Don’t hate muffin but I’m just confused why people hate these characters ( the right and bottom is little brown bear and little princess) but adore muffin
Never watched the other bottom two, but part of the reason people hate Caillou is that his parents just kind of allow it. To be fair, that sometimes happens with Muffin too, but for the most part she's there as an example of how not to behave.
It also helps that she's funny, that she show isn't all about her, that she's more screechy than whiny, and that her VA is really good at selling this. Hence why she's seen more as a little chaos goblin than a character people want to see die in a bus crash.
It's crap. It's garbage. Disney took one of the most original stories I've ever read and scribbled all over it with a fruit-scented Crayola marker. I am going to rant, thank you for the outlet-
If you've never read the books, read them. If you have, read them again. If you still haven't yet, it's okay, I'll explain why the movie's garbage (apart from bad writing, bad acting, and bad leadership). I'll explain by telling you what the source material is like and how Disney glanced at it, laughed, and then used it for kindling so they could roast hot dogs for Josh Gad on set or something-
Let me start with the lead. In the books, Artemis Fowl is the villain. He is an Irish twelve-year-old genius with the world's most efficient bodyguard protecting him and his family's fortune at his fingertips at all times. Butler is the only guardian in his life, and even then, he is specifically an employee for Artemis; he has to obey him. Arty's criminal father has been missing for years and his angelic mother is insane with grief upstairs. He can do whatever he wants. Most kids dream of that, albeit without one or both of your parents being in major peril in order to obtain that freedom.
Artemis is a stellar, dynamic character. He has a cool life and cool skills, yes, (big intellect, big bank account, big backlog of snarky retorts), but all of that comes with with very specific flaws.
Artemis is smart, but he's arrogant. Artemis is witty, but he can't connect to his peers. Artemis has freedom, but he's lonely. Artemis can break into the world's most secure vault, but he cannot ride a bike. He can't jump long distances. He can't even run for more than fifteen minutes without getting embarrassingly winded. The idea that he would be in any way physically average at something like kickball, let alone surfing, is ludicrous, and yet in the film, he's smart, cute, and athletic. He can't be good at everything! He can't be cool all the time. The books go out of their way to humble Artemis, forcing him to look or feel or sound ridiculous, because otherwise he's just on top of the world and that's boring. Embarrassment and regrettable actions endear you to a character. You can't relate to someone who never loses.
And it's very, very important that Artemis be clearly in the wrong, especially if you're adapting the very first book. Artemis tricks and steals his way into sacred knowledge of an underground culture, an entirely separate species, an entirely separate world full of living things, and uses this knowledge to exploit those creatures for profit. He wants money. It is fun for this conceited little boy to emotionally and physically manipulate the fairies he's discovered, and he is doing it for selfish reasons. Does he want the money to fund the search for his long-lost daddy? A little bit - but he also just wants to expand the family fortune and make a name for himself. And he's okay with violating living creatures to get that done; he almost views the fairies as lesser lifeforms.
Artemis is the villain. The fairies are the good guys. The fairies respect every form of life they come into contact with, and love the planet, and even the most headstrong, stubborn fairies with the biggest personal prejudices against humankind and the damage they can do (Holly Short, my beloved) can't ignore it when a little human toddler starts crying for help and she's right there, able to help.
Fowl didn't just capture any fairy to hold for ransom, he captured a girl fairy, and a police officer in the fairy world. He captured a lady (a lady, like his mom, like Butler's little sister Juliet), who is in the role of protecting and defending her community (a police officer, giving her time and life up for everyone other than herself). Holly is compassionate and selfless and full of justice, athletically dazzling, Artemis's total freaking opposite.
The movie butchered Artemis and Holly. Artemis is not nice. Artemis is not sweet. Artemis doesn't even act like a little boy - the only thing that makes us endeared to the villain of the story is the fact that he is a child, and it only shows when he is upstairs with his crazy mother and she does not recognize him. Holly does not look like a child; she is the height of a human child, but she is a full-grown fairy woman. She has no surviving relatives, so jot that down - no familial ties to anything going on in the story, no Beechwood, no Aculos. The Aculos doesn't exist in the books. Holly got kidnapped by Artemis by chance, and she wouldn't even have been aboveground to be kidnapped if she hadn't been trying to do something she should have done a long time ago and had been putting off out of sheer immaturity and laziness - replenishing her magic up top.
As to Holly's characterization, in the books, she's just as dynamic as Artemis. She is kind and impressive and innovative, but she also has a horrible temper and is impulsive and vindictive. She holds grudges. She's constantly growing and changing into someone who trusts more easily and leans on her friends, rather than on her own skills. Someone who forgives. And she's a natural-born leader!
There's none of that in the movie; she's just a cutesy elfin girl with an Irish accent (why? she's not Irish, she's not even human) and fairy ears, who sometimes gets tossed into action sequences.
I digress. Artemis and Holly are the two main characters in the books, so I ranted more about them than anything else. They drive the stories. Their relationship and character arcs are why you keep reading those books, but Arty especially. Artemis goes from snarky rich genius twelve-year-old who thinks he's untouchable, determined to be the greatest criminal in his family line at any cost, to being a fifteen-year-old hero who would rather die and have his family's wealthy ancestral home destroyed than see any one of his friends - or his planet - hurt. He starts out kidnapping and manipulating Holly and ends up trusting her and loving her more than anyone else in his life, including himself. He starts out taking advantage of the fairies and then ends up becoming their greatest ally, trusted and revered.
I keep getting off the subject because I love these books and these characters so much rrrghhhh - I'll talk about them more another time, maybe if asked, but I DIGRESS -
The point is, the movie ruined the characters first, and then that subsequently ruined the rest of the adaptation. In the film, Artemis isn't evil or even self-centered, he's just a genius with a high lifestyle (who can surf, what), and his father's disappearance forces him into exploiting fairies. In the film, Holly has no defining traits. She's not even the first female police officer for fairykind, the way she is in the books - and that is a huge part of what makes her who she is, so of course, in the film she could be any girl fairy. Anyone, literally. She's got nothing to prove; of course they had to make it personal for her by fabricating some nonsense about a big Aculos resource item and toss her apparently-still-living father into the mix. As if she didn't already have enough in common with Artemis, now we're gonna let them both have daddy issues? Because you stripped away all personality from both characters, so they don't mesh well onscreen? You wouldn't have to do that if you were faithful to the source material, you leeches-
Juliet Butler does not have to be Artemis's age, please don't do that. Artemis being the only child in the room elevates the surreality of his being in control of every situation while the adult characters try to catch up. We don't need the Aculos, Opal Koboi isn't supposed to be a threat until Artemis is older, his father is a criminal who gets home and wants to turn good, Artemis is the first of his family to discover the existence of fairies because he's that smart, so we don't need your secret Spy Kids museum of fairy stuff in Fowl Manor, and he is a selfish intelligent brat who has to learn that he's in the wrong and that some things are more important than money and himself.
All of this to say, since this is getting too long: Disney got off on the wrong foot immediately with this movie; it was doomed from the start. I waited twelve years for this film and wanted to do physical damage to the nearest wall when I finally saw it. That first book is practically made for television; if anything, all you had to do was trim it a little bit and it was good to go for the big screen. But no, you had to take away everything that made it unique. Stay away from my childhood from now on, Disney. And tell Judi Dench I'll meet her in the parking lot.
I had search result protections off, because it's my house and I get to do what I want. None of the search results for her were safe. She matches a freak that a certain type of internet personality -- especially furry personality -- that I generally avoid. I forgot about that perspective. Anyway, yeah, I'd be a fool not to say this is furrybait.
I have a feeling primos would have one season. Due to the controversy
Personally, I heavily doubt it'll only be one season. The show performed extremely well on streaming despite the controversy, and has done well on platforms not owned by Disney like YouTube. I'm not sure about the ratings on Disney Channel (but they air commercials/promo for it all the time), but I know on the regular Disney Plus subscription, it ranked #9 in popularity across all shows, which is HUGE, and number #19 on the Disney Plus and Hulu bundle — that's insanely impressive for an animated series, much less one with so much controversy! And I think that the show's been on for long enough/spaced out and promoted to the point where the controversy isn't the main source of discussion for it anymore. And Natasha said just back in November that she'd know in a few months if there'd be a renewal, and didn't say anything when the last batch of episodes came out on Disney Plus — I think she knows something, and definitely wouldn't be surprised if we get an announcement next Sunday when the finale airs on TV/she posts something about it and we get good news! Plus, there's still the Annecy festival in a couple months, where DTVA has a panel/will make announcements, so I'm very optimistic.
