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Thread: Cruella
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2021-06-12, 04:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: Cruella
Cruella was a good movie. The storyline was fantastic. There were a lot of twists in the movie. Emma Stone did a good job performing Cruella. It's a good movie overall. I'll give this movie a 9 out of 10 stars.
It's time to get my Magikarp on!
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2021-06-28, 08:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2006
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- Raleigh NC
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Re: Cruella
Well, I'm glad someone enjoyed it. I'm not interested because I don't like the subject matter.
Cruella is obviously supposed to be Disney's answer to Harley Quinn, and I'm trying to figure out why I like Harley Quinn but I don't like Cruella. Like, at all.
Here's the answer I'm coming up with: I've just done a hasty cursory inspection of H's bio and I can't find any instances where she killed ordinary civilians. She's a supervillain. She fights superheroes. That's punching up, or at least sideways.
Cruella punches down.
There is absolutely nothing interesting to me about a character who kills helpless animals for their coats. She's rich and powerful, she uses that wealth and power to pick on those weaker than herself. I don't care if dalmatians killed her mother, that's still no excuse for hunting the entire species. There's a word for what happens when you tar an entire race or species with the crimes of a few, and that same word describes what happens when you hate someone solely because they have the same fur color as someone else who once did you an injury. I'm frankly surprised no one at Disney connected the dots and realized that they were taking a wealthy, white, genocidal speciesist , a person who represents everything we're supposed to hate in 2021, and making them into a hero.
There are those who won't approach the show that way and can enjoy it, and that's not wrong of them. But I just can't get the context out of my mind. I don't like bullies, and I especially don't like rich ones. So I don't like the movie, because I don't like the protaganist.
Respectfully,
Brian P."Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
-Valery Legasov in Chernobyl
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2021-06-28, 09:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2011
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- Why am I here?
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2021-06-28, 09:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2013
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Re: Cruella
Much like any Batman character, she's had several renditions over the years, but the "classic" Harley most people think of is generally not malicious or wanting to hurt people, she's just tied to the Joker in a toxic, abusive relationship because she's genuinely kind of mentally unwell in spite of being a psychologist. I believe a lot of modern takes have her in a varying-by-medium friendship or outright romance with Poison Ivy these days, another fairly sympathetic Batman rogue whose motives are not malicious for malice's sake.
Personally im a fan of this take on the character.Last edited by Keltest; 2021-06-28 at 09:19 AM.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2021-06-28, 09:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2009
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- Maryland
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Re: Cruella
While I agree that moments such as Cruella being mean to her pals, treating them as underlings is...not exactly endearing, I think the antihero aspect of Harley Quinn is a fairly recent revision, and even there, it's...shaky. I'm not sure I know the character well enough to cite all the examples of her punching down, and some renditions, like the recent animated show, are mostly decent about this...but definitely not all of them.
Example: Mass Child Murder
You can, I suppose, make some allowance for mental illness, but that's a pretty common thing with supervillains, few of whom are without at least some sort of issue.
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2021-06-28, 10:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
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Re: Cruella
Ok we're talking about Harley which I have a bit more interest in.
I think part of the disconnect between Cruella and Harley, i.e. why someone would like one and not the other, is that there is just one Cruella (well, two if you count the 1956 original from the novel but I know nothing about that version) but a much larger number of Harleys, so it's easy for folks who say "I like Harley" to have a specific variant in mind that they connect with. For me, I can only speak to the two I'm most familiar with - BATAS Quinn (her debut), which was sanitized to the point that few to none of the villains actually killed anyone, and the DCU cartoon where she is very squarely in the antihero(ine) bucket. I'm sure there are many other versions of her like the comics (post-Crisis, New 52, Rebirth, Dark Knights), Injustice, the Arkham games, etc. that I won't like nearly as much, including ones where she blows up kids on Joker's say-so as linked above, but as I neither know nor care about those versions it's not inconsistent to say that I like HQ.
Meanwhile the one version of Cruella I know about skins puppies and isn't interesting for much if anything beyond that, so throwing her out of my mind is easy.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
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2021-06-28, 10:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
Re: Cruella
There's lots of Cruellas, if you count animated series ones as different from movie ones, and live action ones as different from animated movie ones.
1956 Novel Cruella
1961 Animated Movie Cruella
1996 Live Action Movie Cruella
2013 Once Upon A Time Live Action TV Series Cruella
2015 Descendants Movies Cruella
2021 Live Action Movie Cruella
1997 Animated Series Cruella
2019 Animated Series CruellaLast edited by hamishspence; 2021-06-28 at 11:02 AM.
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2021-06-28, 10:52 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
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- right behind you
Re: Cruella
All I could think of here was Eragorn. /shudder. They took an already fairly bland and unoriginal story and then managed to mangle it so much they have to season 8 game of thrones it because the sequel novels no longer can be made to fit with the events from the first film. It would be like if palpatine died in phantom menace. The entire series just screeches to a halt and you are left going, "Wait what?"
"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."
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2021-06-28, 12:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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Re: Cruella
You're right that there are versions I had forgotten (Once Upon A Time completely passed me by) but honestly, for a character that's existed for nigh-on 70 years this isn't that many. Harley has existed for a fraction of that time and can rival if not exceed this list, and I don't envision there to be a lot of variation between these permutations either since "skinning puppies for outerwear" is pretty irredeemable as antagonists go.
My larger point is that despite the behavioral similarities between some portrayals of both characters, it's a LOT easier to humanize and "protagonize" Harley than it is Cruella - the subject of this thread being the first truly serious attempt at doing so for the latter - so liking HQ but not CDV is not all that strange at the end of the day.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
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2021-06-28, 01:10 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
Re: Cruella
I'm told that the 1997 series skewed a bit more toward "jerk" than "monster".
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...tiansTheSeries
Jerkass Woobie:
In the series, the episode "Coup De Vil" actually turns Cruella into one.
Several episodes of the series portray Cruella as a Jerkass Woobie / Jerk With A Heart Of Gold combination.Marut-2 Avatar by Serpentine
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2021-06-29, 10:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2006
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- Raleigh NC
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Re: Cruella
I've only seen the 1961 version. Perhaps that's it. While Harley may have done some terrible things (depending on the rendition) I haven't seen her kick the dog so I don't automatically think of her as a villain -- more as a crazy and somewhat likeable anti-hero or DC comics never-kill villain, which is what I've seen.
Whereas what I saw of Cruella was not just her kicking the dog, but skinning the puppy. That's a lot harder to wipe away; that kind of image sticks. Because of that I have little patience for a re-imagining simply because I've already seen more than enough of the original character.
Respectfully,
Brian P."Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
-Valery Legasov in Chernobyl
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2021-06-29, 12:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: Cruella
I think those of us who didn't watch the 90s cartoon and stopped reading the comics roughly that long ago, we more know of Harley than really know about her ('she's a Joker henchperson who he treats badly' something something something). That lets the creator of a given IP define her for us ('oh, in this one she's an antihero? Sure, let's roll with it').
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2021-07-10, 11:39 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2016
Re: Cruella
Thought it was fun. Could have been edited down a tad for time, especially the second half. Emma Stone continues to amaze me. At first I thought she was just another cute face but that woman can act. Check her out in the The Favourite to see her acting chops at full steam (if you can watch dramas).
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2021-08-13, 05:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2006
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Re: Cruella
So Emma Stone just made a contract deal for the Cruella sequel.
https://deadline.com/2021/08/emma-st...ey-1234814551/
And if you are a Disney Plus subscriber you can see Cruella 1 for free in 2 weeks (the 27th of August) so you do not have to do a movie ticket with COVID Delta or pay $30 to add a permanent copy to your streaming library.Stupendous Man drawn by Linklele
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2021-08-27, 12:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2006
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Re: Cruella
Cruella is out now as a free component in any Disney Plus subscription, stream for free as part of your monthly bill.
Stupendous Man drawn by Linklele
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2021-08-31, 10:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2011
Re: Cruella
I finally plowed my way through this movie. It’s like popcorn—faintly tasty, ultimately empty, but somehow you keep wanting a little more.
I have no idea what this movie is trying to be. It’s not a heist movie, since there aren’t any real heists to speak of. It’s not a young artist movie, since Cruella does away with her aspiring artist’s career.
And it’s not really a villain origin movie, because we never see her do anything truly evil. She's really not much more than faintly naughty—which really trips up the villain aspect. The movie spends its first half doing its best to give us a sympathetic main character—and then a slightly enjoyable rebel—and then has no clear idea what to do with her next. She doesn't even hoodwink the Baroness out of the mansion; Cruella inherits it fair and square. You would at least expect a master con job to close out the movie, but Cruella is too busy still being sympathetic.
The Star Wars prequels, for all their many flaws, at least showed us an essentially decent kid who eventually fell to evil through anger, fear and pride. There’s nothing like that here, because she never actually falls; she just goes slightly bad-girl, wears lots of black, and…not much else?
Fortunately Emma Stone can carry the movie, such as it is, because she’s not getting much help. Her two partners in petty crime have close to zero drips of personality between them, and the Baroness, while well-acted, is more of a caricature than a character.
And unfortunately it’s all so very, very contrived. After the convoluted setup, it’s The Devil Wears Prada meets…actually, it doesn’t meet anything other than the far end of its own setup, plus a couple of pointless car chases and every possible excuse to play 70s music. But even when she’s given every opportunity, Cruella never makes any evil choices, and she ends up more a vigilante than a villain. There’s just no way to connect the moral dots from the end of this movie to where the original Cruella ends up.
It’s almost as if the entire movie is a long “What If…?” episode, giving us an alternate universe in which Cruella wasn’t actually so bad. And the not-so-bad Cruella is reasonably fun to watch—but that only makes for more of a disconnect with everything the movie assumes we know about her future.
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2021-08-31, 10:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2006
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Re: Cruella
It is Destruction / Spite which drives the conflict.
Why did the dwarves in the Hobbit go back to The Lonely Mountain even if the quest was absurd from the start of it? As Bilbo told the dragon 🐉 revenge!
It is not Oceans 11, it is more of Oceans 13 with a less famous, less large cast and it abandons realism from the start instead embracing camp which is pointing out life is a performance and ultimately empty yet it can remain if it’s fun.Stupendous Man drawn by Linklele