I’m not taking this movie as a serious play on the TV series. Unlike Alvin I don’t think the writers’ point is to recreate the story. I think it’s a play on the show, and a revisiting to some of the characters, and is giving us a sense of nostalgia while giving us something new and amusing to watch; ie the premise of Smurfs in the Big Apple…
The writer of Alvin (Jon Vitti) just wanted to shake off his days of writing for The Simpsons and write something so mind-numbingly terrible that 44 year olds would have nightmares about being forced to watch it.
Alvin and the Chipmunks does smell worse than my sister, but that’s another story.
How many movies are gonna be set in The Big Apple/City of Angels? Why can’t they just set the Smurfs in the original European setting and leave 'em there? Like they did for the Asterix live-action adaptations, with Asterix and friends going only as far as the comics allowed, such as Egypt or Rome. Or HTTYD, which was set on the fictional island of Berk, just like in the books. If anyone has read the plot summary on Wikipedia, it has the exact same [spoil]interdimensional[/spoil] concept as Enchanted. And the whole subplot on [spoil]being adopted by a family[/spoil] sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks.
I know I’ve said that story familiarity is not a valid excuse against a movie (I defended Avatar and Rio against this common excuse by critics). But to completely deviate from the source material (New York was never a setting in the comic books, just like the Chipmunks never sang ghetto rap in the original TV show/albums) is not just disrespectful, it’s downright insulting to longtime fans.
I guess what the studios are doing now are puting a realistic spin on story’s, like The Dark Knight, The Joker was the best villan, alot of studos are doing that now.
You can make a film darker and more realist, while keeping it within the source inspiration’s realm. May I refer you to the Harry Potter series, How to Train Your Dragon and the upcoming Legend of the Guardians.
Taking a generation’s childhood love and transplanting it within an entirely different universe is tantamount to pulling Mickey Mouse and placing him into the yakuza underworld of Tokyo, or moving Astro Boy into the medieval ages and have him participate in a jousting match. Yes, comic books do this all the time with crossovers and time-traveling and whatnot, but if you’re adapting a classic children’s cartoon and trying to ‘hipsterize’ it to contemporary adult levels for ‘comedic effect’, it’s just plain sacrilegious.
One crazy thing is that theres a new game called Epic Micky coming to Wii and where you can choose micky to be good or bad, I mean really?!
O well, It’s just for Disney to make money.
Like with Alice In Wonderland (2010), directors, screen writers, producers and all that are making a twist on classic storys, next will be Snow White, and the Little Red Riding Hood where it’s a love triangle. Don’t ask me why .
I’m not going to lie, I don’t like the Smurfs. I will probably not see this movie. But it was a nice trailer! I like the epic beginning, with the landmarks and ocean. An opening you wouldn’t expect for a movie…about SMURFS!
Yeah I agree, it reminded me of another faux-epic-opening trailer of a movie released earlier this year.
Yeah, it opened with the cliche moving aerial view of dark waves crashing on a beach at nighttime
I vaguely remember hearing about this and then forgot about it. All I can ask is why? And why did they make it mostly live action? I think a completely animated movie would have been better.
Saw the trailer in front of Gnomeo and Juliet (more of the blue/gnome/hat thing), but this looks more enjoyable than either of its cinematic inspirations:
youtube.com/watch?v=4wz2YwjNMq0
Love the mushroom houses!
JustSteve: Oh my goodness, I couldn’t stop laughing! That was amazing, I love the Snork/Smurf concept. From the director of ‘300 Smurfs’. Fantastic. Greatest thing since the Yogi Bear alternate ending.
I just hate the whole idea of this. Most of my complaints have been said before, but I also hate the Smurf designs. They’re way too detailed, they look like demented lawn gnomes. I know it’s in a live action environment, but still. Plus, the eyes are disturbing…I have to say that the far-away shot of them holding onto the taxi looks alright. That’s the only thing I liked in the entire trailer.
They DO look demented, huh?
Oh my goodness, it looks so… so… BAD and narm-filled. (Should I be worried that the advertisement before I saw it was of the Saw Dvd/BluRay?)
Could this be even worse than Alvin and the Chipmunks?
It looks absolutely terrible and utterly irredeemable even in with the bad trailers good/decent movies thing which has been going on lately- I think even this is just… no not even bad editing can account for this one maybe. This will be like Yogi bear and all its apparent horribleness won’t it? Maybe it will be even worse.
…
I MUST SEE IT THEN!
(Plus adorable/cute? Is he blind? And the Smurfette scene with the dress had my eyes rolling).
After all this earthquake and tusnami drama, it’s good to get a laugh. Man, I can smell the razzies already
They seriously aren’t going to try and convince the audience that Smurfette is a "sexy-character", are they?
Do not want.
I just realized that since you can replace "smurf" with any verb, that this could possibly the raunchiest PG-rated animated film ever. Seriously, just watch the trailer again with this in mind.
They seriously aren’t going to try and convince the audience that Smurfette is a “sexy-character”, are they?
Do not want.
.
Yeah, because when I think of sexappeal, I think of Smurfette. sarcasm!
Smurfette in the original series before being Smurfified was cute, though.