Change Your Image
wavekillerdude
Reviews
The Legend of Prince Valiant (1991)
Valiant The Legend Lives! You've Gotta Watch This Series!
i grew up reading Hal Foster's {yes, i mean "Foster's" }Prince Valiant and as a kid it was something i liked and followed, this was the main reason i started watching the TV series when it first aired in the 1990s. i was struck at once how totally different the two {comic strip & TV series} were. the series was so cool though, that there was no deal for me to even consider them as the same thing. i kept reading the strip {i actually owned many Foster comic books at the time} and i started recording the series on VHS. it wasn't too long before i began to become a bigger fan of the series v.s. the comics. why did this happen? first the character of Valiant on the series is more satisfying than his one-dimensional source character. losing the entire 'christian viking' backstory was another good move, as i never could quite understood why a Viking Prince would have a page-boy of jet black hair? Also the TV Valiant has two friends who serve as co-stars throughout the series. Arn {who in the strip is actually two characters, 1 Prince Arn of Ord who rivals Valiant for Ilene, 2 Valiant first born son} wasn't some rip-off of Valiant, he has his own personality and own issues to deal with, and Rowanne a totally un-cannon character who is the series' sweetheart. later comic character Aleta shows up, also given a warrior-princess make-over. my personal favorite character on the series is Merlin, he is about the greatest character ever created in animation form. the stories within the series are different from their comic book source the comics due to not hanging around in history and the discovering of America, but rather they stay in the mythical world of Camelot bringing a few modern issues along. Robby Benson's voice blended perfectly with Prince Valiant, as did Michael Horton as Arn and Noelle North as Rowanne. The entire voice cast has never been matched to date, not even by Disney.
in the past few years my interest in Foster's Valiant faded a bit {i still like the strip for what it is }but through the years my fandom for the TV Valiant has grown. at the end of the day, Foster's strip was another well-drawn comic strip, that told a story of a young prince who grew up and lived in the days of king arthur. the series on the other hand, brought to life a young prince who embodied the spirit of his name 'Valiant'.
anyone who dislikes "The Legend of Prince Valiant" is missing out on a series with awesome characters, deep plot lines, and amazing animation set to a wonderful soundtrack.the ideals of truth, and justice have become outdated to people now days, so this excellent example of 'everything that's good in the world' is not going to gain anything in this crazy age.
what else can i say, i'm a die-hard Prince Valiant fan, and a loyal member of The Legend of Prince Valiant Fan Club, i love bring part of the cool fan forum "Valiant-Arn-Rowanne-Forever!" the fans of this series are the best, and their favorite series is too!
Peter Pan (2003)
want to go to neverland? skip this film!
this film will not take you to neverland. first a run down on the characters.
"peter pan", played by a kid with dirty feet, who doesn't seem to realize he lives in a cartoon like setting, also he keeps smiling, this scary ' i know something you don't' smile, also he is a kidnapper who takes children away, and makes them live in his 'evil boy's club'.
"wendy", played by a want-to-be young drama queen, who doesn't know she can't act, she is pain on the eyes, and ears, as she spends the whole time trying to tell everyone how she wants to grow-up, and has this talent for telling stories.
"hook/mr.darling " played a guy who thought he was the next 'johnny depp', actually he was so uncool it made me want to cry, and laugh at the same time.look he took on two roles, and couldn't even get one right.
"john & michael", yeah they were SO bad, i'm not even going to say a word.
"the lost boys", there may have been one who was OK, but i missed him.
"tinkerbelle", hey, know those dolls called 'bratz'? yeah, well she looked like one of them, and acted like she was a very bad 2 year old. {when she died, i was like "cool", cause i couldn't stand her!} "mrs. darling", oh please! she acted so pitiful, she was like one of those day-care workers, who not even the kids can stand.
"aunt what-ever-her-name-was", made up for this film. was she a villain? was she a kind but miss guided fool? do we care? "tiger-lilly" not a beauty, a mean puggy little rat girl, who did a lot of scary stuff. was she a set worker's daughter? i think so, how else would she get the part? this is a film that should be put in a sealed box, and dropped at the bottom of the sea, so it could become useful as coral for fish. spare the world of this, we don't need it, we don't want it! {that is those of us who still have brains} the spirit of neverland is the spirit of childhood, it's a place where we "never have to grow up". that's why i find this film so awful, it takes the spirit of the tale, and changes it into a would be soap-opera. here are the main reasons why i hate this film.
1- the actors are badly cast, the kid actors are the worst i've seen in a long time. their isn't like one character that you can really care about, because you never get pass thinking of them as actors.
2- this film turns "peter" and "wendy" into would-be kid romance, making the plot follow the heartbreak "wendy" over the fact that "pan" doesn't want to grow up, even the "pan" seems to be mix-up when it comes to his feelings for "wendy". {i don't think james barrie would have felt this was part of his own work.} to me "peter" and "wendy" are two kids who have a normal friendly playful thing going, but this film turns them into young "romeo & juliet".
3- there is nothing beautiful about neverland, it's a place of evil, and on one ever seems to have fun there. it's doesn't even you think of neverland. it's not creepy, not cool, not beautiful, not storybook like, not anything.
4- they added this character who is an "aunt", she is SO un-needed. why did they feel the need to put her in there, i'll never know.
5- the action is poor, never on the edge of your seat kind of thing, the swordplay is weak.
6- the plot is out right bad, taking a good story, and turning it up-side down. what were they thinking? 7- i think the film was made for pre-teen girls, trying to give them a romance, adventure, however it's not really either.
8- i don't get the whole point of the film, all they did was take things from other versions {disney, hook, and so on} put them together without even trying to make it their own.
all in all the film is lame. if you are looking for a good time film, watch "finding neverland" or "pirates of the caribbean", and skip this one, cause it's missing the spirit, story, and heart of the real "peter pan".