this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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[–] mindbleach 2 points 9 months ago

And any backstory in Scooby-Doo is made-up for that reboot. The original series lore could fit in the margins of a stamp.

What bugs me is when they treat ethnicity as a purely visual change... but then put no thought into how it looks.

Skin color is still a color. You know color is important, in cartoons.

"Velma," shockingly, gets this right. Velma's sweater is more lemon yellow than pumpkin orange, maintaining contrast. They even recolored her hair by implication. The primary tone is really close to the original design (and its derivatives) but the vibrant sheen makes the reddish-brown look like a deep red dye-job. Natural color should have less-saturated reflections. Meanwhile, Shaggy's outfit works fine... even if his name doesn't. I assume it's a Shawshank Redemption situation and they fudged an excuse. (Phrasing.)

Similar decisions for other characters would have different concerns. Daphne in violet and lavender obviously still fits. Maybe not that green sash. Keeping the hair would be a choice. Inverting her outfit to green pastels with a purple accent would be very mid-century, but I mean, have you seen her? That outfit's somewhere between flower-child schoolgirl and by-name stewardess. Carbon isotopes couldn't date it any harder.

Fred, you'd lose the bouffant but do something equally vertical and sculpted. I am not sure how you'd keep the shirt recognizable without looking a little silly. Honestly it's one of the worst-aged outfits in the franchise. That high collar / ascot situation survived so many redesigns because it is associated with absolutely no-one else. Like if Superman's S was a 1930s fashion trend we all just forgot about. But if it's not breaking up Fred's neckline... does it work? We can say, maybe not blue and orange, but then it's not really his design. I think the live-action movies just stuck him in a polo shirt. If we wanted to convey some of that unselfconscious outdated energy, I'd suggest making it salmon pink.