Prep & Landing Stocking Stuffer: Operation: Secret Santa

The logo was Disney, but Operation Secret Santa has quite a bit of the Pixar feel...and that's a good thing.

John Lasseter produces, and Pixar music regular Michael Giacchino lends a top-notch score. The pacing is great, everything is kept light and fun, and the animation itself is quite nice.

I was delighted to see a new animated holiday story put in the mix that has some solid production values. While I wouldn't put it on the level of some of the Pixar shorts (shown in theaters before their feature films), for TV, it's a stand-out. Perhaps, if it is well received, we'll see a return of new, animated shorts for the holidays like this one. Cross your fingers.

I was incredibly excited to watch the follow up to the superb original Prep & Landing but was immediately pessimistic about it once I saw the run time and was right to be

Although it still has the excellent charm of the first film and all the voice acting is again on point with the wonderful addition of Betty White who brought all the warmth and wit we have come to expect from her, and that is only with maybe 2 minutes of screen time.

The biggest let down for me and the most perplexing issue was the run time. What on earth made them cut it so drastically. It's still a wonderful 9 min gem 🎄x.

Absolutely loved 'Prep & Landing', one of the revelations of my "watching as many Christmas films and shorts not yet seen before as possible" quest. So, also part of my quest, part of me was expecting a fair bit.

Viewing 'Prep & Landing Stocking Stuffer: Operation: Secret Santa', it is a let down after 'Prep & Landing' and doesn't quite have its magic. Having said that, 'Prep & Landing Stocking Stuffer: Operation: Secret Santa' is still very much worthwhile and won't convert you to a Scrooge or anything like that after watching. It's solid and does its job very well, without being truly special.

'Prep & Landing Stocking Stuffer: Operation: Secret Santa's' weakest asset is the story, it's somewhat flimsy for the length and sometimes the momentum suffers and lags a little.

It doesn't quite have 'Prep & Landing's' visual imagination and some may be disappointed in that it is fairly light in the humour department, what there is raises some amused smiles but there's not much hilarious here.

That is not to say however that the animation isn't great. It is. It is bright and colourful, and characters don't look blocky and move smoothly while the attention to detail in the backgrounds is solid. The music captures the nostalgia, warmth, excitement and emotion of Christmas to perfection.

Writing is not exceptional, but warms the heart, charms the ears and touches the soul while not being cheesy, preachy or over-sentimental. The story is flawed in execution but has charm and emotion at least and maintains attention enough to not want to turn it off.

The likeable characters still remains while the voice acting is solid.

Overall, worthwhile if not completely magical. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This short was recently shown on TV for the first time following the airing of the Charlie Brown Christmas special. My impressions were mixed. On one hand, the CGI was nice--not great but it's good computer animation. On the other, the story is a bit dull and the payoff at the end was a letdown. Kids will probably like it well enough, but I can't imagine anyone getting excited about "Prep & Landing".

The film begins with Mrs. Claus asking the elves, Prep & Landing, to help her steal something from Santa's workshop. It's odd that neither of them question this and spend much of the cartoon trying to sneak past a sleeping Santa. But there wasn't much in the humor department nor was there much in the way of the story. Not bad, but easy to skip.