I was hopeful for this movie. The cover looked nice and the concept sounded relatable. As someone who enjoys Dream works and Pixar even in my 20s, this seemed like it would be a good pick to entertain my hour and a half.
I was, however, disappointed.
The character design of each of the "Night entities" was incoherent, without much sense for the grand picture, only for the individual characters. The story line jumps around, with a random fast-forward to the present, overarching story of Orion as a dad recounting his childhood, which not only does not have a transition, but also has no prelude in the beginning of the movie or anything like that. It just jumps to the future about 20 minutes in and at random intervals. Having that extra story line wouldn't be a problem if there were actual transitions, but there aren't.
Additionally, the storyline was not very cohesive and I found it difficult to follow exactly what the goal or character development was for everyone except the main character, Orion. There seemed to be multiple storylines over the course of the movie, never really coming to any climaxes that mattered for anything bigger. I can see how maybe it was made as a comfort movie for young adults or older teens, or for very young audiences who don't have a grasp on these concepts anyways, but even then, as I will explain in the next paragraph, does not seem to be the case.
I understand the storyline may be geared toward children with either GAD (General Anxiety Disorder), ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), or just a kid who struggles with anxiety, but i felt that the themes or concepts of fear involved would actually create more anxieties for a child who struggles , rather than validate or relate to them, since not all of these things (such as the fear of death) are always relevant to struggling children. This would be a serious step back for children of this category psychologically.
Beside these design, message, and plotline issues, the animation is really just not that good. I hate to have a standard for anything animated now a days, but I could tell that not much effort was put into the animation elements of the film. I feel that a majority of the effort was put into the script, which I will compliment was clever for the most part.
Overall, the movie had a lot of punch in the first ten minutes, but kind of turned into just a space filler after that point.
I was, however, disappointed.
The character design of each of the "Night entities" was incoherent, without much sense for the grand picture, only for the individual characters. The story line jumps around, with a random fast-forward to the present, overarching story of Orion as a dad recounting his childhood, which not only does not have a transition, but also has no prelude in the beginning of the movie or anything like that. It just jumps to the future about 20 minutes in and at random intervals. Having that extra story line wouldn't be a problem if there were actual transitions, but there aren't.
Additionally, the storyline was not very cohesive and I found it difficult to follow exactly what the goal or character development was for everyone except the main character, Orion. There seemed to be multiple storylines over the course of the movie, never really coming to any climaxes that mattered for anything bigger. I can see how maybe it was made as a comfort movie for young adults or older teens, or for very young audiences who don't have a grasp on these concepts anyways, but even then, as I will explain in the next paragraph, does not seem to be the case.
I understand the storyline may be geared toward children with either GAD (General Anxiety Disorder), ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), or just a kid who struggles with anxiety, but i felt that the themes or concepts of fear involved would actually create more anxieties for a child who struggles , rather than validate or relate to them, since not all of these things (such as the fear of death) are always relevant to struggling children. This would be a serious step back for children of this category psychologically.
Beside these design, message, and plotline issues, the animation is really just not that good. I hate to have a standard for anything animated now a days, but I could tell that not much effort was put into the animation elements of the film. I feel that a majority of the effort was put into the script, which I will compliment was clever for the most part.
Overall, the movie had a lot of punch in the first ten minutes, but kind of turned into just a space filler after that point.