SATIRE: December Movies Overview

As the holiday season approaches, numerous blockbusters aim to attract cold-fatigued audiences across the United States. Although some of these films will surely be busts, others are destined for cinematic greatness. 

Popcorn at a movie theater.

Starting big, Zootopia 15  is now playing in theaters. Centered on the police rabbit Judy Hopps and her fox colleague Nick Wilde, the film is said to be loosely based on Zootopia 8: The Empire Strikes Back. According to a leaked plot outline, Zootopia 15 will take place on an Ethiopian maize farm and will focus on controversial agricultural regulations and systemic political corruption. Proponents have applauded Disney’s focus on real-world issues, whereas critics have raised concerns that the franchise’s young audience will not be interested in the film. Disney has admitted that the film will be mostly AI-generated, with numerous editors on staff to edit out the characters’ extra fingers and other anomalies. 

Another long-anticipated sequel now showing in theaters is Wicked: Foreclosure. Although the shining emerald city may have looked opulent in the original Wicked film, chronic inflation of the emerald caused a massive recession throughout Oz. The Wizard of Oz, having no designated economic advisor, made the mistake of increasing emerald production to improve his city’s economy, but ended up making the situation far worse. Glinda and Elphaba lobby the Wizard to introduce significant reforms, but he instead uses his legion of winged monkeys to intimidate regional governments into raising taxes. The ensuing housing crisis is blamed on Elphaba, who is deemed a witch and hunted down. Eventually, Glinda is able to change Oz’s zoning laws and harnesses magic to construct affordable housing despite the Wizard attempting to stop her. The people of Oz celebrate, but the financial system of Oz still lingers on the brink of failure, setting the stage for the third movie in the franchise — Wicked: Banking Collapse, releasing in 2030. 

For those seeking a bit more action in their movies, Walking Man is the obvious choice. After it was decided that the original Running Man movie was too intense and violent, Walking Man features a low-stakes game of cat and mouse, where a contestant is on the run from hunters wielding pool noodles. If he is hit, the contestant loses a small amount of his unimpressive winning sum. If he is hit five times, he loses all of his paltry prize except for a free T-shirt. The mildly unethical media conglomerate that hosts the Walking Man TV show no longer falsifies the competition to increase audience interaction, instead turning to engagement farming on social media. 

Lastly, Avatar: Fire and Ensuing Investigation is set to open in mid-December. According to the producer, after a catastrophic fire nearly destroys the home world of the Na’vi people, they proceed to conduct a thorough investigation to determine the fire’s cause, utilizing advanced tactics and technology. Eventually, they determine that the blaze was set by a lightning bug and that the entire inquiry was a waste of time. The film has already received praise for its use of CGI and special effects, especially for the more visually complicated aspects, such as the exploding cat scene and the disintegrating puppy sequence.

No matter what genre of movie you’re into, there’s something for everyone this holiday season!