Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase

Go To

  • Accidental Innuendo
    • As Caddicarus pointed out in his review for the video game, Shaggy proudly calling himself "Super Shag" is this for UK viewers note .
    • In the movie itself Velma at one point asks "What's wrong with Cyber-Shag?", another statement which can be interpreted in a much more risqué way out of context.
  • Awesome Music: "Cyber Dream" (even if it is a montage skipping over stuff many viewers would have liked more details for) and "Double Double Joint" are both decently catchy. It helps that they're among the longer chase songs in the franchise.
  • Badass Decay: The Jaguaro is accused of this mostly due to the fact his cyber version only utters a stock cougar sound, and lacks the screeching sound the original made.
  • Broken Base: Most people will either see this movie as a Scooby-Doo! masterpiece or one of the worst Scooby-Doo! films of all time, with next to no opinions in-between.
  • Captain Obvious Reveal: Bill is the movie's perp. This is a more stand-out example than usual, because unlike the usual Scooby-Doo affair of seemingly unlinked clues all coming together at the end, every single clue (and even a couple that aren't mentioned in the end) blatantly leaves such an easy trail for finding out the perp that it becomes obvious to the audience if they remotely paid any attention. You start to wonder why the gang didn't suspect a Frame-Up or why Bill didn't claim such when they've seen through less obvious times someone has been framed.
  • Ending Fatigue: The final level of the game takes up the bulk of the movie and mostly consists of the two gangs outwitting the monsters again and again, one by one. There's even a second chase song montage that helps with the final level's severe lack of plot progression, making for a very slow final act.
  • Evil Is Cool: While the movie itself ended up coming under more scrutiny as time went on, the Phantom Virus is still a fan-favorite villain for being Laughably Evil while still being a legitimate threat. Him teaming up with five of the past monsters also adds to this.
  • Fan Nickname: Thanks mainly to Caddicarus, the Phantom Virus ended up with the nickname "Spindly Johnny".
  • Fridge Brilliance:
    • The Cyber Gang don't seem to care about going back to level 1, implying they'll be unchanged by the game resetting (which is confirmed the next time the game is started), but the Phantom Virus is deleted when they win and the game resets. Why? The Cyber Gang are programmed into the game and thus part of its code, while the Phantom Virus is a foreign entity, meaning the game doesn't know it needs to recreate him on Level 1.
    • Another more thought-provoking example that doubles as a Mythology Gag; in the original Jaguaro episode, the costume of it is pretty big compared to Shaggy and Scooby, and it makes a weird howl. However, when the others find the statue, it's about the same size as them. If we assume Eric based his research for the game's cyber-Jaguaro off the internet, it's no doubt based upon the mythology and the statue, and not Barney's costume, hence why its size appropriate and growls like a cat and not whatever the hell it sounded like in the original episode.
    • The past villains who menace the gang in the final level are all ones whose names were in the titles of the episodes in which they appeared. This helps makes it easy for viewers who are unfamiliar with any of them and become curious to see their episodes to find those specific episodes in a video library/service that has Where Are You! and The Scooby-Doo Show.
    • It's subtle and nearly unnoticeable; the Cyber Gang's voices when they speak all have an echo-like sound, while the real-world Gang's voices don't have this. This cleverly emphasizes the Cyber Gang being artificial beings and how video games (back then) could not manage 100% perfect sounding dialogue audio.
    • It makes sense that Eric was picked over Bill. Bill just made a bog-standard baseball game, while Eric made an action adventure game with widely varying levels. Not only is the latter more interesting, but it demonstrates far more technical skill in game design. Bill couldn't appreciate that not everyone loves baseball as much as him, and this was his Fatal Flaw as he couldn't keep his interest from seeping into the Virus' programming.
    • Bill McLemore notes the Phantom Virus' weakness to magnets, comparing it to Kryptonite affecting Superman. Becomes more interesting when you realize how much Bill resembles a young Lex Luthor. He's a young, egotistical prodigy with red hair who harbors intense envy of his old friend, a bespectacled brunette Nice Guy, for having gifts he doesn't. Even the Virus himself mirrors Bizarro in a way, as he's a powerful yet flawed artificial being created by Bill to ruin his friend, just as Luthor in several stories creates Bizarro to ruin Superman.
  • Fridge Logic: The magnet Shaggy brings into the game doesn't affect anything until he pulls it out and holds it close to the Cyber Gang, and it only affects the Cyber Gang and the Virus, not the game's environment. Not to mention the magnet would be made up of pixels just like the Cyber Gang and shouldn't affect them like that.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Memetic Loser: Bill, especially when he’s “revealed” to be the villain via a truly insane amount of ineptitude leading to him implicating himself with every clue.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Bill's creation of the Phantom Virus for a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax would just be normal pettiness were it not for how potentially destructive to society the virus really is, but then he intentionally beams the Mystery Gang into Eric's game - where they, for all intents and purposes, could've been maimed, melted, eaten, and otherwise killed numerous times. The story doesn't explore the implications, but it's essentially an attempt at assisted murder with no recoverable evidence.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The idea that somebody could program a computer virus dangerous enough to be a potential threat to the entire worldnote , just because their science project wasn't entered into a competition, is pretty frightening. Sure, giving a virus physical manifestation remains a purely fictional thing, but the rest is far from fantastical.
  • Nightmare Retardant: The Phantom Virus, despite being a very credible threat, is by far one of the goofiest and most cartoonish monsters in any Scooby-Doo movie, with a simplistic design and wacky personality to boot.
  • Obvious Judas: Due to how blatantly telegraphed it is, it's really easy to piece together well before the finale that Bill is the real culprit behind the Phantom Virus.
  • Tear Jerker: Sure, the Phantom Virus isn't intended to be sympathetic and is mostly a smug, destructive monster, but consider this as he's finally destroyed. Unlike the Werecats, Ben and Sarah Ravencroft or Bill, the man who created him, the Virus was merely a creature doing what he was programmed for, and came to a painful, unceremonious death, clearly terrified and panicked at the end of his short existence.
  • That One Boss:
    • The Phantom Virus in the ancient Egypt boss level where in order to break down the barrier, you must knock the mummies off the platform which is easier said than done given how limited your pie supply are. And as his health dwindles, he begins sending more mummies which are bigger and subsequently more difficult to knock off. Oh and if you die at any point, you'll have to start from the beginning all over again.
    • The Phantom Virus in the video game adaptation is quite difficult. He boasts Super-Speed, his attacks deal devastating damage and he can even clone himself during the last parts of the fight. Just take a look!.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Despite the gang's journey inside the game supposedly being one of the main focal points of the story, most of the game's levels—4 through 9 to be exact—are completely skipped over in a montage.
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic: The Phantom Virus' demise might invoke this. While he's a dangerous menace who tried to wipe out the gang, he was only following his programming, and was overall the least heinous of the video series' supernatural antagonists (especially compared to the Werecats of Zombie Island). He's also a sentient being like the Cyber Gang who is terrified of his impending doom when the game ends, but the Gang acts like he was just a mindless program to be deleted.

Top