SammyTheShrimp
Black Knight
Confirming that "Trick or Treat" is the best Scooby Movie from after 2010
Posts: 14
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Post by SammyTheShrimp on Jan 12, 2023 4:48:34 GMT -5
So there's good and bad, and bad is overwhelmingly winning. The characters are completely unrecognizable. I don't mind Norville as a character, but he's not Shaggy in any way. The rest of the characters are just actual trash bags. Real people aren't this terrible. They did Fred especially dirty on just about every level. He is an irredeemable human being.
The writing takes egregious shortcuts with exposition and backstory and then tries to turn it into jokes that are never funny. The psychological issue Velma has with mystery solving in a vacuum would be great (both the concept and visuals), but the way it was explained to us like we're five-year-olds is frustrating. Character flaws and developments are similarly outlined to the audience directly for no reason. The overall plot feels undirected and apathetic, not that I even have a reason to care about anyone who was murdered or in any way affected by those deaths.
The perspective shift Velma has with how she remembers the relationship she had with her Mom was actually quite good, but then Velma's reaction of "oh, okay so my Mom probably being dead just doesn't matter and I no reason to have any lingering issues with this now" gave me some serious whiplash. And then they reverse it and try to turn that bad writing into a joke, which doesn't work but is instead just disorienting. The fourth wall breaking is rampant and detracts from the pacing and plot significantly. The jokes/"social commentary" are about 35/65 (good/bad) for me. Sometimes I'm like, "oh, that legitimately broke my expectations in a good way or is something I agree with," and then the rest of the time I'm stonewalling the screen or just mentally screaming "SHUT UP!" in a murderous rage because it's not funny/a truly bad take. It tries to be socially/politically based at every turn, but every time it does, the show becomes increasingly cringe. These should've been fully original characters in a different setting, and I can say this with confidence because, as I've said, the characters don't even resemble those of the actual I.P., and the writers are "playing with the formula" to the point where the structure also in no way resembles real Scooby. Beyond increased attention, there appears to be no reason for the show to use this I.P.
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Post by Doo on Jan 12, 2023 13:35:37 GMT -5
For the most part, I agree with your review, although I didn't feel as strongly as you do. I feel Velma and Daphne are recognizable, but I agree with you there's a lot of shortcuts regarding the exposition and backstory. My thoughts on the social commentary are similar in some sense, although nothing has seemed upsetting to me. The show does seem to rely on the "edgy for the sake of edgy" trope which is something I don't care for personally, but I think there are a lot of people that do. I like Velma and Daphne, but I agree with you that Shaggy and Fred are basically completely different characters, especially Fred.
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SammyTheShrimp
Black Knight
Confirming that "Trick or Treat" is the best Scooby Movie from after 2010
Posts: 14
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Post by SammyTheShrimp on Jan 12, 2023 13:56:56 GMT -5
Yeah, it may just be that I just particularly don't like the tropes/personality traits that they went for with Velma and Daphne. It feels like both of them don't even care about pretending to be good people, and that just really bothers me. I've never been a fan of "Mean Girls" characters in any way (unless they're side characters). As for the social commentary stuff, it's more the lack of tact/in-your-face manner those issues are brought up than the takes themselves that bother me (although I do think there are a couple of truly bad takes). If you can't make a point of social critique in art without turning to the audience and explaining to them what your opinion is, then it's just bad art. Subtlety is jarringly absent from the writing in general.
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Post by Doo on Jan 12, 2023 15:34:18 GMT -5
I definitely agree with you that both of them seem a bit mean, although Velma less so than Daphne. I also don't care for the tact/in-your-face comedy all that much. The only take that bothered me was the "420 means adults who still watch cartoons," because it plays off of the bad stereotype that any adult that watches cartoons is a burnout/stoner sitting on their mom's couch all day. It's a very Family Guy-ish take to have, and this show is a lot like Family Guy, so I'm not surprised they did that joke. I'm not a fan of "shock value" edgy stuff in general, which is a big reason why this didn't quite click for me.
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Post by dizagaox on Jan 13, 2023 3:35:17 GMT -5
It’s not very good. Mindy Kaling should feel disappointed in herself.
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glide
Black Knight
Posts: 3
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Post by glide on Feb 11, 2023 15:55:52 GMT -5
The show is just so angry and political. I am a white male and really have no problem with the modern tendency to demonize us (turnabout's fair play and all that), but the animosity with which the writers attack the Fred character is over the top. It seems like there is nothing so vile that they won't impose it on that character. The lack of Scooby Doo puts me in the this-is-not-a-Scooby-Doo-series camp. I was looking forward to it because Velma is my favorite character and I liked the idea of her leading the show. But I didn't expect the anger and the hatred which makes the show depressing for me to watch.
This show is destined to fail since it can do nothing but anger the traditional Scooby Doo fans and has nothing that would interest new fans to the Gang. I agree with those above that the social commentary is not woven into the storylines. Instead, it is forced in with a sledgehammer and immediately rips the viewer out of their suspension of disbelief. When the writing itself creates a distraction, then the show becomes unwatchable. Which this one rapidly is becoming.
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Post by Doo on Feb 11, 2023 20:32:34 GMT -5
The show is just so angry and political. I am a white male and really have no problem with the modern tendency to demonize us (turnabout's fair play and all that), but the animosity with which the writers attack the Fred character is over the top. It seems like there is nothing so vile that they won't impose it on that character. The lack of Scooby Doo puts me in the this-is-not-a-Scooby-Doo-series camp. I was looking forward to it because Velma is my favorite character and I liked the idea of her leading the show. But I didn't expect the anger and the hatred which makes the show depressing for me to watch. This show is destined to fail since it can do nothing but anger the traditional Scooby Doo fans and has nothing that would interest new fans to the Gang. I agree with those above that the social commentary is not woven into the storylines. Instead, it is forced in with a sledgehammer and immediately rips the viewer out of their suspension of disbelief. When the writing itself creates a distraction, then the show becomes unwatchable. Which this one rapidly is becoming. I kind of agree with you here. The problem for me wasn't necessarily the fact that there was any level of politics in the show. It was moreso that 95% of the social commentaries here were just plain bad. At best, they were oversimplified and out of touch, and at worst, they sent toxic messages (such as one episode where it's basically said that strippers are only in that job to get daddy's attention). I don't know if you've seen the whole series, but I felt Fred got a little better throughout the series. I remember feeling annoyed how terrible they made Fred in the first few episodes, but as the series progressed, he did at least have a few "so bad it's funny" lines. I agree with you that the writers were approaching the Fred character with a "let's make the white male a complete idiot" mindset. It's a bad take, because the point of feminism is to create equity for all rather than punish the privileged, but I wasn't really offended by it. I quickly got to a point with this show where it became clear the writers' intent is literally to offend and troll the audience with their bad takes, so the social commentaries on their own didn't really offend me for the most part; the bigger issue is that they were so constant that it detracted from the writing. I honestly had more of an issue with Velma than I did with Fred. They just make her so insufferably unlikeable, and it only gets worse as the show progresses. Without spoiling anything, there's a bit with Velma in the last episode that's presented to us as emotional. However, by that point, the writers had assassinated Velma's character so badly that her doing something not awful for the first time is not compelling at all. The show is so caught up in being a walking parody that the characters and their development cannot be taken seriously. Even with all the try-hard humor, I honestly think this is my biggest issue with the show. The writers fail to create any characters (besides maybe Norville) that are actually likable or worth rooting for. Fred, Daphne, and especially Velma are presented to us as awful, judgmental people who regularly treat others terribly. I definitely agree with your thoughts on the social commentaries becoming a distraction, though. The writers were so focused on constantly making social commentaries that it regularly detracted from the mystery development, and caused them to cut corners in a way that made the mystery far less compelling than it could have been. |
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Post by bountyhunter on Sept 2, 2023 21:42:08 GMT -5
Couldn't make it through the first episode. Terrible show.
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