Hey everyone, welcome to my haul video! Just kidding, this is text. But it IS a haul OF videos from D23, the in-house Disney fan convention. We’re just off Comic-Con but this happened, too, because we live in a culture of constant capitalist overconsumption and commercials are commodities unto themselves. Welcome to the hellscape! Let’s dive in!

 

First up, it’s Marvel with the official trailer for Agatha All Along, which looks witchy and fun. Agatha Harkness has to journey down the “witches’ road” to reclaim her power and maybe she murders everyone along the way? Into it! Would also be into a regular ol’ murder mystery starring this exact cast, just saying.

 

 

Also, the cast showed up to perform the new original song, “Ballad of the Witches’ Road”. It’s by the musical duo of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who were also behind the surprise WandaVision banger, “Agatha All Along” (and the Frozen movies, and Coco, and Robert Lopez is an EGOT thanks to Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon). It’s not quite as good as “Agatha All Along”, but it’s still fun that the witch corner of Marvel is utilizing music in a cool way, when Marvel’s reputation with original music is generally so bland. 

 

Speaking of! While the test footage from The Fantastic Four: First Steps did not (legally) make its way online, composer Michael Giacchino DID share his new original theme for the film during the “Music of Marvel” panel. 

 

The opera chorus literally singing “Fantastic Four” will never not make me laugh, but this is a neat, vintage-ish theme. Is it immediately memorable? No, but the lack of bold, memorable movie themes is a problem that extends far beyond Marvel, even though they get roasted for it the most. What was the last really memorable movie theme? Pirates of the Caribbean? Alan Silvestri’s Avengers theme eventually became iconic, but it’s not something you can like, hum a line and people instantly know what it is like Jaws or Jurassic Park or “Hedwig’s Theme” from Harry Potter. It really is like Hollywood decided in 2005 to just stop making those “hummable” themes altogether.

 

Next up! Star Wars! I do not trust them! The Acolyte was a cut above stuff like Obi-Wan and The Book of Boba Fett, but in the end, it was no Andor! I really think they’ve got to take the Tony Gilroy approach of handing Star Wars stuff over to people who don’t really care about Star Wars! Skeleton Crew looks pretty mediocre! It’s like they’re trying to do a Stranger Things within Star Wars, but Stranger Things is already chock full of Star Wars nostalgia! The snake has fully eaten its tail! But the director list for Skeleton Crew IS totally insane! Episodes are directed by: series co-creator Jon Watts, David Lowery, the Daniels, Jake Schreier, Bryce Dallas Howard and Lee Isaac Chung! That is BONKERS! Still looks mediocre! 

 

 

Onto Snow White! This one is entirely consumed by controversy because:

  1. Rachel Zegler is Latine so the worst people in the world already hate her because she can’t have her skin tone AND be the “fairest one of all” and casting a pretty young woman who can sing but happens to be of Colombian descent is “woke”, will a meteor save us from this cursed existence
  2. Disney fans hate her because she called the original Snow White, which is nearly 100 years old, “dated” and said the new version is focused more on Snow White’s “inner journey” than a love story, this is Disney slander that the Disney Adults will not tolerate, kill me now
  3. Gal Gadot is Israeli and has issued statements supporting Israel during past conflicts and the current Gaza war, there is legit criticism to be levied but there is also a lot of antisemitism aimed at her, I am sure the Disney marketing department already has ulcers
  4. Everyone thinks Rachel Zegler, who has supported Palestine and the Palestinian people and various support/relief efforts during the ongoing conflict, hates Gal Gadot due to her aforementioned pro-Israeli stance
  5. Peter Dinklage criticized the new film because despite a more progressive approach to casting Snow White, they’re still telling a “backwards” story about people with dwarfism, in response Disney announced they’re “taking a different approach” with those characters, which means they’re CG, which means no little people were cast, I truly do not have an answer here, Dinklage isn’t wrong but the result is a) there are still seven dwarves living in a hut in the forest, and b) no little people were hired to perform these roles

This is going to be an absolute nightmare press tour, just a toxic stew of people yelling at each other, all over one of Disney’s exercises in IP management cum cash grabs. The best answer to all of the above is probably that some past things should be left in the past, but Disney cannot do that without their versions of these characters falling into the public domain, which they will fight tooth and nail to prevent. And so here we are, with a film that exists to make absolutely no one happy except Disney accountants and lawyers. As for the film itself? It looks like Thomas Kinkade threw up in a computer.

 

 

Finally, there is the trailer for Barry Jenkins’ Lion King prequel, Mufasa: The Lion King. This trailer legit f-cked me up.

 

SCAR WAS SUPPOSED TO BE KING? No wonder he was so pissed off! This changes everything! Mufasa isn’t some wise benevolent leader murdered by his power-hungry brother! He was a USURPER! HE WAS CLAUDIUS ALL ALONG! My whole childhood was a lie! Justice for Scar! We are all going to die, and this is how I spent my life!

Join us to Squawk about all of these trailers today! (app link here)