Scooby-Doo is a Western multi-media franchise based around a group of young adults with a talking dog who go around solving various supernatural mysteries. Most of the time, they aren’t actually supernatural…but sometimes…?
The first of the four Japanese Scooby-Doo films. I think it’s alright. The girls are sexy, but then there isn’t much else to it.
It’s entertaining as the starting point of the trilogy/tetralogy and also introduces the gimmick of the supernatural bits being actually supernatural.
When I first added the section, I thought I had erroneously stated I re-watched it when I had watched it for the first time only recently. But then I remembered that I had seen it at least once before.
This one is much like the other two Japanese Scooby-Doo films, except a lot less colorful (due to taking place mostly at night). The Hex GirlsA) are cute and…yeah.
The main mystery this time was just a red herring and I feel it wasn’t executed super well, then the rest of the film was mostly action which was fine but…y’know, not the best.
What I can’t take seriously at all is the Wicca stuff. I know for a fact that Wiccans didn’t exist prior to the 20th century, so it’s just a little funny to see them appear here. Extra funny since they didn’t seem to get the memo that Wiccans are witches.
When I was much younger, I used to watch this over and over again so watching it again after a ‘long break’ was a nice treat.B)
The artwork is colorful and pleasant. I’d say the story was a bit simplistic (and the mysteries are pretty obvious), but that doesn’t mean bad. What really surprised me is that the characters actually acted like human beings. Fred’s objection to the flying saucer they saw was quite reasonable, for example.
It was very pleasant to say the least, though it still makes me sad to know Crystal left.
Also Shaggy’s song is a shock, but it elevates the quality of the film. It also reminds me of the song Downtown. I’m actually convinced it’s just a parody of it.
Something else I found out is that it was animated by the Japanese. I didn’t know that until this year, but that could explain where part of the anime obsession came from…
I watched this one right after re-watching Alien Invaders! and while I really enjoyed that one…yeah, watching them back-to-back just exemplified the issues. In fact, I had a flashback to my childhood where I remembered thinking of this era as a dark age of animation.
The story was pretty meh. I don’t think there was anything specifically wrong with it, though it was 100% predictable. The animation was pretty bad and formulaic-looking. I even said it looked like Tom & Jerry (from the same time period). The music also made it sound like every other animated film of the time. The sound effects were excessive.
While characters acted like human beings in Alien Invaders! they definitely did not act like human beings here.
The one upside is that there were a few sexy ladies, but that’s about it.
I recently re-watched the second live-action film. For some reason, as a kid, I remember preferring this one over the first one.
Anyway, I think that both of these films are…okay. They aren’t masterpieces, but I had a lot of fun watching the second film. I found a lot of the jokes to be funny and…heh.
Well, these films were made in an era where the girls looked fine. So from that angle, Daphne and Velma are both pretty cute and their outfits are nice to look at too.
Anyway, the writing (again, jokes) varied from pretty mediocre to really damn funny. Though the mystery is pretty bad, since they introduce a character we never saw until that point: Ned. He is mentioned once before the reveal, but we never see his face. I think everything else about it is mostly fine.
I think it’s a shame that the films just kinda stopped with the second one, because everyone was cast perfectly. It would have been interesting to see it continue past the second film.
Apparently there were some issues behind-the-scenes, which is what resulted in the films not being quite what they could have been. Regardless, I don’t think they’re bad.
At the very least, they’re a time-capsule to the 2000s, which is never a bad thing. W-well…I guess that’s debatable, now that I think about it.