Jack Horner works because he didn't pretend to be good or had any noble intentions. You know right away he's an unrepentant villain and loves every moment of it. But imagine if the Jack Horner personality was copied and pasted on every villain in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. The movie would fall apart because suddenly, Goldilocks and the Three Bears end up being another batch of generic villains rather than ones with depth. And Puss would have legit reasons to wish for infinite amount of lives if Death was evil to the core instead of being someone trying to do his job and teach Puss a lesson.
Ruby Gillman is simply not a film where you can slap in a Card-Carrying Villain since the film is mostly about family trauma and toxic friendships. Making Chelsea and Nerissa the same person simply raises the questions as to how an adult woman still looks and acts like a teenager, leading to some mumble jumbo explanation about mermaids not aging. And it feels like movie isn't daring or innovative as it like to claims. Can't have the mother to actually have blood on her hands despite the fact the overall narrative already points to that direction (Agatha fleeing from the Royal Family and restart her life as a normal "human" real-estate agent makes more sense if she regrets killing Nerissa).
This is what I mean by the film being Shrek with no layers. It could have been so much more, but instead decides to be average.
Edited by Shadao on Jul 19th 2023 at 8:28:50 AM
I have internalized myself that this very principle is why I appreciate Encanto having No Antagonist besides Elena: the generational trauma and horrors she endured are enough for the story, the generational trauma her sense of survivor's guilt and burden with being a single mother are enough to keep the conflict afloat, a straight-up moustache twirling twist villain would have felt out of left field or too distracting from the plot. Really the older version of this film's plot with Agatha being a regretful murderer who deprived another child of her mother and having a damn good reason not to want Ruby to follow that same path is definitely a more compelling thing for me.
Nerissa pretending to be a teenager and pulling it off seems to indicate that she's just not a very mature person regardless of her actual age. It makes even more sense if she's avoided going through any of the life experiences that usually force people to mature a bit, such as realizing you're not getting any younger and / or raising a family of your own, getting a job, etc.
We've even got a trope for it: Immortal Immaturity.
Edited by M84 on Jul 20th 2023 at 12:25:16 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised
To me, the fact there was an explanation in the film to justify how Nerissa could easily disguise herself as a teenager is already a sign of how squandered the film's potential was. Why do we need adult Nerissa to disguise herself as teenage Chelsea? Chelsea by herself is already a toxic influence to Ruby simply by encouraging bad habits. Really, nothing's changed if Chelsea is a real daughter to Nerissa. She'll still seek the trident, she'll still seek revenge on Agatha, and she'll willing to sacrifice true friendship with Ruby to get that revenge. In fact, she would serve an even better Evil Counterpart to Ruby in that she's following her mother's footsteps, beliefs, and legacy to the core rather than challenging them like Ruby (and Agatha) did to their respective mother.
It adds another layer of creepiness to their interactions. It's essentially a predatory adult manipulating a teenager to get what she wants.
It's another way their relationship is a mirror of the conflict between Ariel and Ursula in The Little Mermaid where an adult kraken-lady manipulates a teenage mermaid.
Disgusted, but not surprised
And not much more. The trade-off of the draft Chelsea for the final Chelsea is just not worth it, in my opinion. I see it going the way of Prince Hans' infamous villain twist. Oh, once hailed as a great twist, then subjected to ridicule once people realize that Hans feels out of place, being a villain in a movie that didn't really needed a villain.
Hans did serve as more than just a twist villain. He was also a dig at the Love at First Sight trope that was endemic to Disney movies. "Love is an Open Door" was also pretty brilliant, being a supposed love duet song that was actually a villain song on Hans' part.
You might not like these twists, but said twists do have more going for them than just being twists to provide the movies with bad guys.
Edited by M84 on Jul 21st 2023 at 3:29:23 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised
Problem is his entire character does a 180 and there's zero foreshadowing beyond some lyrics to his character, there's no scenes where we're shown the subtle basis of his true personality like King Candy or Erenesto and him being evil only matters to artificially inflate the conflict when Anna and Elsa's accident is enough to carry the finale. Remove Hana and not much would change or would need to.
If you cut hin nothing from the plot would change. And it happens so late in the film we don't even get to spend time with him as a bad guy like Ernesto and Candy
Edited by miraculous on Jul 20th 2023 at 6:00:01 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."Hans is a very weak villain. They were trying to replicate Turbo without laying any of the groundwork. King Candy was obviously egotistical and patronizing, and the Turbo story was brought up far in advance, so it worked. Hans really feels like a bad twist villain because Elsa was already the antagonist, even if a sympathetic one. Hans doesn't add anything to the plot. Plus his actions just don't make a lot of sense, even with the Fridge Brilliance they tried to add in.
Similarly, the Chelsea twist is just Royal Pain from Sky High but done a lot worse (and I wasn't a fan of that one, it also wasn't very well foreshadowed imo), and I'm baffled as to why they didn't just make Chelsea be Nerissa's daughter looking for revenge, which would tie into the generational trauma plot. The whole movie has a giant unfriendly Aesop about racism, it boils down to "your racist grandma is right" and I'm amazed no one making the movie seemed to notice that and nip it in the bud.
Edited by PhiSat on Jul 20th 2023 at 11:41:38 AM
Oissu!Darren Webb
, the storyboard artist who did the animatic for that alternate lead in for the climax, stated this in his original Instagram post's comments.
I do believe he's being honestly cordial, since they seem to enjoy their contributions to the film. That being said, his original pitch (and whatever scriptwriters were also supporting this idea at the time) were right on the money to make Chelsea being the actual daughter of Nerissa. Another consequence of the Gillman women's estranged behavior, and adding a major flaw to Agatha that she's still regretting over. Phi Sat captured how this is the rare modern animated generational trama story where the choice to have a villain could've worked within the themes of the story.
Edited by XMenMutant22 on Jul 20th 2023 at 2:18:14 PM
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My issue with The Reveal at present is it presents Nerissa and mermaids as a whole as Always Chaotic Evil. It also kind of makes Grandmammah seem like she was right, that mermaids can never be trusted and should be violently beaten down at every opportunity, and if you leave them alive they just come back in a few decades and mess with your innocent children.
If Chelsea was instead Nerissa's child acting out of revenge for her mom's death at Agatha's hands, it gives Agatha's decision to leave the ocean more weight. It means she has a good reason for being The Atoner trying to make a better life for her kids. It means Grandmammah is not right and that her attitude is making things worse by setting up a Cycle of Revenge between krakens and mermaids that needs breaking. It means you can set up a Redemption Arc for Chelsea in the future even if the movie still ended with her beaten and imprisoned, because she has sympathetic motives for her actions rather than just being petty and spiteful. It also sets Ruby and Chelsea up as proper foils, showing what Ruby could have become if her mom had kept fighting and had died in the conflict with the mermaids instead of the other way around.
Oissu!It sounds like there was Executive Meddling and they didn't want Agatha to be an outright murderer, even if she regretted it in the present day.
Oissu!Why. It was by all induction self defense. And Dream Works have let even let Po of all people for example kill bad guys in self defense
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."didn't want Agatha to be a murderer but kept Genocide Grandma. Luckily they can still salvage this, just have Chelsea and Ruby be friends, and make it so that Chelsea isn't Nerissa (just check youtube comments to see how many people want a Chelsea-Ruby teen friendship) because without that, the series is damaged goods.
A show would need a Reset Button or at least some serious retcons at this point. Unless the movie's seriously vindicated by cable I don't see it getting a show. Dreamworks will probably just bury it, hell they might even write it off like WB's been doing.
Oissu!Well, cable is dead in USA but alive in Latin America. I can see it finding new life in the Dreaworks Channel.
Also I remembered we dont have a Vindicated By Streaming trope.
As long as this flower is in my heart. My Strength will flow without end.

Honestly, thinking about it the narrative in the final movie does sorta feel like it was working up toward Chelsea being a real person who wants to avenge her mother's death up until the climax. It's really too bad because I think simply making Chelsea and Nerissa one and the same really took something away from the movie and just ended up making the story and the conflict between the krakens and mermaids as a whole feel a lot...I guess the word I'd use is "flatter"? It probably would have gone a long way in giving Chelsea some much needed depth instead of just being a pretty one-dimensional villain.
Part of me wonders a bit if they saw how beloved Jack Horner became for just how Laughably Evil he was and reworked Chelsea/Nerissa to be more unapologetically evil in the same vein as him an attempt to make lightning strike twice. If that's the case, then I feel like it wasn't worth it in the end given what we now know the story discarded in the process.
Edited by kablammin45 on Jul 19th 2023 at 8:08:28 AM
"Hey, least I didn't lose all my artistic talent when I crash landed in the arena here."