r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Morr4Seiya • 11d ago

Hated Tropes An adaptation completely botches the original theme and message

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Mulan(2020)-They give Mulan superpowers which is not only lame it goes against the message of the original about equality and struggle,plus they removes Shang because apparently having Mulan date her superior was "problematic" even though Shang genuienely respected Mulan and their rank was never brought up

I am Legend(2007)-You know why the story is called "I am legend"? SPOILER ALERT the protagonist is the actual monster,humanity is gone and the vampires have a actual society and the protagonist kills and terrorize them

Animal Farm(2026)-On the very slim chance that Andy Serkis ever sees this,here's the thing Andy,Animal Farm was not a children work it was not supposed to have a happy ending,you never heard of cautionary tales before?

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u/cunt_dykeula 10d ago

Why did they decide to make animal farm a kids movie? When I think of Orwell, "kid friendly" isn't exactly the 1st thing that comes to mind.

You're allowed to make media featuring anthropomorphic animals that isn’t explicitly for children, I promise. We aren't doing to draw and quarter you out in the street for being a furry

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u/StillShmoney 10d ago

It comes down to the tragic fact that animation is simply not respected as an art form. A lot of studio execs simply see animation as a medium for children. This leads to nonsense like the terrible marketing for Transformers One.

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u/Individual-Bass-7051 10d ago

The irony then that it was made by Andy Serkis, who built his entire career on demanding respect for animation and motion capture performances.

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u/StillShmoney 10d ago

I think there’s a cognitive dissonance when it comes to cgi vs animation. The lion king remake is a perfect example of this. It’s more or less presented as a live action remake, however it’s so heavy on the cgi that it’s effectively still an animated film just made in a different style of animation. Something about the photo realism (or at least the attempt of it) comes off as being above animation even if it’s effectively the same thing.

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u/Starman035 10d ago

It is the Western problem. Take for example Japanese animation, which can be everything from kids movies through war tragedy to pornography.

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u/MalleNinja 10d ago

Audiences are also to blame, Sausage party for example. It was even made by Seth Rogan aswell

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u/Nataniel_PL 10d ago

Animal Farm is already kids appropriate enough, in Poland we read it in primary school. Not everything kids will read has to be "friendly". It's okay to make kids media challenging

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u/VisualFunny5287 10d ago

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u/KrownX 10d ago

Should I watch sonic boom just to see this meeeem?

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u/Outside-Currency-462 10d ago

Don't think it's a direct quote, but Knuckles does just occasional say things like this and its pretty funny. Great show, I have no idea how it holds up to Sonic lore but I loved it

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u/New_Photograph_5892 10d ago

Animal Farm reading level is very low so in terms of that, it is definitely fine for primary schoolers to read it. But in terms of movie, just because its for kids, it doesn't mean it needs to be cheerful and bright, which is why I dont understand this decision

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u/NNewt84 10d ago

Also, don’t kids friggin’ Watch South Park and Borat? I think they can handle Animal Farm just fine.

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u/fresh-dork 10d ago

which one is primary school. in the US, 1-6 is grade school, but UK is different.

made the helena bonham carter line way funnier.

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u/Nataniel_PL 10d ago

Back when I was reading it at school I was no older than 12yo

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u/fresh-dork 10d ago

i think we did that in 10th. so around 15.

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u/tylerjehenna 10d ago

Cause if you make an animated movie featuring cute looking animals, kids end up wanting to see it. Same issue End of Oak Street faced when a decent portion of the audience that went were families cause "oh look new dinosaur movie" when it very much was NOT a family movie

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u/cunt_dykeula 10d ago edited 10d ago

Good point.

The average parent absolutely is incompetent enough to show their kids a movie about the ruling class having cannibalistic orgies because there's talking pigs in it. When I saw Joker 2019, the whole theatre was full of parents and young children- just because it was about a comic book character.

Most people only interact with art on a completely surface level, aesthetic pov in general

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u/tylerjehenna 10d ago

Yeah theres still this stigma with general audiences that "animated=children" and especially "animated animals=children"

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u/ProfWilliam82 10d ago

Yeah. That's why a lot of anime also has that stigma too. Back then I remember when our class go to see the Ninja Scroll in a movie theather because of this. Well I really enjoyed it... Our teachers not really...

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u/MissninjaXP 10d ago

Ninja Scroll movie class trip has me in stitches that's amazing lol

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u/M1ck3yB1u 10d ago

Well, 99.9% of the time it’s correct.

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u/Tk421AtHisP0st 10d ago

When was the Cannabalistic orgy? Do you mean the ham in the farmer's fridge?

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u/Nick_Wild1Ear 10d ago

Plenty of people took their CHILDREN UNDER TEN to see Fuckin’ DEADPOOL. And he went through a strip club! I had a family friend who took their 6 and 8 year old to see DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE. I told them it’s inappropriate and had 145 F-bombs, did they listen to me? Noooooooo

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u/cunt_dykeula 10d ago

I would 100% rather show my kid a movie with swearing and strippers in it than a movie with a realistic scene of a man being shot point blank in the face idc

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u/ChaosAzeroth 10d ago

I mean maybe it's just cause my wiring is weird but... How is that not a family movie? (Genuine question not snark) Cause like I can see not a children's movie, but it felt like it could definitely be classified as a family movie to me.

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u/RobNobody 10d ago

Yeah, it was rated PG-13, and was pretty explicitly a throwback to the "family adventure movie" genre of the '80s.

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u/tylerjehenna 10d ago

Which movie?

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u/ChaosAzeroth 10d ago

End of Oak Street

Seriously that would have been pretty at home with other movies that were considered fine as family movies when I was a kid at least. And there's definitely a wilder example of supposed to be a family movie by Ralf Bakshi lol

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u/[deleted] 10d ago edited 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/ChaosAzeroth 10d ago

That was true even when I was a kid though, like definitely parents should know what their kids can and cannot handle. That's a whole separate issue imo.

Like I mean I'm definitely not purely basimg it off just what I watched as a kid. I was watching stuff like The Beyond and People Under the Stairs and Company of Wolves as a kid. I'm basing it more off what I noticed seemed to be generally understood to be family movies.

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u/MizStazya 10d ago

Yeah, we took our 15yo and 12yo, because we looked up the movie and determined they were both mature enough to enjoy it. My younger two kids were at a babysitter, because they were emphatically NOT. (Ironically, my 11yo has been happily watching zombie movies with me since she was 8 or 9, but she doesn't handle anything involving animals getting injured, and i wasn't sure if that reaction would extend to dinosaurs lol)

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u/offhandaxe 10d ago

Art should not lower itself because people are shitty parents.

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u/tylerjehenna 10d ago

But at the same time art should take the audience into mind as well.

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u/LizLemonOfTroy 10d ago

The End of Oak Street isn't much more intense than, say, Jurassic Park, which very much was regarded as a (great) family film.

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u/Cold_Ebb_1448 10d ago

huh, I had it my head that it is a family movie and thus I wasn’t interested in going to see it 😄

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u/DuelaDent52 10d ago

Animal Farm itself was already a children’s novel (or at least it’s encouraged for children to read it in my experience), they tried to simplify it to appeal to a wider audience and it didn’t work.

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u/AsterStarchaser 10d ago

My extremely conservative father (tea party at the time, maga now) reacted to me wanting to read Animal Farm by comparing it to "smoking cigarettes to find out why they're bad for you when you already know why." I'm genuinely unsure why he thought that, beyond his being an idiot.

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u/TheRealRichon 10d ago

Given that it's a pretty strong critique of communism, you'd think he'd be all for it...

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u/KarlUnderguard 10d ago

Yeah, the CIA literally funded the old movie adaptation.

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u/MissninjaXP 10d ago

Some people dont even try to understand a piece of media before they assume they disagree with it and hate it. Back in the day, my awful uncle called Fahrenheit 451 "communist propaganda".

So stupid I can barely even fathom it.

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u/TheRealRichon 10d ago

The very definition of ignorance.

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u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 10d ago

It is not a critique of communism, its a critique of authoritarianism and there are authoritarians who call themselves communist. Depending on your meaning of the word communism they either are or are not.

And conservatives love authoritarian structures, it why the love their religion with a 1 true god and why the like the rule breaking Trump that shamelessly does whatever the fuck he wants because he is the leader.

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u/Velkso 10d ago

Remind us, who was Orwell basing his stories on?

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u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 10d ago

The socialist writer had his critique aimed at authoritarianism, and he based it on Stalinist ideology.

This is about as smart as the guys that say the nazies were socialist because what was their name in german....

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u/Lyceus_ 10d ago

The book makes it pretty clear it criticizes the USSR.

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u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 10d ago

If communism is a classless- money less society that the USSR was not that. It was authoritarian state with a strict class divide. 1984 had a similar critique target, it got banned in the russia and the USA. Just because it's more clear who is being critiqued the What is still authoritarianism. If Orwell made this less clear it is likely that animal farm would also be banned in the USA because you can lob similar critiques to how capital controls fucking everything.

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u/Big_Secret1521 9d ago

And the USSR banned it for that reason. Meanwhile the US banned it because it clearly glorifies communism.

Socialist Orwell thought it criticized authoritarianism which would explain why neither country liked it.

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u/DoctorAnnual6823 10d ago

Was gonna say

He just sounds dumb

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u/cunt_dykeula 10d ago

If "Animal Farm" was a kids book because a bunch of people had to do book projects on it in school, then "A Child Called 'It", "To Kill A Mockingbird", and Anne Franks diary are also kids books

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u/tom8osauce 10d ago

We had to read Animal Farm when we were 11 and Anne Franks diary when we were 12. They were definitely appropriate for those ages, so maybe not a kids book but definitely tween appropriate.

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u/cunt_dykeula 10d ago

My understanding is that kids read stuff like this in school because they're incredibly important works of literature, but the themes are considered disturbing enough that they should have a trusted adult guiding them through the experience.

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u/tom8osauce 10d ago

For sure. I wouldn’t let my daughter read it by herself, I would need to be with her to discuss and answer questions.

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u/rogerwil 10d ago

There's no way an average 11 year old understands half the politics Orwell was getting at in Animal Farm.

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u/yourstruly912 10d ago

That's why he made an animal allegory...

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u/DuelaDent52 10d ago

If a kid can read something like Bambi, Watership Down or even Animorphs, they can read Animal Farm fine.

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u/OSUTechie 10d ago

I'm 10 books into Animorphs now and timeline wise it's only been 6 months since the start of the series. Good Lord there is no way these kids come out of next 30books without being fucked up.

How the hell was this a kids series?

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u/Ayertsatz 10d ago

Hahahahahaha

Enjoy. Books 28-45 can be a bit hit and miss. If you're struggling with the lack of plot progression, please jump to 45 rather than giving up. The ending of this series fucked me up as a kid.

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u/MissninjaXP 10d ago

The ending was the first time I ever finished a book and just sat there and stared at my bed for a good 2 hours. Lol

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u/Ayertsatz 10d ago

Yep same. Cried the whole way through it then sat and stared at the wall. I never quite got over it until I sat down and reread the whole series twenty years later. It hits differently the second time around.

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u/jadeakw99 10d ago

Anne Franks diary was written by a child. Why wouldn't it be appropriate for other children?

That was a real person and those were her real experiences.

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u/Blazypika2 10d ago

i think animals farm is a kids book because it was written in a way where its heavy themes are easier to digest.

i read it when i was 12 and i didn't needed to do a book report about it, i just wanted to read the book. and even then i found the story very profound.

you're making the same mistake the people who made the movie did, that kids are not capable to handle the story, they can AND should. a good adaptation doesn't need to turn animal farm into kids friendly, because it already is.

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u/babysamissimasybab 10d ago

I never read A Child Called It, but the other two are definitely books children should read. My guess is most adults curious about Orwell would read 1984 (even though Animal Farm is better).

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u/cunt_dykeula 10d ago

A Child Called It is an extremely heart-rending autobiographical tale about the authors near fatal experience with physical abuse and neglect at the hands of his mother. It traumatized me when I was in high school, and if I re-read that again as a grown adult I would most likely be having nightmares for a good long while.

At the same time, I think it would be quite valuable read for a child living through a similar situation.

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u/Or1on_c0nst3llat1onx 10d ago

i read it(mostly) for a book report in 10th grade, i was ready to pull Orwell from his grave and hit him with a desk just for killing off the one horse. i got emotionally attached to that dummy, and he was one of the most likeable characters in the book, and Orwell essentially said "ha! fuck you! he dies!" to everyone reading

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u/bored-cookie22 10d ago

i love boxer so much

sadly he had to die for the proper narrative of "the people in charge dont give a fuck how hard of a worker you are, once you're done, you're done"

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u/Tribe11_MX 10d ago

Orwell was furious that booksellers marketed it as a book for children. I remember when reading it in school, we were told that he was reportedly seen in bookstores moving copies from the children's section to the adults' section. Hilarious if true, but I can't find any independent verification of that now.

It's a short book with talking animals, so then (and now) people assumed it's for children, but Orwell was pretty clear that he didn't intend it for a young audience.

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u/Busy_Reference5652 10d ago

laughs in watership down

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u/MorganWick 10d ago

The movie was distributed by Angel Studios, best known for The Sound of Freedom and with a bunch of Bible-y movies in their filmography. I'm guessing they wanted to make an anti-"communist" propaganda film, even though the message of the book is probably more "Stalin bad" than "communism bad".

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u/gliscornumber1 10d ago

Yeah but even then, the 2026 movie is more anti capitalist than anything.

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u/Code_Monkeeyz 10d ago

Hate to break it to ya, but it’s still a “communist bad” story at its core.

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u/MorganWick 10d ago

Depends on if you think Orwell's message was that a legitimate dream got corrupted or that it was always going to happen. Orwell did consider himself a socialist, though I don't know off the top of my head if the Soviet experience soured him on the concept entirely or just on the Soviet Union specifically.

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u/wombatstylekungfu 10d ago

Just don’t go flying any planes! 

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u/Canai97 10d ago

Did you know there are two kids animated movies based on the sinking of the Titanic?

One of them has a rapping dog despite it taking place years before rap was even a thing and the other has an octopus with puppy dog face getting tricked by a literal gang of sharks to put the iceberg in front of the ship?

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u/DoctorAnnual6823 10d ago

Serkis should have stayed in acting for this one

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u/Blazypika2 10d ago

to be fair, i did first read the book when i was a kid. around 12 or so.

still, the ending, while shocking (since i read the book expecting the animals to rebel against the pigs), was still something i found very profound even then.

i think kids can and should be able to enjoy the story and its messaging. so making it "kids' friendly" isn't an issue, the book already is kids' friendly, the issue is falsely thinking kids couldn't digest the original message of the book.

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u/blue4029 10d ago

the only reason WHY they were animals in the original stories were because the animals were a metaphor

it very much is an adult story

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u/Mudcat-69 10d ago

Case in point: Watership Down. No one would watch the original film adaptation and say it’s for children.

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u/IllustriousInitial52 10d ago

Amazing username btw

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u/LuckyandBrownie 10d ago

Same reason the make Noah’s ark a kid story.

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u/Free-Virus-9974 10d ago

I really did think they were gonna do the whole switcheroo. Where it would be childish at first but then go into the book's setting more and all that.

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u/Wuz314159 10d ago

Why do Americans sing Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" on the 4th of July?

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u/3WeeksEarlier 10d ago

Because talking animals. Also, the studio obviously does not share the same politics as Orwell and were not interested in a direct adaptation of it for that reason despite the fact that the text is political allegory