User blog:Rhonda the stalker fan!/Rhonda's Rant/Retrospective; Atmosphere and Tone; What Total Drama sequels missed.

I've noticed a lot of blogs have sprung up about past episodes and character rankings for Total Drama Island. Naturally it got me thinking, and I couldn't sleep so I wrote this. Probably not the best use of my time but I thought I'd share it.

I tend to assume everyone's favorite season is Total Drama Island. But this isn't always true. I've seen at least a few other people on other sites state their favorite is Total Drama World Tour, and Total Drama Island is their least favorite. They say that they like World Tour better because it's more comedic, it's a cartoon and a satire on reality television. It takes itself less serious the most here. They said TDI was uninteresting and the characters were undimesional.

Everyone's intitled to their own opinion and I do like it when I find different opinions then mine as it's gives me the chance to think, define my own opinion and look at it. That above statement I can see, but I don't neccesarily agree with. Yes it's a cartoon, but a cartoon can't have drama or be than just funny?

It got me thinking and had been for awhile; what differs most from the sequels to the original that I hate? And I think I figured it out; it's the atmosphere.

Total Drama isn't the first 'animated reality show'. That goes to an adult show called Drawn Together, but thats more the 'filming people in a house together' type.

Total Drama is more a competiton type reality show. And I think what I liked about Total Drama Island is that it blended reality TV with a cartoon well. Early on there was still tension, therre was startegy, and the eliminations weren't too predictable. [The former's not as true in the latter half, but I don't take too much grievences with that].

Yet Total Drama Island was still funny. It still had jokes, puns, slapstick, humourous moments created by the characters. It's still funny like a cartoon can be but also has the edge of reality show. It blends both well. And it blends other things well too.

The characters are all teenagers, and it creates teenage drama and it's humor is very teen like. The characters are even based on teen stereotypes, but I still think serve as interesting characters and kind of develop. They aren't as Flanderized as in future seasons.

It also uses it's location well. It's themed around being at a summer camp. When you think of summer camp, you think crappy. And Total Drama Island goes with that and makes things crappy. An experience in summer camp, at least the image in our minds done by media, is that summer camp is a place that isn't fun where you do tedious tasks, have bad food, and though you may leave with a couple of good friends, you'll also leave with unpleasent experiences, and feel like a bit of your summer has been wasted.

Total Drama Island creates that feel. It blends reality TV, cartoon comedy, teen drama and the feel of summer camp. That's its tone or atmosphere.

My issues with future seasons can be summed up in three words; characters, plot and atmosphere. The first two are the big offenders, plotlines are started and never go anywhere, and the characters don't develop, and sometimes act different then they have. These seasons are sequels, at least Action and World Tour, but they don't build on the original, adding things that weren't there and doing nothing new with the characters.

Total Drama Island suffered some contiunity flaws and had occasional out of character moments, but it was less. Maybe it wasn't as lazy. Or maybe those moments weren't as upsetting because we had this great atmopshere created by it so it could be overlooked.

Total Drama Action is suppose to be based off movies and such. But it feels like being at Total Drama Island with the gimmick being the challenges have to enough stuff to be able to be reffered to as some type of genre. The way I'm trying to phrase that, is to show the challenges aren't exactly playing with genres, usually typical tropes in them and adding a Total Drama feel, or as well as they could be.

It's still the joke we're at a crappy place due to tedious tasks. It doesn't create the feel of seeing a movie in a theather, getting caught up in it. Going to a theather could be defined as 'fun'. You need to create a fun atmopshere with movies I think. They didn't, or not well enough.

I don't think they commited as much. The challenges I like in Action are usually the ones that do a better job of that. Let's use the space challenges for example. The first one, the alien challenge, kind of parodies the Alien franchise. It has things like a tracker, getting alien samples, a protective alien queen. And it even plays with tropes in alien invasion movies, like the milatry bombing the aliens, which just makes things worse.

The later one is riding in two theme park rides, one to 'cause' zero gravity and the other to make you throw up. The funniest part of that for me is the parody of the slow astronaunt walk scene. It's joking about the movie genre, instead of trying to say 'everything is cheap and sucky'.

Or the western challenge. It didn't create a western feel. They did a dive on a horse challenge that was way to similar to the cliff. And the roping was pretty lame. They even failed to do a traditional western shoot out, one of the most obvious things about westerns. I could go into detail a way they could've done, and even how it works with it's plot, but I'll try and make this shorter.

The ceremony is also pretty lame. With Total Drama Island's ceremony, it worked. Roasting marshmallows is how you end a day of camping. Not to mention it being at night, and the noise of the crackling fire. It all fit too well.

An awards ceremony isn't techinically part of movie making, but it's after the movie's been made, so I think it works. But all it is is them sitting on bleachers and being tossed statues. Pretty lame. Again, go all out with your theme. You aren't trying to be stragetic, be comedic.

Why not treat as like an actual awards ceremoney. Like have an opening narration by Chef, have Chris come out of a curtain and do a speech that's trying to be funny but is painfully funny like an actual show. Have them come on stage for their awards. How about even have a cardboard cutout audience, who chris can have make sound effects, like cheering, booing, gasping, cricket noises, an awkward cough, etc.

World Tour does the same thing. Traveling around the world should be fun adventures. Not visitng Chris' cousin, easter egg hunting, and such. Using location ;) I'm guilty of it too in my stories too, but I think not ruining the characters to a degree balances that out.

World Tour also doesn't do much with it's music theme. In animation you can do a lot with music, using animation shifts and being really catchy. The songs that try that are usually good, but some just really fail and aren't creative. You can say they're suppose to be bad, but why would I wanna listen to a bad song! It's not even so out there it's funny.

The episode in the Amazon stands out me. The whole point is too get to the temple, but we never explore the temple, you know having like DJ and Linsday comically exploring it and the booby traps. The challenges in the jungle aren't really adventrous and feel more like cheap obstacles set up by Chris.

And the natives aren't even real natives. That's lame. And the song. Gypsy Rap, really? What did gypsys even have to do with that? Here's an idea, why not the musical being sung by actual natives, in catchy made phrases in their lanaguage.

Maybe their singing about Heather, and she thinks they're singing her praises, and she sings along about herself, and the others sing saracastic comments. Then it turns out their singing about cooking her, and they're actually cannibals! And then maybe they sing and dance to distract the natives while they escape [let's say Cody gets them out cause that might make him cooler].

Maybe that's not a great idea, but it beats the Gypsy Rap right? And I just thought of that in three mintues or less.

As for Revenge of The Island...I don't even know. It's back at camp, but there not camping, and it's radioactive and we basically go to a different location every episode. Maybe the theme of the challenges is just sadistic. I guess with revenge...

The biggest error of these sequels to me, is that they don't blend as well as Total Drama Island. They drop the reality show tension, even losing the little music. The teen drama isn't as good, mostly on character fault.

I guess it's got the same comedic tone, but it's amped it up. In true bad sequel fashion, it takes some memorable aspects and shoves them down our throats till we've seen it and to grab our attention they strech it to the extreme.

I remember hearing what worked with Jaws and what the knock offs failed to capture. Sure a giant shark is cool, but it was more than the shark. It was both the presentation [the build up music, the way we didn't see the shark] and our investment in the characters that made it work. We cared about the main character because we knew he had a family, and he wanted to protect this place.

It's been said we notice flaws more often when we weren't as engaged as we should be. I might be more forgiving about the atmosphere and presentation if the characters weren't dried up, or vice versa. But they both did hit the same highs.

What can we expect from All-Stars? Well it's heroes and villains so the dynamic between the two should be good. All Star seasons should be focused on the characters, that's why they're called All-Stars. Remind us why we like them and creating interesting dynamics with characters they do and don't know. Basically it really hinges on the characters, and nostaglia. And with the character issues and contunity issues this show has, I'm really trying hard not to write it off.

You could say I'm asking too much out of a cartoon? But shouldn't we be wanting good quality? We want good quality food, homes, safety, why not TV? A cartoon can be interesting, enganging, thought provoking, and hilarious. Total Drama doesn't need to be thought provoking but it shouldn't be medicore when it has potential.

Kids are watching cartoons and they have to have some effect, so let's make them fun and enganging. Entertainment entertain us. We shoudn't be fine with alright, but want more.

I don't keep caring and watching Total Drama because it is offering something new, fun and or enganging. I'm watching it because I'm hoping that good spark this show had will come back.

But instead they're just doing pretty much the same thing but with a gimmick. It's like beating a dead horse repeatedly but switching tools to beat him with and calling it variety.

While changing the theme of location or challenge hasn't been done greatly, it offers a lot of potential in fanfiction. We can have a season with theme or an interesting location and can explore it. I do see some fics lately that are Survivor fics. And nothing is wrong with that.

But Survivor's focus is on strategy, not it's characters or comedy. Some players are destined to be forgetful [there's always that young, early out chick with no screentime I feel like] so designing interesting characters is kind of waste. And Survivor, while can be funny, is more about being intense and strategic so you want capture.

I'm not saying a Survivor fic can't be different nor am I bashing on Survivor fics here or anyone who uses. I'm just saying I feel there is flexability in Total Drama fics; we can have reality show like twists and moments, but can balance them out with comedy much more naturally. We can also have alot and do alot with characters more.

So even if the show is beating the dead horse, we can still be creative, and try different things instead the same. I'm going to try to do more of that myself.