Future Dr. Seuss Films

[AquaGGR]

I never saw why they needed to make movies out of children's short form storybooks. You have to add new characters and expand the plot. It takes basically 10 minutes to read these things half the time. How is that going to work out for 90 minutes?

I don't really understand it, either. It's not trying to bring back anyone's childhood, because it's almost completely different from the original. It's nigh impossible to make a 90-minute feature film based off of a 20-sentence kid's book without straying away from the source material. Speaking of which, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, the book didn't have a sequel, did it?

 

[Drtooth]

It did. Pickles to Pittsburg or something like that. According to Wikipedia:

The follow up to the story, Pickles to Pittsburgh, tells of the kids receiving a postcard from their grandfather, who claims to be visiting the ruins of what was once the fabled town of Chewandswallow. The kids then go to sleep and dream that they are there with him, helping to rebuild the post-apocalyptic landscape and restore it to where it is livable again, as well as giving the massive amounts of food away to poverty-stricken developing nations and homeless shelters around the world. This proves to be difficult, as there could be more food storms on the way.

So, yeah... they threw out the source material completely this time, opting for ripping off Toriko.

And the entire film trailer is "LOOK! Food pun! Look! Food Pun! LOOK! FOOD PUN!" over and over again.

 

[AquaGGR]

The food puns were painful. It was like "Piece of cake!", cue cake.

 

[Drtooth]

Stupid puns can work if the set up is good enough. Not the case here. They just wrote a 90 minute barrage of terrible puns with no variation.

 

[Princeton]

Stupid puns can work if the set up is good enough. Not the case here. They just wrote a 90 minute barrage of terrible puns with no variation.

Keep in mind that there are audiences out there for movies like that. It's quite obvious that your sense of humor is quite highbrow, but that doesn't mean that pun-heavy films don't have an appeal.

 

[Drtooth]

There is no defending how stupid and lazy those puns are. Puns work either for being deliberately horrid or clever in some way. This film really looks like it telegraphs each and every lazy food joke. I still don't get the appeal of this franchise. I'm sure I'd force myself through the first movie the whole way through one day and find something alright about it, but they pretty much ruined the book in the first movie for the sake of a lame plot.

The original book was a sweet tall tale a grandfather told his kids of an unexplained phenomenon. The movie ruins that sweetness with obviousness, explaining how it happened with a dumb explanation. This is why I hate them making 90 minute movies out of books that take 10 minutes at most to read. They throw in their own story which is hardly as good. Shrek somehow made it work. This time, not so much.

For the sequel, they threw away the sequel to the book and just made something insanely stupid looking. Seriously. When your animation studio's Magnum Opus is Hotel Transylvania and...well... maybe Smurfs 2, you know you're not in good hands.

 

[AquaGGR]

When your animation studio's Magnum Opus is Hotel Transylvania and...well... maybe Smurfs 2, you know you're not in good hands.

I always considered their Magnum Opus to be Surf's Up. That movie was hilarious, and making it a mockumentary prevented it from being too corny. (that movie is underrated, if you ask me)

 

[Drtooth]

I'll give Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs this. It may be completely idiotic, but it is no where near the soul crushing, dark and depressing, scary and corpse like Polar Express. At least Cloudy could be construed as fun. Polar Express is horrible. Just... just... who wants to watch a kid's horror movie that takes place on Christmas? They turn it into some sort of creepy religious indoctrination with pasty, ghost white characters. And the movie is never not pitch black. Gotham City in Batman TAS was sunnier and brighter.

 

[Princeton]

I also love Surf's Up; it's my favorite non-Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks animated film, along with the first Hoodwinked. I agree with Drtooth that the first Cloudy film is very hard to enjoy as a whole; the last third is where I lose interest, but that's not enough to keep me from enjoying it. I also want to add that sometimes it's limiting to base your opinion on a movie from solely a two-minute trailer.

 

[Drtooth]

Sometimes trailers are deceptive and only paint a picture of the movie's lowest common denominator viewing public, but sometimes they're dead on about the tone and humor of a movie.

Cloudy 2 seems to be just a bunch of running away from sentient food while they telegraph their humor lazily. It looks okay visually, but frankly, I would rather watch Planes, and I have no-ho-hoooo intention of seeing Planes.

As for the first one, maybe it was that third part that I saw, but I was mortified by it. I still don't see why everyone is so gaga over that film. Maybe they never read the book and didn't get offended by the movie thoroughly doing something I can't say here to the source material (seriously... it's my favorite stand alone kid's book)... And yes, I know there are times where they totally disreguard the source material and we get something good out of it, like Disney's Jungle Book and Roger Rabbit... Gary Wolf liked that version so much better than his own, his follow up Roger Rabbit novel was a sequel to the movie and saying that the first book was a dream.

But I don't see how sweet tall tale told by a grandpa to his little grandchildren isn't completely better than well meaning scientist with father issues.