Hacker News Reader

Comment by coldcode | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Encanto does have an antagonist: the grandmother.

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…

> 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.)

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com