The Magical Gift of the Snowman
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| The Magical Gift of the Snowman | ||||||||||||||||||
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 "Is that all he's wearing? It sounds like he should be running from the police."
- Darwin Watterson, The Amazing World of Gumball | ||||||||||||||||||
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The Magical Gift of the Snowman is a Christmas film created by Goodtimes Entertainment and Jet lag Studios. It is heavily criticized by many YouTube critics, most notably, Bobsheux and Phelous.
Synopsis
A Magical Snowman Takes Two Children on the Adventure of a Lifetime in This All-New Animated Feature! Everybody knows that Christmas is the time when miracles happen. And this exciting new tale is about a cool snowman who brings a very special gift to a little girl and her family. Emery Elizabeth is a little girl whose illness seems to make her weaker every day. But Emery’s brother Landon has his own ideas about how to help his sister find the will to get better. Every day, Landon tells his sister a story about the coolest guy on the planet—Snowden the Snowman—who lives in an enchanted kingdom where there are no grownups...where beds are made from marshmallows and lullaby birds sing kids to sleep...where there’s always fresh, white snow on the ground...and most importantly, where the good Princess Electra and her magical smile keep people happy all year ’round. But when Princess Electra’s smile is stolen by the evil Charlatan, Lord of Yuck, Snowden comes alive and pulls Landon and Emery Elizabeth into his magical world for the adventure of a lifetime. And Emery must search deep within herself to find the strength she needs to save the day—and save herself. This heartwarming original feature is a beautiful reminder that a positive attitude can help us soar on wings of imagination and keep us hopeful and happy—no matter how old we are!
Why It’s Not Magical
- Blatant Plagiarism: Goodtimes Entertainment claims that this is their only original film, however, the film clearly borrows elements from children’s book and animated film, The Snowman from a snowman coming to life and bringing children to magical realm to an unexpectedly dark ending. It makes it worse that Goodtimes claimed that this was their original idea when they clearly stole elements from another story.
- Some YouTube reviewers pointed out that the deuteragonist, Emery Elizabeth sounds eerily similar to the deuteragonist’s name, Emily Elizabeth from Clifford the Big Red Dog. There’s also a rumor that Goodtimes Entertainment got sued by PBS after the film’s release. However, it’s unknown if the lawsuit actually took place.
- Obvious Plot Device: Much like Wonder Park 28 years later, the main conflict of the plot is that Emery Elizabeth has an illness that impairs her ability to walk. However, the illness is not treated seriously as the beginning of the movie shows Landen’s parents talking to a “doctor” who just says if she recovers by Christmas Day, she’ll be better. He also states that Emery has to “have the will” to get better, which will be talked about later. The way Emery’s illness is treated is incredibly insulting and to make matters, they don’t state her diagnosis at all. If they did that, it would strengthen the story better.
- There’s also obvious animation errors, such as Landen and Emery’s hair constantly changing from honey blonde to light blonde.
- After talking to his parents, Landen gets the brilliant idea to build a snowman outside his sister’s window, which he names Snowden and make up story about him to cheer her up. However, how the snowman is portrayed is questionable.
- The snowman unintentionally looks like a criminal and a sexual predator.
- What doesn’t help is that in Landen’s story, the snowman unintentionally gives us pedophilic undertones and has a smooth voice, he sounds like a jazz man. He comes off as more unlikable than endearing.
- Although these implications are likely unintentional, it comes off as rather inappropriate for the target audience.
- Like Bobsheux and Phelous pointed out, Snowden is a terrible name for a snowman. Granted he was created by a child so there’s some forgiveness, but it’s still a bad name nonetheless.
- Then, the actual plot starts Landen tells a story to his sister, Emery and treats it like a miniseries where he tells pieces of the story every night until Christmas morning. The story already has lots of problems, details will be explained below. Granted, it was told by a child but it’s even insulting because a child in real life can tell a better story than Landen did.
- In Landen’s story, Snowden lives in a magical a dimension where all the inhabitants are children and the magic ran by happiness and mind power. It is always snowing there. Snowden is the only adult in the dimension, while it seems innocent at first, it becomes terrifying because it makes you wonder how they got there in the first place and how they survive on their own. Granted, it could be due to being told by a child but it’s still terrifying nonetheless.
- The dimension is ruled by a princess named Elektra who is always smiling but her smile looks more like a slasher smile than a genuine one. This caused YouTube critics to joke that she looks like she could commit a murder any minute.
- The reference to the song, “That’s the Way (I Like It)” by KC and the Sunshine Band just feels out of place and an pathetic attempt to be hip for the children.
- The scene where Landen and Emery go to bed, there’s lots of nonsensical elements:
- The bed made out of waffles and marshmallows is out of place because nothing else in the castle is made out of candy. Not to mention, Landen calls it “marshmallows” when he was really pointing at the waffle blanket on the bed.
- Snowden states that the children enjoyed the act where the dancing elephant dances to the Nutcracker Suite, a kid will not be wowed by classical music, even if it had a dancing elephant. (Granted, many children fell asleep during the mushrooms dancing scene in Disney’s Fantasia. It just shows what children find entertaining)
- When Snowden talked about the lullaby birds, you’d think they’re a species of bird but it’s really different birds such as owls, sparrows, and ravens singing a lullaby. That is very uncreative.
- Also, the lullaby is poorly written.
- It is also clearly day time when the siblings go to bed, it should be night.
- Landen’s “lullaby” to his sister in the real world is really just him reciting a poem in a monotone voice. It is very stupid.
- Snowden wakes Emery and Landen early in the morning because Princess Elektra’s smile was stolen by the Lord of Yuck, but the way he words it sounds like he raped her in her sleep, which is inappropriate for the target audience.
- However, he literally stole the smile off her face. But it makes no sense because she still has her mouth.
- Not to mention, Lord of Yuck is a terrible name.
- Plot Hole: While saving the dimension, Snowden says he can’t swim but when Landen pushes him in the water, he floats and swims him and Emery across the lake.
- Not to mention, Snowden and Landen act like jerks to Emery when she comes up with an idea.
- The whole Lord of Yuck scene just looks like a generic Captain Planet episode. As his whole goal is to get rich on oil and buying the entire dimension.
- Landen ends the story on a very dark note as he ends it with Snowden straight up dying and causing his sister to cry herself to sleep.
- Weird Ending: Snowden disappears out of nowhere, it’s Christmas morning and Emery is miraculously well again and she got a snow globe with Snowden inside it.
- Bad Moral: If you’re very ill, you have to want to get better to actually recover. That’s not how illnesses work in real life.
- Granted, it has some truth, depression is a condition where someone gets so sad, they have no motivation in life and they can have illness-like symptoms so being motivated can cure depression.
- But Emery’s symptoms don’t match depression at all. So, it makes the lesson incredibly insulting to the critically ill and people who know someone who is critically ill.
- Not to mention, Emery and Landen’s parents are painted as very neglectful as Landen has been shown to have to feed Emery and they never bothered to check on her.
Redeeming Qualities
- This story could’ve been better if the whole illness thing was cut out entirely.
- The story being terrible could be excused as it is a story that was told by child. But as stated above, it’s still insulting because a child in real life could tell a better story than the one the child told in this movie.
Reception
The film much like all the films by Goodtimes Entertainment was heavily panned by critics.
Trivia
- This movie is so obscure, the full release date is unknown, all that exists is a timestamp of 1995.
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