Now, I know a certain Doug Walker (The Nostalgia Critic) reviewed this last Christmas & that I know people are going to say I'm only doing it because he did. Yeah, that's true I'll admit & & I needed 25 movies/specials to do the Animation Advent Calendar again. But I was genuinely interested in watching it after seeing his review & I wanted to share my personal thoughts on it & don't worry, I'm gonna copy exactly what Doug said since I don't like to copy other people & be seen as pretentious as a result & the sole reason for this blog is for me to express MY thoughts & nobody else's. Anyway, released in 1991, it has been regarded as possibly THE worst Christmas movie/special of all time mostly thanks to the, let's say, 'subpar' production values & very nonsensical & convuluted story. So were all of Doug's criticisms right now that I've finally seen it one year later, or is it just a misunderstood gem that's so bad it's good...? Let's find out!
Story: Going into this, I thought it was just going to be a generic Christmas story. Oh boy, was I wrong! It's literally insane! There are scenes/plots which go nowhere, it surprisingly gets dark thanks to the third act when the kids try to get to the North Pole & the fact they're abused in the orphanage the first place just leaves this horrible taste in my mouth given it's meant to be a Christmas special of all things! The biggest issue I have with this along with the nonsensicality of it, is the fact that there's absolutely no heart put into it with viewers getting nothing in return other than their time being wasted. The message 'You always win when you are good' just comes right the hell out of nowhere since there was never any indication of that being the so called 'moral' in the special because of how little effort was put into it! However, I oddly found it so bad it was hilarious. There were several moments which were so so awful or poorly executed that I couldn't stop laughing.But besides that, the fact that it puts absolutely no heart put in just makes this really unpleasant to watch (besides the horrid animation & voice acting)
Animation: Yes, as everyone will know, the animation is absolutely atrocious! It all looks amateur (not even direct to video quality) with no lighting, a very rough quality & very VERY stiff character animation. The character designs are very creepy & it doesn't really help they use the exact same character models on the children but with different hairstyles/colours & clothes. Another huge problem I have is that they tend to loop or reverse bits of animation when the characters are talking in the exact same scenes or later on or sometimes they freeze bits of animation whether it's at the start of a scene or at the end of one for awkward timing purposes. And this doesn't happen from time to time, this happens quite frequently in the movie. But wait! There's more! There's also a huge problem with the editing with very awkward transitions from scene to scene or sometimes they'd play 2 separate scenes at the same time which end very abruptly & end up going nowhere. I don't think there's anything else to say, but looking at these screencaps, you know you're in trouble when. And it's not even that charming rough animation quality like in other Christmas specials, this is the lazy kind with no effort put in!
Characters: I don't even think I can describe the people in this as characters because every single one is as, if not more, wooden as Mrs Hopewell! Judy is the 'kind hearted' assistant/mother to the children in the orphanage & is bland, Mrs Mavilda is the generic evil & strict governess, but is downright abusive to the children, the Mayor is a huge idiot, Judy's husband has no personality (I'm convinced he's a robot, that's how monotone he sounds) & Mrs Hopewell, the titular Christmas Tree is just a tree animated by a load of trees pointlessly cut down to make this crap. As for the kids, none of them have personalities at all, with Pappy & Lily being Judy's kids who live with the other children while the other orphans had never even heard of Christmas. In fact, the only 'character' worth liking in this is Licquorice, the neigbourhood dog, & even then he can't really count cos, well, he's a dog who does nothing to contribute to the plot. But the biggest problem I have is the horrid voice acting! It's all so monotone & deadpan that it felt like it was all done in one take & that they were just reading the script for the first rather than actually acting! The child actors are especially the worst since half the time, you can't make out what they're saying, there's awful autotune put on one kid that makes him sound like an alien & another that sounds more like a teenager than a kid & none of them put any effort in whatsoever! This could be the worst thing about the film! It's not that they're just a group of undeveloped generics, but that they're a group of MONOTONE, NOT CARING generic characters!
The best way to describe The Christmas Tree is that it's messed up in the worst way possible! There is absolutely nothing redeemable in this. Honestly, I'm insulted by this movie cos of the poor production values & the time I wasted watching this crap when I could've spent it on something actually worth watching! I definitely can understand why Doug Walker considers it the worst Christmas special because of the lack of effort put in, but I have seen much worse animated films in my time, but this stands as the worst animated Christmas special I've seen so far next to A Swan Princess Christmas!
Story: 1/10
Animation: 1/10
Characters: 1/10
Overall: 1/10
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