Every live action/CG adaptation of a beloved cartoon/comic strip from the past MUST have:
• Toilet humor
• Rapping/singing pop music
• Countless references to pop culture (bonus points if they are so current, they become obscure and irrelevant in 5 years)
• Set in the modern day
• The main characters go missing, get kidnapped and are lost in a major American city
• If there is a sequel, they go to Europe
• Terribly mismatched celebrity voice actors playing the main characters, despite there being readily available professional voice actors who could emulate the original voices
Garfield, Garfield 2, Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo 2, Yogi Bear, Marmaduke, Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Alvin and the Chipmunks 2... the list goes on.
Thank god they haven't fucked up Peanuts. If I ever see a CG Snoopy, I'll kill whoever is involved.
There are rare exceptions. The first Ninja Turtles movie was a great adaptation of the comics. It had hints of the cartoon, but wasn't too nutty and was actually far better than it deserved to be. Personally, I loved TMNT1 and enjoy TMNT2 despite the corny lines and Vanilla Ice cameo. The costumes were great. Good ol' Jim Henson.
The Flintstones movie was actually a very accurate adaptation. Any pop culture references were no different from the orignal show. How good the movie was is up to people's own opinions, but most people have to agree that it did a good job in being a live action version of the show. Now if only the Flintstones traveled through time, ended up in modern New York, went missing, sang a Lady Gaga song and Dino was voiced by John Hamm.
