Strange World Review

The year 2022 has been a mixed bag for Disney movies. We've seen good movies like Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers and Turning Red. While the year has had a fair share of movies worthy of a Razzie Award such as Pinocchio, Hocus Pocus 2, and Lightyear.

The Walt Disney Animation Studios 61st movie, Strange World, released during Thanksgiving weekend, and become one of the lowest grossing Disney movies of all time, making the entertainment juggernaut lose nearly $150 million and being the first box office bomb in years.

Disney has made a habit of releasing new movies straight to Disney Plus, so a theatrical release of Strange World is a bit odd.

Historically, Disney has struggled to capture lightning in a bottle when it comes to Sci-Fi movies, due to the mediocre performances of Atlantis the Lost Empire and Treasure Planet. Plus, it wasn't a wise move to release a movie with little to no promotion while Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was still going strong. So Strange World was doomed to fail.

Honestly, I say Walt Disney would turn over in his grave seeing how his company and legacy is being handled. What was once a fledgling animation studio that built its foundation on fairytales, fantasy and most importantly a mouse in red shorts; has vastly fallen from grace.

Disney as a whole is no stranger to controversy since most of its early movies are downright racist. Matter of fact, the first and sadly only African American Disney Princess, Tiana, didn't become official until 2009. Which took over 80 years to do. Despite that, Disney movies are iconic, and animation wouldn't be where it is today without them.

The idea of having an open LGBTQ protagonist in a Disney movie is a bold move to say the least, the first in canon at that. I personally have nothing against homosexual individuals, because I wouldn't care if they were aliens from Neptune. But there was absolutely no way that parents were going to waste their money to see a movie with a blatantly gay main character and brainwash their kids into thinking that's a way of life.

I also find it insulting that a black character got this treatment. Then again black characters have always had the short end of the stick in Disney movies. Princess Tiana turns into a frog, Ray from Soul dies, and his spirit is transferred into a cat, and now Ethan, a black 16-year-old is the first openly gay Disney character.

Lightyear was a disappointment at the box office and highly criticized due to this very reason, and it was subtle with its approach. However, Strange World throws gay representation right in the viewers face, and Disney really expected this move to be remotely successful?

I don't care about the adults because their minds are already made up. It's showing something like this to kids, the backbone Disney's success, that concerns me. Alot of them are either just learning about sex, not knowing it at all, experiencing puberty or other forms of growing up. Forcing kids to see two people of the same sex be in a romantic relationship flips everything about Disney upside down. I'm pretty sure 5 and 6 year olds don't need to see two male characters cuddling.

The days of storybook endings, legendary characters like Tinker Bell and the Genie, entertaining villains like Jafar and Hades, and genuinely feel-good movies that are literally timeless are gone. Now its catering to highly overrated and arbitrarily praised culture.

All I say is leave children out of it. Unless Disney wants to keep making big failures like Strange World and lose millions of dollars each time. Then it better be ready to go bankrupt because that idea will not transform from a coal to a diamond.

As for the movie as a whole. Strange World is a C grade Disney film with forgettable characters, weird animation and a lame story. So, it's best if Disney gave up on the sci fi genre because they will never find success.