thank u, next

consistent effort and strong communication

i think the most important thing to know is that this isn’t a bunch of people being like “let’s make a direct prequel for 101 dalmatians to explain why cruella likes skinning dalmatians and why she’s hashtag misunderstood”

it’s much more like “hey remember the crazy lady with the weird hair from that movie you watched twice as a kid? let’s do a batshit heist/devil wears prada movie vaguely inspired by her with a few goofy dalmatian references and some shared characters and basically nothing else to do with the original”

like do the dalmatians chase the mom off a cliff? yes

does this motivate cruella to hate dalmatians? no.

does this motivate her to want to kill them, skin them, or blame them for her mother’s death? no.

in fact, she blames herself, then the baroness, and ends up adopting the dalmatians with no intention of skinning them or any other dogs

is it still a goofy writing decision? absolutely. but it’s a goofy decision in a fun, goofy movie from a group of filmmakers about a thousand times more creative and interesting than those behind any of the other live action disney movies that i’ve seen