#I WAS FULLY PREPARED TO JUST SKIM THE DIALOGUE BUT I WAS SO SAD WHEN HE LEFT

[ballad-of-the-eleventh]

FUCK YOU GUYS MIKA IS MY SON NOW

[brittanybutler]

My thoughts on the novelization of the Kim Possible movie! Minor spoilers.

Okay, so I caved and bought a digital copy of the live action Kim Possible movie novelization and, uh... I have some thoughts. Continue reading for some general information and my opinion on the overall vibe. Nothing toooo spoiler-y or deep. Well, I get deep with my analysis... but I’m not analyzing anything too big. Just minor things and lines that aren’t important to the storyline but can give you a pretty good idea of what the movie will be like. There are no details that I would consider major or huge plot points in this post. If you’ve seen all of the trailers/sneak peeks and are familiar with the film’s summary, you should be alright. Basically, keep reading if you want to know what to mentally prepare yourself for lol.

Right off the bat, all I’m gonna say is that judging from the dialogue alone -- it’s definitely geared towards kids. Young kids. I don’t think teenagers will think this is cool. Just as I feared, there’s cheesy use of social media (selfies, live-streaming, youtube) and annoying 2010s slang (“shook” “fam” “kthanksbye,” etc.) I don’t understand why they feel the need to throw in stuff like that to make it ~current~??? It just makes it feel awkward and trying too hard to be relatable. I think keeping it relatively timeless and omitting slang and selfies would’ve been the better option for a live action adaptation of something as iconic as Kim Possible. There’s already enough technology with her freaking holographic Kimmunicator and gadgets! haha. It’s 2019. We all know that smartphones are a thing. They’re normalized now. You don’t need to shove it in our face, haha. I mean, Kim said some dated slang in the cartoon and flip phones were prominent... but it’s a cartoon. It works. With live action, it gets a little dicey. You want these characters to feel like people who talk like real people, ya know?!

Something that made me cringe beyond belief is the first scene at Bueno Nacho. Athena named her dog “Ron Stop-pit-bull” (I kid you not) so Ron says something about wanting to be a freaking dog when he grows up??? So Athena and Ron literally proceed to woof like dogs and break into laughter about it......??? I have no idea how that’s not gonna be cringeworthy on screen. I wanted to die just from reading it. Some people assumed this photo from J-14 magazine was behind the scenes, but it does in fact happen in the movie: 

One thing that sorta rubbed me the wrong way is that they talk about Kim and Ron being famous heroes on the news and everything a liiiiittle too much. Athena being a superfan of Kim and Ron kinda goes along with that and could potentially feel a little overkill. The morons who think that Kim had a secret identity are gonna have a field day with that lol. Ugh.

The holographic Kimmunicator is a really cool update for this generation since the original one was essentially a smartphone with FaceTime and wouldn’t be nearly has forward thinking as it was in 2002. Towards the end of the KP series it was updated to a wristwatch, among a few other different designs (but a wristwatch also wouldn’t be forward thinking today thanks to Apple Watches) and now it’s a necklace. I like that! 

The only issue is that it’s not very discreet. Wade pops up a lot throughout the movie and as we saw in the sneak peek, the hologram is pretty huge. I hope the size can vary or something? Because that could be weird when Wade beeps Kim at school and stuff. It was handy when cartoon Kim could casually whip out the handheld, open her locker and talk to Wade on the computer, or glance at her wrist. Not sure how this is gonna fly in other situations:

Also, this sneak peek makes more sense in context. I figured it would. People are seriously overreacting. They portray Kim as a perfectionist and she desperately wants to be on time for her first day of high school. It’s not “WHY is Kim using her gadgets and Wade’s help for an every day situation?!?! UGHH” like people are complaining about. It makes sense to me. It’s cute! That barrel roll is still completely unnecessary though, hahahahaha. But, I’m embracing the random stunts like that. I think it’s hysterical. 

I know a lot of people (myself included) were upset about Kim not being a cheerleader, but she actually is! Or at least, she was...? And is still interested in cheer at the beginning of the movie. So that’s nice! Kim being a cheerleader was necessary on the show because it helped us make sense of all her flips and kicks and such during missions. It’s a really important part of her character so I was sooo happy to see that it wasn’t completely erased!

I still want to be surprised by the movie, so I just skimmed it and skipped a lot of pages. But yeaaaah. That’s the general gist of it. I feel like I’ve read enough to know that I should keep my expectations lower than I originally planned. This doesn’t mean the movie is going to be terrible or anything. The junior novelizations usually leave out a lot of things (the book felt extremely short? Granted, I skipped a lot.. but yeah) and the whole story is written in a way that’s cheesy and simple for little kids to read. Like, I’m not gonna lie. I was pretty much cringing non-stop. I have a junior novelization of The Even Stevens Movie and it’s cringy as HECK. They even changed some of the dialogue for whatever reason! But the movie isn’t nearly as cringy and is clearly a campy self-aware flick once you watch it. I’m hoping KP will be the same way.

I can’t help but worry that it’ll translate to screen as suuuuper lame though. Let’s hope the actors can pull it off convincingly. I want to love Ron (I stand by my word that Sean Giambrone is the perfect choice) but he’s seeming a little too dumb at points, overly kid friendly and hunky dory! Like a literal human cartoon. He trips over his shoelaces and falls victim to other clichés like that. Some of the lines he has are... oh boy. [i.e. *sees a giant statue of a brain* “WOW! I didn’t know brains were so big! How do they fit in our heads?!” -- An actual Ron Stoppable quote.] In a cartoon, a line like that works. But live action? Ehhh. It all depends on Sean’s delivery though, and I have faith in him but... dang, he has some awkward dialogue to work with.

I’m a huge fan of The Goldbergs, so Ron is the main thing I’m excited about if I’m being totally honest. I will say, the first two chapters are the only parts I read fully (since they were the free sample) and I liked it. It’s action packed and fun. We’ve actually seen a lot of it in the trailers already so if you wanna read it, it doesn’t spoil too much at all. Ron’s grand entrance is cute and wacky and I actually smiled really hard while reading and picturing it. :)

I’m not a big fan of how Rufus is introduced. They made a major change and it kinda genuinely upset me. But, I will say.. they at least give us an explanation for why Rufus is so smart and aware. That’s kinda cool, since in a 2d cartoon you don’t need to question why a naked mole rat can talk and point and help Kim and Ron lol. I’m horrified of how the CGI will look in action though. From the one photo we’ve seen, he looks kinda terrifying imo: 

I’ve said before that instead of attempting to go for a ~realistic~ feel, they might’ve been better off keeping 2d animated Rufus and having a vibe similar to Space Jam lol. I mean, Kim Possible is a cartoon that makes no logical since in real life so I don’t think that would’ve hurt. Or maybe I’m just sad because 2d Rufus is sooo adorable. I’m gonna miss him so much. 

EDIT: They’ve officially released some footage of Rufus in action and he looks waaaaaay better than I expected! Yay!

As everyone has predicted, from the few parts I read.. Drakken and Shego seem awesome and on point! Pretty funny as well. I don’t have any complaints about them. Rest assured, Shego delivers her sarcastic remarks a ton. I actually laughed out loud at one of them omg. From what we’ve seen, Todd is doing a fantastic Drakken and Taylor has great deadpan delivery. I have a feeling they might steal the show tbh!

So, yeah. Make of this what you will!

I’m still really excited for the movie, but I’m relieved to have my expectations in check now.