“Smurfs 2″ trailer

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on

You hated the teaser, you trashed the trailer, and you blew off the finished film – and yet, Sony Animation’s The Smurfs (2011) grossed $142 million. And now – whether you like it or not – here comes The Smurfs 2.

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  • Eman

    “Or not” indeed.

  • Mike

    I really appreciate Sony Pictures Animation for their quality original films like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and their support for important voices in animation like Aardman and Genndy Tartakovsky. It’s a shame to see them reduced to, well…this, but if it makes the money necessary to bring us the good stuff then I’d call it a necessary evil.

  • http://www.dudegurlz.com Kris Kail

    The single greatest motion picture of all time gets a sequel. We are truly blessed to experience this moment.

  • Tredlow

    Eh, I don’t really care about these movies, much less hate them. I’m not gonna watch it, anyway.

  • Confusion

    It looks pretty rancid, as expected.

    That said, the Christmas Carol special they aired the other week on Cartoon Network was surprisingly cute..

  • Alê Camargo

    Life is too smurfing short for that.

  • CGAnimator

    The “narrator Smurf” made me chuckle… other then that… meh.

    • Chris Sobieniak

      For a minute there I thought it was Brainy Smurf being a dork but I guess that wasn’t the case..

  • Michel Van

    The Horror…, the Horror…,
    the Horror has, has NOT… ended Yet ?

    were is the nearest Panic-room ?
    or country were they HATE deeply the Smurfs ?
    Because i will not survive mentally,
    a another Smurfs advertisement campaign of 2011,
    was in Belgium, Netherlands Luxemburg and France.
    there were everywhere in TV, Newspapers, Billboards,
    Radio, in Supermarkets, Spam mail & E-Mail.
    you could not escape this blue meanies

  • http://elblogderg.blogspot.com Cartoonnetwork

    I hate it cause unless the Alvin and the Chipmunks here the original material (the comic books) are masterpieces and they had the potential to make really good full animated movies.

    That said I watched the first one at home and I thought it was bad, but not as bad as I was expecting. For five years olds it was tolerable. But like I said the smurfs are much better than they gave them credit for. The original animated series were already a toned down, superficial version of the comic books, and these are lousy, toned down versions of the animated series.

    • http://ryuuseipro.blogspot.com/ John Paul Cassidy

      Have you seen THE SMURFS AND THE MAGIC FLUTE (Belvision; 1976)? That’s as close to the original Peyo comics as you can get. It’s also available on DVD (apparently only with the UK version dub; it would’ve been great to include the superior US dub or even the original French track).

      There’s also the B&W shorts produced by Dupuis in the early 1960s. I’ve seen one (recorded off a screen from the Belgian Comic Museum), and it has the feel of Gene Deitch’s Tom & Jerry shorts, but are very faithful to the comics! It’d be great if those were also available.

      • http://elblogderg.blogspot.com Cartoonnetwork

        Nope, I know it does exist, but I’ve never watched it. I think I watched some part as a child. I might check it out.

        I didn’t know about the shorts, that sounds interesting.

        Still, I think the Johan and Pirluit comic books and the first smurf adventure with the flute ,while very good, were still less original stories. I think they got more satiric and surreal once they centred around the smurf village.

        A good adaptation of the King Smurf comic book in a full animated movie could be not only a much better film than these ones, it could even be the best animated feature of the year. I think they did King Smurf in the animated series, but picturing it with the exact script of the movie and animated like Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, it could be ineteresting, epic and hilarious.

        I don’t know, maybe they get more bucks making the crap that they are doing, but since the name of the franchise is probably what takes people to cinemas in the first place, why can’t they do something actually good? Especially when they have the stories already written.

        • http://elblogderg.blogspot.com Cartoonnetwork

          All that said, the only reason why I thought the first one was tolerable for little children is that, at the very least, they didn’t ruin the smurfs characters that much. Even if they look ‘realistic’ they mostly kept their personalities and were likeable. But I doubt I should be thankful for that when the script was so cliched and mostly unfunny.

        • http://ryuuseipro.blogspot.com/ John Paul Cassidy

          I recommend getting the DVD. It’s a great movie! It was one of the last releases by the French-Belgian animation studio Belvision (which also did the Tintin series and movies in the late 50s-early 70s). It was very faithful to its basis (it was based on the JOHAN AND PEEWIT comic you mentioned, about the Magic Flute), and Michel Legrand’s music and songs (which are best heard in their original French tongue) are wonderful. Oh, and Brainy Smurf, true to the comics, gets whacked on the head with a mallet whenever he talks too much!

          I think the surrealism and satire are a great part of the original comics. They really show the Smurfs’ personality, as well as their relevance to the real world. Movie adaptations of these albums would be perfect! But the ones who end up making movies are Americans who are embarrassed by the Smurfs, because they only saw the soft, watered-down Hanna-Barbera series.

        • http://ryuuseipro.blogspot.com/ John Paul Cassidy

          Oh, as for the B&W short I saw (which was subtitled in Dutch), it’s based on the comic story, “The False Smurf” (“Le Faux Schtroumpf”), in which Gargamel transforms himself into a Smurf, minus a tail (which he only adds to avoid suspicion from the other Smurfs)! It was very faithful to the comic (even though the story’s ending was broken down to quicken the pace). I love the little reference to the Spy Smurf from another comic story!

          Here’s the link:
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBE_J3STVc

  • Pedro Nakama

    I’m looking for something sharp to jab into my eyes.

  • Steve Gattuso

    I’m not going to see it, but if it gives Neil Patrick Harris the money he needs to make more “Puppet Dreams,” I shall not quibble.

  • Nicole

    I am unimpressed, what a surprise.

    I did see the teaser in theaters minutes before Rise of the Guardians started, and thought to myself “Good lord, if the Smurfs can warrant a sequel my hopes for a sequel to THIS movie are lifted a bit more”.

    Well. I will be avoiding theaters on its release day.

  • http://www.portapuppets.does.it uncle wayne

    i adored the HELL out of the first one! What’s wrong with yoo people?? Jeeez!

    • Michel Van

      I like the Smurfs in Comic form and the animated feature “THE SMURFS AND THE MAGIC FLUTE”. Sony killed the spirit, their movie has little to do with artist Peyo’s original vision of the Smurfs. And there was Sony’s media “Blitzkrieg” – for months they bombarded us with Smurfs here, Smurfs there – it was overkill. In Belgium the critics were in rage about the Sony Movie…

      • http://ryuuseipro.blogspot.com/ John Paul Cassidy

        To the producers’ minds, the Smurfs were created by Hanna-Barbera and was a lame, watered-down American Saturday-morning cartoon show from the 80s. Shows you how clueless and contemptible these Hollywood yuppies are. They only want to ride on the retro-80s wave, and could care less about Peyo’s original comics, or any superior prior adaptation.

    • Eman

      What’s wrong with me?

      Sick of all the thoughtless gags and jokes I’ve seen rehashed over the last 20 years? The complete disregard for the source material to modernize the setting because the makers are afraid the audience will be too stupid to connect with a medieval fantasy setting? The terrible Alvin CG treatment? The totally pointless new characters? Decent taste? It could be a number of things.

  • Joel

    Perhaps this can the cartoon that comes on before “The Room.”

  • http://ryuuseipro.blogspot.com/ John Paul Cassidy

    Please tell me that Peyo is spinning in his grave… :P

  • Funkybat

    While I’d probably watch this before ever laying eyes on any episode of “Twilight,” I am truly baffled that these mediocre-at-best 3D/live action “comedies” continue to do well at the box office.

    I went to see the Chipmunks “Chip-wrecked” out of a random confluence of circumstances, and actually gave it a chance. I enjoyed the 80s Chipmunks shows more or less, and thought this might be tolerable once I got over the CGI designs. As it turned out, the animation itself was fine, it was a decent blend of live actors and CG. What really made me grind my teeth was the cliched, uninteresting story and dialogue. If they have to make these films, they could at least try to make them stand out more as far as storytelling and the jokes. Stuart Little showed that these kinds of movies don’t have to be bad, but so many of the ones that have come out since then *are.*

  • http://deaniac.deviantart.com Deaniac

    I love it when a dumb movie trailer is posted on this site and the members treat it likes it’s cancer. That’s all it is, though: a DUMB MOVIE. It’s not the first and surely won’t be the last.

    On that note, I second Mike’s emotion. If the money this makes goes to Tartakovsky producing another animated feature, then so be it.

  • James

    Definitely aimed at really young audiences. Even as a fan of lame-brained animated comedies this looks pretty poor and desperate.

    Having unfortunately seen the first movie, the only improvement here seems to be some slightly better CGI, which was pretty mediocre to begin with.

  • Glowworm

    *bashes head against wall repeatedly*

    Anyhow, wow, Gargamel creates evil Smurfs. Where have I seen that plot before? Smurfette becomes evil (again) where have I seen that before? Oh yeah–the original animated series. It doesn’t help that the female Naughty looks quite a bit like Smurfette before she became a true Smurf.

    Okay, I’ll admit, the Narrator Smurf made me laugh–but only because he’s voiced by Tom Kane–I could hear Professor Utonium all over that narration.

  • Polecat

    I can see both perspectives in these comments. I hate the Smurfs. But I agree that it’s not the end of the world (at least not for now), as long as the marketing is kept to a minimum.

    That being said, it’s interesting how when you see the poster image out of the corner of your eye, it looks like a mushroom cloud.

  • Jim Lahue

    The Smurfs pulled in over $560M in box office revenue worldwide. The only other film from Sony Animation that comes close to it is Hotel Transylvania (and that is slightly above the $300M mark). It’s not surprising that Smurfs 3 and Smurfs 4 are already in the works. If Smurfs 2 makes as much as the first one did, it’ll help make up for the lackluster Aardman films (Arthur Christmas and The Pirates! Band of Misfits).

  • Inkan1969

    Did anyone here see the new Christmas Special?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-KOEH-u4QZU#t=246s

    Most of the special is traditionally animated. I liked the fluid look the 2D animation had here.

    • Michel Van

      zillion time better
      as that CGI monstrosity…

    • Chris Sobieniak

      Funny I didn’t know this existed. Already I wish they did more of this than what they’ve done in those movies.

      • http://ryuuseipro.blogspot.com/ John Paul Cassidy

        Yeah, seriously! *This* was more like the Smurfs I know and love than the new movies.

    • Ben

      Wow, I had no idea this existed either, and I agree that it’s so much better than the CGI movie. I wouldn’t even mind a new Smurfs series done in this 2D style. It’s cute, and the jokes were actually cute.

  • James Fox

    NO! NO GOD NO! NO! NO GOD! NO! NO! NO!

  • http://elblogderg.blogspot.com Cartoonnetwork

    I , for one, think he’s great and hilarious in How I Met Your Mother and singing in musical numbers. Quite funnier than Seth MacFarlane, too.

    NPH lookes lethargic in the first Smurf movie, though. I guess he was thinking in the paycheck more than the acting. His brief scene here looks like he got more confident, but I’m not paying to see him in this.

  • Ryoku75

    I have a challenge for anyone commenting, think up ten things that you would rather do with $10 than see Smurfs 2.

    I avoided the original film partially because the CGI Smurfs freaked me out, and partially because of ticket prices. I’d rather just buy a DVD of the original series for the sort of money that modern tickets demand.

    • http://ryuuseipro.blogspot.com/ John Paul Cassidy

      Or use that 10 bucks to buy a DVD of THE SMURFS AND THE MAGIC FLUTE, and see how a *real* Smurfs movie should be made. ;)

  • Steven M

    I guess I agree with everyone else, if it gets them the money to do better movies, then I’ll tolerate it.

  • wever

    Who’s the smurf with the British accent?? And where’s the Scottish one from the last film? I suppose they rotate some out depending on their popularity!

    Being a smurf star is tough.

  • http://www.ghiblicon.blogspot.com daniel thomas macinnes

    This sucks. People are only shuffling into line because they’re programmed like lab rats. “Ooh, I recognize that brand name! I’ll mindlessly consume it now.” Yuck. Parents should feel ashamed for shoveling this mental junk food in front of their children, when far more nourishing works or art are so easily available. The entire history of animation is now available at your fingertips, at the click of a button. What’s the excuse for shuffling to dreck like Smurfs Part XXXVIII (r)(tm)(c)? You might as well watch informercials at 3:00 am.

    (/Grampa Simpson rant, sorry)

  • Keith Paynter

    W…T…S…?

  • John

    I watched the first Smurfs in the theater on babysitting duty. It was what it was. Which was a kid’s movie, aimed at kids. For what it was, I thought it was pretty good, an honest (dare I say earnest) take on the source material.

    This looks to be the same. Cut ‘em some slack for daring to cut to the chase with their target audience.

    • http://ryuuseipro.blogspot.com/ John Paul Cassidy

      What source material?