I've started a bit of a hobbie of writing a journal comprised of basically reviews of my media consumption. I watched Nimona on Netflix last night and noticed I was putting a bit more effort than usual into collecting my thoughts on it and figured someone here may appreciate it. I used the movie spoiler flare, but there's only one section that has explicit spoilers and I'll put it in a reply with the reddit black bar censor thing on it.

I finally watched this last night, I had been meaning to for awhile. I'll say out the gate I can't recommend it any stronger. I'll avoid any spoilers though I will mention some themes so if my recommendation alone is enough to entice you, go watch it and come back to this.

Super duper fun, excellent animation and direction. Some genuinely stunning visuals especially toward the end. reminded me a lot of the Spiderverse movies (which i also love and adore) which makes sense since they are both a comic book/graphic novel adapted into animation I believe. There's a lot of subtle nuance to the animation that it could've gone without but greatly benefits from. I'd really like to see more of this world so much so that I'm tempted to look into the source material novel. Which would be a first for me for that medium. I even wish there was more to this, like a full on series how I understand the "How to train your Dragon" IP has been milked.

The world portrayed is very interesting, kind of like if the Shadowrun IP of fantasy cyberpunk was a pixar/dreamworks style project. Now it's relatively low fantasy, there's not orcs and elves walking around as far as I could tell. But like the knights and general law enforcement ride hover bikes shaped like horses. They have a working metro system but still used swords. Their crossbows have laser sights on them. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it is a lesser utilized mix of tech and culture at least in my media consumption and one that I enjoy. You could certainly sum up many settings as "high tech / low culture" but it's rare to see it in such an visually appealing and broadly palatable way.

Also I love Nimona's design. There's probably something beyond the surface to find meaning in about her primarily tomboy coding but I couldn't gleam any meaningful gender expectations in the world. She gets called a freak virtually unprompted early in the film but from what I can gather it's because of her disruptive outlook and punk aesthetic rather than a specific subversion of gender norms in this case.

Surprisingly mature and dark at times, I'd say the core themes are rejection and belonging. Feeling like you are forced to choose between feeling adequate or authentic. The two primary characters express opposing approaches to trying to carve out their place in a world that denies them. Fighting against state and culturally enforced dogmatic ideology. The main guy tries to capitulate to the system, first unknowingly through childish obstinance then later probably a sense of duty to pave the way for those that follow him. Miraculously finding an in, he toils harder than his peers to show he has earned his place among those who don't need to go to the lengths he does to arrive at the same status. It's a cliche. But despite his efforts, the system is rigged against him.

In his fall from grace the titular Nimona seeks him out hoping to rouse another reject, villainized as she was into a kindred spirit who will join her long since kindled desire to challenge the ideas and actions of those who shunned her too long ago. She bounces back and forth between that and simply wanting to be the monster they accuse her of being, seeing that as the path of least resistance. She feels genuine discomfort in conforming and yet at times still wishes she had the luxury of reflexively falling into a role neatly pre-designed for her in the world. And being tempted to do so even if that role is a death sentence. Furthermore she's so wanting of a place in this world she even defaults to being the subordinate in this new relationship she forges. Despite being ostensibly the more powerful and hardened half of the team.

The dynamic between the two main characters is nice, even through voice acting alone they have great chemistry and watching them originally clash only to evolve to be more like eachother in meaningful ways is great. It's not purely the timeless "straight man/funny man" pairing but the silly guy reminding the straight guy that he too, under his costume and training, is a funny man. It's probably not something you haven't heard before. But it is done with such competent direction and expert craftsmanship it is an incredibly memorable example of these themes and connotations. Big fan.

Again if you've read this far and haven't watched it, I would put this on a high priority for a good time. It's metal. 🤟

In the scene showing her following the other animals rejecting her for being different is symbolizing how all sentient things in nature fear what is different even animals. I also notice She doesn’t get to upset at this though because she knows their just going on instinct. But she knows humans should know better and that why it’s so traumatizing because of all the animals in the animal kingdom humans should be the most tolerant of what’s different but in reality their the most terrified and the cruelest out of all others in the animal kingdom

I know Nimona can't die in general, but this is just a question I thought up:
If Nimona was in MK1 (Mortal Kombat, of course), just like Ghostface, Omni-Man, and Homelander, what would her character interactions be like, and of course, what would her fatalities be (not her deaths, of course, but the deaths she causes to the other characters)?

The animality is pretty obvious, because she's a shapeshifter, so a few animals would be useful, like a wolf and rhino, but what do you guys think?

I mean, she got sharp teeth, red hair, (orange hair for you slow people) like, anyone see the resemblance?

So in the move it says the knights are straight descents of only the nobles, and it got me thinking. How inbred are the knights? If there was only a certain amount of nobles they were allowed to populate with.

https://preview.redd.it/qzl80f00jk2e1.jpg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8abb01bd6ca5c547ad30d578155cec76ef9cc43d

This movie hit home so hard and it makes me cry every time. When I showed off the art to my friends, the response I got was-
"You got a tattoo of suicidal, rage beast that was created in response to the bigotry of the ruling class"
And the only response I could give back was "self portrait"
From messed up kid, to full grown NB adult, the rage of being misunderstood will never truly go away. I'm so happy to get a kids movie showing that hate is taught, not born, and that being yourself is okay.

Sorry to be super sappy. Love yourself and know you're worthy of love no matter what others might say. I'm glad you're here.

Edit to add the artist- https://www.instagram.com/knifedreams

So I’m writing a fanfic where Nimona is shipped with my original character. Well I want to say that my original character is close with her family and I want to include a family name. I was going for the Boldheart-Goldenloin family. However, part of me got to thinking if Ambrosius would go for the name combination considering Nimona’s past with Gloreth. Would he go for the name combination or would he just take Ballister’s last name for Nimona’s sake?

I was so happy to hear there was a movie. Then I saw that they snatched his hair right off his scalp I'm crying

Can we talk about how that one knight with the cast was thuggin it out the ENTIRE MOVIE?? like he was attacked and still brought his ass to work?? shi... i mean like it that one fight where like shit got real and depressed he was the only knight that didnt get knocked out at all, sure there was a lot to come back towards the end of the fight but homie didnt go down once, not even when his cast got eaten. give my boy a break 🙏🏿

https://preview.redd.it/q15ppvwf1b0e1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2236c0d322ea5f9388cbafd44d8ccaa42e6b1846

Thinking about the Nimona movie adaptation again. Spoilers for the book and the comic.

The first time I watched it, I think I had a very knee-jerk reaction to all the changes that was less about "this is worse" and more about "I don't like that things are different".

Now that I've put it out of my mind for over a year, I think I can be a lot more objective in my review, lol.

I think most of my issues come down to the fact that the comic Nimona was a pretty niche piece of media with an audience of older queer people in mind, while the movie Nimona was a kid-friendly introduction to various issues. There is absolutely a place and a need for movies like Nimona, and in a vacuum it's great, I just think that the comic was overall more nuanced, had better-developed themes and was more compelling to me personally, even though the movie felt a bit more streamlined and coherent overall.

I think the biggest reason that the Nimona comic feels so much more emotionally compelling to me compared to the movie is that the movie seems to take a very "all your problems are just misunderstandings" stance on its themes of homophobia and transphobia, among others. The people hate Ballister because they don't know he's innocent, they hate Nimona because they don't know she's not dangerous, etc.

It's a fine theme, especially for a kids' movie, but I think that the comic just speaks to me a lot more. Its themes seem to be much more about "maybe the world hates you, and maybe you aren't innocent either, but you deserve to change and be happy". Ballister isn't innocent (at least not fully), Ambrosius did do bad things on purpose, and Nimona is dangerous. But in the end, Ballister and Ambrosius can choose to be better in an attempt to be happy together, and while Nimona's future is unclear, she deserves happiness as well.

Idk, I get why they changed all that to make it a kids' movie, but it still is disappointing that all the original themes that really spoke to me have been flattened down. I don't think that the culprit is the people who worked on the movie so much as the fact that western animation studios believe that you can't make an animated film rated higher than PG unless it's R rated dirty humor adult animation.

Anyways tl;dr I think what the Nimona movie needed more than anything was a PG-13 rating which is super unrealistic to expect from a mainstream western animation studio, so what we got was probably the best case scenario for a Nimona movie even if it didn't hit as hard as the comic imo.

I have very few issues with the movie, it is great on it's own but compaired to the book... I hate it.
I loved the book way before the movie came out so part of that was I was expecting it to be pretty similar
but the one thing I will never forgive them for: they got rid of the best character from the books
Meredith Blitzmeyer.... thats like the only reason im Salty lol

Something that completely flew over my mind is that the Director (who had been in charge of the kingdom temporarily) might have killed the only ruler their kingdom has (the Queen might not even have an heir). So who do you think would be or is already in charge now?

Do you think Nimona and Gloreth were closer to 5 or 10 when they met? Or I guess just Gloreth technically? It’s such a small thing but it really bothers me that I can’t figure it out. I’m trying to eyeball their age based on how they look but I can’t figure it out.

B

There's a montage scene where Nimona is remembering playing with Gloreth when the latter was still a child. What is the song played during this montage? There's a lovely guitar element, but I combed through the songs on the soundtrack, and it doesn't seem to be there. Anyone know what it is and where I can find it? Thanks!