Platform Diving

Reincarnating The Addams Family

Oscar Isaac is the voice of Gomez Addams, Chloë Grace Moretz is the voice of Wednesday Addams, Nick Kroll is the voice of Uncle Fester, Charlize Theron is the voice of Morticia Addams, Finn Wolfhard is the voice of Pugsley Addams, Conrad Vernon is the voice of Lurch, and Bette Midler is the voice of Grandma in The Addams Family.
Oscar Isaac is the voice of Gomez Addams, Chloë Grace Moretz is the voice of Wednesday Addams, Nick Kroll is the voice of Uncle Fester, Charlize Theron is the voice of Morticia Addams, Finn Wolfhard is the voice of Pugsley Addams, Conrad Vernon is the voice of Lurch, and Bette Midler is the voice of Grandma in The Addams Family.

The theme song is iconic. The characters are classic. The story has been tested across time and different mediums. But The Addams Family has shown uncanny resilience to persist through the years. Now, it's back once again and in cartoon form, nonetheless.

I guess it makes sense to bring back The Addams Family around Halloween, or as the kids are calling it nowadays, "Spooky Time." I was skeptical when I first heard they were remaking The Addams Family because my general rule on remaking older cartoons is simple. Don't.

And while I say cartoons, most of my readers are probably more familiar with The Addams Family as a black and white live-action television series from 1964 ... or the 1977 movie ... or the 1991 and 1993 movies. But the series was a printed cartoon, first in The New Yorker way back in 1938. There was an animated series in 1973 and one in 1992. Out of all those versions of this franchise, I grew up with the 1992 cartoon and enjoyed it well enough.

For those unfamiliar, the story follows a creepy and kooky clan known as the Addams family. The story is usually them moving into a new area, doing creepy, macabre activities that scare the people around them and then dealing with the fallout with a spooky grave and charm that only Morticia and Gomez can produce.

For all the iterations of The Addams Family, I never felt like the series was overused. I'm always down to watch Wednesday triumph over Pugsley in a game of burying the sibling alive.

I'm happy to see the remarkably sweet Thing run across the mantel with flowers for Morticia or Lurch be thrown a party by the rest of the Addamses so he knows that he's not just a butler but an actual member of their family.

I guess one of my favorite aspects of this series is just how accepting the Addams family is. They've got some children that, by normal societal standards, would be considered pretty strange. They've got Uncle Fester, who has a strange fascination with blowing himself up. They've got a butler who talks really slow. A cousin covered entirely in hair. And a friendly disembodied hand that they treat as a person, not a pet.

And with all these extremely colorful characters, they don't bat an eye at showing each and every one of them dignity, love and acceptance as part of the family. In such a hyper-charged time we live in at this moment, I guess it's just refreshing to see such grace and approval in a family instead of constant fighting and hatred. And that's not some new feature or ideology they've thrown in for this one movie. It shows up in each iteration.

The Addams Family I grew up with was a '90s cartoon, which a decade ago I would have snobbily considered easily superior to any modern cartoons. Rugrats, Hey Arnold, Ed, Edd, n Eddy, these were all shows I grew up loving and still do to this day. But I was naive to think studios and creative directors lacked the ability to create amazing cartoons today.

Right now, I'm working through season two of Carmen Sandiego. It's one of my favorite shows on Netflix. I just saw that next month I'm getting new seasons of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and The Dragon Prince. I also learned that I'll be getting a season six of Steven Universe, and these are all great modern cartoons that I truly adore.

I bring this up to show that although I immensely enjoyed the 1992 cartoon, the upcoming Addams Family animated movie might turn out to be something special on its own. I'll be seeing it the day this article comes out, so it's not like I have any clue how good it is as I write this now.

Initially, upon seeing the first trailer, I was skeptical. Even if I recognize that modern cartoons have an amazing capacity for increased storytelling and visuals compared to their '90s cartoon counterparts, I'm always going to be nervous about rebooting cartoons in general. Sometimes it works great. I think the new She-Ra is leaps and bounds better than the 1985 cartoon in terms of story, character development, representation, visuals and every other demographic one can measure a cartoon by.

But most of the time, rebooting an older cartoon flops and flops hard. I don't care much for the new Powerpuff Girls compared to the original. ReBoot: The Guardian Code was trash compared to the original ReBoot. Each Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles iteration after the 2003 series has gotten progressively worse. The odds are truly stacked against cartoon reboots. It's why I pray we'll never see a reboot of the Disney Gargoyles series. Some things are better left alone.

The Addams Family trailer initially left me wondering who was handling the animation. When I first saw the style, I assumed it was Sony Pictures Animation. Upon further research, I found a Canadian company called Nitrogen Studios is responsible for this reboot. And the biggest title under its belt was 2016's Sausage Party, which got good reviews and was as raunchy as all get out. Definitely not one for the kiddos.

I suppose the most jarring transitional element will be switching from the traditional 2-D animation of the 1992 cartoon to this new movie. I still prefer traditional looking 2-D animation to 3-D in most instances, but 3-D animation styles have come a long way in the last few years.

Like I mentioned earlier, one of my favorite cartoons right now is The Dragon Prince, which was created by the folks who made Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra. Avatar was done in a traditional 2-D animation, but its sequel incorporated more 3-D elements to some great success.

The Dragon Prince uses a 3-D animation style, and the first season had some truly wonky moments. But that wasn't ever attributed to the 3-D, so much as it was the frame rate, a much more technical issue. And those kinks were gone from the second season.

Earlier this year, Netflix debuted a reboot of an anime series called Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac. The original 2-D anime aired in 1986 and is a cult classic (though I always preferred Ronin Warriors). Netflix's reboot was completely redone in a 3-D style, and visually, it looks fantastic. The story and characters are dull, but the art itself is a great strength.

Some art changes I simply cannot tolerate. Changing things up from the 2003 Teen Titans to the 2013 Teen Titans Go! is something I simply can't stomach, even to this day.

With that said, I'm more than willing to give this new movie the benefit of the doubt. The characters look to have translated well in the trailers I've seen, and as long as there's plenty of spooky, I'm sure I'll be happy.

What I'm really looking forward to seeing is just the oddball stories the 1992 series did so well, from jousting competitions between Wednesday and Pugsley to Thing teaching Pugsley to dance. I want the zaniness I grew up with to shine through. And with stars like Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron lending their voices to the heads of the family, I'm sure the potential is there.

MovieStyle on 10/11/2019

Upcoming Events