To Adapt a Wimpy Kid: The Best, The Botched, and The Mid

we are living in a mad mad world my friends a world of poverty discrimination Terror and other stuff I don't know I live in a Suburban neighborhood none of this applies to me there are many things in this world that people worry about are we safe can we trust our governments is the world going to end it's irrelevant questions like that that steer us away from the true conundrums this universe has to offer like what's up with graphic novels these days why is the bestseller list full of web Tunes brand tie-in and wannabe manga that's not how things were when I was a kid we used to be a proper country one where everyone agreed communism was gay pronouns didn't exist and the bestselling graphic novel series of all time was Diary of a Wimpy Kid although to be honest now that I think about it it actually wasn't my favorite growing up I did read it actively throughout all of elementary school starting when hard truth was the newest book and stopping once double down came around but it wasn't the first or last series I did that with by a long shot it was just one of a bunch I'd asked my grandma to buy from me when we went to the bookstore after school back then I read Big Nate Middle School iFunny Timmy Failure pretty much anything that followed tweenage boys being radical troublemaking artists A Trope that admittedly was first made Popular by Captain Underpants another favorite of mine but for real when it came to the self- narrated anecdotal downto Earth style of Storytelling the series all shared wimpy kid was 100% the inspiration as back when it released it kind of shook the industry with its unique approach to narrative and humor here was a series that didn't strive to present it stories in the typical beginning middle and end structure opting instead to build themselves around character focused skits presented a short diary entries from the perspective of a kid in middle school but not just any kid a Wimpy Kid or in other words a dick and that's not an exaggeration Greg hefley as far as children's book pro tags go was groundbreaking for the time that he straight up wasn't a guy you rooted for or even found all that likable and paradoxically that was his charm he was a hypercritical egotistical jackass that abused his one count him one friendship and a majority of the comedy came from the shot and Freud of seeing him face consequences for it each book Chronicles him failing to pull off a selfish scheme or plan and deal with the fallouts whether he's trying to game his mom's fake money system or start a lawn care business where his friend did all the work it's a cynically hilarious downright mean collection of books that isn't afraid to let its main character be selfish or rude or inconsiderate because we know he's eventually going to get his kicked in and before you try to say that a kid being this way is unrealistic let me tell you this no it isn't everyone has known a kid like Greg before maybe not as potential sociopathic I'll give you that but definitely to some extent on the surface he may be a Machiavellian parody of a human being but if you peel back the layers of mental illness to reveal what he is at the root of his character Greg represents everything hatable about children the arrogance the stubbornness the punch ability you have to restrain since punching kids is morally unethical readers loved that such a bastard could be the lead of a children's book giving the series of fun Edge that adults could enjoy just as much as kids for portraying them as the little stains they are and on the opposite side of the spectrum for all the Tykes who couldn't get that Greg sucked including me you could relate to him in his struggles not realizing you were the problem it had a little something for everyone in a funny easily readable format so it's no wonder the franchise took off and sold a bazillion copies it would have been stranger if it didn't it was a big Trailblazer for the more experimental kids like me got to read during the early 2010 so in that sense while I did have a bigger passion for middle school and Big Nate growing up I've also got a deep respect for Wimpy Kid and to me the first five or so books are nearly Untouchable in their consistency I can't deny their quality and the positive influence they brought to the sub genre no matter how many Dork Diaries books get made which one of my relatives would always get me not understanding there was a difference at Susan you but I digress they're good books that I enjoy even if I don't have as much to say about them as other series I'll tell you what I do have a lot to say about though the movies specifically the original liveaction theatrical Trilogy released between 2010 and 2012 respectively wait 2010 but that that's 14 years ago sorry mortality aneurysm but yeah in regards to Quality they're amazing films especially when you take into account the unorthodox Source material they had to work with I mean there literally weren't any large events to build a film around they basically had to Frankenstein narratives together from what they had and the weird thing is it didn't lead to a total disaster Against All Odds all three of them are fantastic adaptations in their own rights it's almost inhuman how same as the books they found a way to stay good while giving each subsequent entry its own distinct voice and when you put them all together they form a new cohesive Arc swerving the franchise in a totally different direction that's incredibly faithful at the same time you honestly couldn't ask for more from one adaptation let alone three and 8-year-old me might not have known that at the time but if anything I did know I was experiencing Peak Cinema but since this video is entitled how the wimpy kid Trilogy cured my depression or something clickbaity like that you can probably guess that wasn't where it ended after all Wimpy Kid never stopped being a popular book series it's still running today somehow so obviously the enthusiasm for further adaptations to stayed High and considering how often Hollywood reboots franchises when nobody asked you can only imagine how they'd react to genuine requests ah so this is what that shopkeep meant when I wished on that monkey's paw now if you're in the no of the wimpy kid Community which maybe the dorkiest thing I've ever said you've most likely already heard that this attempted reboot the long hul wasn't exactly everyone or who am I kidding anyone's favorite as a matter of fact everyone hated it including me even if at the time I didn't really think about why I could tell it was bad and a poor imitation of the other Wimpy Kid films but I couldn't quite put it into words seeing as so much of it seemed to be replicating what the original did the direction presentation characters all of it was familiar more or less but it just didn't work and at the time I was too caught up in my guilty atheist at Christian Middle School phase to watch anything but armored skeptic so I didn't think to look at reviews to help clarify this gut feeling it just sat dormant inside me like a stilted tumor waiting to come back worse than ever until well the franchise did this time as an animated take on the series written by the book author who wanted to make an improved version of his original story and with that in mind I was super excited until I watched it and noticed it's long haul again another attempt to recreate the magic of that liveaction trilogy gone horribly wrong and then it happened again again with the sequel and okay it didn't happen a third time with the sequel to that but it wasn't good either and after the release of that third animated film I finally saw the full picture universally beloved Source material known by a majority of children worldwide adaptation so good they became the basis for every interpretation to follow terrible new versions that miss the point and don't have any decent excuse for being made besides money this whole time I was missing the truth right in front of me these these films were made so that I could do a sequel to the Seuss video it all makes sense it's so clear now how else do you explain all the boxes being checked here it can't be a coincidence the only logical explanation has to be that everything in the universe inevitably comes back to me and hey Jeff Kenny I like your style so you've twisted my arm I'll do it but only because you wanted me to this is to adapt a Wimpy Kid the best the botched and the animated I know I sort of forced that rhyme there but I wanted it to match I don't have to justify myself to you each but how are you supposed to go about fashioning a conventional threea story out of Diary of a Wimpy Kid for the first three books or so there's barely a plot at all like sure they all follow a linear timeline in theme each one taking place over several months and juggling a couple related topics but aside from that they're mostly a collection of disconnected vignettes and interjections put into book form you know like a diary it's part of the authenticity kids tend to write about what they find interesting from their perspective and more often than not they don't have anything interesting going on they wake up they go to school they watch cartoons they go to sleep it can get tedious so breaking it up into these short bursts of random excitement like the books do makes sense that's how Di are they don't need to have a meaning or Focus or much of a structure at all and that's why it must have been so hard imagining how it would translate to film all those things I just listed are seen as necessary building blocks for a good movie at least traditionally and I don't think wimpy kid was looking to be the next lowbudget foreign art housee project so for it to work the new writers had to make changes but don't get the wrong idea by change I don't mean throwing the original out and starting from scratch that would be stupid no with this and the other liveaction films choose to do is way smarter they take the events of the book look at what's needed for the story they want to tell chop off all the pieces they don't need and reorganize the rest to build new overarching narratives allowing them to keep most of the book's content while optimizing them for a new format and carving out their own identity for instance in this film's case it still takes place over a full school year and a majority of the book's recognizable moments are kept intact but a hand full of lesser characters and scenes are removed to keep it mainly centered around Greg's friendship with his best friend Rowley see in the original book arguably the least concentrated out of the series it tends to keep a balance between stories about Rowley Greg's family and his school life occasionally letting them cross over when it would be convenient and it worked in that context as the books wanted to show us every facet of Greg's life but if left as is it would have made for a jumbled screenplay and I know it'll be controversial but I'm just going to say it's I don't think we'd be missing much if P mode was cut sorry not sorry they needed to tighten it up for lack of a better phrase so as a compromise to make sure nothing major was cut they pulled back the family stuff saving their time to shine for later films and mixed Rowley and school together to form a new plot line one where Greg wants to find popularity in Middle School assuming he's destined for greatness and needs to fix rowy if they want any shot at staying friends that's right believe it or not none of those things are anywhere near as big in the book as they are here Greg joining extracurriculars hoping he'll get respect just a bunch of ployes at taking advantage of perks him vying for the yearbook comes up as a brief goal near the end him wanting to alter Rowley so they can be popular together the main conflict of the film is a single oneoff line about him thinking Rowley is lame and needs fixing even one of the most iconic images from the franchise the thing that's used in all the book's advertisements now noways the Cheese Touch shockingly barely matters or holds any of the meaning it does in the movie here the cheese is the ultimate representation of the film's message an Ever looming artificial barrier for social status that the students themselves made up symbolizing how the one thing keeping kids like Greg from getting along with kids like Rowley are their own stupid perceptions of social hierarchy meanwhile in the book it's a brief side note mentioned a grand total of once about eight pag is in before completely Vanishing till the very end when it comes back as an excuse for getting Greg and Rowley back together after they stop being friends there's no weights no heart no deeper meaning it's actually kind of insane how much less the cheese matters in the books than it does here and I'd say the main cause for why is that it lacks buildup it's one of the few things you can reasonably criticize the older Wimpy Kid books for often times they'll have these compelling setups or ideas for plot points that could be explored in Greater detail detail but then they aren't so by the end when they come back to get resolved out of nowhere you don't feel as satisfied as you could be there's always something missing that could have made it hit harder and the film demonstrates this perfectly through how it builds up to rowy and Greg's breakup using the same events as the book originally the way it went was that Greg kept convincing Raleigh to participate in all these schemes purely to have a Fall Guy in case he needed one repeatedly abusing his trust and getting karmically punished for it until this one specific Civic action finally gets Rowley to cut him loose it's undoubtedly a gratifying development as it is giving us a taste of Greg's life without Raleigh in it to point and laugh at him for being such a pathetic loser but what's unsatisfying is that the breakup wasn't a result of escalation Rowley isn't doing this as a result of all the harm Greg's done to him across the entirety of the book no he's only mad at Greg for this one thing as shown by how he forgives Greg after he covers falei without any of the meaning it has in the film insinuating it basically made them even Greg let rowy take the fall for him terrorizing kindergarteners so him taking the fall for rowy eating the cheese is enough to get them back together and that doesn't quite sit right with me as in it definitely fit the tone of the books and arguably it's a more accurate take on how kids fall out and make up doing it over little things instead of culminating factors but given just how many times Greg does this I am left with the feeling that it should have led to something more but then again that could be my bias showing from remembering how brilliantly their relationship is recontextualized in the film to make this scene as powerful as it becomes I mean if you look at their friendship from the books perspective it isn't depicted as being all that important to either of them in the first place Greg especially he doesn't see any value in Ry whatsoever claiming he's easily replaceable and mostly using him to take out the pent up aggression he has against his older brother rodri like this man disrespected zooie Mama he'll mock anything about Raleigh just to feel better about the fact he gets zero so why does he stick up for him at the end in the book you ask well there are a few interpretations you could take seeing as Greg isn't going to be too open about it but if you're asking me I'd say it was a move made out of desperation think about it Greg had spent all his time since he and rowy broke up trying to find a replacement or some level of popular it and failed disastrously while Rowley succeeded so as a last ditch effort at getting back the one person who was oblivious enough to tolerate him Greg threw a hail Mary knowing he had nothing to lose and hey whatever the outcome he'd be getting some grade A blackmail material to hold over Raleigh's head for as long as he wanted is that the true meaning possibly not but you got to admit it wouldn't be out of character the whole message You're supposed to take away from the two's relationship in the book is that Greg's a bad influence who manipulates a good kid into doing his Dirty Work constantly backfiring on him as a punishment it's a cautionary tale about how Greg in his arrogance and selfish jackassery will keep losing as Raleigh wins never understanding why to our amusements it's part of why I wish there was a bigger reaction from rale when he finally broke things off it definitely would have clashed with his naive characterization in the book so I get why it didn't happen but it would have felt so good to see anyway and it totally is in the film though admit ly for vastly different reasons you see a major difference between the book and movie is that the film wants you to care about Greg and his friendship with Rowley it's the centerpiece of the whole thing if the Friendship stuff isn't good the rest isn't going to be either they need that strong foundation for the version of this story they're trying to tell so how do they do it by turning Greg into less of a malicious prick emphasis on malicious oh he's still an you couldn't get rid of that and keep him the same character if you tried but you could alter the place that dickishness is coming from for example in the book Greg straight up says that Rowley is replaceable and easy to trick those are statements of fact that Greg consciously believes with no ambiguity about it whereas in the film he consciously believes he wants Raleigh to be popular with him thinking everything he's doing is for rowley's benefits however in attempting to fix him we see that Greg in essence wants to turn rowy into something else and doesn't respect him he's conveying his subconscious thoughts through his actions it's great visual storytelling that Clues us into how this iteration of the character isn't self-aware about his own status like book Greg is he isn't aware how he's perceived by others as subtly implied by both this slight but noticeable change in his thought process and how his personal social rank starts out much higher in the film than it is in the book it's all done for the the purpose of conveying that despite Greg's jerkish Behavior his intentions aren't wanting to hold on to Rowley as his friend regardless of how Middle School might make it difficult he's not intentionally trying to hurt anyone but he finally starts to recognize that's exactly what he's been doing after Raleigh has enough of his and in the film this moment has been building we've gotten glimpses of foreshadowing and one-off lines and gestures that Ry has been wising up to Greg's Behavior as he keeps screwing him over and finally after doing something something so absolutely awful he couldn't plausibly take it any other way Rowley snaps or rather he comes to a realization there's no yelling involved in his call out of Greg you can tell he isn't angry he's shocked and crushed finally understanding that his friend isn't the person he thought he was it's no wonder the phrase you know what Greg you're not a good friend is so memorable aside from being blunt and concise it's effective you you feel everything rowley's processing in his head as he says it and it's such a rowy thing to say too he's not insulting Greg he's being honest you can't get mad at the man for saying it and the only excuse Greg has for doing so is that he doesn't want to admit he's right it's an interesting role reversal where for once Greg is the one who's naively clueless while Rowley is self-aware that sort of fmatic irony would never happen in the books and so to me this is where the films truly made a statement that they were their own thing up to here you could have made the argument it was reworked solely for optimization but here we finally register that these thematic choices and recontextualizations were made to eventually Express that characters in this universe aren't going to stay stagnant repeating the same mistakes over and over to comedic effect and truth be told as an adaptation decision I don't have issues with that keeping everyone virtually identical at all times obviously works under the specific circumstances and tone of the books but being that well these guys aren't Immortal cartoon characters and physically age over time it makes sense to let them grow mentally as well plus it doesn't take away from the comedy it just adds another layer with a dash of sincerity using proper escalation that's another reason why the fight between Rowley and Greg followed by the Cheese Touch scene is so immaculate here in the book The Moment is a little forced coming about from a minor argument and like I said before reading as though it was inserted just to resolve them being broken up not to mention rowy dissociating from Greg happened about 20 minutes before the fight so no matter how much time is implied to a past it doesn't feel that way and the film surprisingly gives a justification of sorts for why that is in Universe following the breakup which FYI happens way earlier to give it time to sink in there's this period Greg is miserable and keeps embarrassing himself so he tries writing about how he totally doesn't care that rowley's hanging out with somebody else and it's not like he likes him or anything but he gets frustrated and can't find the words I'm honestly not sure if it was a deliberate choice or not but if so it's a pretty clever detail that accentuates Greg's struggle to admit he's in the wrong continually getting beaten down by his own actions until he does what Rowley did he flips out just not at the right person if greig were real with himself or had even a hint of modesty he would have been able to see that the one deserving of all the blame for how shitty his life has become is him but he's ironically not as emotionally mature as Rowley he doesn't have the capacity to self-reflect so instead he lashes out at the one person he thinks he can blame it's another instance of that buildup and character work I cited earlier creating a scenario that's believable and serves as a second thematic climax all the comedy of the scene is unaltered from the two having no idea how to fight to the kids not taking in what Greg says cuz he has the cheese touch but there's a deeper meaning to the sacrifice that signifies the first steps of Greg becoming a better person I'm not necessarily saying the book version is bad by comparison it has its own priorities and does what it wants to do well but to me this ending was the last sign I needed to know that the liveaction trilogy was as unmistakably phenomenal as I remembered it unironically I'd go as far as to say it's a near Flawless adaptation save for the inclusion of this new character Audrey whose role in the film is so categorically worthless I intentionally gave her the wrong name just now and you probably didn't notice in actuality her name is Angie and from what I can gather the goal of her being here besides appealing to the girls 8 to 11 markets is to act as the film's resident mouthpiece to restate the themes in case you wouldn't have gotten them otherwise anytime Greg and Rowley fail at being popular she's there to rub it in their faces reiterating how stupid what they're doing currently is anytime someone talks about improving Society she's there to Proclaim how they participate in one whenever the audience is getting too comfortable engaging with the media using their own brains she's got a monologue ready about how Society is and reminds you that middle school is basically Nazi Germany so you might as well not give a that's all she contributes it's why I was able to go this entire section without feeling the need to name her once her presence across the story is about as annoying as your dead beat dad who wants to pretend that he still cares she shows up every so often to drops some sagely wisdom you previously read on the back of a Snapple cap she goes away for literal in Universe months offc screen and in the end she leaves such a small impact it's a wonder why she bothered at all and the disappointing thing about her character is that she had the potential to add to the commentary yet it's never addressed the parallel she has with Greg and how they think just look side by side at what the two say about middle school they're roughly the same thing the only difference is that Greg wants to participate in the system and Angie doesn't so by virtue of them clashing on the topic they don't get along it would have been the perfect opportunity to address how like-minded people can be torn apart by social structures just as much as those who've got nothing in common but she never has a conversation with Greg that's long enough for this to become a parent and it's a weird discrepancy as every other character with expanded roles in this doesn't feel nearly as tacked on shirro Gupta helps deliver Exposition as a kid who's been bullied his whole life Patty Ferell becomes the physical manifestation of Greg receiving karma for Ley admittedly doesn't have much new material but he's hilariously Charming thanks to his actor's performance and rodri actually to tell you why rodri Works we're going to have to move on to okay so following the trend of the first movie rodri rules decides to downplay the book's less important sections to focus on the relationship between Greg and rodri a dynamic we got to see a glimpse of before that was shockingly already more complex than anything the books ever did and thus inlies the problem here GRE and rodri's relationship in the books isn't memorable in fact it's barely present at all and I say that as someone who's recently been through nine Wimpy Kid books in preparation for this video so trust me when I say it's not deep as far as I can tell whenever Greg and rodri do interact in the books 95% of the time it's going to come down to one of three scenarios Roger gives Greg bad advice and he takes it losing his kidneys or something in the process Greg has a plan that either does or doesn't require rodri and he messes it up or they fights there is no in between it's a very prototypical older younger sibling relationship that can make for good comedy but virtually never Strays from those listed setups or says anything deep about them and there's a simple explanation for why rodri isn't a deep character there's this misconception among certain fans that he merely comes off as dumb because he puts all his effort into what he's passionate about and doesn't bother with the rest tricking others into doing those things for him but in the case of the books that's false he isn't smart at all occasionally he can trick other people into doing things for him usually unintentionally but his plans similar to Greg's almost always go wrong in his case owing to his glaring stupidity take the mom Buck situation the way that whole thing initially goes is that after Susan the mom comes up with his stupid Exchange program of getting real money for fake ones the boys can earn Greg finds the board game she got it from and figures he can Cruise off the stash for as long as he likes that plan falls apart though when Greg needs to turn in a paper and has to ask for help from rodri who takes advantage of his desperation to snatch 200 bucks for an essay it turns out wasn't any good clever right well it completely comes undone in an instant when rodri attempts to cash it all in at once and reveals Greg's scam not comprehending how suspicious doing that would be considering he's hardly ever worked a day in his life that's a good summation of how rodri is once in a while he can pull off these simple but effective bamboozles whether purposely or not but he doesn't think things through so he often ends up suffering the consequences but I understand why people keep mistaking him for a secret genius after all the films are so convincing at reinterpreting every little detail of his character I questioned if I was reading the books wrong myself it's that unbelievable how well they add depth to his character simply by viewing what he does from an alternate length that being intentionally in the books like I said it's just as likely for him to deliberately get his way as he is to stumble into good fortune and if he ever benefits from something with no downside nine times out of 10 it's going to be clarified that rodri didn't intend it he doesn't mean to set a standard of low expectations so people will be surprised when he does anything he isn't trying to get out of work by being stupid no he naturally accomplishes that by being totally useless 99% of the time but what if he wasn't what if in reality beneath his smooth brain facade rodri was self-aware of what he was doing the whole time why that would change everything without needing to change anything it would be so completely opposite of what the books are going for but at the same time it would work and if we're being legit it' be better the idea that rodri can't do much but knows and actively doesn't care embracing what he's good at and using those skills to move closer to what he wants disregarding everything else that would be jaw-dropping and it's precisely what rodri rules does with no room for interpretation point blank rodri is smart and enthusiastic when he wants to be he's no longer an idol NPC stuck sleeping in his basement for 80% of the story that comes up for one or two scenes to mess with Greg he has his own drive and aspirations and a solid grasp of what his strengths are and he uses them to his Advantage whenever he can oh uh what's that rodri is so brain dead he doesn't know how to type meaning Frank the dad does his work for him out of compulsion I think you mean rodri exploits his dad's low expectations to get free A's wasting no effort on his Parts wait what do you say rodri absent-mindedly wipe down with a dirty rag ha got you again he knew the whole time no more chores for him and it doesn't stop at what he accidentally did in the books either they seriously want to hammer it home to you that this rodri knows what he's doing doing so to make sure they have all their Bases Loaded they turn the mom buuk scheme into his idea that he keeps a secret to The Bitter End this man knows what he's doing he'll bang your wife convince her to divorce you and not call her again since she doesn't want to listen to his band's new single that's the type of guy rodri's become and Beyond being the greatest adaptation decision of all time it's also essential to Greg and rodri's friendship in this film being feasible I mean as it originally was they didn't have anything to gain from speaking to each other outside of obligation and that tracked with their personalities one was a lazy teen the other a scheming narcissist neither had anything to gain from a friendship with the other and due to their far more basic stagnant character traits they couldn't possibly have anything to respect the other four however as you may have noticed half of that issue was solved in the last film by ending it with Greg overcoming his narcissism meaning he could get down from his high horse to see rodri's positive traits there go what this film needed to to do was give rodri traits to be appreciated for while keeping in line with the book counterpart so their early disconnects still checked out thus rodri from the first film onward stays a jerk to Greg that likes picking on him but his rationale for doing so is that he doesn't respect Greg or see him as a priority he needed grounds to see him as more than another carefully placed dog turd blocking his path and this film allows him to do just that by not snitching about a party rodri throws demonstrating a value he didn't see in Greg before and opening the gates for them to start bonding it's a supernatural conclusion for the two to reach after seeing them grow across their respective films and if that wasn't enough on its own they keep going the extra mile by creating bonding moments out of reinterpreted bits from the book as you're reading them out in their original context it's clear Greg wants us to think rodri is stupid for laughing at fake vomit and using a microphone to scream somebody farted he's throwing shade as his ass tends to do but as a result of them bonding before that stuff happens here they're reworked into endearing moments of the two having fun yet again developing their bond using practically nothing but modified original material it's almost a new experience entirely unto itself and yet you can't say it's not a good adaptation as it keeps close to everything from the book and does nothing but improve upon it rodri's party happens and ends up being found out identically to how it was in the book but the party itself is spun into a catalyst for him and Greg bonding and them getting caught is a death blow to their new friendship that shatters rodri's self-confidence hearing he can't perform in the talent show he was preparing for across the film it's this movie's own Greg betrays rally moment where his actions in this case buckling and telling Susan about the party breaks the trust rodri gave him but it arguably hits harder this time since we know Greg regretted what he did and rodri isn't quite crushed more broken the single thing he cares about most in this world has been denied to him and one of the few other things he recently decided to care about was the cause so in turn he doesn't quite know how to react any response he could give wouldn't be enough to express how he's feeling but it's summed up well in how he delivers the line you're my brother but you'll never be my friend that one sentence is an emotional Sucker Punch to your nuts and it colors the Leisure Tower scene after since it isn't there for a couple more wacky tormenting Greg scenes anymore it's an emotional Rock Bottom for the two's relationship that that then gets resolved during the talent show when Greg once again sacrifices something in this case his dignity for the sake of someone else it's a fantastic place for the film to round off that puts a nice little cherry on the reimagined Sunday that is Greg and rogers's relationship and for each change after that sprinkles the biggest of which Holly Hills is basically given a new role entirely here she's got a major role in the plot with top billing and everything but if you look back at the book she mainly appeared in the last straw she barely says a word and that made sense the whole purpose of her character was that Greg didn't know anything about her but thought they'd be a great couple regardless making it all the more hilarious that she had no idea who he was it was a great subversion of expectations that justified Holly's small presence in that book but it wouldn't have fit the less egomaniacal Greg of this film so instead she's introduced as the object of his desire but through learning they have shared struggles battling siblings the two unexpectedly connect and end up becoming friends yeah surprisingly they don't get together right away and honestly I'll take that over a sudden inexplicable love interest any day it's a shift from the books that's drastic that's for sure but they knew not to take it too far or risk coming off cliche a compliment I can equally give to this film's version of the parents who like rodri were given greater depth from the beginning but I didn't get a chance to bring them up until now they're nothing too crazy mostly taking their old traits of straight laced janab be family man and doting nag to comedic extremes but they've also got a mix of subtle and heartfelt scenes in no small part thanks to their phenomenal actors to one side Rachel Harris does the impossible of radically morphing Susan into a likable character that isn't perfect but has a genuine heart and to the other Steve Z is able to take undoubtedly the least compelling member of the hefle family and turn him into an unhinged eldrich being of Calamity but if I really want to dive into him we're going to have to move on to wait a second this is the same transition as before why am I such an uncreative hat so starting things off by addressing the obvious anyone that's seen this film can tell you that dog days fits weirdly into the adaptation discussion for the reason that although it Loosely carries ideas over from Dog Days and the last straw it's got by far the most original content and that's because of the permanent status quo changes the last two films made to the franchise I briefly mentioned before how each film has Greg fighting to form or attain bonds and learn lessons he didn't in the original but it can't be overstated how significantly that ends up affecting this movie I just got done talking about how Holly was spun to avoid her disappearance after rodri rues so as you'd expect one of Greg's primary goals in Dog Days becomes getting closer to her and that's only the least what this film had to do again as I brought up a second ago in all the books including Dog Days Greg and rodri don't form a connection so they don't have any motivation to hang out in fact it might be the book where rodri appears the least by volume since he and Greg have no incentive to interact but that's not the case anymore they're friendly now if still brothers that enjoy messing around and Greg is going after Holly meaning her sister Heather is free game so to give Ric a role instead of awkwardly cutting him out he attempts to woo her and it is glorious but possibly the choice that led to the biggest shift this time around has to be how they adjusted the story to fit in line with the theme of Greg salvaging a failing relationship first it was his friend then his brother now it's his dad and what's funny is that based on a quick glance at the source material it doesn't seem like something that would need too much adjustment to work looking at last draw the more prominent inspiration for this film don't question it it was first and foremost about Greg not living up to Frank's expectations to the point he almost sent him off to military school so by that that description alone it already sounds like it generally fits the framework of the films theoretically with that in mind all it would take to format the material would be fitting the Frank Centric events in the dog day summer setting and keep track of all the newer continuity right wrong to the contrary I'd argue last draw is one of the hardest books to adapt to the wimpy kid film formula as it's built on a relationship that's non-existent like if you were sad Greg and rodri didn't talk enough get ready to be devastated cuz all of and Frank's bits in the book can be boiled down to a gif of Hank Hill going that boy ain't right and that's all of last STW dreg wears a woman's bathrobe and uses an air vent to heat himself up that boy ain't right Greg doesn't exercise that boy ain't right Greg doesn't do well at soccer that boy ain't right time after time after time again it's nothing but a constant barrage of Frank being disappointed in Greg for not acting masculine or embarrassing him and to be clear I'm not complaining about that far from it last draw is actually one of my favorite books in the series and this Dynamic makes for some of Kenny's absolute best comedic writing but the problem with adapting it that the film writers must have noticed is Greg and Frank hardly ever interact they don't share any of the struggles presented in the book together it's always either Greg getting himself in a bad situation and Frank reacting or Frank getting Greg in a bad situation and reacting Frank himself doesn't participate he doesn't aspire to connect with Greg on any level on forcing activities onto him and off until the worst possible moments the book is about Greg and Frank not seeing eye to eye on things leading to Wacky situations but Frank isn't involved in them so there's never any progression or development to speak of even the ending is a gag granted it's a good gag one that cleverly reincorporates a bunch of various callbacks but it does so totally independent of the characters and their relationships two things that by now you should know the films used as a foundation for everything else this isn't like rodri and Greg where the crew doesn't have much to work with but can keep a majority of the scenes by giving them new context Frank and Greg don't have enough scenes to recontextualize so for most of the film The Crew have to stretch and add on to what they do have for as long as possible and to their credit it does get them pretty far on one hand they're able to create interactions by taking chunks from Dog Days specifically everything related to sweetie and the country club and altering them so they have more to do with Frank and Greg attempting to get along they also turn every instance of the two almost hanging out into them actually doing it so each scenario can better describe to us why the two don't mesh and of course as is customary for these films to ensure that Frank has a personality to clash against Gregs they accentuate the few things the book tells us about him to inform deeper traits to be explored his battle diarama Obsession becomes an excuse to escape from his family giving him a motivation to suddenly get involved in Greg's life when Susan points it out his endless search for traditional masculinity transforms into a deep-seated insecurity driving his standards for what's normal his disappointment in Greg doesn't come from being embarrassed at his mistakes but his inability to own up to those mistakes after making them any place they could add character they did and all of that's great it's undoubtedly the best the team could do while functioning within the limitations of the book however on the other hand no matter how well they can form characters out of basic features and unrelated moments there's no getting around the fact that if they're looking to have another big finale where Greg and Frank find Common Ground the ending of the book doesn't work in any context like I said it's a funny ending with good execution having Frank mistake Greg being a for saving him and calling off military school as a thanks but it doesn't solve anything outside of the short term all that's Chang is that Frank goes back on the military option and that makes sense for the book where Greg is way more worried about that than getting along with his dad but it goes against everything the films have built their identity around so what's their solution reinterpretation isn't going to cut it and however they try to slant it there's nothing to add that could flip the meaning so practically speaking that leaves them with only one option to go off script oh yeah they go there Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days does indeed commit the adaptation cardinal sin of diverging from its primary work to do a near fully original third act and I'm not going to lie to you for a second it's damn good and fits right in effortlessly the whole thing takes its concept from a short Arc in the book where Greg joins the Boy Scouts expanding it into a full camping trip with Frank as a camp counselor alongside the guy that made him insecure about his masculinity and it's a pure genius reimagining at first I was a bit skeptical about how well they could handle veering away from the source entirely but thankfully those fears got supplanted real real quick when I realized this version is technically still following the events of the book in its own way or rather it captures the spirit of the original work while focusing on delivering an emotional resolution to the arc it set up see as the climax of the story instead of Greg accidentally embarrassing himself and saving Frank by doing so in the film he actively tries to get back at the other counselor for badmouthing him to others and when that plan let's be real inevitably fails Greg does something he's never done before in the franchise admit to his mistake and it's especially hard-hitting in this case as Greg doesn't try to justify himself or argue that he was doing it to protect Frank's honor something that sets this mess up apart from all his others that were mainly the result of accidents or selfishness it would have been the perfect opportunity to make an excuse if he wanted to but Greg just owns up to his mistake to keep the others from getting in trouble knowing that's the right thing to do and as his accidental sacrifice unwittingly got him the respect of his dad in the book his deliberate actions here do the same demonstrating to Frank that his son isn't a bad kid he might make a ton of mistakes and have a hard time confessing as much A lot of the time but he's willing to admit it when he has the most to lose and the least to gain so for Frank that's enough to let him know he was wrong about Greg and stick up for him against his own former bully finding an understanding and completing the trifecta of Greg mending his broken relationships if you're asking me it's quite a high note to end the franchise on considering how narratively consistent and thematically conclusive it is but seeing as it and so many other portions of the film aren't from the book it does also raise an important question can adding so much original content stop a film from being a good adaptation I sort of tiptoed around this discussion during the Seuss video for the sake of sticking to the rhyme scheme stupid I know but to answer it here in my opinion I don't think adding on to what a piece of media did is ever a negative if it doesn't worsen or contradict the end product by doing so and in the case of the wimpy kid Trilogy as a whole I'd have a tough time finding any additions that fit that description other than Angie but ignoring her every creative Choice develops the film's own Mythos and identity without forgetting the wimpy kid brand basing around 90% of its content off the books while adding their own depth narrative themes relationships they even bring over the secondary cast for each subsequent film so they can help the world continue to feel as fleshed out as in the first not a single decision besides Angie gave any indication that the writers didn't get wimy kid or what it was about if anything all the new it provided contributed to an experience that depending on what you're looking for is better than the books and them being able to naturally insert their own new material is the ultimate Testament to that it really makes me wonder what could have been if the cast got a fourth film adapting hard truth which would have been perfect as the cast was getting older and hard truth is all about puberty it was right there but having said that dog days is a fairly conclusive note to end on so I can't complain too hard boy am I glad that this liveaction franchise remained a Trilogy all right here we go 5 years after dog day hit theaters the Fire Nation attack we the viewing public were graced with the release of the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid film The Long Haul a semi- reboot based on the nth book in the series of the same name why did they choose to skip ahead so far over starting from the beginning like any normal reboot would do well according to the second Wimpy Kid movie Diary the next chapter which I paid real human money for Long Hall was the first book in the series written with getting a film adaptation of mind and judging by its uniqu simplified format I definitely believe it whereas the earlier Diaries are fairly scattershot in their approach to having a main focus jumping around and going off on a lot of tangents whenever possible this was the first one that seemed dead set on sticking to one premise in a shorttime frame where each event flow directly into the next there aren't any major Side Stories no unexpected twists no major jumps in time it's as straightforward as a Wimpy Kid book can be so therefore hypothetically speaking sure it would be the easiest to adaptt but and I hate to break this to you guys easy isn't exactly a word related to Quality in the movie making business you know what else was an easy film to make boo a media Halloween they shot that thing in 6 days and it shows too that's what making a movie Easy looks like and before you think about telling me that comparing Long Haul to a Tyler Perry movie is unfair I want to let you know that I agree Tyler Perry doesn't deserve to be disrespected like that at least I know what I'm getting myself into when I watch one of his movies there's an expectation of trashiness there I don't go to a McDonald's and Order medium rare filet Manan but that's what this movie did it made me think I was going to a fancy restaurant to get another premium quality steak grilled to Perfection but then I got served a godamn Happy Meal you made me look like an movie how was I supposed to know you were going to be dog shits almost all the same people worked on you the director producers editor cinematographer composer all they switched behind the scenes was writing but these films have switched those up before with no problems plus the new guys are the director of the last two films and Jeff Kenny the original author himself so once again I repeat how was I supposed to know this was going to be terrible okay that's a fair point but the topic I was trying to lead into is that before I ever watched the movie I had to read the book and to be be frank I don't like it I'm not sure where it's ranked in the greater scheme of the series from what I've looked at it seems to be placed on a lower end of the Spectrum by fans but as someone who's reread a good amount of Wimpy Kid in preparation for this video I can tell you that compared to pretty much any other book that came before it Long Haul is the worst by a good margin I wouldn't exactly say it's the worst Wimpy Kid book I've ever read but if there was one book out of the first nine that I flat out wouldn't have picked to be a Ed into a film it would have been long haul since on a fundamental level it has massive issues going all the way back to its premise a hefty family road trip what's wrong with that exactly agency in Long Haul Greg doesn't have it and that's a massive problem I don't think I brought it up before now as it's such a foundational pillar of how Wimpy Kid functions I'd assume it goes without saying but one common denominator among basically all the worthwhile books and movies is that Greg brings about his own torments losing rowley's friendship his fault the mom Buck scam getting found out his faults every plan of his over the course of the series backfiring you guessed it Manny's faults but seriously for a Wimpy Kid anything to work Greg has to be the root cause of his own suffering that's why it's funny if you remove that element of control from why he's facing the wrath of God it's less funny more depressing and that's how long haul is is given that Greg has no control over where the family goes or what they do he's merely a passenger in the car reacting to situations as they come so whatever misery those situations cause in turn isn't his fault meaning the pain he endures isn't Justified there's no satisfaction you get from watching Greg suffer alongside his family since he didn't do anything to Warrant it even in scenarios where it's framed as if Greg was at fault it's never from any direct Behavior always equating to a misunderstanding or an inconsequential action leading to a Snowball Effect there's a clear lack of karmic Justice in all these moments and it taints the books from beginning to end so by extension it's only logical that the films would follow suits I will give it a Teensy bit more credit than the book for having Greg switch the end goal of their journey to a gamer convention but that's the most influence he ever has it doesn't change the fact that most of what he's forced to go through could hardly be blamed on him and if that wasn't enough of an argument not to turn Long Haul into a film Greg's actual characterization and it definitely is so this is something I haven't once heard anyone talk about when discussing the books but is it me or does Greg slowly lose his Edge as they go on like for example in the original book Greg is a fairly grounded depiction of a middle schooler he doesn't believe anything too outrageous besides the common stuff a kid's age would think he's kind of an egotistical schemer and an all-around douche that doesn't care about anyone besides himself you get the drill we've been discussing this version of the character for over 40 minutes now and in the books that's how he stays up until around Dog Days where he starts acting a little funny a smidge foolish if you will and it was subtle at first an assumption of getting arrested if he turned in an overdue library book here a passive comment about taking pills that stop you from aging there but by the time we got to Cabin Fever a book with a subplot about Greg being scared a bully who turned out to be five it became apparent Kenny was slowly making Greg more and more childishly naive he was losing that initial cynicism his character was known for morphing from a self-aware uncaring dirt bag that created all his problems he has to deal with into a vaguely sarcastic unassuming kid that seemingly had Misfortune unfairly drawn to him and nowhere is that more evident than in Long Hall it is a book where Greg's at his least cunning least jerky least perceptive and worse yet most sympathetic if you hadn't read a Wimpy Kid book before long haul you'd be scratching your head wondering why this innocent boy who didn't do nothing is constantly berated by a series of worsening circumstances you are required to have read earlier entries in the series just so you'll understand what they're going for in terms of comedy and if anything it's worse in the film seeing as one it's a reboot meaning you shouldn't have to have seen anything before it to get what's going on and two all the qualities I listed that undermine Greg as a character are pumped up to 11 here or should I say they're downplayed because this kid has nothing that made Greg fun or interesting and it doesn't match the book version either so you can't get away with the excuse that it's accurate he's already way more annoying and childish than the book version by making him a fan of this derish hatable fat let's player complete with colored hair a shitty catchphrase and insert tasteless Joker about Minecraft youtubers contacting young fans to meet up here but that could have been forgiven to some extent if he wasn't so boring a word I never thought I'd use to describe Greg hefley but due to a mix of infantilization lack of agency bad writing and bad acting it's beyond fitting Greg is supposed to be a smart charismatic confident narcissistic con man with poor execution those are his main defining traits but his confidence and charm got thrown out by his new actor who sounds like he's reading a q card right off frame in every scene his narcissism is flat out non-existent and as I mentioned before disregarding the brief map tampering he doesn't do a single thing that could be considered intelligent it's hard to tell who the crew thinks they're fooling saying this non-descript unremarkable kid is Greg but I ain't buying it and for the most part his family doesn't Faire any better depending on what you see as an upside you could praise rodri for being the closest to his book counterparts but considering that by this entry rodri had become so flanderized he could barely put two feet in front of him without cartwheeling into a wood chipper that might not be a positive oh and while I'm stating the obvious this script would be a hard sell for Devon Bostic so do you seriously think this guy has a shot at winning you over Mr Momo challenge over here right I didn't think so and the same goes for Frank who once again is arguably close to his book counterpart but all that means is that he's got the personality of a block of w would it also doesn't help that he 100% looks like the we've got Steve Z at home of people but hey dull is better than absolutely infuriating which is how I'd label Susan and look she isn't exactly my favorite character in the books either her whole deal is being a stereotypically out of touch mom that uses preschool punishments on her teenage sons and in Long Haul specifically her main role is instigating the road trip hoping it'll lead to family bonding only for everything to fall apart but here's the thing here's what makes Susan in the books at least slightly bearable she doesn't intend to make her kids' lives miserable she wants to be a good parent all that's stopping her is her outright cluelessness and overreliance on parenting books to guide how she acts there's a certain innocence to her character that translates into the overprotective but supportive Susan of the original trilogy she has the capacity to be likable is what I'm getting at so although I'd argue she's on the more irritating side in Long Haul I can imagine an adaptation that frames her in a good light as this film attempts to do having her want the family to go on this trip so they can form memories before it's too late is a great motivation for getting us to understand where Susan is coming from with her actions unfortunately that motivation is rarely touched on for a majority of the runtime and regardless of if it were explored better it's drowned out by her being the most hatable in existence I have heard endlessly about how bad rodri is in this movie probably owing to him being a more universally beloved character but Susan is 100 billion trillion perent worse and that she's unmistakably the villain here but the film itself doesn't seem to be aware of that and I don't need to come up with some deep analysis to prove this just look at her behavior across the film she encourages the trip overt taking a plane confiscates everyone's phones for a multi-day trip including Frank who needs to work forces them to go where she wants gets mad at them for not liking her choices insults and belittles them using the kind of comments you'd expect rodri to make and after they finally oppose her to go someplace they want she embarrasses Greg in front of a live audience says he's grounded for life and literally tells him he doesn't care about their family before storming off like a child that's the type of character she is at all times and oh boy does it get insufferable quick knowing she doesn't command an ounce of respect the original had she couldn't ring out a drop of sympathy to save her life at best her actions come off like a vanity project valuing what she sees as good family bonding over letting it happen naturally through doing what the whole family would enjoy and at worst she's a bipolar that cares more about the perfect image of a family she desires over accepting the one she has chastising them for having the audacity to defy her in a better adaptation this kind of psycho authoritarian abuse would get called out but it's not in fact Greg is the one depicted as being in the wrong for replying to her claim that he doesn't care about their family by saying she doesn't care about what he loves otherwise he wouldn't have to have run off in the first place and this is supposed to be a shocking Moment Like whoo I can't believe he said that how insensitive but no I'm on his side you brought this upon yourself Susan you're the one to blame here you don't have the right to do a mic drop Moment by saying I'm done fighting and giving Greg his phone as though you've somehow made a powerful statement you have been instigating conflict from the beginning this is the equivalent of an abuser going I'm done hitting you and handing them the belt knowing they won't use it for anything that's gaslighting 101 you and I have no idea why my theory is Stockholm Syndrome but the family joins in on shaming Greg going as far as to blame him for their stuff falling out of the boat as a result of a FAL cable that's some Horrid Henry's dad blaming him for the traffic type the difference being that one is played up for comedy and the other is meant to be taken dead serious I can't believe they try to have emotional moments of these guys talking about their family history and sticking together when they're the most dysfunctional mean-spirited one-dimensional garbage fire of a family I've ever seen and why are these moments here to begin with they aren't in the books there was no need to include them oh wait I know why they did it it's so they can pretend to be a continuation of the original trilogy and a reboot simultaneously but hold on you may be wondering aren't those oxymoronic Concepts yes they are to reboot a franchise would mean resetting the status quo from where it began and going again in a New Direction while a continuation would stick to the original story and continue on as another part of it but not long haul no sir Long Haul wants to do both it wants to be a reboot by having a new cast with reset personalities and setting itself more transparently in the modern day but aside from that it does everything in its power to make you think this is just another film in the franchise the music is the same the editing is the same it has the same kinds of animations interjections title cards in credits opening narration in front of a drawn background while holding the current diary it's all meant to be as familiar as possible to give the feeling that nothing has changed but things have changed and I'm not just talking about the cast no no no every narrative decision this film makes is in strict opposition to what the trilogy stood for the family having depth nope they're caricatures now you the iconic secondary cast gone they all died offc screen in a car crash except for rowy who shows up for like 2 minutes to remind you he exists a brilliant structure for events that repurpose scenes from the books to create newo stories I think not here have a bland slow straightforward Recreation with a gamer con added near the end oh you're shaking things up there but what about the trilogy's timelessness remember that how they mostly stayed away from pop culture references and used an indie rock soundtrack to keep them from getting dated granted it didn't always pan out that way there was God bless us the infamous rowy Numa Numa parody in Roger rules but still they did their best to avoid being twoo times sensitive in Long Haul Greg becomes a 2009 top textt bottom text impact font meme I hate my life sometimes but possibly the biggest you this film gives to the original franchise has to be that every permanent change the originals made has been regressed invalidating all those films did to return to business as usual through an artificial replacement and artificial really is the right word cuz this cast does not feel like a family at all something that used to be seen as integral to making sure their chemistry was genuine if you look at the first movie Diary there's a whole section dedicated to talking about how much time was put into finding the right actors Organizing Family nights to help them get acquainted with each other before filming there was loads of thought and effort put into making the he le as believable a family as possible and that comes through in their performances plus you can tell they had a lot of fun during filming by looking at interviews bloopers and behind the- scenes stuff where they tell stories of playing games and pranks when whenever they could they've got such a playful atmosphere especially compared to Long Hall where looking at all the same types of resources nobody looks like they want to be there and why would they from start to end of filming they were getting splashed with sitting around in a stuffy car slowly realizing their careers were probably over after this and as far as I can tell none of them knew a thing about each other before filming if you look at the subsequent movie Diary there's this bit copying the first about doing screen tests to find the right Rowley but brly doesn't matter here more than ever this Wimpy Kid film is dependent on the chemistry of the family so that should have been the primary focus at the bare minimum they could have at least made sure they looked like a family if you saw the original cast out of context not knowing they were actors you'd have no idea they weren't related meanwhile you look at this cast and none of them look anything alike most notably Rodrick Who besides resembling a Titan whenever he opens his mouth is unmistakably Asian like I never hear people bring this up but it's fairly obvious right are we supposed to not point that out or something I looked it up the actor is apparently half Japanese and man you could have fooled me how do you get something as basic as the ethnicity of a character in an all-white family wrong maybe if he was just that good I could understand but you're the worst mom ever yeah no I think they just didn't give a and that's how I described this whole movie they could have found the right cast put some effort into reshaping The Narrative gone through a couple rewrites to make sure everyone was likable and in character picked a side between rebooting and continuing where the last film left off but that would have been hard so why bother they know what they're doing everything's going to be fine oh oh oh all right so maybe mistakes are made yeah Diary of a Wimpy Kid the Long Haul is a perfect representation of why a reboot isn't always as simple as casting new actors and expecting everyone to go with it nor should every adaptation be too similar to its source when that material isn't suitable for film or simply isn't that good in the first place despite my sarcastic tone I can tell Kenny wanted to recreate the vibe of the trilogy with its emotional beats and characters falling out but he fundamentally doesn't seem to get why those moments worked as well as they did you weren't going to pull out our heartstrings by inserting a third act breakup out of nowhere and resolving it like a Hallmark special it needed buildup detail charm the ability to know which parts of the book would fit best for the story you wanted to tell but most importantly of all it needed a heart and this felt empty not one element works it's also overtly inept in its understanding of why the films were good it almost makes me wonder how badly the trilogy could have turned out if Kenny were at the helm but thankfully we live in a world where that isn't the cas God I need to stop opening my mouth anyway so treating liveaction like a cartoon where you could switch out the actors without anyone noticing wasn't working out huh guess that means the only logical option from there would be biting the Bullet by making animated films and why not Wimpy Kid is drawn in a distinct simplistic art style I'm sure it could look good ah okay I see uh yeah yeah um this isn't technically the most pressing element adaptation wise but it's the first thing we see and they hardly get better with time so I'm just going to address the elephant in the room here these films all three of them look terrible garbage and there are several problem areas I could highlight like the distinctly autogenerated shading floaty movement boring shot composition weird lip syncing or it's total inability to render liquids but the issue I think lies at the center of it all is that the character model are seen from all angles but I don't think they were designed with that thought in mind I mean look at Greg's nose and profile e what the am I looking at did God pinch the base of his Bridge so he'd have permanent breathing problems or something and the L we say about Manny from any angle other than profile the better these are the kind of uncanny design choices that couldn't have been made without a weird shift in priorities from another style and that's exactly what happened people I've been passing this one clip around for a while but in case you haven't seen it here's a test animation that was released to give a glimpse of what the films might look like and it's great there's a far better implementation of depth the colors are more vibrant there's a minor usage of 2D speed lines to help convey motion it utilizes squash and stretch but most importantly as you watch Greg move you can see his features slide around in morph so that they're always facing the camera adding this stylized 2.5d aesthetic to the animation it's it's a technique that resembles one previously used in the Peanuts movie where instead of having regular 3D models that are fully rendered all around they created a few poses for each limb at certain angles that were switched out whenever necessary essentially using the medium of 3D animation to put characters on a 2d plane it's a fantastic workaround for giving computer animated projects A vibe that matches handdrawn illustrations and it makes weird shots like these near impossible since every other element of the character is preapproved there are undeniably a ton of benefits that come with this presentation choice and as the test proves it would have worked just as well in the wimpy kid style but it also would have required a decent budget and loads of intentional shot choices to look nice two things this film glaringly didn't have so and this is pure speculation I'm assuming that for the final product they took the base models of characters from one angle and turned them into 3D models not Gathering that they were posed so specifically for a reason to not look terrifying and I mean it this is so ugly it almost makes me wish it was straight up done in 2D seeing as it wouldn't exactly be cutting edge but i' take anything over these deform blobs and don't even get me started on how the art style of the books was used as a nod to how Greg sees the world such as drawing every girl he likes similar to him as a reminder of his narcissism and lack of knowledge on women which is totally lost in translation here I guess implying the way he draws the world is Flawless apparently but then again what does it matter how this looks if the actual writing stays solid well come on I'm asking a question here it's not like this gave an answer the best way I can describe the writing of these films is if that infantilization comment I made about Greg in the Long Haul was fully realized and applied to the entire narrative turning it into the exact type of story the books were created to subvert now same as the meaning behind why Greg getting hurt and losing as funny I didn't think I'd have to explain this but part of why wimpy kid made such a splash on release was that it challenged the status quo of outcast stories there are a million pieces about happy gol lucky dorks that inter middle or high or whatever school and have a hard time fitting in despite being so quirky and likable it's a well-known format that a lot of people enjoy and admittedly it's been used to great effect a number of times to make for some iconic media over the years but here's another thing those stories are unrealistic and for the record there's nothing wrong with that it's okay to have stories that go for little idealized reality it makes people feel good we like happy Adventures about Plucky underdogs overcoming the system and getting where they want to be but we also have to admit that isn't always how it turns out in real life not every friendly nerd is going to make it with the popular kids not every Outcast is worth befriending sometimes in this desaturated real world of ours people cause themselves to be outcast by acting generally unpleasant or toxic and that's Greg hefley he isn't friendly he isn't likable he isn't quirky he's the antithesis to all that a schmuck that cares only about himself who considers everyone else disposable and that's realistic I said it at the start of this video and I'll say it again we've all met or been a kid like Greg who thought they knew everything and it's satisfying to watch that type of Jackass get taken down a peg for thinking as much that's the charm of Wimpy Kid we slowly saw evaporating in Long Hall and in this new series of films we have reached critical bypass to say that Greg doesn't resemble his book counterpart anymore is an understatement he has become everything he wasn't supposed to be and it's not a subtle shift either Kenny tries to Gaslight you into thinking otherwise by having him kick off the film reciting the iconic opening Pages just as the live action did before but don't get it twisted this version of Greg doesn't have any of the conceited confidence he's known for that much is obvious by the time you figure out his dilemma this time around is get this going into Middle School totally overwhelmed not knowing what to do or having anywhere to fit in while Rowley gets popular and I know me saying that in a mocking tone sounds a bit weird given that so much of that is blatantly lifted from the live action so let me clarify I'm mocking this because because it clearly wants to tell a more streamlined version of the original film with one or two minor additions of its own but it misses that for this story to work and be subversive Greg needs to be an unapologetic dick what made the contrast of Greg failing while rowy ascended so interesting was that Greg insisted on being cool and abused his power attempting to get Rowley to grow up when he was the one being childish we're supposed to see Greg continually fall on his face from being an ass until it loses him the one good thing he had going his friendship with Rowley but this Greg isn't the self-obsessed jerk we know and hate this guy isn't Greg at all he's a regular kid that occasionally does jerky things you never get the impression he thinks highly of himself or has everything figured out to the contrary he gets most of his information about Middle School from rodri information that mind you he originally knew and told the audience they have intentionally dumped Greg down in this replacing his self-aware arrogance for naive also they can put greater emphasis on how unprepared for Middle School Greg and rowar I suppose it's meant to be Kenny's own take on the social hierarchy from the original film but of all the elements to keep why would you choose the one that's predicated on Greg being an the purpose of the social hierarchy was that it served as a motivator for Greg to ditch his friends and do horrible culminating in him recognizing ing as much and giving up climbing the ladder knowing it's meaningless that's why it was there but Greg doesn't try to climb the social ladder or change rowy in this there's no Arc for him to have so it just boils down to him being socially ostracized and getting mad at rowy for leaving him behind leading to a fight and makeup that doesn't matter or hold any major significance maybe it could have held some weight if Greg and rowley's emotional drift were as narratively compelling as it was in the liveaction but even that's been dumbed down disregarding how the idea of dropping Rowley wasn't Greg's own opinion but a fear he got from rodri again simplifying Greg's character to amplify his innocence there's this one critical conflict in the book and live action that's great in them but absolutely butchered here the safety patrol confession The crucial moment where rowy finally breaks things off with Greg who after being conflicted over how to handle getting punished for messing with kids lets rowy take the fall for something he did it's a great scene in both the book and film in that although you could potentially excuse Greg's Behavior earlier on this is undeniably a shitty thing to do you can't find a loophole to make this look less bad it's a move that's meant to be as scummy as possible so we as well as Rowley can truly understand without a shadow of a doubt that Greg is a terrible person who doesn't deserve Row's friendship if he's just going to abuse it but hold on a second how can this scene exist in the animated film when Greg isn't a terrible person doesn't screw over Rowley once and every extracurricular the two had including safety patrol has been removed well it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they can't do it it's literally not possible under the circumstances of this film but you know Kitty still wants to convey that same sort of emotional conflict as that scene so he comes up with his own and considering his track record so far for writing heartbreaking emotional turmoil you already know it's dog shits they don't have any of the pieces to build so much as a fraction of the power the original scene had so as they've done so many times so far they simplify it down to Greg makes Rowley lie about how he got his arm broken and he feels too guilty to tell his parents the truth what oh oh you thought there would be something more to that no no no no seriously that's it it isn't anywhere near as bad as what Greg did before nor is it what ends up breaking the two's friendship but the music and narration suggest it's supposedly on an equal level of betrayal despite it never coming up again in the film Greg forcing Rowley to lie about his injury doesn't end up having any relevance on the plot or the two's relationship not to mention it's severely out of character for Greg who normally wouldn't sweat something as simple as a lie that doesn't hurt anyone so with that in mind the only justification I can see for it being added besides once again infantilizing Greg is as one of those super condescending after school special type messages you know the ones the kind of blatant unambiguous moral Shilling where Michelangelo and Bugs Bunny show up to tell you that doing drugs is for squares except this time it's Greg hefley letting you know to tell your parents what happened when you get in trouble all it's missing is a fourth wall break wink to the audience to say that they're serious but they can have some fun too it's so belittling that they turn Greg's character into a standin for kids who've messed up being told what they should do in this situation the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series is intended for children at the end of the day but not once were they ever this moralistically pretentious they were the opposit the original joke of the book was that Susan told Greg he should do the right thing making you think he'd confess to what he did but it turned out that to Greg doing the right thing was leaving rowy out to dry it was satire that's what the the books were all about how does the author of the books not understand this was appealing to a younger demographic really so worth it that he would forsake the book's original purpose to do so also Greg could be seen as less of a dick why what's so wrong with Greg being a bad person that's who he is concocting a non- cynical non-judgmental not self-aware not in control mildly sarcastic but good at heart Greg is about as logical as turning Rowley into a dick what do you mean they do that somebody give me a sedative oh God so as it turns out for whatever godforsaken reason Rowley is sort of a prick now he isn't that way at all times usually being more of an exaggerated take on his character from the books but when he does gloat insult Greg steal his comic and say he can't help being funnier allow his goons to beat Greg up right in front of him him without saying anything and so on it sticks out like a sore thumb since Rowley in the books would not do that and Rowley in the live action definitely wouldn't do that it's so flagrantly out of character for him and worse than that it creates this weirdly bitter atmosphere around his and Greg's falling out making it so instead of one character clearly being in the wrong they both come off like dicks that deserve each other actually Greg might be better at least he apologizes for what he did thanks to his mom becoming his floating head conscience or some I don't know this thing sucks as a film it's technically better than Long Haul but as an adaptation it's worse a 100 times worse this does everything wrong in adapting both the book and the liveaction movie retaining none of what made either of them good long haul was hilariously incompetent this isn't funny this movie anything would be better ah so yeah this is better isn't it but also it is kind of worse in other areas that weren't a factor before so they they basically cancel each other out and come around to being the same level of quality don't they okay let's begin with the Positive cuz if I have to yell anymore right now I think I'm going to pop a blood vessel and have a seizure which would be preferable to NOP no positive right I appreciate how in this movie rather than taking directly from the liveaction and scrambling everything around to be worse it tries to expand on the original film's family drifting apart bit by making it a more prominent theme that's addressed during the ending that's way better than anything the first film presented and shows a want to add on to the work instead of sacrificing pieces of it to create some Unholy Full Metal Alchemist homunculus representing the desperate broken design desires of its Caster good job making a change that doesn't destroy everything guys this time it only destroyed almost everything by still being a re-imagined part of the film crammed into a wannabe adaptation of the book making for a confusing overly complicated Clash of ideas see in the original film The connective tissue of the story was Susan pushing Greg and Roger together hoping they wouldn't grow old and distant it's this notion that at first you assume was just one of her well-intentioned woefully out of touch mom chores purely there to get the two interacting more but eventually it grows into this genuine sentiment as the two earnestly get closer they develop this fun wholesome Dynamic that draws you into the two's relationship so that when they deliver that heartbreaking third act breakup it gets you to fear the possibility of that thought to be baseless concern hoping they can make up there's a very clear setup Rising tension and payoff that's not to in your face but comes back into Play at just the right moment thanks to the brothers developing such a well-defined chemistry and to the animated version's credit they do get part of this right it doesn't really get introduced as a plot point until after the two start bonding but seeing Frank look at them hanging out and feel anxious from the rift he experienced with his own Brothers was interesting that's a side of Frank we've never gotten to see before and hearing it explained in further detail by the grandpa who worries about Greg and rodri's relationship is almost touching in its sincerity but there are a couple major roadblocks that keep me from enjoying or unapologetically praising this first of all for all the talk of Frank and his siblings falling apart over the years representing what Greg and rodri don't want to become it's surprisingly doesn't get any kind of proper resolution I mean Greg and Rodrick are okay by the end but what about Frank are we just supposed to forget about the broken state of his family or how rogi and Greg could use their newly found brotherly friendship to mend the Gap pretty weird that situation doesn't change and presumably stays as broken as ever to this day but second and way more importantly while the message in this film is less contrived than the you should tell the truth routine of the last one it still feels cheap and unearned on account of Greg and rodri's relationship not being like it is in the live action but the book and if you were paying attention to what I said before you'd know that's a problem but for those watching this video in increments instead of all at once Greg and rodri don't have nearly as close a bond in the books as they do in the live actions and for God Knows Why despite the film being about their relationship that non-existent bond is translated here if not worse given how little we've seen them interact so far remember when the original film added these extra scenes showing how the two interacted so we'd be aware of their usual stick leading into rodri rules no you don't unlike the original film Kenny might have come into these knowing they're be more than one giving him all the reason to add similar character building early on but he doesn't in the last film rodri was there for a grand total of one scene lasting for 3 minutes barely getting the time to leave an impression before Fading Into The Wind marking yet another casualty on that film's crusade to cut out anything it labeled non-essential and the thing is it technically was the original Roger rules is undeniably better with the first film's added context but even if you don't know anything about the franchise you can understand the Journey Greg and Roger go through it opens with the two basically at War getting closer and closer to ritualistic combat as the film goes on until a secret party brings them together in the bonds of shared secrecy it's good and simple but not simple enough for Jeff Kenny n he makes the real time saving decisions like why do we need to demonstrate the status quo when we can have Greg tell it to us and Skip right to the party genius after all as the old screenwriting saying goes tell don't show why are you showing me that you could have told it to me way quicker who cares about visual storytelling her Exposition you throw that audience member into your world and they can figure it out for themselves we've got an inciting incident to ruin and oh boy do they so I didn't mention this before seeing as I didn't think I'd have to but the book and live action film have two different approaches to the subject of the party in the film as we know Greg has fun with rodri bringing them closer together until the party gets found out well in the book Greg ends up locked in the basement and doesn't get out till rodri needs help cleaning saying they'll otherwise get punished together and the whole thing getting found out is a big joke now they're both iconic scenes in their own right for varying reasons separate from one another but the point to focus on here is that they set the tone for the rest of the story going forward so which one of these routes do you think the animated movie takes let's make a game out of it write a for the film B for the book and get owned because it was actually C both and neither at the same time yeah you heard me right instead of picking from one of two perfectly good polar opposite story lines this version combines both by having Greg get locked in the basement all night help rodri the next day in exchange for advice and hold the party over rodri's head to keep getting advice until he accidentally reveals the pictures he took to Susan oh Kenny you've done it again and I mean that in the worst possible way my god there are so many angles I could tear this apart from but starting at the most obvious flaw everything about Greg and rodri's bonding quote unquote is based off a noticeably forced premise it already begins super artificially by giving Greg this new trait of wanting to learn things from rodri an idea that makes no sense as in every prior adaptation they've mutually disliked each other and that's sort of consistent here rodri still doesn't want want to hang out with Greg and Greg shouldn't have any incentive to want to hang out with rodri but the film needs to happen one way or another so inexplicably out of nowhere Greg Longs for the knowledge of a brother he's only known to be a lazy idiot so far there wasn't any specific Catalyst for him wanting to do this no moment of Genius opening Greg's eyes to rodri's True intelligence it's just a new motivation that popped right out of thin air to get the plot moving and if that weren't contrived enough need I remind you that rodri teaching Greg doesn't come from a personal want like in the live action but as a result of Greg literally blackmailing him like that just about destroys anything sincere about the two hanging out or getting close and I am convinced that the film knows it's not oblivious to how up this situation is why else would rodri perpetually be an to Greg before and after they supposedly become friends he's got to be hating it all that's keeping this Theory from being cut and dry is that Kenny being how he be imitates The Originals party gets found out moments and do you want to guess what rodri's reaction is this time I thought you were cool guess I was wrong you can't make this up or I guess Kenny did but he's an anomaly of a man to say the least no one else other than him could have come up with the emotional gut punch that is you're so cool not truly master of dialogue I would be Blasphemous to so much as think of questioning it but I'll do it anyway since when rodri thought Greg was cool no he didn't he around with Greg at every chance not demonstrating an ounce of respect or sympathy until the end where out of nowhere once again they have this stupid ass unearned heart-to- heart about how they'll always be there for each other when it counts what the am I watching right now when did Wimpy Kid become this made and I'm not talking about being emotional or whatever I mean this is sappy forced and in service of a message that wasn't well executed and it isn't helped by how much rodri straight up sucks in this to be fair as a character detached from the wimpy kid franchise he isn't as annoying as long Hall's dumbass rodri but on an adaptation scale I say with my full chest that this is the worst rodri there has ever been all the media that's come along so far has defined that there are two main routes you can take the character hard-headed dumbass with occasional skill or lovably douchy one trm minded genius animated rodri as you'd expect takes a few traits from both the douchiness idiocy with occasional skill what have you but there's one crucial element this rodri misses besides charm that completely annihilated any chance of me considering him well rodri intimidation rodri in every other iteration of the character has a level of fear to him he knows how to control a situation or himself he usually is dumb but if he wants to be he is a force to be reckoned with and this guy whoever he is doesn't have that I don't see intimidation I don't see self-control I hardly see self-respect he may have the rodric rules and perform one or two vaguely similar stuns to pretend he hasn't changed but same Greg in the first animated film this facade falls apart when it counts take the Afterparty cleanup scene in the book rodri forces Greg to clean convincing him they'll both get in trouble regardless of how involved Greg actually was but here he begs Greg on his hands and knees for help afterwards getting visibly afraid anytime Greg mentions letting the truth slip that's where we see the confidence break he's not in control of the plot hinges on it as a matter of fact fact so from the get-go one of rodri's core characteristics is revoked for almost the entirety of the film making his breakdown all the less impactful in the live action rodri losing control of his life is this poignant tragedy watching the fire he's kept Burning Brightly for so long finally extinguished this invincible God of destruction we've come to know has been dragged down to earth and had his wings clipped yet he won't allow himself to fully break down in front of the family or Greg he wants to keep a piece of his dignity for as long as possible and he holds it in until everything comes crashing down at the talent show smashing his selfworth apart until nothing remains it's so impossible looking at him in this state that the longer it lasts the more your heart aches meanwhile for this rodri that's essentially his natural state of being so having him cry after Greg suddenly replaces him as the drummer of loaded diaper doesn't feel like a dagger to my heart it feels like a javelin to my brain stem wondering how could it get this bad I'm not sure how or why Jeff decided to do it but rodri has been consumed by his ever expanding infantilization of the wimpy kid Multiverse going from a self-confident douche to a whining emo who apologizes it's sickening the one glimmer of hope in this disaster is that Greg's slightly scummier than he was in the last film and has plans that he causes to backfire that's at least a step in the right direction I sure do hope that stays the same going forward and thus we've reached a pretty big milestone boys and girls not only is this special for being the most recent the last of the video and the First with no liveaction version before it but this is also where the idea of making animated films came from the way the story goes is that back in 2012 Kenny wanted to make an animated special adapting the six and at the time newest book in the series cin fever but it didn't go anywhere until part of its production was used as the basis for the original Disney film presumably Disney wanted to cover the more recognizable books first explaining why they didn't start with this but after those first two were moderately successful Kenny was allowed to finally bring this entry to film why Cabin Fever of all books one word Christmas Cabin Fever is set around the time and Kenny wanted to do a Christmas film though funnily enough Christmas itself isn't that big a theme in the book it is present and ends up being the precursor or Catalyst for a good number of events but frankly at best the book is more Christmas adjacent so yeah it's rewrite time but not like Kenny's done it before he doesn't have any other interpretations to mangle or take from here so that means he's got to take a page out of their books metaphorically and repurpose what's already there the only difference is that the liveaction did it out of necessity to keep in line with their own Mythos while expanding on the material and Cabin Fever does it purely to satiate Kenny's personal quest for Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas you see despite releasing a good while before long haul cin fever as far as early entries in the series go has a story that could work as a film without too many changes Kenny had run out of original manuscript material right around the release of hard truth so beginning from there onward they started being centered around certain events making them more traditional linear experiences and cin fever handles it fairly well during Christmas time Greg wants to earn money so he looks for work and finds that amid a bunch of shitty School cutbacks they get rid of a holiday bizaar so looking to capitalize as he does he decides to host his own bizaar with Rowley getting into hij Jinks that lead to him fearing police will get him after a snowstorm that puts the hefle on edge granted it's not the most focused story retaining a smidge of the old book's ADHD Spirit but that's what adaptations are for they could have easily made it work while fitting everything in if they really wanted to but Kenny had other plans in mind plans that for the sake of scrapping what isn't needed and keeping it christmy literally remove all the content making up 75% of the book and completely reshape the remaining 25% I am not joking anything having to do with the holiday bazaar and Greg looking for money have been Stripped Away to go all in on the family being trapped inside but virtually none of what happens in the book goes down here originally the whole point of the snoow in was Finding funny scenarios to test the family's patience with each other as things slowly got worse until until it was revealed to be Manny's fault all along now to be honest it has always pissed me off that Manny wasn't punished for being a little so I'm thankful that got toned down but nothing else is altered for the better they basically took out anything fun to concentrate on one the family growing paranoid over time so they can have that generic family is forever makeup scene at the end and two Greg attempting and failing not to be bad in front of this creepy doll called Alonso that's supposed edly reports back to Santa that's where the Christmas angle comes in Greg tries to be good so he can get the special gift by not messing up in front of Santa's Helper but he accidentally destroys a snowplow with a giant snowball and assumes he'll get arrested and look I hate it I hate it so much though admittedly I've never liked the Santa's helper subplot to begin with and that includes the book where it marks one of Greg's first signs of infantilization and okay I understand that having an open Santa atheist IST in a children's book wouldn't fly for annoying parents at PTA meetings it's a tricky subject to handle for a cynical character like Greg but if you look back at the original book it skirts around this super stealthily by not having him outright State he doesn't believe in Santa but Hint it through how he knows presents aren't always going to be magically gifted to you it's a subtle trait your average kid could miss without noticing but that's how I prefer him to actively believing in Santa and fearing what it means for him to watch you at night that sounds more like a rowy fear than something Greg would believe in so making it his opening monologue in the cabin fever book is strange to put it mildly I was able to overlook it in the book since it was such a small facet of that story but it's impossible for me to do that here as the entire plot hangs on Greg believing in Santa and fearing he'll face consequences even though everything about the situation he's scared of is set up wrong if the scenario were Greg gets in trouble played out like it did in book having him accidentally leave a mark on the school and make a big deal of something that wasn't nearly as serious as he assumed that would have been funny and soon did his regular scheme goes wrong have to deal with its style not to mention that while it was technically an accident Greg did it under the pretense of selfishly continuing something he was told not to so there was no mistake he deserved the karma but that's no longer true in this version of the story any m ious or dislikable intent has been removed from his actions having him accidentally destroy a snowplow with a big snowball he didn't mean to roll and what's worse it is treated as a big deal like what that throws off The Comedy of Greg getting scared over nothing the shrot and Freud of him getting what he deserves and the realism of a kid not getting in too much trouble for what should have been a minor incident also Greg can worry about Santa hearing due to this happening right in front of the helper and that isn't where the forest Christmas ends either as opposed to the book Frank is kept in the house so the whole family can come together after fighting there's a big uptick and licensed music for the hell of it Greg has Christmas storyes hallucinations and dreams and of course Greg gets the special gift he wanted so badly but decides to give it to the working mom snowplow driver because Christmas and all right I'm not going to lie I do hate to be cynical about that last bit as it's one of the few things the special pulls off semie effectively there's technically nothing wrong with the scene itself I'm just mythed by the fact it's not creative or unique or interesting and what's weird is that if you take away the adaptation complaints that's a fair critique of this film it's hardly good or anything worth your time but disconnected from the rest of the franchise it's inoffensive doesn't have any major story problems doesn't ruin its message gives its characters more personality than they've ever had in these and seems to add a little heart as unremarkably cheesy and surface level as it is this could possibly be the first Kenny written Diary of a Wimpy Kid film that isn't simply a terrible knockoff bastardization of the other films but as a Wimpy Kid film it still it's highly debatable if it's the worst or not I'll give you that but it throws out almost all of its source material for something barely related it isn't like dog days where there was a thematic purpose behind adding a new third act the felt entirely natural as an extension no this was only done the way it was so the author could fulfill his dream of making a mediocre Christmas movie on the bright side I'd say it's less terrible than trying and failing to imitate what the originals did but whether it's mid off its own merits or something else there's no denying that with each subsequent film it's becoming harder and harder to justify why they exist do they provide something new are they fun ambitious inventive faithful nope they're just worse you will guaranteed have a more positive experience reading the books there's no reason to watch them is that better than being laughably bad I don't know at least Long Haul is memorable if I didn't know it was based on a book it would stay exactly as bad as it is with that knowledge but if you take away the adaptation aspect of these films they're the most lackluster unambitious things in the universe but I guess that's just the Gambit a Wimpy Kid these days horrible or meh the magic that liveaction trilogy created hasn't once been recaptured since they stopped being released and that magic won't suddenly reappear until Kenny fully comprehends why they worked in the first place seeing has he clearly wants to continue being the writer of these films which to an extent I respect from what I've seen it does appear that he's getting better slowly adjusting to the format and creating his own style but if he wants people to keep paying attention to these instead of slowly fading away he's either going to need need to take a sabatical to make sure these work or hire a co-writer to help out maybe someone from The Originals I don't know try anything be experimental find your footing if Kenny wants to run a good race he needs to find the track first and I hope he does because the wimpy kid films hold a special place in my heart they were the first film series I can remember actively caring about and while I'd love to see that same spark again if Kenny wants to go in a different direction I'm all for it just make sure it's still interesting and still wimpy kid I've been just stop you've been through a long haul thanks for watching and peace out another video done I wonder what I'm going to do next hey wait what's that down there oh it was a Tic Tac yeah H guess I look like this now all right see you [Music] [Music] we

Channel: Just Stop

Views: 235,090

Keywords: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Diary of a Wimpy Kid Rant, Diary of a Wimpy Kid Review, Just Stop Rant, Just Stop Review, Rodrick Rules, Dog Days, The Last Straw, Cabin Fever, Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas, Just Stop Diary of a Wimpy Kid, To Adapt a Seuss

Id: 6MC3B0hja1E

Length: 102min 18sec (6138 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 21 2024