Was The SCOOBY-DOO Movie Misunderstood?

in my last scooby-doo video i mentioned that after eight incarnations the series went into a decade-long hiatus but with the new-found popularity in direct-to-video scooby-doo movies it was inevitable that warner brothers would cash in on a theatrical franchise yet what still bothers me to this day is just how warner brothers mishandling of the first live-action movie stopped it from ever reaching its full potential so let's talk about it the live-action scooby-doo franchise did not pan out the way warner brothers wanted it to neither film was critically well received and the first film just about grossed enough money to warrant the sequel yet that sequel despite releasing during the series revival was a commercial dud in comparison resulting in the franchise being pulled and half a decade later warner brothers resulted to just making made for television movies instead granted it's no surprise that some fans probably prefer the sequel over the first film because in essence it's much more faithful to the original series personally i think monsters unleashed is just fine i don't really have much to say about it given it really just goes for nostalgic pandering which isn't a bad thing but it's technically a substitute for the relative ambition screenwriter james gunn originally envisioned for the live-action adaptation it's fun quirky and obviously it's cool to see all the iconic monsters come to life but the visual motif of a museum best describes it as a gallery of fan-pleasing highlights reminiscent of the series and that's about it you're pushing your luck scoob here's the thing i think the first film is better sure i wouldn't go as far as to call it anything special but underneath all the studio tampering is a film that truly does try to do something different or indeed unique with the series while i don't blame warner brothers entirely for turning what james gunn claims was originally an r-rated comedy into a family-friendly adventure because after all it's a kids show it's definitely worth exploring the premise gun initially wrote scooby-doo was actually his first major studio script before that he worked for trauma entertainment who made low-budget campy horror movies like the toxic avenger and his only other major writing credits were a transgressive romantic comedy and a superhero comedy which would eventually pave the way for his style of humor for anyone who saw slyther super and of course guardians of the galaxy but nonetheless gunn always had a campy b-movie-s quality to his writing and when you watch how dialogue and interactions work in the scooby-doo film it's very in line with the original series and even mimics the style of many 60s 70s television shows fred what's the secret of your success teamwork i do a tremendous amount of teamwork and i always have a plan yeah my plan it's no revelation that several people have described the film as borderline self-parody and that's exactly what it's supposed to be with the biggest indicators being the subtle reference to drug use the almost so bad it has to be deliberate performances and art direction and of course how they very cleverly utilize scrappy as the main villain i understand some purists have a problem with this but when tim curry allegedly drops out of your movie because he hates scrappy doo i think you've found your weakest link geez craps no reason to freak out like a jerk and try to kill all humanity i would have gotten away with it too if not for you but there's a bigger cultural picture that becomes clear when you consider the time the film was released scooby-doo released in the early 2000s which was a period rampant with teen sex comedies which became a very lucrative market but it was the kind of market oversaturated with vapid ill-conceived attempts to attract a young demographic without understanding the very culture it was trying to capitalize on and this cultural detachment is rooted in the film's underlying theme yes i'm going there where the gang are past their prime and struggling to fit in with this younger generation i think given how unaware characters like fred are to how cringy and out of touch they are is very prevalent throughout the movie and it's only after being possessed do they drop their defensive supposedly mature but still quite petty demeanors and embrace their young free spirit antics that were lost over time according to velma in a flashback yo in fact there's a very particular scene where fred and velma come across an instructional video that explains societal do's and don'ts as a young adult and references the apparent hip trendy terminology young people use yet ironically it still misinterprets that youth culture reflecting the outdated perception adults and corporations have on young people let's see how the situation should be handled remember today's young people have a language all their own sorry bro no big whoop dog yo would you catch that new vid on the box true that i'm up to spizznoff on all popular trends word no here's the thing as a kid this scene went completely over my head but as an adult i can kind of see the statement it's trying to make about a generational divide but the real irony is that in warner brothers attempt to turn this again alleged orated comedy into a kid's cartoon it kinda proves the scene's the film seems to demonstrate these cultural misunderstandings with a deliberately cringe-worthy introspective that's then paradoxically reversed into a movie targeted to children by a studio that seems to completely misunderstand children in the process hey i can look at myself naked oh brother and as i said earlier that also goes for those vapid misinformed movies targeted at teens that misunderstand the team demographic to begin with there's nothing worse than media created by people who can't empathize with their target audience and if you want a good or well bad example of that go check out nitpix's video on 13 reasons why anyway when james gunn wrote the script he claimed the intent was to update and mature the series for audiences who were probably reaching the same age as the actual characters so in that regards the original draft was probably significantly close to the teen comedy crease at the time and of course that even includes the supernatural crease that was also happening but we'll talk about that next week in fact according to sarah michelle gellar once the cast were signed on the script completely changed to a family-friendly story and scenes like velma and daphne kissing to switch souls were removed and gm's gun even said that the studio removed cleavage using cgi which if that's true that explains where the monster's effects budget went you know the movie is a product of the youth cultural backdrop of the time when weezer even offered roles in the film but rejected and let's not forget the little detail of the cast of actors who were all known for their performances in teen century comedies and horrors i think the idea was that gunn was drawing from how the pretty bunch movie was adapted by taking the original characters in their 1970s style and mannerisms and placing them in a 1990s setting to play on the culture clash to make the brady family even more dysfunctional and alien now there is an argument to be said that to justify a bad movie as genuine you simply call it satire or skew the context behind bad and lazy filmmaking as an artistic choice kind of like using abrupt static cuts because you can't be art editing an organic transition but at the same time you can kind of see how the 60s aesthetic satirically seeps its way ever so gradually into the film the first five minutes literally set the corny tone of the story the ridiculous mayhem and the sobby melodrama that feels so needlessly petty that it's indicative of the generic traditional sitcom there's even something about the way the costumes seem theatrically inorganic on the actors especially when looking at freddy prince jr sarah michelle gellar and very evidently linda carlini you're taking these hot photogenic young actors and putting them in silly outfits it's kind of like the subversive effect wet hot american summer did by having the original cast play younger versions of themselves except they're clearly in their 40s which strikingly was also originally a satire of teen sex comedies that released a year prior to scooby doo so if anything scooby was lit to the party yes go bro that's the uncanny feeling this movie gives off a lot of the time it's so incredibly accurate to the aesthetic of scooby-doo that it's a little jarring in contrast to the modern look of other characters again playing on the displacement the gang are going through while surrounded by this younger generation naturally you cannot look past how authentic matthew lillard is as shaggy just from a technical point of view he's truly flawless to the character and it's no surprise lillard would eventually take over as the voice of shaggy once casey kiss and retired although with that said as much as it's typical to praise both lillard and cardellini's performances and seeing geller playing on her transition from generic blonde victim to buffy despite being the one cast member to get a razzy nomination and is arguably the inferior actor of the four i still think freddie prince jr is woefully underappreciated in his portrayal of fred he completely understood the narcissism of the original fred and embraced his self-obsessed character traits to the point that he's the largest factor in the satire fred you freaking protoplasmic head i don't know but i'm still the best looking protoplasm we'll get here i mean some of the best jokes come from his character's total lack of self-awareness like on the plane where he's vividly reading his own book before he literally has his ego bruised when his logic feels him it's these moments where the film is at its very best when it acknowledges its cliches and conventions and just makes fun of it such as this scene do not go into that spooky island castle aha you want me to go up to that castle did you just when i say it but you're scary and you knew i do the opposite of what you said so you told me not to go to the castle so i would go up to that castle where you set a trap to capture me unless unless you knew i'd figure it out so you told me not to go up to the castle so i would think that you wanted me to go so i wouldn't go just like you didn't want me to i'll find out what you're hiding in that castle you watch and then you have some of the more uh i guess subtler moments like in the spooky castle during this scene you have fred's continued nonchalant bravado all you care about are swimsuit models no look i'm a man of substance dorky chicks like you turned me on too that's a compliment then there's shaggy and scooby's passing banter it's plastic what do you care you drink out of the toilet oh do you and finally you have them casually reference how the ride was closed due to dangerous construction until you realize just how incredibly dangerous the entire ride is but then there's also some logical holes left unaddressed like how do these floating sausages work because they're not attached to anything and that tremor looking creature seems a bit too organic and out of place to be fake the film isn't afraid to commit to being unquestionably cartoonish however not all the jokes land oh no [Music] okay that one did i kind of look at the first live-action scooby-doo movie the same way i look at the four director video scooby-doo movies that preceded it sure you can't let your nostalgia collide equality issues but at the same time you can't let your maturity dictate your enjoyability of what are self-evidently goofy cartoons that poke fun off supernatural mysteries i think with the asserted focus of which creative direction to go with the first live-action scooby-doo movie could have been so much better in execution putting a generic 60 70s kids cartoon in the hands of a playful writer known for his sarcastic and sardonic sense of humor and a director who made a homolo movie about international assassins working for a north korean terrorist organization sounds absolutely genius in my eyes but definitely a bad move if you want to make a bankable theatrical imitation of a popular kids cartoon that spoon feeds cheap jokes and horrific cgi there's definitely a conflict here that caused the original intent of the humor to be lost in warner brothers attempt to recontextualize a satire into the very thing it was apparently a satire off hi everyone thank you so much for watching what do you think of the new desk i got it in ikea and built it over the course of five hours supposed to use two people but i'm too stubborn for that so i managed to get it done by 5am this morning um here's my question to you uh who's your favorite scooby-doo character and why please leave your own thoughts in the comments below and as always if you want to support the show get early access vote on future videos and even get the occasional bonus video uh you can do so by going over to patreon and helping me fight demonetization because it sucks because horror content's not frowned upon on youtube and until next time follow me on twitter and yeah i'll see you all very soon bye [Music] you

Channel: Ryan Hollinger

Views: 578,341

Keywords: scooby doo, movie, analysis, explained, scene, opening, ending, scrappy, shaggy, ryan hollinger, nostalgia, remember, fred, matthew lillard, interview, voice, clown, monster, scary, funny, death, spooky, island, castle, fart, fight, sequel, making, behind, documentary, sad, live action, trailer, score, theory, easter eggs, references, show, history, sarah, linda, buffy, scream, song, music, rowan, james gunn, ghost

Id: h-glxB-UXd0

Length: 14min 21sec (861 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 05 2018