the fact that M3GAN 2.0 is flopping hard is SO sad bc it’s due so much in part to people simply not understanding? Not caring? That M3GAN in the original film was NOT your typical slasher villain. People kept comparing her to characters like Chucky, but if you paid even the tiniest bit of attention to the first movie beyond “creepy toy kills people”, it basically slaps you in the face with the fact that M3GAN was not cartoonishly evil. M3GAN was a tragic figure created by a woman who saw her not as a sentient being, but as a tool. She was given the impossible task of comforting, teaching and essentially raising a child when she was literally just born herself. She was tasked with the insanely vague objective of “protecting” that girl, while having no real understanding of death or morality or anything in the world beyond what she could read online.
Saying “they ruined her as a villain!!” shows a fundamental misunderstanding of her character as a whole. And that’s to make no mention of the fact that a HUGE theme throughout the first film was an oddball and damaged family trying to figure out how to love each other! To emphasize that and then go “except M3GAN though, she’s irredeemable” (especially when some of her biggest flaws are ones she inherited from her human creator!) would only undermine that message.
She is an extremely damaged child, just like Cady, and she’s a part of the family, too.
When I first learned of it, I wasn’t excited at all by the thought of a M3GAN sequel. It felt like it could only be a boring rehash of the first movie. My mind changed when I saw the trailer for 2.0 - and then when I saw the actual film, I was super impressed by their willingness to experiment and try something new. Was it ridiculous? Of course! The first movie was, too. But to see people reject it so hard because it tried something new (and logically followed M3GAN’s character arc to the places implied by the first film) is sad to me.
And it sounds like the creators of the movie loved M3GAN so much, they truly believed in her. Which just makes it all the sadder :/
