Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is the Movie We've Been Missing

foreign [Music] what's the matter lives flashing before your eyes it was at this moment that I realized I was in for something truly special with this movie as someone who loves the medium of animation and considers several animated Works to be among my all-time favorite pieces of art I've made no secret of my disappointment with the rather unadventurous Spirit of mainstream American theatrical animation for a more thorough look at just what I mean you can check out my video from early 2021 audio remastered roughly two years later in which I delve into just how significant an impact the first Shrek had on kneecapping the most substantial period of experimentation that the industry had arguably ever seen it'll be linked in the description but the tldr is it did a lot of damage aside from that I'm just personally not much of a fan of the movie and that's not even my hottest animation take [Music] so imagine my surprise when the decade-late sequel to the spin-off to the sequel to Shrek ends up being exactly the kind of movie that I've been so desperately hoping for a major Studio to make I mean imagine being the guy who predicted that we wouldn't be seeing much boundary pushing in the realm of mainstream theatrical animation anytime soon hey longtime fans of the more Niche content on my channel will know that my tastes run quite Macabre when it comes to the Arts I love a good old confrontation with mortality a story that forces us to stare down the shadow that looms over everything we do in life and I have immense respect for art especially that aimed at General audiences which refuses to pull punches in dealing with the darker aspects of The Human Experience but Puss in Boots The Last Wish isn't just dark or experimental or unique it's downright fantastic in virtually every aspect of both narrative and presentation and today I'd like to discuss why in the vein of the other Shrek franchise movies The Last Wish opens with an homage to classic fairy tale motifs in this case a fallen star upon which one can make a wish that lies at the center of an enchanted Dark Forest but something to take note of here is that unlike the Shrek movies which actively parody and deride their classic Inspirations this opening lacks that trademark irreverence or irony the Wishing Star and the associated nursery rhyme aren't an object of mockery nor does puss crack jokes or have his reading cut off by a comedic beat the writers play this moment in complete sincerity interesting given how much has been made of this movie's supposedly subversive nature but we're putting the cart before the horse a bit and it's a fairly subtle Choice the contrast of which to the prior movies likely won't be noticed on most initial viewings and honestly I'm not even sure most people remember the first Puss in Boots movie I watched it in preparation for writing the script and even I can barely tell you what happened in it I think was Humpty Dumpty anyway what is most likely to immediately stick out to viewers is this movie's fantastic visual Style now I am an unabashed champion of 2D animation and most of the time with 3D animated movies even when I like them I still can't help but think that they would either look as good if not better in 2D I will admit this largely comes down to personal preference and I'm not going to pretend that one approach is objectively superior to the other as both have their unique traits and advantages but the last wish is one of the few instances I can think of where the movie's visual style would actually lose a great deal if it were rendered in 2D taking heavy inspiration from a number of Highly visually inventive recent films and series including Sony animations into the spider-verse Netflix's Arcane another surprise hit that hardly anyone expected to be as excellent as it was and DreamWorks owned the bad guys the Last Wish features a painterly art style with striking use of color shadow and light play brilliantly Creative cinematography and shot composition backgrounds drawn with visible brush strokes and the incorporation of 2D animation into certain effects such as smoke Sparks and Flames character designs have been subtly altered from the prior film to better stand out and match this new style and the movie utilizes frame dropping during action scenes to place more emphasis on keyframes and lean into its nature as an animated film rather than go for simple graphical Fidelity to real life taking full advantage of the medium's ability to exaggerate and dramatize movements physical appearances actions and Lighting nearly every frame from this movie could be used as an art print or wallpaper a fact which made it quite difficult for me to choose a thumbnail and so I think it will be better to point out particularly noteworthy examples throughout this video rather than Linger on the topic here and so we come to our proper introduction or reintroduction to the titular hero Puss in Boots an Incarnation Loosely derived from the Italian fairy tales of a roguish Robin Hood style Cat who in the Shrek franchise is essentially a Pastiche of the Spanish folk hero of Zorro who voice actor Antonio Banderas famously played in one great film and one terrible one beginning with a fun flashy upbeat musical number as post hosts a crowd of commoners in the estate of the wealthy local Governor which he has appropriated for a lavish party we see the character as he's always been portrayed in these films Charming Brash daring and self-obsessed as skilled with a guitar as he is with a blade cherishing and playing into his Public Image as he's adored by Ordinary People while being cursed and begrudgingly admired by the upper classes he's a solitary hero wandering from town to town playing tricks on the rich and powerful and helping the unfortunate while never failing to stroke his own ego in the process the classic dashing Rogue archetype in all its Glory played as straight as you can imagine for the entirety of the opening from the banquet trashing the governor's Villa to the sword fight with his men in which he confidently proclaims that no blade has ever touched him and boasts of laughing in the face of death and from the zany confrontation with the Monstrous giant of Del Mar where he shows very little regard for his own safety to his adoration before the crowd he saves after defeating it that is until this happens one more number I call this one the legend will never die sure it's played for comedic effect and it's funny but the writers make tremendous use out of what could easily have been a throwaway gag in a Shrek movie or even the first Puss in Boots film taking the common myth of cats having Nine Lives observing that this character's flipping attitudes towards death and danger have clearly cost him some of those before and then asking what if he was on his last and as we see in the Montage of his prior deaths pus has treated his other eight lives flippantly with every single death being something entirely avoidable a result of his primary character flaws his recklessness vanity and unbridled hubris it is here that we get the first steps towards the deconstruction of puss as a character and the decision to do so by not only playing off of his existing weaknesses but also through applying a splash of cold logic to the fairy tale cats have nine lives Motif something the Shrek franchise is already Well Suited towards sets up his Arc for the film brilliantly while feeling like a natural progression of his journey as a person it is precisely because of not only the nature of how it's handled but the skill of the execution that unlike with so many other recent cases of character deconstructions this example in particular elicited such positive audience responses but that has as much to do with his eventual reconstruction which we'll discuss in more detail later on puss himself of course is openly dismissive of the doctor's warnings but clearly remains troubled by the idea that he can no longer rely on extra lives to indulge his Reckless egoism and prolong his existence that death is now a concrete presence in his life something real in a way it had never been before which of course leads us to arguably the most iconic scene in the entire film and as I mentioned in the opening the one in which I realized how truly special this movie was going to be it begins with puss trying to drown his anxieties with milk in the local bar half-heartedly mocking the doctor's prescription for him to give up his adventurous lifestyle and when the bartender steps out to check for his heaviest stuff in the back our feline hero is left alone sitting beneath the faint glow of a single flickering candle which is suddenly extinguished hearing a strange haunting whistle puss then looks up from his drink to see a new figure in the bar please now despite the film not formally revealing this to either puss or the audience until much further in it is really really obvious that this figure is not merely some Bounty Hunter after the price on the cat's head but death himself or at least it was obvious to me I knew nothing about this movie going in and I still called it The Moment I Saw the character appear I mean he's a pale white wolf with glowing red eyes in a black Grim Reaper style hooded cloak wielding scythes the candle gutters right before he appears not only referencing the common Trope in the presence of a supernatural figure but deliberately mirroring the doctor's announcement of puss's death in the prior scene he introduces himself with an eerie ghostly whistle seemingly appears out of thin air and is able to dodge puss's attacks with preternatural agility raises his shot glass perfectly to catch the cat's reflection as if holding puss's very soul in his claws and even all but States this multiple times in their dialogue albeit with a double meaning that allows for the protagonist's misunderstanding I never do this but can I get your autograph I've been following you for a long time push it puts laps in the face of death so I've heard that is not to say that the twist being obvious makes it bad far from it in fact but rather a comment on how the component pieces of this part of The Narrative of puss being literally pursued by death after frivolously wasting his prior lives are strong enough in their own right to not need to rely on novelty or superficial subversion of expectations but as with a few of the other things I've mentioned we'll get more on that later puss initially displaying unease for the first time in this movie in the presence of another now believing that the wolf is here to collect the bounty on his head quickly drops back into his confident hero persona only to be utterly thrashed in the ensuing fight and when all of his signature moves fail him and the wolf's taunts rise in ferocity with his strikes forcing the desperate cat on the defensive knocking his own sword from his paws the wolf's blade skims his forehead drawing blood something we were told in the opening has never happened before for the first time in any of his lives death is now something real to him and staring at face to face even if he is unaware of how literally that is occurring in the moment when urged by his opponent to pick up his blade and resume the fight puss instead flees in Terror making an ignoble retreat it would have been so easy for the movie to pause for a low brow joke here as post utilizes the latrine for his Escape running out into the night drenched in filth it would practically be expected from any other entry in the Shrek franchise but instead it's simply left as an added humiliation for just how low the hero has sunk from the heights we saw him at just before his latest death with his pursuer merely muttering run Kitty run in Spanish seeming to derive enjoyment from the hunt by the way I have to commend the voice actor for the wolf Wagner Mora who manages to blend an almost folksy down-to-earth charm into an otherwise ruthless and terrifying performance well well if it isn't boosting boots himself [Music] a flesh [Music] foreign this scene is utterly fantastic one of the best animated sequences I've seen in the last decade on par with the opening of Arcane and the climax of its third episode or the second and third episodes of the Samurai Jack Revival the wolf has such a domineering presence throughout it all as being the literal incarnation of death in a story about confronting it he naturally should the framing of him in relation to puss over the course of the encounter from how he looms over the cat when sitting beside him at the bar to puss appearing trapped within the wicked curve of his Scythe as they fight to the terrified hero being engulfed by his midnight black shadow when desperately trying to hide and the dramatic use of vivid Carmine coloring when the wolf first draws blood all go above and beyond in both establishing the Menace of the primary antagonist and building and maintaining the tension for a story about The gravest Challenge the hero has ever faced in the aftermath of this stunning reversal of Fortune faced with a threat he seemingly cannot hope to defeat puss trudges off to an ignominious retirement at the home of Mama Luna becoming simply one ordinary cat among hundreds the remaining fire in his Spirit gradually withering away to Embers effectively left with nothing to do but die and while it makes sense given the later reveal something to note is that the wolf never hounds him here as he wastes away only reappearing when pushed dares to once again take up the mantle of a heroic outlaw it is here that we are introduced to a then unnamed orphaned dog masquerading as a cat who despite not knowing anything about puss's prior exploits seeks to befriend him merely on account of being the only other talking animal there though he isn't given the name perrito Spanish for little dog until much later this character serves as a foil to puss having experienced a terrible life without any of the glamor Or Glory of the feline protagonist and yet unrelentingly optimistic and at peace with himself now I have to admit when I first saw the movie I assumed he was going to be an annoying comic relief side character but I was pleasantly surprised at not only how not annoying perrito is but in how crucial of a role he plays in pus's development and how all around endearing the little dog is our former Heroes rather shameful retirement at Mama Lunas is interrupted by the arrival of the second antagonist represented in the film's creative take on Goldilocks and the Three Bears a crime family seemingly masterminded by the former orphan girl who was taken in by the trio whose home she invaded But more on their dynamic in a moment it turns out that the four are there not to claim the bounty on puss but to recruit him for another job stealing the map to the Wishing Star from megalomaniacal pastry industrialist Jack Horner who has been amassing magical objects for his own purposes and puss overhearing their intentions while not being recognized in his current disheveled State comes up with a plan of his own to use the wish to regain his former lives with perito tagging along against his wishes puss quickly infiltrates Jack's inner sanctum and locates the map only to find that his former crime partner and romantic interest Kitty Soft Paws has beaten him to it the two manage a daring Escape then form an uneasy truce to work together to make it to the wish pursued by both Goldilocks and the bears as well as Jack and his most elite operatives named exactly as you'd expect from a movie in this franchise assemble the baker's dozen we've already discussed the first main antagonist in quite a bit of detail the wolf death himself the literal embodiment of the inescapable fact that we all must die but this movie actually manages to incorporate excellent examples of three different antagonistic archetypes the wolf is the unknowable force of nature something that cannot truly be defeated nor reasoned with but Goldilocks serves as a tragic figure an orphan hoping to use the wish to regain the family she lost so long ago while willing to resort to unscrupulous means she's not an evil person and her goals while misguided as we later see in more detail are hardly immoral and the semi-disfunctional But ultimately loving Dynamic of her adopted family which she eventually comes to see in proper Focus speaks to the underlying good in her and all of them contrasted against these is Big Jack Horner derived from a by now fairly obscure English nursery rhyme where Goldilocks remains conflicted in the pursuit of a noble albeit ill-considered goal Jack Horner is an utterly irredeemable sociopath concerned only with improving his own already considerable lot in life and cheerfully aware of just how evil he truly is to the point of being hilarious yeah in the face why oh my word it's the noble Phoenix she's a symbol a rebirth and the eternal what do you think bug do I wait for the cats to steal the map and then kill them or do I just kill everybody all at once but his comical cartoonish level of evil does serve to do more than a muse striking at the heart of this movie's messaging the central aim of most of the cast by this point in the movie is to reach the center of the Dark Forest and make their wish with Jack Horner's deepest desire being to possess all magic in the entire world despite already enjoying immense wealth and power as well as Myriad magical items which he puts on display keeping them sequestered from the rest of the world Horner claims that this wish is the only thing that would make him truly happy sheer gluttonous domination ownership for its own sake desperate to fill the void of meaning in his life with material possession this form of chasing satisfaction has obviously failed given how much he currently has without feeling content and yet the only solution he can conceive of is to reach for even more Goldilocks meanwhile having lost her parents only to be adopted by the Bears who she superficially stands out amongst desperately desires a family to which she can properly belong only for her to realize over the course of the journey that the family she wants so badly has been with her this whole time and puss setting out to regain his prior lives as a buffer against the inevitability of death finds himself achieving something even more valuable in pursuit of this goal gradually rekindling his romance with Kitty and developing a proper friendship with perrito to the point that by the time he is able to make the wish this final current life proves more valuable than all of the empty frivolously wasted past eight put together where Jack Horner destroys himself in pursuit of a selfish wish and Goldilocks comes to realize that she already had what she desired puss has gifted something even greater in the course of his journey and the script layer's additional commentary on this point in the mechanics of the Dark Forest that contains the Wishing Star as well as the map used to locate it when pus Kitty and parido first enter the Dark Forest they find that the very landscape and the trail they must follow to reach their wish change depending on who has last directly interacted with the map the former two each conjure up nightmarish Pathways of seemingly impassable terrain where the aspirants are confronted by the failings of the pests they seek to overcome loneliness and misery anguish and despair but then when the ever jovial and optimistic perrito who claims that he already has all he could ever hope for in the two friends that life has recently given him touches the map the landscape becomes tranquil and easy to Traverse requiring travelers to Simply adopt the affable bright-eyed approach of the little dog to everything around them reflecting the character's own inner peace and the lack of misguided or downright selfish desire that is present in the other's hearts not only is this a clever way to force puss and kitty to work together by leaving the map in possession of a neutral third party thereby progressing the arcs of each but it speaks to the central theme of the movie of not allowing life to pass you by in pursuit of some nebulous goal of seeing everything as a competition that you must win of racing towards the finish line of life rather than actually experiencing it the first quote-unquote obstacle in the path purito elicits from the map is the pocket full of posies a section of the trail blocked by giant growths of flowers because of the lives pus and kitty have lived they see this as yet another challenge to be overcome and begin hacking away at the flowers only to encounter further resistance the more they struggle and they are saved when perito simply appreciates the flowers for what they are telling his friends that they need to quite literally stop and smell the roses or Posies in this case it's not about beating an obstacle but rather simply experiencing the life that is before them however the true Brilliance of this moment lies not in the dog's initial advice but in the framing of the cat's shared reaction which I think mirrors the common reaction of many people today and forgive me for stepping beyond the bounds of the movie for a moment but I can assure you it's relevant so please bear with me it's hardly controversial to say that we live in an age of unrelenting cynicism and despair which is reflected not only in so much of our popular media but in basically any metric you care to examine and the causes are far too numerous and complex to properly address in a video on the sequel to the spin-off to the sequel to Shrek but suffice it to say people today especially members of generations y and z are faced with a highly nihilistic cultural landscape in which dealing and genuine sincerity verges on the impossible where nothing can be taken fully seriously where everything has to be some form of a joke where everything we feel or believe can only be expressed when drenched in irony so that we never risk the vulnerability that comes with actually caring about anything and in those rare moments when someone dares to cut to the heart of things and give us advice that for all its Merit has become cliche to the point of derision we like Puss and kitty reflexively scoff when told to pause even briefly from the never resting always engaged dopamine-flooded world that has us blindly consuming as we race towards death and appreciate what lies around us to step back and actually live in the moment rather than treating it merely as a bridge between where we are now and some future goal we've practically been conditioned to laugh the idea away to mask our deeper discomfort which is exactly what they do seriously ugh this is stupid all I smell is watch don't rush through it take your time and really appreciate what's right in front of you his path is so corny yes yes and cheesy and lame aware like like yeah that's so stupid so trite so cliche and yet burrito's advice is still true it works and to see such a genuine moment unashamedly confronting this overwhelmingly common mindset of cynicism and nihilism in a franchise built on a reverence and parody well it was like watching the process of subversion come full circle and seeing as we've already delved into the role perrito plays in our protagonist's journey it's time to take a look at the role of kitty Soft Paws voiced by Salma Hayek a character introduced in the prior Puss in Boots film as the counterpart love interest to the rogueish hero that movie not that you'd be blamed for failing to remember ended with the two cats romantically involved but when Kitty is reintroduced in the last wish it is as a jilted x who refers to puss betraying her at Santa Coloma only for us to later learn in one of the movie's most tender scenes that this was not a failed Heist but a church where puss left his bride to be at the altar as he explains to perito after the dog helps him recover from a panic attack it was wrong I know I am ashamed I just wish I hadn't hurt her so badly I regret that day at that point he was Puss in Boots the Invincible hero with plenty of lives to spare who laughed in the face of death and yet when he found something truly valuable something that meant more than praise or fame more than wealth or the thrill of danger someone he loved he became afraid because to truly care about something is in some sense to be vulnerable just as how it is only when he discovers he is on his final life that puss actually learns to cherish it and where Puss seeks the wish to restore the past lives he frivolously threw away kitty does so in order to repair the damage he did to her having lived so long on her own only to think she had finally found someone she could trust she could be happy with he let her down I love that this movie has Kitty over here puss's confession not to create a miscommunication to drive a deeper wedge between them for cheap drama but to prompt her towards forgiveness as she comes to recognize how much puss has changed just as he at the advice of perrito gains the courage to apologize to her as mentioned earlier it is in once again learning to trust love and rely on one another that the two find something even more valuable than that which each initially planned to wish for when the trio are attacked by both Jack's gang and the Bears the latter group ends up briefly in possession of the map leading to Goldilocks and her adopted family stumbling upon their former home a collection of scenes which helped the girl in coming to realize that for all she has lost there is also so much she has since gained but when puss and kitty sneak in and retrieve the map once again disrupting the geography of the Dark Forest they are separated and puss now unable to Simply tag along on his cheerful friend's path through the magical landscape must confront his own demons venturing through the cave of Lost Souls navigating the stunning crystalline passageways our protagonist comes to a chamber in which he is confronted by all of his past lives each quite literally Larger than Life and each shaped by the meaningless way in which they threw those respective lives away initially they cheer their ninth and final companion on encouraging him to join in singing the ego-stroking song from the opening but the moment the latest puss expresses a desire to reunite with Kitty and perrito his past lives turn on him belittling the feline hero for precisely all the ways in which he has grown as a person the weight of his past failings not only metaphorically but here quite literally seeking to drag him back into his old habits urging him to use the wish to restore themselves but to his credit reflecting on his existence as a legend in contrast to what he has since learned puss is now capable of recognizing how empty and superficial that existence truly was however in doing so he also prompts a return of the fear that has driven him on this quest of losing this last life which has become so much more valuable to him at which point death himself arrives finally revealing his true nature one by one he shatters the illusory remnants of puss's Prior lives expressing his disgust at the very idea of someone being gifted not merely more than one life but nine only to waste them all I find the very idea of Nine Lives of sun and you didn't value any of them and once again puss does not have the courage to stand and fight instead fleeing in Terror as the cave becomes engulfed in bloody red and the wolf's grinning Visage is reflected from every facet of Crystal his taunting echoing after the hero fine which brings us to the final confrontation at the heart of the Dark Forest where Puss comes clean to his friends telling Kitty that he is on his final life and his former partner after revealing her own wish reluctantly concedes to give the wish to him the cats in perrito Goldilocks and the Bears and Jack Horner then have a three-way standoff fighting for possession of the map during which Jack is seemingly defeated and Goldilocks chooses her found family over the potential for restoring her original life but as puss is about to make his wish death arrives Conjuring a wall of ethereal Flames between him and the others staring the cat down before casting his sword across the battlefield offering him a choice take the coward's way out and restore your previous meaningless lives or pick up your blade and fight for this one and puss after all he has learned and experienced over the course of this journey watching as the literal embodiment of death creeps nearer once more begins to see the most important moments from his prior lives Flash before his eyes only this time the vast majority of these are from this most recent one with Kitty and perrito by his side what's the matter lives flashing before your eyes no just one staring defiantly back at death with those very friends visible over his shoulder puss lets the map Drift from his paw and hefts his sword launching into a fight in which despite managing to hold his own much better than before he is still steadily born down until after losing his blade once more he draws the knife given to him by Kitty managing to fight the wolf to a standstill drawing on the support both metaphorically and literally of those who care about him knocking death's own Scythe from his hands puss then kicks it back to him in a mirror to the wolf's earlier actions I know I can never defeat you Rubble I will never stop fighting for this life and seeing that his Quarry is now able to stare death in the face with full awareness of what that means of what is at stake without flinching the wolf relents I come here for an arrogant little Legend who thought he was Immortal ah but I don't see him anymore parting amicably urging his former prey to live his life and live it well death offers a reminder that this will not be their final encounter one that puts stoically acknowledges before Vanishing into the flames you know we will meet again right now if I had to choose between this scene and death's introduction as my favorite from the film I'm not sure I could both are just so fantastically executed perfect mirrors of one another the first encapsulating all the main hero needs to learn and the second displaying precisely what he has learned in the interim not only is the setting visually breathtaking with the purple and red Flames giving the duel this Eerie ethereal quality excellently suited to a literal battle with the reaper but the way the camera frames what puss is fighting for the friends he still has so much to experience alongside over his shoulder as he stares the wolf down and the way death still looms over the hero as the battle begins only for him to be framed as distant and minuscule when puss disarms him in an inverse of their initial encounter to how puss after all he has experienced is now willing to fight to the end even knowing that death can never truly be defeated the perfect metaphor for his internal growth as a character right down to the ending where after winning the wolf's begrudging respect and earning a temporary reprieve from mortality the two still recognize that this will not be the last time their paths cross something puss is now at peace with it's all just so brilliant a conclusion to puss's journey and the film's exploration of its primary themes When Death meant nothing to him life didn't really either just like before when the hero had found love only to run away returning to his life as a Wandering Outlaw with no ties to hold him down because that was easier it's precisely the possibility of losing something valuable that makes us cherish it and now the proper realization of this fact allows him to stare down the looming threat of mortality of the knowledge that this will not last with the confidence and courage to endure in spite of that fact to Value what time he has that it is up to him to make his own meaning from The Limited mortal existence he has been given and that the best way to do so lies not in pursuing fleeting Pleasures but in spending that ever dwindling time with those he cares about most while this scene doesn't Mark the full conclusion of the plot as Jack Horner briefly re-emerges only to be consumed in the implosion of the Wishing Star after the others destroy the map no longer having need of the wish it's safe to say that the movie reaches its narrative climax here and in the aftermath taking a moment to enjoy the beautiful sight of the star-filled night sky together the trio then set out in search of new adventures I've seen a lot of people praising this movie for being surprising or unexpected or subversive and In fairness I myself was quite surprised at how strong this film was in nearly every aspect of its writing and presentation but I think it's important to remember that these terms are inherently relative to the existing cultural landscape what's surprising or subversive or irreverent in Japan today may be stock standard in America and vice versa similarly what stood out 50 years ago in America could be the norm now while what was standard then could be radically unexpected for modern audiences for example call me crazy but I remember when a mainstream animated movie having an unsympathetic pure evil villain was the default and I'm only in my late 20s but now with the sympathetic misunderstood antagonist certainly not a bad Trope in its own right having become common to the point of cliche when this film or Guardians volume 3 feature villains who are just plain evil it comes as a shock the funny thing is the Last Wish is actually quite by the numbers in running through a classic legendary hero loses then regains their confidence type of story in a manner similar to the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro a movie whose protagonist heavily inspired this one with both being played by the same actor but the most important thing is that the Last Wish manages to tell this classic type of story very well with the added bonus of integrating into it quite a compelling confrontation on the hero's part with the inevitability of death now maybe it's just because I watch and read a lot of stories but personally I called most if not all of the major plot beats of this film well ahead of time on my initial viewing and I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the audience did as well the reveal of the wolf hunting puss says no mere Bounty Hunter but death himself seemed obvious practically from the moment he was introduced when Kitty showed up as a scorned former lover of puss it seemed natural that they would be forced to work together and end up reconciling which would help to change the protagonist's character same with Goldilocks journey of coming to realize that the family she is seeking has been with her the whole time or Jack's malevolent single-minded selfishness culminating in his own destruction or puss's Adventure leading to a climactic confrontation with death where he will after figuratively having done so in the course of the journey literally pick up the blade and fight for all that he has coming to truly value this final life in a way he never did with any of his prior ones to be absolutely clear I don't say this as a flaw despite being able to see so many of these payoffs coming from a mile away I still thoroughly loved experiencing them as a story because quote-unquote predictability is not a problem with storytelling in and of itself and to illustrate my point I've got a little anecdote back in the summer of 2020 when many of us suddenly had a lot more time on our hands I figured it would be a good time to get my parents to watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy like many people our age and plenty older than us my brother and sister and I Revere the films as a faithful adaptation of one of the central pieces of tolkien's legendarium but my mom and dad have never been particularly into speculative fiction preferring more grounded stories and it was really interesting to somewhat vicariously experience the movies for the first time seeing how the films are structured to provide a steady introduction to this massive world and expansive cast without overwhelming newcomers but I remember after we'd finished part one of Fellowship my dad said something like I've got a feeling it's going to end with that ring going in the volcano and I mean he wasn't wrong viewed in a certain way plenty of the greatest stories of all time are downright predictable or formulaic at least in their most significant elements and yet they still manage to not only hold our attention even on repeat viewings or readings but to mean so much to us regardless because mere unpredictability or superficial subversiveness is not what makes a story great sure it can contribute but as always it comes down to the execution and that's true of far more than just the Arts it's not just what you say it's how well you say it On a related note I know I've made a big deal of lamenting Shrek's influence on the American animation industry but I don't want people to mistake my views on the movie Shrek is admittedly a very cleverly written film with a powerful message about swimming against societal currents and judging people for who they truly are and it's also a very effective parody deconstruction of the safe simplistic often downright sterile disney-fied fairy tale model that held such a central place in American pop culture for the better part of a century it just so happened to come out in a time of abnormally adventurous experimentation and its massive critical and Commercial Success played a key role in turning the industry's focus in a new direction that I personally find disappointing again see my earlier video for more on what I mean but more than 20 years on we now live amidst a media landscape and more broadly in a world where irreverence and irony are so commonplace as to make sincere discussion of serious ideas and expression of genuine emotion all but impossible where deconstruction everywhere of everything has become the norm mainstreamed into even the most celebrated franchises for more than a decade where every single story and formula and Trope must be subverted or deconstructed or parodied or treated flippantly where every single hero must be dragged through the mud to prove that they were never worthy of admiration or aspiration to begin with rarely receiving the accompanying reconstruction that would provide audiences with closure and catharsis and for every one of the million people in that City innocent or otherwise to be honest I never really cared much for them innocent or otherwise liar and when everything is subversive or deconstructive or irreverent the very Concepts lose what makes them unique and insightful in limited doses deconstruction subversion and parity are vital elements of the evolution of any art form and some of the greatest stories of our time are in fact deconstructions or parodies of that which came before but a deconstruction without a proper reconstruction is like torching a house and then camping on the ashes if all your stories teach you to do is mock or tear down what others have built or at the most direct cheap facilities to replace them pretty soon you won't have anything left to celebrate sometimes when I look around at the state of so many once beloved franchises and even more so at the broader cultural environment it almost seems like the society we live in is designed for us to be miserable and depressed and constantly at each other's throats and this is why I love the last wish so much and why to a large extent I think it captured the hearts of so many people especially those of younger Generations rising from the ashes of a famous fairy tale parody deconstruction it then has the guts to not only deconstruct its own incarnation of one of those classic character archetypes and recognize the legitimate flaws within but to then reconstruct him in a way that directly affirms a sincere celebration of life in spite of the hardship in spite of the loss and pain and the knowledge that it will not last that whatever our past failings life itself is something worth fighting for and building upon in that regard at least it just might be the most radically subversive family movie a major Studio has produced in years but not in the way the term is usually used because ultimately the greatest thing about this movie isn't some superficial pursuit of subversiveness it's sincerity for all its levity and humor for all its zany fairy tale pastiches with talking animals at its heart The Last Wish is a film genuinely interested in confronting serious subject matter in a serious way and in a world in which classic aspirational heroic storytelling is all too often looked at with skepticism and comedic dismissal if not outright mockery and Scorn in which expressing genuine sincerity has been rendered all but impossible in an environment long since poisoned by successive layers of irony in which simply wanting Happy Endings or believing people can be better or having faith in the eventual Triumph of goodness are often demeaned as childish fantasies it's nice to see a poignant story so thoroughly suffused with optimism when I say I want more mature animated storytelling this is precisely what I have in mind I don't want what I'm asking for to be misconstrued as simply an edgy desire for American animation to feature violence or blood or swearing or sex or drug use sure plenty of those May feature in mature media but none of them make a work of art mature by virtue of their mere presence what I want more than anything else are stories with something to say told in a medium that I wholeheartedly believe is capable of some of the most creative delivery possible and judged against that metric Puss in Boots The Last Wish passes with flying colors [Music] [Music] there's something [Music] we we share a room share a bed save rent a cellmates you think it was a crime to be alive that's your depression talking that's the name of this house this house [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] and the rest of you play double time [Music] now despite the film not formally revealing this to either is that a bird I think that was a bird I hope the mic didn't pick that up

Channel: Cardinal West

Views: 174,392

Keywords: Animation, Cartoon, Disney, Dreamworks, Shrek

Id: Nc9cvOEMwiE

Length: 42min 44sec (2564 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 31 2023