Being back in the news for reasons I don't much care about did remind of a question I had about the Mystery Inc gang.
I mostly know the show from back when they hung out with the Harlem Globetrotters and Adam West's Batman. At that time the mysteries revolved around someone using supernatural beliefs and the group debunked them showing us that, as always, old men were always the true villian. I get the impression that in the last twenty years or so they actually have supernatural elements play a part in the show. Is this accurate? Do they actually have ghosts and zombies these days?
I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.
I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.
Eew, a serious Scooby-Doo show without Scooby??
Who wants to see that?
The show “Mystery Inc.” had some supernatural elements that became apparent as the continuing background story evolved. It was a Gen X type of show, with a lot of reference humor and a Buffy vibe.
Ahtman wrote: Being back in the news for reasons I don't much care about did remind of a question I had about the Mystery Inc gang.
I mostly know the show from back when they hung out with the Harlem Globetrotters and Adam West's Batman. At that time the mysteries revolved around someone using supernatural beliefs and the group debunked them showing us that, as always, old men were always the true villian. I get the impression that in the last twenty years or so they actually have supernatural elements play a part in the show. Is this accurate? Do they actually have ghosts and zombies these days?
I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.
So, scooby doo in general sucks in the vast majority of it's iterations. But Mystery Inc was legit good. It starts with a bunch of old men in masks and eventually reaches more or less Cthulhu level issues. Whats great is the conclusion of that has them in an alternate reality, traveling around in their van, and basically starting the original show. The one, really bad thing in Mystery Inc is there is a girl nick named Hot Dog Water because that is apparently what she smells like. Just... gross.
I know a fair bit of the movie spin offs have had a lot of legit supernatural and alien villains that weren't just people in costumes or masks. There was one with real zombies and werewolves, weird aliens and I believe one with the Hex Girls where they had to deal with a real witch too.
I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.
Eew, a serious Scooby-Doo show without Scooby?? Who wants to see that?
I mean probably the same people thinking that having a show where Velma being race-swapped as a selling point is going to be enough of a premise for a spin-off series beyond the initial rage-bait views. It's really getting old hat with the usual "if you don't like this, you're "whatever-ist" like Ghostbusters 2016.
I'm just shocked it's not Daphne who got changed given how many red-heads Hollywood has gone after for race-swapping in recent years. Small mercies I guess?
Most of the time Scooby Doo is about old white men dressing up as monsters to steal land; a premise probably way more insightful than its original creators intended. Only some rare offshoots have actual supernatural stuff.
Grimskul wrote: I know a fair bit of the movie spin offs have had a lot of legit supernatural and alien villains that weren't just people in costumes or masks. There was one with real zombies and werewolves, weird aliens and I believe one with the Hex Girls where they had to deal with a real witch too.
I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.
Eew, a serious Scooby-Doo show without Scooby??
Who wants to see that?
I mean probably the same people thinking that having a show where Velma being race-swapped as a selling point is going to be enough of a premise for a spin-off series beyond the initial rage-bait views. It's really getting old hat with the usual "if you don't like this, you're "whatever-ist" like Ghostbusters 2016.
I'm just shocked it's not Daphne who got changed given how many red-heads Hollywood has gone after for race-swapping in recent years. Small mercies I guess?
Honestly the whole thing sounds stupid. No Scooby because they didn’t want his kind of silliness distracting from their grim adult humor, meanwhile Fred has a disease that renders him only able to recognize hot people. Here’s what the four of them look like;
Grimskul wrote: I know a fair bit of the movie spin offs have had a lot of legit supernatural and alien villains that weren't just people in costumes or masks. There was one with real zombies and werewolves, weird aliens and I believe one with the Hex Girls where they had to deal with a real witch too.
I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.
Eew, a serious Scooby-Doo show without Scooby?? Who wants to see that?
I mean probably the same people thinking that having a show where Velma being race-swapped as a selling point is going to be enough of a premise for a spin-off series beyond the initial rage-bait views. It's really getting old hat with the usual "if you don't like this, you're "whatever-ist" like Ghostbusters 2016.
I'm just shocked it's not Daphne who got changed given how many red-heads Hollywood has gone after for race-swapping in recent years. Small mercies I guess?
Daphne is Asian in it.
Whelp, I stand corrected. Hollywood can never resist eliminating legit redheads. I only saw the cringe Velma trailer so far, so I missed the changes to the rest of the Scooby Doo crew. Pretty lame. They really should have just took a page out of Mystery Inc in terms of having coherent storytelling rather than do....whatever this is.
Grimskul wrote: They really should have just took a page out of Mystery Inc in terms of having coherent storytelling rather than do....whatever this is.
You literally haven't even watched it yet.
Having alternative designs for the characters doesn't necessarily mean anything for the storytelling.
Grimskul wrote: They really should have just took a page out of Mystery Inc in terms of having coherent storytelling rather than do....whatever this is.
You literally haven't even watched it yet.
Having alternative designs for the characters doesn't necessarily mean anything for the storytelling.
Agree with all this. Like the ninja turtles, this has been going so long that it should just be rebooted and changed as often as possible wfor whatever they want to do with it.
Making daphne asain doesn't make her "not a red head" (asains can have natural red hair). And until we see the product judging it is exactly like the meltdown everyone was having about fenale ghost busters when all we saw was a logo.
I think the oldest Scooby-Doo incarnation where the ghosts were 'real' was the 1985 show 'The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo' where Scooby, Shaggy, Vincent Price, and this stereotypical asian kid that appeared all over the place in the 80s would run around trying to re-capture a series of mini-bosses that I think Scrappy accidentally released.
Grimskul wrote: They really should have just took a page out of Mystery Inc in terms of having coherent storytelling rather than do....whatever this is.
You literally haven't even watched it yet.
Having alternative designs for the characters doesn't necessarily mean anything for the storytelling.
Agree with all this. Like the ninja turtles, this has been going so long that it should just be rebooted and changed as often as possible wfor whatever they want to do with it.
Making daphne asain doesn't make her "not a red head" (asains can have natural red hair). And until we see the product judging it is exactly like the meltdown everyone was having about fenale ghost busters when all we saw was a logo.
Honestly my only issue with the female Ghost Busters was it felt like it was 20 years late in coming.
Also lets not forget this new Scooby program doesn't have Scooby.
That's like rebooting Buffy the Vampire Slayer and deciding you don't need Buffy
Also part of me wonders if the show creators aren't just trolling us for marketing. Considering how on the nose the Velma trailer has been I do wonder if they are going to pull a "fooled you all" twist and the actual show is entirely different.
Grimskul wrote: They really should have just took a page out of Mystery Inc in terms of having coherent storytelling rather than do....whatever this is.
You literally haven't even watched it yet.
Having alternative designs for the characters doesn't necessarily mean anything for the storytelling.
Right, but the fact that this is what they're mostly focusing on in the trailer (look guys! we're self-aware of race-baiting! Change is bad hurr-durr, what a bunch of internet babies) is less about what the story is actually about versus preemptively trying to be inflammatory towards their viewer base is not a great sign this is a show based on strong writing.
Very little of what they've shown so far suggests that they'll do anything more than attempt to do the usual deconstruction of the classic characters, probably make a weird shoehorned "romance" between Velma and Daphne based on the early show description and try to make Fred (the only white main character) the butt of every joke while they ham up the pop culture references and sex jokes as an attempt to show how "adult" the show is. Just wait for them to change Fred's interest in traps to be twisted into him liking femboys like Astolfo
Basically when you're clearly starting to change the personality of all the characters and take out the talking dog, whats the point of making this a scooby doo related project?
This looks like another Riverdale in the making, with the show having nothing to do at all with Archie's comics. And my criticism is the same. And it's just...why?
I'm totally fine with a show about a southasian teen detective, her redhaired girlfriend and two side male friends. So why cover it up under a scooby doo skin, especially without the Scooby Doo?
Hell, if you want to keep it in the Scooby Doo universe, just make the show about their descendants. Mindy's character could be Velma's daughter, Constance Wu the daughter of Daphne and Freddy, and Norville could be Norville Jr, Shaggys adopted son. It also works out in explaining where the heck Scooby went.
There are so many ways of doing this without it looking like "HEY WE ARE SUPER DIVERSE, LIBERALS, ADORE US LIKE WE ARE GODS, CONSERVATIVES, GET MAD AT US FOR "FORCED INCLUSION". WE DON'T CARE, JUST GIVE US FREE MARKETING"
The problem is that they didn't even do that right, by conflating that different=good / fans wanting respect for the source material = bad".
Frankly, the trailer fundamentally failed at doing the one thing a trailer is supposed to do which is tell us why we should want to watch the show. By trying to do a meta-jab at critics, all it does is double down on being based on internet drama rather than standing on its own merits. How much you want to bet it will blame on "isms" for it not doing well if it tanks in ratings? At some point you can't keep trying to have your cake and eat it too.
I feel like the only people who would want to watch it based on seeing it is to spite people dumping on the show for virtue signal points and the others are to see the train wreck that this show is going to be.
They may be taking a page from She Hulk, which also took on the usual haters, pretty successfully. I suspect if the Velma show is good there will still be many hate-watchers who constantly complain about how unenjoyable the very enjoyable parts of the show are because it’s “not for them” or they wonder “who is this [widely enjoyed and well-regarded] show even for?”. The writers could mine a lot of material from that situation.
Grimskul wrote: The problem is that they didn't even do that right, by conflating that different=good / fans wanting respect for the source material = bad".
Frankly, the trailer fundamentally failed at doing the one thing a trailer is supposed to do which is tell us why we should want to watch the show. By trying to do a meta-jab at critics, all it does is double down on being based on internet drama rather than standing on its own merits. How much you want to bet it will blame on "isms" for it not doing well if it tanks in ratings? At some point you can't keep trying to have your cake and eat it too.
I feel like the only people who would want to watch it based on seeing it is to spite people dumping on the show for virtue signal points and the others are to see the train wreck that this show is going to be.
The original IS bad. Scooby Doo original is a terrible show.
The rating WILL get tanked. They will be tanked before the first episode ever reaches streaming. Just like Ghost Busters. Ms Marvel She-Hulk and all the other times this kind of stuff has happened. Does anyone remember when there was a fury about Miles Morales being announced as the Ultimate Spider Man? "What! They made spiderman black! AND Hispanic! Why can't they just leave the classic character alone!" Issue 1 was months away.
It's not a cop out when the isms are actually doing it. Knowing they are going to do it and making fun of them for being big babies before they even get a chance is fair game. And it lets us know they are both aware and don't give a gak. Maybe thats not for you, and that is fine. But it's a message that attracts somebody. Just not you.
Grimskul wrote: So why cover it up under a scooby doo skin, especially without the Scooby Doo?
Free advertising, creative bankruptcy, and a crowded market.
Controversy also creates a 'them vs us' kind of situation. Nothing is easier to sell than something that 'sticks it to the other guy', and nothing is easier to forgive than the thing that 'pisses off the haters'. And so it has always been.
It doesn't automatically mean the show will be bad. It's pragmatic, it just doesn't scream confidence in their own material.
No. I am not talking about actual performance. Ghost Busters: Answer the Call is not a good movie. That is not what I said.
What I said is that it was getting hate before anyone saw a single image of the cast in costume. We had 1 logo image with the press announcement of an all female Ghost Busters and the hate started then.
What I am saying is that consistently, these shows get review bombed before they even release.
You have to be actively ignoring the time line of events to not see this happen over and over again.
Also, because the original wasn't super great it's okay to run ramshod over it and radically alter their characters to the point where they're almost completely different?
No. The original not being great has nothing to do with it. You are ALWAYS fine to radically alter and change whatever the hell you want however the hell you want whenever the hell you want. Guess what, Bram Stoker's Dracula has been adapted over and over and over again with radical alterations. Some are better some are worse and all are fine that they happened.
The classic Boris Karloff Frankenstein is a radical alteration of it's source material. Turning the monster into a lumbering near brainless beast when in the actual source material he was intelligent. Spoke, clearly and intelligently. Did math. Etc etc...
The people in charge of Simpsons should do whatever they want with Simpsons. It's theirs. If you don't like the changes they made but you do like the original, go watch the original.
Scooby Doo is a franchise that has already been re-imagined and Scrappy Doo’ed into worthlessness. The formula is so thin and stale they have nothing left but to shake it up even further from the original.
The characters were never really about their race(s). That’s a cosmetic change that probably won’t impact their personalities or interpersonal dynamics (unless the show attempts to delve deeper like Mystery Inc., in which case they might have something new to add to the same old characters). Unfortunately we live in times where studios are so risk adverse they prefer to raid old IP over developing new ones, even when the old IP is a poor fit; it’s pretty common for reboots and reimaginings to fail because of this. The problem is when studios want to reuse IP from a time when casting was…let’s say markedly less diverse than the actual population. They can either change some characters’ ethnicities, maybe tapping into a new market, or they can stick with older, dated ideas on who gets to be seen on screen as per the original IP…and make some fans much happier.
Grimskul wrote: So why cover it up under a scooby doo skin, especially without the Scooby Doo?
Free advertising, creative bankruptcy, and a crowded market.
Controversy also creates a 'them vs us' kind of situation. Nothing is easier to sell than something that 'sticks it to the other guy', and nothing is easier to forgive than the thing that 'pisses off the haters'. And so it has always been.
It doesn't automatically mean the show will be bad. It's pragmatic, it just doesn't scream confidence in their own material.
Let me take you back to a time before I was born. A time when Scooby Doo first landed. And Hanna Barbera promptly vomited forth many of its own copycats from the same flimsy mould. Josie and the Pussycats, Captain Caveman, The Funky Phantom, Speed Buggy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids (no, really!), Goober and the Ghost Chasers. I could go on but I’m even boring myself to death.
Ahtman wrote: Being back in the news for reasons I don't much care about did remind of a question I had about the Mystery Inc gang.
I mostly know the show from back when they hung out with the Harlem Globetrotters and Adam West's Batman. At that time the mysteries revolved around someone using supernatural beliefs and the group debunked them showing us that, as always, old men were always the true villian. I get the impression that in the last twenty years or so they actually have supernatural elements play a part in the show. Is this accurate? Do they actually have ghosts and zombies these days?
I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.
It's varied. As I grew up there were several reboots/iterations of Scooby-Doo. Some stuck to the old formula where the supernatural wasn't real. Others adapted that it was sometimes real. Some made it central to the plot.
It's varied.
One of my favorites though is the relatively recent 2 season series Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.
This one adapted elements of Lovecraftian horror very well IMO, and was on the whole one of the better modern iterations of the show. It leaned into slap-stick comedy at times, but had great emotional highs and lows, a good balance between stand-alone episode and myth arc, and had a great overall feel. Easily my favorite revival of the show. I believe it's available on HBO Max for anyone interested. I'll shill this gak cause it deserves shilling.
lord_blackfang wrote: Racists really gonna pretend they love Scooby Doo just so they can cry about how it was ruined, huh.
I didn't give a gak until I heard there was no Scooby man.
No Scooby? That's like a Gundam series without Gundams or Batman without Batman... Alright, I concede at least one of those ideas has worked in the past, but it's one hell of a bar to vault! I'm half expecting it's a fakeout and Scooby will actually show up, just not necessarily at the start of the show cause I don't get how you can have the show without a talking dog. The talking dog is one of the main characters.
Okay, so pitch for a better scooby doo show. Same cast as the originals but they spend more time international. Interacting with cultures from various parts of the world and their supernatural monsters and the usual crime mysteries we all know and love, always having a local translator who is knowledgeable where the gang is not joining as a temp member of the gang. They find their own knowledge and experiences isn't always relevant in these new areas and they learn from the places they're visiting. Because the fish out of water trope is usually handy for learning moral lessons etc etc.
With occasional callbacks to previous cultures that are adjacent. "We were in this area and this was part of their culture, is that applicable here?" "Well, yes but it's different here in this way." Shows that they've learnt stuff that's important and that cultures have all sorts of similarities and differences that make each of them important.
Has the race virtuing that the company execs seem to want, offers a lot of opportunities for other cultures to shine and you get to see a craptonne more mythologies. Just need a decent writing team so it's not done all hamfisted.
After years of different characters joining the gang, for better or worse, it feels a bit meh that now they're choosing to just race swap characters who are semi established. I know the idea I put forward may have been done in past generations of scooby doo but it could always be fleshed out more surely?
They did do a series like that. I think it was in the era when the Scream guy was as voicing Shaggy, so with it a few years of Mystery Incorporated. I tend to get the episodes a bit mixed up with the Gargoyles adventures in foreign cultures episodes.
As for the show ditching Scooby, maybe Velma gets her own animal sidekick for this? Maybe Professor Pericles…
The race swapping may be the result of casting. Daphne is played by an asian actress, velma by an indian, and shaggy by a black actor.
I very much doubt WBs corporate execs had any meaningful input into the races of the characters. This is very likely driven by the creators giving diverse casting and having the characters reflect it.
It just seems spiteful, and with the only trailer actually being spiteful, I'm probably not going to watch it. It'll probably be similar to She Hulk in that the way it handles stupid internet people makes no sense in universe, and only exists to pretend that people only dislike it because of sexist/racist (in this case) reasons instead of seeing the writing on the wall, or the show being bad.
Also, real monsters/ghouls/ghosts being real in Scooby Doo is older than I am. How they're handled varies.
And the Supernatural Scooby Doo episode was really good.
As long as it doesn't have Scrappy in it there's a chance it will be fun (but i'll miss Scooby)
maybe we'll explore how Norville aka Shaggy went from a bright young man with a promising future to somebody with a habit that gives him the munchies all the time?
and don't dis Captain Caveman! (or forget the comedy stylings of the New Shmoo in the group of youths having adventures with a thing cartoon genre)
It is, but most are probably more familiar with them either through their own Hanna-Barbera cartoon or their crossover with Scooby-Doo via 'The New Scooby-Doo Movies'.
Modern TeeVees come not only with an “off switch”,
IF you can find it!
Touchscreen buttons on TVs I find can be a case of mashing your fingers near where the button should be and hoping you hit it instead of the two or three others clustered around that open menus or such.
That's from only one of several review sites that have given it lukewarm reception and when even most of the more left-leaning sites aren't giving it great reviews, you know it must be pretty bad, considering the checkmarks it ticks for what they usually see as a good show in their eyes.
Sadly, the pillaging of old IP's will continue unabated.
I don’t think left-leaning audiences are into what you might think they’re into.
Good deconstruction or satire require good writing and strong sense of tone. It also requires respect or at least engagement with the original source material. I’d consider Mystery, Inc to be a more successful, more left-friendly, take on Scooby Doo than the description in that text box, assuming it’s accurate. That just sounds like a SNL skit level parody rather than a sustainable vision.
Consider The Watch, BBC America’s attempt at bringing Discworld to screen.
As a series based on The Ankh Morpork City Watch? It’s woeful. It misses many of Pterry’s points, the odd charms of His Grace, The Duke of Ankh Morpork, Commander Sir Samuel “Sam” Vimes (a bigoted man, who finds his bigotry tested and largely overcome through his unstinting dedication to Justice, but a surprisingly small minded bigot all the same), and gets it all wrong.
But…..get it’s abuse of the source out of mind? And it’s actually not that bad a show. I certainly enjoyed it for the most part once I got over myself.
In short? Either give it a whirl and see what you think of it on its own merits, or just….don’t tune in, and do your best to ignore it.
Ignoring it is easy. I detest Rick and Morty. That stuff is everywhere. Yet….I still manage to ignore its existence and just be about my life.
See I didn't give a gak about the show when it was announced because no Scooby Doo no gaks given.
And I still don't care, except to wonder how much of the pre-release of this show is purposeful trolling for marketing purposes cause some of it is so on its face cringy, and seemingly tailored to push all the buttons, I struggle to believe that's really what the show will be but I'm also not going to validate the marketing (if that's what it is) by caring after posting this.
I have better things to do than watch a show I'm not interested in, or bitch about it on the internet.
lord_blackfang wrote: Racists really gonna pretend they love Scooby Doo just so they can cry about how it was ruined, huh.
To me, being not-racist is about not caring about what race people are, but it also doesn't mean race is interchangeable and we should start making white characters south asian, the same as we shouldn't start making south asian characters white. Not that I care massively either way, but it seems the show was trying to court controversy with not only race swaps, but not having Scooby Doo and changing the personality and behaviours of the characters.
At this point it seems race and gender swaps in media is done to generate publicity more than anything else.
I didn't know "Velma" was even a thing until it started popping up as recommended videos/news due to the race swapping "controversy". I would not have known it existed, but now I do... so mission successful for the advertisers to give the show more publicity than it's worth I guess.
Although I watched Scooby Doo as a kid, I really couldn't care less, I would have been happy enough not knowing this thing existed. I'll maybe watch an episode now that I do know it exists, though I'm far from a fan of Mindy Kaling.
So I watched the first episode because I wanted to know if it was as bad as the marketing makes it look, and it is. Norville is the only decent one while the other three are giant a-holes to everyone. Won’t watch more.
Easy E wrote: It sounds like someone had the kernel of an idea for a new High School drama, but they could not get it green lit as a stand-alone new product.
Therefore, they packaged it as a Scooby Doo re-boot in order to get the money to make the show they actually wanted to make.
That's what it sounds like to me.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the general trend for a lot of these poorly adapted shows from borrowed IP's. You saw it with the Halo live action show, Witcher: Blood Origins, and now Velma. People who lack the talent to make their own ideas work by itself resort to hollowing out and skinsuiting existing IP's to get their pitches through and resent the source material that they're hijacking as being the main attractor of attention instead of their own "original" take on the IP which usually results in this kind of mess where it actively craps on the source material rather than adding onto it in a respectful way.
It's not even lacking skill at making their own stories. Often as not you can find its producers/executives/suits not wanting to finance unknown IPs and unknown series unless you're are very powerful director/writer who will bring a huge fanbase with you.
Otherwise they want a big "guaranteed" market that a known/previous IP will have and that your unknown one (no matter how good it is) doesn't have.
Another layer can be where you've a good script and a good story, but then polls, theories, target demographics and all those other fancy office buzzwords come out. Diversity, representation and loads of other bits all rear their heads and start chopping and changing bits here and there. Squeezing in things based on viewer theories. Eg adding a romance element to The Hobbit.
Sometimes a lot of those things change the story up so much that hardly anything that the actual writer made is left - yet often as not the script writers take the blame in the public eye.
I would also say that the US system of production also does have an attitude of "putting their own spin on it" and "modernizing" stories and such. They do it all the time; heck even when adapting animations from other cultures they will chop and change things very significantly. Some anime for adults gets chopped, changed and shifted into a kids show; the early adaptation of Nausicaa was made into a high action film (from what I gather).
Overread wrote: It's not even lacking skill at making their own stories. Often as not you can find its producers/executives/suits not wanting to finance unknown IPs and unknown series unless you're are very powerful director/writer who will bring a huge fanbase with you.
Otherwise they want a big "guaranteed" market that a known/previous IP will have and that your unknown one (no matter how good it is) doesn't have.
Another layer can be where you've a good script and a good story, but then polls, theories, target demographics and all those other fancy office buzzwords come out. Diversity, representation and loads of other bits all rear their heads and start chopping and changing bits here and there. Squeezing in things based on viewer theories. Eg adding a romance element to The Hobbit. Sometimes a lot of those things change the story up so much that hardly anything that the actual writer made is left - yet often as not the script writers take the blame in the public eye.
I would also say that the US system of production also does have an attitude of "putting their own spin on it" and "modernizing" stories and such. They do it all the time; heck even when adapting animations from other cultures they will chop and change things very significantly. Some anime for adults gets chopped, changed and shifted into a kids show; the early adaptation of Nausicaa was made into a high action film (from what I gather).
Oh don't get me wrong, executive meddling and choices by committee are still one of the hallmarks behind so many shows being bad, but it's hard to completely excuse the writers involved when you have many of them explicitly showing disdain for the source material (e.g. The Witcher) and often times doing either character assassinations or deliberately poor framing of existing characters out of some weird spite rather than sticking to the original characterization (which would be the path of least resistance when it comes to writing a character, they're already made for you).
While Hollywood and most streaming/film entertainment is very risk averse, why hire people that seem to have no interest in the IP at all then? I can only assume because most of the gigs are obtained through nepotism and connections rather than competency given how poor a large chunk of the adaptations for a lot of the existing IP are.
So I watched it. It's actually pretty good and funny, there is some dumb Metsa jokes, near start. But it picks up half way through the first episode. With an interesting overall mystery.
hotsauceman1 wrote: So I watched it. It's actually pretty good and funny, there is some dumb Metsa jokes, near start. But it picks up half way through the first episode. With an interesting overall mystery.
I agree with this. Its got the manic pace of a Rick and Morty episode with the meta commentary of Rick and Morty episode placed over a potential decent plot that we just dipped our toes into.
Il give it another episode or 2 before I decide to stop or keep going.
The funny part about all this is that if they wanted to do an adult Scooby Doo, frankly Mike Tyson Mysteries set a much better example of how to do it, as it did a MUCH better job in showing how the absurdity of how they solve mysteries by not taking itself too seriously and they didn't rely on overly self-referential and overdone meta gags to deliver its humour. It also helps that the voice cast (Norm Macdonald's last major voicing role if I remember correctly) and characters are balanced against one another much better than what is currently shown with Daphne, Velma and Fred all being arseholes. Heck, MTM even did the gay character right!
Yes, but, this show isn't trying to lampoon Scooby Doo like MTM was. It's a Scooby prequel in the tone of a rapid fire adult cartoon closer to Harely Quinn.
You wouldn't say the Harely Quinn cartoon is pointless because we already have Batman The Animated series, would you?
It's a different thing.
Criticizing something for not being something it isn't trying to be seems like a weird critique.
As an aside: His last role was on Seth Mcfarlen's totally not Star Trek as a green blob monster.
Didn't like Scooby Doo when I was little, the ghosts were too scary (yes, I'm serious). Didn't like it when I was larger, it was lame compared to Transformers and GI Joe.
Did not care since, even when Buffy played Daphne. Still don't care now.
The only interesting thing I have to add is that the classic Scooby Doo mystery with fake ghosts is an update of an older trope from the Pulp Era.
Writers wanted to have the horror of ghosts and vampires and suchwot and would write a straight up horror story then undo any supernatural elements in the last few pages with handwaves - mirrors, masks, smoke, drugs. My guess is that editors and writers were afraid to cross the line and have stories where monsters were real, it was too unrealistic.
These stories would have been on the mind of Scooby Doos creators in the 60s who probably saw it as a good trope for kids to show them monsters aren't real.
I watched the first episode, yeah I know I'm behind everyone else here. I found some of the race based commentary stale. Not dated, like the show was using 30 year old jokes, just, well IDK. I don't think the child me from 1993 would have laughed either.
Was it all bad, no. However it feels like Mindy Kaling is desperately grasping onto the last 3 of her 15 minutes of Fame.
Lance845 wrote: Yes, but, this show isn't trying to lampoon Scooby Doo like MTM was. It's a Scooby prequel in the tone of a rapid fire adult cartoon closer to Harely Quinn.
From the people different people I talked to about it was that it had some funny bits but that overall the connection to Scooby Doo detracted from it. That if it had just been its own thing it would have been far better off; it ends up being more of a distraction of "how" and "why".
For all the talk now days about think of the children and pedophiles, I’m surprised I haven’t seen people making a bigger deal about this opening up on a bunch of 15 year olds in a shower with the bare minimum censored by soap bubbles.
Oh it was definitely brought up by people, probably not as much as the general stuff because of how in your face the poor dialogue and writing is, but that part is also very weird. I feel like it would have made more sense to make them all college freshman instead of being in high school if they wanted to be more raunchy with what they show, because as is it definitely has that borderline creeper vibe due to them being teens.
Probably sometime after people have gotten their fill of milking it for social media outrage points; though I get the impression its more likely to just be forgotten first.
Lance845 wrote: Yes, but, this show isn't trying to lampoon Scooby Doo like MTM was. It's a Scooby prequel in the tone of a rapid fire adult cartoon closer to Harely Quinn.
But Harley Quinn is funny?
Saw the first two eps and my general feeling is that it's aping heavily the Harley Quinn show, but with even meaner spirited jokes and quite a bit less funny and overall worse, at least to me.
Some of the jokes are good, though, I was sufficiently entertained for like 40 minutes.
Lance845 wrote: Yeah, it's not an amazing show, but it's not trash either.
Lets face it, Scooby Doo in just about every version has been complete garbage. People getting pissy about this one are pissy for pissys sake.
I'll admit that almost every Scooby reboot has been hot garbage. Just because they were does not make this version good by comparison. It deserves its own tear down.
Lance845 wrote: Yeah, it's not an amazing show, but it's not trash either.
Lets face it, Scooby Doo in just about every version has been complete garbage. People getting pissy about this one are pissy for pissys sake.
I'll admit that almost every Scooby reboot has been hot garbage. Just because they were does not make this version good by comparison. It deserves its own tear down.
Sure. Thats fine. Even the original is total crap, but lets just leave it up to reboots.
Let me ask you a question.
Have you ever seen this level of vitriol for any other version of Scooby Doo? Is this version actually that much worse?
Have you ever seen this level of vitriol for any other version of Scooby Doo? Is this version actually that much worse?
The movie from 2002. Daphne and Velma got it pretty bad too but that movie ultimately turned around to be some kind of weird scooby-doo guilty pleasure.
I have no idea if Velma is worse.
Also, hot garbage? You know you don't have to dismiss everything just so you can take a contrarian take on this thing right? Scooby Doo has about as many good renditions as bad.
Have you ever seen this level of vitriol for any other version of Scooby Doo? Is this version actually that much worse?
The movie from 2002. Daphne and Velma got it pretty bad too but that movie ultimately turned around to be some kind of weird scooby-doo guilty pleasure.
I have no idea if Velma is worse.
Also, hot garbage? You know you don't have to dismiss everything just so you can take a contrarian take on this thing right? Scooby Doo has about as many good renditions as bad.
I am not being contrarian. Scooby Doo has 1 good rendition. Mysteries Inc.
I cannot think of any other version of Scooby Doo that was actually good in any way.
The OG Cartoon. 13 Ghosts. Boo! School. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo (criminally killed before its time). The New Scooby-Doo Movies? About half the actual movies.
They'd all like to have a word. Some of them haven't even aged that well (Did Scooby really need a Shortround expy?) and they're still pretty good.
It's mostly the modern stuff that's been cheap and kind of trashy, but the studioes behind Get a Clue and What's new clearly weren't putting much effort into it. Scooby-Doo is probably about as challenged in modern media as Sonic the Hedgehog but that doesn't make the OG material hot garbage.
Lance845 wrote: Yeah, it's not an amazing show, but it's not trash either.
Lets face it, Scooby Doo in just about every version has been complete garbage. People getting pissy about this one are pissy for pissys sake.
I'll admit that almost every Scooby reboot has been hot garbage. Just because they were does not make this version good by comparison. It deserves its own tear down.
Sure. Thats fine. Even the original is total crap, but lets just leave it up to reboots.
Let me ask you a question.
Have you ever seen this level of vitriol for any other version of Scooby Doo? Is this version actually that much worse?
Honestly, no, I think this one is the most hated. I went pretty hard on a couple of the others, but much of that was the animation style that didn't agree with me, which admittedly is subjective. Animation alone I actually kinda like Velma. I think this one isn't hated more per se, just hated more broadly. Of all the reboots, and even some of the parodies, this version deviates the most from the original. It's adult humor, it's sans-dog, it has some semi-racism, the characters are intentionally unlikable.
While we often see the past with rose colored glasses, sometimes we do the opposite as well. Originally Scooby Doo was a very hokey, kid friendly, Saturday cartoon from the 70's to watch while you ate cereal. It was episodic in nature, and you didn't need to watch any particular episode to get the plot any other episode. This is literally the exact opposite of that.
There is a fine line between an homage to the original and intentionally giving it the middle finger. I've actually quite enjoyed many shows that have laid waste to my cherished childhood memories. Robot Chicken, Family Guy, South Park, Simpsons, etc have all parodied Scooby, and done it well, even with the adult humor. However, doing it well for a few minutes or a single episode is much different to an entire series, and I think that is where the staying power of this show is going to have a problem.
Honestly the show's greatest enemy is likely to be Discovery slashing stuff left and right to write them off as losses.
I doubt the show is doing badly. Controversy does sell and how many people have probably already watched it just to see what the fuss is about? There'd have to be a serious failure to retain viewers for HBO to consider the show a loss.
LordofHats wrote: Honestly the show's greatest enemy is likely to be Discovery slashing stuff left and right to write them off as losses.
I doubt the show is doing badly. Controversy does sell and how many people have probably already watched it just to see what the fuss is about? There'd have to be a serious failure to retain viewers for HBO to consider the show a loss.
Thing is the first episodes are going to do well on views and internet hype because of the hate. However unless the hate is super strong chances are many will get turned off by it and won't watch the rest of the episodes. So if they greenlight season 2 based on the opening viewer numbers they could still end up with a dead duck.
Also for all the ups and downs of many (most) of the earlier adaptations, they were at least trying to stick to the original core concepts and just play with the formula a bit here and there.
But this new adaptation, everything I've heard and seen of it is just not Scooby in any way shape nor form. It shares the brand name and some character names and some visual design elements here and there, but otherwise its just not Scooby Doo. It might be called it, but its not it.
lord_blackfang wrote: So how long until people figure out this a reactionary show clumsily parodying over the top wokeness?
Mindy Kaling's writing is neither that profound NOR that talented. I think this is just a show done by someone who hates the franchise. Isn't the first time that's happened.
Also for all the ups and downs of many (most) of the earlier adaptations, they were at least trying to stick to the original core concepts and just play with the formula a bit here and there.
But this new adaptation, everything I've heard and seen of it is just not Scooby in any way shape nor form. It shares the brand name and some character names and some visual design elements here and there, but otherwise its just not Scooby Doo. It might be called it, but its not it.
Well... I mean. There is a couple of mysteries and Velma is going around the crew trying to solve them while establishing the interpersonal relationships of the group. Thats about all Scooby Doo ever was + having characters that are more than "This ones hungry" "This one gets captured" etc...
lord_blackfang wrote: So how long until people figure out this a reactionary show clumsily parodying over the top wokeness?
It's not though.
Takes a real leap to think that this is some right-wing anti-woke psy-op.
IMHO it's most likely the combination of tone-deaf comedians and making a show to please the metrics instead of the audience. If you only measure audience engagement and optimize for that, outrage and negativity have the same effect as genuine happy audiences on the face of it, so it's 'mission accomplished' for that particular type of beancountery. Long-term viability of that strategy is of course another kettle of fish.
Outrage has a much more positive effect. It's cheaper to make and drives more "engagement" than happy.
It's fascinating that I've seen almost no one go to bat for this thing. Even the people that usually recommend giving things a try do not recommend giving it a try.
It seems like it was going for meta commentary on tropes but wasn't really clever enough to do it well. Like at the beginning of the first episode that says that origin stories are for hunky guys or how a woman went crazy and that doesn't really hold up all that well. They wanted to make a joke about origin stories but didn't have a good joke so just threw something out there hoping the audience would be ok with it.
I've enjoyed Mindy's other projects but this one just falls flat.
Ahtman wrote: It seems like it was going for meta commentary on tropes but wasn't really clever enough to do it well. Like at the beginning of the first episode that says that origin stories are for hunky guys or how a woman went crazy and that doesn't really hold up all that well. They wanted to make a joke about origin stories but didn't have a good joke so just threw something out there hoping the audience would be ok with it.
I've enjoyed Mindy's other projects but this one just falls flat.
A lot of it feels like trend chasing, like they saw Rick and Morty being popular with their meta references and then said "Let's do that!" without actually factoring the differences in genre and audience, or that it actually has to have a point (and actually be written to be funny within the context of when its said). Being overly self-referential doesn't do anything except be immersion breaking if it's done poorly.
Ahtman wrote: It seems like it was going for meta commentary on tropes but wasn't really clever enough to do it well. Like at the beginning of the first episode that says that origin stories are for hunky guys or how a woman went crazy and that doesn't really hold up all that well. They wanted to make a joke about origin stories but didn't have a good joke so just threw something out there hoping the audience would be ok with it.
I've enjoyed Mindy's other projects but this one just falls flat.
A lot of it feels like trend chasing, like they saw Rick and Morty being popular with their meta references and then said "Let's do that!" without actually factoring the differences in genre and audience, or that it actually has to have a point (and actually be written to be funny within the context of when its said). Being overly self-referential doesn't do anything except be immersion breaking if it's done poorly.
For example Venture brothers had the groovy gang basically be a mix of scooby doo characters and serial killers. Worked well in the context of Venture Brothers taking the piss out of everything involving old mystery and adventure characters.
Ahtman wrote: It seems like it was going for meta commentary on tropes but wasn't really clever enough to do it well. Like at the beginning of the first episode that says that origin stories are for hunky guys or how a woman went crazy and that doesn't really hold up all that well. They wanted to make a joke about origin stories but didn't have a good joke so just threw something out there hoping the audience would be ok with it.
I've enjoyed Mindy's other projects but this one just falls flat.
A lot of it feels like trend chasing, like they saw Rick and Morty being popular with their meta references and then said "Let's do that!" without actually factoring the differences in genre and audience, or that it actually has to have a point (and actually be written to be funny within the context of when its said). Being overly self-referential doesn't do anything except be immersion breaking if it's done poorly.
For example Venture brothers had the groovy gang basically be a mix of scooby doo characters and serial killers. Worked well in the context of Venture Brothers taking the piss out of everything involving old mystery and adventure characters.
Exactly the example that I was thinking. The sad part is that even as a parody (and a well done one at that), Venture Bros. was significantly less mean spirited in how they approached the source material they were making fun of compared to Velma. Though tbf, Venture Bros is probably one of the best adult cartoon series.
Venture Bros is a grossly underappreciated gem and if HBO wanted a Scooby parody series they should have just hired Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer to do a spinoff series based on the Groovy Gang.
chaos0xomega wrote: Venture Bros is a grossly underappreciated gem and if HBO wanted a Scooby parody series they should have just hired Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer to do a spinoff series based on the Groovy Gang.
Nah VB did it right where they show up exactly once and never show up again. A one-and-done gag that worked for that episode.
ZebioLizard2 wrote: Sometimes it is better to let things end, and given they're making a movie that'll be the proper finale it should at least end well.
The Groovy Gang was hilarious as a dark take on the gang, mostly because you weren't expected to really like any of them. They were all horrifically bad flanderized versions of the characters.
And it worked because they did it once and each of them is named after a serial killer. You wouldn't be able to make an entire show out of them. They were fantastic as a one-off gag and off-color humor that made meta-commentary without standing on a soap box and preaching it's brilliance..
I've been a little worried Pitch Meeting is getting a little mean spirited as it jumps on gut reactions to new releases similar to what happened with CinemaSins, but in this case, it feels earned.
This one's actually doubly brilliant because it calls out the very shallow meta-humor of 'pointing out popular culture exists' while employing actually funny meta-humor when the host insults people who watch youtube and then looks right at the camera and apologizes.
This kind of antagonistic outrage marketing has been going on a while, but I feel Velma is like a tipping point, so bad that even defenders can't defend it, and maybe, just maybe, they might be a tiny bit more open to some discussion and counterarguments.
Lance845 wrote:The more vocal and the more consistent the usual crowd of haters are the more likely the art is to address them in the art. Art imitates life.
These ass holes were going to throw a hissy fit. They knew it. They addressed them head on. Those hissy fit throwers were never their audience.
BobtheInquisitor wrote:They may be taking a page from She Hulk, which also took on the usual haters, pretty successfully. I suspect if the Velma show is good there will still be many hate-watchers who constantly complain about how unenjoyable the very enjoyable parts of the show are because it’s “not for them” or they wonder “who is this [widely enjoyed and well-regarded] show even for?”. The writers could mine a lot of material from that situation.
Ah, so the shows only pretended to be clunky, tonedeaf, bitter and spiteful beforehand. What a clever idea to speak to the people who won't like your show and partially prove them right, rather than display the merits of your show to a hopeful audience! Marketing genius.
What do you mean, 'being tonedeaf and spiteful were the merits'?
Joking aside, I'll let you into a little secret why many reactions to a show are preemptively hostile. Not all, but many. It's to do with two old sayings: 'once bitten, twice shy' and 'fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me'.
Gender, politics, all the rest, isn't the thing. It's these things being used disguise and excuse bad writing, terrible ideas. It's these things being used as a marker of quality in themselves, to excuse everything else in the show. Do it long enough and it becomes lazy and transparent, and the premature reaction becomes pavlovian, like a dog that keeps getting whacked with a paper when the bell is rung. It's not all 'oh the haters are out in force just because Velma's brown', it's 'Velma's brown, how much do they expect this to cover for dull, shoddy scripts?'
It's gotten so that universally liked shows, apparently well made, become the exception and a pleasant surprise. Like Andor, and even a lot of shrieking about the casting in House of the Dragon turned into 'oh, this show's actually pretty good'.
And so the 'we've got women and poc! (good writing, what's that?)' marketing has evolved into 'only right wing nuts hate our show with women and poc. You're not a right wing nut, are yoouuu...?'
When you use this as an argument and justification, you've played right into someone's hands. The studio's, probably. But I wouldn't write off a few showrunners either.
A.T. wrote:Controversy also creates a 'them vs us' kind of situation. Nothing is easier to sell than something that 'sticks it to the other guy', and nothing is easier to forgive than the thing that 'pisses off the haters'. And so it has always been.
Maybe so, but I remember it was mostly used to market things to kids that were so 'radical' and xxxtreme' that it'd shock their uptight parents.
This is how we advertise to adults now, apparently.
Lance845 wrote:No. I am not talking about actual performance. Ghost Busters: Answer the Call is not a good movie. That is not what I said.
What I said is that it was getting hate before anyone saw a single image of the cast in costume. We had 1 logo image with the press announcement of an all female Ghost Busters and the hate started then.
What I am saying is that consistently, these shows get review bombed before they even release.
You have to be actively ignoring the time line of events to not see this happen over and over again.
Even the situation with Ghostbusters: Answer The Call was overinflated. Do I need to link a Science Man Explains video here? Again, not that there were no hateful comments, but someone at Sony saw an opportunity and ran with it. And studios have been running with it, to some extent, ever since. You don't wheel Dan Aykroyd out to rail about 'basement dwelling clan members' beforehand, and then have him sheepishly mutter about how 'that director won't be with the studio again' afterwards, without looking foolish and having people think something's up.
Modern TeeVees come not only with an “off switch”, but a great many channels of other things for you to watch.
Ah! Is it something like how web browsers come with a back button? I see.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Ignoring it is easy. I detest Rick and Morty. That stuff is everywhere. Yet….I still manage to ignore its existence and just be about my life.
Imagine everything slowly turning into Rick and Morty.
warboss wrote:Don't be ridiculous; it's not mythical. Half of them are posting in this thread!
So what's that? One... two... a dozen, divided by two? Sounds about right.
lord_blackfang wrote:So how long until people figure out this a reactionary show clumsily parodying over the top wokeness?
Not sure if serious, but in any case this is the mindset that makes me despair. Any negative reactions to a bad show are politicised into 'right wing haters', until we get a show so bad that the 'badness' can't be handwaved away, and the cognitive dissonance horseshoes the whole thing into 'right wing conspiracy'.
I'll reiterate: too often what you call 'wokeness' is played up in a show to disguise it's clumsiness. What we have with Velma is close to peak clumsiness. It's not 'woke' (well, a bit), it's not right wing, it's just bad.
lord_blackfang wrote:Racists really gonna pretend they love Scooby Doo just so they can cry about how it was ruined, huh.
Lance845 wrote:Yeah, it's not an amazing show, but it's not trash either.
Lets face it, Scooby Doo in just about every version has been complete garbage. People getting pissy about this one are pissy for pissys sake.
These kinds of argument are like "why do you get so worked up about a space wizard movie for kids, lol". They're terrible deflections, some kind of ad hominem fallacy or something close to it, designed to sidestep and invalidate any reasoned debate. (Even if it is about space wizard movies, and their quality) They're insulting to the intelligence and they're beneath you. Please don't.
LunarSol wrote:Outrage has a much more positive effect. It's cheaper to make and drives more "engagement" than happy.
To a point. Are we at that point yet? Maybe... 6% of the journey left to go?
