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- Jan 5, 2014
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You're probably wondering what I mean by this? Let me explain. Both Happy Halloween Scooby Doo and Barbie: Epic Road Trip are movies that are well received yet also have two things in common going against them:
1. They're following up on more controversial projects (Scooby Doo: Curse Of The 13th Ghost and Scooby Doo: Return To Zombie Island for the former and Barbie: It Takes Two for the latter).
2. They're not directly building off of what the previous projects brought up since the people that worked on those respective projects didn't work on them.
Let me break them both down. Both Scooby Doo: Curse Of The 13th Ghost and Scooby Doo: Return To Zombie Island are controversial for following up on Scooby Doo projects that had actual supernatural elements in them (The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby Doo and Scooby Doo On Zombie Island respectively) and saying how they were either fake or ambiguous. Of course, this is all because of executive meddling due to what certain executives think is best for the franchise, but we don't have time to cover that again. The movies also have criticism for portraying Velma as skeptical beyond all belief, with many finding her unlikable. When it came to do the follow-up movie Happy Halloween Scooby Doo, none of the people that worked on the first two movies such as Jim Krieg, Jeremy Adams, Tim Sheridan, and Cecilia Aranovich Hamilton worked on this one. Instead, it was written and directed by Maxwell Atoms, who did not work on the two movies, and it shows. As he mentioned in an interview, he didn't know about the two movies literally a week before he finished writing the script when he was told that the movie would serve as the conclusion to the trilogy. He just had to make due with whatever he had at hand, with the movie even being delayed from 2019 to 2020 because of this. As such, this creates a bit of a problem when it comes to Velma and the sheriff character from the first two movies. In the case of Velma, she does positively develop in this movie, even apologizing for her behavior towards Shaggy and Scooby earlier in the movie. However, because this movie doesn't directly build off of what was established in the first two movies since Maxwell Atoms didn't work on them, she doesn't apologize for how she acted there. As for the sheriff, the first two movies showed him as more a stern, but reasonable authority figure who did look out for the gang's well being. The third movie then showed how he was secretly a villain the whole time who wanted revenge against the gang. Again, since he didn't work on the first two movies, he didn't even know why he had to be the bad guy. As such, the twist, in the grand scheme of the trilogy, makes no sense.
Now let's talk about Barbie: Epic Road Trip. We don't have any behind the scenes information for the movie, but its release date and the people involved can help give us a good idea about what could have happened. The movie was released on October 25, 2022, which was 3 weeks after the other 13 episodes of Barbie: It Takes Two came out (or 3 months given how these 13 episodes came out in Australia in the summer). That is quite a short amount of time between projects, in contrast to the one year gap with the Scooby movies. Outside of shared Mattel Television and Mainframe Studios executives, none of the people that worked on Barbie: It Takes Two worked on Barbie: Epic Road Trip, as well as vice versa, and it shows. The main people that worked on Barbie: Epic Road Trip are Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures showrunner Ann Austen (who's credited as co-executive producer and lead writer), freelance writer Aury Wallington (the main script writer), and director Conrad Helten (who's worked on many Barbie movies, and also directed on Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures). The good news with Ann Austen and Conrad Helten's involvement is that the characters and writing are more in line with how they are in Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures, and not the more nonsensical writing and characterization from Barbie: It Takes Two. The downside is that, because no one that worked on the movie worked on It Takes Two, nothing from that series is brought up, including the abandoned plot points. Let me explain. The main plot of Barbie: It Takes Two is that Malibu Barbie and Brooklyn Barbie are trying to create a demo for this music producer named Otto Phoenix so that they can become famous. In the final episode of that series, he gets the demo, and says how he'll be in touch with what he thinks, and we never hear from him again. In the penultimate episode, Brooklyn Barbie finds out that her acting teacher Bertram Livesey likes her acting so much that he wants her to think about his offer for her to take part in his more esteemed acting classes. In the final episode, the only person she talks about this to are her parents, and she ends the series undecided on what to do. Again, since no one that worked on the movie worked on that show, these plot points are never brought up at all. Even just basic stuff like It Takes Two ending on the first day of summer and Epic Road Trip starting at the end of summer are indicators of this. That's not even getting into how Epic Road Trip is an interactive movie, and thus its canonicity is brought into question.
(go to 10:30 and 11:35)
And that's all I have. What do you think?
1. They're following up on more controversial projects (Scooby Doo: Curse Of The 13th Ghost and Scooby Doo: Return To Zombie Island for the former and Barbie: It Takes Two for the latter).
2. They're not directly building off of what the previous projects brought up since the people that worked on those respective projects didn't work on them.
Let me break them both down. Both Scooby Doo: Curse Of The 13th Ghost and Scooby Doo: Return To Zombie Island are controversial for following up on Scooby Doo projects that had actual supernatural elements in them (The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby Doo and Scooby Doo On Zombie Island respectively) and saying how they were either fake or ambiguous. Of course, this is all because of executive meddling due to what certain executives think is best for the franchise, but we don't have time to cover that again. The movies also have criticism for portraying Velma as skeptical beyond all belief, with many finding her unlikable. When it came to do the follow-up movie Happy Halloween Scooby Doo, none of the people that worked on the first two movies such as Jim Krieg, Jeremy Adams, Tim Sheridan, and Cecilia Aranovich Hamilton worked on this one. Instead, it was written and directed by Maxwell Atoms, who did not work on the two movies, and it shows. As he mentioned in an interview, he didn't know about the two movies literally a week before he finished writing the script when he was told that the movie would serve as the conclusion to the trilogy. He just had to make due with whatever he had at hand, with the movie even being delayed from 2019 to 2020 because of this. As such, this creates a bit of a problem when it comes to Velma and the sheriff character from the first two movies. In the case of Velma, she does positively develop in this movie, even apologizing for her behavior towards Shaggy and Scooby earlier in the movie. However, because this movie doesn't directly build off of what was established in the first two movies since Maxwell Atoms didn't work on them, she doesn't apologize for how she acted there. As for the sheriff, the first two movies showed him as more a stern, but reasonable authority figure who did look out for the gang's well being. The third movie then showed how he was secretly a villain the whole time who wanted revenge against the gang. Again, since he didn't work on the first two movies, he didn't even know why he had to be the bad guy. As such, the twist, in the grand scheme of the trilogy, makes no sense.
Now let's talk about Barbie: Epic Road Trip. We don't have any behind the scenes information for the movie, but its release date and the people involved can help give us a good idea about what could have happened. The movie was released on October 25, 2022, which was 3 weeks after the other 13 episodes of Barbie: It Takes Two came out (or 3 months given how these 13 episodes came out in Australia in the summer). That is quite a short amount of time between projects, in contrast to the one year gap with the Scooby movies. Outside of shared Mattel Television and Mainframe Studios executives, none of the people that worked on Barbie: It Takes Two worked on Barbie: Epic Road Trip, as well as vice versa, and it shows. The main people that worked on Barbie: Epic Road Trip are Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures showrunner Ann Austen (who's credited as co-executive producer and lead writer), freelance writer Aury Wallington (the main script writer), and director Conrad Helten (who's worked on many Barbie movies, and also directed on Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures). The good news with Ann Austen and Conrad Helten's involvement is that the characters and writing are more in line with how they are in Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures, and not the more nonsensical writing and characterization from Barbie: It Takes Two. The downside is that, because no one that worked on the movie worked on It Takes Two, nothing from that series is brought up, including the abandoned plot points. Let me explain. The main plot of Barbie: It Takes Two is that Malibu Barbie and Brooklyn Barbie are trying to create a demo for this music producer named Otto Phoenix so that they can become famous. In the final episode of that series, he gets the demo, and says how he'll be in touch with what he thinks, and we never hear from him again. In the penultimate episode, Brooklyn Barbie finds out that her acting teacher Bertram Livesey likes her acting so much that he wants her to think about his offer for her to take part in his more esteemed acting classes. In the final episode, the only person she talks about this to are her parents, and she ends the series undecided on what to do. Again, since no one that worked on the movie worked on that show, these plot points are never brought up at all. Even just basic stuff like It Takes Two ending on the first day of summer and Epic Road Trip starting at the end of summer are indicators of this. That's not even getting into how Epic Road Trip is an interactive movie, and thus its canonicity is brought into question.
(go to 10:30 and 11:35)
And that's all I have. What do you think?
![[classic swim]](/forums/data/avatars/s/324/324637.jpg?1668169542){kind=avatar}