DreamWorks Animation’s holiday movie this year is Rise of the Guardians, about a supergroup of public domain childhood characters: the Easter bunny (Hugh Jackman), Santa (Alec Baldwin), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fischer), Jack Frost (Chris Pine), and the Sandman (Tom Kenny). Why yes, that is the creepiest anthropomorphized bunny of all time:
Guardians looks benign enough — embrace the power of dreams! — but it does follow one strange convention. Usually when a movie uses “rise of” in its title, it’s part of a franchise: Rise of the Planet of the Apes, or Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, or Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, G.I.: Joe: The Rise of Cobra. It probably will be part of a franchise (aren’t all animated children’s movies?), it just seems like the rise of the jumping of the gun.
