THE ANIMATION FREAK. ONWARD.

 

                                 THE ANIMATION FREAK. 

                                               ONWARD.

This was an absolutely beautiful movie. The story, the characters, the animation, it was all amazing, right down to the dust particles floating in the air in the opening. Ian was awkward but who wasn't in high school right. What I like about Pixar films is that they bring out the emotion and pull at your heart strings and their really good at it. 

Ian and Barley lost their dad but on Ian's 16th birthday his mom gives him a present that his dad wanted to give him when he turned 16, it was really for both Ian and Barley. It was a wizard staff with a letter and a magical spell so he could see what his sons had become. Ian couldn't remember his dad but Barley had a few memories that he shared with him. Barley try's the spell to bring back their dad for only 24 hours but it doesn't work, later Ian says the spell and it works but only the bottom half of their dad comes back cause the Phenix gem explodes. So they both go on a magical quest to find another gem so they can bring back the rest of their dad. It is an action adventure quest that to me they both needed to reconnect as brothers. Along the way Ian finds out he inherited his dad's wizard magic and he must use it to survive their quest. 

In the end Ian wanted so much to see his dad but after Barley explains that he was to afraid to say goodbye to his dad when he was sick in the hospital Ian tells him to see their dad while he battles the dragon that spawned from taking the gem from the secret landmark. Just before all that Ian had a list of things he wanted to do with his dad when they brought the rest of him back, he goes threw the list and finds out that his brother Barley had did all the things on his list. 

I would write more but I don't want to spoil it all for you if you haven't seen it yet. 

Please if you haven't watched it yet I hope you do, it is funny, action packed and it will put tears in your eyes. 

You can find it on Disney+ or buy the Blu-Ray and DVD.

I left a link to Ebay where you can find it for cheap. (Sorry I don't use Amazon.)

This by far one of the greatest films Pixar and Disney has ever done. 

If you want to read more about the story I have it below where you can read all about it. You are going to absolutely love this film, there is a reason it got an Oscar nomination, just wish it had won. 

One last thing, your going to love Barleys van. 

https://www.ebay.com/p/21046034348 

In a world inhabited by mythic creatures, magic was commonplace millennia ago, though difficult to master. After technological advances over the centuries, magic became obsolete and was largely discarded.

In the modern day, Ian Lightfoot is a teenaged elf struggling with self-confidence; his older brother, Barley, is an enthusiastic and impulsive role-playing gamer. On Ian's sixteenth birthday, the boys' mother, Laurel, gives her sons a gift from their father, Wilden, who died shortly before Ian was born: a magical staff, a rare Phoenix gem, and a letter describing a "visitation spell" that can resurrect Wilden for a single day. Ian succeeds in casting the spell but, interrupted by Barley, is unable to finish it. As a result, only the lower half of Wilden's body is reformed before the gem disintegrates. The brothers embark on a quest to acquire another gem and complete the spell before sunset, taking Barley's beloved van "Guinevere." Finding the boys gone, Laurel leaves to look for them.

Hoping to finding a map to another gem, Ian and Barley visit the Manticore's Tavern–once a gathering-place for would-be adventurers, now a family restaurant managed by the Manticore ("Corey"). While arguing with Ian over the map, Corey realizes how unfulfilling her life has become and loses her temper, accidentally setting fire to the restaurant and the map. The brothers' only clue to the gem is a children's menu suggesting "Raven's Point," a nearby mountain. Laurel later arrives at the scene and befriends Corey, who warns Laurel that the gem is guarded by a curse that can only be defeated by an enchanted sword. After stealing the sword from a pawn shop, they set out in pursuit of Ian and Barley.

Traveling to the mountains, Barley proposes following what he calls the "Path of Peril", but Ian insists on taking the freeway. As they travel, Ian begins mastering magic spells that Barley remembers from his role-playing game. They narrowly escape a motorcycle gang of pixies at a gas station and have a tense encounter with the police, which the boys disguise themselves as their mother's boyfriend, Colt Bronco, during which Ian inadvertently reveals that he considers Barley to be a screw-up. To apologize, Ian agrees to follow the Path of Peril. Ian's self-confidence is boosted when he successfully uses a spell that allows him to walk across a bottomless pit, where unbeknownst to him, was walking without the rope that Barley tied him to over the second half of the pit. Bronco catches up to the boys and forces them to come home, Ian agrees, but as he starts the van, he drives away, leading to a wild police chase. When they are pursued by the police, Barley sacrifices Guinevere to cause a landslide, blocking their pursuers.

"Raven's Point" turns out to be a series of raven statues leading them into a cave. As they explore the cave, Barley confesses that he was too afraid to say goodbye to Wilden when he was dying. The brothers evade a series of traps, including a Gelatinous Cube that dissolves anything it touches. Emerging from the cave, they find themselves back in front of Ian's high school.

Ian lashes out at Barley for leading them on a wild goose chase and walks away with Wilden's legs to spend whatever time he has left with his father. Rereading his list of things he wished to do with Wilden, Ian realizes that Barley has been a father figure for him throughout his life and returns to make amends. Barley, refusing to give up, discovers the needed gem inside a fountain across the street from the school and retrieves it, unwittingly triggering the curse Corey spoke of: a stone dragon, built of pieces of the school building, bent on claiming the gem. Corey and Laurel arrive and distract the dragon long enough for Ian to finish casting the visitation spell, but they aren't able to defeat the dragon on their own. Ian runs off to fight it, allowing Barley to wish Wilden a final goodbye. He uses the magic skills he has learned to defeat the dragon by propelling Corey's sword into its heart. Trapped behind a pile of rubble, Ian sees Wilden's body briefly reappearing to talk to Barley. After Wilden dissipates, Barley tells Ian that their father is proud of him, and the brothers share a hug.

Some time later, as the world begins to rediscover the past's magical arts, the brothers set off on a new quest.

One storyboard scene featured Ian, Barley, and Wilden joining with a goat girl in the journey. Ian and the goat girl come across a booth hosted by three evil mermaids. The mermaids sing their mesmerizing song to lure the two into staying in one of three houses put for rent. Ian tries to silence them with the staff but the spell is too weak. When Ian and the goat girl are finally in a trance, the mermaids place them in one of the houses. The house they are in starts to sink into the ground.

The goat girl was omitted because the filmmakers wanted the film to focus on the relationship between Ian and Barley. The scene itself was removed because the filmmakers felt it was too grim.

According to effects supervisor Vincent Serritella, the animators wanted the spells to be "something that's abstract" but also "personify it", so they "had to converge on the idea of an image of magic, go back to the base level of the sequences and the spells, and what level of complexity would be given, and how it affects the environment". Director Dan Scanlon said that Ian's arc "was helpful to the animators because they could use that for all of the magic we designed". The animators chose to give the film's magic a unique style after studying several animated films featuring magic such as Fantasia, Aladdin, and Hercules. Animators wanted the film's magic to fit with its suburban setting.

Animators first developed the film's magic using hand-drawn animated drawings, before turning them into computer-animated effects, with Serritella saying that "they made shapes and graphic elements that really lend themselves to what’s happening in a 2D environment". Serritella also said that "the key" was mixing hand-drawn and computer animation, arguing that "going one way or the other didn’t work. Going too graphic didn’t fit into the world that the background and the characters were created in. And going too physical in an animated world seemed too real", so "they found the right balance" by turning hand-drawn animated graphics into "light objects" and giving them "a true volumetric, glowing atmosphere". He further added that the choreography during the "visitation spell" sequence "came directly from 2D", while they CGI animation and lighting provided "depth perception". The film was completed on November 21, 2019.