Well
I looked at the Sonic trailer, with the improved effects, and it looks
like they did it again. Rather than a movie about Sonic and his
universe, he’s going to be tossed into the real world for hi jinks. Why
does this keep happening? What makes people think we want to see a movie
about a franchise we love where the focus is on humans on Earth? It
wouldn’t be so bad, maybe, if they took the characters out of their
world but it gets worst when the focus goes from the characters we love
to humans who couldn’t care less about.
Human-Focused Adaptation is a TV Trope where an adapation of an animated series inexplicably becomes focused on humans. Usually the animated characters are transported to Earth and for some inexplicable reason the focus of the movie becomes the humans rather than the characters we wanted to see. This is a strange phenomenon in movies which I will never understand. And these are almost always awful. Oh sometimes it’s not so bad. Alvin and the Chipmunks was focus on Alvin, Simon and Theodore. Fat Albert had the characters coming into the real world but the focus stayed on them. And as bad as the Scooby Doo movies were at least the focus was on our five heroes. And of course we had The Muppets where Jason Segel and Amy Adams took some of the spotlight, but not enough to ruin the movie or take attention of the Muppets.
Most however, are not so lucky. Here are some examples :
The Smurfs
Tell me if you’ve heard this one..classic cartoon characters are transported to modern day New York City where hilarious hi jinks ensue. Groan! The plot becomes about Neil Patrick Harris and his worrying about being a father. Who cares?? Why New York? Like we never see that city in movies. Especially when The Smurfs world was fleshed out really well. But that isn’t the worst part. They actually had a sequel. A real chance to stay in the Smurf’s world and explore it. And you know what the sequel did? THE SAME DAMN THING AS THE FIRST!
Underdog
Garfield was awful, with the focus being more on Jon and Liz. But the one plus was that at least it was a CGI Garfield, more than I can say for Underdog. For some reason I’ll never understand Underdog becomes a non anthropomorphic beagle. Sure. Doing this takes all the fun from the cartoon and turns the movie in another family film about talking animals. I couldn’t even make it through the trailer.
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
This one is harder to be mad at because it was obviously meant to mock this trope. But once again our cartoon heroes are plunged into the real world where wacky hijinks happen. With the focus more on the real world. Not the worst but worth a mention.
Transformers
I remember watching the first movie and wondering when the Transformers would actually appear. And while they did, and kicked ass, there’s no denying that the Transformers are supporting characters here. The first movie focuses on a few humans and how they discover what’s happening and come together to help the robots. The second one was so boring I can’t remember it. How is it they could make a real Transformers animated movie but we can’t get a live action one where the focus is on the robots and not the wacky humans? I know it just wouldn’t be a real Transformers movie without the wacky clueless parents like we had in the first two films.
Masters of the Universe
You can’t imagine my pain in 1987 when I went to see the Masters of the Universe movie. He-Man was everything to me, I adored it! A live action version? Hell yeah! And yet despite the fact that the cartoon had dozens of episodes exploring the world of Eternia, the main action in the movie takes place on Earth. Screw He-Man fighting Skeletor, I want to see if Courtney Cox can cope with her parents deaths! UGH, What almost made it worst was that the Eternia scenes, and the characters in them, bore almost no resemblance to the way they appeared on the cartoon. And we even got an annoying new character, yay. Ok Frank Langella rocked as Skeletor but that’s not nearly enough to make this either a decent movie or a faithful adaptation.
Plenty more out there. The Flintstones movie comes close by giving us a ridiculous plot that has nothing to do with the cartoon. Woody Woodpecker and Yogi Bear at least keep the characters in their proper environments. And the of course we have Jem…which got every single thing wrong. And of course “Enchanted” parodied this and did it very nicely!!
If I missed one let me know.
Human-Focused Adaptation is a TV Trope where an adapation of an animated series inexplicably becomes focused on humans. Usually the animated characters are transported to Earth and for some inexplicable reason the focus of the movie becomes the humans rather than the characters we wanted to see. This is a strange phenomenon in movies which I will never understand. And these are almost always awful. Oh sometimes it’s not so bad. Alvin and the Chipmunks was focus on Alvin, Simon and Theodore. Fat Albert had the characters coming into the real world but the focus stayed on them. And as bad as the Scooby Doo movies were at least the focus was on our five heroes. And of course we had The Muppets where Jason Segel and Amy Adams took some of the spotlight, but not enough to ruin the movie or take attention of the Muppets.
Most however, are not so lucky. Here are some examples :
The Smurfs
Tell me if you’ve heard this one..classic cartoon characters are transported to modern day New York City where hilarious hi jinks ensue. Groan! The plot becomes about Neil Patrick Harris and his worrying about being a father. Who cares?? Why New York? Like we never see that city in movies. Especially when The Smurfs world was fleshed out really well. But that isn’t the worst part. They actually had a sequel. A real chance to stay in the Smurf’s world and explore it. And you know what the sequel did? THE SAME DAMN THING AS THE FIRST!
Underdog
Garfield was awful, with the focus being more on Jon and Liz. But the one plus was that at least it was a CGI Garfield, more than I can say for Underdog. For some reason I’ll never understand Underdog becomes a non anthropomorphic beagle. Sure. Doing this takes all the fun from the cartoon and turns the movie in another family film about talking animals. I couldn’t even make it through the trailer.
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
This one is harder to be mad at because it was obviously meant to mock this trope. But once again our cartoon heroes are plunged into the real world where wacky hijinks happen. With the focus more on the real world. Not the worst but worth a mention.
Transformers
I remember watching the first movie and wondering when the Transformers would actually appear. And while they did, and kicked ass, there’s no denying that the Transformers are supporting characters here. The first movie focuses on a few humans and how they discover what’s happening and come together to help the robots. The second one was so boring I can’t remember it. How is it they could make a real Transformers animated movie but we can’t get a live action one where the focus is on the robots and not the wacky humans? I know it just wouldn’t be a real Transformers movie without the wacky clueless parents like we had in the first two films.
Masters of the Universe
You can’t imagine my pain in 1987 when I went to see the Masters of the Universe movie. He-Man was everything to me, I adored it! A live action version? Hell yeah! And yet despite the fact that the cartoon had dozens of episodes exploring the world of Eternia, the main action in the movie takes place on Earth. Screw He-Man fighting Skeletor, I want to see if Courtney Cox can cope with her parents deaths! UGH, What almost made it worst was that the Eternia scenes, and the characters in them, bore almost no resemblance to the way they appeared on the cartoon. And we even got an annoying new character, yay. Ok Frank Langella rocked as Skeletor but that’s not nearly enough to make this either a decent movie or a faithful adaptation.
Plenty more out there. The Flintstones movie comes close by giving us a ridiculous plot that has nothing to do with the cartoon. Woody Woodpecker and Yogi Bear at least keep the characters in their proper environments. And the of course we have Jem…which got every single thing wrong. And of course “Enchanted” parodied this and did it very nicely!!
If I missed one let me know.
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