Western Animation / A Troll in Central Park

Gnorga: He is kind, he is good, he is gentle... and, he is giving a bad name to trolls everywhere!
Llort: Yes I know, love lumps. I quite agree.
Gnorga: I won't have him growing any more of those things!
Llort: Flowers?
Gnorga: [grabs him, pulls him closer] Stone him!
Llort: Why not make an example of him? I know a place, rock and steel, where nothing grows. Huh hmm, nothing! Creatures more troll-like than we are, think of it, for him it will be worse than stone, it will be slow, it will be painful! Think what they'll say about you in the newspapers! Why, it's a shoo-in for the tabloids!
Gnorga: [thinks for a moment] DONE!

—Queen Gnorga and King Llort, just before banishing Stanley to New York.

A 1994 animated film made by Don Bluth.

Stanley is a weird troll. He is kind, gentle, loves flowers, and he has a literal Green Thumb that makes plants (talking, dancing, singing plants, to boot!) grow wherever he touches. Unfortunately, all of these, particularly his flower growing, are strictly taboo in the Troll Kingdom, so he has to keep all of his plants secretly holed up in his house.

When caught due to a rose planting gone horribly wrong, instead of punishing him by turning him into stone, Gnorga, the queen of the trolls, is persuaded by her husband Llort to banish Stanley to a place that is a nature lover's worst nightmare — New York City! While hiding out under a bridge in Central Park, he meets a boy and his little sister, Gus and Rosie, and takes them on an adventure that's 50% cutesy and 50% horror. All in all, a very strange ride.

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Tropes featured include...

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects:
  • The giant ball of hardened lava Gnorga uses to send Stanley to New York.
  • The puppet theater.
• 10-Minute Retirement: Stanley in the climax, after spending most of his time with the kids, backs down from helping Gus save Rosie out of fear of being stoned by Gnorga, which prompts Gus to chew him out and leave on his own. Minutes later, Stanley changes his mind and ends up saving the day.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Whoever writes the headlines for the "Wursta Times" is fond of this trope.
• Aerith and Bob: Gnorga, Llort... and Stanley?
• Aesop Amnesia: Gus is a bratty child who fusses with his parents and demands that they do "what he wants to do". After everything he and Rosie go through in Central Park which sees Stanley reduced to a stone statue, his father approaches him with the chance to do some fun things with their day. Even after all his selfishness caused their whole ordeal, Gus' response to his father is "Do you think we can do what I wanna do?" The fact that he's much calmer about it the second time around still doesn't really excuse him.
• All Trolls Are Different: This one can make magical flowers grow.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Trolls besides Stanley and perhaps Llort.
• And I Must Scream: The final fate of Gnorga, who is turned into a rose bush by Stanley and planted in the palace garden in Troll World. Also happens to a bat she turns to stone during her Villain Song, despite the film clearly stating that being turned to stone is equivalent to death. This also happens to Stanley himself when Gus turns him to stone against his will.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: The trolls celebrate Gnorga's defeat at the end of the movie, including her husband.
• Anti-Villain: King Llort is a Type IV. While he's not really a "good" guy and directly assists Gnorga, he certainly has some sympathetic qualities and tags along out of fear of his own wife. At the end when Gnorga is defeated, he takes up rule over the now much more peaceful Troll Kingdom, and is quite glad his wife is turned into a rose bush.
• Applied Phlebotinum - Stanley's Thumb apparently can do ANYTHING in this movie if he can dream hard enough.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: Stanley in his first attempt to try and confront Gnorga, donning a hastily assembled "armor" to try and rush her, only to get attacked by Gnorga offscreen and sent packing back.
  Stanley: I'm going! I'm going!
  [BOOM!]
  Stanley: [running back to the bridge] I can't! I'm not going!
• Ax-Crazy: Gnorga.
• Backwards Name: King Llort... his name is "troll" backwards.
• Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: The mindset of every troll except Stanley and perhaps Llort, contributing to the obvious Black-and-White Morality.
• Beam-O-War: Done between Gnorga and Stanley in the film's climax, but its a Thumb War, no less.
• Big Damn Hero: Stanley attempts this twice. The first time, he attempts to rush Gnorga head-on in some off the cuff "armor", only to get attacked by her and sent running back under the bridge. The second time, he does this to save Rosie via his flying boat just before the final battle.
• Big Bad: Gnorga.
• The Big Rotten Apple: New York was supposed to be the one place Stanley couldn't possibly enjoy himself.
• Black Magic: Gnorga uses this.

• Captain Obvious: "Punishment isn't supposed to be nice! It's supposed to be punishing!"
• Card-Carrying Villain: Gnorga, who fits into all three types. She calls herself "The Queen of Mean" and has a song number about it, and her whole kingdom's code runs on the Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad mentality and will kill anyone who defies her tyrannical rules, and obviously reaps pleasure from death and destruction, as she says in her song number
  "It feels delicious to be so vicious, I'm Gnorga, the Queen of Mean! (Mean!)"
• Casting Gag: Cloris Leachman voices Gnorga, the Queen of the Trolls in this film. In The Little Troll Prince (by Hanna-Barbera), she had played Cerena, Queen of the Trolls.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: When Stanley appears to save Gus at the end.
• Chekhov's Gun: Gus' toy boat and Stanley's ability to make it grow and fly via magic ends up being used by Stanley in the climax to save Rosie from falling to her death, and allow him and the kids to escape Gnorga.
• Chekhov's Skill: Zigzagged with the magic thumb Gus gets when Gnorga turns him into a troll. At first, it only allows him to turn stuff into stone, and allows Gnorga to control it from a distance if needed, which is used to have Gus turn Stanley to stone against his will. However, when Gnorga's troll spell wears off, Gus' thumb turns into a green thumb like Stanley's, which he uses to restore Stanley back to normal.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: One of the film's intended aesops is that anything is possible if you believe enough in your dreams.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  Gnorga: Worse than death? Slow and painful?! Does that look like MISERY to you?
  Llort: It looks nice, very nice, don't you think so, shnooksie poo?
  Gnorga: Yes, I think so! That's precisely what's WRONG, YOU MORON!!!
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Llort, whenever he tries to reason with Gnorga.
• Conspicuously Light Patch: When Stanley's petrified body is chucked into a trash can, the trash can he lands in is lighter and less-detailed than the others behind it, which are muted into the drab background.
• Convection, Schmonvection: During his trial, Stanley is imprisoned in a cage set on a pillar surrounded by a very close pool of boiling lava. When Gnorga decides to banish Stanley to New York, she uses her magic to swirl and harden the lava around Stanley's cage into a large ball (the magic obviously explaining why it doesn't harm him) which she then sends flying off.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Stanley's exile.
• Cowardice Callout: Gus calls Stanley a coward because the latter is too scared to fight Gnorga for fear of being petrified — even though his own powers give him something of a fighting chance against her and even when Gus's sister is in peril from Gnorga. This leads to Stanley pulling a Big Damn Heroes at the climax.
• Crapsack World: The Troll Kingdom appears to be this - a very dull, dingy swampland with no plant life whose inhabitants appear to be Always Chaotic Evil and abide by the Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad mentality, and are ruled by the tyrannical, vain Gnorga, who will severely punish anyone who dares stray from the proper conduct of trolls.
• Deliberately Cute Child: Rosie, ye Gods. She's also Cute, but Cacophonic.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  Gnorga: Punishment isn't supposed to be nice! It's supposed to be punishing!
• Dirty Coward: Gus accuses Stanley of being this when he refuses to help Gus save Rosie from Gnorga, out of fear of being stoned, soon leading to him to outright calling him one in his Reason You Suck Speech.
  Gus:' Oh come on, stop being such a scaredy cat!
  Stanley: Eh, but what can I do?
  Gus: What about all your powers, 'Mister-You-Gotta-Believe-Green-Thumb'?
  Stanley: Oh, no, no, no, my prestidigitation, is no match for Gnorga's magic—
  Gus: Oh, SURE! You're just saying that, 'cause you're scared to fight her! [flowers gasp]
• Disproportionate Retribution: When Gnorga finds out that Stanley is happy in New York, she goes OUT OF HER WAY to travel to Earth and turn him to stone like she wanted to in the first place. Hand Waved by a newspaper article stating that Stanley's surprisingly soft sentence has caused Gnorga and Llort to lose their authority in the eyes of the people.
• Disney Acid Sequence: Which actually manages to take up quite a sizeable chunk of the entire movie.
• Disney Death: Rosie, in style of Disney Villain Death.
• The Ditz:
  • Llort.
  • Stanley's whole outlook makes him come off as this.
• The Dragon: King Llort.
• Evil Is Hammy: Gnorga, voiced by Cloris Leachman, oh so very much. This trope is her entire personality. Her line delivery is so over the top, it sounds like she's going to burst a blood vessel with each syllable.
• Evil Laugh: Gnorga does this constantly.
• Evil Overlooker: Gnorga and Llort on the poster pictured here. They're less prominent in the image than most examples, though.
• Evil Tastes Good: More like "It feels delicious to be so vicious!", as Gnorga says outright during her Villain Song.
• Expy:
  • Gnorga is a watered down Maleficent, mixed with traits of Madame Medusa and Ursula, having the former's aesthetics and the latter's excentricities. She also has similarities to another queen of trolls, from the old Hanna-Barbera special "The Little Troll Prince" (who, coincidentally, was also voiced by Cloris Leachman).
  • King Llort is a slightly better treated King of Hearts.
• Fat and Skinny: Gnorga and Llort, respectively.
• Fate Worse than Death: What Llort inaccurately insists Stanley's exile to Earth would be.
• Fill It with Flowers: This is Stanley's dream.
• Fish out of Water: Stanley when he is banished to New York, although it's clear he wasn't exactly at home in the Troll Kingdom either.
• For the Evulz: Gnorga's modus operandi.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Gnorga, who is umambigulously portrayed as a sadistic tyrant. Even her husband celebrates her defeat.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Stanley attempting to grow a rose in his house garden ends up getting way out of hand, to where it grows through the roof of his home, tipping off the other trolls that he is breaking Gnorga's law by growing flowers.
• Green Aesop: Apparently the entire world should be covered in flowers and plants, whether the rest of the world likes it or not.
• Green Means Natural: Stanley the troll wears a green vest and his thumb is actually green. He can grow plants at will and bring them to life.
• Green Thumb:
  • Stanley has a literal one. Gus also gets one at the end.
  • Inverted with Gnorga: her thumb turns stuff into stone.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: When Stanley confronts Gnorga in the finale, a shot of her ugly mug gets a little too close to the camera for comfort...
  Gnorga: Well! What do we have here?!
• Hanging Judge: Inverted by Llort, who, for no apparent reason, goes to great lengths to prevent Stanley from being turned to stone.
• Heel–Face Turn: Gnorga briefly mentions being afraid that other trolls might do this if she doesn't make an example of Stanley. Ironically, her attempt to thwart this ends up having the whole kingdom do this in the end.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Llort. Throughout the film he seems to be against killing or stoning anybody, but instead suggests a Fate Worse than Death for Stanley. In the middle he does everything he can to stop Gnorga from going to Central Park to kill Stanley, but once they get there he actively helps her capture the children. And at the very end, he seems to be happy that his wife has been turned into a helpless rose bush.
• Henpecked Husband: Llort, the King of the Trolls, though Gnorga does have some admiration for him.
• Hidden Elf Village: The Troll Kingdom is implied to be this, given that it's completely isolated and far off from the outside world.
• Hufflepuff House: Gnorga mentions a "Goblinville" and "Gremlin Land" in addition to Troll World. Hell, Troll World itself counts, since the first ten minutes take place in it and it is never seen again apart from Gnorga's bedroom.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Implied by Llort's speech, but never actually used.
• "I Am" Song:
  • "Gnorga, The Queen of Mean".
  • "I'M A BAD TROLL! A VERY BAD TROLL!"
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Llort.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Gus bears a small resemblance to his actor Phillip Glasser.
• Irony: Albeit very subtle irony. Before Gnorga is about to exile Stanley to New York, King Llort encourages her by saying, "Just think about what they'll say about you in the newspapers!" Later in the film, Gnorga is reading a newspaper with headlines reading, "SURPRISINGLY SOFT SENTENCE FOR STANLEY."
• "I Want" Song: "Absolutely Green".
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gus is a brat, though it's justified since he's dealing with Parental Neglect issues that would make any kid act out the way he does. However, he also cares deeply for his sister, and spends the majority of the film being very attentive and concerned for her safety, even going so far as to rescue her from Gnorga when Stanley himself is too scared to help.
• Kangaroo Court: Gnorga's "trial" on Stanley, where it's clear they already plan to convict him, and that the trial is otherwise just a formality.
• Karma Houdini: In a way, Llort, who becomes the acting ruler of Troll World at the end of the film, despite being entirely responsible for all the chaos that has happened (if not for him, Gnorga would have simply "Stoned" Stanley). He still gets bitten by the dog, but that's nothing new.
• Karmic Transformation: Gnorga is turned into a flower bush. She also briefly turns Gus into a Troll.
• Lighter and Softer: Arguably the lightest and softest film Don Bluth has ever made.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Gus and Rosie (particularly the former).

• Magic Mirror: Gnorga's crystal lets her spy on anyone and zero in on the sounds of children crying.
• Market-Based Title: Named Stanley's Magic Garden in international releases.
• Married to the Job: Gus and Rosie's parents.
• Mood Whiplash: The sickeningly saccharine dream sequences that suddenly change into horror as Gnorga attacks to destroy Stanley's joy.

• The Napoleon: Gnorga, and how!
• New Powers as the Plot Demands:
  • While Stanley is initially shown to merely have a magic Green Thumb that makes flowers grow and come to life, later on when he meets Rosie and Gus, he is revealed to have "prestidigitation" abilities which allow such feats as making a toy boat grow to full size and fly, and create a dreamlike world from Stanley's own mind. This ability isn't even foreshadowed prior to those scenes.
  • Gnorga's magical powers are certainly implied to be quite flexible, but her ability to control Gus' own magic thumb from a distance against his will in the film's climax comes off as a really blatant example of this.
• New York Is Only Manhattan: Justified, as Central Park is a Manhattan locale.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Llort's alternative sentence to have Stanley banished instead of being stoned is not only the mainspring of the film's plot, but also indirectly leads to the downfall of Gnorga's rule.

• No Indoor Voice: Gnorga; the bulk of her dialogue is quite loud and over the top.
• No Ontological Inertia: Stanley's "Dreamboat" gradually disappearing as he turns to stone, and Gnorga's tornado magically taking away her and Llort when she is completely turned into a rose bush. Curiously, while her spell that turns Gus into a troll wears off, it leaves him with a magic green thumb, and Stanley doesn't revert back to normal.
• Noodle Incident: When Stanley is on trial, Llort mentions that Stanley has repeatedly broken the rules of the Troll Kingdom many times in the past, implying this isn't the first time he's been caught growing his plants.
• No-Respect Guy: Llort.
• Obviously Evil:
  • Gnorga is a blatant Card-Carrying Villain who is prone to evil laughter and Slasher Smiles.
  • The guard troll who literally sings "I'm a bad troll, a very bad troll" to the tune of the "Song of the Volga Boatmen" at the beginning of the movie. He loyally follows the trolls' Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad mentality, though he's too dim-witted to be truly "evil".
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: The parents are voiced by British actors (Hayley Mills and Jonathan Pryce) and it's pretty easy to tell.
• Place Worse Than Death: What Llort insists New York will be for Stanley, but is ultimately subverted.
• Plot Hole: There are a few in the film.
  • How did Gnorga even know where to banish Stanley to when Llort didn't even tell her where it was to begin with, and only gave a general description of how horrible it was? And how did Llort even learn about New York in the first place or even know if it was as bad as he made it out to be, since the Troll Kingdom is clearly a far ways off from any place humans would be around?^note A reasonable explanation could be since her magic thumb can probably grant wishes like Stanley's can, it's likely she wished it up and it randomly sent him to a place of rock and steele in Central Park and it was never established that Llort was talking about Central Park.
  • The source of Stanley's "prestidigitation" powers, which is not explained and comes out of nowhere, with no foreshadowing, midway through the film. Earlier he was shown to have magic, but only the kind that could grow plants. ^note It's possible that the green thumb isn't simply a plant power, but a power that can make one's dreams reality, which embodies Stanley's whole philosophy on life. He only uses it for plants at first because his dream is to cover the world in greenery.
  • While Gnorga going to New York without bringing other trolls can be written off due to her impatient, temperamental personality, did she even consider that sending a tornado to destroy Central Park, located in one of the most densely populated cities on Earth, all just to capture a rogue troll and two kids, would attract a lot of unwanted attention? Even the next day, after she's defeated, no one seems to be raising a stink about how Central Park has been completely razed. ^note It may be less that she didn't consider it and more that she just doesn't care how her actions affect the world or others. She IS a villain after all.
    • Who's got time to worry about Central Park when ALL OF MANHATTAN is suddenly covered in vines?!?

• Punny Headlines: The newspaper in the troll world is called the "Wursta Times".

• Random Events Plot: The film's plot, besides being very simplistic, is also extremely loose. It starts with Stanley's flower planting getting uncovered and him getting exiled from the Troll world to New York, where he hides under a bridge in Central Park. Then he encounters Rosie and Gus, who snuck out to the park, and partakes in a half hour of entertaining them with his flowers and magic. Then Gnorga finds out he's still alive and decides to take matters into her own hands, arriving at New York to kidnap the kids as bait (and turning Gus into a troll) so she can lure Stanley to her, forcing him to man up and save the day, although he gets turned to stone when Gnorga uses Gus' powers on him. Gus changes back to human, but still has a magic thumb and manages to change Stanley back in turn. They all sing together as Stanley's magic envelops all of New York in plant life. The end.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gus gives a brief one to Stanley during the climax of the film, when he refuses to help Gus save Rosey out of fear of being stoned by Gnorga.
  Stanley: Gus! Don't you understand?! In the troll world, darkness always triumphs over light!
  Gus: You know what, Stanley? You'll never have a dream come true, and you know why?! Because you're too scared to fight for what you believe in! YOU'RE A COWARD!
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Used to ridiculous extremes when Gnorga and Llort not only go to Earth personally to kill Stanley, but do not bring any other trolls whatsoever.
• Running Gag: Gnorga's dog keeps biting Llort.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: In at least one point, Stanley refers to troll powers as "prestidigitation" instead of "magic." This is even an inaccurate use, since prestidigitation refers to stage magic and not supernatural powers. This might make sense when you consider Stanley was trying to emphasize that Gnorga's magic is much more powerful than his. And "prestidigitation" is derived from the word for "finger"... perhaps it's meant to be a too-subtle pun?
• Sdrawkcab Name: "Llort" is of roughly the same subtlety as "Nilbog".
• Significant Anagram: Gnorga is one letter away from being one for gorgon.
• Spoiled Brat: Subverted with Gus. He's a rich kid with a nasty temper whom the Queen describes as being troll-like, but this is actually justified as Truth in Television, as any psychologist will tell you that a kid his age dealing with Parental Abandonment will act out just like he does. He's not a spoiled brat, he's just dealing with family trauma.
• Stealth Pun: The newspaper Gnorga reads is named "Wursta Times".
• The Stoner: Stanley's squirrel friend looks like this...
• Sugar Bowl: The movie REALLY loves flowers and dreams and stuff.
• Sugar Apocalypse: When Gnorga comes to Earth and destroys Central Park.
• Taken for Granite: Gnorga has a Black thumb that can turn anything into stone.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The theatrical trailer shows Stanley turning Gnorga into a rose bush, which is the climax of the film.
• Transformation Trauma: Gus getting turned into a troll, Stanley getting slowly turned to stone. The bat turned into stone by Gnorga early in the film also seems to have felt quite a bit of pain.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Inverted. Llort is probably the least ugly male troll in the movie, while Gnorga is, frankly, the opposite case — but subverted considering how trolls see the world — she is probably quite a catch, while he...
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
  • Near the end of the movie, Gus's father doesn't seem all that surprised when he sees his son sitting on the steps with a really detailed stone statue of a sad troll. And then the entire city gets overgrown with plants, without much notice.
  • Gus's first reaction to seeing the troll and the dancing flowers: "This is weird".
  • You'd think that there'd be more of a fuss over Central Park being completely devastated by Gnorga's tornado.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Gnorga, compared to the rest of the film.
• Villain Song: "Gnorga, The Queen of Mean".
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Gus is upset that his parents don't have time to take him to Central Park, and the movie ends with him getting exactly what he wanted.
• World-Healing Wave: At the end, which restores the damage Gnorga did to Central Park, and subsequently covers all of New York in plant life.

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