Annoyances and Curiosities · 10:04pm Jan 19th, 2023
So I mentioned a little while ago that I'm now using HBO for a bit of streaming. The first thing I did was peruse their offering and start adding things to a watchlist. Recently I discovered that they just released a new Scooby Doo series called Velma. I was instantly interested, as Velma was always my favorite of the gang even as a little kid. I was never big on the show in general, but just the idea of a show frontlined by her had my interest.
And then a cartoon reviewer I trust by the name of Saberspark posted a general review of the first few episodes and... it's bad. From the sound of it, it's really bad. And he's not the only one saying it, apparently. They've removed Scooby himself because apparently "adults don't want to watch a show featuring a talking dog" (I guess they forgot that there's this whole fandom devoted to talking neon horses) and supposedly not a one of the characters act like... you know, the characters. From everything I've seen so far, it feels like they made most of the cast outright unlikable. I kinda-sorta want to watch it myself just to say I gave it a chance, but I'm starting to wonder if doing so wouldn't be a waste of my time.
It's a pity, I really had high hopes for that one. I get they wanted to make a more adult-oriented Scooby Doo series. Heck, I'm all aboard with that. I'd just like it to be, y'know, good.
That's not the only thing on my mind right now, though. I actually saw something recently that I thought was amusing. Pointless, but amusing all the same. So lately I decided to rewatch the 2002 anime Princess Tutu. It's every bit as interesting as I remembered it to be, but there are a lot of things I forgot. Like, I recalled it had a ballet theme, particularly with themes of Swan Lake and The Ugly Duckling, but I forgot how heavily these themes ran through every episode.
But that's not what I'm bringing it up for. I'm bringing it up because of a side-character I completely forgot. Protagonist Ahiru has two best friends, Lilie and Pike. And, well... This is Pike:
Alas, I can't find a lot of images of her, so this will have to do. Does she remind you of anypony? I swear, every time I see this girl in the show I am inescapably reminded of Scootaloo. Not only does she have the right colors, she's got the same tomboyish manner and reckless attitude. It's uncanny. I swear it feels like either Ikuko Itoh predicted Scootaloo or Faust got inspiration from Pike. Or something.
It gives me the idea of a silly story I'll probably never write in which Scootaloo ends up in the Princess Tutu universe. Except everything in the Princess Tutu universe revolves around ballet, magic included, so if she wants to go back to Equestria she'll have to... *gag* ...learn it. That sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
How about you guys? Know of any non-pony characters who bear an uncanny resemblance to a pony?
I recall my initial reaction to the Velma trailer was "Uh-oh, this looks like a disaster," so I ultimately wasn't that surprised when I heard that it was.
What was a surprise to me is how universally reviled it's been. Even those that were excited for the trailer and 100% behind it have since recoiled in horror, many noting that its own hypocrisies are too strong for even the elements that they like and noting that "Wow, these characters are really unlikeable."
It seems to be one of the few cases where this meme really applies:
i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/028/961/cover6.jpg
Hollywood people need to stop taking something people like and shoving their own stuff into it since they couldn't get anyone to watch it.
Of the top of my head, there's the notorious example of Stocking Anarchy and Twilight, and Applejack has coloration near enough to conventional humans to have a wide variety of arguable lookalikes. Fluttershy also has something of a lookalike in Sucy Manbavaran, seen here holding what appears to be a G1 toy to drive the point home.
Had to check. When I refresh my HBO page, yeah, it's still sitting on the Velma landing page. The absolute beating it's been taking online kinda makes me want to watch it, just to see how big this train wreck must be. It's the inner riffer in me, I guess.
5709649 There's a few Dave Burge quotes that go well with it too.
5709651 There's a certain amount of stupid that goes with being high up in a major entertainment media organization. It's been like that since Sherwood Schwartz and the like, with some people coming in on both ends of the IQ spectrum. From cancelling Firefly to dragging some disasters along for years despite zero ratings, often the decisions seem to be coming from a big dartboard. In this case, the hype around Velma was cranked up to an immense degree and the money flowed in to promote it before anybody realized how godawful the disaster was, and that money has been spent with no refunds. I have to wonder if I'm going to see piles of merchandise in the bargain bins next month, or Happy Meal toys headed for the recycler.
5709655
Well, it is HBO, whose modus operandi right now seems to be "cancel anything that's making money and double down on things that aren't so we can get the world's biggest write-off."
For all we know the CEO is watching the hate flow for Velma and excitedly doing the old M. Bison meme.
I've watched a couple of episodes. I have a (somewhat sarcastic) theory that the showrunner decided to deliberately anger everyone who watches it as some sort of experiment to see if pure hate-buzz can drive viewership. But the truth is probably the most obvious explanation: it's pure incompetency exacerbated by bubble ignorance and driven by narcissistic contempt.
The lesson is, if you're going to do a revival/reboot/re-imagining* of a once wildly popular property,** give it to someone who loved the original,*** not someone who never watched it and has nothing but disdain for the characters and viewers.
-----------------
* Ghod, I hate that term!
** Seemingly what 90% of "new" shows are nowadays.
*** Hi, Lauren!
Man, I just rewatched Princess Tutu recently and wow that show is as incredible as I remember.
I don’t feel like there’s anything I can say beyond about it that wouldn’t feel like a spoiler.
For those that don’t care about spoilers, this AMV serves as a good trailer for the show.
I actually watched Saberspark's video on Velma earlier today. Luna, that writing was awful.
I'd say it's the worst thing I've been exposed to, but that would be wrong. There is always something worse, what that will be, I don't know.
5709649
It seems like a trend w/ adaptations in the last ten or fifteen years, of someone developing a niche-but-beloved semi-wholesome property, and then take everything that was just-folks or even somewhat positive, and dung it up with 'relatably' hateful content. Like, for instance, what happened in the transition between the page and the HBO series True Blood. Or, for that matter, how badly the adaptation of the Steven Gould novel Impulse twisted the material in a similar fashion. At least Sookie Stackhouse was identifiably the same character in both the books and the TV series, even if everything and everyone around her are nasty mockeries of what had been. The Cent of the adaptation of Impulse isn't at all recognizable as her novel self, not even if you squint through rose-colored glass.
My understanding of Velma is this: It isn't supposed to be Scooby Doo. It's supposed to be an original property. However, they would not greenlight it unless it was attached to an existing IP, and Scooby Doo was the easiest to get cleared.
I'm not saying the show shouldn't be considered harshly; the writing is still awful. But at least, this makes some of the situation comprehensible.
Remember when Scoob! came out and it looked like we might be getting decent content out of the franchise again? Those were the days.
I remember the earliest news about Velma making it seem almost like it was really going to be just Velma, none of the rest of the old crew, which honestly might've been fine. Then the redesigns of the rest of Mystery Inc. came out and it all got worse from there.
I had already heard early in the months leading up to release that they were planning on excluding Scooby, with the justification that the creators couldn't come up with a way to make him fit whatever vision they were aiming for. Since then, though, I've also heard that this was actually a mandate directly from higher-ups at Warner Bros that Scooby wasn't allowed to be in the show. I'd strongly suspect the reason for this being that they're trying to keep it separate from the main brand as much as possible, which likely also explains why Shaggy/Norville is the most radically altered character design.
Don't hate-watch it, it's not worth it.
I watched Moist Critikal's video(s) about it, and man, his point about the script seeming like it was AI generated is almost stupid enough to be true. Even just from the clips I've seen, I think disaster isn't enough of a word for what happened here.
Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase is one of my oldest memories of playing a video game and watching a scooby movie. I'm pretty sure I could recite the opening to What's New Scooby-Doo while we're at it. There was so much they could have done with an adult oriented version of this show, and the thing that came out instead is just such a tragedy. Of all the things they could have chosen to ruin, it's terrible that they picked a beloved 50 year old cartoon.
I've never seen Princess Tutu, but that does sound like a fun thing to do to poor Scootaloo.
Olivia from Fire Emblem Awakening is literally just Fluttershy, and her whole character arc is the Filli Vanilli episode. Back in the day, I had trouble separating them in my head because they were just that similar.
I don't have access to much of Scooby-doo, but I remembered that I enjoyed it quite a bit back when I still have the time to watch it. And my little brother sometimes watch the Scooby-doo movies on our disks.
When the villain is revealed, they NEVER forget to mention the dog.
Revoving him is like removing what makes this show "Scooby-doo" at all. It's a story literally built on his name. It has been that way throughout every single Scooby-doo reboot, and there are at least twenty of them. Change can be good, but we have to change in the right direction. At least the essence of the show has to be present, like the show's style, characterization, and worldview. And you have to at least make some of the characters likeable.(I have a few examples over here in my parts, and I can easily say that some people basically built their making-fun-of-things channels out of these garbage.)
The characters could be explained if this show is supposed to be standing on its own feet, but then why would it attach itself to Scooby-doo? Reusing characters, especially under copyright conditions is very dangerous. That means the essence of the original has to be abandoned.
When it comes to making a reboot, lots of things has to be considered. Abandoning a franchise is not feasible for the companies because they already have an audience. But rebooting it is very difficult because most people working for its previous generation are likely already moved on. Then, there will have to be people who both respect the previous show and want to work for the current show AND have enough talent to do so. Really, there are just too few people who fits because franchises have to be exhausted one day if they are built upon certain tropes and characters. Lauren Faust is a good example of this kind of people, but even she gets exhausted quickly over time and we have to face the facts that some people just can't do that much even if we have the expectations. Being creative is draining, especially so for those who work in an industry where there are just so many restraints and deadlines. Most of the times it's just the fan theories that suddenly doesn't make sense, but when people saw that the characters acting weird, you know that something is going wrong. Making characters stupid is a classic way of creating stories, but after they go through so many things, it becomes annoying for adults. Really, if that is the case then who is this show for anyway?
What things makes you feel like those ponies? None so far. Folks in our community tend to just ponify everything.
(however if I could choose one thing to be ponified, it would be the movie The Greatest Showman. I just felt that the characters could easily use pony characters to do a retell, involving all of the mane 6 as the main cast.)
:p
As an addendum to my above comment, if you are in the mood for a more adult targeted Scooby-Doo series, check out Mystery Incorporated on Netflix.
I like SaberSpark. I adore Princess Tutu. Earned a little more respect from me
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Good lord, I wasn't expecting this much of a response over Velma. Clearly, a lot of people have "feelings" about this. None of said feelings surprise me.
5709651
My thoughts exactly. Sometimes there are things so bad you kinda want to watch just to experience the badness of it and say "I survived".
5709655
I don't think the "stupid" is limited strictly to entertainment media. I think it applies to all forms of bureaucracy, business and government alike. And I'm not sure it's so much being stupid as it is "I'm so high on the totem pole that the consequences won't touch me, so what does it matter if the idea works or not?"
5709658
Well you know, they say every time something/someone gets cancelled their market value actually improves due to the backlash of said cancelling. Maybe the creators wanted to experiment and take the general concept to its extremes.
5709674
As a reviewer, I might be able to vouch for that. I've seen some shit, yo.
5709709
Saberspark brought up that theory, and I think there's some weight to it. Executives are in it to make money, and using old properties is a sure way to get eyeballs on something. Plus there's a definitive "use it or lose it" rule for the right to use properties like Scooby Doo, so they sometimes feel obligated to shove something out just to keep hold of one, quality be damned. So if some creative type shows up and says "I wanna do this story", the execs might say, "only if you attach it to this property". "But that has nothing to do with my idea." "Don't care. Do it or get out."
5709719
I was actually okay with most of the character redesigns, Shaggy not included. I thought the art style was fine. A little weird, a little quirky compared to what we're used to, but that didn't bother me. Heck, I even approve of the look they gave Velma, I thought it worked well.
It's everything else that is apparently a problem.
5709747
Eww, Netflix, gross. Only reason I'm using HBO at all is because it came free with my internet service whether I wanted it or not. Still, I am interested in Mystery Incorporated. Maybe I can find some other means of viewing it, one that doesn't involve giving Netflix money.
5709650
Never saw either of those, but I've definitely seen people comparing Twilight to Stocking. And that Sucy character? Yep, dead-ringer.
5709673
Me: "Please be Håll om mig, please be Håll om mig, please be Håll om mig..."
*clicks video*
Me channeling Dr. Facilier: "Yeeeeesssss..."
5709737
That image you linked wouldn't work for me, so I did a quick Bing search, and... yeah, that's Shy alright.
5709768
Well, if you know someone with Netflix who doesn't mind sharing (or who can be bribed with a six-pack), that's one option.
Or, be your own mystery! Put on a spooky costume, scare a family out ofa dilapidated old mansion, and then binge the series before they cancel the account. Or before the police show up, which honestly might be the greater concern: I don't care what anybody says, John Moses Browning was the original ghost buster.
5709773
Would have gotten away with it to if it weren't for those darn kids and their dog!
5709768
I have seen some shit just living this insanity we call life. So I get that.
I don't feel so bad about my own faults as a writer after learning about incompetence of the writing for this show. It's worse that anything I've come up short on.
Here is one thing I really don't get about the "adult" animated shows. Why the hell do they think that acting like edgy, mean spirited teenagers is mature and self aware? It's anything but.
5709782
My personal guess? Lack of practical life experiences. I'm betting the show runners haven't matured past the angsty teenage phase because they've had no reason to. The people starting to take charge of everything are the same generation that grew up on participation trophies. They write about mean-spirited teenagers because, regardless of age, they still are mean-spirited teenagers. It's all they know.
5709784
Perhaps, I'm just tired from it. I mean really, I am 46 years old and this shit just wares me out.
5709784
Bullseye! Being surrounded by wealth and privilege all their lives, experiencing nothing but other, older media doesn't build the sort of character that makes for an engaging storyteller. But it sure builds the status that will get them the job, nonetheless.
5709768
There is a site that has a bunch of old anime shows, movies and cartoons called WatchCartoonsOnline, and it's got a crap ton to choose from, Scooby Doo being one of them, plus a few oldie but goldies like the 1998 Godzilla series and G1 Transformers, and it's all free
5709817
ORLY? I might have to give them a go, then.
5709818
Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated Episode 1
YOUR WISH IS GRANTED. UNTIL THE NEXT SUMMONING.
5709950
What an unexpected but wholly welcome surprise. Thanks!
5709958
Happy to introduce another person to Mystery Inc. Hope you enjoy.
Always nice to find a fellow Saberspark enjoyer.