I went to see Toy Story 4 too. It is basically like the previous movies in the way it feels. I feel like Disney is using nostalgia so much in their movies, though. I watched the Christopher Robin movie as well recently and that had even more nostalgia.

I am going to try to hold out on Aladdin and The Lion King remakes until they release their dvds at the library so I won't be spending so much money.

The most original movie I've seen lately was The Greatest Showman which is more of a movie for teens and older audiences. Although, they historically compress Barnum's career and change things, the emotion and songs of the movie were really good. I can't get the songs out of my head.

Disney is on a big nostalgia fest, especially with their remakes (and Christopher Robin, But nostalgia was also kinda half the point of that movie).

Greatest Showman was a good one. Not all that accurate, I hear, but it does better as a movie than as a historically accurate account of events. And yes, the music is something else. 😀

I felt that Greatest Showman lacked any conflict in the first half. Everything he wanted he got in pretty short order, and then the only tension had to do with the invented love triangle. The music and design was pretty.

Christopher Robin is an absolute delight despite about twenty (necessary) minutes near the beginning that probably are a bit slow for youngsters. One of Pooh's lines to Christopher ranks up there with some of the most heartwrenching lines in cinema.

Haven't seen Aladdin yet.

Toy Story 4. I'm torn. It hit all the right notes and was definitely entertaining, and after some analysis I can see why the story went the way it did, but I have a couple of issues with some things kids might learn from it.

@Kristi: Totally with you on Toy Story 4! Like, I get it, but I don’t, but said elements worked better than Avengers: Endgame because of theme, and yet I’m not so sure about whether said things are necessarily good...?

I saw Toy Story 4 too and like...I liked parts of it (there were a couple of things that I thought particularly funny and have used as quotes several times since I saw it), thought other parts were meh, and really only found one part of the whole movie that I wasn't keen on (I won't mention it right now because spoilers, and it was only a side effect of a different plotpoint anyway), so yeah. Overall I liked it and was very glad I got to see it, but at the same time I didn't really feel it was necessary.....except that it answered a question I've had about Toy Story ever since I saw the third installment.

*wants to know what Hobbit’s question was*

I was curious about what happened to Bo. Like...she just...disappeared. She was offhandedly mentioned but there were no details.

Ah. Yeah. I mean, I didn’t exactly care (wasn’t ever really into her) and I was satisfied with the general idea of what had happened to her. Her story got interesting with this one, even though I wasn’t wild about a couple bits of it.

Watched, "The Chosen" first episode on Youtube. It is pretty good and it tells the story of Jesus from the perspective of the disciples and followers (Warning not for younger audiences)

Saw the Lion King remake today. There were positives and negatives, but in my opinion it's the best Disney remake so far. A lot of it was shot-for-shot from the original, and the animation was stunning.

I also saw The Lion King last night. The visuals were beautiful. I liked most of the casting decisions (there are two that I object to). I was also pleasantly surprised by the actors’ singing. I do have some little complaints about a spot that should have had better timing, some dialogue that seemed weaker than the original, and, what seemed to me, too little emotion animated on the cubs (for example, Simba didn’t look as sad as he sounded when Mufasa died). And one musical moment from the movie is massively diminished (i wasn’t expecting it to hit the same level of the original, but I thought their take on this one song was musically strange and needed more presence).
Personally, I didn’t need to see this in theaters, but that’s my opinion.

I feel like I can guess a lot of the different things you mentioned, except I can only think of one casting decision that I was really truly disappointed by. (I absolutely agree with you on the song, if we're thinking of the same one.)
The facial expressions I could forgive, but I can't really be truly objective here because I actually stopped noticing how subtle they were after the first five minutes. (Pooossibly because I've been around cats for most of my life...?)

Chances are that we are indeed thinking of the same song and the one casting decision. (If the two are connected, then yes, we definitely are.) My second casting complaint isn’t really a huge one, but the age and the accent (not really “accent”, but I can’t think of the right word) seemed incongruent. (I technically have a third casting complaint, but I don’t think I’m allowed to complain about it, lol. My only problem with it was that it didn’t have the vocal power I was hoping for.)
Ah, perhaps. I mean, I didn’t want tons of “eyebrow” action or tears from Simba in that moment (because that would have hurt the realism), but I thought that Scar’s face conveyed more emotion.

I had two "meh" casting choices on top of the one that I wasn't really keen on at all. I think one of my "meh"s is your other one there maaaybe? (Aaaaand I might also know which one you're referencing there.)
Yeah. I expect that that's because the most obvious (and human-like) facial expressions in any cat, big or small, are happiness, expectancy (or interest), fright, and cruelty. Grief? That's more in the body language.

Heh, I’ll pm you so we can openly talk about it, lol.
Ohh. Learn something new everyday.