Why Was the Inspector Gadget Reboot No More Serious than the Original?
The Blind Eternities forum
Posted on July 28, 2020, 6:47 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
In recent years, many classic animated series from previous decades have been rebooted, mainly as the people who watched their original incarnations grew to adulthood and wished to make their own versions of them. Usually, the newer incarnations were darker and more serious, since audience preferences have changed, over time, with some of the most notable examples of that trend being the new incarnations of He-Man, Thundercats, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Not long ago, Inspector Gadget was rebooted, and, from what little I have seen of that reboot, it is just as corny and campy as was the original series, which I find to be weird, since the general trend of rebooting classic animated series usually includes making them more serious and less comedic.
Of course, I would not expect Inspector Gadget to be as dark and as serious as Gargoyles or Batman: the Animated Series, but surely, it could be at least somewhat more serious? One could argue that the entire concept is too comedic to be made serious and still be the same entity, but Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated was darker than any previous incarnation of the franchise, which, before then, was very lighthearted and silly, and, yet, most people hold it in very high regard, so the same could have been done with Inspector Gadget.
For example, an idea that I had would be that Gadget was originally an ordinary police officer who was severely injured in the line of duty, and given cybernetic enhancements to save his life, and a running subplot could be that he fears that he is losing his humanity, like a less violent version of Robocop (which did, in fact, have an animated series in the 1980’s and 90’s).
What does everyone else say about this? Why was the reboot of Inspector Gadget no more serious than was the original?
DemonDragonJ says... #3
MindAblaze, again to use my previous example, Scooby-Doo was a silly series, but Mystery Incorporated was a dark and edgy variation of it, and it worked, from what I know, so there is no reason that the same could not be done for Inspector Gadget; or, are you saying that making IG more serious would be the equivalent of making Looney Toons dark and edgy?
July 29, 2020 12:08 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #4
I believe so. It’d be like making the Monstars actually scary, you could do it but the spirit gets lost.
MindAblaze says... #2
The whole shtick was that Gadget is a Clouseau-esque silly man with a supporting cast. Making it anymore than that would make it not Gadget.
There are some more serious supporting characters in that show now, but yes, it’s still silly.
July 28, 2020 7:49 p.m.