The following froggy couple made by Mattel are characters from Disney’s latest 2-D animation movie - “The Princess and the Frog”.  The story is adapted from the famous fairy tale of the same name, but its time stream has been fast forwarded to the turn of the 20th century in New Orleans, USA. 

In this American version, the “princess” gets transformed into a frog as well after kissing the “frog prince”!  Then they both must embark on a journey to transform themselves back into humans again.  Along the way, there are the trademark Disney style song and dance scenes.  The movie release date in Singapore is on 10 December 2009. 

Disney’s The Princess and the Frog Magic Kiss Plush Gift Set

Note: The actual trailer in the above video starts from 0.30min onwards.

Yes!  Disney has finally reverted to producing movies in the traditonal 2-D animation style, which I much prefer to the 3-D ones of recent years.  Of course the plot and flow of the 2-D movies also matter, to make it nice to watch, like those released in the 1990s (Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, Tarzan etc).  I’ll reserve my comments about the movie after I have watched it.  Meanwhile, here’s the featurette with more details and info about filming this latest Disney 2-D movie. 

The above pony image is my online creation at Doll Divine!  You can design your own custom pony image, plus cats, kittens, dolls etc as well.  Let your imaginations and creativity flow at DollDivine.com’s Pony Maker and more!

The premiere of “Wolverine and the X-Men” animated series is finally starting today on our local Okto Channel!  It shall be shown on weekdays on 7.30pm, a good time slot for most people to get home from school or work to watch!  Today’s first episode will be “Hindsight - Part 1″.

Here is my collection of “Wolverine and the X-Men” action figures that I harvested from the departmental stores and Sunday toy market in April.  The photo also shows another use for the (Type 1a & 1b) figurine display boxes from Daiso.  Luckily for the My Little Pony ‘toy drought’ in the same month, if not I won’t have enough ‘Play’ funds to splurge on these.  Plus I was also chasing after some sought after Marvel Universe action figures last month too (That will be in another future blog post).

Many of the popular characters like Magneto, Colossus, Beast and Iceman were initially harder to find, but the stores have began to stock up on all the characters again in the past 2 weeks.  It’s not difficult to find this toyline in the stores now, but the paintwork on every one of them has some defects.  For every 20 pieces of the same figure you come across, only 1 can barely make some reasonable pass grade.  Even the ones I have are not perfect, but I gave up looking for the never-appearing pieces with perfect paintwork, and just settled for the best I could find.

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I saw the very quick trailers on Okto channel this week, confirming that new “Wolverine and the X-Men” animated series will be showing soon!  According to the trailers, the show will premiere on 1 May 2009 on Okto channel!  Perhaps the time slot is between 7-8pm on every weekdays.  My guess is that it will replace “The Spectacular Spiderman” animated series currently showing on 7pm from Mondays to Fridays.

No wonder the action figures for “Wolverine and the X-Men” animated series have hit the local departmental stores for the past month already.  It’s not just to coincide with the “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” movie, but also the upcoming Wolverine animated series.  But at SGD 18.90 per each 4-inch tall action figure, I doubt many layman parents will be keen to get them for their kids.  I’d expect the main market to be the local toy collectors.  The Wolverine and Logan action figures, plus some Cyclops action figures are still most abundant on the pegs.  Nevertheless, I’d expect the stores to re-stock this toyline for as long as the animated series runs here! 

Updated on 17 April 2009: “Wolverine and the X-Men” animated series will premiere on 1 May 2009 on Okto channel (Singapore), every weekday at 7.30pm!

Trailer 1

After seeing these trailers of “Wolverine and the X-Men” on YouTube, I’m very keen to watch this new series when it hits our local TV channels, whenever that may be.  The artwork and animation style exceed my expectations!  After seeing those more ‘kiddish’ cartoon styles in “The Spectacular Spiderman”, I’m glad that the new Wolverine and his X-Men team are not drawn that way.

Trailer 2

I also hope that the action figures and toys based on “Wolverine and the X-Men” will sell well, so that more characters (hopefully all of them) will eventually be made into action figures to satisfy the fans and toy collectors!  Right now none of the female characters have been known to be made into action figures.  I hope they will be, after all many of them like Emma Frost and Storm look like prominent characters in this new series!

Trailer 3

“The X-Men have lost their mentor Professor X.  There’s a war coming and only the X-Men can stop it.  Now with Wolverine as their leader, this team of highly evolved heroes must reunite and fight to save mankind.  Only together can they change the course of the future to save the world.”

The answer to my blog post “Identify the Toys” a couple of days ago has been revealed and yes, these space ship toys are from Titan A.E.!  This is an animated movie done by the short-lived Fox Animation Studios.

Congratulations to the following winners who got the right answers!

KazeTora and LEon!

Back in 2000 when Titan A.E. was released in the cinemas here, there was hardly any marketing hype I could recall about it.  I first read about its then state-of-the-art clever use of both 2-D and 3-D animations to create the wonderful visual effects of the movie, in the local newspaper reviews.  So I went to watch it to see how good those so-called effects were.  I must say, the results were indeed stunning, especially when you watch them on big screen!

I rarely have a liking for space shows, even for Star Wars, but Titan A.E. blew me away and it still remains the only space show that does it for me.  I got the VCD when it came out many years ago, and recently I also acquired its DVD from a MJ Multimedia outlet for SGD 12.90!  One thing to note though, its VCD and DVD cover pictures don’t do the movie justice.  They are just too bland but they hide a treasure within!

This space ship is called the Valkyrie.  It’s the main and largest space craft used by the good guys.  I loved the Valkyrie when I first laid eyes on it in the movie as it looks so 3-D and beautiful on screen!  You can shoot out projectiles from the top of the Valkyrie toy.  When you place your fingers on the metal buttons on both sides of the Valkyrie toy, you can hear “missile-firing” electronic sounds! 

Well, you definitely need batteries to power those sound effects.  The Valkyrie actually came with a Cale action figure, who is the male protaganist in Titan A.E., but here I pair up Akima with it since she is its original pilot in the movie.  Cale only guest piloted the Valkyrie for a while.  One thing to note is that all the Titan A.E space craft toys are not made to scale with the action figures.  They are supposed to be way larger than the humans.

Next we have the villain’s Drej Stinger space craft toy and its accompanying Drej pilot action figure.  I love the luminous blue look of the Drej Stingers in the movie.  The toy however is purple in color.  This villain space craft comes with “battle-action” sounds and light, powered by batteries of course!

I remember that I bought this Drej Stinger space craft with the other 2 space craft mainly because it didn’t cost that much.  I can’t recall all their original prices though, but I think I got them all together during a storewide sale back then!

Last but not least is the Turbo Surge Phoenix space craft toy and it originally came with an Akima action figure.  Here I have paired up the Cale action figure that came with the Valkyrie space craft toy instead.  Since he was the one who fixed up and revitalized this originally run-down space craft in the movie, he gets to pair up with it.  In the movie however, Akima piloted the Phoenix as she was a more experienced pilot!

The Phoenix space craft does not have sound effects, just a blinking light.  When at rest, it ’stands’ upright like a space rocket on its turbo charges with the wings folded.  When in ‘flight’ the wings can expand to resemble one of those space craft from Star Wars.  However when I re-watched the Titan A.E. movie recently on my newly bought DVD, the Phoenix flew without expanding its wings. 

Storyline: In the year 3028 A.D. the earth gets destroyed by an alien race known as the Drej, who are made of pure energy.  Humans escape in space crafts and the survivors are scattered in refugee “drifter colonies” throughout the universe.  However the human scientists have a Titan project which possesses the power to create a new planet!  They managed to launch it to somewhere safe in the universe before the earth got destroyed.

15 years later, a young guy named Cale is being recruited by Captain Korso to search for the Titan.  Cale’s father was part of the security forces entrusted to hide the Titan back then but the latter perished soon after.  Cale has an electronic 3-D map of Titan’s location genetically encrypted on his palm.  Together with Akima who is Captain Korso’s assistant and a bunch of alien space crew, they all set off on board the Valkyrie space ship to seek the Titan.

Along the way, the Drej tail them so as to destroy them and the Titan.  The story has a predictable happy ending and the humans have their new planet to stay on once more.  The interesting parts to watch are the flights of the space ships, how the main characters manage to defeat such a powerful alien force and how the Titan eventually creates a new home for them.  The planet creation method may seem a little far stretched for some viewers but it’s not theoretically impossible though.  After all this story takes place in the 31st century.  At the end of the movie, you’ll also realise what does “A.E.” stand for!

Movie review:

The storyline of Titan A.E. may not be unique but throughout the movie, you get to marvel at the beautiful visual effects that combined 2-D and 3-D animation in the late 90’s can accomplish.  It’s just too bad that this movie is underrated.  However, the opening scenes showing the earth getting destroyed by the Drej forces can be a bit disturbing.  Luckily the stunning visual effects in the rest of the movie will manage to keep your mind away from that early depressing start!

After test watching my newly acquired Mulan DVD this week, I suddenly recall that I do have some Mulan toys stashed in a box somewhere in my cupboard.  I just found that box and it contains not just the official Disney Mulan action figures that I bought in the late 90’s, but also the complete set of promotional Mulan toys from McDonalds!

Here’s my complete collection of all the 8 Mulan toys from McDonalds.  You can imagine the amount of McDonalds’ Happy Meals I had to eat up just to get all these toys!  At least the McDonalds toys in the late 90’s resemble the movie characters very closely, not like some of those I see today. 

I have 2 Mulan figures so that I can display both versions of her at the same time.  The Mulan figure is also designed to ride on her horse, Khan!  Although most of the animal characters are not to scale, the main characters in movie are well represented here.

I shall blog about my other Mulan toys collection in my next post tomorrow, after I’ve taken their photos!  Come back again tomorrow to view them!

The latest DVD I acquired for my DVD collection is Disney’s “Mulan”.  I remember watching it twice at the cinemas when it was being shown here in the late 90’s.  Since then I have caught it off and on whenever it’s shown on Disney Channel. 

I have test-watched my Mulan DVD and I still enjoy the show very much.  The movie just makes me laugh at the humour from the beginning to the end!  I really marvel at the creativity of the production team at Disney.  They also managed to retain the main essence of the original Mulan ballad despite changing the story a little. 

I’m also pleased with the bonus DVD features on the 2nd disc.  They contain the behind the scenes of research, designs, art and music during the 5-year production of Mulan.  There are some music videos of the songs in Mandarin, Cantonese and foreign languages like Spanish too!

Mulan After thoughts:

An observation I have made is that Mulan does not seem to be a well remembered Disney movie in Singapore, although my friends who have watched it agree it was very enjoyable to watch.  Of all the Disney merchandise sold in the stores here, Mulan toys are amongst the most obscure.  The popular Disney toys available everywhere are either the typical cute ones like Winnie the Pooh and Stitch, or those beautifully dressed-up Disney Princesses from the fairy tale Disney movies. 

It shows that girls will always tend to like things for their cuteness, beauty and other outer appearances.  I guess I’m pretty ‘abnormal’ like Disney’s Mulan is in her movie.  Although I have a sizeable My Little Pony collection (it’s mainly because I love horses), about half of my entire toys collection actually consists of action figures which are based on some action comics or shows that are orginally targeted at guys!

I do like some amount of romance stuff and pretty things, but I also enjoy entertainment that has some fighting action, like martial arts, superhero powers etc.  So what does that make me?  A kind of “geek” or something?  Oh gosh, I hate that word!

The below YouTube video clip is taken from Dreamworks’ 2002 animated movie, “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron“.  It’s one of my all-time favourite animated feature films and this is also amongst the DVDs that I bought and test watched recently. 

The story is about the adventures of a young wild stallion living on the plains of old west - about his initial capture by the western calvary and later his escape from them; his friendship with a teenage native American brave; his romance with the brave’s lovely mare, and his determination to return to his home in the wild.

While watching the following scenes and listening to the accompanying soundtrack during the movie, I couldn’t helped feeling somehow I’m at a similar down point at this stage of my life.  The song is very inspiring and I do listen to it at times on YouTube. 

Here it is, with the actual scenes from the movie.  This part is where the wild stallion almost gives up his fight to escape from his human captors.  He is on a train and being transported to a place far, far away from his homeland…

Sound The Bugle lyrics (sung by Bryan Adams):

Sound the bugle now, play it just for me
As the seasons change, remember how I used to be
Now I can’t go on, I can’t even start
I’ve got nothing left, just an empty heart

I’m a soldier, wounded so I must give up the fight
There’s nothing more for me, lead me away
Or leave me lying here…

Sound the bugle now, tell them I don’t care
There’s not a road I know, that leads to anywhere
Without a light I fear that I will, stumble in the dark
Lay right down, decide not to go on

Then from on high, somewhere in the distance
There’s a voice that calls, remember who you are
If you lose yourself, your courage soon will follow

So be strong tonight, remember who you are
Ya you’re a soldier now, fighting in a battle
To be free once more, ya that’s worth fighting for 

I’m almost done test-watching all my latest DVD haul from the various DVD sales island wide.  I still have 1 more DVD to test-watch and it’s a long one.  These DVDs are all my prized possesions as they contain some of my most favourite movies, cartoons, drama series that I’ve seen before. 

Most of these DVDs cost me less than SGD 10.00 each, even for original imports from the US!  My only gripe is that some of them come in widescreen format, which I’m not so fond of because I’m still using a regular non-flatscreen TV at home.  There are no plans to upgrade my TV till it finally konks out on its own.

I enjoyed these shows very much when I first watched them so many years ago.  After seeing the same shows on DVD format, my postive first impressions that I had of them back then are still very much unchanged.  Some of the cartoons especially remind me that I also own their respective toys, which I plan to take out from storage soon and photograph them!

Well I defintely have no regrets buying their DVDs!  Hopefully the rest of my favourite shows will show up in the market soon in DVD formats, so that I can finally replace my drawers of video tapes, which I used to record my favourite shows off the TV.  Many of the video tapes are getting mouldy from the humid weather.  Even though I have the machine to clean them, they still get mouldy again from lack of ‘exercise’!