Dear Reader,
I have been unfathomably addicted to the videogame Disney Dreamlight Valley. Please let me explain.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is a sim-like video game that incorporates characters from Disney and Pixar films with a Sims-like aesthetic and an Animal Crossing-like gameplay. There are quests that mainly involve fetching resources through mining, crop harvesting, fishing and picking flowers. It gets repetitive at times, I won’t lie. The allure of this game is largely due to memory – the nostalgic music, the presence of Disney characters in your own customizable valley and the recollection of how we played Animal Crossing: New Horizons to survive those early pandemic days (or, if you’re like me, any major life event since then).
The characters say things and call you names that they’ve said in the films they’re in. They make weird and cute noises, too. The game itself is still quite new and technically in advance release, so fair warning that it is buggy as all heck.
If you’ve ever come across my blog before, you’ll notice that I recently re-watched Wall-E. It was my surprise then that one of the first characters I had the option of unlocking in DDV was in fact Wall-E himself. He is adorable and reminds me of ET (because I am an 80s kid and can say that with confidence).
Thanks to this game though I realized there were a couple Disney films I had put off seeing: in particular Tangled and Ratatouille.
Tangled
Tangled came out in 2010. At the time I was mainly watching experimental and psychedelic sci-fi, so this film was way off my radar even if I knew it had been released. Tangled is basically a Rapunzel retelling, with a lot of new additions.
Mother Gothel is the main villain in Tangled and the only Rapunzel character included in Disney Dreamlight Valley. Gothel is a much more enticing and horrifying character in the film, naturally. She reminds me of the witch in Snow White, obsessed with beauty and cunning, but she lacks the directness of Ursula (another villain included in DDV).
I was pleasantly surprised by how good Tangled was. The love stories in Disney films have traditionally been quite problematic when you watch them with modern eyes. There’s a lot of non-consent and coercion depicted in them. That’s not so much the case with Rapunzel and Flynn/Eugene. They slowly get to know one another and find mutual affection and respect.
But it is the way the relationship between Gothel and Rapunzel so realistically portray the way a parent (birth parent or adopted/step parent) can manipulate, emotionally abuse and neglect someone that is astounding. Gothel has the evil stepmother stereotype, where she enshrouds her love with underhanded comments and punishment. Rapunzel comes out of a lot of that unscathed, which is unrealistic, but she does develop certain traits that helped me to see her as believable. Namely these are her gravitating between extreme shame and guilt for going against her mother’s wishes and her jubilance at being free. As well, it was the way her trust could shatter. Rapunzel herself is a likeable character, but nothing stands out about her as much as her desire for a life after so much neglect.
Since I’m late to every party I figured you all have seen it already, but I’ll throw in a rating as I tend to.
Rating: 4/5
Ratatouille
Sometime in my 30s I grew to be a bit of a foodie. I come from a family that relishes in foods of different cultures, while still cooking a lot of our own cultures cuisines. When Ratatouille came out in 2007, I was far from being someone who cared about culinary pleasures.
I think you enjoy food more when someone not only teaches you to love it, but loves it as they cook too. This was my ex. He poured so much heart and pleasure into his meals I couldn’t help but fall in love with food. I got to try things I had never eaten before as well as experience the vast cultural landscape of the city of Montreal.
Cut to 2022 and I finally decide to watch Ratatouille. Okay, so a love of food and Dreamlight Valley are not the only reasons I took this leap. It’s also because it’s such a huge joke in Everything Everywhere at the Same Time (which I adore). I found it hilarious as an oddly vital inclusion to that movie, but I didn’t get the joke until the other night! Six months later, basically.
A home cooked meal or an evening in Paris
Ratatouille is a beautiful film, not just because it celebrates diversity in the kitchen, but because it’s about taking impossible, out of whack choices to make something you love come to light. It’s the perfect Disney romance, but about food.
Remy’s sense of smell is a gift in this film. He can sniff out a single stem of rosemary. And he can smell poison to keep his family safe. But most of all, he understands flavour. All he needed was a chance in the kitchen.
Other than Remy, most of the character work in Ratatouille is bare. Like, there is growth more than there is substance. I think I enjoyed the critic most of all (ha ha, gee, I wonder why). Additionally, Remy is the only character included in Disney Dreamlight Valley. However, in the game you get to participate in his kitchen. There’s such a vast selection of menu options to uncover and cook in this game that it’s almost a game in itself!
Ratatouille is worth revisiting for these enchanting fantasies of dining in Paris that keep a spark alive in you. It was a considerably enjoyable evening for me. I hope to repeat it with something equally dazzling in the near future as I snuggle up with a warm home-cooked plate of ratatouille.
Rating: 5/5
Disney Dreamlight Valley is available to play on every console and computer. It’s still in pre-release and will go free to play in 2023. For the above movies, you need a subscription to Disney Plus.
