Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas

This article was copied (instead of imported) from Awful Movies Wiki on the Wayback Machine.

File:MTUAC.png.png

Walt Disney Pictures had a rough transition into CGI.

Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas is a 2004 computer-animated direct-to-video Christmas comedy and is a sequel to Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas. The segments in this video feature Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Max, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and Scrooge McDuck in five different segments. Along with Mickey's PhilharMagic theme park attraction, this production was one of the first to depict the Mickey Mouse series characters in CGI animation.

Bad Qualities

1. To write down the first problem, it is often considered a cash-in sequel from a mile away, all because of its presentation. Considering that it is one of the many not-so-good direct-to-DVD movies DisneyToon Studios has been turning out in the 2000s, especially since the 2000s was a rough time for Disney. This one is exceptionally the CGI embodiment of this.
   • It fails to retell charming Christmas stories that the previous film, Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, did right. Where that movie told a simple, corny yet sweet, emotional, and heartwarming story that anyone can enjoy. This film feels like a watered-down and a lamer version of that.
2. Where Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas had three stories to share. Despite this film having five stories to tell, it feels like it has about 10 stories because of how much there are so many plots that are thrown into each other, whether if they make sense or not.
   • It goes to the point of overload where the motivations for each story don't feel like they connect with each other. Especially when the title has Mickey on the cover, yet Mickey only shows up in the first and last segment of the story that doesn't focus on him ironically enough.
3. While the CGI animation isn't all that bad and every character does move naturally, it looks rather mediocre, cheap-looking, and it can sometimes look uncanny for a full-feature-length film, akin to an early Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube or an Xbox video game. It clearly hasn't aged well since there are some models that look a bit grotesque, rubbery and stiff, particularly the non-regular cast. It doesn't help that the next attempt at bringing Mickey and his pals into the third dimension, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, became a major improvement over this. Especially when both Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas and Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers (which the latter is co-incidentally released the same year as this film) went with 2D animation that had a lot of effort put into it despite those also being direct-to-video movies.
   • The side characters like the elves, Santa Claus himself, and most of the other side characters have bland/ugly-looking designs.
   • Mona's design is very uncanny and looks rather out of place.
4. Despite having 11 writers, The writing is very subpar, and it feels lazy. The lyrics for most of the songs are so bad that they don't even feel like properly-written songs, but rather the bad kinds of songs that wouldn't even fit in context to this film (mainly because of how nobody sings when the songs are played as if they're pop songs).
   • The dialogue is often awkward and out of place most of the time.
   • For whatever reason, Kellie Martin, who voices Max's high school crush Roxanne in A Goofy Movie (1995) and made an appearance in the House of Mouse, was recast to voice Mona since the animators thought that they wouldn't be able to reanimate Roxanne by her hair design/etc and were also too lazy to animate Roxanne's red hair, which is just unbelievable. This means that Kellie Martin voices Max's girlfriend Mona (who has little to no personality) over Roxanne (a character who had a personality).
   • The humor is lackluster, to the point where there is barely, if ever, any good comedy to be found in this movie. Some moments that include having a fat reindeer named Tiny Reindeer say "what?" as a build-up to a joke in the segment "Mickey's Dog-Gone Christmas", was rather a horribly pathetic attempt at intentional comedy.
5. One of the biggest problems with the movie is that most of the segments are underwhelming, boring, and mean-spirited. Much to the point that they feel rushed, even for Mickey Mouse standards.
   • The absolute worst offender of them all is Donald's segment "Donald's Gift", which is a very mean-spirited Donald torture story, even by Mickey Mouse standards, since in that segment Donald is supposed to be written like he's in the wrong, when it's clearly obvious that he isn't. Donald just wants to take a break from Christmas by sitting by the fire and having his hot cocoa after he came back home from doing errands that have Donald Duck being put through a lot of abuse and humiliating gags. But Donald's mischievous nephews (who torment him as soon as they step foot in) and Daisy herself force Donald to go celebrate Christmas where Donald didn't even want to go anywhere else in the first place.
     • This leads to many miserable scenes of Donald suffering from over-the-top, humiliating coincidences as Christmas-related annoyances that treat Donald as if he deserved what he was given for being "completely selfish" and for not wanting to celebrate Christmas, which is just frustrating to watch. This makes Donald destroy an animatronic Christmas show because of this. Nobody sympathizes with Donald at all and nearly everyone puts him through more suffering just for not having "the Christmas spirit", which all makes you feel extremely bad for Donald all the way through. Especially when he never got anything in return for what Donald was put through, even when Donald was actually trying to do something good like helping a choir sing better when Donald was feeling remorseful and sorrowful after everyone guilt-tripped him.
   • Not to mention that both Mickey and Donald are equally treated like the bad guys who "deserve some form of comeuppance" for whatever reason. The former got mad at Pluto for messing up the place that was caused by Pluto's impulsive clumsiness (something some viewers would perceive Mickey berating Pluto as out-of-character for Mickey to do) where Mickey wanted to go retrieve Pluto when the latter leaves him, and the latter was because of everyone's aforementioned irredeemable acts of selfishness.
   • The final segment "Mickey's Dog-Gone Christmas" overall is pretty much a lazy rehash of the Mickey Mouse Works episode "Pluto Runs Away", albeit with the Christmas and "lost dog" themes mixed in altogether but with none of the fun, charm, and cleverness that episode had.
6. Heaps of continuity errors: This film is quite difficult (practically impossible, really) to place within the greater continuity of all of the previous appearances of Max, Huey, Dewey, and Louie since the film has very poor connections and poor continuities to not only the film Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas, but also other Mickey Mouse/Donald Duck/Goofy television and film appearances such as Goof Troop and House of Mouse. This means that this film isn’t canon to those aforementioned appearances and therefore, set in an alternate continuity.
   • In the previous film, Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, the four of them were all children, with Max presented as being even younger than his appearance in Goof Troop and Donald's nephews presented as still living with him. This indicates that Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas took place at some point prior to the events of both DuckTales (in which the nephews, still as children, live with Scrooge McDuck after Donald joins the Navy) and Goof Troop (in which Max is an 11½-year-old preteen). By the time of A Goofy Movie and Quack Pack, Max, Huey, Dewey, and Louie have all grown into high school-aged teenagers, with An Extremely Goofy Movie having Max grown further into a college-aged teenager. In the House of Mouse TV series, Max is still a teenager but old enough to be employed as a parking valet, while Huey, Dewey, and Louie (who were often seen in their Quack Pack designs, albeit recolored) are on the cusp of young adulthood. Because of this Christmas special presenting Donald's nephews as children at the same time that Max is a young adult (with the four even interacting together in the very last scene), Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas is virtually irreconcilable with the larger continuity of all of the aforementioned TV shows, movies, and even its own predecessor Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas.
     • Consequently, this ultimately results to a massive plot-hole between this film and Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, such as on either why Huey, Dewey and Louie haven't even aged since the events of Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, or how did Huey, Dewey and Louie somehow aged down to children since their previous appearance in House of Mouse, hence further adding to this film's inconsistencies with all that came before it.
   • Additionally, Goofy's house appears to have a rather large front yard that extends off to the side where Pete's house stood in both Goof Troop (as well as its two sequel films A Goofy Movie and An Extremely Goofy Movie) and Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, meaning that Pete's house is missing from where it ought to be in this film, although Pete himself doesn’t appear in the film, unlike the previous film.
   • And while the house's exterior does bear a decent resemblance to that of the Goof House seen in Goof Troop its interior more closely resembles that of the very different-looking Goof House seen in Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, which itself had a completely different interior room layout (as well as a very different exterior design) from the house seen in Goof Troop (e.g. - the living room and kitchen sit on opposite sides of the house, instead of both sharing the same side and back end of the house like they did in Goof Troop). Since Goofy and Max only first moved into their Goof Troop house in that series' first episode, the house they lived in Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas has to have been a different house that they lived in prior to their first moving to Spoonerville. So, if Goofy, in this film, is supposed to still be living in the same house he's lived in since Goof Troop, the inside of the house really shouldn't resemble the very different house from the first film, yet it does, further adding to this film's inconsistencies with all that came before it.
   • Plus, both the interior and exterior of McDuck Manor as seen in this movie bare very little resemblance to their appearance in DuckTales.
7. Much like Christmas with the Kranks (another bad Christmas movie produced and released the exact same year), it gives a badly sugarcoated moral that everyone should just accept everything about Christmas and unconditionally overindulge themselves with the Christmas spirit by giving a "you're a bad person if you don't want to celebrate the holidays" type of message that encourages tons of excessive consumerism & commercialism down everyone's throats. Which is also seems like a very confusing message.
   • Especially when Donald (a poor victim that suffers from this "moral") just wanted to chillax on the holidays but was thoroughly forced to be involved in an extremely materialistic environment.
8. This movie is filled to the brim with generic Christmas commercialism, where its predecessor was much more simple than that.
9. Almost every message in each segment seems to have a "don't be a jerk" message that is all told in a poorly executed way since nobody with a "jerkass" quality in any segment was done right.
   • This ranges from the actually selfish characters who never got their comeuppance or even learned anything meaningful about their mistakes (i.e. Donald's nephews, Daisy to some extent, and the townspeople), to characters that are treated like a karmic "jerkass" type of character when that was actually rather contradictory since they were presented as "butt-monkey"/"designated butt-monkey" types of characters in actuality, like Mickey and Donald themselves.
10. Almost all of the characters (aside from Mickey, Donald, and Goofy) are bland, unlikeable, out of character, one-dimensional to the point of having very little to no personality, and are poorly written.
    • Huey, Dewey, and Louie are portrayed into annoyingly mischievous and troublemaking spoiled brats who are irredeemable, even worse than their appearances in Quack Pack. They mail themselves to Santa, so they can weasel their way out of the naughty list so they can receive presents as a way to be on the "nice" list for everything they've ever done.
    • Daisy Duck is badly flanderized, even worse than her previous appearances in Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse. She is depicted as a self-absorbed, egotistical, and jealous jerk to Minnie (having an unfitting Mickey vs. Donald type of rivalry) who sabotaged Minnie's act for whatever reason other than jealousy and wanting to be the center of attention, which resulted in her comeuppance (where Minnie didn't need to feel like she made a mistake since it was Daisy who should've had her retribution when the skating act was trashed). She also treats Donald poorly here too, Daisy is demanding and treats Donald like crap, she never feels any sympathy or empathy for Donald in the slightest. Which is on par with her appearance in Disney's Legend of the Three Caballeros.
    • Pluto, instead of being the mischievous and energetic but loyal and faithful pet dog of Mickey which he is best known for in his other appearances, is instead badly portrayed as a stupidly idiotic dog who disobeys Mickey when the latter told him to wait before Pluto was wanting to put the star on Mickey's tree as a part of Mickey's tradition, it was all done with complete disregard to what Mickey just said to Pluto, and then Mickey's house was trashed by sheer coincidence in the span of three to five minutes. Mickey gets understandably frustrated at Pluto for not listening, and he rightfully calls Pluto out for his clumsiness and impulsiveness by telling him to go outside as any pet owner would do. Feeling rejected, He leaves his home (and his collar in his doghouse) as he acts like he is seriously underappreciated by anyone in a strangely rebellious way and thought that Mickey was disowning him by kicking him out of the house (despite an earlier scene of Mickey showing unconditional love to Pluto before Mickey was busy on the phone with Minnie and was also setting up the decorations in his home). Pluto drastically runs away to the North Pole for whatever reason other than running away from his "problems". Just to come back home to Mickey when he felt 'homesick' after spending time with some reindeer as a stray dog roaming around in the North Pole, thinking about Mickey.
    • While Scrooge McDuck, Minnie, and Max aren't exactly unlikable or out of character per se, they have very little characterization thanks to poor writing.
      • Scrooge McDuck was written to serve as a reminder/plot device to Donald's nephews for why Santa Claus and having the Christmas spirit is important to everyone since Scrooge always wants to get a bagpipe from Santa by being on the nice list (which doesn't make any sense since Scrooge is rich enough to buy anything he's ever wanted. Especially when one of Donald's nephews pointed this out to him while Scrooge disagrees for whatever reason).
      • Minnie is written out to be the likable and sympathetic character throughout her segment, while this does remain true since Daisy is the one who instigated the conflict during the skating act, yet she also shows aggressive tendencies towards Daisy as if it's a Mickey vs. Donald type of rivalry that is rather out of character for her.
      • Max is written as a watered-down version of his previous appearances in both A Goofy Movie and An Extremely Goofy Movie when it comes to bringing over his girlfriend, Mona, to meet his dad and impress her. Where Max is portrayed as both, boring and seemingly selfish for resenting Goofy's antics instead of accepting Goofy for the way he is. However, Max's reaction is a lot more understandable when you consider that Goofy seemingly makes absolutely no attempt to avoid embarrassing him (for instance, he shows Max' girlfriend an old baby picture of Max for no reason), and the song used in the short suggests that his antics have already ruined Max's previous chances for romance. It also helps Max's case that he's never outright rude to Goofy, the worst he does is saying things like "this embarrasses me, so stop doing it" and rejecting Goofy's offer to have cookies inside when he wants to go for a walk.
        • Despite all of this, Max continually thinks that it looks like Goofy's embarrassing him to the point of scaring Mona away, where Mona is rather contented and having a good time being with Goofy to the point of appreciating Max for who he is. This feels kinda pointless from Max's side of the story and it kinda makes Max seem a bit stupid.
          • This also leaves Max on a whisper note before he makes his next appearance in DuckTales (2017).
    • Max's newfound girlfriend, Mona, has little to no personality. She barely has any lines and only serves as the typical love interest whom Max is wanting to introduce to his dad and also fears that Mona herself being embarrassed or wanting to reject Max for Goofy's awkwardness. Not to mention that she serves as a stand-in for Roxanne, right down to being voiced by Kellie Martin (see BQ #4).
11. Despite Santa Claus being a running theme throughout most of the movie and was a rather big deal in the last movie, this version of Santa Claus is very unremarkable, generic, overly safe, and completely bland. Much to the point that Santa Claus is an plot device for everyone getting into the Christmas spirit.
12. The film overall feels lazy and rather a disappointing attempt at recreating what Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas accomplished but in 3D.
13. False advertising/Misleading title: As stated at BQ#2, despite appearing in the title and taking up about 90% of the image in the film's promotional poster, Mickey doesn’t really have a big role despite only appearing in the film's first and final segments, not to mention that none of the film's segments even focus on him, unlike the previous film.

Good Qualities

1. Mickey, Goofy, and Donald are all likable characters despite them being used poorly in the film. Even if Scrooge McDuck, Mona, Minnie, and Max have very little characterization, they are all passable characters.
2. Daisy Duck was massively redeemed after this movie, Mickey Mouse Works, and Disney's House of Mouse where she got her classic personality back beginning with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (except “Legend of the Three Caballos”). The same goes with all of the other characters after this movie.
   • On a side note, Daisy's laughter when Donald receives the Big Book Of Manners for Christmas is quite lovely to listen to, and the CGI animation on her when she laughs is very attractive.
3. Goofy's segment "Christmas Maximus" is rather decent, especially compared to the rest. The lyrics for Max's song may be hokey and cliché, but still, it was passable. This segment actually matches the more positive and cheery tone of Christmas more than every other segment does.
   • Likewise, there are some things viewers can find good things to say about several segments like "Christmas: Impossible" for example, where some people can find Huey, Dewy, and Louie's mischievous nature entertaining despite their Flanderization and can see how it somewhat has a similar theme from the first movie's storytelling, where the trio do help Scrooge out being on the nice list at the end of the short.
   • Despite how underwhelming Donald's segment "Donald's Gift" is, there are viewers who can find good things to say about the short like how Donald trashing up the Christmas show out of pure rage and frustration can be viewed as hilarious or just comical.
4. Every once in a while, there is a good visual joke or a actually funny line here and there. For example, the grumpy dog asks one of Donald's nephews the following question, "What are the odds!?".
5. The CGI animation may be mediocre and sometimes uncanny, but it has good qualities where Christmas wishes came true.
   • Some characters have passable designs, like the dancing crocodiles and hippos from Fantasia at the start of the film for example.
   • In fact, what's more, is that the CGI animation was also done by Blur Studio, who did the cutscenes for the modern Sonic the Hedgehog games, the 2020 movie and its sequel and Sparx*, who did the animation for Rolie Polie Olie.
6. Some bits of the music here and there can be very nice to listen to.
   • "Share This Day" by Josh Kelly, for example, is a song that even detractors of this film also enjoy listening to.
   • Even Stephen James Taylor's musical score sounds nice to hear.
7. While there are some mean-spirited and bad morals in most of the segments, there's none that little kids would probably get.
8. Compared to DisneyToon’s next release, that being Mulan II, this movie is passable.

Trivia

• This is Disney's first ever computer-animated film without Pixar overall, and also their first computer-animated film without Walt Disney Animation Studios or Pixar.