They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character / Animated Films

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Disney/Pixar

• In Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire, lots of effort is devoted early on to establishing a huge herd of interesting supporting cast members, who then spend the rest of the movie tripping over each other for screen time to the point where it feels like all of them got shortchanged. If the proposed TV series had materialized, they would have each finally gotten a chance to shine.
• Finnick from Zootopia starts off as a cutesy sidekick to Nick, who is apparently a baby fox that wants to grow up to be an elephant...only for the audience to find out later on he's actually a grown-up fennec fox that has a cynical, aggressive, tough as nails personality and a deep voice. However, despite the fact that he makes his personality very well known, he only gets three lines and is in the movie for less than 5 minutes, to the point where he's pretty much the only character in the movie who's nowhere to be found in the Dance Party Ending (which is also kind of weird considering he can be seen on many of the promotional materials for the movie, to the point where he has his own toy commercial).
  • However, the directors have acknowledged his popularity, and have gone on record saying that if a sequel is made, he will have a bigger role.
• Frozen II: Of all characters from the first film, Prince Hans could qualify for this since it was said he was going to be making a return and have a potential Heel–Face Turn before the writers scrapped the idea entirely. He only gets brief mentions.
• Wreck-It Ralph/Ralph Breaks the Internet: Many fans of the cute little racers in the game Sugar Rush wish they had more screen time (aside from Vanellope and the adult King Candy/Turbo, both of which play major roles) and some wish the racers had their own film or TV show. One Sugar Rush racer (in this case Rancis Fluggerbutter) did get his own tie-in book, and a subplot about the racers with Fix-It Felix, Jr. and Sergeant Calhoun as their parents was planned for “Ralph Breaks the Internet” during the storyboards, but was cut from the final version and only showed a few scenes in the beginning and end. Still, fans are disappointed about the limited screen time for the Sugar Rush racers. Some fans make fanfics about them, and some are even annoyed that the racers have full bios that the “Wreck-It Ralph” movies wasted. Yet the lead trio of racers (Taffyta Muttonfudge, Rancis Fluggerbutter and Candlehead) get a few small scenes of screen time, which a few are annoyed about.
• A common criticism of Encanto is that it didn't properly utilize all of the Madrigal family members, the clear example of this being Pepa's family tree branch. All of them quickly became fan favorites thanks to their distinctive designs and personalities, and (besides Félix) having interesting powers to explore.
  • Camilo Madrigal gets the worst of it since being Out of Focus he has the least amount of screen time and lines. It doesn't help that one press release said he was trying to find an identity of his own, but this struggle never seems to be overtly presented in the final film. Luckily the director confessed in a Q&A that he regretted not having including Camilo more once he realized his potential, so there is still a possibility that he could become an Ascended Extra in the future.
• In Turning Red, Jin gets very little focus and presence with the exception of the scene where he talks with Mei before the ritual. Some people felt he could have had a bigger role in the story.
• Wish (2023):
  • Queen Amaya had the potential to be a good supporting character if she were given more screentime. It's actually a nice touch that she lied enough to throw off King Magnifico's suspicions, then immediately went looking for a way to stop him and save her kingdom. The movie would've benefited from spending a quiet moment alone with the queen and with Asha talking about how hard it will be for her to take action against her own husband, but instead, she just quickly flips to the side of the good guys. Her Angst? What Angst? also doesn't make as much sense as it otherwise might with this lack of development. Deleted material reveals that when the original concept for her as a co-villain was scrapped, she had the plot/emotional arc functions of two other characters (Dahlia, who became disillusioned with Magnifico after a confrontation with him, and Flazino, a Deleted Role who served as Magnifico's apprentice before being imprisoned and thus had inside information on him and his powers) grafted onto her, which could explain some of these problems.
  • Sabino's wish going ungranted by Magnifico is the lynchpin of the whole conflict because Asha loves him so much, so some viewers were frustrated that he did and mattered so little — he (and Sakina) are blatantly put on the sidelines by Asha midway through the second act and the payoff of his story turns out to be a post-credits gag. Online commenters have asked why he wasn't the one who led the crowd in the "This Wish" reprise to banish Magnifico, which would have been a far more dramatically satisfying development given why his wish wasn't going to be granted. As it stands, he came off to some viewers as lazy for giving up a wish that was so easy to realize under his own power (as most of the wishes turned out to be). Again, he was supposed to be a more significant character, first in earlier versions of the film he inspired Asha to fight Magnifico and reclaim wishes while they were hiding out, was captured and imprisoned in the dungeon alongside Sakina, and died by film's end. Even in the finished film he performed "A Wish Worth Making" after Asha retrieved his wish for him. That was cut at the 11th hour because, according to Chris Buck, "the film tells you what it needs" - which implies that the filmmakers didn't think the resolution of his character arc was important (although the fact that he composed and performed it immediately might have had audiences questioning why he never tried to do that before he gave up the wish).

DreamWorks Animation

• Kung Fu Panda
  • The Furious Five. Wonderful character design, awesome powers, voiced by the likes of Lucy Liu and Jackie Chan, each with the potential for intriguing backstories — but for such an imaginative, talented group of characters, they seem remarkably underutilized. However, they're given a bit more to do in the sequel (particularly Tigress) and are also fleshed out a bit more in supplementary material like the Secrets of the Furious Five special and the Legends of Awesomeness series. However, in Kung Fu Panda 3 the group the most part aren't given much of a presence in this film as they are sidelined in favor of the panda village and, apart from Tigress, all of them are jombified along with Shifu. While Tigress has more screen time, he is still a fairly supporting character for the most part.
  • While Kai is an entertaining and badass villain in his own right, Kung Fu Panda 3 never goes very deeply into his character. This is particularly upsetting considering both previous films explored their villains' backstories (Tai Lung and Lord Shen) and emotional drives in full detail. In the movie, we're told who Kai was and what he did, but never why and we never find his take on the events that led to him being who he is.
• Many who didn't like Shark Tale have dubbed Lenny the film's only likable character, due to his being a Nice Guy and genuinely pretty sympathetic (it helps that Jack Black actually does a decent job as the voice as opposed to just acting like himself into a microphone like the rest of the cast did) and have stated that he should've been the protagonist.
• In Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Teetsi acts as the primary henchman of Makunga during the first half of the movie and gives Alex a brutal beatdown. Oddly enough, he's nowhere to be seen during the second half, and never receives any comeuppance for his actions.
• How to Train Your Dragon:
  • Valka in the second movie is shown to be an incredible character with a connection to dragons, a sympathetic backstory, and a very spooky design aesthetic that is great to look at. But then she gets pushed to the sidelines for the sake of Hiccup's character development, and in a situation where you'd think she'd do great, she ends up being pushed down almost immediately. Word of God says that she was originally conceived as the Big Bad, which does explain it somewhat. She also has little presence in the third film.
  • Following his ambiguous fate at the end of the second film, Drago Bludvist was originally intended to return for the third instalment, but this was ultimately scrapped and Drago is completely absent from the film ^note his Bewilderbeast is shown living in the Hidden World, but Drago himself does not appear at all, confirming him to dead. Grimmel casually mentions how Drago's defeat was made public among other warlords, but Drago's ultimate fate is not further elaborated on.
  • The Night Furies. They were teased at various points but the third film reveals that with the exception of Toothless they all have been killed. We will never see Toothless interact with another Night Fury and we know almost nothing about the species.
  • Grimmel's Deathgrippers in the third movie. Drugged into compliance, they're both natural predators and the embodiment of everything ugly about humankind's treatment of dragons. They're given very little attention and Toothless unceremoniously electrocutes them in the climax, and they fall to the ocean never to be seen again.
  • The Warlords serve as Drago Bludvist's successors and are implied to have been in conflict with Hiccup and Berk for a year as of the third film. These characters could have been an intimidating threat even without Grimmel, and the fact that at least one of them is from outside the Barbaric Archipelago could have been used to show how the rest of the world views Berk and its peace with the dragons. Instead they are relegated to minor joke villains while Grimmel serves as the Big Bad, and they are sidelined during the climax with their final fates left ambiguous.

Other Companies

• Brutus of The Secret of NIMH has a scary introduction where he menaces Mrs. Brisby with an electrified spear, but that's his only appearance in the film. He's apparently in the scene where the rats are moving Mrs. Brisby's house as Justin shouts for him, but he's not on-screen. A scene of him actually getting to use his badass electro-pike (against Dragon, perhaps?) would have been nice.
• Zee from Monster House. At first she's a nasty (though darkly humorous) subversion of the sweet and kind babysitter, but there are a few moments here and there that suggest she's not altogether bad and there's even some build-up as to her involvement in the titular Monster House (at one point she offers to go and see what DJ is so afraid of). Given the emphasis put on her in the film's first half, many viewers expected her to turn up again in a Chekhov's Gunman capacity, but ...nope. Instead she disappears halfway through the film and only reappears for a tiny scene during the closing credits.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games: The Shadowbolts weren't given much screen time — surprising since they're the focus of the toyline (along with the protagonists, of course), were among the first things leaked and/or formally revealed about the film, and promotional materials (such as posts by the official My Little Pony facebook page and the official Equestria Girls website) pushed parallels between them and the Humane Six and gave interesting character traits that are, for the most part, unexplored in the film proper.
• Most of the characters in The Secret Life of Pets appear to be in the movie just for audience appeal, and ended up largely superfluous to the plot. Among the protagonists, Chloe and Tiberius only contributed briefly to Max's rescue, while Buddy, Mel, Norman, and Sweetpea could've stayed home for all the difference they made.
• The Book of Life:
  • Manolo's cousins, the Adelita Twins who fought during the revolution and are also the only badass Sanchezes to not be Bull Fighters. Only got two scenes.
  • Joaquin's dad is talked about a lot but never makes an appearance which leads to all sorts of Fanon.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie:
  • This was bound to happen for the one that acts as Bowser's hostage that needs to be saved, and Luigi was no exception. After how well the Brooklyn opening does at getting you invested in the brotherly chemistry between Mario and Luigi, the two of them end up separated during the warp to the new world. As a result, the chemistry is lost, and Luigi's time is mostly just spent on him being Out of Focus as Bowser's hostage; leaving him no opportunity to shine like Mario. There's a small attempt at setting up a character arc for him regarding his nature as a Cowardly Lion, but the movie's short runtime means this gets reduced to 2-3 lines and a brief flashback to his childhood. At the very least, Luigi does get to be a key player in the Final Battle, on top of getting some well-earned revenge on his captors once he toughens up.
  • For all the emphasis put on Toad being a member of the Token Trio along with Mario and Peach, he actually gets very little to do during most of the movie. He is the first person Mario meets in the Mushroom Kingdom and gladly brings him to the princess once he learns of Luigi's situation, but once Mario and Peach meet, the only further contributions Toad makes to the plot are being tortured by Kamek to coerce Peach into marrying Bowser (and even there, it's made clear that this would work with any of the Toads in the kingdom, not just this one specifically) and sneaking an Ice Flower into her wedding bouquet for her. Notably, during the entire second act where the Token Trio travels to the Kong Kingdom — from the time they leave to when Peach and Toad return after losing Mario and the Kong Army — Toad could have been completely removed from the group with absolutely zero effect on the story whatsoever.
  • The Goombas. For the most iconic enemies in the Mario series, they barely appear at all in the movie and are effectively replaced by the Koopas as the lowly mooks of Bowser's army.

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