The Sea Beast (2022)
July 26, 2022 3:26 AM - Subscribe
When a young girl stows away on the ship of a legendary sea monster hunter, they launch an epic journey into uncharted waters - and make history to boot.
Nice review! now I want to see this.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:13 AM on July 26, 2022
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:13 AM on July 26, 2022
Yeah, i was pleasantly surprised by this. Watched the whole thing through with my daughters and all of us really liked it. I'm struggling to think of another children's animated film with as complex a moral universe as this one (e.g. "You can be a hero and still be wrong").
posted by nangua at 2:35 PM on July 26, 2022
posted by nangua at 2:35 PM on July 26, 2022
This was great! If you're British though it does have some light swearing (which I guess isn't so bad in US English?) - a couple of "bloody"s and a "bollocks".
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:24 PM on July 26, 2022
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:24 PM on July 26, 2022
I had fun with this, but then I like many things here -- monsters (especially sea monsters!), adult men being mentors to young girls, themes about propaganda, conflict resolution, and that the elite are terrible, and Karl Urban.
The animation is gorgeous. I bought into all of it and I'm disappointed there are no Blue bath toys (or really, any official Blue toys).
It's a pretty hard PG -- it's pretty violent toward the sea monsters and I could see this would be a lot for some small children. It was fairly intense for me, even!
It was better than I expected (and I had read it was good). I really hope this continues to be discovered because it's a delight.
posted by edencosmic at 6:26 PM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
The animation is gorgeous. I bought into all of it and I'm disappointed there are no Blue bath toys (or really, any official Blue toys).
It's a pretty hard PG -- it's pretty violent toward the sea monsters and I could see this would be a lot for some small children. It was fairly intense for me, even!
It was better than I expected (and I had read it was good). I really hope this continues to be discovered because it's a delight.
posted by edencosmic at 6:26 PM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
themes about propaganda, conflict resolution, and that the elite are terrible, and Karl Urban
Coming soon: Sea Beast 2: The Buoys.
posted by SPrintF at 8:32 AM on July 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
Coming soon: Sea Beast 2: The Buoys.
posted by SPrintF at 8:32 AM on July 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
Incredibly well-written, animated, and acted tale about who writes the history books, if a little optimistic about how much people are willing to reconsider what they've learned in the face of new information, but hey it's a family film. Definitely the best family movie I've watched in a while and I hope it finds a wider audience as well.
posted by subocoyne at 12:56 PM on July 27, 2022
posted by subocoyne at 12:56 PM on July 27, 2022
I LOVED THIS!
And so many Moby Dick references. So Many.
posted by Faintdreams at 2:07 AM on July 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
And so many Moby Dick references. So Many.
posted by Faintdreams at 2:07 AM on July 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
I quite liked it, but I'm not exactly sure how 'paying mercenaries to kill sea monsters' leads to "huge profits for local government". Which is a shame, because I was really hoping there was some cool bit like "the sea monster horns are sold to the wealthy in other countries as male enhancement drugs" or something
posted by The otter lady at 9:19 AM on July 30, 2022
posted by The otter lady at 9:19 AM on July 30, 2022
I quite liked it, but I'm not exactly sure how 'paying mercenaries to kill sea monsters' leads to "huge profits for local government".
The sea monsters were destroying trade ships, so I presume killing monsters enable huge profits from trade, rather than the killing making the money itself.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:03 PM on July 30, 2022
The sea monsters were destroying trade ships, so I presume killing monsters enable huge profits from trade, rather than the killing making the money itself.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:03 PM on July 30, 2022
Nice. I liked all the ship stuff.
The story felt non-functional. I mean I thought it was funny and surprising that the evil ship, the Imperator, was just chopped in half just as soon as it shows up out in the main plot, because I thought for sure (or maybe I wanted) our heroes to turn around the crew of the Inevitable and help the monsters fight it. Blue's relative non-part in affairs was strange as well. Very adorable though, I giggled several times.
I just didn't feel like the ol' buildups and payoffs were working well at all.
posted by fleacircus at 11:01 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
The story felt non-functional. I mean I thought it was funny and surprising that the evil ship, the Imperator, was just chopped in half just as soon as it shows up out in the main plot, because I thought for sure (or maybe I wanted) our heroes to turn around the crew of the Inevitable and help the monsters fight it. Blue's relative non-part in affairs was strange as well. Very adorable though, I giggled several times.
I just didn't feel like the ol' buildups and payoffs were working well at all.
posted by fleacircus at 11:01 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
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It has heart, a brilliant voice cast (has Jared Harris been bad in anything?), stunning animation (there's a scene at 41:00 that gave me shivers), and an Alien reference that made me laugh cry so much I had to pause while I recovered.
Come for the creatures, stay for the coda on class warfare and revolution.
posted by garrett at 3:39 AM on July 26, 2022 [3 favorites]