on the head and he can't contain his excitement when he starts flying. He starts talking, and the captain wants his guards to seize him!
      Yet nobody gives a damn about the talking pigs. Or the mice. The bears. The wolf. Donkey's cute and all, and I'd gladly let him talk my ears off; but if all animals can talk, he's not special. In fact if the snake and frog are the only animals who don't have that ability, they are the animals you'd want.

18 comments:

  1. lol, I never noticed! Good spot! :D

    ... The thing with that is, most pieces of entertainment require some suspension of disbelief; I guess the best example I can come up with spur-of-the-moment is from Arthur - all of the characters are animals (a fact we didn't seem to realize before we were told, lol) and yet they have pets, other animals who either don't talk or (as in the newer episodes) speak a language that only other pets understand. (Those new episodes are pretty badly-animated, so I'll spare you looking them up if you're even that curious - in newer episodes, Pal and Kate talk to each other but as Kate learns more 'human' words, she finds herself unable to communicate with her dog friends, and a zoo creature tells her that it's just part of growing up.) Those episodes are kind of sad, not just because the baby sounds like a twentysomething woman and the dog sounds like a snobby butler and the animation looks like a kid did it, but because of the new characters and the idea that two close friends are losing the ability to talk to each other because they're not the same species.

    Just wondering - had the pigs, bears, wolf, etc. already been made to talk, so their speaking in front of the knights wasn't a shock? I guess even if they had, talking animals are supposed to be unusual ... there are just so many things I never noticed, haha, and I still don't ... I think I don't have that kind of brain :p

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  2. And how about Stewie and Brian in Family Guy? lol, sometimes others hear them talking, other times they're just a dog and baby ... I think :p

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    1. I haven't watched either in years; guess I outgrew Arthur. As for Family Guy, seems pretty adult, but I can't stand that show. Racism, bestiality, child abuse, and those really long moments of silence. It's too stupid to waste my time with. But I'm pretty sure I once saw a documentary where MacFarlane did say that they can alternate between being heard and just being a dog and baby. I think that was somewhere around the time I saw Brian eat the poop and then the vomit.

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    2. lol, I remember that ... it was 2010 and I was eating Lucky Charms ... some things get stuck in the head :p

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    3. Some things are too nasty to forget. And I always thought I was a bad writer.
      I also remember that day because right afterward I watched Shallow Hal.

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    4. lol, some episodes sure make me feel better about my own abilities, too ... a lot of the time it IS really stupid, but I sometimes enjoy it anyway (I fear that says a lot about me, haha)

      I don't remember that ... I must've been in shock from the yuck of the episode we'd just watched ... :p

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    5. I had predicted that episode. I really fear what that says about me.

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    6. lol, maybe it just means you're psychic ... or that the show was going downhill so fast, it seemed inevitable to you what would happen ... for sure they've put vomit in enough episodes that it doesn't surprise/horrify me anymore :p

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    7. I haven't bothered with that show for quite a few years, and I doubt I'll ever waste my time with it again. When I'm wasting my time I like to enjoy doing so. At first I only watched it because it was an escape from childhood; it was the first show I ever saw that was not suitable for kids. So I watched it whenever I could, because it made me feel older. But it also made me incredibly sad; and as with the kinds of episodes we mentioned, it also made me feel gross.

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    8. I hardly ever watch TV anymore; right now I'm obsessed with a picture I'm making on Paint ... when I do feel the need to watch cartoons, I watch my old favourites. Occasionally YouTube suggests I watch a Family Guy clip, but I often don't because then it recommends FG to me non-stop until I start clicking the X (to basically ignore an uploader) or click the 'I don't want to see this' thingy. I still catch the occasional episode (like maybe twice a year if I'm truly doing nothing else) but it really is so stupid ...

      If I have a favourite clip at the moment, it's the Griffins' new nanny reading modified children's books (about radiation, something I'm really interested in learning about these days) to Stewie :p

      I guess it's kinda like Archie comics now - it's been SO LONG and they're recycling the same stories ... except the one about the girl that got killed while jogging and now she's a ghost that warns other teenagers to be careful on a certain dangerous road ... that one was unique and interesting :)

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    9. WAIT, was that an Archie comic or a Family Guy episode?!

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    10. lol, I'm so sorry! That was an Archie comics thing :)

      A teenager visiting relatives in town (Riverdale) went jogging one morning and was hit and killed by a car on a dangerous road. Now she's a ghost that mostly appears only to warn other pedestrians to be careful; she even saved Archie's life when a sleepy old woman nearly hit him with her car in the area. He tried hitting on her a few times, but she remains very serious up until the road is straightened to prevent more accidents, at which point the comic ends and she knows the area will be safer, so she smiles for the first time in ten years ... it's kind of a bittersweet comic, and a very refreshing change from the love triangle stuff that's been going on for the last 77 years.

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    11. Wow! That's amazing...And not just the fact that it's an Archie comic, but the whole 77 years. Almost a century of the same characters doing the same thing...

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    12. Very true; I think that one stands out to me because there's no kissing, no 'subtle' sexuality, and Betty and Veronica aren't even in it. After nearly eight decades of recycling poses and stories (to be fair, now that I'm working on a comic of my own, I totally get it), seeing anything new is pretty cool :p

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    13. I've tried making my own comic, too; but the pictures were shoddy and there was never a joke. So I gave up many years ago. I think I'll just leave storytelling to those who have something to say. But while we're on the topic of the Archie books, I have something to confess. When I learned Bobbi loves them I thought she and I could share, since we had all the books she didn't own. She gave them to someone else, a little girl. I wondered how I would ever ask for the books back, since a lot of them weren't mine...I'm not sure I could.

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    14. :( That sucks! I'm learning not to share with people, too.

      I don't really know what to say - you should ask for them back, which should be enough to remind her that they weren't hers. (And if she still thinks they were hers to give away, maybe just let it go; be as polite as you can be about it, but be sure you don't lend her anything else; for sure THAT should get her attention.)

      I've had the same problem with Mom; she loves giving presents to kids, forgetting that the things she's giving away belong to her own kids. I know of at least two times that I've had to ask her to take things back from others because they were mine and she'd given them away without permission. :(

      Just thinking about it bothers me; I'm very possessive of my things.

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    15. Mom thought I gave them to Bobbi and authorized that she give them away. Maybe I did. I still don't know what I would say, Please take all those books away from that kid. Right now all I can do is hope we didn't write down anything too personal on the inside covers.

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    16. lol, I'm sure we didn't; I don't think we even marked the comics with our names like we did to longer books :p

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