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"Underdog double sucked".
God you are beautiful Aldo.
Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.
Professional Moldy Fig/Curmudgeon
The Underdog movie double-sucked because it wasn't even an adaptation of the source material.
It barely resembled the original cartoon - so Underdog doesn't have a secret identity as a shoeshine boy? Sweet Polly Purebred isn't a news reporter? Riff Raff isn't a gangster wolf? They're all normal dogs?! The only thing that resembled the cartoon was Simon Bar-Sinister, and even he didn't feel like the cartoon at all... It all could have passed for a generic kiddy film about dogs if they hadn't tried to get the license to make us believe it'd be a faithful adaptation.
It really is the nadir of live-action cartoon adaptations; every other one at least tries to give you the characters and situations from the show.
I like to think that this is why Disney's fairytale films these days now have one-syllable adjective names, so they can get away with changing whatever they want and not mislead us into thinking it's going to be a faithful adaptation.
(Also - they filmed that damn film in my hometown, Providence, R.I. Do you want to know why we make a big deal out of Seth Mac Farlane setting a TV show here? That's why. You can still visit the statue of George M. Cohan downtown, though.)
edited 23rd Jan '16 2:17:07 PM by Aldo930
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."
All those movies sucked because those shows were either never that good to begin with or just fit into this particularly time period but are horrible outdated now.
Most random live-action adaptations of old animated shows suck, from Disney or otherwise. I agree that Underdog is by far the worst (if it's going to be a terrible adaptation, it might as well not be a terrible movie on top of it), but most of them tend to make the same mistakes.
One thing that hits a lot of those movies is the tendency to force the characters into the real world, either by actually having them transported into our world (like the Smurfs) or by radically changing the world the characters are in so that it's as much like reality as possible (like Underdog, which is an exaggerated case - but its really noticeable with series with anthropomorphic animal characters).
The former only has like one or two plots that work with it (or at least, people tend to only reuse the same one or two plots), while the latter clashes really badly and tends to make a mess of things.
edited 23rd Jan '16 3:14:21 PM by KnownUnknown
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
Professional Moldy Fig/Curmudgeon
That and miscasting...
I'll say it and say it again: Leslie Nielsen is not Jim Backus. Matthew Broderick is not Don Adams. Alfred Molina wasn't really Hans Conried. Dan Aykroyd tried to imitate Daws Butler, but wasn't Daws Butler - which kind of makes no sense; if you're going to get a famous guy and he just imitates the original voice actor, why not just get someone who can do the voice anyway? It'd give some better work to voice actors.
(And, while it doesn't count, Bill Murray was not Lorenzo Music.)
Oh, and yes - they don't try to capture what the cartoon was like, either. The films based on Jay Ward cartoons kind of work because they had the same style of humor as Ward's stuff. It's why the George Of The Jungle film is actually good.
edited 23rd Jan '16 3:28:23 PM by Aldo930
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."
Still just awesome like that
I thought Inspector Gadget was fine. Could've been better, but it had its moments.
George of the Jungle was fantastic, though.
Insert witty 'n clever quip here.
When. Will they get it through their thick little minds. That YOU CANNOT ADAPT A CARTOON INTO LIVE-ACTION AND STILL MAKE IT WORK!!!! IT WAS A CARTOON FOR A REASON!!!!!!!!
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
Because it worked for George of the Jungle, so why not, I guess?
I just want an actually good live action DBZ film. Hell, I can probably direct the damn thing if I have to.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Okay yeah but infusing it with CGI characters kind of makes the movie worse because it's like they're being even more gimmicky.
George of the Jungle was one of the better attempts.
Why aren't you laughing?
Professional Moldy Fig/Curmudgeon
The reason George Of The Jungle worked was because they tried to capture the humor and spirit of Ward's original cartoon (which, if you have not seen, you should; like much of Ward's stuff it is very, very funny).
Most of these attempts barely try to be like the original, which to me makes no sense; why would you go to see an adaptation of something if it's nothing like the original? Do they have no respect for the source material?
edited 23rd Jan '16 4:06:03 PM by Aldo930
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."
Still just awesome like that
Adaptations don't need to be totally replicas of the original in order to work as a piece of media. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World almost totally diverts from the original comics by the climax (even if the first half of the movie is pretty close), but it still more or less works as a movie on its own. Adaptations don't need to be good adaptations to be good works on their own.
Insert witty 'n clever quip here.
Since Tale Spin finally got that third DVD release, you think season 4-6 of the Gummi Bears will be out soonish too? They had a rereleases of 1-3 in 2013.
The Protomen enhanced my life.
Aldo hit the nail on the head. A lot of animation to live action adaptations suffer from writers (or Executive Meddling) that just doesn't get it. They try to make things "cartoony" (and sometimes not) without capturing the humor style and conventions that made the original work in the first place. Instead they churn them out as generic comedy movies, which stink not because they're not good adaptations, but because generic comedies always stink.
The same thing hits video game adaptations (which end up as generic action movies), and still hits comic book adaptations sometimes even with superhero movies trying harder to capture the feel of the source more.
A lot of times the thing being adapted is blamed, or the idea that you can't adapt these things in the first place, but really a lot of these movies are made by people don't just understand what they're adapting.
edited 23rd Jan '16 5:22:46 PM by KnownUnknown
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
Professional Moldy Fig/Curmudgeon
I had no idea Disney still cared about their old TV product; I thought they'd left it for the birds.
For that matter, will they ever do anything with the Fox Kids shows that they technically own the rights to? The world needs the Tick more than ever!
To make it worse, the rights holders are sometimes complicit in it - and they approve of the hatchet job that their work has been turned into...
edited 23rd Jan '16 5:22:18 PM by Aldo930
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."
The Flintstones kind of sits in an awkawrd middle point where it's faithful enough to the original's spirit as to not suck (as a matter of fact, I'd rank it higher than most animated Flintstones stuff post-original series, except for On the Rocks and possibly the Jetsons and WWE specials), but it doesn't really add anything to make it feel truly special or outstanding. It's... just kinda okay. Never watched Viva Rock Vegas so I can't comment on it.
Well, they are working on the Duck Tales revival (although it appears it's on a rocky road) and the Rescue Rangers movie hasn't been officially cancelled yet (although we haven't heard news in a while). Everything comes and goes in cycles, and there's a current mild nineties revival going on, so...
edited 23rd Jan '16 5:26:46 PM by NapoleonDeCheese
Talespin, Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, Ducktales, and Quack Pack have all been released to some capacity. Maybe more that I'm missing too. Only half of the Gummi Bears has been released.
Still just awesome like that
According to Wikipedia, yes XD It even got a Grand Finale 2-part episode! (It was aired out-of-production-order but "later" episodes take place before it.)
Still just awesome like that
whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat
the hell
Insert witty 'n clever quip here.
It's true. I remember watching it once long ago.
Yeah, well, not in mine country. Disney really seems to hate Germany. We NEVER get the good stuff. We don't get Avenger collector boxes (hell, I would be happy with a simple Blueray set for each Phase with all the Bonus material in one handy package, no extra stuff needed), we don't get the best of the special editions (still waiting for the perfect edition of Robin Hood, among other things), we don't get the TV shows (I especially want Gargoyles and House of Mouse) - I really don't get why Disney is so opposed to making money.
Mind, I only remember them showing it once.
We didn't even get Gargoyles in TV, ever!
edited 23rd Jan '16 7:22:05 PM by NapoleonDeCheese
Professional Moldy Fig/Curmudgeon
Stupid decisions is all you need to know.
Disney has kind of done a slapdash job releasing their original TV shows - I don't think most of them have even been released in full even in the U.S.
And, of course, we all know what happened to the Fox Kids library once Disney got ahold of it. They probably don't even know that they own those shows.
edited 23rd Jan '16 7:24:03 PM by Aldo930
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."
Just a reminder, no one is the only one.
My Tumblr "If theirs one thing I'm good at, it's blowing" Jesse Cox 2013