Regarding the DuckTales 2017 Reboot Negativity

Responding negatively is practically a knee-jerk reaction to finding out something from our childhood is being reinvented. Be it a movie, a game, or in this case, a beloved Disney cartoon. When I found out DuckTales was going to be rebooted in 2017 a year and a half ago, the panic button immediately went off in my head. DuckTales was a huge part of my childhood. I had already known of Donald Duck prior to watching it, but DuckTales introduced me to Scrooge McDuck, Gyro Gearloose, Magica De Spell, the Beagle Boys and a host of other characters from Carl Bark's legendary Duck universe. DuckTales was the reason I took an interest in finding and collecting those old Barks Duck stories and it is a cartoon that in this day and age, still holds up marvelously. If Disney didn't do the new DuckTales series justice, heads were going to roll.

In 2016, the first image of the the DuckTales reboot surfaced. The image alone distilled a lot of my fears. True, it wasn't using the same art style from the 1987 cartoon, but the style looks clean and I like the art direction the creators chose to go with. Further still, a trailer was released, showing us the the art style in motion along with the new voice cast. This trailer lit me up like a Christmas tree and needless to say, I am really looking forward to summer 2017 when DuckTales airs.

The DuckTales crew in 1987...

...And in 2017.

Two of the biggest criticisms labeled against DuckTales 2017 is the aforementioned art style. Why is it getting flack? Well, for the three adults that never saw the 1987 cartoon show, I can't imagine them having any gripes with it, but for everyone else, it is a visual betrayal. The new art direction is largely hated because it isn't a carbon copy of the original. The other complaint is the new voice cast, which is, you know, not the original crew.

Just about every voice actor from the original DuckTales cartoon series came back for 2013's DuckTales Remastered, but getting the original voice actors together for a game is far less of an undertaking than it is for an ongoing cartoon series. Alan Young, Scrooge McDuck's voice actor was in his 90s when he voiced Uncle Scrooge again and June Foray, Magica De spell's voice actress, is pushing 100 years of age. While DuckTales Remastered was a remake of the classic NES game, which was based off the original DuclTales cartoon, DuckTales 2017 is not the original DuckTales series and this is something a think a lot of us older fans are having a hard time understanding. Besides,

Launchpad and Scrooge made quite the pair
so here's hoping for more hilarity ensuing
whenever the two are on screen together.

I'd like to bring up two shows on Cartoon Network to debunk the complaints regarding DuckTales 2017. Two infamous cartoons. Yeah, you already know the ones I'm talking about, Teen Titans Go and the Power Puff Girls 2016.

The new PPG show does use the art style of the original PPG show. Is it any better for? Nope. Using the original art style cannot hide PPG 2016's many shortcomings such as horrible fight scenes, terrible writing and having the girls twerk, which apparently fine, but Ms. Bellum has to leave the show because she's too much for young children. Gah. The Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup all have new voice actress and I think they do a fine job, in fact, they voices in PPG 2016 is the least of that show's problems.

Donald made sparse appearances in the old
cartoon so I'm hoping he pops up more often
in the reboot.

Meanwhile Teen Titans GO! Actually does have the crew behind the hit 2003 Teen Titans series reprising their roles. Annnnnd the show is still a massive train wreck. It may primarily be a comedy show, but many of the jokes fall flat and if this show is trying to teach kids any sort of lessons, it is failing miserably. The thing with TTG! is that it wasn't meant to be a reboot, but it's own show. Lots of fans of the 2003 series hate TTG! with a passion, viewing it as a mockery of the original show. When Cartoon Network had their DC Nation block one of the numerous series of shorts to air was Teen Titans, which were comedic and had the Titans looking very much the way they do in TTG! The big difference from those shorts and TTG!? Those shorts were actually good. And funny. Two key things TTG is not. The 2003 voice cast isn't even close to being enough to making TTG a quality cartoon.

DuckTales 2017 has a different art style from the 1987 series and a new voice cast and I don't think those things hurt it in the slightest. David Tennant, the new voice for Scrooge, really surprised me in that trailer and I cannot wait to hear more from him. I'm hoping we get to see more characters from the comics that never made it into the old show and I really hope Donald Duck appears far more often. This new DuckTales series seems like it has the heart of the old show and ultimately, that is what really matters.