Jessie Spoils Everything- Puss in Boots 2 (Patreon)

Jess in Boots made by Red V.

Whether highlighting the secrets of the pros to further your writing or exposing the largest oof moments of corporate creations. I’m here to help budding writers by opening up Hollywood for analyzing and spoiling f’n everything.

“Relax, I’m Puss in Boots. I laugh at Death!”

Something I appreciate about dream works is its willingness to handle more mature concepts in its ‘kids’ movies’ that make them appeal to both adults and children alike. No, not Shrek and his farts–or the bad guys and their farts–to be fair, if there is something I can do with less of, it’s flatulence humor. No, there’s a side to them that’s putting the “Disney-lets-make- a-soulless-live-action of our greatest hits” to shame. And that’s what I want to talk about as a writer. The idea that you can’t have depth and maturity in a kids’ story, or comedy, is flawed.

No matter our tone, or target audience (unless it’s like… preschool kids), we should be approaching all of our characters, world-building, and storytelling with something that connects with our audience, makes them emotionally hook on so that the laughs, the action, and the ending, people don’t walk away from your tale with “oh stuff happened” but “What an F’n journey.”

A journey is not just a collection of events but events orchestrated to grow your character. The real Journey is how who they were, becomes who they are by the end. Puss has been on quite an adventure as a character prior to this. His first appearance in Shrek 2 was over 18 years ago, and his first solo movie was eight years ago. Between Shrek 2 and now, the famous feline has been in four feature films, two television shows, and multiple shorts. His tale has grown long, and now, we find our devil-may-care cat at the end of his lives. Literally. Spoilers! (even though it was in the trailer) but out of Puss’ nine lives, he’s used up eight of them.

The hero we know, so willing to catapult himself through the air a hundred miles an hour into the face of monsters, begins to crumble and dissolve. His safety net is gone. The privilege and power he carried being semi-invincible while also careless–it turns out his eight deaths were all careless, dumb a** moves–sucks out all his bravery and bravado. Now he is considering retiring in the home of a cat lady, a shadow of his former self.

This is the first large western archetype we get. The gunslinger, who often dies before he can retire, is called in for one last adventure. From here, we jump into a “Good, Bad, and the Ugly” homage since this film is chock FULL of antagonists. Normally a very bad move, as plenty of comic book movies have illustrated (cough, Spiderman 3, cough), but this movie actually does it right. Because all the antagonists accentuate the journey.

We have Goldie Locks and her British Bear crime family, a semi-sympathetic antagonist who starts the ball rolling on the targeted treasure, the wishing star. An orphan and lost child with deep wishes and baggage with her adopted clan.

Kitty Soft Paws, The former love interest and jaded companion of Puss, their broken past causing regrets and fears, and they are forced to work together again, minus the trust.

Big Jack Horner: The shallow, nursery rhyme pie empire kingpin, jealous of fairy tale magic, and set in his very two-dimensional villain role, even poking fun at his utter lack of nuance and depth.

And my personal favorite, The Big Bad Wolf, or as I like to call him, (the big bad wolf is actually someone else in this universe) Lobo. The wolf poses as a bounty hunter, mysteriously linked to all Puss’ deaths, and it has been a long time since a character hit me so hard with a U-turn of first impressions. What sneaks in as a snarky rival quickly becomes something much more terrifying, relentless, and invincible. SPOILERS! If you couldn’t tell from his weapon of choice and black hood, Lobo is actually Death.

After years of a pandemic and war breaking out in Europe, not to mention instability everywhere, mortality has been shoved a lot harder into the forefront for all ages. And this “movie for kids” tackles that fear of the future and its possible end in-depth and in detail without ever going too dark or traumatic.

The wishing star can only grant one wish, and all of them, minus Lobo, want in. Across multiple characters, we explore sadness, loss, loneliness, and fear. Jack Horner is more thrown in as a depthless power-hungry turd to be that guy everyone can hate, and to keep the pace of the treasure hunt a sprint. Everyone else is shades of pain while presented in comical characters that just happen to have a heartfelt story if you dip deep enough.

I think, as writers, this should always be our goal. Not to make sure every character has a tragic hidden piece behind the curtain, but to not be afraid to have characters that are both funny, exciting, and deep as well. Seeing fears collide between characters, where the friction and explosiveness help reveal the answer to the problems, it’s chemistry. It’s human, it’s lovely to watch or read.

I don’t recommend piling on antagonists as Puss does. It works for the genre, but it’s a hell of a feat to make sure everyone shares the spotlight, but as a viewer, it’s a beautiful way to look at how a bunch of small parts can all have big feels behind them without stepping on each other's toes. And doing it in a way that kids will enjoy, and then come back and watch it when they are older and go, “damn, this hits harder now”

Don’t worry, though. This was a fun adventure comedy, and I’m sure my emphasis makes it sound like some brooding downer fear fest. The overall tone was adventure-comedy, but much like Puss, by the end, it wasn’t afraid to get real.

I’ll keep the rest of what happens UnSpoiled because fans of this character deserve some surprises. But I think I’ve given enough to know what to look out for as storytellers and what to discover as a future audience in a balanced way only a cat could pull off. And if not, well, I have eight lives left to try it again.