#scooby doo: return to zombie island

[thejdog2000]

I miss five minutes ago when I didn't know what happens in "Return to Zombie Island."

Fandom Problem #6244:

When a franchise makes a story that's out of character for the franchise itself and everyone enjoys the crap out of it, but several years later the same franchise makes a callback to that story in a much later sequel and straight up retcons the whole thing trying to make it sound ridiculous or that it never happened.

A prime example being Scooby Doo Return to Zombie Island. The first movie was really cool and was highly rated, and then they made a second one trying to tell us everything that happened was indeed staged bullshit with actors and special effects.

[caktusjuice-draws]

We discuss the worst sequel of all time on this minisode of our new podcast FURIGHTENING

[threephantomrey]

for international women’s day, i want to talk about one of my favorite facts. it being that curse of the 13th ghost and return to zombie island, two sequels to scooby media released decades before, are the first two animated scooby dtv movies directed by a woman. (Cecilia Aranovich) that is SO cool!! i love that.

[chubby-aphrodite]

The current tierlist of direct to video scooby doo movies my friend and i have made

didn't watch: these are movies we haven't watched yet, but will in the future.

these include (so far): camp scare, legend of the phantosaur, music of the vampire, big top, mask of the blue falcon, stage fright, frankencreepy, the mystery map, moon monster madness, haunted hollywood, shaggy's showdown, and blowout beach bash.

additional statements: we're not going at these with a specific order most of the time, we kind of jumped around in time a lot. this started as a halloween movie get together and spiraled from there. but now we're out here making tier lists.

so now that that tier example is out of the way, let's get onto the actual contents (under the cut)

i don't have additional statements for every movie in a tier, but i encourage you to ask if you're curious about one i didn't address.

edit: we also watched the original 2 live action movies and they're both in okay tier.

good tier: these movies are good in several respects, although obviously not flawless. they're fun/funny, or charming, or have good animation, or good character writing, or some combination of all of those.

these include (so far): zombie island, witch's ghost, goblin king, kiss: rock and roll mystery, curse of the 13th ghost, krypto too, batman the brave & the bold, gourmet ghost, trick or treat, and abracadabra-doo

additional statements: the ending of 13th ghost is very obviously rushed and if you care about the series it's ostensibly a finale to you probably don't like it; we, however, do not care much about the 13 ghosts of scooby doo. i was just as surprised as anyone else to find out that the bobby flay movie was good. and the guess who era of scooby doo movies needs to continue i swear to god.

okay tier: these movies are still enjoyable, usually if you don't think about them too hard. most of them have glaring details that don't make sense, or that sour the better parts of the movie and keep it from being in "good" tier. they're mediocre.

these include (so far): cyber chase, legend of the vampire, loch ness monster, aloha, where's my mummy, pirates ahoy, chill out, samurai sword, and alien invaders

additional statements: samurai sword had some shockingly racist moments that i did not remember at all going into the rewatch; all i remembered were the cool fight scenes. alien invaders has mediocre music and big pacing issues, to the point where we almost had to make it a separate tier between bad and shit called "what????" because they stopped the villain exposition in the middle to cut to another scene and THEN continue the explanation. and where's my mummy had me complaining about not being able to see the city of cairo the entire time because i cannot stress enough that it is right there. except it wasn't.

bad tier: there are massive issues with these movies that are either unaddressed, or addressed badly; they're still entertaining, but you have the "bad" hanging over your head in every enjoyable moment.

these include (so far): monster of mexico, wrestlemania mystery, and curse of the speed demon

additional statements: monster of mexico is kind of a shitshow with how much it gets wrong or does badly; for one thing, the chupacabra is not a bigfoot, goddamnit, and they got a lot of things wrong with day of the dead. and a minor thing, but i feel like they had layering issues with the lineart in this movie because it's all slightly transparent. meanwhile, the WWE movies are mostly shit because they have vince mcmahon in them. yknow, the shitty businessman who treated his performers poorly and trapped them in unfair contracts with shitty healthcare. oh, would you look at that, the antagonist of the first movie is a former wrestler who never got to make it big due to a career ending injury that causes him chronic pain! hm! and the second one could've absolutely had vince as the villain, but it feels like it went through a last minute rewrite. it was at least entertaining right up until the reveal, which made no goddamn sense.

shit tier: these movies are so bad they made us angry/drained our will to live while watching.

these include (so far): return to zombie island, happy halloween, straight outta nowhere, and the sword and the scoob

additional statements: return to zombie island just pisses in the face of what it's supposed to be a sequel to and is insulting to the audience. happy halloween has so many glaring and nonsensical issues that no matter how batshit insane you think a scooby doo movie involving elvira, bill nye, and johnathan crane/scarecrow from batman, written by maxwell atoms is, do not watch it. it just makes me fucking angry. straight outta nowhere is wasted potential with some of the most bizarre (in a bad way) creative choices i've ever seen. if you watch any of the shit tier movies, i actually recommend this one, because it's at least funny-bad. and the sword and the scoob was so incredibly grating, audience alienating, and just plain mean that i had to actually convince my friend to keep watching several times because it was just that bad. this one was also written by maxwell atoms. mr atoms, what the fuck is your problem.

[polygenderroulette]

Scooby-Doo Movie Tournament

[catfang12]

Today was nice Gnat and I watched 4 scooby doo movies today we only have 5 left then we've watched all 48 movies! Then I guess we'll watch some series already watched the scooby doo show and we're in the middle of What's New scooby doo? 😁😊 We ate a Halloween cookie it was so good!

[disorganizedkitten]

Worked up the courage to start watching return to zombie island. The curse of the 13th ghost was a DISGRACE and I'm wary, but I'm willing to try.

Two minutes in: the gang is wearing their classic outfits, not the Dark Quartet outfits. It's the tiniest thing to nitpick but it feels like it's gonna have a bearing on how much they care to stick to the original continuity.

I DO deeply appreciate seeing the Mystery Machine get her day to be a super multitool, apparently? Even though we're seeing monsters reused without their original context. I'll appreciate it-

oh this was all a nightmare. They're still in the wrong outfits but okay.

(We are focusing a lot recently on Fred being obsessed with His Things and having to adjust, I'm not sure how I feel about this.)

VELMA BLOG, she deserves one!

Yeah so it feels like we're supposed to be the sequel to a movie where they were clearly adults with their own lives and came back to deal with things again, but the writers retconned their ages? They feel like teenagers again.

...is this part of another movie set? I think I just saw the same waitress from Phantosaurus.

[piratesexmachine420]

I've seen a lot of people calling A Minecraft Movie a trainwreck. It isn't. It's not cool, or interesting, or in conversation with its source material; but it's not unwatchable. Everybody try watching some real dreck. Go check out Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island (2019) and then you can get back to me about the depths of IP mining bankrupt horseshit.

[scoobypineapple]

Swamp gas

[xenaisnumber1]

I was watching Scooby Doo: Return to Zombie Island and thought that I recognized the voice of the eccentric movie producer. Which honestly is so fitting.

[scooberish]

How old is the gang meant to be in Zombie Island? I get 27 year old vibes from them but maybe that’s just me

[mega1232]

You’re right and you should say it.

[heartbreakfeelsgoodinablog]

It’s terror time… again.

[threephantomrey]

just thought of a take on 2019/2020 Velma that i actually really love:

it’s based on that scene in Happy Halloween where she says “i’ll admit, i am afraid. i’m afraid of failing, failing science, failing justice, failing my friends. but you’ve been using those fears against me, and i’m not afraid of you anymore!” and that one scene in Curse of the 13th Ghost where she says to Vincent “ghosts aren’t real” and Vincent says “i wish that were true.” okay so everyone knows how in the 13th Ghost/Return to Zombie Island/Happy Halloween trilogy she says that she doesn’t believe in ghosts and she tries to prove that they aren’t real. and i’ve said before that i think she didn’t go through with opening the chest because deep down she has doubts about her own non-belief and that maybe she didn’t know how to cope with the Zombie Island mystery being real which made her turn to trying to deny it was real altogether. well i want to expand on that a little.

first off, the Happy Halloween quote above: i think her whole non-belief thing was more about her being scared of the idea of the supernatural being real than her actually believing it wasn’t real so therefore she kept trying to deny it. because like if she TRULY didn’t believe in it i don’t think she would’ve kept trying to disprove it or kept saying she didn’t believe and she probably would’ve actually opened the chest of demons. she probably would’ve just said “i don’t believe in it” once or twice and that would’ve been it. but i think she’s really just scared of the supernatural being real, this world that she doesn’t know much about or understand. and tbh if i had experienced Zombie Island too i would also be questioning if it was real and would have my doubts! i would also not know how to cope with that and maybe try to deny it for a bit. i wouldn’t 100% know how to react to this big thing i just experienced and don’t fully understand either. in Happy Halloween she literally admits she was scared, so i think that’s what was going on with her. she’s young and scared by what she doesn’t know, especially by something as big as what’s beyond everything she did know: science, logic, rational explanations, etc. and idk i relate to that. i relate to being young and scared by the unknown. like girl! i feel you! and hasn’t everyone been young and afraid of something we didn’t understand/know much about at one point or another? it’s a very human experience.

my mind turns to that scene in Mystery Incorporated where she says “it doesn’t make sense! i want it to make sense! i need it to make sense!” and starts crying. i think that applies to how she feels about the supernatural in these movies very well. she WANTS it to make sense to her, she WANTS it to not be real, she WANTS to not believe and to deny it and ignore it, but deep down she knows it is real and that terrifies her. she is afraid of everything she knew being changed or not what she thought it was, and i think that’s a really good idea to explore. i think she has the most strained relationship with the supernatural out of the whole gang, not even in just these movies but in other scooby media too. i believe everyone else in the gang is more likely to believe in it and admit that they do than her, even in the versions where she does believe/is more open to believing. and hey, she even admits later on that she cares more about her friends than science, and i thought that was really sweet.

also i think when Vincent says he wishes ghosts weren’t real, he kind of sees where she’s coming from and can relate to her, even though he believes wayyy more than she does and will admit it. because he doesn’t like having to deal with the 13 Ghosts, he doesn’t like his loved ones being in danger because of them, he doesn’t like his own ancestor being this evil demon. he WISHES it was all not real, that he could not believe and it would all go away, but it won’t. this is his real life, he has to deal with it, and he will admit that. so i think when he sees Velma, he sees a young girl who is scared of this world she doesn’t fully understand and has only few experiences with it and probably can’t even fully comprehend said world. someone who probably reminds him of his younger self a little bit, because maybe younger Vincent wasn’t too far off from her. and yes obviously Vincent always believed in the supernatural even when he was young i mean how could he not? he’s a literal warlock born into a family full of warlocks and witches and is related to a guy that transformed into a demon, but what i mean is that he too at one point probably didn’t fully understand this world he was born into and was scared of it and scared of it all being real and scared of sharing the same bloodline as an evil demon. he probably wished it all wasn’t real back then too, that he could wake up and it would all be a bad dream and he’d just be a regular mortal boy in a regular mortal family living a normal life. but no matter how hard he struggled with it, he had to accept it and admit it was real and that it wasn’t a dream and that this was something he was going to have to deal with for the rest of his life. wow.

[heavenboy09]

5 Years Ago Today, On September 3rd, 2019

Warner Bros Animation Presents

The Sequel Of The 1998 Iconic American Animated Direct To Video Mystery Kids / Family film 🎥 based on the Popular Beloved Kids TV Show/ Movie Franchise of the 1960s

Scooby-Doo and his gang win an all-inclusive holiday and embark on a trip of a lifetime to a tropical paradise.

Their destination however, turns out to be

ZOMBIE ISLAND 🧟‍♂️ 🧟‍♀️ 🧟‍♂️ 🧟‍♀️ 🧟‍♂️ 🧟‍♀️ 🧟‍♂️ 🏝

and the gang soon learns that their trip to paradise comes at a price.

ITS TIME TO RETURN TO WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

WARNER BROS ANIMATION PRESENTS

SCOOBY-DOO 🐶 RETURN TO ZOMBIE 🧟‍♂️ 🧟‍♀️ ISLAND 🏝

HAPPY 5TH ANNIVERSARY TO WARNER BROS ANIMATION

SCOOBY-DOO 🐶 RETURN TO ZOMBIE 🧟‍♂️ 🧟‍♀️ ISLAND 🏝

IT'S TERROR TIME AGAIN 😱

#ScoobyDooReturnToZombieIsland #ZombieIsland #ScoobyDoo

[notesfromtheidiotbox]

Well, here we are. Let's get on with it.

https://youtu.be/GGD8x8aObXI?si=RuSiw9sGoDz-RGv