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Comment by samwillis | Hacker News Reader

Slight aside, but Encanto is a brilliant film, we watched it together as a family first but my 7yo daughter has watched a few more times since. We have had to listen to the sound track each way on the school run for the last couple of weeks, which to be honest is no bad thing as its so good.

The "Welcome to the Family Madrigal" sequence at the begging of the film is absolutely jaw dropping, if you don't watch the whole film at least watch that sequence to see what is now possible. The fabric simulation for her dress while dancing is so incredible.

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I don't have kids at all and I found it a fun movie. It's not a heavy plot (there really is no villain) but so refreshing after a steady diet of superhero movies. Look at the average broadway musical and the plot is even lighter; every movie doesn't have to be Citizen Kane. The movie is a perfect embodiment of the culture (from people who are Columbian, not me), the music is very broadway but still in keeping with the country and well written and sung, and the animation is of course magical. There is no comparison with tripe such as Sing 2.

I wonder what it would be like to work on something that takes 5 years to make, the longest I have ever worked on 1.0 apps (since the 80s when I started) is 14-16 months. Just coordinating thousands of people for 5 years is mind boggling.

i read an article about a month ago about how disney animation has steadily migrated away from a villain, to the self (or some other internal conflict) as the primary antagonist.

frozen moana frozen 2 encanto

during that time there were also traditional "villain" types: big hero 6 zootopia ralph breaks the internet raya and the last drago

agree or disagree, it's an interesting read: https://screenrant.com/encanto-movie-villain-disney-pixar-co...

That's an interesting pattern, that seems pretty clear now that you mention it. I would also argue that Ralph Breaks the Internet falls squarely into the "self/internal conflict" class too, as the main antagonist is literally Ralph's own insecurity.

yeah, i agree. and zootopia is self vs societal norms, but each of them have a more "traditional" villain, so i included them in the traditional group.

Frozen has a villain -- Hans.

Frozen 2 has a villain -- King Runeard

Moana has a villain -- Te Kā

Really only Encanto doesn't.

i see your point, but hans and runeard were not the primary _antagonist_ in each of those movies, and te ka was actually a good being who acted negatively because of maui's actions.

hand and runeard were essentially "living" props and if anyone one moana was a villain, it was maui. again, i see your point, but i think the point of the article and how i parsed it was that the pure good v evil villain motif has gotten significantly more nuanced recently.

Hans was most definitely the primary antagonist. We just don't find out until the end. And same for the King. His actions drive the conflict, we just don't find out that it's his actions until the end.

> and te ka was actually a good being who acted negatively because of maui's actions.

Darth Vader is a good being who acts negatively because of the Emperor's actions, but he's still the villain. Just because the villain is redeemed doesn't make them not the villain.

Yes, they've moved away from the idea of establishing the villain in the first act and defeating them in the third, but that's just better storytelling, not removing the villain. Just ask a child who the "bad guy" is in each movie and they will tell you without hesitation. It's only more subtle to you because you're an adult.

> Frozen has a villain -- Hans.

Elsa is treated more like the primary antagonist (Anna is the protagonist.) Elsa is redeemed rather than defeated, but that's more a matter of ending than overall structural role.

> Really only Encanto doesn't.

Sure it does (at least, it has an antagonist responsible for the crisis that the story addresses and resolves.) Their identity is even announced at the climax of the film, just in case the viewer hasn't recognized it. (Like Frozen, and Moana—whether, in the latter case, you consider Te Kā or Maui the ultimate antagonist—the antagonist is redeemed and reconciled with the protagonist and the broader community rather than defeated.)

Te Ka doesn't drive most of Moana's action though, and defeating Te Ka is more like solving a puzzle than actually fighting a villain.

Te Ka causes the blight that drives her to set off on her journey.

Yes, but Maui caused that to happen by stealing the rock, so…

Encanto's villain is childhood trauma or trauma and its effects more generally.

I saw the villain as the Grandmother's pride, but either way, it wasn't a named character.

Tend to agree here, or if you were to ask one of my kids (5 and 8), they’d say the grandmother in general was the villain. They didn’t see the nuance of it or the end as a moment of redemption. They just saw her as mean to Maribel and the villain.

Abuela Alma has pride for sure, but I felt like she was driven much more by fear and trauma.

The primary antagonist usually is given a motivation for driving the crisis that the story resolves.

It did also have the (real life) villains at the beginning which creates the tragedy that kicks off the events.

But yes no villain for a child to anchor too.

Encanto does have an antagonist: the grandmother.

Encanto wasn't an internal conflict (I mean, other than the internal conflict inherent in the hero's journey), despite not having a traditional, irredeemable, villain.

Neither, come to think of it was Frozen; both are redemptive—where the antagonist is reformed—rather than irreconcilable—where the antagonist is defeated— intrafamilial conflicts, not internal conflicts.

> I wonder what it would be like to work on something that takes 5 years to make

Organic is the best way I can put it. At least for software.

The largest project I've been on started in 1998 with a software team of 3 people (me and two others) and shipped V1.0 in 2003 with a team that varied in size over the years. Max was probably about 10 or 15 people. Total team size including electrical, mechanical, manufacturing, systems, technical writers, field service, training and QA was probably 70+.

It's like watching a child or a plant grow: you have this tiny kernel of functionality where you just need something to get started, not knowing how it's going to change and then guiding it in the right direction, growing all the time, as you figure out how to get where you need to go. Pruning the dead branches and rotten fruit and fertilizing it where it's growing right. Then finally it's good enough to take to market. Then ship two major updates each year for 10 years.

It's fun in its own way, but I prefer shorter projects. I get bored easily.

I think we all need to have a talk about what a "heavy" plot is. You don't NEED a villain for a plot to be heavy - I would argue that Encanto's focus on internal, emotional stakes is far heavier (and darker!) than most movies with clear-cut heroes and villains. It also resonates with people in a much more personal way - the vast majority of people can't identify with Aladdin's battle against Jafar (As fun as it is), but I know several people who were on the verge of tears watching Encanto because they could identify with Mirabel's struggle with her place in her family.

> there really is no villain

This is really an interesting callout, because I also found it interesting that there is no "bad guy" for kids to anchor on, but yet seems to have no problem with it.

I saw the villain as the grandmother's pride.

Well, in every Disney movie there's a musical waiting to come out, and if the movie is successful enough, it will (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_(musical), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_King_(musical), ...)

> I wonder what it would be like to work on something that takes 5 years to make, the longest I have ever worked on 1.0 apps (since the 80s when I started) is 14-16 months. Just coordinating thousands of people for 5 years is mind boggling.

In software, automotive projects can come quite close to this. Building a modern high-end headunit ECU with software can take a couple of years, 100-150 dev teams, 2k engineers and coordinating with many other groups/departments around it.

> I wonder what it would be like to work on something that takes 5 years to make

The active departments and the size scale a lot along those 5 years. The first few are usually a very small group of people. The weirdest part is that if you're targeting 5 year olds, they are just being born when you start the project.

To be totally honest - I think in this day and age, for right now anyhow there is a desire for less Citizen Kane, and more Music Man.

It’s a massive hit in our house for all of us (mom, dad, son, daughter). We have watched it together probably a dozen times now. That never happens.

And for weeks, sung every song, played along with it on the piano while the instrumental versions play, etc.

Glad I am not the only one. Have even watched it without my kids and listen to the soundtrack when they’re not there! Haven’t done that with a Disney movie, aside from maybe Moana with the soundtrack, probably ever.

Aside on your aside, Kubo and the Two Strings is also really impressive. Until I saw the behind the scenes short video I had no idea it was done stop-motion.

Oh my goodness, the cloth animation is amazing. Watching "We Don't Talk about Bruno" again and again, watching how the skirts move as they're grabbed, tugged, and swirled. Even Mirabel's sleeve as her father gently pushes her aside to look at the vision, is amazing. (Yeah, I'm a hetero male, but that isn't the main attraction. At least I don't think so.)

That's my problem with Encanto: technically it's very impressive. All the rest: standard Disney movie with forgettable songs, forgettable characters, forgettable story that rushes from plot point to plot point with no time to breathe.

And given all the magic in it it's so highly unimaginative with it.

Isabella's lament was the best part of the movie (filled with emotion, meaning and imagination), but it's literally just a "meaningless stepping stone to discover Bruno" within the movie.

I kind of disagree. I found the elder sister being physically strong and an impressive leader and yet still a woman and also have vulnerability to be pretty new. Her arc didn’t involve her marrying a man or finding absolution in becoming less independent as is common when a strong independent woman has a character arc. The lack of any big bad and instead implications of danger because of complex family expectations and dynamics are also new. When I was young there was always some big evil person (scar in lion king, Ursula in little mermaid). Even more recent but older movies like Tangled had bad/evil people with no nuance. Now a days childrens movies are much more nuanced in good and evil and I really liked the diversity of characters in Encanto and the diversity of how these characters get validation.

> I found the elder sister being physically strong and an impressive leader and yet still a woman and also have vulnerability to be pretty new. Her arc didn’t involve

Well, I thought Encanto had good music and animation at the same time that the writing and plotting was a train wreck, and this is one of the best examples why.

Luisa sings a song about how she's stressed by all the responsibilities she has. Except that she doesn't have any responsibilities - they are not depicted before or after her song. She's not a leader and no one follows her. She doesn't run anything in the family or in the village. All she ever does is lift things and put them down at the direction of someone else. Her song makes no sense and her character has no arc.

The movie takes this same approach to the much more plot-central relationship between Mirabel and Isabela - we're told that they hate each other, and then they have to make up, so there's a song that accomplishes that by hand-waving. This level of writing makes the song worse so that the movie can also be worse.

I agree, I enjoyed the movie for what it was but I found the story pretty lacking compared to some of the other recent Disney (and Pixar) animated features. It kind of felt like the powers were chosen for the sake of pretty animation and/or good songs, with much less thought to how they work in the core story.

The sister that can hear everything is especially bad for the internal consistency of the story. Perhaps with a different personality it could have been pulled off, but it made no sense that she couldn't contain her excitement over the Bruno vision gossip, then later on casually mentions she always knew Bruno was living in the walls of the house.

> It kind of felt like the powers were chosen for the sake of pretty animation and/or good songs, with much less thought to how they work in the core story.

There is a home run in "how the powers would work in the setting" (though not the story - neither character matters to that) in the character of Felix. He's Pepa's husband, and a person with her "powers" (inadvertent influence over the weather) would, in reality, end up with a husband exactly like him. He sees the positive side of everything. If there is no positive side, he talks about something else that is positive. He never, ever contradicts her. This is exactly what the local countryside needs!

But this only shows up in one verse of "We Don't Talk About Bruno". And I'm surprised it happened at all - Pepa and Felix are so insignificant within the movie that nobody needed to think about either of them one way or the other.

Slight nit: Luisa was the middle child. Isabella was the oldest.

Sorry, I missed that bit! Thanks for that catch. I unfortunately can’t go an edit it now but I appreciate it.

Catching up with a couple of friends recently, it came up that our daughters, all of similar ages, are crazy about watching Encanto and even more keen on the songs. It's perfectly reasonable to have normal movie-criticism opinions about the film, but for the target audience, it's a smash. Another 'Frozen'.

Exactly, the songs are an absolute hit with my daughter and her friends.

Just take a look at the UK top 10, three Encanto songs with "We don't talk about Bruno" at number one for last three weeks:

https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/uk-top-40-singles-char...

Literal definition of a hit.

Somewhere I read that Disney had to make submissions to the Academy Awards before finishing screenings of Encanto and weren't sure which song to submit (if they submit multiple songs it risks splitting the vote), so they submitted "Dos Oruguitas" and haven't had it nominated. Clearly picked the wrong song, should have gone with "We don't talk about Bruno", would have had a very good chance of getting an Oscar.

Part of the problem might have been that "Dos Oruguitas" is a smash in Spanish but doesn't as have much emotional impact if you don't understand the lyrics. I saw the movie in a local theater in Latin America and several people cried with that scene.

As a fun fact, every single voice actor is famous in Colombia because of their singing, for example Maribel is the leader of a popular girl band. The Spanish dub is incredible, one of the few movies I would recommend seeing in Spanish instead of English if you are bilingual.

Dos Orugutos was nominated for best song: https://www.billboard.com/music/awards/2022-oscar-nomination...

> forgettable songs

Opinions of Encanto aside, I think it's fair to say "We don't talk about Bruno" is a legitimate earworm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm)

And reached no. 1 in the UK music chart.

> forgettable songs, forgettable characters, forgettable story

Strong disagree on all three. IMO this group of songs are some of the most memorable Disney animation tunes since Frozen, and maybe even since the mid-90s— don't ask me, look at how they're exploding all over Tiktok right now. For characters, I felt the movie does a pretty decent job of giving depth and personality to most members of a really large ensemble cast, particularly those closest to Mirabel. And even those with a lighter presence (Dolores, Camilo) still get their little moments that endeared them to me.

And as to the story, it's unique within the Disney canon in a number of ways; chief among them is that it doesn't have a conventional villain. Yes there is a character who is the "main" problem, but the real antagonist is the family dynamics and the grandmother's trauma. These are issues that are super relatable for a lot of people/families, much moreso than the over-the-topness of a clearly antagonistic and unredeemable character like Mother Gothel (Tangled) or Prince Hans (Frozen). The comparison is even more stark if you go back further to classic villains like Scar, Gaston, or Ursula.

> Isabella's lament was the best part of the movie[...], but it's literally just a "meaningless stepping stone to discover Bruno" within the movie.

Isabella's song ("What Else Can I Do") is pretty much the opposite of a lament and takes place after Mirabel has found Bruno. I don't know what "lament" you could be talking about, maybe "Waiting On a Miracle" which is Mirabel's classic Disney "I Want" song, in the same vein as "Part of Your World" or "Let It Go".

My kids have basically listened to the soundtrack on repeat for two months now and I assure you the songs are anything but "forgettable".

After finally watching the movie, well, the best description on the "problem" is that it's childish.

But we are talking about a children movie.

They're called "family" movies and not "children's" movies for a reason. Kids are usually watching these with their parents, and when they're done well, every age group gets something out of them.

Frozen, Up, and many others accomplish it well. I personally found Encanto completely boring.

Agreed. I'm repeatedly shocked as I hear adults report they loved this movie.

Of course my daughter is watching it over and over, and the songs are playing constantly. The music is fine, I'm a Lin-Manuel Miranda fan but I don't think this is his best work.

But the movie?!? There's no growth in any character, even the catharsis with the grandmother is "look how much I suffered, have sympathy that I ended up a tyrant". It's just eye/ear candy, fine for kids.

I genuinely don't get it, there are tons of relatively recent Pixar and Disney movies that I think are just better in all respects.

I don't mind a lack of character growth. I am extremely over the cliche Hollywood screenplay formula of:

1. Protagonist has problem and character flaw.

2. Tries to solve problem without fixing character flaw.

3. Solution blows up.

4. With help from friend, protagonist realizes flaw and fixes it.

5. Now able to solve problem.

But with Encanto, I really disliked how the plot undermined its own theme. The movie sets up an important moral statement that Mirabel doesn't need to be magically special to be valuable and valued. She can have worth because of who she is as a person. Then it throws that out at the climax by giving her some magic anyway because fuck it.

I have to say that the positive vibe and the Colombian village cliché are very entertaining in a time of emotional darkness (COVID, crisis, inflation, monopolies, etc). They just cheer us adults up.

IMHO it is an eye candy for everyone, not only kids. I mean there is a reason why romantic comedies just work telling the same kind of stories all over again with different actors.

I did appreciate that it was an hour and a half of good vibes and pretty pictures, though it felt a little try-hard to me.

> I mean there is a reason why romantic comedies just work telling the same kind of stories all over again with different actors.

As someone who loves romantic comedies, I don't think of them as the "same kinds of stories" any more than I think of my ex-girlfriends as the same experience even though they were all romantic relationships that ended.

Would you think of a travel documentary to Brazil and one to Spain to be the same because they are both travel docs with similar structures? Probably not, because the details of the place itself are what the doc is about and those differ. With romantic movies, it's about the details of the character's individual psychologies that make the movie.

I am not sure why you are getting downvoted. It is subjective. Hard disagree, though.

Yes, the eye candy on the average cereal box marketed at children looks impressive too, for some definition of "impressive". A movie needs more than just good graphics.

Disney animated features are not cinema; they're visual entertainment. All you need for good visual entertainment is to be good at entertaining visually. On that score there is no argument that they're very good at what they do.

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