Cine Kids - Reboots of The Smurfs

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Introduction

First of all, I want to thank those that have taken the time to leave a thoughtful reply on last week's Cine Kids edition. It was a great pleasure to read them and also a small trip down memory lane while doing so. Not only did I personally recognize quite a few of the cartoons mentioned coming from the reader's childhood but I also got some more insights that the cartoons we used to watch a few decades ago have been somewhat similar for a longer period of time than I imagined. It seems that back in the days, the cartoons we saw were aired on tv for a much longer period of time compared to the cartoons that are released nowadays.

I can confirm that on the Dutch tv, I saw some cartoons from our childhood being aired still even when I had children of my own. They weren't part of the main schedule though, the overall offer of cartoons totally changed, but at certain channels, "our" old cartoons like the Smurfs have never left completely.

Reboots

With that thought I want to jump to this week's topic of discussion: reboots of cartoons.
Over the years, there have been many reboots of cartoons we used to know from our childhood and I think some of them have definitely become better. At least, that's my personal opinion because the opinion may differ per person. I want to have a look at one of these reboots that I enjoyed watching a lot during my childhood and I know is international so I assume many can relate watching this somewhere in their childhood.

The Smurfs

Let's first have a look at some info I found online as I got curious where the journey of the Smurfs actually started. When I check the Smurfs Wikipedia page, I find some interesting information that I didn't know myself. For example, the Smurfs appear first in the comic "Johan and Peewit" from 1958 so this is how far the Smurfs go back, that's 65 years! Papa Smurf must be so old today! The Smurfs have been created by Peyo.

When we look at the films and television section, we can find that the first Smurfs series dates from 1961-1967 and the next one from 1981-1989, I took a few screenshots from the Wikipedia pages to show you the difference in the cartoons:

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The Purple Smurfs which funnily enough was called "Les Schtroumpfs noirs" (The Black Smurfs) in French, and that makes more sense seeing this image. This one dates from 1963. Now let's check the Smurfs in 1981-1989:

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The last one is how I recall the Smurfs tv shows from my childhood. To which era do you belong?

The Smurfs rebooted

As mentioned above, I wanted to have a look at the Smurfs reboot because it was quite interesting to find out that my 6 year old has been loving the Smurfs for a few years now, which I thought was funny as I did too as a child. But when she discovered the old 1981-1989 version of the tv show, she preferred watching this one instead. I was very happy to see the modern versions of the Smurf movies and loved watching them together while she now refuses as she prefers watching the same series as I used to watch as a child. I wonder why?

The most recent tv show of the Smurfs dates from 2021 and has 103 episodes.

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Which of the three series do you prefer?

The Smurfs in movies

Looking back at the Smurfs in movies, I found that there were movies even in the 60's! I found 6 of them on the Smurfs in film Wikipedia page. During the 70's only one movie was released: The Smurfs and the Magic Flute.

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I personally can't recall seeing any of these above, but I may have just forgotten about them. The ones that I won't forget are those from the 2010's, "The Smurfs", "The Smurfs 2" & "The Lost Village". I absolutely loved these and therefore I'd like to share a few clips from these movies.

Now look at the animations here, I love it! I was a fan immediately. But I admit that I loved part two even more:

I loved part two where Gargamel creates a bunch of mischievous Smurf-like creatures called the Naughties. They were a good addition to the original storyline if you ask me. I will not spoil how this movie ends though, if you haven't seen it yet, I recommend you watching it yourself or with your children, I bet they love it!

There's one last Smurfs trailer to share though, "The Lost Village" is a good watch as well, I'm not sure yet if I liked part two or this one most, but I suggest you check that out for yourself.
One thing I do know is that I absolutely love the Smurf movies from the 2010's both the animations and voices are better than the old ones in my opinion.

Cartoons that lasted for generations

So here's one of the cartoons that lasted through three generations already for me, the Smurfs were there when my mother was a child as well as during my childhood, and now during my children's childhood as well. There are plenty examples like this, but not all of them are worth mentioning because newer doesn't always mean better. I applaud the people taking care of the Smurfs reboots because they did a fine job if you ask me. I seriously continue watching at least one of the newer Smurfs movies every year because I still love it.

Which reboots can you name?

Now my question for you this week is, which examples of cartoon reboots can you name that have been there for a few generations? And of course I'm also very curious to find out your opinion about the old vs new. Is the reboot better or did you like the original more yourself? As we know now, some generations may not agree, lol. Although it would have been more logic if I was the one preferring the old Smurfs for nostalgic reasons.

I'm looking forward to read your comments and see you again next week!

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