Strange World

[Farerb]

The cover for The Art of Strange World:

[Daniel]

It's missing that Raya girl, AKA Callisto Mal. Think it looks a little more pleasing hand-drawn.

D23 pic and info:

The first footage shown at D23 was a new trailer that feels like a mixture of "Lost in Space" with a Jules Verne twist. We see a family working on a farm, when a ship shows up, manned by a pilot, President Callisto Mal (voiced by Lucy Liu) who tells them that the world is in grave danger. She invites them to join her expedition, and our intrepid protagonist Searcher Clade (voiced by Jake Gyllenhaal), who yearns to find his famous explorer father who went missing when he was a kid, agrees. 

They land on a world full of wild creatures and spore-like monsters, and there, they run into Searcher's father, Jaeger Clade (voiced by Dennis Quaid), a swaggering, grizzled, dirty explorer. There's a tense, confrontational relationship between Searcher and Jaeger, which the trailer intercuts with glimpses of a cute little blue goop they call Splat, and a creature that smashes through the window of the ship and grabs the pilot.

In the second clip, the team has crash landed on the "Strange World" and are separated. They need to find each other before something bad happens. Searcher's teen son Ethan Clade (voiced by Jaboukie Young) sees some big rolling orbs with little spindles sticking out of them, which leaves Splat concerned. Suddenly, big tentacles pop out. Just as suddenly, Jaeger Clade shows up looking like a "dirty hobo with a flamethrower" or "Hagrid but a badass," as Ethan describes.

Jaeger leads them away from the monsters, blasting flames behind them, grabbing Searcher and Ethan as they jump off the cliff and fall onto a stream of flowing creatures that look like blood cells. But they're not! They're more like big tadpoles, translucent red and sentient. As Searcher, Ethan, and Jaeger run across the tadpole creatures, the tentacles keep trying to grab at them. Jaeger urges them to hurry, and Searcher pleads for his father to stop embarrassing him. Jaeger blasts one final flame and separates the stream so they can't be chased anymore. Ethan falls, but Splat grabs him and brings him back up to the stream of the tadpole creatures.

"Can you not show off while we're running for our lives?" Searcher asks Jeager. "How are you my Dad?"

Yeah, still not feeling it.

[Ben]

Think it looks a little more pleasing hand-drawn.

Everything looks more pleasing hand-drawn!

(Especially Disney's recent character designs.)

[Daniel]

Maybe not Wreck-It Ralph, but yeah.

[Farerb]

[Daniel]

"No, I'm just messing with you" That's the second time a character has said that, first one being Callisto Mal in the teaser. Trailers usually have bad lip-sync moments but this one takes the cake. Good example at the 20 second mark. Still no real hype, and the designs are so generic for Disney. This ones a streamer for me.

[Ben]

They also released a new poster, which made me wonder why a character's bottom of his shoe had more page space than anyone's actual *faces*…!

Yeah, kind of boring designs and that "unfinished" animation look that Raya had, too. And that trailer is so bent on trying to be "like me, please like me!" that Strange World ends up not looking "strange" enough!

[Dacey]

I think it's the eyes? They just look too "narrow" for want of a better term? And the combination of the smaller eyes with the larger noses is what makes them look "generic" so to speak?

Still, it looks fun in an Atlantis kind of way. Dennis Quaid sounds great.

[Evergreen]

I think the designs bother me a little less having seen the trailer now. The characters have a certain weight to them. I guess from the designs, I thought they'd be all bend-y and all over the place like Sony films, in other words they'd move as cartoony as they look. Thankfully that's not the case.

[Ben]

I must admit that Quaid sounds like he’s having huge fun here. I was naturally going to see this anyway, but as a fan he’s definitely made it more inviting to me.

[Daniel]

It's like an unofficial sequel to The Day After Tomorrow with Jake Gyllenhaal and Dennis Quaid reprising their father/son roles.

[Ben]

Good shout!

[Bill1978]

For a first trailer, it did a good job at getting my interest. Definitely get a strong Atlantis vibe. Which I don't mind, as I really enjoyed Atlantis. Splat is giving me major Morph vibes while I also honestly thought they just recycled a character design from Raya for the President (?)

And I didn't pay much attention when the release date was announced but I do find it odd that Disney is releasing the day before Disenchanted. I know 2 totally different properties and release format but from a marketing point of view just find it weird they will be competing against each other, in the US at least.

[Ben]

This is true. As is the Morph Splat thing. I knew I had seen something like that before!

[Evergreen]

It's like an unofficial sequel to The Day After Tomorrow with Jake Gyllenhaal and Dennis Quaid reprising their father/son roles.

I did think of The Day After Tomorrow what with realizing Dennis Quaid was voicing the grandfather and the whole story being about their "world" being in danger, lol.