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by Blender Dumbass

Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".

Between Transformers 5 and Alien Romulus Isabela Merced played Dora the Explorer in a 2019 James Bobin film Dora and the Lost City of Gold. And just because I'm starting to become a fan of Isabela Merced ( or maybe a simp, IDK ), I decided to finally take a look at this movie. And I gonna tell you that, that reboot they did in 2025 with a different actress playing Dora, is not interesting me at all, because you can't replace Merced. She is just too perfect.

I remember seeing posters of this movie in 2019 and thinking to myself what a stupid idea that is. Like we already have an epidemic of live-action remakes, but Dora the Explorer? How the hell you translate that to live-action?

Also at one point Michael Bay was actually attached to the project. Maybe that's how Merced got involved. Transformers 5 was a bit earlier. And to be honest I would love to see what Bay would do with this material. I mean, with the limited screen-time Merced has in Transformers 5, his way of shooting her, made her look like a proper movie-star. While James Bobin is a bit too safe, in my opinion when it comes to setting up his shots.

Don't get me wrong, the picture we got in the end is perfectly perverted. It's not like Bobin doesn't have any balls. For a movie for babies, it has a descent amount of sex jokes. And some of the shots he does of Dora, are suggesting he forgot to masturbate that day before going to set. And to be quite frank, Dora looks very good ( to put it mildly ) in this movie. Some critics of the film ( when it came out ) suggest that she looks a bit too good, for a kids film.

Still the way Bobin shoots this movie is rather uninteresting. Yes you have pretty images. Good compositions that work on paper and are pleasant to look at. But something is missing. Like a lot of the film I was looking at the picture and thinking to myself: With a lens flare, a bit of a dutch angle and push in with the camera, it would be so much cooler. Yet they don't do that. Simply compare the way Michael Bay worked with Merced and Bobin shooting her here.




Do you see what I mean? Do you see why I would want Michael Bay to actually be involved? He doesn't even need to make her that cool. He can keep the stupid Dora the Explorer haircut and outfit. Just have the framing and lighting be Bayhem!ed and this would be a much more bad-ass of a movie to watch.

In any case, I suppose I'm expecting from Hollywood way too much. And they just wanted to do a cartoon with a camera. I mean based on the source material this is already one hundred million times more bad-ass looking.

So hows the writing? I think the writing is bad. As in it is way too by the book and then by the same book it fails to deliver something compelling. We know the bad guy plot-twist ahead of the time. There is even a wannabe comedic scene in the film where he basically says it out loud in a pseudo foreshadowing kind of way. James Bobin actually to some extent saves the picture with his direction. As in he is at least trying to make something good out of the material.

The acting is mostly awful, apart from Isabela Merced. Everybody is trying to do this fake cartoony version of the real thing and in a lot of the places it looks rather forced and cringe-worthy. The only one who actually succeeds in this at all is Merced. She is not realistic like the rest of them, but she is good at it. You can watch her do that stupid thing and enjoy it. While when everybody else does it you just want to stop watching.

There was an interesting premise somewhere in the ether in the beginning of the film. Dora looks at the camera as if she is talking to the kids ( the way she does in the cartoons ) and the people react to it as if she is crazy. Then later she goes into a version of a real-life high-school. Where her being Dora is kind of stupid and strange. I think they missed an opportunity here.

With somebody like Michael Bay, shooting the high-school stuff more realistically and with more cool-factor, that Dora character, with all of her quirky cartooniness ( which Merced pulls off ) could be an interesting contrast. And then if the rest of the movie went basically like a proper adventure story ( more Indiana Jones like ) that could have actually made for something rather fucking exciting to watch. Imagine only Dora is acting like Dora, and the explanation is, she is just weird because she grew up in a jungle. Which the movie is already trying to make, by the way.

And you don't need to sacrifice the rating for it. You don't need to change the plot, or add more sex jokes. You just need to shoot it with cooler shots, moodier light, and more serious faces.

Yet with all it's flaws I don't understand how the executives at Paramount thought it was a good idea to replace the only working piece of the movie Isabela Merced ( and with her, everybody else ) for the 2025 sequel. I don't care who this Samantha Lorraine is. She is not Isabela Merced. I mean, I do somewhat get it. Merced committed a crime of becoming an adult. She is what?... 24 now? While this Samantha is younger and therefor more appropriate to play a toddler character.

I'm just pissed I suppose. If you think about it, instead of stupid Dora Merced got to be in the new Superman. And also, before that, got to scare the shit out of me in Alien Romulus. So I guess there is nothing really to be pissed about.

Happy Hacking!!!

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  Madiator2011 c:0

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  Blender Dumbass c:1



@Madiator2011 lol

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@Madiator2011 lol

  Troler c:2



And a year after we had an actual epidemic turned pandemic.

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