Fixing Total Drama All Stars

Prior to the recent renaissance of cartoons over on Cartoon Network (which spawned such hits as "Adventure Time", "We Bare Bears" and "Steven Universe"), the most successful series the channel had was a Teletoon production about several teenagers competing for a cash prize while fending off their sadistic hosts, dangerous alliances, monstrous wildlife, and their own emotions.  While not a flawless show by any means, the "Total Drama" series was without a doubt one of the network's biggest powerhouses.  The show didn't break any major ground in terms of animation, story, or theme, but all of the things the show did was so well done that we as an audience were able to bypass the watchful eyes of critics.

But, like with most shows, the series hit a snag.  However, whereas most animated shows often fall into a creative slump and often retread tired formulas, "Total Drama All Stars" was one with too many ideas and plot points jammed into a thirteen episode run that rubbed many fans the wrong way, so much in fact that the series has declined in ratings ever since.  While I enjoyed the last season "The Ridonculous Race", where they changed up the formula and even brought back some old characters, the show is in limbo and may not get renewed by Cartoon Network should they want to continue.

"All Stars" was a rare case.  The structure for the show was set almost flawlessly, bringing back some of the most popular characters in the series and giving them bizarre and hilarious things to do.  Few of the gimmick characters were brought back, and we were able to see interactions between the Original Cast and the cast from Season 4, "Revenge of the Island".  But, something went horribly wrong.  Whether it was staleness, new writers, a drastically shortened season, or what have you, the show took a nose dive and lost a ton of popularity.

In this post, I am going to highlight the five most irritating things about this series and how they could have corrected this before rushing the show out for it's date with decline...

1. BFF's Courtney and Gwen 

Even hardcore fans of the series were rubbed the wrong way with how this friendship/rekindling of friendship came about.  In "World Tour", Courtney and Gwen were able to find common ground with their hatred of Heather and even a few little things that could override Courtney's suspicion of her teammate's crush on her boyfriend Duncan.  Duncan's return to the show and subsequent kissing of a certain goth girl shattered the illusion of a budding friendship and made Gwen and Courtney mortal enemies until Gwen was eliminated.  This could have been seen as a cautionary tale and should have been a harbinger of things to come in this series.

"All Stars" took a shocking turn and turned a reasonably likable character like Gwen into a pile of melodramatic mush that spent literally half of the season OBSESSIVELY trying to get Courtney to forgive her and for them to become friends.  Uh, did I miss something?  Were Courtney and Gwen really close enough to warrant something like this happening?  Before writing this post, I binge watched the entirety of Season 3 to see if they really were as close as this show made them out to be.  Until I realized, that neither of them considered the other a friend and even criticized the other behind their backs until Duncan came back.  Sure, they bonded over a report both made regarding 18th Century England in the infamous "I See London..." episode, but nothing too drastic.  But to have the two of them sobbing and crying over a "lost friendship" and even commenting about loving each other's hair got me nearly sick to my stomach.

Fixing this major issue would entail them changing the way these two interacted throughout the season.  Not much would have to change on Courtney's part, but Gwen's character would need a MAJOR reshuffling.  Instead of only going back to make amends with Courtney, you could have had her and Duncan going strong and then slowly pull apart as they were on separate teams and Gwen and Courtney began to talk again.  Then, once she and Duncan broke up (I will deal with that train wreck in a moment), she could then set out to try and patch things up with Courtney (especially having few allies on their team once Duncan was moved off).  Courtney could be very distant at first, but eventually forgive Gwen, or better yet, pretend to forgive Gwen in order to gain her trust like the manipulative shrew I know she is.

Of course, Courtney eventually reverted back to the character I have come to know and love over the last few seasons, but Gwen did some pretty irreparable damage to her character in this season and lost a TON of respect from me, especially with how she treated one character in particular...

2. The End of "Gwuncan" 

Granted, while I was a firm believer that Duncan and Courtney should have always remained the argumentative yet passionate couple they had been in Seasons 1 and 2 (mostly because she was the Yin to his Yang in terms of character), I didn't really mind it when Gwen developed a crush on Duncan and the two ultimately became a couple in Season 3.  After all, as proven on multiple occasions by multiple people, the two had a lot in common, were strong competitors that would jeopardize a relationship in order to get money, and even had previous relationships with Trent and Courtney that were doomed to fail.  Their spontaneous hook up in "I See London" was not very out of the blue to me, and I stood behind it because it made the show more interesting.

To say Season 5 was not kind to Duncan would be an understatement, as right from the word go, Gwen continually shows little to no emotion towards her supposed boyfriend and even dodges his attempts to be romantic and spontaneous at almost every level, and then has the gall in "Moon Madness" to blame him for their breakup.  The key to making any relationship work is both being invested in it, and for Gwen to show no reaction to him or any remorse for him later on is absolutely frustrating and makes me despise her character even more.

There is a simple way to fix this mistake and it is to have Duncan break up with Gwen instead of the other way around.  Have Duncan growing frustrated that all Gwen wants to talk about is Courtney and completely ignores his feelings at every turn.  By the time Gwen is close enough to Courtney for her to forgive her, Duncan gives up and breaks up with Gwen.  Gwen is initially stunned and hurt by Duncan's actions, but eventually gets over it, that is, until another event (Which I will talk about in a moment) that causes Gwen to lose focus and get eliminated.

As it stands now, Gwen's breakup with Duncan is one of the most frustrating moments of the series because there was almost nothing to go on except for Gwen's faulty character.  Hopefully, if another season goes by, Duncan will get payback, but until then, it's time to move on.

3. Zoey's Obliviousness 

In case you haven't seen the show yet, I won't spoil how it ends, but let's just say that the main villain of the series is one of a character named Mike's many personalities he has in his head.  Zoey and Mike have been going strong since the end of Season 4, but Zoey's obliviousness to Mike's evil personality in this season until the end was very disturbing.  She had multiple signs handed to her on a silver platter and she does almost nothing to prevent herself from being bought off by it.  She sees Mike break Cameron's glasses, Duncan warns her that he knew the evil personality of Mike from his time in Juvenile Hall, and even a cameo from Izzy can recognize the evil within Mike.  But she remains strong for him until the end, which I guess makes her a somewhat unique character, but it still bugs me that she does that.
Personally, I would have went with a much more different approach.  Zoey recognizes the evil within Mike early on and tries to convince Duncan and her other teammates to help her fix him, until the personality makes Zoey think that Mike was actually the personality all along, causing her to break up with him, unintentionally making the situation worse by isolating Mike on his own.  Upon realizing her mistake, Zoey would work through the issues to rekindle her relationship with Mike and rescue him from the evil within.

This was one of the lesser things, as the things I want to comment on are not entirely in order.  But it still irked me because I really liked Zoey's character in Season 4 and wanted to see something better of her in Season 5.

4. Duncan Do-Right

Aside from the whole "End of Gwuncan" arc, Duncan's arc (From a dramatic and comedic standpoint) was actually one of the better arcs in the series.  After being forced to switch places on the teams with Courtney and joining the Heroic Hamsters, Duncan is surprised to be greeted warmly by his new teammates, especially Zoey, who goes out of her way to make him feel at home.  Having been surrounded by the likes of Heather and the other villains on his last team, he doesn't quite know how to take it and slowly begins to soften.  He knows he's softening and his inner delinquent wants to break free of his niceness, but it's finding a place in his heart and it is what inevitably costs him a chance at a million dollars.

My problem with this arc is, like many of the arcs, it does not get enough time to develop.  Duncan is not able to do something bad and then instantly regret it or something along those lines.  Instead, his character rapidly deteriorates into madness.  And while that is funny and okay from a character standpoint, it still frustrates me as yet another missed opportunity for the series.

Changing this is simply a matter of adding more episodes.  He is dealing with this urge to do good after his breakup with Gwen and has no one but positive role models near him.  He develops good relationships with his teammates and even attempts to rekindle a friendship with his old teammates (except Gwen because F$%# her), but his urge to do bad again comes back into him and he commits a similar action to what he did in the actual show that got him kicked off the show.  And in the end, despite his bad boy attitude, he still gets visits from Zoey and Mike in prison to show him how they believe that he made a change for the better.

The jury is still out on Duncan, especially if they choose to continue the series, but this was probably the least annoying thing of the five I picked...

5. Mal 

One of the best things that Total Drama has done for me over the years is to give me a villain that I can absolutely loathe and despise.  Heather was an antagonist who manipulated her way into the semi-finals of Season 1 by preying on the meek and dumb and tricking others into doing her dirty work.  Courtney took up the villains role in Season 2 by manipulating the rules to her advantage and using these advantages to win many challenges in succession until her bossy attitude cost her her one and only ally left in Duncan.  Season 3's was of course Alejandro, who womanized and tricked almost every candidate on the show into elimination, including: Harold, Bridgette, Leshawna, DJ, Noah, Tyler, Owen, Courtney, Blainely, Duncan and Cody.

The evil personality within Mike, Mal, was the first villain the show had that I really didn't get behind.  His actions were juvenile or retreads of what Heather or Alejandro did previously (and when those two are still in the show, it's kind of bizarre).  While he does get more evil the later he goes (including sabotaging Courtney's friendship with Gwen and Scott by showing them the chart she made about her winning), his actions early on are pretty childish.

A villain of truly epic proportions would have done much more evil things.  If Mike's biggest strength was his relationships with his friends, Mal's first objective should have been to sabotage that.  While doing this, he would also cause trouble for the other contestants.  For example, while he would be pushing Zoey away from him in order to prevent Mike from taking over again, he could push Zoey and newly single Duncan together, all while throwing Gwen off her game along with her teammates.  While Duncan and Zoey become better friends, Cameron would start to feel isolated and in turn would turn to Mike for support, only to find Mal there, ready to cause him more trouble.  Should any of the smarter villains catch on, he could do what he did in the series and trick them into falling prey to his scheme, including Alejandro and Courtney.

In this case, the missed opportunity wasn't as drastic as the previous ones were, but it still made things hard to take seriously, especially when the rest of the things are so oddly placed and awkward.

Why is Nothing New in Hollywood?

Much has changed since the last time I talked to you guys, hasn't it?  The DC Cinematic Universe is imploding, Star Wars is now going to become an annoying yearly affair, and even Disney's most cherished animated classics are being planned as live action reboots.  I was willing to put up with the mediocrity that was the Summer of 2016 (aside from Civil War), until I learned that Jon Favreau (who had barely dodged ruining The Jungle Book) has taken it upon himself to make a Live Action retelling of The Lion King.  Now, there are an almost incalculable amount of things wrong with this idea, but the biggest one for me personally came from one of the most unlikely of sources, at least for me:  George Lucas.

During my drafting of this post, I happened to come across RedLetterMedia's review of The Force Awakens, which as expected was brilliant.  But the most brilliant part of the review came from a borrowed interview of George Lucas, who had this to say about the way Hollywood is going:

"Only do something that's proven...Ya gotta remember, Star Wars came from nowhere.  There was nothing like it.  Now, if you do anything that's not a sequel, or doesn't look like one, they won't do it....it really shows a lack of imagination and fear of creativity, of an industry...The Movie business is exactly like professional gambling, except you hire the gambler...you give him $100 million dollars, tell him to go to the tables, and come back with $500 million dollars.  That is a risk.  Now, the studios don't want to think of it that way.  They say, well, maybe if we tell him he can't bet on red, maybe if we tell him we did market research...they try to minimize their risks...you hire the kid to take risks, to do things that have never been done before...that is the complete antithesis of what a big modern corporation is."

Never has a corporate sellout understood us so much.  When George Lucas is telling someone their not selling out properly, you know you're doing something wrong.  When you really look at Hollywood, there are no Star Wars kind of films being made.  Gone are the days of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, The Lion King, The Sixth Sense, Up, and so many other original ideas and movies that touched our hearts when we saw them and in some cases, shaped us as who we are as people.  The days of original content being enormously successful are completely gone, as this summer proved to me.  When an almost flawless film like Kubo and the Two Strings fails to outgross something predictable and bland as The Secret Life of Pets or Angry Birds or a sequel film like Finding Dory, you know something is really wrong here.  How is it that we almost never hear anything about the films that win Best Picture until Oscar Season, but we get commercials for Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Ghostbusters, or the eightieth Ice Age movie all year long?

And this epidemic is not just locked into one studio, though ironically one studio is doing the most damage.  20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount, Disney, Dreamworks, New Line Cinemas, and many more studios are releasing hardly anything that does not fall out of the category I cruelly call "safe films".  "Safe Films" are films that tend to be either sequels, midquels, prequels, or films made in the same universe as previously successful content in a shameful attempt to get the most money out of a product as quickly as possible.  Almost anything that was once successful, be it original or based on a preexisting story, is up for grabs.  I even hear someone wants to make a Cinematic Universe out of the Hanna-Barbera content.  Really?  REALLY?  Didn't we hate those films when they came out back in the SIXTIES?

Like Lucas said above, no studio executive is willing to take a chance anymore.  Everything needs to be manufactured and pre-made and pre-planned out in order for it to be released and marketed by Hollywood.  Why does this have to be?  After all, without the filmmakers with visions or ideas, would there be a Star Wars?  Or would we know how good directors Scorsese, Spielberg, or Tarantino are?  No, there wouldn't be.  Instead, we'd be re making films like Gone With the Wind, Ben Hur, West Side Story, or Willy Wonka constantly and nothing in Hollywood would be good.  And this is something that is sorely lacking in Hollywood.  Why is this?  Where are all the creative people going?  Where is the next generation of filmmakers and story tellers?  I can tell you they're not in Hollywood.  But I do know where some of them are...

1. Television

Like it or not, Television still exists as an important tool in our lives.  We may watch these shows on Netflix, Hulu, or any other type of sharing network, but the fact remains that we still have these shows on TV.  And while there will always be a dozen or so shows based off of preexisting content or a spin off or remake of an older show, the original content on television is also thriving.  Let us not forget that shows like "Star Vs the Forces of Evil", "Steven Universe", among others exist out there, without the aid of previously worked on content.  I mean, one of the shows I mentioned follows the adventures of magical feminine creatures made from various gemstones warring over how to utilize their clear advantages over the rest of the galaxy.  There aren't any studio mandates in these shows, as they go where they want and do what they want.  They will not shy away from topics like genocide, nationalism, pride, sexuality, depression, and the Illuminati.  Would a Marvel film go in depth on a homosexual relationship between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes?  Or would a Disney film actually have the gall to have an openly homosexual relationship?  No, and until homosexuality can make it past stereotypes we see in shows like "Family Guy", we won't see it.

2. Video Games

Yes, there will always be the standard Mario game, or the rehashed Call of Duty game out every year or so.  But when it comes to originality within video games released, we have never been in a better era.  For every three or four rehashed Pokemon or Final Fantasy game that comes out every year, you get a game like The Last of Us or even something as refreshingly original as Arkham City, even if it was based off of preexisting content.  Let's face it, the idea pool for creating new and refreshing ideas is very slim.  Hell, I keep finding that my own personal stories do have some similarities to other people's works and I am in the process of reworking and rewriting them.  The key to creating original ideas if some are already used or borrowed, is to put a different costume on them.  Sure, there's a new Mario platformer every year and sure the holidays will no doubt see another COD or Pokemon game.  But if Nintendo or any of the other developers was simply rehashing the same game year after year, their audiences would be bored and stop buying the games.  So, the developers know to introduce new mechanics, new level designs, or new special ops missions.  This is why I have little to no problem with the immense amount of Lego games out there now (though Rock Band was pushing it).  Sure they borrow story and gameplay elements from various movies and television franchises, but they let you put your own spin on it every now and then.  Even game series like Kingdom Hearts and The Legend of Zelda often reuse certain gameplay elements while introducing new ones or further deepening the story.



This does not happen in movies.  The more I watch The Force Awakens, or when I have to sit through one of the live action Disney Remakes, the more I yearn to remember how good these stories were THE FIRST TIME I saw or heard them.  Instead of watching a fancier version of A New Hope, why don't I watch the ORIGINAL A New Hope.  Instead of going to see ANOTHER Spiderman film in theaters, why don't I just go watch the original?

The saddest part, though, is that there probably are a bunch of people out there with original ideas that don't get the funding or time they deserve to show how imaginative they can be.  I ran into this problem myself personally.  When looking for an agent, I happened to find one who represented a former bestselling author.  He looked at me and him and chose to roll with him instead of me for his next book and I was left alone.  The younger generation is always going to get scorned by the older generation, because we are not smart enough to make good films, but we're not hard workers because we haven't had the opportunity in filmmaking or publishing.  It's a no win situation and shows why SO MANY people desperately need their YouTube or other media network revenue to make a living doing things they're good at without diluting the market for other things.

This is a problem that the Movie Moguls are going to have.  Like all bubbles in Hollywood History (Shaymalan, Dark Fairy Tales, Tim Burton, etc.) this remake bubble will pop and result in bomb after bomb.  We saw it already with Ghostbusters and Ben-Hur.  Eventually, one of the bigger ones will fall, and if it's Lion King that takes the big hit, so be it.