Line #27 Headscratchers/HotelTransylvania


1	->Questions about the sequel go [[Headscratchers/{{Hotel Transylvania 2}} here]].
2	----
3	* Why does Quasimodo sweat so much? Is he hot? Nervousness? It’s never explained.
4	** Maybe his clothes are stuffy?
5	* Jonathan bringing "fun" into Mavis' rather blasé birthday party is emphasized a lot, and is what eventually causes Dracula to befriend Jonathan rather than despise him for being a human. The rush of excitement Drac gets at the end of the sequence with the flying tables even establishes that he's never had that much fun in a long time! But, you're telling me he's ''never'' known what this "fun" business is about before this?! He hangs out with rowdy pals who play pranks! He brings down the house at dances! His friend Murray is BigFun! That sequence ended very weakly.
6	** Don't forget, Drac's buddies seem to consider him to be a control freak. If anything "fun" happened to be dangerous in the slightest, such as the scene with the tables, there's no way he'd let it come anywhere near his baby girl.
7	*** Okay, so maybe his problem is that he doesn't know when to let his daughter explore the world and be open to potentially dangerous things, rather than being "fun". I wish they wouldn't use the word "fun" repeatedly in the movie, then.
8	** Or maybe he’s still grieving over the death of his wife, and so depressed he’s forgotten what fun, true, letting yourself go, forget everything kind of fun feels.
9	** The sequel does establish that all of Drac's friends are so out of shape that they can't get into actually scaring people like they could before going into hiding. Also, just because his friends have fun, bombastic personalities don't mean Drac personally knows what it feels like to have as much fun as they do since he's been too busy raising Mavis and running the hotel for several centuries.
10	** It may also be that Drac has somewhat forgotten what "Fun" is beyond what he feels is "acceptable". He's so caught up in work and raising his daughter, and keeping her safe that his definition of "fun" has become "occasionally see my old friends, have a few drinks, talk about life, bleh bleh bleh", and he's forgotten about what it's like to really cut loose and just DO stuff, without fretting over consequences or safety.
11	* Okay, I get that Quasimodo might be accepted as a monster because of his looks, but why is he alive? He isn't immortal, he was just an ugly human being who was born in the 19th century. He should be dead by now.
12	** The others monsters did not consider him human, so, in this film, he is probably not a human.
13	** The same question goes for the Invisible Man, how is he still alive?
14	*** Especially as Griffin died in the original novel and [[Film/TheInvisibleMan1933 1933 film]]. Unless resurrection and immortality were a side-effect of his experiment...
15	*** That wouldn't suffice, at least for the novel's Griffin: that guy was an albino, and the animated film's version at least ''claims'' his hair is red.
16	** The Wolfman wasn't named Wayne either, folks. Presumably, in ''this'' Verse, the monsters from fiction are loosely-adapted versions of the genuine article, which humans have concocted in our ignorance. Quasimodo is ''actually'' a monster, but the story of the Hunchback of Notre Dame was a human-written fictionalized account of his life from an author who didn't know anything except the name and look.
17	** Alternately, he's a natural-born monster who just happens to have been ''named after'' the fictional hunchback, due to their physical resemblance.
18	* So, are the werewolves immortal? 'Cause, the wife was present when the Dracula's met over 118 years ago.
19	** In some folklore and modern media werewolves are immortal in both being virtually unkillable and ageless. In this case, they are immortal.
20	* Why is there only one female werewolf pup? That seems unlikely when you consider how many there are of them. Unless she was just the only girl with TertiarySexualCharacteristics?
21	** RuleOfFunny.
22	** Maybe she is the only one that isn't a mindless, destructive little hellion.
23	** Possibly a trait of werewolves. The odds of a werewolf being born male are much higher than it being born female. Both explain why the world is not overrun with werewolves despite them breeding like rabbits, and why such explosive breeding is necessary to keep the species alive.
24	* Why are Mavis' clothes so modern, if she has not been outside in a hundred years? She's got a short skirt, a t-shirt with arm warmers and...is wearing converse? How is she dressed that way and not in Victorian style?
25	** The wonders of Internet shopping, ladies and gentlemen!
26	** We are shown that Dracula is keeping tabs on human trends, even if he is misinterpreting the reasons for the trends. Perhaps Mavis got a hold of some of these reports? Or maybe some of the other monsters who have closer contact with humans designed them for her? (Griffin seems likely, in this case.)
27	** The monsters probably also receive regular updates about human society from humans who ''became'' monsters, such as newly-risen zombies and ghosts.
28	** Enough of the monsters (werewolves, Eunice), are shown in modern clothing. It's not hard to guess that Drac, being characterized as the old-fashioned foil to his daughter insisted on wearing the Victorian style but permitted Mavis to wear more recent styles if/when she asked. Especially if the above guess that one of the Dracula clan's friends made the clothing or bought it for her is the case.
29	*** It's also likely that Dracula is a very "classical" vampire. Y'know, creepy old castle, victorian clothes, big capes kinda guy. He's okay with Mavis learning about and dressing more like part of the modern world, just he's not keen on it
30	* Why don't they turn Jonathan into a vampire? It would have solved quite a few of the problems in this movie.
31	** Maybe he just didn't want to become a vampire.
32	** We don't know if vampires can do that in this universe. Mavis was born a vampire.
33	** Family unfriendly message. Plus, it would've been a bit too close to ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' which was openly mocked by the authors.
34	** Considering vampires don't have too many drawbacks in the movie - they may subsist on blood substitutes and sunlight doesn't hurt them that much - one can imagine that'll be the case eventually. Dracula does say Johnny is a lousy Frankenstein but he'd make a great vampire.
35	** Or he just might not want to become a vampire ''yet''. Considering that he is twenty-one in the first film there is no immediate threat of him becoming old and considering that he has a limited number of years to enjoy as a human and would have eternity as a vampire it's not that strange that he would want to experience the first state more.
36	** Staying human for now probably makes it easier for him to show Mavis the outside world, also. Much easier to book a flight to Haweewee and so forth if he boards the plane in broad daylight, and makes sure the lightproof satchel she rides inside as a bat doesn't get lost or stolen before the couple can reach their destination.
37	** {{Our Vampires Are Different}}. The only example of a new vampire (Dennis) was born that way, not turned. It might be the case that Hotel Transylvania's vampires are more of another species that can reproduce with humans than raised or transformed humans.
38	** Iirc, Dracula said that he might turn Jonathan into a vampire. They probably will until he's ready.
39	* Dracula's hypnotism fails on Johnny because of his glasses, yet Drac has no problem hypnotizing that airplane pilot (who hilariously begins speaking with Drac's accent) through the windshield of the plane.....
40	** Could be the material used. There might be some kind of difference between the contacts and windshield that allow protection or not.
41	*** Could just be that the contacts were directly 'blocking' the pupils, whereas the windshield technically was not
42	** It's entirely possible he just bought a really weird set of contacts from some really weird people, I mean, this guy nearly got ''cannibalized'' at a Slipknot concert, this guy's done some weird stuff. It could just be his particular set. It's not established that contacts, in general, do that, and also, it's entirely possible it has nothing to do with the contacts at all, it's just Jonathan. But then again, the way they set it up, general writing convention mandates it be at least those particular kinds of contacts that do it, having it confirmed to not be the contacts at all would be weird from a writing perspective.
43	** Contacts are designed to refract and warp light whereas a windshield is designed to let it pass through more or less unaltered.
44	* When Mavis walks on the ceiling, shouldn't her hair be hanging?
45	** I'm assuming the gravity-defying abilities that allow her to be up there in the first place extend to her hair.
46	*** Either that or Vampires have got some SERIOUS hair products.
47	* So...[[BrickJoke WOULD his hand disappear?]]
48	** In both the Wells novel and the film, Griffin said he must remain hidden for an hour after he eats. So [[{{Squick}} anything he puts in his mouth and stomach can be seen quite well by everyone.]]
49	** The sequel has him drinking champagne in one scene, and the drink disappears upon going into his mouth. Maybe that answers the question.
50	* What monster was the fleas or whatever they were? Everyone else was iconic in some fashion.
51	** Bed bugs!
52	* How on earth did the humans manage to kill Martha? Vampires in this movie are established to have the powers of shapeshifting, wall clinging, possibly something that seems to border on teleportation that Mavis keeps using to ambush Johnny, telekinesis, and the ability to petrify people indefinitely in less than a second. Their weaknesses? A minor aversion to garlic and that they burn up (very very slowly) in sunlight. How did any of those humans, who attacked at ''nighttime'', mind you, manage to get a stake through her heart, even with all of the fire?
53	** Most of the traits you mentioned were only shown with Dracula, who's often depicted as being more powerful than other vampires.
54	** Still, even assuming she was no more powerful than Mavis is in modern times, it's still a massive stretch to believe that a human is a credible threat to them. Just turn into a bat and fly out the window. The way she dies, it's almost like she let them do it.
55	** Martha could easily escape the mob, but Mavis couldn't since she's only an infant and has yet to learn how to use any of her powers. Martha died trying while protecting her baby.
56	** That still makes no sense whatsoever. She could easily have taken the baby Mavis in her arms and jumped out the window, clinging to the sides of the castle with her wall-clinging powers. There were so many ways she could have avoided that, the idea that she was utterly powerless against a mob of mortals is impossible to take seriously.
57	** Just because someone (anyone, vampire, human, or whatever) is powerful doesn't mean they're invincible when they're massively outnumbered and have a helpless child to protect. Remember, we don't know ''what'' else besides sunlight harms vampires in this universe. If they're vulnerable to sharp steel or iron weapons (like Stoker's Dracula, or humans for that matter -- "Who ''wouldn't'' [a stake through the heart] kill?"), and if Martha was ambushed by a crowd of humans armed with projectile weapons like spears or arrows, or if they trapped her somewhere before burning the place down, or if they ambushed her indoors with nowhere to fly... there are a million ways that could have been down, none of them pleasant. Having super vampire powers just means they would have had to kill her in a much more extreme, gruesome way than they would a normal human.
58	*** From the way the movie presents the death of Martha, she was taken by surprise while alone in a room with the baby Mavis, Dracula being busy trying to talk down the angry mob at the front door. Since we see her hand hitting the floor, she was most likely killed either by the semi-traditional stake or by the equally-traditional beheading. Both are rather quick -- and if she was attacked from behind, she would have had almost no chance to defend herself.
59	* So, Zombie! Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven. They technically used to be human, but every zombie is treated as a regular monster. So does that mean any dead human is A-OK? Or does every human just have a zombie counterpart or something?
60	** I think the keywords there were "''used'' to be human". Dracula, Wolfman, and The Mummy were all presumably human. (And Frank was ''several'' humans)
61	*** Going from both Mavis and Dennis in the sequels, vampires are born as they are not made from humans. One can assume the same goes for werewolves. The mummy might or not count depending on the rules of undeath in the setting. So that just leaves the Invisible Man as someone we can assume without fear to be someone who both "used to be human" and can be said to have a direct continuity to when he was just a human.
62	** And the Invisible Man is STILL human (invisible but human).
63	** I don't think they were the actual Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven, just some zombies dressed up as them.
64	** Technically, Frankenstein's monster could count as "used to be human", since he's made from several different body parts. It seems that "monster" is just used to define "some sort of abomination that is treated by a freak by normal humans if he/she were to go out in public."
65	** As noted on the {{Fridge Brillance}} page, the monster guests aren't nice to the zombie help. With that in mind, it might be that the zombies compared with other monsters have a more of a human "aura" with those other monsters being just a bit wary around them. Fantastic Racism and all.
66	* For most of the movie we get the HumansAreTheRealMonsters story where the monsters are all being unfairly hunted for being different. But then during the scenes where Quasimodo is trying to cook Johnny and Murray suggest scaring the people, the movie implies that monsters are the PunchClockVillain kind, and scaring people is their job. Uuuuhhhh, you can't do BOTH, movie.
67	** When they needed a way to get through the crowd quickly, Murray assumed scaring people would work based on how people usually react to monsters; that doesn't imply they do that regularly. Just because Quasimodo eats humans doesn't mean other monsters do.
68	** FridgeBrilliance: Quasimodo technically is human (a deform person, but human) so the Aesop remains.
69	** Dracula and other monsters agreeing with him having such a hostile attitude towards humans don't mean we're supposed to agree with them. The humans back when Martha was still alive were obviously from a notably older time than the modern world (with later movies showing that indeed, modern humans and monsters can share a world). There are plenty of villains across the series with the tv show who are monsters with no obvious {{Freudian Excuse}} for their behavior (Quasimodo, Bela, Aunt Lydia). The few human major villains in the movies (the Van Helsings) do see where they went wrong and become open to friendship with monsters. One could even say from the example of Lydia or Bela that indeed, there ARE legit dangerous monsters whose actions incite humans to fear their kind just as there are hateful humans who incite monsters to fear their kind, leading to a {{Vicious Cycle}}. All considered the series has a nuanced portrayal of {{Fantastic Racism}} where BOTH sides have to make an effort to be better than they were in the past.
70	* What is that round, white, shining object hanging from "Bella's" left shoulder? When Jonathan's watching "''Film/{{Twilight}}''" on the plane, the Bella CaptainErsatz has something on the left side of her jacket, sitting above her crossed arms, as if it's hanging from her shoulder, but there's nothing in between the light bulb-like thing and her jacket shoulder that it could be hanging from. What is that supposed to be or be from? I'm not a ''Twilight'' fan -- is that something of significance in those books/movies, or just something mundane that my eyes aren't identifying?
71	** It's probably supposed to be LensFlare, but it's hard to tell during that brief shot.
72	** Yes, it seems to be LensFlare included making it more self-evident that the scene is playing on a TV screen in-Verse.
73	* For a movie that takes place in what I presume is around 2012-2013 Romania and with monsters that tend to live semi-isolated from human society, a lot of monsters seem to talk with standard American accents in English, even though many of these monsters don't seem to be of American origin or from English speaking countries (except for possibly Frank or Griffin), and it doesn't seem like they would be influenced by the now-widespread use of English in the modern world due to their isolation. So what gives? Is it just {{Translation Convention}} and Johnny can speak fluent Romanian, or what?
74	** Drac has a lot of witches on staff. It's possible that they routinely provide translation spells to hotel staff and guests, to make social and professional interaction easier. Considering that Hotel Transylvania routinely hosts customers as varied as the Yeti (Nepalese dialect), Murry and his lady (ancient Egyptian), and the Hydra (classical Greek), Drac would pretty much ''have'' to use ''some'' sort of TranslatorMicrobes-equivalent to ensure every guest can comfortably speak, and hear, their native language.
75	* How is it that, at times, Frank will fall apart at a stiff sneeze, and at other times, everything else falls apart at his passing, while he remains intact? I mean, yes, RuleOfFunny and all, but still.

Context Headscratchers / HotelTransylvania