News Powerpuff Girls live-action TV series in development

Not familiar with the third actress, but from I'm I like Chloe Bennet and Dove Cameron.

 

Now this is not something I was expecting to see! I need to bite my tongue before commenting...
https://www.tmz.com/2021/04/07/powe...n-set-in-costume-blossom-flying-chloe-bennet/

 

Wow. It's pretty good casting, appearance-wise at least, and for something targeting an adult audience. I will tune in to try it out. How well it works will just have to wait to be seen. Hopeful, but skeptical. Seems possible to crash and burn hard, but with the right tone it could work. (Fan of the original cartoon.)

 

Are you saying that as a good thing or a bad thing?
I think the outfits work pretty well as live action, adult versions of their costumes.

 

Both, wasn't expecting them to do those costumes.

 

Not the clearest images, but they look good.

Although I wouldn't be surprised if this is a flashback to their younger days, rather than their current look.

 

Casting news:

https://deadline.com/2021/04/powerp...r-in-cws-live-action-reboot-pilot-1234730777/

I'm so thrilled they're bringing back Tom Kenny as the Narrator! It just wouldn't have felt right not to have every episode open with "The City of Townsville."

 

The original cartoon was great.

Not sure how a live-action series will recapture the magic? Or are they doing something like the "Banana Splits" where they make it all weird and warped?

 

I assume they're going for something like Riverdale where it's more of a dark, soapy remix of the concept -- the Girls are all grown up and disillusioned, they went their separate ways, now they're coming back together. Although I hope they retain more of the humor and goofiness. If they're keeping the Narrator, that's a good sign.

 

Is this being done to capitalize on the success of the highly lucrative live action version of Teen Titans Go?

 

The what now? If you're talking about DC Universe's Titans, that's not based on Teen Titans Go; rather, they're both based on the same 1980s DC comic book series. (Or rather, Go is based on the early-2000s Teen Titans animated series that was based on the comic.)

 

Similarly the art style of Teen Titans Go! is inspired by the art style of the Powerpuff Girls which is based on 20th century American comic books about costumed super heroes. Correspondingly the faux pedantic writing style of this post is based on innumerable posts made on the trekbbs infranet forums.

On a completely unrelated tangent, anyone remember this episode of Teen Titans Go! from 2017?

 

I wouldn't say that at all. They're both pretty much influenced by the superdeformed/chibi design style used for comedy characters in anime and manga. Glen Murakami's character designs for the original Teen Titans animated series were highly anime-influenced, and that show often followed the lead of anime/manga in having the characters briefly change into chibi versions of themselves (babylike caricatures with huge heads and tiny bodies) for comedy reaction shots. TTG!'s character redesigns strike me as variations on the chibi versions of the TT characters. As for Powerpuff Girls, I always felt it was a parody of magical-girl and superhero anime (e.g. Sailor Moon), the juxtaposition of cute girls in color-coded costumes with ultraviolent action, and so it took the stylistic aspects of that to an extreme, making the "superdeformed" design formula even more deformed with gigantic heads and eyes and even tinier, more simplified bodies.

 

Yeah, most modern comic art looks more like this.

 

EW.com has an official first look photo of Chloe Bennet, Dove Cameron, and Yana Perrault, and according to the article, the costumes in the leaked set photo will only be seen in flashbacks.
it's nice to see what the actresses look like in character, but there's really nothing about the picture that say "Powerpuff Girls" to me.

 

As I figured, given the published description of the premise. If they're jaded twentysomethings who left the life behind them, naturally they wouldn't still be in costume. Though at least it sounds like the flashbacks will be an ongoing thing as with Arrow, rather than just for the setup in the pilot.

Well, of course it's not trying to be the same thing, any more than Picard is trying to be the same thing as The Next Generation or Trapper John, M.D. was trying to be the same thing as M*A*S*H -- or any more than Riverdale is trying to be the same thing as the Archie cartoons I watched as a kid in the '70s. It's something new that uses the original as its starting point.

And I hope I can keep that in mind. I'm a bit conflicted, since I think Chloe Bennet and Dove Cameron are really gorgeous, and Yana Perrault looks pretty fine there too -- yet they're playing characters that I'm used to thinking of as kindergarteners, so, . I'll have to keep reminding myself that that was a long time ago.

 

I can understand that, but I still kind of expected to get some kind of a callback to the cartoon in our first promotional picture.

 

If Him doesn't show up I'm going to be disappointed.

 

The callback is in the composition -- the placement of the sisters (Bubbles/Blossom/Buttercup), their trademark colors, the vertical streaks emulating the anime-style speed lines the show used heavily. Compare it to these shots:

https://media.comicbook.com/2020/08/powerpuff-girls-live-action-reactions-the-cw-1234627-1280x0.jpeg
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4718304/mediaviewer/rm729743872/

I always found Him homophobic, playing into the longstanding stereotype of effeminate or gender-ambiguous men being portrayed as evil and twisted. I was surprised to discover that many people today see Him as some kind of early triumph of non-binary representation rather than an offensive caricature.

 

If not for villains being coded as queer there would be no representation of LGBTQ people at all in media before a certain period, especially in media created for children. So many LGBTQ people identify with certain aspects of those characters because they don't have any other option. It's why I adore Angela from Sleepaway Camp who did nothing wrong. Slay Queen slay!