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The ’90s-’00s were some of the best years for Nickelodeon. And while this was a bit after my generation, I wasn’t blind to the magnetic charms and multicultural influence the Nick Jr flagship property, Dora the Explorer, had on kids of its generation. I personally grew up with Sesame Street, Rugrats, and Mister Rogers, but while I will always love […]
It’s hard to imagine anyone but Zoe Saldana as badass intergalactic assassin Gamora. The actress truly embodies the role of the Guardians of the Galaxy warrior, quickly making herself a fan favorite in the MCU. But apparently before she signed onto the role, producers were courting Mamma Mia! star Amanda Seyfried.
In a recent interview, Seyfried said “I turned down one [superhero role] once and they haven’t called back since. And it was a big’un. I don’t regret it because I didn’t want to be green for six months out of every year. They tell beautiful stories through superheroes, and my daughter’s now really obsessed with superheroes now, and part of me wishes I’d done it, but the other part of me is like ‘I had a life to live’ and I don’t think I would’ve been happy.”
While Seyfried doesn’t explicitly say she was up for Gamora’s role, the green comment is a dead giveaway. And while Seyfried is a good actress (her role in Mean Girls is iconic), she just doesn’t seem like the right fit for Gamora. Although if they ever do an Avengers musical, she’d kill it.
The MCU does many things well (action sequences, humor, interconnected storylines) but one area where they really excel is casting. From the moment they took a gamble on Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, Marvel has found exactly the right actors for all of their Avengers. By now we all know about the famous Marvel almosts, like John Krasinski almost being cast as Captain America or Emily Blunt almost portraying Black Widow. But it’s always interesting to wonder what might have been.
(via io9, image: Marvel/Universal Pictures)
- Ernie Colón, the comic book artist, writer and editor best known for Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, has passed away at 88. (via Blastr)
- There’s much more to come on Fear the Walking Dead if you can’t get enough zombie drama. (via Collider)
- Season 2 of Amazon’s The Boys has started filming, and showrunner Eric Kripke shares the first image from the shoot. (via CBR)
- These Chucky fan films give a backstory to the Tiffany and Chucky romance. (via io9)
- Harry Potter memes? Don’t mind if we do! (via Daily Dot)
- Happiest of birthdays to this old AF cat!
A small token for #TheBoysTV fans. World's first pic of #Season2. As you can see, we're up to our old tricks. If you haven't seen, JOIN US. Streaming now on @PrimeVideo @TheBoysTV #TheBoys #SPN #SPNFamily #Timeless pic.twitter.com/3z29mVBfNl
— Eric Kripke (@therealKripke) August 10, 2019
This cat celebrating his 20th birthday pic.twitter.com/xd1QRyUt1i
— 41 Strange (@41Strange) August 9, 2019
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In a cinema market where name recognition is the best indicator of success it was only a matter of time before Dora the Explorer appeared on the big screen. Since its Nickelodeon debut in 2000, Dora the Explorer has became a household name among any house with a child and a television, especially with parents with any special interest in exposing their children to diversity and other cultures. Nearly twenty years later, Paramount and Nickelodeon give the Spanish-speaking girl with the bob haircut a bigger audience in Dora and the Lost City of Gold, and you can be glad they did.
The New Dora
In the new Dora, our girl (played by Isabela Moner) has aged into a young teenager. She maintains the childlike innocence and charm she had at the age we once knew her. Living mostly alone in the Amazon with only her parents and her quirky pet monkey, Boots, Dora’s social skills fit better in the jungle than a high school. Her best childhood friend is her cousin Diego. They’re forced apart when Dora’s parents (played by Eva Longoria and Michael Peña) take her off in search of a lost city of gold, and you can imagine the challenge of what’s to come: Diego grows up in a “regular” school system and becomes a normal teenager while Dora remains the same, untarnished by high school popularity, politics, or peer pressure.
When Dora and Diego are reunited as teens, the result is a fish-out-of-water comedy that places an awkward-yet-confident Dora in a Los Angeles high school with her frequently embarrassed cousin Diego, who wants to sink into the ground each time Dora opens her mouth, or worse, dances like the animals of the jungle. The film catches its stride when Dora and a few classmates — an awkward nerd named Randy, a nerdy mean girl named Sammy, and Dora’s cousin Diego — find themselves kidnapped by a group of mercenaries trying to track down Dora’s parents to find the city of gold themselves. The fish-out-of-water scenario is flipped when Dora returns to her comfortable landscape of the jungle and her begrudging acquaintances are the ones out of place and completely out of their element. Of course, hilarity ensues that include a few clever nods to adults in the audience — phrases like Terminator‘s “come with me if you want to live” and The Wire‘s “come at the king queen, you best not miss” — along with homages to the original Dora the Explorer for longtime fans. There’s even a third-wall break a lá the original series (can you say “delicioso?”), some throwback animation, and Swiper the Fox, complete with bandana, voiced by Benecio del Toro.
Genuine Fun
Most refreshing of the Dora film is its decision towards maintaining the character’s innocence. Dora and the Lost City of Gold is about friendship, curiosity, self-confidence, and ultimately Dora’s coming-of-age, though not through her own moral growth but in others around her learning from the light she shines. Everyone around Dora has something to learn, and the more time they spend around her the more they’re forced to confront the challenges they resist. With her friends those challenges come in the form of high school popularity and confidence; with her parents it looks like accepting that their child is growing up and is smart and capable and that it’s time to let go. It would have been an easy pitfall to sexualize Dora or her friends in their hormonal teenage years, yet the film swings over it with a genuine purity that makes for the best child-friendly adventure movie I’ve seen in a long time.
The overall feel of Dora and the Lost City of Gold is that of a child-friendly Tomb Raider, complete with quicksand, ancient ruins, and no shortage of jungle puzzles. Overall, it’s pure fun, and a sincere, wholesome family movie. Dora and the Lost City of Gold is full of heart, comedy, and adventure, and unless you’re dead inside it’ll leave you smiling — and singing — when you leave the theater. After all, as Dora would tell you, it’s always a good time for a song.
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The post ‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’ Is Adorable, Pure Family Fun appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.