Merry Bunmas!

Mrs. Willow Claws and Julius the Big-Nosed Reindeer would like to wish everyone a happy Christmas, happy holidays, happy New Years, and happy everything else that we silly humans like to celebrate.

Plot Bunnies will be back on New Year’s Day with a review on a vastly popular new video game, which will harken in a new month themed around beginnings, plus a series of Productive Procrastination articles about getting yourself organized this year. 2016 will be full of such theme months, looking at romance, endings, and of course our usual month of horror.

In the meantime, enjoy your holidays away from work or school, and we hope your Christmas is full of cuddles and noogies.

For more of Willow and Julius’s Christmas photos, you can check out Willow’s Tumblr.

Under-Appreciated: The Christmas Bunny

Many good stories and characters have been lost in the rush of media in past years and haven’t gotten the attention they deserve. Whether they’ve gotten negative attention or no attention at all, I’m here to show them to the world and plead their case.

Oh yes, this movie is real. There is in fact a movie out there about the greatest and most iconic Christmas present you can receive … a rabbit? Alright, this premise seems silly, even to me, but with a title like The Christmas Bunny, I HAD to check it out. For a B-movie that I found in a $5 bin, it’s actually, surprisingly, very good! I’m not just saying this because I love anything with bunnies in it (though that does help). I’ve seen this movie three times now and it’s still one I really like. It’s certainly the only ‘feel good’ Christmas movie I can sit through without getting bored out of my mind, so let’s take a look at this new tradition of mine as we head into Christmas.

Etsy Treasures: The Snow Queen, Frozen and Sailor Moon

Sometimes, companies drop the ball when it comes to truly cool merchandise for our favorite things. Luckily, that’s why people on Etsy exist – to fill the gaps and create the things fans want that the original creators didn’t think of.

It’s not a theme week without taking a look at what’s to be found on Etsy! This article is primarily items for Frozen, but there are a couple of Sailor Moon items as well, and don’t think this is because of a lack of items for either of them – there’s more for sale for both Frozen and Sailor Moon on Etsy than just one person to go through! That being said, this also doesn’t mean these are the best out there; the items featured here are the ones that caught my attention the most, so you should check out Etsy for yourself and see what you can find in the thousands of handmade items.

Across the Mediums: Sailor Moon S: the Movie

Novels and movies exchange stories all the time, whether it is a film adaptation of a book or novelization of a blockbuster. These aren’t the only mediums to share with each other however. Video games, comics, and TV shows like to get in on the action at times as well. What stories do it best, and how do you transfer a story across the mediums effectively? That’s what we’ll be looking at here.

I wonder how many of you noticed the clue hidden in this week’s banner. Bet you were wondering what the connection was between Frozen and Sailor Moon, huh?

Oh yes, this is real. There is a Sailor Moon movie based off of the same source material as Disney’s Frozen. It’s called Sailor Moon S: the Movie or Sailor Moon S: Hearts on Ice in the English version that I grew up with, and it’s actually the second movie to come out during Sailor Moon‘s run in the 90s, with Sailor Moon S being the name given to the third season of the anime. The movie is an adaptation of a side-story written by Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi herself called “Princess Kaguya’s Lover,” whereas the other two movies were original stories written by the anime creators. From what I can tell, the manga and movie are almost exactly the same, so we’ll look just at the movie in comparison to Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen.

Across the Mediums: Frozen, Once Upon a Time, and the Snow Queen

Novels and movies exchange stories all the time, whether it is a film adaptation of a book or novelization of a blockbuster. These aren’t the only mediums to share with each other however. Video games, comics, and TV shows like to get in on the action at times as well. What stories do it best, and how do you transfer a story across the mediums effectively? That’s what we’ll be looking at here.

It’s no secret that Disney animated movies are almost always based on pre-existing stories and fairy tales. Aladdin comes from 1001 Nights, Tangled comes from Rapunzel, and Pocahontas comes (very loosely) from a historical figure. It’s not that Disney’s unoriginal; on the contrary, they always give the story a new and unique spin not found in the source material. But what happens when Disney takes the source material, tries to work with it, and realizes that they can make a much better story that has almost nothing to do with the original? We get Frozen.

Frozen is supposedly based off a story called The Snow Queen, written by Hans Kristoff AnnaSven – I mean Hans Christian Andersen, the same author of another favorite Disney movie of mine, The Little Mermaid, so I thought it was about time for me to start reading his works, beginning with The Snow Queen. Let’s take a look at how much of the story survived…

Across the Mediums: A Frozen Heart

Novels and movies exchange stories all the time, whether it is a film adaptation of a book or novelization of a blockbuster. These aren’t the only mediums to share with each other however. Video games, comics, and TV shows like to get in on the action at times as well. What stories do it best, and how do you transfer a story across the mediums effectively? That’s what we’ll be looking at here.

We’re halfway into December now, and I don’t know about the weather where you are, but over here, we’re getting all the cold without the fun of snow. We can pretend though, can’t we? Put up some white curtains, refuse to look through them, and we could have a white Christmas in our imagination! Let’s prepare ourselves for that snow with a week of celebrating the Ice Queen herself and take a look at Disney’s Frozen and the fairy tale that inspired it. First, let’s review what we know about the popular movie and check out an interesting novel retelling of it.

The Under-Appreciated: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Many good stories and characters have been lost in the rush of media in past years and haven’t gotten the attention they deserve. Whether they’ve gotten negative attention or no attention at all, I’m here to show them to the world and plead their case.

You had to know this was coming. No self-respecting blog can go without riding the Star Wars hype train at least once this month. Unfortunately, I scheduled a different theme for all next week, so our Star Wars article is going to be today, one week before Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens releases in theaters. Many people I’ve talked to are worried that The Force Awakens is going to be too similar to the prequels instead of the classics, but are the prequels really that terrible? Let’s look at one. Nostalgia demanded that I give Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace an absolutely glowing review for this article but unfortunately upon rewatching it…it didn’t live up to nostalgia’s remembrance. However, it’s not all bad, and since there are plenty of people out there already criticizing the Star Wars prequels to death, let’s instead take a look at the good things about my first Star Wars movie.

Keep Them Coming: Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion

The start of a story is what decides whether you keep coming back for more or drop the series entirely. In ‘Keep Them Coming’, we look at the beginning of stories, whether it be the pilot episode of a show, tutorial level of a video game, or first chapter of a novel, and figure out what makes it effective or a dud. There will be spoilers, but only if you consider a plot twist within the intro to be a spoiler.

Nothing says “Christmas Special” like alien invasions, killer Christmas trees, and the threat of extinction, at least not to the British. Doctor Who Christmas specials have been going strong for a while now, with this Christmas marking the tenth straight year of new episodes on Christmas Day. The Christmas specials are some of the most-watched episodes of the Doctor Who series, but besides being aired on a holiday, what’s so special about them?

Across the Mediums: Rise of the Guardians’ Santa Claus

Novels and movies exchange stories all the time, whether it is a film adaptation of a book or novelization of a blockbuster. These aren’t the only mediums to share with each other however. Video games, comics, and TV shows like to get in on the action at times as well. What stories do it best, and how do you transfer a story across the mediums effectively? That’s what we’ll be looking at here.

Considering that the movie Rise of the Guardians is based off of a series of books called The Guardians of Childhood, you’d think it would make a perfect subject for an Across the Mediums, wouldn’t you? Well, would…if I had time to buy and read the books before writing this article. Instead, we’re going to look at the origins and inspiration of one of the best characters for the month of December, Rise of the Guardians’ Santa Claus. You could say that instead of a book-to-movie adaptation, this article is about a mythology-to-movie adaptation.

Keep Them Coming: The Nightmare Before Christmas

The start of a story is what decides whether you keep coming back for more or drop the series entirely. In ‘Keep Them Coming’, we look at the beginning of stories, whether it be the pilot episode of a show, tutorial level of a video game, or first chapter of a novel, and figure out what makes it effective or a dud. There will be spoilers, but only if you consider a plot twist within the intro to be a spoiler.

Is The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween or a Christmas movie? It’s both, but for our purposes, we’re going to use it as a Christmas movie, since October was already full to the brim with horror and there simply aren’t enough stories for the holiday season. If you haven’t already seen this movie, I would suggest checking your local cable listings for it because different channels, especially Disney, love showing this movie from October all the way through December.

Right this way…