LullabyKnell Liveblogs

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Definitely not against Artemis' father being clearly a worldwide mockery (EDIT: there are news crews outside of Artemis’ house because he’s been discovered to be an international thief), but am very much against the Mulch Diggums intro. This Mulch is too human.

Also, I hate Josh Gad. No real reason. I just do. He's so fucking smug in everything I see him in. (EDIT: I actually tolerate Olaf the Snowman fine, but I kind of loathed his LaFou. He could be a perfectly nice person, I don’t know; I’ve just never enjoyed him as an actor in anything I’ve seen him in.) 

Ooh. Macguffin mention already. (EDIT: It’s called “the Aculos” or something.) 

I don't like Mulch enough to want him as narrator. Also this is cliche narration that breaks my suspension of disbelief. (EDIT: The movie starts with Mulch being in an interrogation room in the middle of the ocean, speaking to someone on the other end of a camera. Mulch is “telling the story” of Artemis Fowl.) 

Artemis surfing is still surreal. We meet Artemis surfing. (EDIT: this has no bearing on the rest of the movie. It’s just in there for flavor.) 

I don't know how I feel about Ireland being characterized as the most magical place in the world instead of, like, a real place. (EDIT: Like? Leaning real hard into the “Ireland is Magic Land” stuff here. Kind of weird.) 

How does Mulch know how Artemis feels about anything? How does Mulch know anything about Artemis' life at all??? (EDIT: Mulch was straight-up narrating Artemis’ life and his issues with school and his dad. Which basically amount to: Artemis is very smart and has no friends, antagonizes the school therapist whom he is forced to see, and wishes his constantly travelling dad was home more.) 

Artemis smiling is also surreal.

Wait is Artemis' mother dead??? Oh good, we fridged the mother!

Who has a therapy office with a glass wall so the waiting room can look on? (EDIT: This is for Artemis’ therapy session at school, which just... happens? I guess. It means basically nothing given the rest of the movie is incoherent.) 

Artemis can... skateboard?

I hate Mulch's narration. Supposedly Mulch is in an interrogation in a fucking prison, but he's telling the story like a children's book. Like they want to be fucking Tolkien. This isn't Bilbo writing his book.

Artemis' dad being present is also weird.

The characterization is all over the place already. Completely different Artemis already and he's painfully generic. (EDIT: Artemis’ dad has told him fairy stories all his life, without actually telling him that fairies are real. So when Artemis’ dad is leaving again on a sudden “business trip”, Artemis straight-up says a line to his dad like, “I don’t want to believe in fairies, I want to believe in you.”) 

They fridged the mom! They fucking fridged the mom who is the motivation/driver of the first book. She's a major fucking plot point!

Leaning into the magical Ireland thing too hard for me here.

Artemis is so... childish. Very odd.

Blond and blue-eyed and BLACK Butler is weird.

Wait... Artemis calls Butler "Dom"??? (EDIT: Okay, so, in the movie, they made it a thing that you do not call Butler “Butler” or “the Butler”. People call him “Dom” or else, or something. Even though, you know, in the book, Butler is extremely proud of his heritage and it’s actually against his family’s rules to be on first-name terms with their charges or something. But Butler does not get an actual backstory or anything, he’s just... there.) 

Mulch knowing everything is weird. He's talking like a children's book narrator in an interrogation. Has he been planning a book? Is he indulging in his storytelling hobby?

Artemis has no idea that his father is a criminal and is finding out from the news.

(EDIT: Lol, they made Artemis Senior steal the Book of Kells for some reason? Because obviously the Book of Kells is secretly a magical fairy book or something? Instead of, you know, just a beautiful piece of human art.) 

Artemis has just gotten a convenient call from the kidnapper asking for the MacGuffin in exchange for his dad. (EDIT: Okay, so Artemis’ dad goes on a business trip, gets outed as an international thief (summoning the news vans to the house), and is kidnapped by the villain.) 

Secret magic lab in the mansion that Artemis doesn't know about. The Fowls are a secret line of do-gooders who protect fairies now. For generations. (EDIT: This isn’t actually explained? The fairies don’t actually like the Fowls. The Fowls steal things for “good reasons” which are not actually explained.) 

This is hand-holding level plot progression.

This is fucking juvenile.

Why is Butler involving Artemis at all? If Butler is he father's assistant, why does he need Artemis? (EDIT: Butler more or less goes to pieces the moment Artemis Senior is kidnapped and tells Artemis that his fairies are real and his family has protected fairies for generations. Artemis’ father told Butler everything except the stuff he wrote in his journal! Maybe that could help them find the MacGuffin!) 

Secret journal and it's not even fucking written in code. (EDIT: Artemis find the journal basically immediately and it conveniently tells them exactly what the Aculos MacGuffin is and who the villain is.) 

Mulch isn't here! He shouldn't know what's happening!

The people he's taking to can't see Haven! (EDIT: We’re diving down into Haven now.) Why is Mulch committing treason??? He's straight up telling someone that fairies exist.

Everyone looks so human.

Oh... They traded the lizard goblins for hooked nose humans with blue skin and pointy ears. That’s... a choice. 

Juvenile dialogue.

Holly's intro is ruined by Mulch.

Holly is so... blank.

This is too much Mulch.

Why is Mulch a 'giant dwarf'? Why can't he be a normal dwarf???

Masked bad guy with the distorted voice is a fucking cliche. MacGuffin mention again.

Briar's development is also ruined??? Didn't he go bad in later books because of the first book? (EDIT: In this, Briar is a LEP officer on probation who is recruited by Opal Koboi to be her spy??? It’s super unclear.) 

What is up with Judy Dench's voice??? (EDIT: I’m serious, she’s doing a voice like she smokes three packs of cigarettes a day.) 

Why did they genderbend Root? (EDIT: Holly Short being the first female LEP officer is completely remotely as a plotline by the way.) 

MacGuffin AGAIN.

Holly's father is also involved! Instead of her having, you know, her own fucking storyline. (EDIT: Holly’s father, “Beechwood Short”, was a LEP officer before her and she wants to live up to his legacy.)

Artemis does kendo now? Oh, no, it's Juliet, thank goodness. She's twelve now apparently. She's also still blond. Kinda. (EDIT: She’s Butler’s niece in this instead of his sister, which isn’t an inherently bad choice.) 

Foaly is brown-skinned too. Centaur effects are kinda bad though. Kinda awkward. (EDIT: All the effects are really awkward.) 

Holly is so fucking green. (EDIT: Meaning naive. She’s not actually green-skinned or anything.) They're playing this with a wide-eyed new recruit angle. Her father is also a traitor now, who stole the MacGuffin from the fairies.

WHAT is UP with Dench's voice???

Ooh. Clumsy CGI here. (EDIT: This is referring to Holly’s flight to Italy to handle the Troll escaped to the surface. She is the only officer available for the job because all the others are trying to find the Aculos or something.) 

Butler is wearing camo gear to spy on the Hill of Tara. I've been there. There are no trees like this. It's just green hills and sheep. It's a chill place. (EDIT: The Hill of Tara is the site where they used to crown the Kings of Ireland. It’s just this hill in the Irish countryside, with plenty of farms and fields around. Popular tourist stopping point. Nice view. Lots of green rolling hills. My favorite part were the sheep munching on the grass with no clue whatsoever that this was a historic site for the Kings of Ireland. The Artemis Fowl movie has apparently made it an inherently magical site with a random giant tree at the top.) 

Try kept the dreadlocks on the Troll design. Bad. (EDIT: I think the trolls having dreadlocks was a choice by the comic book? It was bad then too.) 

Holly is just letting the troll wreck this wedding. Everyone has seen it.

The time freeze is happening. It's like a missile now instead of something they have to set up. Oh... wait... The time freeze froze everything except Holly??? Wait, I thought the time freeze was supposed to isolate a spot from the outside world??? All the humans inside the time freeze are frozen. 

Inconsistent worldbuilding.

Holly is disobeying orders to go to Ireland to clear her father's name.

This journal is ridiculous. Artemis' father is just spelling everything out.

Opal Koboi is the bad guy.

Butler is going to kidnap Holly because Artemis needs her help???

Lol. "The only human habitation near the Hill of Tara is Fowl Manor." It's a normal fucking place. There are houses. And farms. And sheep.

Artemis is wearing a plaid button-up, a t-shirt, and jeans. It’s like they forgot to put the kid in costume for half the movie. 

Wait, I just realized the entire trip to get the fairy book didn't happen. Wasn't that in the trailer??? (EDIT: The first chapter of the book is Artemis going to Vietnam or something to investigate a lead on a fairy to get his hands on the book which contains the rules of magic the fairies operate by. It was in the trailer??? It straight-up never happened in the movie. What the hell.) 

Who the FUCK is Mulch talking to?

Wait the time freeze works differently now??? They're putting up a time freeze around Fowl Manor.

Artemis has a magic sword. (EDIT: Stole it from Holly, I think?) 

Wait, they're CHOOSING to set up the time freeze so that Artemis can still do stuff? So that Root can question him? Why not just freeze him and kidnap him back??? (EDIT: They honestly used the time freeze in two different ways.) 

Root looks ridiculous. (EDIT: The costumes in this movie are not good.) 

My mom just pointed out that Fowl Manor is near the Hill of Tara but also apparently the ocean? Lol. 

Artemis is in a suit now... Because reasons??? (EDIT: Seriously, he just dresses up in a suit for the aesthetic? Unclear. This kid was wearing a plaid button-up, but he needs to get dressed up for the fairies storming his house.) 

Artemis and Butler are fighting off the fairies with magic sword guns.

Butler just shot the time freeze device. It's destabilizing now???

Apparently this gives Artemis negotiation leverage? He just ordered the fairies to negotiate with him.

Opal Koboi is aware of all of this somehow. 

She's monologuing at Artemis Senior. Still wearing the mask and hood and voice distortion. We're not supposed to know it's Opal yet? 

Opal wants to destroy humanity because fairy oppression? (EDIT: Revenge on the humans for driving fairies into hiding and reducing them to stories, and so on and so forth. Super cliche.) 

Root still needs to be invited in???

The Fowls are famous to the fairies apparently.

Artemis is demanding Root bring him the MacGuffin.

Wait, they can't storm the house because fairy rules. But they didn't set up the Book??? They didn't set up the rules of magic??? (EDIT: Artemis explicitly tells Root that no fairies will be allowed inside while he’s still alive, except it’s completely taken from the context of the book.) 

Mulch is in prison and being recruited to break it. (EDIT: It is not explained that Mulch can break in because he sacrificed his magic.) Oh good another inhumane and impossible fantasy prison for aesthetic. Twenty people to a circular cage? Dwarves and goblins in the same cell???

Hooked nose goblins are back.

I hate this Mulch.

Artemis has still kidnapped Holly, but it's so bad. Artemis just took off the anti-hypnosis glasses for no reason so Artemis and Holly can bond for no reason over their dads. He's decided to trust Holly, though they haven't let her go. (EDIT: Artemis straight-up asked, “Can I trust you?” And then took the glasses off to commiserate with Holly about their missing dads.) 

The MacGuffin can apparently open portals between worlds.

This is the Mulch Diggums show. I fucking hate Josh Gad.

Mulch apparently just wants to be small like other dwarves. He wants to be NORMAL. I think he might just be conning Root but I hate him.

David Bowie was apparently secretly a fairy says Mulch.

They kept the way dwarves work. Of all the fucking things to be faithful to.

Mulch isn't being remotely stealthy.

Mulch has found a safe and is opening it. 

Artemis has let Holly out to help him??? I'm not sure why. Because of Mulch opening the secret vault he didn’t know about??? Artemis is threatening fairy exposure if Holly doesn't help him? He's still not wearing the glasses. But Holly punched him slightly so it's fine.

MacGuffin was in Fowl Manor all along.

It'll kill any human who uses it?

Why the fuck is Holly helping Artemis? She has no personality, I'm going to throw something.

The time freeze is destabilizing. Obvious time push.

Briar has taken over the operation. On Opal Koboi's orders? Briar has arrested Root and he's sending in the Troll. Seriously, Root is in handcuffs.

They can jam all magic in the house from the outside???

Holly, Artemis, Butler, and Mulch are working together to fight the troll. This is dumb fucking action scene. The Troll scene is without it's original context and it's now happening for no reason.

Mulch just ate the MacGuffin.

Butler fighting the Troll was BADASS in the book. It's just silly here.

Artemis being involved in a fight is weird.

Juliet has no purpose in this story.

Butler is at best a plot device.

Artemis is shooting the Troll with the magic gun. Butler isn't doing anything??? Butler might be hurt? (EDIT: Troll basically killed itself. Trolls was only defeated because it knocked itself out, not because of anything the characters did. The characters were basically just running around screaming.) 

Try the phones? Time freeze is collapsed.

Holly can't help Butler because they blocked her magic.

Butler is dying??? Jfc.

Nothing has happened in this movie to justify asking me to be emotional.

Holly got her magic back because the captain outside disobeyed Briar. Butler is fine now.

Nothing in this movie has convinced me to believe that Artemis has a plan.

Butler fighting the Troll was BADASS in the book, I'm so disappointed.

The time freeze collapsing is having random weird reality bending effects??? So the fairies are running away now??? Artemis and Butler are apparently going to die? Holly can't save them??? Root is urging her to run and leave them?

Wait, the time freeze ended and... it's not clear how they survived? How the FUCK did they survive? I think Holly may have used the MacGuffin? Which was in Mulch's gut like a minute ago?

Holly came back and she and Artemis are apparently friends now? (EDIT: They seriously shook hands and called themselves friends. I think they’ve known each other for maybe half-an-hour.) 

No, Holly is using the MacGuffin now to summon Artemis’ father. Unclear how they they survived the time freeze then.

What is happening.

Opal Koboi is killing the father because Artemis didn't give her the MacGuffin in time. Artemis is now running through the house looking to see if Holly succeeded in bringing his father back, because she doesn't know?? They're pulling a fake out. Of course the dad is back.

Opal Koboi does the cliche failed villain scream.

"Artemis, how did you save me?" "I just followed the stories you told me. With a little help with a friend."

Lol. I’m gonna lose it. 

Artemis Fowl Senior is assuring Holly that her father was a good man.

He just gave her a list of Opal's accomplices?

The MacGuffin is returned to Haven now that they "know who their enemies are". Root is telling Holly that she'll make a decent officer someday. Root is tasking Holly with investigating the names on the list. Haven doesn't have... like.. a government or anything, apparently.

Holly is getting a rousing round of applause from her co-workers for no fucking reason. (EDIT: The implication was that she made her dead dad proud, I guess, by bringing the Aculos back.) 

The Fowls were just... left alone???

Wait, why was Artemis' father outed as a thief? They never explained that??? There are news vans outside their house??? What was he actually accused of? Artemis has "people working on it"? (EDIT: Did he return the Book of Kells? Did Opal steal the Book of Kells to frame him? I’m so confused.) 

Artemis called Opal to tell her that they're coming for her. And declared himself a criminal mastermind??? My sister just said "since when" and yeah. 

(EDIT: How the FUCK does Artemis have Opal’s phone number?) 

Wait, how did Mulch end up in prison. Who the fuck is he talking to??? Someone trying to arrest Artemis' dad??? No, Artemis set up Mulch's arrest? So that Mulch could talk at someone and threaten them? And Mulch could be tracked by Artemis? Mulch just revealed that fairies exist to shady shadow person doing the interrogation so Artemis could intimidated them in not going after his father??? 

(EDIT: It looks like the sequence of events is: Mulch was telling this whole story to try and intimidate people who want to arrest Artemis Senior into leaving the Fowls alone. Mulch was doing this on Artemis’ orders???) 

Mulch is being rescued in a helicopter by Artemis. Why the fuck does this interrogation room have a fucking skylight.

Mulch, Holly, Artemis, and Butler are flying off into the sunset together.

(EDIT: I guess the implication is that they’ll go off and have more world-saving fairy adventures together.) 

Wow, no part of that movie was good. My mom just said so. Not the script. Not the cinematography. Not the effects. My comment was going to be that it was basically incoherent.

Mom just said that every time they tried to actually explain things to try and make things more coherent, it came off awkwardly. "As you know, Commander, the Aculos is the most powerful artifact in our society." Whole movie was nothing but that nonsense. I'm going to scream.

This was offensive to me as a writer and someone who works in the entertainment business.

~ 

POST-WATCH NOTES: 

Butler could have been replaced by a completely redone version of Artemis’ mom and it would have worked pretty fine. Instead, they made a black man into the family servant and fridged the mom. He was a plot device! He had no real character! I’m going to throw something. 

Juliet had no purpose in this movie. Literally none. You could remove her wholesale, every single scene that she’s in you could just remove her, and the quality and comprehensibility of the movie would not change. She does not impact the plot in any way whatsoever. 

Holly had no personality and it’s so sad I don’t have the heart to actually dunk on it properly. She didn’t feel like a real person at all. 

Artemis was incoherent as a character. 

Artemis’ dad was barely a character. He was a dad in distress. 

No one survived this movie. 

The acting wasn’t even good. Stiff as hell. 

There is NOTHING in this movie that could compel book fans to enjoy it. Everything is removed from context and gutted into an incoherent, generic mess. There’s nothing for new potential fans to latch onto. They made no one happy. 

Opal Koboi didn’t unmask for the entire movie. We never saw her face. I actually liked spoiled brat pop tech genius Opal from the books. Here, she’s just... I don’t know... a dark figure in a mask and suit with a distorted voice. No personality. 

I gotta stop, I’m upsetting myself. This was so bad. 

They could have just directly turned the book into a script and it would have been fine. It would have been fine. Why didn’t they just do that. It’s like they got stuck in Development Hell and their Undo button was broken, so they just had to keep moving forward with their shitty decisions. 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. 

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*The “creative pipeline” of movies/shows can get complicated, because there are lots of steps (in pre-production alone) across lots of different departments and a lot of them are happening at the same time.

Without someone at the top of the project with a clear vision (usually the director) and financial backing (producers or a studio), most productions are prone to massive communication failure between departments and hit snags in their development which can bring the whole project to a stop. Directors and producers will talk about their fear of a production slowing down, because then it becomes a very real risk the project will never happen (at least: probably not the project as they envisioned it). Making movies is a business and an expensive one. (Also, creative people often get paid on a project-by-project basis, so they’ll jump ship from a problem project ground to a halt to move on to new projects so they can actually get paid.)

Most studios would rather manufacture formulaic not-failures (not hits, but still profitable) than take creative risks and potentially bomb. Which is why you end up with a lot of sequels and adaptations and generic movies that feel like they have absolutely nothing new to offer. Sometimes these generic movies still bomb anyway, of course, and sometimes “creative risk” movies are still awful and boring. It’s hard to predict what’ll be a hit.

Anyway, where I’m going with this: the Artemis Fowl movie apparently lost directors, screenwriters, producers, and studios often its decade+ in Development Hell. Which means that the production, even when it finally started rolling again, was probably a huge mess most of the time. Or at least had been such a huge mess for so long that they had to 1) recover from that mess at the same time that they were 2) actually making a movie.

I also think that the studios and producers involved probably 1) were super reactionary, 2) didn’t actually understand the property, which made them nervous, and 3) were extra nervous because of the increasing amount of time in Development Hell which had labelled this movie as a Problem Project.

I don’t know how to say this nicely, so I won’t: I think a lot of studio heads are out-of-touch with a lot of things and in the entertainment business purely for the money (because it IS a business).

I think they were confused by the fact that Artemis Fowl is the titular protagonist, but he’s a smug little criminal who’s unlikable and does bad things, so they made up a new storyline with a MacGuffin in which Artemis is a likable innocent boy protagonist (a cool kid other kids with relatable to and want to be like!) thrust into a magical world against his will/knowledge. I think they said, “This is Children’s Movie! We need to make it Appropriate for Families. We can’t tell children it’s Okay to Be a Criminal!”

I think they didn’t understand Holly as a secondary protagonist and tried to erase Holly’s struggles with sexism out of fear of being “politically incorrect”, and gave her a new backstory to give her and Artemis “Something in Common”. I think they said to themselves, “We need to add some Diversity here! We obviously can’t make either of our protagonists not-white, so let’s make Butler black and Root a woman without thinking about the implications or what that actually does to the story.” I think they poked and prodded the story until they could make it into something palatable and then rushed the whole production out because this property was becoming a money sink.

Imo, even in the trailer, you can see elements of people going: “Harry Potter was a hit, we should make this more like Harry Potter. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has a lot of hits, we should make this more like the Marvel Cinematic Universe! We should make this more Young Adult! Let’s follow those tried-and-true formulas and profit off of those pre-existing audiences!”

(One of my first reactions after seeing the trailer was... “Oh my god, they made Generic Children’s Movie Men In Black with fairies.”)

Where was I going with this? “Is there a logical reason why they went down this route, or is it just a complete mistake?” There are plenty of potential “logical reasons” why they went down this route, but imo it was still a mistake.

Because imo Artemis Fowl is interesting because the protagonist is problematic and because the conflict is NOT a save-the-world conflict. Everything about the outlined plot I read to answer this is so generic that it hurts me, down to the “All-Powerful MacGuffin” that the “Evil Masked Villain Planning to Destroy Humankind” is after and the temporary loss of the “Parent Secretly Involved in a Magic Society”. I’ve seen this plot before; I’ve seen this movie before. I can’t guarantee that a direct adaptation of Artemis Fowl would have been the most amazing movie ever made, but imo it would have at least been more interesting and more suspenseful than one of the most laughably predictable plots I’ve had the misfortune of reading. (Modern audiences are a lot more trope-savvy than I think some people in the entertainment business want to acknowledge.)

Although I will say, again, that Artemis Fowl is one of the most cinematic (like reading a movie) books I’ve ever read (up there with the original Jurassic Park), so I think it would have made a pretty good movie as a direct adaptation.

Anyway! Thank you for saying that I seem to know what I’m talking about and for asking! I had fun being petty for a while and typing all this up. Do I think they could have made their plot good? Idk, maybe, but imo it takes some pretty charismatic actors to overcome that level of predictability (see: the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe). Do I think Artemis Fowl would have made a good TV show instead? No, the plot is too tight to support multiple episodes, imo, so a movie was actually the right medium for an adaptation.

Oh and I wanna say before I sign off on this that I know there are some producers and studio heads who genuinely care about their projects and whatever. I’m not trying to say that all bad movies everywhere are their fault. Sometimes screenwriters and directors are awful too! But since Artemis Fowl (2020) was apparently a Disney production, I don’t really feel like I’m off-base with “potentially overly controlling talking heads who just wanted to roll out generic content for profit was probably a huge part of the problem”.

Get ready for my drunk live-bitch of Artemis Fowl at some point.