My 3-year-old daughter was getting interested in cars and airplanes at one point, so I decided to see if that interest might extend to spaceships by showing her a couple of kid-friendly episodes of Star Trek. She absolutely loved them. A while back we went to a Star Trek museum exhibit together where she got to sit…

At the very least, my daughter and I are hoping Dusty and friends might make cameo appearances in Cars 3.

That sounds like a fantastic idea for an entire theme park in and of itself. If either of us gets our swimming pool full of cash we can make it happen.

That would make things easier to be sure, but as I’ve commented elsewhere here, I think making Epcot or Tomorrowland “future-proof” would kind of defeat the whole point of those parts of the park.

Thank you for this (and you’re right that a lot of people are missing the point). I love the Tomorrowland section of Disneyland, but agree that it’s frequently been a bit out of step over the years, which is just a challenge inherent in that part of the park. I think that was part of Walt’s point, to keep everyone…

Oh, I don’t know... I like that Walt’s idea for Tomorrowland was that it would keep people thinking in a positive way about the real future. Yes, he was setting up a huge headache for the people who run the Disney parks to keep up with the technology and such, but that was kind of the point, to not let things stagnate.

Agreed—Planes: Fire and Rescue was actually OK. Better story, better characters, and fantastic music by Mark Mancina too. I remember hearing they were going to make a Planes 3 at one point, which is probably why they had Dusty “recover” at the end of 2. Yet another franchise cancelled just as it’s getting decent....

Completely agree. My daughter loves the Cars and Planes movies and is excited about Cars 3 coming out, but there’s no way I’m going to show her this trailer.

It’s actually not half bad. The first Planes movie felt like it was mostly just a ripoff of the first Cars movie, but Planes: Fire and Rescue took things in a different direction and had a more involved story. I’d say it’s at least on a par with Cars 2 in terms of quality. (It has a pretty amazing musical score too.)…

If you go to the website listed in the header photo, it gives a more complete preview of the book, and yes, there is text.

Excellent point; at least it appears to contain some hard science elements, which is more than you can say for a lot of kids’ books/movies/TV.

I nominate this:

Depp’s Wonka was a creepy, socially-awkward weirdo with serious daddy issues. Wilder’s Wonka was quick on the uptake, didn’t suffer fools, spoke four languages, and routinely quoted Shakespeare.

That’s an interesting point too—the changes at the end of “Monsters, Inc.” would put the entire scaring industry into disarry. And since we saw so much more of that industry in the prequel, a sequel would have that much higher stakes.

I actually liked “Monsters University” quite a bit. Yes, it has its weaknesses, but I appreciated how it took the “dream big and work hard and you can accomplish anything!” trope found in every kid’s movie ever and turned it completely on its head. Instead it became a story about someone who fails to accomplish their…

As I recall, they were talking about other toys that had been lost to garage sales and spring cleanings, and when Rex mentioned Bo Peep there was an awkward moment of silence—but I just took that to mean the other toys realized that she was extra special to Woody. I think her exact fate was unclear.

That was my thought on reading this as well... Disney has done tons of original things over the last few years. You can add “Wreck-It Ralph,” “Tangled,” “Frozen,” and a bunch more to that list. (And I agree that “Tomorrowland” was underrated—if nothing else, I appreciated it specifically because they did take a chance…

Yep, every kid is unique. With our 3-year-old daughter, we’re not too concerned about screen time because she always watches so “actively.” When she’s watching “Miles from Tomorrowland” or “Thomas the Tank Engine,” she goes and gets all her toys and action figures from that franchise and uses them to act out…

Here you go.

Oh, I’m totally aware that the Church was genuinely a political power at the time. I just meant that reading Machiavelli’s book reminded me of that fact, and also made me reflect on the various ways the Church and government interface today--ways that aren’t always 100% healthy.