This is what I get for not keeping up to date. Ow, my head... (Long ramble on recent developments) · 2:07pm Apr 29th, 2016
So there I am, browsing the net, looking for some videos, and...
Why?
That's all I got.
Why?
Why would anyone go and remake the Powerpuff Girls into... whatever the bales that is?
Okay, so, to clarify: went to my usual online haunts, found the first episode of the 2016 Powerpuff Girls, can't say I'm impressed. I'm sure some of you might have expected that response, but... there's a different angle to it for me.
For starters, I don't hate Teen Titans: Go. The original Teen Titans is one of if not the favourite show of all time, one of its episodes (Employee of the Month) I use as a standard to measure other cartoons by to this day, but I don't hate this new show. Maybe it's because I only see the dubbed version, maybe it's because I initially only saw Teen Titans in French in the first place. Maybe it's the chaoist talking.
I can acknowledge that TTG is a different beast altogether, a sillier beast meant for a different audience or in a different timeslot. I can live with that. I can even sort of live with it being a reimagining of Teen Titans. But Powerpuff Girls?
I saw the first episode just now. And I'm immediately struck with confusion.
Why?
Why open the series based on a concert ticket? You know, kinda like how MLP started? Why use that kind of opening with choppy animation? If this is a reimagining, why do these girls have superpowers? Powerpuff Girls Z, I only saw the start of, but at least in that one, I know where the girls got their powers from right from the start. In the original PPG, I'm reminded of where their powers come from in the opening. If this is a new show for a new audience, how is anyone supposed to follow? Did I start off on the wrong episode? Why do these girls have the gift of flight and superstrength? At all? It's never addressed.
"But oh, Cracker, Teen Titans didn't explain where they got their superpowers from."
No, indeed they did not. Because that was part of the point. Those superheroes were led by Robin, an established character. Even then, we didn't get a lot of background on him. The whole point about Teen Titans is and was that they were a diverse cast of kids who lived together and fought crime as a team. It didn't matter where they came from. Hell, half the time their background just led to drama and/or adventure, they had good reasons not to share those backgrounds. Powerpuff Girls? Notsomuch. The whole point about the Powerpuff Girls was that they were superpowered girls created by a scientist in a freak accident. The old opening conveyed this perfectly, set it up for every episode so you'd never get confused, the narrator served as a great source of both comedy and information, it worked. And this series opens with... what, exactly? Are they sisters now, is their 'dad' deceased? He's in the opening, but where is he on screen? This is just confusing, not just compared to the old show, but compared to other cartoons. I could pick up X-Men at the first episode and know what's happening. Mutants? Got it. People are scared? Roger. It's a parallel for racism? Screw you: black people can't strangle you with their blackness, mutants can strangle you with their mutation, not the same thing. But I digress.
I guess my biggest grievance boils down to this, and it's a point I've wanted to touch upon for a while now.
Why are these girls the Powerpuff Girls?
They didn't need to be. You could make a show about young tween girls with superpowers, living in the suburbs of a city that has a monster problem. You could make them stylised, make it humorous. I can even forgive putting nostrils on what appears to be a rhino's horn. That's the sort of cartoony stuff I can forgive. And, hey, credit where credit is due: the monsters in the PPG pilot look amazing. Loved seeing those designs, taken straight out of an anime or a kaiju film, really want to see more of those, even if they're not all that original, they look good.
But why is this the new PPG?
The point I'd like to address, and I hope to get around to it soon after catching up with cartoons in general, is this:
The Rise of Canon Fanfics.
We have this new Powerpuff Girls thing. Didn't need to be Powerpuff Girls, in the abstract. We have Teen Titans Go. Okay, little harder to pull off, but the DC universe has some pretty far-fetched characters that could have filled the role, I'm sure. Didn't need to be Teen Titans. We have the Lion Guard movie and series which, from what little I've seen (because Disney airs the damn movie every three days, it seems) could just as easily have been a generic savannah story. Props for finally making my favourite animal in the world into a Disney cartoon, though (I'm a sucker for honey badgers, what can I say?).
Go back a little further and we can add the Alpha and Omega sequels to the list. The sequel stories have no reason to be tied to the original. Different themes, different character traits and motivations, that one almost feels like it's trying to be MLP with wolves. Though I suppose the Lion Guard is MLP with lions, then. For a franchise that's called My Little Pony, it sure is strange to think Disney would try and copy it with lions and honey badgers of all things.
I shouldn't be writing this while distracted. Going over the second part now. And... "Buttercup is just being... Buttercup." Umm, that's the sort of line you want to toss in after four or five episodes, not at the start. If they weren't aiming for nostalgia, they could at least try to make it accessible for new viewers.
Anyway, I'm gonna have to make a list of examples, but in the meantime, here's the theory:
The reason we're getting all these fanfic series and reboots is because they are safer. If you consider a show or movie's quality as a function of character, plot, and image, then character is the only thing that carries over. Image is fleeting, plot has endings, characters have lives. Characters have a following. A following willing to pay for more. A following that costs money and effort to build up from scratch.
So that's why we have new Powerpuff Girls instead of an original show, why Alpha and Omega movies gloss over the plot of the first movie, and on a different but related note, why movie studios have stopped making movies and have switched to making pilots of series instead. Yes, Marvel Universe, this means you. It's too risky to try and build up your own following, so why not instead rely on an established following, one that may have already reproduced and is willing to induct their offspring into it?
Oh, cud. Morrisson was right. Movies and comic books really are the new religion.
There are some more announcements coming regarding personal matters(*), and probably a blog dedicated to this fanfic film trend, because I suspect it's a lot bigger than it appears. But in the meantime, feel free to find more examples, and be sure to test them with the question of whether it could work as its own franchise or if it needed to be tied to the franchise it is. The new Turtles, for example (Nickelodeon, not Bay), I have a hard time imagining not being a Turtles reboot.
Cracker out.
(*) The most relevant one to this site being that I'll be catching up on the new Season of pony next week, binge on seven episodes at a time. I've already had some spoilers, but not a lot, so I'm hoping to still get a fresh perspective on things.
I really like the new Powerpuff Girls. That episode is a terrible place to start and the show is written like Teen Titans Go in that they mostly just expect you to know who everyone is. The reason why it should be them is because these are the same girls. It makes less sense if you haven't seen some chunk of the original, but Buttercup being Buttercup seemed a perfectly reasonable line to me. In fact I especially love her lines and new voice actor. They've taken her snark up to 11. Bubbles is sweet and innocent 90% of the time, but you hit the right button, and she will break you. Blossom is still the perfectionist leader, but hates dirt. To the point she doesn't set foot in a garbage dump despite being able to fly and not technically set foot at all. The professor is there too, but yes one episode by itself leaves a lot of questions. Honestly the whole thing feels more like a new season than a new show despite all the changes. It's a little more slice of life, but PPG always did that to some degree anyway, so it's not a big deal.
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That's a bit of circular logic, isn't it? It should be them because it is them?
Perhaps it wasn't clear from the text: the point isn't that these are the same girls, so it should be the same show. The point is there's no reason for these girls to be the same girls. You can do the same thing, same set-up, and use a different cast. The look and feel is different, the art style is different, and, here's my main observation, the main reason this is a PPG show is to save costs on risk or setting up.
Again, other example: The Lion Guard. Didn't need to be tied to the Lion King. You can take that story, swap out a few names, and lose nothing of substance. Nothing aside from a fanbase that only cares about the character names.
The Alpha and Omega sequels. Might as well have been a completely different franchise from the second film on.
Or how about Pirates of the Caribbean, On Stranger Tides? That actually was an original story, just done with some name-swapping to fit in Jack Sparrow.
This PPG reboot, regardless of quality (because, sure, there are things to like about it), fits into a larger trend that I think needs to be critically examined or at least acknowledged as happening.
The new season has been pretty solid so far. No real stinkers
3909640 That is pretty circular yea, but that alone wasn't the point. The point is actually no you can't just file off the details and get the same thing. What I meant was even though it's been modernized it feels a lot like the old show, the old announcer, or someone that sounds like him, is even there but only in retrospect did I realize not half as much. As I said it feels more like a continuation than a full reboot. Sure some new show could have been made but this is a case where that clearly isn't the point. There are at least 5 TMNT series at this point and they remake them as more TMNT first not because it's a good property and people want more of it. Sure you could make some new series about other humanoid animal teenagers with some sort of special training that allows them to fight things in an exciting manner, but if you're remaking something, just remake it already. I haven't caught the Lion King thing yet so you might have a good point about this show, but the point is PPG is a reboot of the same series, and the main reason I said that episode isn't good is not because it's actually bad, but because it is in fact confusing in terms of showing you these aren't just random girls. You could make a random show about superhero girls of course, but the goal is in fact a more modern PPG, even if they're not hitting that mark 100%, and I at least think they're succeeding.
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I think you're still missing the point, but I'll throw it all together once I catch up with cartoons in general.