The Mixed Reception To Movies Based On DreamWorks TV Shows

[SweetShop209]

When it comes to movies based on DreamWorks TV shows, the reception tends to be rather mixed. The most common complaint usually involves not really being faithful to the source material, whether it's because of who made the movie or just making decisions that are seen as baffling. Three of these four movies follow this while the fourth has other issues. Let's go over them.

1. Penguins Of Madagascar

First up, we have Penguins Of Madagascar, which is loosely based on the Nickelodeon show The Penguins Of Madagascar. Why loosely? Even though the movie is an action comedy with a plot not all that different from a typical special, has series writer Brandon Sawyer co-writing the movie, and even has Danny Jacobs return to voice King Julien for his cameo, it doesn't use anything specifically used in the TV show. This is most likely because of how the show is a collaboration between Nickelodeon Animation and DreamWorks Animation Television while the movie is set in the continuity of the Madagascar trilogy due to being made by DreamWorks Animation itself. I'm pretty sure Dreamworks didn't want to shell out extra money to use elements specifically created for the Nickelodeon show. As such, you have a movie that tries to be like the TV show, but can't exactly go all out in pleasing the fans. Case in point, Kowalski crushing on Eve seems to pull from his crush on Doris the dolphin from the series while Dave/Dr. Brine is basically Dr. Blowhole as an octopus, but without much of the charm from the show. This combined with when it was released (Thanksgiving 2014, just weeks after Big Hero 6) didn't really help matters.

2. Spirit Untamed

Next we have Spirit Untamed, which is loosely based on the Netflix show Spirit: Riding Free, which in itself is a loose follow-up to the 2002 movie Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron. Much like with Penguins Of Madagascar above, despite bringing in showrunner Aury Wallington to co-write the movie, it's produced by Dreamworks Animation rather than Dreamworks Animation Television. As such, it can't do much to appeal to fans of the show. Most notably, it's basically a retelling of the first season (thus not offering much to fans of the show), Lucky and her father have a more strained relationship rather than a more loving one, and because this is produced by Dreamworks Animation, all the voice actors are replaced with celebrities. While there were YouTube shorts, the Spirit And Pals shorts, that retain the new voice actors for Lucky, Pru, and Abigail, not much would come after this, and it's basically seen as inoffensive but nothing special.

3. Trollhunters: Rise Of The Titans

So one thing the first two movies have in common is that they were produced by Dreamworks Animation, not Dreamworks Animation Television. Well, what should the first movie to actually be made by Dreamworks Animation Television be about? Well, basing it on the Trollhunters TV show franchise is a good idea. I present Trollhunters: Rise Of The Titans. Oh boy this movie! This is meant to serve as the series finale to the Tales Of Arcadia franchise, consisting of Trollhunters, 3Below, and Wizards. Given how those shows are serialized, watching them is an absolute requirement before watching this movie. As for the movie itself, while its visuals were praised, the story and characters are what ultimately make it very polarizing. Without getting too heavy into spoilers, the movie was criticized for not giving all the characters enough time to shine, and feel that Jim's character development during the ending didn't fit with the story. I would say more, but I don't want this to get too long.

4. Megamind Vs The Doom Syndicate

And finally we have Megamind Vs The Doom Syndicate. Oh boy this movie! To say that it's not well likes is an understatement. Let's go over specifics. First off, the animation is seen as really bad, even by the standards of movie based TV shows having lower budget compared to the movies. The second is that this movie isn't meant to be a full fledged sequel. It's instead meant to be a pilot movie, which Dreamworks Animation Television has never done before, to the Megamind Rules TV show. The third is with all the characters not being played by their movie actors, notably Megamind himself has his same voice actor in the video games, Keith Ferguson, rather than Will Ferrell. The fourth is with how the various story elements either contradict the original Megamind movie or just do something. For a fifth reason, albeit to a lesser degree, the Doom Syndicate appeared in the Megamind video game after not being used in the movie as planned, with criticisms lodged at the Doom Syndicate in the movie not being like the ones from the game. It's no surprise that this movie was heavily panned.

And that's all I have. It seems like Dreamworks Animation Television can't translate well to feature animation, whether DATV made it or not. What do you think?

 

[the_joker]

I don't know if some of the issues stem from the shows and movies having mostly different people on their respective teams, but 2 of the movies you mentioned have major showrunners from their respective shows.

1. I personally liked both the show and movie, and the show always felt like it was separate from the Madagascar movies. A number of characters being recasted as well as the show hardly referencing the movies also added to that feeling. I would say that the writers didn't want to do research on the television show to make their jobs easier, but you stated that there was one person who was a writer on both, though I don't know if he was the story editor on the show or something similar like a head writer. As such, I'm not sure why it didn't do well. It got good enough reviews if Rotten Tomatoes is to be believed, though I don't put that much weight into that site. And Big Hero 6 released released a few weeks beforehand, so I guess more people still felt more interested in that than in Penguins. I also don't know if the show had so many fans and were mad about the movie not continuing from the show. Overall, I don't really know (or care) how these things work.

2. I quite like the Netflix show, though I haven't seen the movie yet. I'm more than 110% sure that the title of both already had fans of the old movie seething as they both have nothing to do with it outside of having a horse. Personally, I don't think the old movie lent itself to a sequel, and I see the show (and new movie by extension) as separate from it, but I digress. And movies tend to have bigger profiles than tv shows, so I'm also certain that there's more backlash against the new movie than the show. In fact, I have no idea how well the Netflix show did. Probably better than I think since it got 2 spinoffs and even a separate movie. I don't think the first season (or maybe first 2 seasons as that makes up 13 episodes) have enough scope for a movie, so I would immediately say that some stories work better though tv than movies. Personally, I think having a separate movie based on the show felt random, but I still am curious about it, so I'll watch it at some point. Also, I think the titles of Netflix show and new movie should not have mentioned Spirit, but maybe that actually gave them some attention and curiosity. It worked for me.

3. I liked the Tales of Arcadia shows for the most part, but I do think the movie was a disappointment because its story and especially ending were poor. The main Trollhunters and aliens (don't remember the species name) finally team up, but only the former do anything useful while the latter were just there. I remember quite liking Asha but was disappointed at her inactivity in the movie. As for the ending, Merlin claimed that the amulet chose Jim for a reason, so suddenly shooting that idea down while not giving a reason for Toby to suddenly be chosen instead was absurd. It doesn't help that I don't like Toby that much. In this case, something went wrong with the storytelling team, but I don't know how that happened exactly.

4. I liked the Megamind movie, but I haven't seen the spinoff movie. It also just sounds like having a completely different crew as well as not having much to do with the original movie worked against it. The new Megamind movie looks like it's doing worse in that regard than in Spirit as the former is reusing character while the latter only had a horse's descendant (which, again, would be enough for me to call it separate). I'm surprised the writers of the new movie would use characters from a relatively old and obscure licensed game.

In 3 of the 4 cases, it looks like having an established fanbase of an older work also came with baggage for the newer works. And in all cases, their stories weren't exactly loved for whatever reason.

 

[Pooky]

I don't know about Trollhunters, but I don't think the other films were explicitly presented as tie-ins with their TV series. Penguins of Madagascar for sure was presented more as a spin-off from/sequel to the films than an adaptation of the TV series; it uses the voice cast from the films and the first scene (after the baby penguin prologue) takes place during the final scene of Madagascar 3.

I personally did see Penguins theatrically and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it was probably a bit late; the Penguins were fairly popular characters when the first movie came out, but by 2014 they'd been sort of usurped in the popular culture by the Minions, and their TV series had started more than half a decade earlier. And yeah, the confusion over whether it was a sequel or an adaptation of the TV series probably didn't help, a lot of parents probably thought it was a throwback to the days of The Wild Thornberrys Movie and such and not really worth seeing in cinemas, and as I've been saying elsewhere I think Dreamworks' tendency to do excessive spin-offs kind of hurts them.

Spirit Untamed looked like an OK and slightly atypical modern kids' film, but it didn't seem to retain or revive anything that gave the original film an enduring, kind of cult appeal. Megamind Vs The Doom Syndicate just looked like a Direct to Video sequel that arrived (charitably) at least 8 years late and wouldn't have looked good then, but would have at least made a certain amount of sense.