Mulan: The Ultimate Mary Sue (Movie Review)

[Music] do you know why the phoenix sits on the right hand of the emperor she is his guardian i don't know how they did it i i am i'm blown away for those of you don't know there's there's a new mulan right new mulan movie mulan's great great movie if you've never seen it 1998 fantastic animation uh a plot is just it's perfect it's a perfect plot it's a simple clean narrative but they decided to make a new mulan they made a new mulan and this is different it's no longer a fun comedy it's basically a superhero movie mulan is an incredible action wonder woman warrior and there's a number of reasons why that's stupid but we'll touch on that here's the real problem though is we had we just this it blows my mind we had star wars right that that sequel trilogy and what did the fans keep saying what what did what did people who made all these video essays guys like me who analyzed the plot and went look it's great that you guys want to do star wars you have this character ray here's a problem that we've identified she needs to have flaws she needs to have weaknesses right she can't just be a magic superwoman who has a mysterious mystical power and anytime you go well why is she able to you know fly the millennium falcon why does she know how to speak wookie why does she know how to you know use the the freaking force mind technique you can't just go well she's really powerful in the force it's not enough of an explanation it's not and it makes for a very uh uninteresting character when we have no identifiable flaws and now we've arrived at mulan 2020. so we had star wars we had the sequel trilogy which was about a young girl who has mysterious magic powers despite doing nothing to earn them whatsoever and now we have mulan 2020 a disney film about a young girl who has mysterious magical powers despite doing nothing to earn them whatsoever it's it's it's not the exact same movie but it's got all the same problems and they're actually worse it's worse in this movie this this is gonna sound crazy mulan is a bigger and i know people don't like when you use this term they say you're sexist i'm gonna say it anyway she is a bigger mary sue than rey ever was i watched this movie twice trying to figure out what are the flaws of mulan's character if you're writing a script if you're writing a character the character has to have flaws if they don't have flaws there's nothing there's nothing there the character can't grow the character can't change they're already at the apex of their power you need to identify some some essential quality that they lack and for a hero story again we're talking about is what is basically a superhero story what is their issue okay i mean because you have superheroes plenty of superheroes they start off with incredible powers but then you identify you know little flaws that they have like for instance you know maybe they don't have full control of those powers and they hurt people around them or they don't know how to use those powers together with other superheroes mulan never addresses anything of that she just has powers her only flaw and this is not a joke this is the actual theme of the movie her only flaw is that she isn't using enough of her magic power that she has so much power inside her but she's pushed it down and her only flaw is that she's preventing herself from being a complete goku she's only half goku it's it's so bad it's so bad there's so many things wrong with this movie that it's hard to i can't get it all out right here i honestly i started writing some sort of thing i was like i'll do like a little written thing about it and i got about uh 50 pages in before i went well let's just do a let's just do a quick video trying to summarize some of the problems and then maybe we'll do the big essay later because there is so much to talk about that is wrong if you look at the original mulan here here's a very important difference the original mulan was not about a warrior a great warrior mulan was somebody who was a very average village girl who made the choice to leave home to save her father to prevent him from having to go to war and we'll get back to that in a second but it's a very it's a much more interesting story honestly but now we have this movie they want it to be a superhero movie so milan has to be an ancient wizard ass kicker or whatever give me some sense of why this ten-year-old is flipping around like freaking jackie chan it makes no sense but what we learn is unlike the original mulan and this is a very important distinction the original mulan had was not opposed to this arranged marriage right fa mulan present speaking without permission oops which is actually a little interesting when you think about it because it's such it seems so obvious that when you have these modern princess characters or whatever it is that they rebel they say oh this arranged marriage i'm a i'm a strong independent woman i would never you know allow someone to choose who i love for me there's actually uh some interview or something in one of the books where they talked to the scriptwriters and they went yeah but then we realized that's not only a just like super obvious but it also interferes with the whole selflessly sacrificing yourself to save your family theme because new mulan clearly uh goes the more obvious route of oh you know i don't want to be an arranged marriage i want to be a warrior blah blah blah so when she leaves home it's no longer a selfless act to you know save your father's life it's no you are always going to leave like this is you becoming your truest self it's not selfless it's you being like i'm a warrior i'm going to join the army like basically you you we're waiting for an excuse for this to happen yeah you probably care about your family in some respect but it's no longer this pure obvious thing when original mulan joined the army it was like oh my god like i'm risking everything you know this is crazy i could get myself killed new mulan it's like yeah i'm going to join the army and i'm going to be the best fighter who cares i'm just the best it doesn't even matter and like from right there it just it goes off the rails trying to make this into a super if you're going to make it into a superhero movie you have to get rid of everything from from the first movie you can't use any of it and the fact that they're trying to use stuff from the first movie in this singular superhero narrative it doesn't work the original okay it's a war movie right it's about an army it's about a group of soldiers not just mulan it's mulan and her friends her buddies who all train and get better and become a unified fighting force yes mulan's at the center of it but but her friends are always there to have her back come on we gotta help it's it's a real war movie you know a band of brothers kind of thing but here you have a superhero movie where she is the only superhero it's not like it's a superhero team up she's the only one who has any powers but you still have her fellow army soldiers who now seem to serve they serve no purpose in the plot the only thing that they do is look at mulan and clap and go my god she's so powerful my god we are so blessed to be in the presence of the divine mulan who knew what a killer and the script just feels like they just took the old script and just jammed stuff in from it at random without realizing how none of it works i hate that i have to bring this up let's get into this real quick you remember the cool captain character from the first movie i don't need anyone causing trouble in my camp sorry uh i mean uh sorry you had to see that but you know how it is when you get those uh manly urges he's not allowed to be in the movie anymore because and this is on record because me too the metoo movement illustrated that it would have been an improper power dynamic for the captain to fall in love with one of his recruits so that's the reason why one of the best characters mulan is not allowed to be in the movie i hate it i want to kill myself okay but she's fighting against her new boy it's not even her boyfriend she's not allowed to have a love interest in this movie it's just a guy is the new male counterpart to mulan so she's fighting against guy and she shows everybody look i'm the ultimate fighter i'm the best look at us fight with our sticks isn't everybody impressed by me okay and here's how this here's how that scene would go in in a correct movie okay she's fighting she's showing off her crazy moves whatever the hell commander steps in donnie yen steps in it man steps and takes her to the tent and tells her look i've been keeping my eye on you yes you have great power but this is an army this war will not be won by any individual person you need to stop showing off spinning your stupid stick around and you need to go and make friends with all of those dudes and learn to fight as brothers okay you you are a single twig but together you become and let's quote ralph from the simpsons it's like i can't say it but ralph can say it individually we are weak like a single twig but as a bundle we form a mighty fat but that doesn't happen of course that doesn't happen she gets called into the tent and what does the commander tell her after interrupting a training exercise with her with her stupid kung fu nonsense he tells her you're so magic but you know what your problem is you need to you need to release all that magic that's the only thing that's wrong with you why are you holding back all your magic you need to cultivate your gift sir but she is powerful watching why do you hide it and then you don't cut you don't cut to like a scene where she's training with everybody no she goes off and trains entirely by herself it is a lone warrior movie it is only about mulan so why did you waste any time trying to establish these these other soldiers it's so insane they have like no scenes with her they barely talk to her and then randomly they'll just throw in a scene where she goes yeah yeah we're a band of brothers you know i got you guys back we will live i guarantee it [Music] because i will protect you you don't care about those guys at all and if you do you have to show me in the movie i'm gonna real quick get to the biggest tragedy here's what i think is the biggest tragedy remember the training sequence from the original mulan which is like my favorite part of that movie i think it's everybody's favorite part of that movie has the best song has that song freaking donny osmond just kicks your ass let's get down to business [Music] and what's that you're watching the chinese version well then you hit jackie chan singing it no matter what language you watch it in that's that whole scene rules but here's the point in that scene that the big trial that they have to do is they have to get to the top of the pole and grab an arrow and that will prove whatever and they have two plates one plate represents discipline what plate represents strength you have to get to the top of the tree with both discipline and strength everybody fails right because they have to because they're weak and whatever we do our little montage we're going along everybody sucks everybody sucks everybody sucks then we get to this part we'll move on they got these two weights on either side and it seems like everybody's kind of gotten the hang of it because you see that the guys are running along and they're doing they're like all right well this sucks but here we go mulan has completely fallen behind this this is the point where we realize mulan is not only inept she is the weakest of the entire group and immediately after this the captain comes to her and he tells her leave you are a lost cause get out of my camp there is no there's no use in having you here and i and i'm going to assume that the reason she's failing is let's be honest male biology this is a test of strength to walk with these freaking uh weights on either side yeah if you're a guy you might eventually be able to summon the strength you know build up your body to do that as a woman it's going to be much harder the point is mulan's strength is not her physical prowess okay mulan's strength and this sounds so simple it's so obvious like i'm not i'm not delivering untold truths on to you you get it mulan's strength is her mind because she looks at the she looks at the pole and she goes oh okay well i have the plate of discipline which means never give up so i'm not leaving camp i have the plate of strength but there's other types of strength and physical strength there is mental strength i have the ability to recognize hey if i wrap these two plates around the pole i could use them as a counterbalance and pull my way to the top and that is mulan's character for the rest of the movie mulan shows okay the guys are going to think straightforward they see the enemy they're going to fire a rocket at the enemy i'm going to think laterally and i go well firing it straight forward isn't going to help what if i aim it at this mountaintop and cause an avalanche she thinks around the problem later on they have to get into the castle the boys are ramming into it with a you know again straightforward thinking we're going to ram our way into the castle in mulan who does not benefit from the straightforward strengths she goes okay let's think around the problem what if we go around the side dress up as women which you can't do anymore i'm not going to let you put that in a disney movie anymore but we'll dress up as ladies of the court and sneak in and even in the final the final battle against sean young or whatever his freaking name is it's not like an epic cool sword battle she uses the sword to trap him in place as uh mushu fires a rocket at his head and then you know he gets blown up by a million fireworks isn't that interesting isn't it interesting to have a character who's thrust into a war situation and rather than just becoming the best fighter instead is constantly coming up with ideas and tactics that think outside the box and you know outwit her enemies in clever ways that's that's pretty good right let's go to the new mulan new lawn not only is nulan the best she's just the best at everything but they have the same scene they have the scene with the two weights on either side remember this is the trial that original mulan failed at she failed and was told to leave okay this was her greatest failure was her inability to balance these two weights what does new mulan do she spits in the eye of old mulan she says you suck this is easy you dumb [ __ ] [ __ ] gets all her magic whatever the [ __ ] chi and just walks to the top of the mountain holding the weights that's it she didn't come up with like a clever plan like oh it's very hard to do this maybe if i i don't know replace the water with some other sort of liquid it'll be easier nothing clever nothing interesting just she has the most magic power she's the most magical she has the force for the love of [ __ ] god and she gets to the top of the mountain and again it feels like they're spitting in the eye of the original mulan they're like original mulan couldn't have done that she didn't have the the cool magic powers new mulan do mulan is better ugh everything in this movie is bad it is so terrible uh like one out of not zero out of ten there is no reason the only reason to watch this movie is to see just how terrible script writing has become i i don't know how do you make so many obvious failures of script writing and i hate to say it i don't want to be that guy but it does feel like a bit of that yas queen feminism you go girl you don't need no man you're in charge you're a number one why would you write a character like that okay female characters any character is more interesting when we see their flaws and the flaws have to be real the flaw can't be you're not using enough of your magic and they tie that into oh not only are you hiding your power level but you're hiding something else as well so they're basically saying by pretending to be a woman that's also your weakness why would you do that why don't you show them you're a woman your deceit weakens you it poisons your chi i'm hodgin soldier in the in person pay all army then you will die pretending to be something you're not well because she otherwise she couldn't get in the army that's not a real weakness you can't tell me that one of the characters weaknesses is that she successfully infiltrated the army and saved her father's life that's not a weakness okay and the movie makes a big deal about oh now she's going to show them she's a woman well yeah because she's already gained their trust and shown them her power by disguising herself as a man that wasn't weakness when she did that and it is insane that you think the moral is don't pre don't don't just don't everything you did was wrong you should have just went in there as a woman when i'm every woman she's all in me kicked everybody's ass and said i'm in charge of the chinese army now i i guess if you're telling me that her weakness was pretending to be a woman your deceit weakens you then you're telling me that that's what should have happened it makes no sense whatsoever this movie is terrible it is a stain don't do what i did don't watch the original in the new one back to back because you will want to buy a gun and kill yourself it is that depressing how how you can go from one of the greatest animated films of all time to just such garbage such horrific depressing depressing garbage this is a kids movie it's a movie for kids and you're telling kids don't learn to work together don't learn to become a band of brothers and fight alongside people you love and your family and your friends that's [ __ ] you are a beautiful and unique special snowflake you alone matter individual glory is more important than learning to work well with others i hate it i want to die thank you disney for sapping my will to live ladies and gentlemen don't forget to like and subscribe if you want me to make a whole video about mulan i think i have to there's so much to cover here it's so bad on every level so if you would like to see that movie if you want to see that video leave it leave a comment let me know that it's a good idea to make it i can't promise i'm going to make it because it would take forever but i i really want to man this movie is a nightmare more cool videos coming soon thanks for watching and disney what are you doing come on come on

Channel: Vito

Views: 352,797

Rating: 4.911571 out of 5

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Id: -CJuFasu6Ao

Length: 19min 13sec (1153 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 10 2020