Kudos to the Spanish subsidiary of Skydance (formerly known as Ilion Animation Studios) for the very imaginative and satisfying animation but the moral of the story was very problematic, reeking of fatalism and mysticism to the point of being borderline religious, instead of cultivating rational thinking and healthy coping skills in children.
I was hoping that at some point the movie would reveal that the Good Luck Land was running a scam, that the magic was a hoax [since they already revealed that (un)lucky moments were being randomly distributed in the human world], and explain to Sam that good/bad luck is only a matter of perception. People who view themselves as chronically unlucky do so because of cognitive biases/distortions that become internalized as part of their self-schema and is usually a symptom of mental illness (depression, anxiety disorders etc.).
Also, when the luck lines got severed and the dragon said that now the world will know only bad luck, that made no sense. If anything, the only things that the world would've been deprived of would be (what we perceive as) extremely good or extremely bad luck, so just average luck which would be a very good outcome for the world. That would mean less socioeconomic inequalities, less poverty, less suffering etc. Instead, the movie went with the belief that we need bad luck to appreciate the good (which is a very privileged and characteristically Christian thing to say). It's like telling people who were born in extreme poverty or with disabilities or genetic illnesses to be thankful for their bad luck.
Also also, the film's insistence on a "forever family" being the sole goal and source of happiness for a foster kid was... weird, and didn't seem very healthy. I mean, it's okay for a kid to wish they will be adopted but for Sam to be so single-minded and risk literally everything, felt like another missed teaching opportunity. I wonder if this pattern of conservative beliefs was intentional. [Skydance founder and CEO is David Ellison, son of billionaire co-founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, who is one of the largest supporters and donors of Trump and the GOP]
Review by ErebosBlockedParent2022-08-10T20:52:06Z
Kudos to the Spanish subsidiary of Skydance (formerly known as Ilion Animation Studios) for the very imaginative and satisfying animation but the moral of the story was very problematic, reeking of fatalism and mysticism to the point of being borderline religious, instead of cultivating rational thinking and healthy coping skills in children.
I was hoping that at some point the movie would reveal that the Good Luck Land was running a scam, that the magic was a hoax [since they already revealed that (un)lucky moments were being randomly distributed in the human world], and explain to Sam that good/bad luck is only a matter of perception. People who view themselves as chronically unlucky do so because of cognitive biases/distortions that become internalized as part of their self-schema and is usually a symptom of mental illness (depression, anxiety disorders etc.).
Also, when the luck lines got severed and the dragon said that now the world will know only bad luck, that made no sense. If anything, the only things that the world would've been deprived of would be (what we perceive as) extremely good or extremely bad luck, so just average luck which would be a very good outcome for the world. That would mean less socioeconomic inequalities, less poverty, less suffering etc.
Instead, the movie went with the belief that we need bad luck to appreciate the good (which is a very privileged and characteristically Christian thing to say). It's like telling people who were born in extreme poverty or with disabilities or genetic illnesses to be thankful for their bad luck.
Also also, the film's insistence on a "forever family" being the sole goal and source of happiness for a foster kid was... weird, and didn't seem very healthy. I mean, it's okay for a kid to wish they will be adopted but for Sam to be so single-minded and risk literally everything, felt like another missed teaching opportunity. I wonder if this pattern of conservative beliefs was intentional. [Skydance founder and CEO is David Ellison, son of billionaire co-founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, who is one of the largest supporters and donors of Trump and the GOP]