My guess is that some executive hated the idea of the protagonist of a kid's movie being kind of villainous, and once that choice was made, everyone knew the movie would flop and stopped trying.
I haven't read the books, but it seems like that's the primary hook. Which makes me wonder what's the point if Disney didn't have the courage to commit to the premise.
Artemis Fowl is meant to be an antagonist (in the first book at least) so it's baffling that Disney just chose not to stick to this key aspect of the character
Over the first three or four books (the fifth book feels like the point Colfer realised he could spin the series out for as long as he could with the major shift in world building focus to other dimensions) he develops into a good person, the first book being to set up where his character arc begins from.
That was a total deal breaker for me. Artemis Fowl is fantasy Die Hard. He needs to be a sadistic, cruel little brat that outsmarts the overconfident, arrogant Fae folk. It was peak grey vs grey.
Minor correction, protagonist and antagonist refer to the central character and their opposing force respectively. Artemis is the protagonist of book 1. But he is also definitely the villain of book 1.
@mattgriffin0231 unless you view Holly as the protagonist, since she is technically one too? It's like death note, you see both sides play off against each other from their POVs, but it also uses the villain as the main protagonist.
See the thing is, that feeding time scene? It's actually one of the few book accurate scenes in the movie, the dwarves from Artemis fowl dig by unhinging their jaws, shoveling up and swallowing giant mouthfuls of dirt, passing it rapidly through their digestion, and violently excreting it behind them as they dig, allowing them to burrow through dirt faster than most people can run. Honestly, I actually rather liked how grotesquely they portrayed it in the movie, as Mulch Diggums is meant to be a super gross, freaky, unsavory character that no one ever wants to work with, but they have to anyway. So yeah, hats off to the movie for exactly one good scene! The rest of the movie can go suck a lemon.
I think part of the issue is it came out of nowhere. I remember reading the books and Mulch is always described from the beginning as having a massive inhumanly wide jaw and “gray tombstone teeth.” He also isn’t some “giant dwarf,” he’s normal fairy short, maybe a little taller than elves. If his grotesque qualities were more shown in the movie before that point it wouldn’t have been as shocking and unexpected as it was in the film.
I just had a flashback to being a child TWENTY YEARS AGO and the inside cover page in the book mentioned that a movie was coming soon. The fact that this movie was in production that long is insane.
Yeah the book was a tightly focused crime story (albeit a kid friendly one) with a fantasy twist that worked in the one location“bottle episode” setting cuz it was about the move and countermove of the criminal vs the LEP trying to get their hostage back. And Artemis was the main character but clearly the bad guy. It was more about tension building than bombastic action set pieces. Also it was just a straight up Artemis kidnaps Holly for ransom. None of the weird oculus artifact or Artemis Sr being involved stuff. They changed so much there was no way book fans weren’t gonna hate it. And made it so cheesy and awkward that it wasn’t gonna stand on its own.
Artemis is the antagonist of the first book (maybe the anti-villain at best). He is the terrorist that the police and SWAT teams are trying to neutralize. Disney wasn’t willing to embrace the title character being the villain.
9:17 So- pretty much. Almost the entire book does actually take place in the Fowl Manor, since the fairies have it locked down. But they cut the interesting market setting out of the beginning, don't spend nearly as much time as they could have in Fowley's lab, totally disregard the epic magma tube transport sequence, and don't even give Butler his incredible suit of armor and a mace face-off against the troll. I assure you, the book used its spaces much better.
Ah. One of those movies you watch the first 20 minutes of, realizes it has no soul and then turns it off and immediately forget that you ever watched it.
For someone who read the books, there are, but certainly not limited to, two severe flaws. The first is that book Artemis is very averse to physical activity that he absolutely doesn’t have to do, and doesn’t enjoy normal teenage things (he has to put on a typical teenager persona to infiltrate a bank in the fourth book and spends time grousing about wearing T shirt and jeans looking forward to getting back into his suit) so for him to be recreationally surfing is completely out of character to his prose counterpart. Then there’s the character of Root. In the books Holly is the only woman in the frontline officers of the LEP (Lower Elements Police Recon, aka leprechaun, the only other woman is there to look good for publicity material), needing to overcome how she is perceived in carrying out her duty. Her supervising officer is Julius Root, who is in her corner but this doesn’t mean he’s easy on her. The film genderbends Root to be Dame Julie Dench, undercutting the significance of Holly’s position and motivations. It’s gender diversity at the cost of something actually important carrying over from the source material.
Exactly, when further reading the series he comes off as gruff and stoic, a mentor and leader to holly and later in the series a very strong male role model in her life. Almost fatherly. But they decide to gut the whole thing just to try and follow this stupid trend.
Some 20+ years ago during my time at Disney Studio, I remember registering “Artemis Fowl” for online domain name. The name sounded so strange I remember it to this day.
Damn, that was harsh one, especially that it was expected to be huge for a female director. I hated Reese Witherspoon in that movie and man, it's too bad for me to say this as a huge fan of her
Can we stop letting Kenneth Branagh adapt things that aren't Shakespeare because he doesn't seem to understand his source material unless it's in iambic pentameter.
Adding a point that I haven't seen brought up yet, WHY were Holly and Juliet made into kids? It's been a while since I've read the books, but from what I remember Juliet was a teenager and Holly was a fully grown adult woman (just tiny because, y'know, she's a fairy). Part of the fun of reading this as a kid was that Artemis was a child (like me) surrounded by and totally dominating the adults around him. In getting rid of that and the fact that he is definitely villainous, they removed the main parts that made the book unique. (I also saw a comment below comparing Artemis Fowl to Die Hard with the villain as the protagonist, and THAT FEELS SO ACCURATE. Why couldn't they have just stuck with that?)
5:40 "Maybe it could of had potential." No. Full stop. As someone who grew up reading the novels, seeing Artemis Fowl surfboarding in the trailer was almost physically painful.
Until I saw this video I thought Artemis Fowl was some sort of athropomorphic duck, like Howard the Duck or Duckman. Thanks for clearning things up for me. I am disappointed that this is not about a duckman though.
What pisses me off about this movie the most is how much it botched the main character. His book counterpart is pretty cool and pretty subversive when it comes to protagonists of his genre. He's a genius rich kid, who has no powers or chosen one status and uses his cunning and wits to get out of situations. He's also a villain protagonist, and the first book is like if Die Hard was told in Hans Gruber's POV. In this movie, he's a bland plank without any charm or charisma. What a waste.
The Aculos macguffin was never in the books at all. I was very confused when they made this random glowing thing central to the plot. Fans of the books were insulted, and those unfamiliar with the books were confused, repulsed, and bored. Truly this film was for no one, and to this day I still consider it the worst movie I've ever sat through.
Yeah, I agree. Kenneth Brannagh hit a low point in his career with this movie. Man made Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, a Hercule Poirot Trilogy, my favourite Thor movie, and arguably the best Disney live-action to ever be made. It's hard to believe a director with this much talent would end up directing such a mess!
Brannagh has talent, but even a talented man can’t polish a turd. Once you’ve had so many directors pass through a project (and writers, cast, and crew) there’s an infinitesimal chance it works out. Truly teeny tiny. It’s like a chef trying to bake with ingredients already used to make other recipes.
It would do better as a cartoon. The entire premise is silly, but the story itself takes itself seriously. That is an easier pill to swallow in book, graphic novel, and cartoon. When you put it into live action the suspension of disbelief is harder.
I always thought a nice Live-action/animation hybrid would work well for Artemis Fowl. Because half the cast is normal aging humans and the other half is near immortal fairies. Animation would help keep the Faires getting older as the books/movies go on and give them that Otherness that would really sell the not-human-thing.
The problem is their size and the fact that movies really only bring in so much money. They literally fail unless they break records at the box office. I think these movies are their attempts to not only repeat Pirates but also to figure out the formula for creating blockbusters. You can see similarities between Pirates and a lot of the other videos you covered. They'll take bits and pieces they believe are important and assemble them into a different ip to repeat the success.
Imagine being Ferdia Shaw and thinking you're gonna be the next Daniel Radcliff and you're gonna be making blockbusters for at least the next 5-6 years only to have it get dumped on streaming and everyone immediately hated it
"Artemis Failed" because they made up nonsense that was not even in the book. Artemis is also not showing the "criminal" personality he is supposed to have. He is portrayed as a good kid, not smart either. He uses Apple products, where are the Macs? The best actor was Holly the fairy I think.
Sucks that they made the police force already integrated with females and males. In the books it’s just males and Holly Short is the first female accepted but obviously she faces a lot of sexism. She also isn’t a Mary sue. She doesn’t prove her male co-workers wrong by being better than them instantly. She’s a rookie and she makes rookie mistakes like anyone. She’s a real character with flaws and unfortunately her male co-workers, including her boss, Commander Root, blame her rookie mistakes on her being female. This hurts her, obviously, and she doubts herself but then she gets back up and keeps going. It takes several books of character growth and perseverance but slowly but surely she starts to become one of the best cops on the force and wins her male co-workers over with her hard work and dedication to become a competent police officer. The movie threw all of ghat away for no reason and that really sucks. She was one of my favorite female characters from any book I read as a kid and the movie just makes her so boring and bland. Her entire story is just not there.
You saying we don't know anything about the antagonist had me so baffled until I remembered this movie removed the fact that Artemis is the antagonist. 😭 (The protagonist is Holly in the first book.)
The books are really good but they're also incredibly dark and filled with dense sci-fantasy worldbuilding. Despite the young protagonist, I feel like a film adaptation should have been aimed at an older-teen audience and probably should have been animated in order to more easily portray the fantasy world.
this really feels and looks like a movie that would be released in 2002 on the disney channel. like halloweentown levels of camp plot and production. i probably would have loved this movie when i was nine or ten. im really just surprised this is as recent as it is because its giving some real xenon/sharkboy/spy kids vibes -which, like i said, was great when i was a kid so im not gonna judge this too harshly. when the main character is 10 and a superspy or something 😂 okay kids, pop off🎉
1:35 Christ I can only imagine how it must’ve felt to be that filmmaker. Imagine having so many people dislike your movies so much that they make a group effort to make sure you DON’T make a movie
I haven’t even watched this movie but from your explanation all I can say is “Read the books” they are genuinely so much fun, you’ll love them. Artemis is supposed to be the villain in book 1.
I hope we can get a faithful adaptation in TV series of these beloved books after the movie failed hard like the His Dark Materials books that managed to gain a successful faithful adaptation on HBO and BBC after New Line Cinema's movie adaptation of one of the books, The Golden Compass flopped hard at the box office. The book is great, it has every opportunity to be great when it's handed to the right team
Sadly, I don't think Disney will relinquish the rights to another streamer, especially if that streamer is Netflix, because we know Netflix would do it right (and then cancel it after one season!).
This, Uglies, Spiderwick, Percy Jackson, etc. has kinda made me feel like those old YA books just don’t work adapted. Harry Potter was a miracle. I think part of why it doesn’t work is that ppl either feel the need to change things for modern audiences or cuz they believe they could do better. Which is BS. I miss the old kids shows with action. It was a unique flavor that hasn’t been able to be captured cuz they’re either cancelled or butchered.
Harry Potter movies was butchered as heck if you even bother reading the books. A lot of the setting and characters was downright simplified and the casts was "Hollywoodfied" with a bunch of pretty boys and girls.
Bruh, they made that Spiderwick show into its own thing…for some odd reason. These studios are so quick to adapt books and raceswap to the point of inaccuracy (because seriously, as a black person, I’m going to ask what type of black family stays in a creepy house where taxidermy mice corpses were found in the dumbwaiter?) but rarely bother to adapt popular books starring people of color.
Two things made this film flop: 1 Turning Artemis into a good kid, as many commenters have already explained. 2. Forced diversity. Like one comment stated, Holly no longer being the only female in the LEP destroyed her as the feminist icon she is and whilst this is a little nitpicky, Butler was implied to be Siberian because of his Russian name but he was Eurasian looking. Asians still get fewer opportunities then black people do in Hollywood and how often is Siberian culture specifically given some limelight in Hollywood productions? Whilst I'm not from Siberia, I am of Eurasian heritage and blackwashing him wasn't cool to me.
Artemis needs what Netflix provided for A Series of Unfortunate Events. Artemis needs a series that properly covers the books - not a whitewashed movie that changes _everything_ about the books. That means... - Artemis needs to be a villain we root for as he slowly turns into an anti-hero - Holly needs to face the issues being the LEP's first female recon officer - Root needs to be his proper male self and treat Holly harshly for being the first female recon officer - Butler needs to be a Eurasian mountain of muscle who properly sends the beatdown on the troll - Artemis Fowl Senior needs to be kidnapped by the Russian mafia - Juliet needs to be pretty - Mulch has to be a dwarf - NOT JOSH GAD in terrible steampunk Middle Earth cosplay - Opal need not be mentioned or involved until The Arctic Incident
I'm actually really shocked that they didn't make the entire series a TV show. Fantasy High show for kids where you could plot everything out on cliffhangers and twists when not only work really well for episodic television. But it would also give the one-two punch of really highlighting the advantages of Disney+
Why do I love hearing about people taking massive Ls on RUclips. I don't care about Disney or this movie but when I see 'FAILED BIG THING' i couldn't wait to click.
I find it interesting how you never heard about the movie when it came out. I do remember there being “buzz” for this movie when it came out but for the wrong reasons. Everyone who had seen the movie was absolutely trashing on it when it came out which I remember fairly clearly.
the book is a base under siege story, so it's okay that there weren't many locations. but this movie was doomed to fail. i LOVED the books, but i knew i wouldnt watch as soon as i saw the trailer because the trailer showed him surfing and showed Butler/his dad handing Artemis this information/secret. The whole hook of the books is that Artemis is a super genius who can outsmart even adults but has almost no other skills, and that he's a little greedy monster. kids like him because his bad behavior is escapism, a power fantasy, but his awkwardness and immaturity make him relatable. but you want him to get better. it was clear that movie artemis wasn't going to have the same pull, so what was the point? (also, in the first book his dad is just backstory, and doesn't get rescued until book 2. while i understanding combining the first two books a la the black cauldron, artemis rescuing his beloved father is so humanizing that it really needed to be saved until AFTER you set artemis up as the villain. but that's my smallest gripe.)
It was in development hell for like 20 years, so yes the cost adds up. Frankly this shouldn't strictly be a kids movie because the main character is actually a bone fide villian.
I watched this movie on release day in D+ and it was one of the most miserable experiences I've had watching a movie. I was utterly baffled the whole time. The problems came early on, with the film's very few scenes having a bunch of characters just telling you how awesome Artemis Fowl was, and I already knew I was gonna hate the character because of it. If you want the audience to think a character is cool, then show them doing cool things. Having other characters tell you he's cool just doesn't work. Sadly, he's only one of this movie's many problems. Every other character is also underwritten and uninteresting, the plot is inconsistent and unfinished, the effects are unimpressive and the dialogue is preposterous. Having the movie end with Artemis telling how he's a criminal mastermind when at no point in the entire movie he was either of those things is insane. When I watched the movie I didn't know anything about the source material, but then out of morbid curiosity I started reading the first book and only two pages in I realized the entire plotline and characters have been completely and utterly butchered. I feel like had I gone into the movie as a fan of the books I would have ended up with brain cancer at the end.
So I didn't watch this movie on principle, but some of your criticism of the plot or character traits are from the book. Artemis Fowl isn't really supposed to be likable in the first book. He's basically a twist on the rich evil genius at first and the plot is literally just a kidnapping and ransom plot where our protagonist is the villain.
I think the best way, to show the stories of (ARTEMIS FOWL) in entertainment, is to make it into a, computer animated show series. I think this way, it could be possible, to see the main character, slowly change over time. From Artemis, starting out, as a selfish, egocentric, prideful, stubborn, disrespectful jerk, to slowly becoming a better person. Of him slowly becoming, kind, genuinely considerate, genuinely respectful, no longer prideful, and he realizes he must properly things through. In addition Artemis Fowl, stops being selfish, his ego lowers bit by bit, and he takes responsibility for his actions.
artemis fowl is a great book series, if they just stuck with it and had artemis be potrayed as a villain it would be great and be a great movie franchise
Even with the subverted expectations of live action Disney stuff based on books, it managed to make Maze Runner and Hunger Games look like a Christopher Nolan film. It sucked so bad, combining the elements of say MIB films, muddled mythology of the last two Percy Jackson films and made it into something boring as hell.
Honestly the original cinema release may not have flopped. It depends if it was the closer to the book version or the butchered frankenstain they did later. the first trailer was WORD FOR WORD from chapter 1 of the novel, but that scene was cut entirely in the finished film. and you say the dad was not in the movie until reshoots, and we know the whole opal thing was made out of one clip, it seems the 2019 cut was not as terrible
Why the hate for RPID? The movie was poorly-made (oh man, that CGI was so cringe!), had a not-well-executed plot, but it WAS fun. I mean, it deserved at least ONE star.
This movie is an example of one of the worst cases of reshoots / re-edits I think was ever released. Someone clearly mandated a rewrite after the majority of production had been completed, seemingly to add the Aculos mcguffin, and we're basically watching two movies spliced together.
Ah, another failed adaptation of the children's media/YA spectrum. If only all these failures got the proper adaptations they deserve. I swear the twist of Steve and Darren being half-brothers in the final book still has me gawking over a decade later.
9:09 okay, notes: 1. it is not the movie's fault that you wanted a different plot. AF has been advertised for decades as "die hard with fairies". it was ALWAYS set in one house. 2. you don't know who the villain is because in the books the villain IS ARTEMIS. they added Opal from book 3 on reshoots bc disney are cowards 3. the "oculous" was made up for the movie on reshoots. in the og version Artemis wanted what he wanted in the books - one ton. of gold. 4. 10:38 this is hilarious bc if anything Artemis is TOO NICE in the movie. In the books he is a little sh1t, even after he is reformed
I never read the books but I did watch this movie when it first launched years ago. It was so bad. When I read Disney+ removed it in 2023, my first reaction was "Wow they actually removed it? That's how bad it was?" I looked it up on Disney+ & it's gone. Feels right because I just wanna block that memory of me watching it at this point.
I think it's Nando v Movies but someone breaks down the movie and how it seemed to have been almost completely rewritten in the edit with stuff like the mcguffin being added entirely after the fact and only ever talked about or mentioned through ADR or Josh Gad talking alone in a room clearly in reshoots
Once you know this, it explains why so many of the scenes feel uncanny. Its because they're edited to avoid showing people's mouths to make up for the terrible ADR.
I read a few books in the series when I was in grade school, and of those books I remember very very little... But I'm 98% sure that dirt eating bit is in the source material 💀
I love the books, it was the first full book series I ever read. After seeing the trailer my heart broke, the books are my childhood. I started reading them in secondary school and couldn't believe the disrespect I was seeing on screen.
So _that's_ what happened to that one. I just thought it released to as much of a welcome reception as all the other old YA novels-turned-movies (especially since there are so many books in the series). And that they were busy working on the next one (again re: series length). Figured it was going to be the next Percy Jackson.
I will also say I really would love to hear the details decades later from something that has come up over and over again about Disney, which is how much. Not only did the success of phase three of them MCU get to their head but simultaneously how much of their plans changed when they acquired Star Wars. Hell just how they were talking about it and setting it up that they thought Star Wars was going to be a second MCU and they cancel And starved a lot of really good potential projects just to do the Star Wars sequels and then when that fell through as well as Marvel phase 4. We are in thrashing scramble and form of Disney that they're in now. Wonder how much of Artemis file was affected by that where they were like? Oh, we don't care if this film flops because we have Star Wars and phase four is about to kick off and now not only do we have a bat out of his foul movie but now bad things in the properties that were supposed to work.
I only knew this existed because of my great fear that should something terrible, we could have lived in a universe where this and Cats would be the final two movies Dame Judie Dench was in
I enjoyed them, personally. I think the first book stands alone very well, if you don't want to commit to the whole series. It's almost perfectly self-contained and is still my favorite of all the books.
@@mariacargille1396You can read the first four books and feel satisfied. The way the fifth books opens the world feels like it’s seen as milkable despite the main story being told in terms of the redemption character arc Artemis goes through.
more like Fartemis Bowel
I hate that I laughed at this for like 5 full minutes
BAHAHAHAH
You missed *"Fartemis Foul"*
GOT his ass
ayo this made me laugh
My guess is that some executive hated the idea of the protagonist of a kid's movie being kind of villainous, and once that choice was made, everyone knew the movie would flop and stopped trying.
Paging Mr. Iger, Paging Mr. Iger!
I haven't read the books, but it seems like that's the primary hook. Which makes me wonder what's the point if Disney didn't have the courage to commit to the premise.
12 year old criminal mastermind is one of the most anime sentences ever
An Artemis Fowl anime could work out very well!
@@cane6074I'd watch it
@@cane6074 an animated series done in the style of the graphic novels drawn by Giovanni Rigano would look really good
Like detective Conan (I’m pretty sure that’s the name)
Artemis Fowl is meant to be an antagonist (in the first book at least) so it's baffling that Disney just chose not to stick to this key aspect of the character
Over the first three or four books (the fifth book feels like the point Colfer realised he could spin the series out for as long as he could with the major shift in world building focus to other dimensions) he develops into a good person, the first book being to set up where his character arc begins from.
That was a total deal breaker for me. Artemis Fowl is fantasy Die Hard. He needs to be a sadistic, cruel little brat that outsmarts the overconfident, arrogant Fae folk. It was peak grey vs grey.
His surname is literally Foul
Minor correction, protagonist and antagonist refer to the central character and their opposing force respectively. Artemis is the protagonist of book 1. But he is also definitely the villain of book 1.
@mattgriffin0231 unless you view Holly as the protagonist, since she is technically one too?
It's like death note, you see both sides play off against each other from their POVs, but it also uses the villain as the main protagonist.
See the thing is, that feeding time scene? It's actually one of the few book accurate scenes in the movie, the dwarves from Artemis fowl dig by unhinging their jaws, shoveling up and swallowing giant mouthfuls of dirt, passing it rapidly through their digestion, and violently excreting it behind them as they dig, allowing them to burrow through dirt faster than most people can run. Honestly, I actually rather liked how grotesquely they portrayed it in the movie, as Mulch Diggums is meant to be a super gross, freaky, unsavory character that no one ever wants to work with, but they have to anyway. So yeah, hats off to the movie for exactly one good scene! The rest of the movie can go suck a lemon.
Doesnt matter if it's book accurate or not. It's just too stupid.
I think part of the issue is it came out of nowhere. I remember reading the books and Mulch is always described from the beginning as having a massive inhumanly wide jaw and “gray tombstone teeth.” He also isn’t some “giant dwarf,” he’s normal fairy short, maybe a little taller than elves. If his grotesque qualities were more shown in the movie before that point it wouldn’t have been as shocking and unexpected as it was in the film.
@@akivaharker7865 The book always made me imagine him looking like Wario. Maybe acting like him too.
@@anonymous-hz2unAccuracy matters
Diggums was way too "handsome" in this movie. I thought it was another grotesque troll
I just had a flashback to being a child TWENTY YEARS AGO and the inside cover page in the book mentioned that a movie was coming soon. The fact that this movie was in production that long is insane.
Yeah the book was a tightly focused crime story (albeit a kid friendly one) with a fantasy twist that worked in the one location“bottle episode” setting cuz it was about the move and countermove of the criminal vs the LEP trying to get their hostage back. And Artemis was the main character but clearly the bad guy. It was more about tension building than bombastic action set pieces. Also it was just a straight up Artemis kidnaps Holly for ransom. None of the weird oculus artifact or Artemis Sr being involved stuff.
They changed so much there was no way book fans weren’t gonna hate it. And made it so cheesy and awkward that it wasn’t gonna stand on its own.
Artemis is the antagonist of the first book (maybe the anti-villain at best). He is the terrorist that the police and SWAT teams are trying to neutralize. Disney wasn’t willing to embrace the title character being the villain.
Villain protagonist* since he's still the main character. An antagonist is someone who opposes the main character
But they did on Wish 💀
9:17
So- pretty much. Almost the entire book does actually take place in the Fowl Manor, since the fairies have it locked down. But they cut the interesting market setting out of the beginning, don't spend nearly as much time as they could have in Fowley's lab, totally disregard the epic magma tube transport sequence, and don't even give Butler his incredible suit of armor and a mace face-off against the troll. I assure you, the book used its spaces much better.
Exactly! Die Hard isn't boring because it's mostly confined to the building, it's the use of space that's important.
Ah. One of those movies you watch the first 20 minutes of, realizes it has no soul and then turns it off and immediately forget that you ever watched it.
For someone who read the books, there are, but certainly not limited to, two severe flaws. The first is that book Artemis is very averse to physical activity that he absolutely doesn’t have to do, and doesn’t enjoy normal teenage things (he has to put on a typical teenager persona to infiltrate a bank in the fourth book and spends time grousing about wearing T shirt and jeans looking forward to getting back into his suit) so for him to be recreationally surfing is completely out of character to his prose counterpart.
Then there’s the character of Root. In the books Holly is the only woman in the frontline officers of the LEP (Lower Elements Police Recon, aka leprechaun, the only other woman is there to look good for publicity material), needing to overcome how she is perceived in carrying out her duty. Her supervising officer is Julius Root, who is in her corner but this doesn’t mean he’s easy on her. The film genderbends Root to be Dame Julie Dench, undercutting the significance of Holly’s position and motivations. It’s gender diversity at the cost of something actually important carrying over from the source material.
Exactly, when further reading the series he comes off as gruff and stoic, a mentor and leader to holly and later in the series a very strong male role model in her life. Almost fatherly. But they decide to gut the whole thing just to try and follow this stupid trend.
Ehh, it could be turned into a "I'm hard on you because you have to be as tough as I was to make it" angle and work in a similar way I think
Some 20+ years ago during my time at Disney Studio, I remember registering “Artemis Fowl” for online domain name. The name sounded so strange I remember it to this day.
Cant wait for Failed next big thing: A wrinkle in Time
Oh my god that would be a good one. I completely forgot about that 😂
Yikes, that has to have some amazing production notes.
that movie was stupid af
Damn, that was harsh one, especially that it was expected to be huge for a female director. I hated Reese Witherspoon in that movie and man, it's too bad for me to say this as a huge fan of her
Boy have I got a RUclips video for you
Can we stop letting Kenneth Branagh adapt things that aren't Shakespeare because he doesn't seem to understand his source material unless it's in iambic pentameter.
He nailed Cinderella and honestly Thor 1 was very competent
😂
Haunting in Venice was enjoyable. This wasn't tho
Thor 1 is by far the best Thor film. And a not bad adaption into the mcu
Kenneth Branagh was absolutely not to blame here, it was out of touch executives.
Adding a point that I haven't seen brought up yet, WHY were Holly and Juliet made into kids? It's been a while since I've read the books, but from what I remember Juliet was a teenager and Holly was a fully grown adult woman (just tiny because, y'know, she's a fairy). Part of the fun of reading this as a kid was that Artemis was a child (like me) surrounded by and totally dominating the adults around him. In getting rid of that and the fact that he is definitely villainous, they removed the main parts that made the book unique.
(I also saw a comment below comparing Artemis Fowl to Die Hard with the villain as the protagonist, and THAT FEELS SO ACCURATE. Why couldn't they have just stuck with that?)
5:40 "Maybe it could of had potential."
No. Full stop. As someone who grew up reading the novels, seeing Artemis Fowl surfboarding in the trailer was almost physically painful.
A lot of people have described the first book as Magic Die Hard with Hanz Gruber as the protagonist.
Exactly
Until I saw this video I thought Artemis Fowl was some sort of athropomorphic duck, like Howard the Duck or Duckman. Thanks for clearning things up for me. I am disappointed that this is not about a duckman though.
I think that would have been a way better movie, a story about a duck wizard that takes fairies hostage to perform magic needs to happen.
@@thecactussword4304 I would honestly love to see that 😂
What pisses me off about this movie the most is how much it botched the main character. His book counterpart is pretty cool and pretty subversive when it comes to protagonists of his genre. He's a genius rich kid, who has no powers or chosen one status and uses his cunning and wits to get out of situations. He's also a villain protagonist, and the first book is like if Die Hard was told in Hans Gruber's POV. In this movie, he's a bland plank without any charm or charisma. What a waste.
The Aculos macguffin was never in the books at all. I was very confused when they made this random glowing thing central to the plot. Fans of the books were insulted, and those unfamiliar with the books were confused, repulsed, and bored. Truly this film was for no one, and to this day I still consider it the worst movie I've ever sat through.
As soon as I saw Artemis surfing I knew this was going to be a dumpster fire.
Yeah, I agree. Kenneth Brannagh hit a low point in his career with this movie. Man made Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, a Hercule Poirot Trilogy, my favourite Thor movie, and arguably the best Disney live-action to ever be made. It's hard to believe a director with this much talent would end up directing such a mess!
The first Thor is your favorite movie? That’s a wild take.
@@JuQui228It's the best by far
@@GoTenDu loves his Dutch angles I guess.
Brannagh has talent, but even a talented man can’t polish a turd. Once you’ve had so many directors pass through a project (and writers, cast, and crew) there’s an infinitesimal chance it works out. Truly teeny tiny. It’s like a chef trying to bake with ingredients already used to make other recipes.
@juno1752 reheated leftover casarole is an excellent analogy.
Bro imagine being the kid doing your first big acting gig and it turns out like this. Talk about a blow to the morale
It would do better as a cartoon.
The entire premise is silly, but the story itself takes itself seriously. That is an easier pill to swallow in book, graphic novel, and cartoon. When you put it into live action the suspension of disbelief is harder.
Eh, I'd say less because of that, and more because when it takes more place in the fairy world, it'd be 99% animated anyways.
I always thought a nice Live-action/animation hybrid would work well for Artemis Fowl. Because half the cast is normal aging humans and the other half is near immortal fairies. Animation would help keep the Faires getting older as the books/movies go on and give them that Otherness that would really sell the not-human-thing.
Artemis Fowl deserves another shot
love these failed next big thing videos, very good assessment of what actually happened and stuff
Thank you!
The problem is their size and the fact that movies really only bring in so much money. They literally fail unless they break records at the box office. I think these movies are their attempts to not only repeat Pirates but also to figure out the formula for creating blockbusters. You can see similarities between Pirates and a lot of the other videos you covered. They'll take bits and pieces they believe are important and assemble them into a different ip to repeat the success.
Hear me out: Artemis Fowl would ONLY work as an animated series. It's too quirky and weird for the big screen
Maybe Netflix can have a hand at adapting it after they finish with the Leviathan books.
Imagine being Ferdia Shaw and thinking you're gonna be the next Daniel Radcliff and you're gonna be making blockbusters for at least the next 5-6 years only to have it get dumped on streaming and everyone immediately hated it
"Artemis Failed" because they made up nonsense that was not even in the book. Artemis is also not showing the "criminal" personality he is supposed to have. He is portrayed as a good kid, not smart either. He uses Apple products, where are the Macs? The best actor was Holly the fairy I think.
I think an Artemis Fowl tv or streaming series might work. People seem to love Percy Jackson’s series revival.
Sucks that they made the police force already integrated with females and males. In the books it’s just males and Holly Short is the first female accepted but obviously she faces a lot of sexism. She also isn’t a Mary sue. She doesn’t prove her male co-workers wrong by being better than them instantly. She’s a rookie and she makes rookie mistakes like anyone. She’s a real character with flaws and unfortunately her male co-workers, including her boss, Commander Root, blame her rookie mistakes on her being female.
This hurts her, obviously, and she doubts herself but then she gets back up and keeps going. It takes several books of character growth and perseverance but slowly but surely she starts to become one of the best cops on the force and wins her male co-workers over with her hard work and dedication to become a competent police officer.
The movie threw all of ghat away for no reason and that really sucks. She was one of my favorite female characters from any book I read as a kid and the movie just makes her so boring and bland. Her entire story is just not there.
You saying we don't know anything about the antagonist had me so baffled until I remembered this movie removed the fact that Artemis is the antagonist. 😭 (The protagonist is Holly in the first book.)
I T S F E E D I N G T I M E [cue meme shot]
The books are really good but they're also incredibly dark and filled with dense sci-fantasy worldbuilding. Despite the young protagonist, I feel like a film adaptation should have been aimed at an older-teen audience and probably should have been animated in order to more easily portray the fantasy world.
this really feels and looks like a movie that would be released in 2002 on the disney channel. like halloweentown levels of camp plot and production. i probably would have loved this movie when i was nine or ten. im really just surprised this is as recent as it is because its giving some real xenon/sharkboy/spy kids vibes -which, like i said, was great when i was a kid so im not gonna judge this too harshly. when the main character is 10 and a superspy or something 😂 okay kids, pop off🎉
1:35 Christ I can only imagine how it must’ve felt to be that filmmaker. Imagine having so many people dislike your movies so much that they make a group effort to make sure you DON’T make a movie
But he DID make Son of the Mask... it does feel somewhat justified.
You think they were trying to capture pirates again with this one?
Naw man, they were going for Harry Potter with this one.
Everyone knows Disney hates source material
I haven’t even watched this movie but from your explanation all I can say is “Read the books” they are genuinely so much fun, you’ll love them. Artemis is supposed to be the villain in book 1.
They hired the Green Lantern scriptwriter, what were they thinking?
I hope we can get a faithful adaptation in TV series of these beloved books after the movie failed hard like the His Dark Materials books that managed to gain a successful faithful adaptation on HBO and BBC after New Line Cinema's movie adaptation of one of the books, The Golden Compass flopped hard at the box office. The book is great, it has every opportunity to be great when it's handed to the right team
Sadly, I don't think Disney will relinquish the rights to another streamer, especially if that streamer is Netflix, because we know Netflix would do it right (and then cancel it after one season!).
This, Uglies, Spiderwick, Percy Jackson, etc. has kinda made me feel like those old YA books just don’t work adapted. Harry Potter was a miracle. I think part of why it doesn’t work is that ppl either feel the need to change things for modern audiences or cuz they believe they could do better. Which is BS.
I miss the old kids shows with action. It was a unique flavor that hasn’t been able to be captured cuz they’re either cancelled or butchered.
Harry Potter movies was butchered as heck if you even bother reading the books. A lot of the setting and characters was downright simplified and the casts was "Hollywoodfied" with a bunch of pretty boys and girls.
Bruh, they made that Spiderwick show into its own thing…for some odd reason. These studios are so quick to adapt books and raceswap to the point of inaccuracy (because seriously, as a black person, I’m going to ask what type of black family stays in a creepy house where taxidermy mice corpses were found in the dumbwaiter?) but rarely bother to adapt popular books starring people of color.
Two things made this film flop:
1 Turning Artemis into a good kid, as many commenters have already explained.
2. Forced diversity. Like one comment stated, Holly no longer being the only female in the LEP destroyed her as the feminist icon she is and whilst this is a little nitpicky, Butler was implied to be Siberian because of his Russian name but he was Eurasian looking. Asians still get fewer opportunities then black people do in Hollywood and how often is Siberian culture specifically given some limelight in Hollywood productions? Whilst I'm not from Siberia, I am of Eurasian heritage and blackwashing him wasn't cool to me.
Heh, do you think there are any Eurasian looking Siberian actors who are also 2 metres tall?🤔
Artemis needs what Netflix provided for A Series of Unfortunate Events. Artemis needs a series that properly covers the books - not a whitewashed movie that changes _everything_ about the books.
That means...
- Artemis needs to be a villain we root for as he slowly turns into an anti-hero
- Holly needs to face the issues being the LEP's first female recon officer
- Root needs to be his proper male self and treat Holly harshly for being the first female recon officer
- Butler needs to be a Eurasian mountain of muscle who properly sends the beatdown on the troll
- Artemis Fowl Senior needs to be kidnapped by the Russian mafia
- Juliet needs to be pretty
- Mulch has to be a dwarf - NOT JOSH GAD in terrible steampunk Middle Earth cosplay
- Opal need not be mentioned or involved until The Arctic Incident
..."whitewashed?!" You choose that word...
How about throw away the black and white morality that this series did not have in the first few books.
It's not whitewashed, learn what it means. However, Butler was blackwashed indeed.
> "whitewashed"
> doesn't mention whitewashing
@@Raximus3000 Artemis was entirely whitewashed, as in he had all his edges and flaws sandblasted off. What are you even on about?
@@nopenope2550 That's not what whitewashed means.
One of my fave new channels great work man
I'm actually really shocked that they didn't make the entire series a TV show. Fantasy High show for kids where you could plot everything out on cliffhangers and twists when not only work really well for episodic television. But it would also give the one-two punch of really highlighting the advantages of Disney+
Why do I love hearing about people taking massive Ls on RUclips. I don't care about Disney or this movie but when I see 'FAILED BIG THING' i couldn't wait to click.
Kinda astounding the guy who Debued with The best Shakespeare adaptation made one of the worst YA adaptions ever made .
I find it interesting how you never heard about the movie when it came out. I do remember there being “buzz” for this movie when it came out but for the wrong reasons. Everyone who had seen the movie was absolutely trashing on it when it came out which I remember fairly clearly.
Just when I was in need of something to watch, Tom saves the day again
the book is a base under siege story, so it's okay that there weren't many locations. but this movie was doomed to fail. i LOVED the books, but i knew i wouldnt watch as soon as i saw the trailer because the trailer showed him surfing and showed Butler/his dad handing Artemis this information/secret. The whole hook of the books is that Artemis is a super genius who can outsmart even adults but has almost no other skills, and that he's a little greedy monster. kids like him because his bad behavior is escapism, a power fantasy, but his awkwardness and immaturity make him relatable. but you want him to get better. it was clear that movie artemis wasn't going to have the same pull, so what was the point? (also, in the first book his dad is just backstory, and doesn't get rescued until book 2. while i understanding combining the first two books a la the black cauldron, artemis rescuing his beloved father is so humanizing that it really needed to be saved until AFTER you set artemis up as the villain. but that's my smallest gripe.)
A movie should NOT cost more than 100+ million dollars.
It was in development hell for like 20 years, so yes the cost adds up. Frankly this shouldn't strictly be a kids movie because the main character is actually a bone fide villian.
I watched this movie on release day in D+ and it was one of the most miserable experiences I've had watching a movie. I was utterly baffled the whole time. The problems came early on, with the film's very few scenes having a bunch of characters just telling you how awesome Artemis Fowl was, and I already knew I was gonna hate the character because of it. If you want the audience to think a character is cool, then show them doing cool things. Having other characters tell you he's cool just doesn't work. Sadly, he's only one of this movie's many problems. Every other character is also underwritten and uninteresting, the plot is inconsistent and unfinished, the effects are unimpressive and the dialogue is preposterous. Having the movie end with Artemis telling how he's a criminal mastermind when at no point in the entire movie he was either of those things is insane.
When I watched the movie I didn't know anything about the source material, but then out of morbid curiosity I started reading the first book and only two pages in I realized the entire plotline and characters have been completely and utterly butchered. I feel like had I gone into the movie as a fan of the books I would have ended up with brain cancer at the end.
So I didn't watch this movie on principle, but some of your criticism of the plot or character traits are from the book. Artemis Fowl isn't really supposed to be likable in the first book. He's basically a twist on the rich evil genius at first and the plot is literally just a kidnapping and ransom plot where our protagonist is the villain.
I think the best way, to show the stories of (ARTEMIS FOWL) in entertainment, is to make it into a, computer animated show series.
I think this way, it could be possible, to see the main character, slowly change over time.
From Artemis, starting out, as a selfish, egocentric, prideful, stubborn, disrespectful jerk, to slowly becoming a better person.
Of him slowly becoming, kind, genuinely considerate, genuinely respectful, no longer prideful, and he realizes he must properly things through.
In addition Artemis Fowl, stops being selfish, his ego lowers bit by bit, and he takes responsibility for his actions.
artemis fowl is a great book series, if they just stuck with it and had artemis be potrayed as a villain it would be great and be a great movie franchise
9:48 The best proof about how the villian is forgetable is that actually her, and you’ve been refering her as him the whole time
I dont know why it took them so long to release it. The book came out in 2001, why on earth did they release a film adaptation in 2020??
At least it was only 120 Million as opposed to the recent Concord which apparently wasted 400 fucking million
I do remember this movie. On the internet we all laughed on this movie when it came out. I remember the memes from this movie were everywhere.
I love Colin Farrel, but the poor guy gets himself into a lot of crap....
Even with the subverted expectations of live action Disney stuff based on books, it managed to make Maze Runner and Hunger Games look like a Christopher Nolan film. It sucked so bad, combining the elements of say MIB films, muddled mythology of the last two Percy Jackson films and made it into something boring as hell.
Honestly the original cinema release may not have flopped. It depends if it was the closer to the book version or the butchered frankenstain they did later. the first trailer was WORD FOR WORD from chapter 1 of the novel, but that scene was cut entirely in the finished film. and you say the dad was not in the movie until reshoots, and we know the whole opal thing was made out of one clip, it seems the 2019 cut was not as terrible
Really got to be saying something if Disney decides that it's not worth the disk space to keep this available on Disney+...
You know, after getting scrapped three times they should've made into an animated film instead of live action.
Can you do Mars Needs Moms?
Why the hate for RPID? The movie was poorly-made (oh man, that CGI was so cringe!), had a not-well-executed plot, but it WAS fun. I mean, it deserved at least ONE star.
Is it just me or does the kid seems to age back and forth throughout the movie? In some areas he look younger and other areas he looks older.
I just adore artemis fowl and eoin's writing and all of that charm was lost in the corporate mush.
Artemis fowl is ripe for a proper Anime adaptation, I think that would be the best way for this story to be seen.
I forgot this movie existed
This could have been the western's Code Geass/Death Note. But alas.
I remember seeing movie posters for this, but then it just disappeared, i never realised it released on streaming.
This movie is an example of one of the worst cases of reshoots / re-edits I think was ever released. Someone clearly mandated a rewrite after the majority of production had been completed, seemingly to add the Aculos mcguffin, and we're basically watching two movies spliced together.
Can you do a video on Cirque du Freak?
Such a wasted attempt at a good story
Ah, another failed adaptation of the children's media/YA spectrum. If only all these failures got the proper adaptations they deserve. I swear the twist of Steve and Darren being half-brothers in the final book still has me gawking over a decade later.
@@inferiorinferno8859 funnily enough, just found out the Demonata books are being made into a show!
9:09 okay, notes:
1. it is not the movie's fault that you wanted a different plot. AF has been advertised for decades as "die hard with fairies". it was ALWAYS set in one house.
2. you don't know who the villain is because in the books the villain IS ARTEMIS. they added Opal from book 3 on reshoots bc disney are cowards
3. the "oculous" was made up for the movie on reshoots. in the og version Artemis wanted what he wanted in the books - one ton. of gold.
4. 10:38 this is hilarious bc if anything Artemis is TOO NICE in the movie. In the books he is a little sh1t, even after he is reformed
Never saw this film, but have to say, this video was amazing. Loved how worked up Tom got 😂😂
The main kid looks like somebody who says 'actually' way too often
I never read the books but I did watch this movie when it first launched years ago. It was so bad. When I read Disney+ removed it in 2023, my first reaction was "Wow they actually removed it? That's how bad it was?" I looked it up on Disney+ & it's gone. Feels right because I just wanna block that memory of me watching it at this point.
Gotta love the black butlers. Eurasian with blue and green eyes in the books.
I think it's Nando v Movies but someone breaks down the movie and how it seemed to have been almost completely rewritten in the edit with stuff like the mcguffin being added entirely after the fact and only ever talked about or mentioned through ADR or Josh Gad talking alone in a room clearly in reshoots
Once you know this, it explains why so many of the scenes feel uncanny. Its because they're edited to avoid showing people's mouths to make up for the terrible ADR.
Intended to see this movie one day I had nothing to do. But couldn't. Is sadder than sad xd
I read a few books in the series when I was in grade school, and of those books I remember very very little... But I'm 98% sure that dirt eating bit is in the source material 💀
I love the books, it was the first full book series I ever read. After seeing the trailer my heart broke, the books are my childhood. I started reading them in secondary school and couldn't believe the disrespect I was seeing on screen.
1:30 Hey don't be dissing Cats and Dogs! I enjoyed that movie growing up!
whoa. you broke my heart when you said that you gave Men half a star...
Bro the LepRecon suits are messed up bro they should have some white in it as per the book
they absolutely failed it,not even 50% accurate
So _that's_ what happened to that one. I just thought it released to as much of a welcome reception as all the other old YA novels-turned-movies (especially since there are so many books in the series). And that they were busy working on the next one (again re: series length). Figured it was going to be the next Percy Jackson.
I will also say I really would love to hear the details decades later from something that has come up over and over again about Disney, which is how much. Not only did the success of phase three of them MCU get to their head but simultaneously how much of their plans changed when they acquired Star Wars. Hell just how they were talking about it and setting it up that they thought Star Wars was going to be a second MCU and they cancel And starved a lot of really good potential projects just to do the Star Wars sequels and then when that fell through as well as Marvel phase 4. We are in thrashing scramble and form of Disney that they're in now. Wonder how much of Artemis file was affected by that where they were like? Oh, we don't care if this film flops because we have Star Wars and phase four is about to kick off and now not only do we have a bat out of his foul movie but now bad things in the properties that were supposed to work.
Disney somehow managed to screw up Die Hard but magic.
I only knew this existed because of my great fear that should something terrible, we could have lived in a universe where this and Cats would be the final two movies Dame Judie Dench was in
Are the books good?
I remember liking them as a kid. But I don’t think they’re anything groundbreaking
Awful
I enjoyed them, personally. I think the first book stands alone very well, if you don't want to commit to the whole series. It's almost perfectly self-contained and is still my favorite of all the books.
I was hoping for something clever when I read the first one. I was just bored.
@@mariacargille1396You can read the first four books and feel satisfied. The way the fifth books opens the world feels like it’s seen as milkable despite the main story being told in terms of the redemption character arc Artemis goes through.
men is not comparable in quality to this regardless of how you feel about it.
I would be cool if studios would develop a good movie, before their sequels
yes keep talking about disneys failed next big thing era i literally think about this era all the time
i remember being extremely excited for it and counting down the days and dear god i hated this film
they had the Chronicles of Narnia...and they gave it away. so the joke is on them
Conor McPherson?!? I never knew that. He's a brilliant writer. What happened?