Decline of entertainment?

[frogboy4]

Really... Fail on all counts. I don't care how star studded the cast is, I was excited for this movie since it was first announced, and now my enthusiasm is completely killed. I don't even want to partake in any of the prehype Smurf marketing.

NY is an expensive place to shoot. This is why I'm thinking there could be a story element we don't know about. What will make a live action (CG) Smurf film interesting is juxtaposition is placing them in an unlikely setting. We know Gargamel is going to be in it. I'm thinking there could be some sort of time-portal element with Central Park along with the toy store device. Who knows? It is more interesting visually to see the little blue fellas interacting with locations most familiar to the masses and with actual people rather than interact merely with other Smurfs in the Middle Ages. The Fraggles are kind of going this sort of route for their film too. I know it sounds like defending this picture, but I feel like giving this one the benefit of a doubt until we see more. I'm hoping a film will be successful and fan the flames for the old cartoons to be rerun or even better - - a new show in the classic spirit of the program.

I loved How to Train Your Dragon. I was expecting so little from it, but it was better than anything Dreamworks Animation has ever produced.

As for Tangled, I'm really looking forward to hearing the songs. It's supposed to have sort of a '60s rock sound. As a fan of Ashman and Menken, I can't wait to hear what Alan Menken does for this one.

Oooh. I must have forgotten about that. I'm all-in for Tangled if Menken's doing the songs.

Dragon and Panda really were so much better than they had to be. They are Pixar quality without being Pixar knock-offs. They both are distinct movies that create an independent appeal.

 

[Yorick]

I know it sounds like defending this picture, but I feel like giving this one the benefit of a doubt until we see more. I'm hoping a film will be successful and fan the flames for the old cartoons to be rerun or even better - - a new show in the classic spirit of the program.

Now there's a light at the end of the tunnel - and maybe then they'll get back the original voice actors who are available and willing. PS How To Train Your Dragon was very good indeed!

 

[Drtooth]

NY is an expensive place to shoot. This is why I'm thinking there could be a story element we don't know about. What will make a live action (CG) Smurf film interesting is juxtaposition is placing them in an unlikely setting. We know Gargamel is going to be in it. I'm thinking there could be some sort of time-portal element with Central Park along with the toy store device. Who knows? It is more interesting visually to see the little blue fellas interacting with locations most familiar to the masses and with actual people rather than interact merely with other Smurfs in the Middle Ages. The Fraggles are kind of going this sort of route for their film too. I know it sounds like defending this picture, but I feel like giving this one the benefit of a doubt until we see more. I'm hoping a film will be successful and fan the flames for the old cartoons to be rerun or even better - - a new show in the classic spirit of the program.

The Smurfs have as much place in modern day as the Sex in the City girls have no place building a time machine and going back to the stone age to invent the wheel.

I'm sorry, but the point of a movie is to ESCAPE reality. The Smurfs NEED a middle age setting, they need to fight Gargamel... Johan and Pewitt are optional, but they are important to the story. The Smurfs' formula helped them stay a force in Europe for well over 50 years, and everyone seems to be treating it as if it's just some write off nostalgia that they didn't bother writing a good script for.]

There are 3 kids movies I hate:

Talking Dog movies- shudder shudder
Movies where action stars have to play babbysitter (WHY Jackie Chan? WHY? WHY? WHYYYY?)
and movies where some brat can't get along with other kids... or WORSE a kid with an ineffectual father who's completely deep in his work somehow.

And dollars to Smurfberries they're gonna make Neil play that tired old chestnut. I really do LOVE Neil... the only time I watched Glee (just can't get into it, really) was the episode with him, and he was absolute magic on Sesame Street. But you can put a Shakespearean scholar in that role, and the film will still suck. heck, Weird Al could be in that kind of movie and I'd skip it.

You can't monkey with a comic book. We all have to remember that Smurfs IS a comic book that became popular as a cartoon 30 years later in the US because they sold toys. You can't make Batman dance around in the sunlight and shoot rainbows and puppies from his bat-signia, you can't make Superman a morbidly obese sassy female comedian, and you can't make Spider-Man a Catholic Priest during the Spanish Inquisition. You can make a stupid movie with those characters, sure... just remember what they are and what they do.

The problem is, if the Smurfs brand can't speak for itself, it has no business being a movie. And I'm sure they'll make it some lame time travelly dealy, which at least would be consistent with the lousy last season where they traveled through time... and they'll spend half the movie discovering rap music and iPhones and "I'm blue ba ba de" will be on the soundtrack because they apparently think it's funny to put horrid and dated songs for some pun reason. What I want is the three part trilogy that Nickelodeon was planning where the Smurfs actually did things they would have done in either the comic or the cartoon show. not make heavy handed and hypocritical feel good morals that NO one actually follows. I don't want to feel good or laugh at requoted movie lines.

I just find it pathetic to spend all this time and effort into a movie that's going to tick off the fan base while not getting a new group of kids to watch either. Again, Underdog. That was a complete failure... even the creator hated it, and every geek's favorite cartoon writer, Paul Dini had some pretty sharp words about it. I see the same thing happening with a BIGGER budget here. They marketed the movie and said "Holy Crap! We have to write this thing." And there ya go.

 

[Xerus]

You know, I had this idea for a Smurf fanfic I was planning to do a while back but never got around to making it.

If anyone saw the Smurfs 9th season, the Smurfs ended up lost in time and never returned to their village. In my fic, I was going to have them end up in modern day New York and get stuck there and Johan's descendant, who is a college student, invited them to hide out in his apartment and builds them a Smurf village in his kitchen made of cereal boxes, milk cartons, and other leftover junk. And Gargamel's descendant, who is a professor at the same college, is always trying to capture the Smurfs for he learned that they can be turned into gold.

I once told my idea to someone on a forum and now it looks like Hollywood's making it after all.

 

[frogboy4]

The Smurfs have as much place in modern day as the Sex in the City girls have no place building a time machine and going back to the stone age to invent the wheel.

I'm sorry, but the point of a movie is to ESCAPE reality. The Smurfs NEED a middle age setting, they need to fight Gargamel... Johan and Pewitt are optional, but they are important to the story. The Smurfs' formula helped them stay a force in Europe for well over 50 years, and everyone seems to be treating it as if it's just some write off nostalgia that they didn't bother writing a good script for.

The only way to escape reality in a film is to show reality and then turn it on its head. There must be a reference point. Also, it’s being overlooked that they are facing Gargamel (Hank Azaria = nice choice). I still don’t think we have enough information yet.

I'm still thinking they might balance the traditional Smurf setting with this modern day urban one they’ve chosen. I think it’s like when they convert a book to a movie - there's a lot that changes that must be made to make the concept exciting to a wider audience in the different medium. I'm not wild about the NY concept, but we know very little right now. We've only heard a thin pitch, albeit a change from the original program. However, Muppets From Space seemed like a fantastic idea on paper and it killed the Muppets in cinema for over 12 years! The Muppets aren’t British citizens, but they made the London setting work in the Great Muppet Caper. I know that’s still like apples and oranges, but you just never know until it's burned on celluloid. Marmaduke, Underdog…well, we knew to skip those from even the teaser trailers.

I like the juxtaposition of Smurfs in modern day as long as there's a nod to the fact they're out of their time. Magic has always been a part of their world and time travel is magic. An entire Smurf period piece was never going to fly. It's cinematically more interesting for them to invade our world than to revisit the cartoon series with updated effects. That can always happen later depending on the success of the film.

I still have hope. The concern I have is the animation quality. Their eyes looked creepy in the initial art. I hope they fix that.

 

[Drtooth]

I like the juxtaposition of Smurfs in modern day as long as there's a nod to the fact they're out of their time. Magic has always been a part of their world and time travel is magic. An entire Smurf period piece was never going to fly. It's cinematically more interesting for them to invade our world than to revisit the cartoon series with updated effects. That can always happen later depending on the success of the film.

There's a fine line difference between a cliche and a trope to me. The biggest trope of them all is the highly overused taking characters out of their element and putting them in modern day leaving them confused and disoriented. I might as well watch Encino Man or something if that's the case. it barely worked for Bullwinkle... would have worked more if that annoying Mary Sue wasn't ruining the film, but at least they remembered what made the show appealing... and I will say it DID work for Fat Albert, but I didn't like all the jive about how "we can't do X without the writers."

And add to the fact they're gonna make annoying visual puns about how they're small and/or they're blue. And have any and every song with the word "Blue" in the title playing on the soundtrack.

Above all else, I'm not buying the It won't work in the middle ages. Not one bit. Again, LOTR... Shrek even... If somehow it was the opposite and some future kid fell through time through there era, I COULD see that working. But you get what I'm saying right? They're basically treating this like every other kids movie, and I just can see ALL the cliches and tropes forming in my head. And I don't like them one bit. They're better than that. I'd rather NO Smurf movie than some feel good tripe about a lonely kid and imaginary friends. If I wanted that, I'd see a Ned's newt movie, because at least that was the plot of the cartoon.

The Fraggles CAN do the same thing and have it work perfectly... which is yet another reason to be worried. They're trying to rip the Fraggle movie's plot before it comes out. Another backhanded backwards copyright infringement... if you read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, it's like when the authors of the Guide copied their text off of a box of cereal and then sent the guide back in time so they could sue the cereal manufacturers for copying them. Or, like when Fox rushed out reality shows that ABC was producing to make it look like they came out with it first.

mark my words... if the Fraggle Film doesn't get made, the Smurf movie will hurt it. As it stands, they stole the plot from the Fraggle Film anyway.

This movie, if nothing else will tick the heck out of Europe and give them yet another reason to hate the US. Japan wasn't all that happy about us ruining Dragon Ball.

That said, if that Tintin movie's still a go, i'm sure they'll have people who read the comics and know the character's overall legacy. Not just kiddy nostalgia. Not another one of those films that kids drag their fathers to with cheap laughs for the father who wanted to see the secy spy action movie to forget that he has children with a woman who's rapidly turning into a genderless blob in a Pooh sweater and a bad short hair cut.

 

[frogboy4]

I just still don't think we know enough to go off on tangents about how it won't work...well, not yet. I'm giving it a chance and waiting to see the trailer. I'm pretty vicious about animated movies that fall short, but that's after seeing them. That goes for Muppet movies too!

In my spectrum of film tastes, both "Muppets From Space" and "Happy Feet" have Failing grades as a whole, "The Rocky & Bullwinkle Movie" and "Pocahontas" are solid D's, "A Bug's Life" and the "The Chipmunks" are in that C range, "Up!" and "Princess & the Frog" are somewhere in the B's, "The Secret of Nimh" and "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" get some sort of A, while stellar pics like "The Incredibles" and "The Muppet Movie" hit it out of the park with the A++. Just kind of showing where I come from. However, I see most of these in the theater to really appreciate what they have to offer or what's missing.

 

[Drtooth]

I just still don't think we know enough to go off on tangents about how it won't work...well, not yet. I'm giving it a chance and waiting to see the trailer. I'm pretty vicious about animated movies that fall short, but that's after seeing them. That goes for Muppet movies too!

Yeah... I get what you're saying. But somehow this seems like they can't tell the difference between the Smurfs and the Care Bears. This would make a good Care bears movie, but I don't think that the huge budget and big name cast is worthy of a script that seemed to be penned as an afterthought.

I think i discovered the problem. They're trying to take a European product and give it American sensibilities. Even the cartoon series borrowed plotlines from the original comics.

Sort of like what the Japanese did to Spider-Man... while that at least has camp value over here, it still completely takes what was original about the character and turns it into a lame pastiche of everything else... like what this movie will no doubt be.

If they at LEAST set a good portion of the movie in the Smurf's world with a stop over in modern day here to pull those hypocritical feel good messages (which I'll get into another time. Came back from the mall looking at billboards for TV shows about "Plus Sized" women who are thinner than half the mall patrons), I'd still say it would suck, but not as much. If it is indeed time travel, at least it ties in to the terrible final season of the cartoon series somehow. But I remember the original concept was that the girl cries until all her toys come to life. That isn't the Smurfs at all. Care bears maybe, but not Smurfs.

The worst part is there is NO shortage of plots they could recycle from the comic. heck, you could do an entire movie about Smurfette's birth at the hands of Gargemel alone. Maybe even the black blood Smurfs saga where odd bugs sting Smurfs turning them into mindless, raging beasts. Of course, change the blackened skin to red... There's so much they CAN do with their little world without turning into an exact replica of the Fat Albert movie with NONE of the sweetness.

Sure, I could give it until the trailer, but I've seen that trailer to that movie too many times.

 

[RedPiggy]

The Fraggles CAN do the same thing and have it work perfectly... which is yet another reason to be worried. They're trying to rip the Fraggle movie's plot before it comes out.

While I can see the "copy/paste" job, just because you can copy a plot point doesn't mean it'll make sense. The Fraggles DID (sorta) live in the "real world", or at least had regular access to it through magic. Both times we see Matt find a portal to another world (actually, 3 times if you count the T. Matthew Fraggle room), he NEEDED to be somewhere other than where he was and an opening just showed up. Gobo, meanwhile, always takes the Doc's opening and the Gorg's opening for granted. It's only when he NEEDS a way to reach Doc does the magic of Fraggle Rock do its thing. In this it shares a certain magical logic with Labyrinth and its sequel (actually, this idea is pretty much made obvious by Jake Forbes himself in the first volume of the comic, as several Fraggle references are made).

Having the Smurfs show up in our world would be more like the Gummi Bears than the Care Bears. I thought the Care Bears just sorta lived "up there" somewhere (though watching NC's review brings up a possible alternate dimension idea) over our heads in the real world. Gummi Bears, however, like Smurfs, are basically from Middle Ages Europe. They could probably reach us through magic, but ... why? Wouldn't it be depressing for the Gummi Bears to travel to the future to see how their species is doing, only to discover they're all extinct and they are back to being alone again?

I think what would make a Smurfs time-traveling plot work rather well would be to start the movie in the correct time period, have Gargamel invent Smurfette to destroy the Smurfs, but unlike human "trecherous woman" myths, the Smurfs actually love Smurfette and Gargamel vows to kill them all, forcing Papa Smurf to have an epic battle, the side effect of which is getting rocketed through time and space. Both the Smurfs and Gargamel try to decide whether to get back to their homes or stay, but with differences, namely that the Smurfs would just try to live out their lives peacefully in the present but Gargamel would realize as one of the last sorcerers to exist, he has a tactical advantage over the modern humans. There could definitely be an epicness about it, but they'd have to write it VERY well in order to pull off "magical creature in real world" that Fraggle Rock doesn't have to work NEARLY as hard to pull off.

 

[Drtooth]

I think what would make a Smurfs time-traveling plot work rather well would be to start the movie in the correct time period, have Gargamel invent Smurfette to destroy the Smurfs, but unlike human "trecherous woman" myths, the Smurfs actually love Smurfette and Gargamel vows to kill them all, forcing Papa Smurf to have an epic battle, the side effect of which is getting rocketed through time and space. Both the Smurfs and Gargamel try to decide whether to get back to their homes or stay, but with differences, namely that the Smurfs would just try to live out their lives peacefully in the present but Gargamel would realize as one of the last sorcerers to exist, he has a tactical advantage over the modern humans. There could definitely be an epicness about it, but they'd have to write it VERY well in order to pull off "magical creature in real world" that Fraggle Rock doesn't have to work NEARLY as hard to pull off.

The two things that bother me are that the original concept was some kid was crying her head off because she's got some cliche kid's problem that's in every single kid's movie and she cried them to life. And secondly, the Time Travel season of the Smurfs was considered the jump the shark moment anyway. It was a gimmick that came into the series because the fad popularity of the show was waning and Back to the Future and Bill and Ted were popular at the time. Plus, Paul Winchel left the show for some reason, leaving Hamilton Camp to play Gargamel's various odd time relatives. Oh, and the Smurfs only went to cliche periods in time... Egypt for example.

I still think the shoe could have been on the other foot and it would work better... Kid getting transported to their magical world. Wasn't there a period last decade where all the movies were about kids getting into magical worlds anyway? If you're going the route of copying something, that was a more solid ground. But forget it... I'm not seeing this movie, and Sony Animation Studios has my undying hatred.