The Writer from Mengcheng

So... that movie made me come out of Tumblr retirement, eh? 

If you want to see my review of Arctic Dogs, check out my review at: https://boxd.it/10CTln. Otherwise, if you want to continue reading that review on Tumblr, sigh...

Story and Writing: 0/5 Animation: 0/5 Characters and Voice Acting: 0/5 Score and soundtrack: 0/5 Overall Score: 0/20 Rating: Burn in Hell (0/5) Song: "Look Away" by Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman - youtu.be/B5hBZC-SIsE

The lazy movie poster with the Clipart-grade title card (I refused to call it a movie poster) says it all. It's the worst animated movie of 2019.

Arctic Dogs (or Arctic Justice) is what happens when Battlefield Earth, Aloha, United Passions and Norm of the North all gangbang each other to give birth to the ultimate form of animated movie cringe. I had to see it in theatres for a student price of S$6.50 (or $4.70 USD) and I wish I had my 90 plus minutes and that ticket price back. Heck, even I would want my free ticket back if I have one. So, how bad was it? (Spoiler alert: EVERYTHING)

Story and Writing:

Usually, I would put up a small spoiler-free summary of the movie, but I'm gonna go straight to the chase: it's the worst story of all the animated movies in 2019, period. Even worse than Norm of the North 2.

The story offers nothing new and it featured one of the worst, if not the worst animated movie protagonist of recent memory (We'll talk about him later). It also didn't help that because of the terrible 'writing' that was filled with cringe-worthy 'comedy' and a cliche-heavy script with extremely unbearable dialogue that sometimes don't make sense, not to mention the 90 plus minute runtime felt like three hours (yes, I swore I stayed in the theatre for 3 hours). I watched it in a threate (the biggest mistake I have ever made in my entire life) with my best friend and after the first twenty minutes, he gave up and played a video game on his mobile phone.

To call it 'writing' or even 'first-draft writing' is an insult to the art of animated movie writing or lack thereof. It was such an amazement into how this quality of writing was accepted and greenlit for a wide release animated movie, especially when the writers had written the scripts for Escape from Planet Earth and The Nut Job 2!

Animation:

It doesn't help that it's the same studio behind the Norm series that was in charge of the animation and what I saw was incredible: glitchy animation that looked like it was only halfway through production. In addition, the character designs looked bland, the effects cheap and nasty and the background animation non-existent.

Also, character movement, while acceptable, are not well-animated and the fur animation is half-baked. There are times where the dialogue is out of sync with the mouth movements, a clear sign it's a low budget animated movie (and not one with $50 million US dollars).

I may not be an animation student, but even I would be able to pinpoint the many animation flaws within the movie For a movie on $50 million USD, it should have the budget for a decent, generic animation, but I got unfinished C-grade animation, which is an insult even to the price of the student ticket in Singapore, especially when the easiest element to animate, snow, is so artifical I could easily compare it to Norm of the North (which was made by that same studio).

Characters and Voice Acting:

To talk about how terrible Swifty is as a protagonist is going to be the length of a 2,000-word essay (yes, Swifty was such a terible protagonist I have a whole lot to say about him), so I'm going to say this: Swifty is a terrible role model to kids because he takes advantage of someone's misfortunes without caring for the consequences, nor taking a moment to reflect on his actions. TL:DR, he's an egoistic bastard.

Jade, Swifty's love interest, had a terrible accent that also nothing engaging (Heidi Klum, as much of a nice lady she is, should never be allowed to voice act again), PB was fine but nothing special (actually, I take it back, he's the only bearable charater in the entire movie, pun intended), Magda was the Russian-accented caribou (NOT A MOOSE), Lemmy was supper annoying (was Franco smoking weed while voice acting, as per usual?) and the two French conspiracy theorist otters, Leopold and Bertha, were even more annoying (It doesn't help that Leopold was voiced by Omar Sy, a fantastic French actor who doesn't deserve to voice Norm in the French dub of Norm 1, and Berths was voiced by Klum... again, except even worse).

Otto, as the antagonist, was one-dimensional. And his puffins are rip-offs to the minions. I didn't even mention the Top Dogs, particularly Michael Madsen, who instead of cutting people's ears is delivering mail. Great.

What's even worse is the voice acting. What's the point of hiring well-known actors when they not only cannot voice well, but they made their characters even worse and unbearable? Their voice acting is so half assed, it's not even funny. However, at least Cleese did a fantastic job voicing Otto, even if he's a one-dimensional villain.

Score and soundtrack:

The David Buckley score felt obnoxiously grand because of how terrible the movie was in the first place. However, it's the soundtrack that had me at a loss at words... for all the wrong reasons.

There are 5 Renner songs in the first place. FIVE.

While I applaud Renner's efforts (consiering it's not his first time making music, and "Main Attraction" is not a terrible song in spite of it being an Imagine Dragons reject song), the problem is that all his songs were not only out of place, but up the cringe factor of the entire movie. One of my friends (who only listened to the soundtrack) commented that it's such a dissociation from the Renner I knew from Avengers and Arrival.

This is especially so for "Believer", which highlights Swifty's ego and arrogance, so much so that when I listened to the soundtrack on a train ride home, it was so annoying that I thought my newly bought earphones felt broken. No, I'm not kidding. (The earphones are the AKG-tuned Samsung ones you get when you bought a Samsung phone, and this rumoured to cost about $150 in Singapore (I bought an authentic pair for only $20)).

Conclusion:

When I review movies, my policy was to always give movies a constructive review where I talked about the good and bad of the movie and whether enjoyed it. I usually never talked down on movies since the crew behind such movies have worked hard to make them a reality. However, if the movie I'm reviewing is so bad it pisses me off into how incompentent and torturing the movie was, I will call it out. I never sugarcoat my review to make it sound good; for me, the honest truth matters more, especially if there is little to no effort put into the movie at all.

To say this was one of the most unnecessary animated movies of all time was putting it very lightly. This dared to exist in theatres across the world where it should have gone straight to DVD or Netflix in the first place.

A terribly written story that felt broken, cringe-worthy 'comedy', a virtually non-existent script, low-grade animation, a cast of unbearable and forgettable characters and one of the worst sounding soundtracks of all time. It's everything you expect from an animated movie trainwreck that was completely unnecessary and irredeemable.

While this movie is 100% unsafe for regular consumption and most regular folk should stay away, I highly recommend it to those brave enough to venture into the depths of terrible animation, or for a drunk screening because for sure, the cold brew hits.

However, as crazy as I would suggest, if given a choice, I would rather watch this again than Netflix's The I-Land, because I would rather laugh at this movie's incompetence than raging at the many stupid decisions everyone who worked on The I-Land made. So there, it's not the worst thing that came out in 2019, which is the only good thing from the movie.

This is Blaziker speaking and I got some bad news: this is my last Tumblr post. For those that didn’t know, I have opened up a new Twitter account in preparation for the switch to Twitter. As such, I find it of no good intention to continue with my blog.

It has been a great one year since I signed up for Tumblr. Back then, I wanted to blog about my own interests, my own life and more importantly, my passions. As the weeks went by, however, I also realised my priorities have also changed.

My Tumblr blog has been rotting for months as I am preparing for a new chapter at university next year and as such, I have to make the hard decision of focusing purely on Twitter and Instagram. I will still check through the various Tumblr blogs, but I will not do any Tumblr posts.

In spite of this, I was able to document my Nanowrimo 2018 time and the successful debut of "Rock Dog: The Retold Story”, fulfilling my new year resolution of publishing a novel. 

I have great memories and I will miss this Tumblr community, but life is a series of never-ending crossroads. At some point, you have to make the decision. And this is a very hard one.

If you want to discover where I’m going, you know where to find me:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FeelTheBlaziker Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feeltheblaziker/ Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/MengchengWriter

So, until we meet again...

Here's a draft book cover of my project.

In part 4, I talked about how I constructed the soundtrack of Rock Dog: The Retold Story. Since I have already talked about most of the novel already, it is time to talk about what happened.

 I succeed in the NaNoWriMo project, which is that novel, on 14 November 2018. After further edits, I published the first few chapters of the novel on AO3 and Wattpad on 19 January 2019. I went on to publish the following chapters until I published the last chapter on 31 March 2019. I felt relieved that I published all chapters so that I can focus on writing my Camp NaNoWriMo project.

 In all, I was surprised that this novel got onto many readers’ reading lists on Wattpad, particularly furries. Totally not surprised that happened, although I was only a casual furry and not the obnoxious kind. Still, to get into the top 50 of the NaNoWriMo works on Wattpad was a great achievement on its own.

 I initially intended for Rock Dog: The Retold Story to be a standalone novel, but on 15 April, this happened…

 15 April 2019, Jewel Changi Airport

 Inside the World’s Best Airport (according to Skytrax), I got an entry ticket to a preview of the newest complex in Changi Airport, Jewel. Being mesmerised by the greenery and architecture marvel of the new complex, I took some time exploring the entire place.

 At the same time, I looked through the contents on my mobile phone. I found the Wikipedia page listing the animated movies coming out in 2019.

 Suddenly, one movie popped my mind.

 “Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad”.

 I opened up the page for the movie and realised that I just opened Pandora’s Box.

 Immediately, that inspired me to sit down and write something on my notebook.

 I conceptualised three ideas in the notebook, two of those went on to be conceptualised as my 2019 and 2020 NaNoWriMo projects. I knew that I was in a unique position to write this.

 The moment I selected that idea as my Nanowrimo 2019 project, everything sets into stone…

A Few Days Later, Inside My own Imagination, Mengcheng

 (‘Knock, knock’ on the door)

Me (J): Come in.

(Someone enters)

Bodi (B): Mr Koh?

J: Ah, it’s Bodi. Sit down, will you?

(Bodi made himself comfortable)

B: Just a question, who are you?

J: What you’re meeting is the furry version of a real writer who is typing and proofreading this blog post, so to speak. He is from an alternate universe of our world, a human-based world from the planet ‘Earth’. It’s in his imagination.

B: In other words, we only exist in his mind.

J: That’s the gist of it.

B: Breaking the fourth wall much?  Anyway, why was I summoned?

J: I was getting to get.

(‘I’ showed Bodi the Wattpad page of ‘Rock Dog: The Retold Story’)

B: 1.8 thousand reads? I thought we’re only going to get about 500?

J: I suspect the furries enjoyed it.

B: Who are they?

J: What the real version of me called humans who are fans of animals with human characteristics –

B: I.e., fans of animal characters like us. Why are humans so weird?

J: It’s a mystery. Right now, the real Jeryl found out his debut novel, a retold story of the movie you starred, is getting an unexpected success, so much so it ended up in some Wattpad readers’ reading lists.

B: Is that all?

J: Of course not, Bodi. He has greenlighted a sequel!

B: WAIT WHAT???

J: And right now, he knew the right guys for you to team up with!

(More knocking on the door)

J: Right on cue!

(‘I’ opened the door and it revealed two more guys)

J: I would like to introduce Swifty from ‘Arctic Dogs’ and Johnny from ‘Sing’!

Swifty and Johnny: Hi, Bodi!

B (sweating): This doesn’t look good…

 Coming soon, in 2020 (if I can finish it)…

 Rock Dog: The Songs We Sing

Wattpad: https://w.tt/2QY80jG AO3: https://bit.ly/2S6L9Yy Spotify Soundtrack: https://spoti.fi/2lAGHBU

In part 3, I talked about the characters in the novel. Now, I can finally talk about probably the most exciting element of the novel: the soundtrack.

 One of the great elements of the movie is the soundtrack, which was great for low-budget animated movie standards (since most of such movies would use songs from unknown artists and the quality of such music varied). However, the lack of recognisable rock songs leaves to be desired.

  When I started outlining Rock Dog: The Retold Story, I intended to create an energetic soundtrack full of eccentric rock songs of varying styles while at the same time introducing readers to songs from musicians they never heard of. Being a Eurovision fan for some time, I got exposed to a wide range of songs from different unknown artists.

 Out of the 46 songs included in the Spotify soundtrack, 33 of those are rock songs, and those rock songs have different styles too. Some are more hardcore while others are more gentle types of rock. The rest are pop songs or ballads of varying styles.

For the soundtrack, I imagined a Rock Dog anime with an opening and closing theme song. For the opening, I chose “Party Animal” by Taiwanese band Mayday, not just because of the catchy positive vibes, but also the heartfelt lyrics to show that when life hits you, let your troubles out.

 I have two closing tracks. The episode closing track is Ok Go’s “The One Moment” to show that you only live once so make every moment in your life count. For the novel closing track, I chose One Ok Rock’s “Stand Out Fit In” which was released while I was completing the novel during the NaNoWriMo month. I feel this song best describes me and Bodi’s journey, how much we struggled and how it is ok to embrace one’s own Autistic disability.

 Some might have guessed that apart from the prologue, the titles of each chapter is a title of a song in the chapter, just an easter egg. Also, as I had already highlighted, there is a whole lot of songs from relatively unknown artists that you should try out.

 There is another reason behind this soundtrack. I played this soundtrack consistently to motivate myself at times when I was weak. Growing up without any real friends, I often listened to this soundtrack to remind myself how far I have come and that there is still a long way to go. In other words, it is my inspirational soundtrack.

 I hope you guys give it a go and listen to the soundtrack! I put in some thought in selecting the songs to include. The songs are also available inside the Wattpad novel, so you can listen to those songs while reading my novel.

Wattpad: https://w.tt/2QY80jG AO3: https://bit.ly/2S6L9Yy Spotify Soundtrack: https://spoti.fi/2lAGHBU

In part 2, I talked as briefly as possible about the entire plot of Rock Dog: The Retold Story. Now, the characters.

 While I gave the characters more personality in the novel as compared to the movie, it wasn’t initially the main focus of the novel as I wanted to focus more on the story.

 However, as I wrote the story during the Nanowrimo period, I realised how important it is to focus on the characters as much as the story. Hence, I made effort into providing ample character development without going way overboard, as per the character outline.

 I mostly would be talking about main character Bodi more than the rest of the characters, so this is basically the development of Bodi into the main character I really wanted:

 Bodi

 Before I start, I can now confirm this: Bodi has Savant Syndrome. Yes, it is true.

 Watching the movie and understanding Bodi’s character, I realised how much potential he could have for the movie, only for that potential to be wasted on a cliché protagonist route. That was when I focused my attention on how to develop him.

The main inspiration for Bodi’s personality is me. I wanted Bodi to be modelled from me, diagnosed with Aspergers’ Syndrome. However, unlike me, Bodi was not diagnosed with Savant Syndrome because he stayed in the village his whole life before making his trip to Mengcheng.

 In terms of communication, while he can talk, he tends to have difficulty socialising with strangers. However, as he progressed on, he starts to be more open with others (i.e. Angus, Darma, Grem, etc.). Also, he can adapt to new surroundings on the fly, so in certain situations, he found his way out of trouble (such as how he trespass into Angus’s mansion).

 He also experienced what it feels like to experience friendship, love and hardship and what it feels like to be in a fast-paced world. Just like me trying to adapt to the real world, he also needs to do the same, and fast.

 Developing Bodi into a full-fledged persona of myself is a lot of fun and one that I enjoyed doing the most.

 Other Characters

 That being said, while Bodi was the main focus of character development, I did not forget to enhance other characters as well. I will mostly focus on those that got a good amount of screen time.

 Darma served as the main love interest of Bodi. I intended their relationship to be a slow burn as Bodi develops to become a rock star. More of that will happen in my next novel, so stay tuned to part 5 (the future).

Angus played a vital role in providing support and advice to Bodi due to his experience as a former rock star. I did not change much of his personality from the movie as I felt he was the most complete of all the characters in the novel.

 While Grem and Trey did not get as much development, they do have their shining moments, especially Trey, who fought against Bodi in two instances before eventually joining the band.

 The main antagonist Linnux got his limelight in a standalone chapter focusing on him, Rif, Skozz and the wolf gang and why Linnux needed to invade Bodi’s village. Also, I shipped Riff and Skozz any time of the day (and have I mentioned Skozz was speech impeded instead of mute?).

 Finally, Khampa and Uncle Fleetwood had their moments supporting Bodi. I wanted Khampa to be a father that was strict at first but understood his son’s true passion for music.

Wattpad: https://w.tt/2QY80jG AO3: https://bit.ly/2S6L9Yy Spotify Soundtrack: https://spoti.fi/2lAGHBU

In part 1, I talked about how I came up with the idea to write a fix-it novel of the movie. Now, it is time to talk about one of the most important elements of an animated movie: the plot.

 When I re-watched the movie, I compared it to other animated movies out there and realised one problem: their stories follow a similar structure and narrative, making the story in the movie lazy. It follows the repetitive ‘follow your dreams’ narrative that I have seen in other similar movies, so I need to spice the story up a notch.

 For this post, I’m dividing the plot into the four episodes of my novel. Spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t read the whole novel, stop there and read it first ().

 Episode 1: Spark

 Since the (2D animated) prologue in the original movie was good enough for me, I only made minute adjustments to it. One adjustment relates to the addition of Bodi’s mother, which was missing from the movie. This is to explain why Bodi grew up with his father only as his mum was sent away after the failed wolf invasion.

 As for the rest of the episode, the main components (i.e. the training, Bodi playing “That’s the Way I Like It and Bodi leaving the village) remain the same. However, how Bodi discovered the radio was changed. Instead of a random plane dropping a crate containing random items and the radio, Fleetwood Yak (or Uncle Fleetwood in my novel) passed Bodi the radio, which he bought from an antique store in the fictional city of Mengcheng (where most of the story takes place). Also, Uncle Fleetwood found and fixed the guitar for Bodi instead of Bodi and the end of the fake wolf invasion was changed such that Bodi uses his “Fire” and amplified it by strumming his guitar to create a more powerful energy wave. I thought it would be a better ending of the sequence.

 Finally, when Bodi reached the bus stop, it was during spring, so no chilly winter setting. The rest was the same, except I omitted the ‘red cord’ gag and that Skozz can talk, albeit he could only stutter due to his speech impediment.

 Episode 2: Glow

 Episode 2 occurs and follows most of the plot in the movie, but there are big adjustments to it.

 Firstly, the playing of Foo Fighters’ “Learn to Fly”. I pushed it to after the bus leaves the toll plaza and entered Mengcheng, the bus driver turned on the bus radio and there it was, “Learn to Fly” as I describe the city sights and sounds. After all, I enjoyed writing vivid descriptions of surroundings.

 The failed capture of Bodi remains the same (just that I slightly extended the scene), but instead of going straight to Mengcheng West Park (Or Rock and Roll Park), he checked in at a hotel, had dinner before enjoying some music at a music bar and made his way to the park, guitar strapped to his back (More on my song choices in Part 4 – Soundtrack)

The changes I made when Bodi was at the park was the music choices played out, as does the riff-off, which was carried out a little differently. Bodi had to keep up with Trey as they covered Dragonforce’s “Heroes of Our Time”. Unlike in the movie, the duel ended in a draw and a frustrated Trey swearing to Bodi he will get his revenge someday.

 The next day, Darma helped Bodi moved into her rented apartment, which I modelled it like my old flat at Sembawang (at the North West of Singapore). After enjoying breakfast cooked by Grem, Bodi settled in at his temporary room. He found out where Angus was residing, and he left to trespass Angus’s mansion. It plays slightly similar to the movie, just that I cut to the chase and Bodi found a safer way to enter Angus’s mansion. Cue chase scene inside the garden maze (or by its old name ‘warren’), which remains the same, but as for after that, Bodi somehow guessed the booby-trapped ‘welcome mat’. Instead of directly stepping on it, Bodi decided to prove he’s good at his guitar with a song cover that shook the entire garden.

 Eventually, Angus reluctantly allowed Bodi inside the mansion and before long, Bodi recorded a song Angus liked and approved. That would cause a rippling effect, because later, Angus offered free lessons for Bodi, which resulted in them, Darma and Grem recording their first single “Glorious” and Bodi and Darma starting a relationship.

 Overall, while the novel plot did not deviate much from the original, I added some elements to keep the story fresh.

 Episode 3: Flame

 This is where I changed up the plot. This entire episode strayed far from the original movie as many elements in the plot do not appear in the movie. As such, here is the TL:DR of the episode, since I maybe wrote too long about the previous episode:

·      Bodi defeated Trey in a rematch using his “Fire”.

·      Trey joins Rock Dog (i.e. the band) a few days later.

·      Bodi, Darma and Grem moved into Angus’s mansion along with Trey.

·      Bodi and Darma had a date together (like a Korean drama date, but how it played out is atypical from what you expect because it involves an old Walkman)

·      The main antagonists (Linnux, Riff and Skozz) having a standalone chapter

·      The wolves attempting to kidnap Bodi at the band’s debut concert performance, only for the predictable to happen

·      In spite of the setback, Linnux went ahead with the second wolf invasion anyway

 Episode 4: Crescendo

 While the ending for both the movie and the plot takes place at Bodi’s village, the second wolf invasion in the novel takes a slightly different approach. I will stop there since I do not want to spoil the ending. However, if you watched the movie, the novel ending played out in a similar fashion, just that it is very different.

 Overall, when I looked into the plot, I realised that while my novel did not stray from the movie, I made significant improvements to the plot to reduce as much plot holes as I possibly could while enhancing its overall enjoyment. Looking back, I enjoyed re-writing key scenes from the movie because I could my own spin and interpretation of the movie.

Links to Rock Dog: The Retold Story: Wattpad: https://w.tt/2QY80jG AO3: https://bit.ly/2S6L9Yy

Hi, everyone! It has been a really long time since I posted something on the Tumblr blog. The truth is, I’ve been planning and outlining a top-secret Nanowrimo project for 2019 since I last posted, but now that I have finished outlining that (and proceeded to partially outline a third project for next year), I feel I need to fill you in on one thing.

 Rock Dog: The Retold Story. My debut novel.

 I watched Rock Dog in theatres on 9 March 2017 and that was the spark that resulted in an idea that I developed for the next one and a half years. It was my debut Nanowrimo project for 2018, and it went on to be very decent I decided to publish it on Wattpad on 19 January 2019.

 So, how did it get started?

 It was a year after I watched the movie where I just started my internship at a semiconductor company as an accounts intern. By then, the idea of a Rock Dog novel had been developed inside my head for some time and it all sparked on a bus journey home. For some reason, I needed to get this idea out of my head.

 And then, I took out a notebook and started writing that idea down.

 Basically, I thought through what exactly went wrong with the movie and I realised that no one had done a full-length Rock Dog fanfic, let alone a fix-it one. I knew I was onto something, but I needed something that can challenge me to complete the novel.

 A few months later, after I finished outlining what I wanted to include in the novel, I rediscovered something I had attempted during secondary school. Nanowrimo, or National Novel Writing Month.

 I knew this was the perfect opportunity to set the tone for Rock Dog: The Retold Story. I read through the outline of the story, the characters, setting and the soundtrack, realising how much potential this novel might have.

 It was then time to make it happen. 50,000 words in 30 days, here I come!