I’m… Actually upset about this now. I’m sure the movie might be good anyway, but I don’t like the look of this.
I’m nonbinary, but I absolutely love the comic and have never had a problem with it.
From this article, they’ve apparently totally rewritten Ballister to be a much more stereotypical gay romance lead, and so that Ballister and Nimona aren’t a pseudo-villain duo anymore - that relationship was the best part of the comic. It’s hard to imagine how this could be anywhere near the same story as the comic without the personality of Ballister and that villain duo relationship.
And looking at the trailer, what they’ve done to Nimona’s appearance is disney-fy her. It’s not as bad as it could be, but the movie giving her “softer curves and bigger, more sensitive eyes” is gross as hell to me because that’s just making her look like near every other 3d animated heroine, and again, one of the best things about Nimona is the art style and particularly the fact that the women in the comic are allowed to have a wide variety of body and face shapes.
Normally, in animation and comics, there is a huge variety in male bodies and faces, and then women comparatively all have round faces, huge eyes, and willowly curvy hourglass bodies. Nimona broke that mold (N.D. Stephenson’s She-Ra tv show does, too), and it really jumped out to me in a good way when I read it. Pushing Nimona’s design back towards that Standard Animated Girl^tm look feels so wrong to me.
I don’t even like the sound of what they’ve done to the end, either. I’ll admit it did feel like an emotional hammer at the end of a comedic story, so it was a bit rough to get through, but at the very end I never thought Nimoma had died - I understood her to have lived. And I came out of it satisfied and gave it 5 stars, no complaints. I didn’t at any point feel that she had been fridged or tossed to a “kill your lesbians” trope or whatever the problem is supposed to be? And it sounds like the end of the movie is also an emotional hammer, so that’s no different there.
And to replace it, they… Made her suicidal? Made Ballister have to rescue her? I’ve see so many “female character has an depression breakdown and feels suicidal” stories and so few “female character has the kind of rage breakdown that normally only male characters get to have” stories, and here they’ve taken one of the very few of the latter and turned it into the former. And introduced suicidality to it, which will make it harder to watch for many people who have experienced those feelings.
This all makes it sound like they’re twisting what was a very original and interesting queer story into being a more palatable, less subtle, by-the-numbers one, and at the end of the day I want variety in my queer characters and stories, thanks.
I especially can’t get over them rewiting Ballister. Ballister was so good in the comic. I don’t even want to know what they’ve done to Sir Loinheart (I seem to remember hearing they were at least going to change his incredible not-typo name to something boring?)
I can fully believe it might be a good movie anyway, but I’m finding it very hard to believe it’s a good adaptation, as described. It’s rather killed any interest I had in watching it, at least.
I’ve seen the movie and haven’t read the comic, and I highly recommend giving the movie a chance. It does so many things well that many other movies do poorly, and overall is very refreshingly original.
Also not having read the comic, I can’t imagine that Ballister and Nimona’s chemistry was so much better in the comic because it was so great on screen. I don’t think Ballister’s relationship with Goldenloin detracts from his dynamic with Nimona at all.
Blackheart -> Boldheart, Loinheart -> Goldenloin. It dials down the absurd humor in favor of pathos enough that the ending doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash. It also keeps the queerness, maybe dials the transgender elements up a bit. It still works.
I didn’t realize there were so many queer-centered stories in cinema that they had become formulaic.
I’m… Actually upset about this now. I’m sure the movie might be good anyway, but I don’t like the look of this.
I’m nonbinary, but I absolutely love the comic and have never had a problem with it.
From this article, they’ve apparently totally rewritten Ballister to be a much more stereotypical gay romance lead, and so that Ballister and Nimona aren’t a pseudo-villain duo anymore - that relationship was the best part of the comic. It’s hard to imagine how this could be anywhere near the same story as the comic without the personality of Ballister and that villain duo relationship.
And looking at the trailer, what they’ve done to Nimona’s appearance is disney-fy her. It’s not as bad as it could be, but the movie giving her “softer curves and bigger, more sensitive eyes” is gross as hell to me because that’s just making her look like near every other 3d animated heroine, and again, one of the best things about Nimona is the art style and particularly the fact that the women in the comic are allowed to have a wide variety of body and face shapes.
Normally, in animation and comics, there is a huge variety in male bodies and faces, and then women comparatively all have round faces, huge eyes, and willowly curvy hourglass bodies. Nimona broke that mold (N.D. Stephenson’s She-Ra tv show does, too), and it really jumped out to me in a good way when I read it. Pushing Nimona’s design back towards that Standard Animated Girl^tm look feels so wrong to me.
I don’t even like the sound of what they’ve done to the end, either. I’ll admit it did feel like an emotional hammer at the end of a comedic story, so it was a bit rough to get through, but at the very end I never thought Nimoma had died - I understood her to have lived. And I came out of it satisfied and gave it 5 stars, no complaints. I didn’t at any point feel that she had been fridged or tossed to a “kill your lesbians” trope or whatever the problem is supposed to be? And it sounds like the end of the movie is also an emotional hammer, so that’s no different there.
And to replace it, they… Made her suicidal? Made Ballister have to rescue her? I’ve see so many “female character has an depression breakdown and feels suicidal” stories and so few “female character has the kind of rage breakdown that normally only male characters get to have” stories, and here they’ve taken one of the very few of the latter and turned it into the former. And introduced suicidality to it, which will make it harder to watch for many people who have experienced those feelings.
This all makes it sound like they’re twisting what was a very original and interesting queer story into being a more palatable, less subtle, by-the-numbers one, and at the end of the day I want variety in my queer characters and stories, thanks.
I especially can’t get over them rewiting Ballister. Ballister was so good in the comic. I don’t even want to know what they’ve done to Sir Loinheart (I seem to remember hearing they were at least going to change his incredible not-typo name to something boring?)
I can fully believe it might be a good movie anyway, but I’m finding it very hard to believe it’s a good adaptation, as described. It’s rather killed any interest I had in watching it, at least.
I’ve seen the movie and haven’t read the comic, and I highly recommend giving the movie a chance. It does so many things well that many other movies do poorly, and overall is very refreshingly original.
Also not having read the comic, I can’t imagine that Ballister and Nimona’s chemistry was so much better in the comic because it was so great on screen. I don’t think Ballister’s relationship with Goldenloin detracts from his dynamic with Nimona at all.
Blackheart -> Boldheart, Loinheart -> Goldenloin. It dials down the absurd humor in favor of pathos enough that the ending doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash. It also keeps the queerness, maybe dials the transgender elements up a bit. It still works.
I didn’t realize there were so many queer-centered stories in cinema that they had become formulaic.