Authors Saving Throw / Animated Films

• The Peanuts Movie contains a number of these for problems that fans had with the original comic strip and animated specials, most notably, toning down the Kafka Comedy. Chief among the examples is Charlie Brown's book report on War and Peace — in the special Happy New Year, Charlie Brown, a number of fans questioned what kind of teacher would make an eight-year-old kid read War and Peace and write a book report on it over Christmas break. (And then refuse to believe that the kid would have done it by himself). In The Peanuts Movie, Charlie Brown is the one who picks War and Peace to do a book report on, because he wants to impress the Little Red-Haired Girl and deliberately goes for what he's told is "the greatest book of all time," and he does it all himself because the Little Red-Haired Girl was sick. Charlie Brown's Butt-Monkey status is still there, but played more dramatically, as tragically, a gust of wind slips the book report paper out of his hands into the air, right into the path of the model of The Red Baron's plane, which shreds the paper.
• While few were demanding a midquel for Bambi, many think that Bambi II at the very least works well smoothing out the transition between the death of Bambi's mother and birds singing happy little spring songs in the first film.
• Coco: the first news of this movie was that Disney wanted to trademark the title "Día de los Muertos" for it, which drew a huge backlash from Mexican audiences, including Mexican cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz. Disney quickly retracted the trademark idea... and decided to go with the Hire the Critic approach by getting Alcaraz involved as a consultant. The backlash made a complete 180° turn as the movie became the biggest box office success in Mexican history and Mexican audiences loved it to bits. Disney/Pixar succeeded in turning the backlash into an amazing example of Germans Love David Hasselhoff.
• Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus: Many fans of the show questioned for years if Professor Membrane even cared about Dib. And while the movie's version of the Professor still won't be winning any parent of the year awards, it shown for certain that he loves his son — in one of the most touching moments in the history of the series, he tells Dib that he's always been proud of him and that he doesn't need to constantly prove himself. And then, despite being convinced that everything happening with Zim's Evil Plan is a hallucination he's having because he was hit on the head, Membrane doesn't hesitate to go full-on Papa Wolf to protect Dib from Zim's Mecha-Mooks.
• The Powerpuff Girls Movie was made to give hardcore fans a Darker and Edgier Prequel that explains why the people of Townsville despised the girls at first and show Mojo Jojo as a legitimate threat rather than a comic foil.
• The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water, aimed to alleviate many, many grievances that resulted from the Flanderization the cast suffered after season 5. SpongeBob himself was much less obnoxious and more intelligent, Patrick was still a dumbass, but he wasn't quite as bad as in the later seasons (and significantly less malicious), Mr. Krabs was more of the gruff but reasonable boss he used to be instead of the psychotic money-grabbing lunatic he became, Plankton was back to being a legitimate threat after years of Villain Decay, and Squidward finally got thrown a bone that wasn't cruelly ripped from him at the last moment. Given that the story was penned by Steven Hillenberg himself, the entire movie can be seen as a "Sorry for what the staff turned my show into after I left."
• Disney's portrayal of its Princesses has changed over the decades due to evolving views towards the role of women. Starting with The Black Cauldron and, more popularly, The Little Mermaid, Disney's princess characters started taking an active role in the plot and doing things of their own accord, as opposed to previous films where everything just happened around them. Mulan took it one step further by having the princess be the one who saves the day instead of her boyfriend. Finally, Brave removed the boyfriend requirement altogether, and future princess movies (except Tangled) have been about the girls' own self-discovery rather than just falling in love.
• Rio 2: For everyone who watched the first movie and pointed out Blu and Jewel's species was still doomed if they were the only viable breeding pair (the species actually being Critically Endangered in real life), a hidden flock (of which Jewel originally came from, as it is lead by her father) is discovered in the film.
• The Angry Birds Movie 2: The first movie received some criticism for having a message that can easily be constructed as "immigration equals invasion and they're going to steal your stuff and eat your kids". By contrast, this sequel shows the pigs and birds working together, and shows the hatchlings and the piglets becoming friends. And also, by the end of the movie, birds and pigs are shown coexisting peacefully.
• Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.!: The main reason the direct-to-video animated sequel was made, was to please disgruntled viewers of the first film who were expecting the film to be about a talking kangaroo like they were promised by the film's misleading trailer and poster, since the sequel now has the eponymous Kangaroo Jack being able to talk due to a magic spell, as well as being given more screen-time.
• The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild: Despite this film's MANY other problems, it does at least fix a couple of criticisms that the last two films suffered from:
  • While Buck has always been a little crazy, many viewers felt that he had degraded into an overly-wacky and overly-awkward character who spews nothing but exposition in the fifth film. This film rectifies this by restoring his original personality, making him likable again and downplaying the craziness.
  • Crash and Eddie were never the most popular characters in the franchise, which wasn't helped by the fact that they were reduced to pointless comic reliefs in the last two films. This film makes them the main characters, making them more relevant to the plot of the film while also attempting to give them some more Character Development.
  • The previous two films have commonly been criticized for being overcrowded with superfluous new characters that took attention away from the supposed main characters. Not so much in this film, where the focus is squarely on Buck and the possums, with the addition of only two noteworthy new characters; Zee, who serves as their ally, and Orson, who is the Big Bad, while the rest of the cast is minimal and made up of familiar and established faces who serve their roles as supporting characters.
  • Likewise, given how Shira and Brooke were both criticized for being shoehorned-in Satellite Love Interests for Diego and Sid respectively (as well as the general trend of the sequels always giving one of the protagonists a love interest), Buck and Zee’s platonic friendship is quite refreshing and allows the latter to come into her own more as a character.
  • For those who enjoyed their budding friendship in Dawn of the Dinosaurs, seeing Sid and Momma Rex reunite might count as one.
  • There are also people who are glad that Scrat is absent from the film and think the character has worn out his welcome a while ago, citing how his antics have gotten gratuitously exaggerated in Continental Drift and Collision Course, to the point that he has effectively become God and creates global and even galactic-scale natural disasters that serve as the catalyst for the main plot, instead of just being a Butt-Monkey used to break up the story once in a while for comic relief.
  • Many fans were appreciative of seeing the original film's events paid tribute to in the opening recap, given that the sequels' attention to their continuity has generally been lip service at best before this point.
• In the ten-year anniversary "Human Again" segment from Beauty and the Beast, Lumiere is seen brushing Philippe in the castle stables. In the DVD commentary, the filmmakers stated they added this because a lot of people had asked where Philippe had stayed during his time at the castle.