I love this movie, and it has been resurfacing as a cult classic recently as far as I can tell. I can't even remember how many times I've brought up this movie with someone else and it just unearths a memory they have of this movie. Dean is a beloved character of mine, and it's rare to see a character like him in kids movies any more, especially done so well.

Someone can correct me, but it feels like there's a lot of "slimeball" antagonists in late 90s/early 00s movies, much more than before or after that generation. Thinking about Mansley brought that back to mind. Looking at Disney at the time, you had the emperor's advisor in Mulan, Clayton from Tarzan, Randall from Monster's Inc. DreamWorks had Tzekel-Kan in the Road to El Dorado and Prince Charming in Shrek 2. Just a feeling I get from the movies at the time, focusing on more underhanded villains instead of traditional Big Bads.

On the topic of Black wanting you to play more black, that's definitely something Rosewater has mentioned. Not just a lot of pip-intensive cards on both the cheap and expensive ends from Black Knight to Griselbrand, but black has a lot of cards that want you to play more swamps; a lot more swamps. Dread Presence, Crypt Ghast, Hecatomb, Cabal Coffers. From the Black episode of his podcast:

And the idea is that black kind of likes to encourage you to play more black. That black is the color that kind of says, “Hey,” you know, that tempts you. Like, you know, the way I always joke about it is, imagine black is trying to, like, you know, pitch itself to the—to the Magic users. “Hey, Magic user, come here. Oh look, we can kill creatures easily, and oh look, we can do discard, and…” Kind of lures you with things that it can do.

And then when you’re there, it’s like “Oh, well, for just a little more black you can have a Black Knight, or you can…” You know. Like, it just sort of—it does the soft sell, and at some point you’re like, “Oh, well my swamps produce more black mana? I should just play mono-black.”

And I like to think that black has the—has the best salesmanship. That like, it slowly lures you in, and maybe makes you want to play more black. And I always consider that kind of a fun—like, that’s kind of black’s nature, that black will like lure you in with some splash, and then before you know it you’re just playing mono-black, like “How’d I get here?”