UP 2 where? Nooo, UP 2, the movie! Nearly everyone who watched UP, adored it so why not make an other?? UP is a heartwarming adventure-filled animated comedy produced by Pixar. My last blog was also about a Pixar movie, Inside Out 2. You can find it here!

SPOILERS AHEAD

As many of us saw UP in 2009, I will give a refresher. A young boycott (Russell) is pursuing his “helping the elderly badge” to become an eagle scout. He finds a man (Carl), who’s wife just passed, and asks him if he needs help. Carl is grumpy, but Russell persists. Carl is forced to leave his home and has the imaginative idea to tie balloons to his house to float to South America. He wants to find the place he and his wife always dreamed of going she was still alive. When he decides to leave, Russell gets stranded on his porch because he was knocking on his door again to see if he needed help. On the journey in the floating house, Carl and Russell begin to learn more about each other, but Carl remains Grumpy. Once they arrived relatively close to their desired destination of a water fall, they were forced to walk the semi-floating house to the correct spot (keep in mind that they are doing this for a good portion of the movie). Along their journey the stumble across a dog who has a special collar that allows him to speak English. They befriend the lost dog and even find another pet along the way. They find a strange bird and Russell names him Kevin. The old man still maintains his grumpy attitude, but he is beginning to tolerate Russell more as he is stuck with him. As they get closer to the water fall, they find another human (Muntz)! They find out that his life goal has been using his dogs to find the mysterious bird. Russell says that Kevin sounds like the bird he is looking for, and Muntz turns hostile thinking they are here to ruin his fame. Carl is able to escape and return to his house, but Russell has been captured. Eventually the old man feels bad and decides he should save Russell. He even sacrificed his home, which he traveled across the world in, to save Russell. All ends peacefully with the bird in Carl’s care. Carl even gets the chance to present Russell with his merit badge which meant a lot to Russell!

What would UP 2 be about? The rest of Russell’s journey to becoming an eagle scout can be followed with him still having to earn the rest of his badges. The sequel could lead off with the old man dying, although sad, and follow Russell on a spiritual journey in his memory. Unfortunately, a sequel may not live up 🙂 to the emotions of UP, but there are various variations left undiscovered. I am sure Pixar has a better creative team than me alone, so the sequel wouldn’t disappoint!

Is it a money issue? Absolutely not! The budget for the movie was about $175 million, and made half of that back on the opening weekend alone! For the total earned, the movie made Pixar $735 million. Although not the highest profit blogged about thus far, that is still a plethora of money.

What did the reviews say?:

“Brilliant, another Pixar homerun”

‘The best Pixar film to date”

“UP ‘upped’ the bar once again” (My personal favorite | Can’t get enough of the puns)

Pixar needs to make a sequel. I am sure they have other movies in the works, but UP needs to move up in their priorities. They need to take our hearts on another roller coaster ride full of adventure. Maybe even take us “UP, UP, and Away”. Regardless of the UP puns, the people want an UP 2!

Inside Out (2015) is an animated movie that everyone can relate to. It is not an action packed movie, like my previous blogs, but rather a heart warming adventure. For anyone who watched it, a sequel is definitely in order.

***********ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD***********

The movie begins with an 11 year old girl, Riley, finding out that her family is moving. As she is entering her teen years, she is very emotional. The rest of the movie centers around her major emotions: Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness. Each emotion, played by an animated figure, is grappling for complete control of Riley. Inside of her mind, there are also different islands representing Riley’s personality traits: family, honesty, hockey, friendship, and finally goofball island. When adapting to her new surrounding she generates some bad memories. The good memories from her old home begin to fade, and all she can focus on is the bad. The joy and sadness characters then get kicked out of the emotion headquarters and try to get back in.  While on their journey the learn more about Riley and reflect on the past. In the meantime, Anger, Disgust, and Fear are controlling Riley, and spiraling her out of control. Once Joy and Sadness return, her emotions stabilize, and she begins to positively adapt to her new life by making good memories.

Every adult has gone through an emotional change in their life, so the movie is very relatable to that audience. For the younger audience, it isn’t as relatable, but it shows them what may happen to their emotions in the future. Why would a sequel be so great? Well, it would make Disney millions of dollars. The 2015 movie’s budget was about $175 million and the movie made over $850 million! I believe the sequel would make even more movie due to how relatable the first one is.

What could the movie be about? The obvious answer is the journey through her teenage years. All adults have gone through that period, so why not make a movie about it. There may be new emotion characters added like Love. There are even more avenues for her personality islands as well. For example, there might be a boys island, a social media island, or even a fashion island. The sequel doesn’t have to be all about her teenage years either. It could be about her college journey or a journey of her career. Disney could even make multiple movies and really get the viewers extremely attached to the characters.

In the reviews, many viewers said they cried and others said it is “a mandatory watch”. Ultimately, it was “a brilliant depiction of adolescence” that was received very well. Pixar has made plenty of sequels in the past, and they should definitely revisit the Inside Out world with a sequel. Make it happen!

Real Steel(2011) is all about futuristic boxing. Now that is pretty cool. Throughout the movie, enormous robotic humanoids are put in the ring to see which one can last longer. I would love to see a sequel that included even more advanced technology.

Real Steel is one of the best action movies out there! It does not have a very intricate plot, but it is emotionally touching.

***********ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD***********

For those of you who are not into movies like this or are short on time, here is the recap. Charlie, the central character played by Hugh Jackman, is an ex-boxer who’s career got over taken with the invention of robot boxing. 10 foot tall robots are built for the purpose of tearing each other apart. They are controlled by the owner with a video game like interface and the goal is to either destroy the opponent or damage them enough so that they can’t function. Charlie makes a living by entering competitions with money on the line. In the beginning he is showing off with his robot against a bull and he loses. He gets put in a situation where he does not have enough money to pay his debt or even buy a new robot (hitting rock bottom). He runs away and learns he has to take care of his son that he had left as an infant. These two characters grow together through their ups and downs as the movie progresses. They had their underdog fighter they found in a junk yard and they were able to climb the ranks with him. Once at the top, they faced the ultimate opponent, Zeus. Zeus broke the control system they were using so then Charlie had to save the day. They used the unique shadow boxing feature the robot had. The robot had to watch Charlie and mimic his movements to finish the fight. Zeus was in the closest fight he was ever in, but he still won. Although, the people did not think of it that way. With the money he won, Charlie was able to pay his debts as well.

The viewers and critics were mostly happy:

The critic’s reviews:

“This one’s a classic on how to blend techno-splendour with high emotions, without going all mushy and sentimental…” –Times of India

“[T]he mix of old fashioned heart and new fanged animatronic cyber tech will make this picture a winner for fathers and sons.” –CNN

The people’s reviews:

“The robots themselves were fun and imaginative and definitely made me wish we really had this sport. I would so be there!”

“Real Steel is the Real Deal” (The best one for obvious reasons)

Now that we know the people loved the first movie, why not make a second? The plot could go in numerous directions. Charlie’s son could take over the business and the sequel could be about his journey. The sequel could be set in an even more distant future where the technology is even more advanced. It could also be all about the rematch with Zeus. It could even follow the plot of the Rocky movies where the apprentice (Charlie’s son) fights with the master (Charlie). Those are just my theories and i’m sure there are many more out there.

The profit of Real Steel may be the preventing factor. The movie’s budget was about 110 million dollars and made just under 300 million dollars worldwide. This sounds like a large profit but i’m sure the sequel would cost more money and Dream Works (the owner of Real Steel) isn’t willing to risk it. They most likely want to fund other movies like How to Train Your Dragon, which would make more money.

We still need a sequel, however! The people will go and watch a great movie. Dream Works showed us that they could make an amazing Real Steel movie and I am sure they can do it again. Let’s make it happen.

Robin! …not Robin Hood, just Robin. This is the obvious name for the sequel to the Dark Knight trilogy that the people need. The people need another Batman like movie. We need Robin.

The three stellar Dark Knight movies are Batman Begins(2005), The Dark Knight(2008), and most recently The Dark Knight Rises(2012). If you have even the smallest liking of action/superhero movies, then you will love these. I would recommend watching all three, but just watching The Dark Knight Rises is sufficient, given each of these are just as good without context. (HINT: The plot is much better than in TRON from my recent blog)

*********ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD*********

Seriously, go watch it.

Now that everyone here has watched The Dark Knight Rises (even if you haven’t), I will recall the main points (skip this part if you already know it). The first scene shows Bane intentionally getting captured so he can abduct a nuclear scientist. He travels to Gotham and takes Bruce Wayne’s (aka Batman’s) nuclear reactor. Bane then takes the entire city hostage because he has the nuclear trigger. The whole time leading up to this, characters are being developed. Selina Kyle is shown as a cat burglar (aka Catwoman, that’s a sequel for another blog) and John Blake is shown as young police officer that grew up as an orphan(just like Batman). They both deduce Batman’s secret identity and try to convince him to return so that he could save the city from bane (he took an 8 year break because he blamed himself for anthers death). He decided to try to save the city and lost his first battle with Bane. In his recovery, John Blake began to take over operations as a police officer. After Batman “rose again”, Blake continued to help and save citizens. Batman was then able to defeat Bane, and Batman “sacrificed” himself to save everyone. At the end of the movie, Bruce Wayne’s will was read and most of his stuff including his house went to charity. More importantly, the Bat Cave “keys” and location where given to Blake. When he picked up the information, he had to give his full name. John Robin Blake.

The setup was perfect. Every jaw of every audience member watching (including me) certainly crashed through the floor. The plot for the Robin movie would have to be written from scratch, unfortunately. There is no obvious direction for the robin movie to go in, but I would assume there would be some type of villain (i.e. The Riddler, The Penguin, Poison Ivy, or even Mr. Freeze). There are plenty of available villains for Warner Bros (owner of The Dark Knight trilogy) to include. The Dark Knight movies are known for their intricate hero and villain plots and Robin’s plot would follow the same trend. Furthermore, in The Dark Knight, the late Heath Ledger played what is regarded as the best joker ever played and I completely agree. I am sure that the villain role in Robin as well as the Robin role would be played excellently!

With the latest installment (The Dark Knight Rises), Warner Bros made heaps of money. The budget for the movie was about $250 million and they made 65% of that back on it’s opening weekend! In the US the movie made almost $450 million and about $600 million globally for a total of over 1 Billion dollars!! The creation of a Robin movie is evidently not a question of money, so what is it?

I believe that Warner Bros has put the plot line in the vault. The own the DC universe characters that we see in Justice League. There is more room for popular characters to make an appearance there such as another Wonder Woman movie or a Flash movie. They even created a more technological Batman played by Ben Afflek. A Robin movie from the Dark Knight trilogy may confuse the fans, and for obvious, Warner Bros doesn’t want that.

Robin, however, still needs to be made. Whether it is tomorrow or when the Justice League comes to an end, it needs to happen. The people showed overwhelming support for the Dark Knight trilogy in theaters, and I believe Warner Bros got the message. Share this blog. Tell your friends. Warner Bros will listen to the people!

For someone who has some knowledge of how computers work (even if you don’t) TRON: Legacy (2010) is an epic movie. The 2010 version is based around the fantasy of the original TRON(1982). Tron fans all over the world need another movie.

*********ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD*********

The 1982 version of tron set up a plot in which the main characters got zapped into a computer that was running a separate world inside of it, more simply put, a digital world inside of the real world. After being sucked in, they had to defeat the rogue AI that took over the digital world. The 2010 version of this was essentially a remake but with more modern movie practices and a twist in the plot that perfectly set up the franchise for a sequel.

Both versions of the movie included a female character named Quorra that was perfect. At the very end of the 2010 version Quorra made it back into the real world with Fin(another main character), thus setting up a second movie. The writers also developed the beginnings of a romantic relationship between Quorra and Fin.

What could the sequel be about though? There is a plethora of plot directions. The movie could begin in a future setting where Fin and Quorra have a child together and somehow the rogue AI find their way into the real world and they want revenge. Another plot line could include Quorra needing to “save” the world from someone/something with her perfect characteristics. There is no shortage of ideas for the plot of the second movie and they set up the first one beautifully so why not make a second one?

The movies are not exactly known for their character development and intricate plot, but they are known for their art design and their ability to  push the art and graphical limits of their respective eras.

Unfortunately, in the world we live in, most things come down to money. On the surface, the 2010 version earned 400 million dollars on a 175 million dollar budget according to Forbes. While this is true, most of those earnings were global earnings as opposed to the domestic US earnings. I believe Walt Disney Studios (owner of the Tron franchise) did not want to take the risk of funding a sequel and instead opted to fund more secure franchises under their ownership such as Pirates of the Caribbean.

The movie was not received by critiques well either. The critiques essentially said that the movie didn’t excite them and the 2010 version didn’t add enough to the fantasy world. The writers of the 2010 version made a mistake in the eyes of the critiques, but their mistake opened a door to make a stunning sequel.

However, the people’s reviews (what the casual movie viewer cares about) were overwhelmingly positive:

“Everything about this film works. The visuals, writing, acting, everything.”
“This movie has far deeper themes than people give it credit for.”
“I’ve been waiting 28 years for that…. and it was worth it!” (referring to the gap between the original and the 2010 version)
“Trontastic!” (my personal favorite)

To set in motion a sequel Disney would have to make a risk OR you (the reader of this blog) can get involved. Share this blog. Tell your friends. Tell Disney what the people want and they will listen.