The Barbie Animated Film Drinking Game
Do you want to get really really drunk? Or, if you're under age where you live, do you want a lot of orange juice in one sitting? Well, look no further! Here I present the Barbie Animated Film Drinking Game, the most cliche series of direct-to-DVD films made since Disney started making sequels in the 90's! I used to be a fan of this franchise, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. These films really are something to behold in their own weird way. I may need to explain my reasoning for some of these, so this is also a cumulative review of all of the movies in the franchise... this'll be fun. So, without further ado, the Barbie... OK, I'm giving it an acronym, the BAFDG! No, that's too awkward... the Barbie Drinking Game, there we go.
Take a shot for an awkward looking walk cycle.
The animation quality in these films has never been particularly up to snuff, especially on the earlier ones in the late 2000's. Ever since, it always feels weird when they walk. The strange thing is, these movies are often musicals, which requires the characters to dance. The dancing never looks weird, it's just the walk cycles that do... I don't get it. Sometimes this can be attributed to motion of the camera instead of model animation, in an attempt to create a cinematic feel the walking looks unnatural, this can be counted here as well.
Take a shot for a magic thing that shows up and is never explained thoroughly.
It's fine if you have magic in your story to resolve a conflict, it's always fine and dandy, but if you do, you need to explain it. Otherwise, this is referred to as a Deus ex Machina, Greek for God out of the Machine. Basically, introducing some element to the story with no foreshadowing to get your characters out of an immediate problem. In Barbie Movies, however, the magical thing is used as an Anti-Deus ex Machina, stimulating conflict rather than ending it with no explanation as to why it exists. A good example of this would be the paintbrush in Barbie as Rapunzel. It had magical abilities, but it wasn't shown why it had magical abilities. Take a shot.
Take a shot if someone spontaneously starts dancing for no apparent reason and with much better choreography and accuracy than they realistically would have.
This one is super specific to The Princess and the Popstar, but I felt like it should be included.
Take a shot for the forced subplot of the animal interactions, two shots if it's romantic.
There's always, like, a cat or something that shows up. And once that cat shows up, it finds a dog, and the cat and dog don't get along, or maybe do, but they know what the other is saying while none of the humans can. Something very similar to this happens in EVERY SINGLE MOVIE! I think they actually fell in love once! And it never comes back! I guess the idea is to hit the talking animal button to appeal to demographics, or maybe to introduce the intelligence of the non-human characters, but it never comes back and never has impact on the plot.
Take a shot for every character that understands animals.
Again, this is a really specific one. The only two that I remember this happening in are Island Princess and A Mermaids Tale where the main character was turned into Mowgli and Aqua-man respectively. Still, it should be included because there may be more that I don't know about. This rule only applies when a character is first shown that they can talk to animals, not every time they do. That's very important.
Take a shot for romance subplot involving protagonists.
Do I really need to explain this?
Songs
One shot per song
Two more shots if a duet
Two more shots if recycled from an earlier film
Take a shot for a cliched villain.
Barbie plots could be completely social conflict driven, but they always find a need to throw in a cliche over the top villain into the mix. This is always a lazy move, but it happens in every single one. The bad guy usually doesn't need to be in the story, and they always act like Skeletor in terms of how they operate.
Take a shot for a haircut a straight man would not be caught dead with.
Take a shot for an awkward looking walk cycle.
The animation quality in these films has never been particularly up to snuff, especially on the earlier ones in the late 2000's. Ever since, it always feels weird when they walk. The strange thing is, these movies are often musicals, which requires the characters to dance. The dancing never looks weird, it's just the walk cycles that do... I don't get it. Sometimes this can be attributed to motion of the camera instead of model animation, in an attempt to create a cinematic feel the walking looks unnatural, this can be counted here as well.
Take a shot for a magic thing that shows up and is never explained thoroughly.
It's fine if you have magic in your story to resolve a conflict, it's always fine and dandy, but if you do, you need to explain it. Otherwise, this is referred to as a Deus ex Machina, Greek for God out of the Machine. Basically, introducing some element to the story with no foreshadowing to get your characters out of an immediate problem. In Barbie Movies, however, the magical thing is used as an Anti-Deus ex Machina, stimulating conflict rather than ending it with no explanation as to why it exists. A good example of this would be the paintbrush in Barbie as Rapunzel. It had magical abilities, but it wasn't shown why it had magical abilities. Take a shot.
Take a shot if someone spontaneously starts dancing for no apparent reason and with much better choreography and accuracy than they realistically would have.
This one is super specific to The Princess and the Popstar, but I felt like it should be included.
Take a shot for the forced subplot of the animal interactions, two shots if it's romantic.
There's always, like, a cat or something that shows up. And once that cat shows up, it finds a dog, and the cat and dog don't get along, or maybe do, but they know what the other is saying while none of the humans can. Something very similar to this happens in EVERY SINGLE MOVIE! I think they actually fell in love once! And it never comes back! I guess the idea is to hit the talking animal button to appeal to demographics, or maybe to introduce the intelligence of the non-human characters, but it never comes back and never has impact on the plot.
Take a shot for every character that understands animals.
Again, this is a really specific one. The only two that I remember this happening in are Island Princess and A Mermaids Tale where the main character was turned into Mowgli and Aqua-man respectively. Still, it should be included because there may be more that I don't know about. This rule only applies when a character is first shown that they can talk to animals, not every time they do. That's very important.
Take a shot for romance subplot involving protagonists.
Do I really need to explain this?
Songs
One shot per song
Two more shots if a duet
Two more shots if recycled from an earlier film
Take a shot for a cliched villain.
Barbie plots could be completely social conflict driven, but they always find a need to throw in a cliche over the top villain into the mix. This is always a lazy move, but it happens in every single one. The bad guy usually doesn't need to be in the story, and they always act like Skeletor in terms of how they operate.
Take a shot for a haircut a straight man would not be caught dead with.
Do I really need to say anything else?
Take a shot if a character gets a really stupid idea.
This is often the thing driving the plot. Someone thinks of something stupid, and then it turns out to have been a bad idea.
"Let's switch places for a day!"
"Neither of us knows what the other one does."
"Oh, we'll figure it out!"
*face-palm*
And, finally:
Take a shot for a singing voice different from the normal voice actor.
This is the most notorious offense, and also the most telling. They have these things down to a science. Here's my reasoning: in The Princess and the Popstar one of the protagonists is voiced by Ashleigh Ball, the actress who voices Rainbow Dash and Applejack on My Little Pony. I know this girl to be a talented singer, and I accordingly have no idea why they swapped her out for Tiffany Giardina. Don't get me wrong, she did a good job too, I just don't understand why they made that choice. And then it hit me, they've been using the same formula over and over again to keep milking it out. Nothing ever changes except for the setting. Other than that, it's the same stupid formula over and over again.
An optional one, if you want to fall into an alcohol induced coma, is to take a shot every time you see a new pink or purple dress. I guarantee, you will need a paramedic. I did, and I was drinking cream soda.
The printout is below. Thank you, and have a very good day.
Take a shot if a character gets a really stupid idea.
This is often the thing driving the plot. Someone thinks of something stupid, and then it turns out to have been a bad idea.
"Let's switch places for a day!"
"Neither of us knows what the other one does."
"Oh, we'll figure it out!"
*face-palm*
And, finally:
Take a shot for a singing voice different from the normal voice actor.
This is the most notorious offense, and also the most telling. They have these things down to a science. Here's my reasoning: in The Princess and the Popstar one of the protagonists is voiced by Ashleigh Ball, the actress who voices Rainbow Dash and Applejack on My Little Pony. I know this girl to be a talented singer, and I accordingly have no idea why they swapped her out for Tiffany Giardina. Don't get me wrong, she did a good job too, I just don't understand why they made that choice. And then it hit me, they've been using the same formula over and over again to keep milking it out. Nothing ever changes except for the setting. Other than that, it's the same stupid formula over and over again.
An optional one, if you want to fall into an alcohol induced coma, is to take a shot every time you see a new pink or purple dress. I guarantee, you will need a paramedic. I did, and I was drinking cream soda.
The printout is below. Thank you, and have a very good day.
the_barbie_animated_film_drinking_game.docx | |
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