The Nostalgia Critic |OT| He Remembers It So You Don't Have To

Doug's doing Disneycember again & this year, he's doing Studio Ghibli films, along with overlooked Disney classics. First up is Nausicca.

Nitpick really, but does Ghibli really use princesses more than Disney? I count: Nausicaa, Sheeta, Mononoke (although, despite the titular title, I wouldn't really call her a princess), and... Kaguya (?). Or is Doug using the term princess for heroine/female protagonist - much like Mulan is a Disney princess even though she's not actually a princess.
 
Are Ghibli films published by disney overseas? Cause I was never aware of that.
Most of them, yes. They also handle the dubs. There's only a few that either Disney doesn't have or haven't been dubbed. Grave of the Fireflies was originally Central Park Media, then ADV, & now Sentai Filmworks. Only Yesterday is pretty much the only Ghibli film NOT released in the US. A company called GKIDS has the rights to From Up on Poppy Hill & Tale of the Princess Kaguya, it seems.

Princess Mononoke, as previously mentioned, is technically by Touchstone, which Disney owns, since they felt it was too violence/didn't want to promote a PG-13 cartoon under the Disney name. So hopefully, Doug will count that, considering he reviewed Popeye on the grounds it was made by a company that Disney owns or something among those lines....plus the fact a TON of people will request it if he doesn't.
 
It's a bit inaccurate to say that Miyazaki was an unknown in America who only got recognition in the past 10-15 years thanks to Disney/Lasseter, or that Disney offloaded Mononoke onto Miramax at first because it was too edgy.

Nausicaa got released in America in the 80's as the heavily-butchered "Warriors of the Wind". Toren Smith (head of Studio Proteus, one of the biggest manga publishers in America before Tokyopop got a toe hold in bookstores) ranted about how they ruined a masterpiece, and Miyazaki personally saw his rant, invited him to visit Studio Ghibli, and Toren Smith walked out of the meeting with the manga rights to Nausicaa.

Several Miyazaki/Ghibli movies got released in America, including Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Castle of Cagliostro, and Grave of the Fireflies. The bulk of his movies weren't available, but Miyazaki was well-known in the manga/anime community.

Then Miramax bought the rights to Princess Mononoke, and apparently the first thing Harvey Weinstein did was demand that it be butchered for American audiences, a-la Warriors of the Wind. Miyazaki told him to go to hell. Then Weinstein insisted that the penny-ante strategies of the moderately-successful American anime industry were bullshit, so he insisted on big name Hollywood actors, rather than specialized voice actors, because real actors are simply better than voice actors. Their paychecks say so. And then he pushed it into theaters, instead of this direct-to-video bullshit that the American anime industry did. Oh, but there was no money left for advertising, so they just skipped that part. It made [quick google] $2.3 million dollars! Dr Evil would be proud. Then they were going to release it on DVD, but it was going to be dub-only, because why the hell would Americans want DVDs with Japanese audio on them when perfectly good English tracks were available? The anime community freaked, so Miramax said "Fine, whatever" and included the Japanese language track.

Then Disney bought the rights to Studio Ghibli's entire remaining catalog (and lifted Mononoke's rights away from Miramax), during the Eisner era of Disney (before Lasseter). By this point, anime was on Disney's radar, because Pokemon was a thing, and even Fox Kids (Disney's rival which killed the Disney Afternoon) was airing Escaflowne (which also got pushed to theaters). Disney's acquisition of Ghibli's catalog was seen as a bad thing by fans, but then Disney started releasing big Ghibli movies to theaters and releasing back catalog movies on DVD alongside them, and they weren't cheaping out on anything, putting as much effort into the back catalog as they did into the theater releases. They were just generally doing their job, as good as they can, which is pretty darned good, and nobody had anything to complain about.

Then Eisner got the boot and Lasseter came in, and he loves how Disney is handling the Miyazaki catalog, so he intends to support it any way he can, because he knows how awesome Miyazaki is, but he didn't start this ball rolling, and while Disney has done an excellent job delivering Miyazaki's films to America, Miyazaki's renown is still fundamentally the same as it was before Mononoke. Nerds know and love him, while the masses are clueless. There's just a larger number of nerds, and they're significantly happier.
 
What's strange is that there actually was a sequel to A Christmas Story before this. "My Summer Story" or "It Runs in the Family". But nobody knows it exists so we got "A Christmas Story 2"

Also, this was directed by Brian Levant, who also did Jingle All the Way, the live-action Flintstones movie (and its prequel), and Snow Dogs.
 
Curious how he liked Christmas Story 2. It's certainly not the original, but it's not that bad. It's generic, but not offensively bad like Christmas Vacation 2.
 
What's strange is that there actually was a sequel to A Christmas Story before this. "My Summer Story" or "It Runs in the Family". But nobody knows it exists so we got "A Christmas Story 2"
I do. I saw it on TV as a kid. I think I enjoyed it but all I remember is that he worked for a refrigerator moving company for the summer.
 
FUCK YOU, IT'S JANUARY!

Wait, wrong internet critics..

THEME MONTH!
Oh boy! I wonder what the theme will be.

Edit: Also, nice new site design. About time. I hope it's easier to use now. The old site was horribly messed up. Especially with the half-assed non-working search function.
 
a lot of truth

I'm also fairly certain that Miyazaki had a deal with disney, that their films could not be censored in any way. I haven't seen any of their recent stuff but the fact that the bathing scene from My Neighbor Totoro remained uncensored leads me to believe that disney kept their end of the bargain.

Then again, I shouldn't be too surprised. The Little Mermaid and Mulan both had tasteful nudity in G rated movies.
 
Then again, I shouldn't be too surprised. The Little Mermaid and Mulan both had tasteful nudity in G rated movies.
I have a question that was brought up recently when I saw a review or something with that clip in it (Where she first wakes up above water with legs) and I swear when I was a kid she was topless. But the review showed a bra. Did they edit that or something? We had the VHS. Maybe I'm crazy. Though it is Disney and they are known for editing the risqué stuff that snuck by out of later versions.
 
I have a question that was brought up recently when I saw a review or something with that clip in it (Where she first wakes up above water with legs) and I swear when I was a kid she was topless. But the review showed a bra. Did they edit that or something? We had the VHS. Maybe I'm crazy. Though it is Disney and they are known for editing the risqué stuff that snuck by out of later versions.

I don't remember if I saw the theatrical release but i'm fairly certain that she's just bottomless.

Mulan though? Unless they changed things later on she's completely nude but you don't see anything because she is covered by water. It's sort of like princess peach in paper mario the thousand year door, nothing is shown.
 
I have a question that was brought up recently when I saw a review or something with that clip in it (Where she first wakes up above water with legs) and I swear when I was a kid she was topless. But the review showed a bra. Did they edit that or something? We had the VHS. Maybe I'm crazy. Though it is Disney and they are known for editing the risqué stuff that snuck by out of later versions.

Ariel's signature outfit is her shell bikini top, but she doesn't have a shell bikini bottom, because of her tail. When she lost her tail and gained legs, she became effectively bottomless. There was no reason for her to lose her top.

Disney used "convenient censorship" (there's always something blocking your view) to avoid showing her lower half until she found some clothes. And people with access to animation cels were able to prove that she really was bottomless, offscreen. http://i.imgur.com/ZGqLLIz.jpg (Disney cares about accuracy.)

You're not crazy though, the tease of the scene just blew a few circuits in your brain. It's like the shower scene in Psycho. Some audiences (and censors) swore up and down that they had seen naughty bits (the actress was covered, and the film was edited frame-by-frame so you don't see the coverings) and gore (nobody was stabbed in the making of the movie), while others were certain that the blood was red (it was chocolate syrup, filmed in black-and-white).
 
I don't remember if I saw the theatrical release but i'm fairly certain that she's just bottomless.

Mulan though? Unless they changed things later on she's completely nude but you don't see anything because she is covered by water. It's sort of like princess peach in paper mario the thousand year door, nothing is shown.

Ariel's signature outfit is her shell bikini top, but she doesn't have a shell bikini bottom, because of her tail. When she lost her tail and gained legs, she became effectively bottomless. There was no reason for her to lose her top.

Disney used "convenient censorship" (there's always something blocking your view) to avoid showing her lower half until she found some clothes. And people with access to animation cels were able to prove that she really was bottomless, offscreen. http://i.imgur.com/ZGqLLIz.jpg (Disney cares about accuracy.)

You're not crazy though, the tease of the scene just blew a few circuits in your brain. It's like the shower scene in Psycho. Some audiences (and censors) swore up and down that they had seen naughty bits (the actress was covered, and the film was edited frame-by-frame so you don't see the coverings) and gore (nobody was stabbed in the making of the movie), while others were certain that the blood was red (it was chocolate syrup, filmed in black-and-white).
Yeah, it was like 27 years ago. All I knew was my child mind saw something and it blew my mind. I literally haven't seen the movie in years. I guess it was the bottom I was thinking of. I assume there's a rock or something in that cel that was in the way. I was probably thinking in my child mind "What if that rock wasn't there?" mind blown. lol

Hey, I was 9. Sue me.

Of course I also remember seeing The Lion King in the theater and seeing the subliminal message they put in that one. (They say it said SFX. But we all swear it was something different...)
 
Ariel's signature outfit is her shell bikini top, but she doesn't have a shell bikini bottom, because of her tail. When she lost her tail and gained legs, she became effectively bottomless. There was no reason for her to lose her top.

Disney used "convenient censorship" (there's always something blocking your view) to avoid showing her lower half until she found some clothes. And people with access to animation cels were able to prove that she really was bottomless, offscreen. http://i.imgur.com/ZGqLLIz.jpg (Disney cares about accuracy.)

You're not crazy though, the tease of the scene just blew a few circuits in your brain. It's like the shower scene in Psycho. Some audiences (and censors) swore up and down that they had seen naughty bits (the actress was covered, and the film was edited frame-by-frame so you don't see the coverings) and gore (nobody was stabbed in the making of the movie), while others were certain that the blood was red (it was chocolate syrup, filmed in black-and-white).

It's called gap filling. Our brains tend to fill in missing pieces. It's why smarter people are more easily fooled by magicians.
 
Where does the Lupin III movie factor in? Is that tied up in license issues and thus unlikely to be released on bluray in NA.
 
Where does the Lupin III movie factor in? Is that tied up in license issues and thus unlikely to be released on bluray in NA.

Castle of Cagliostro? It's getting a Blu-Ray release in North America in 2015 from Discotek Media.

Edit: Wow, thought I clicked on the Ghibli thread for some reason. Well, either way, there's your answer. Buy it when it comes out, the film is wonderful.
 
Castle of Cagliostro? It's getting a Blu-Ray release in North America in 2015 from Discotek Media.

Edit: Wow, thought I clicked on the Ghibli thread for some reason. Well, either way, there's your answer. Buy it when it comes out, the film is wonderful.

Oh that's fantastic news.

Oh I've seen it before and it's a favorite of mine. Thank you for the info.
 
is nostalgia chick on hiatus?
At one point she was sick or something. But I don't know what her status is right now. I really miss her reviews. A lot of the time I enjoyed them more than Doug's. She was the yin to his yang, or whatever. While he was the angry geek reviewer she was the more calculating concise reviewer.

Occasionally she'll do something with Nella or Todd. (I hope they do GOT reviews again this season)
 
Hmmm, I'm looking forward to the Jan 13th review. Interesting to see there's gonna be no editorials for the month.
 
Well that sucks to hear. Hoping he gets better. I actually JUST rented Wind Rises today with my free rental coupon for Family Video.
 
So he was going to review the Matrix films? Interesting. Supposedly the next big Mr. Plinkett review will focus on the Matrix sequels..
 
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