jarakanda

Like at least one other review mentioned, I was really put off by the reinforcement of sexist attitudes, the overt mentions of the family's religiosity, and the normalizing of having this many kids (irresponsible on many levels, and might indicate that they're Quiverfull people). I'm only a short way into the renovation portion of the episode and I may skip this one. I've really liked the other families so far. While the family in episode 2 was probably also very religious (another large family who home-schooled), it didn't bother me or feel in-your-face at all, and I liked that they were an ethnically blended family.

As a Chinese person, I LOVED seeing so much wonderful cultural representation and the all-Asian cast. As a kid, there was very little of this type of thing available to me and I'm happy that my four year old enjoys this movie and sees positive representations of this part of her heritage.

I thought the visuals were stunning, and the animation and character design were lovely.

Otherwise, it was... fine. I feel like the movie started off strong. I got teary during the first part. Then the story just got kind of confusing and I felt very little emotional connection to the characters. The singing is good, but I didn't find the music as catchy or memorable as some other recent musicals. I'll watch this again with my kid and I prefer it to something like Frozen, Cars, or The Good Dinosaur, but I don't think it's as good as my favorite Pixar films like Wall-e or Monsters, Inc.

It's fun to see the before and afters and a bit of the process, but all the talking to the camera and the time spent on the personal lives of Shea and Syd and their family feel like filler. These parts take up a huge portion of the show. It feels like Fixer Upper, where a lot of the focus is on Chip and Joanna Gaines and their kids vs the actual home makeover, which is all I'm interested in seeing. I hope Netflix will start creating shows more like Grand Designs.