Powerpuff Girls reboot that The CW was working on, titled Powerpuff, was officially cancelled, to, I think, the satisfaction of many fans around the world. This was a series that, quite frankly, should have never been greenlit in the first place or never even been talked about in the first place, ’cause, technically, I guess it never did get greenlit ’cause it never went beyond just the initial pilot. But, nevertheless, I thought that once that series was cancelled, once they didn’t pick it up for a full first season, we would never be talking about this show again.
The Unexpected Leak
And to my surprise, it’s back in the spotlight again because, apparently, late last week, the trailer for The Powerpuff CW series somehow found its way to the internet. It’s a little bit over three minutes long, and I just finished watching the full thing to discuss it in this video, and, boy, was it worse than I could have ever imagined. This show looks like it would have been absolutely horrendous. Thankfully, the executives at Warner Bros. Discovery had their better sense take over and realize that, hey, this is probably something we shouldn’t be making.
Just watching the trailer itself, it just seems to me like this show is Powerpuff Girls in name but nothing more than that, if that makes sense. Like, this is the Powerpuff Girls, apparently, but it really isn’t.
Trailer Content and Canon Issues
So, from the trailer itself, I’m not going to show anything from it because, you know, it is a leak, I don’t want to be copyright struck by Warner Bros. Discovery. But by looking at the trailer and watching it, it seems like what they’re trying to do is, they’re trying to make this the, quote-unquote, canon version of The Powerpuff Girls, which I think is just a very dangerous game to be playing when you’re trying to make this new live-action reboot revival the real Powerpuff Girls, quote-unquote.
And what I mean by this is, within the trailer itself, they mentioned how, yeah, we got so popular when we were kids that they even made merchandise and a TV show after us. And you start seeing, like, little toys of The Powerpuff Girls, like a lunchbox, little bobbleheads of them, and they look like The Powerpuff Girls as we saw them in the original Cartoon Network series. So, in essence, what they’re trying to say is, hey, that cartoon you guys all saw, that was based on the real-world Powerpuff Girls, which this show is going to tell the story of them.
A Convoluted Plot
And, apparently, Mojo Jojo is not a monkey, Mojo’s a dad who has a son named Jojo, and, apparently, the Powerpuff Girls accidentally killed Mojo. So, then Jojo becomes the mayor of Townsville. If what I’m saying to you guys sounds like a convoluted mess, that’s because that’s exactly what this is. This show would have been a convoluted mess, and, like I said before, thankfully, the executives finally came to their senses and decided to cancel this show before it even made its way onto the air.
Mature Themes and Tone
The last thing I want to say about the trailer itself before we just talk about this as a whole is, the trailer itself very much so borderlines on this being a show meant for older audiences. Like, there’s some more, I don’t know, for lack of a better term, explicit things that are being discussed in this trailer, and it just comes off as just, I don’t even know how to describe it. I’m kind of at a loss for words, quite frankly, ’cause it’s just, this is not the Powerpuff Girls. This is never what the Powerpuff Girls were meant to be. I don’t know who initially came up with this idea, but, thankfully, it didn’t go any further than what we just saw in that, ’cause this looked like garbage.
The Challenges of Live-Action Adaptations
In general, the whole discussion of live-action versus animation and adapting shows into live action, there’s a certain way to do it that doesn’t anger fanbases, right? I mean, in general, I feel like whenever you bring up an animated series making the jump to live action, it’s always met with, you know, dismay from the fanbase of the original series. No one really wants to see that happen, but there’s certain instances where you can do it in a faithful manner that doesn’t really tarnish the original work.
Comparison with Ben 10 Live-Action Films
Like, for example, what I’m thinking of is the Ben 10 live-action films that we got, Race Against Time and Alien Swarm. Neither of which are exactly these major blockbuster films that are going to knock anyone’s socks off, right? They’re not exactly the most high-quality films in the world, but if you’re a fan of Ben 10, you will appreciate those movies, and you will enjoy them, at least I know I did. But the same thing cannot be said for Powerpuff. Powerpuff is a show that, essentially, is like, let’s take the original Powerpuff Girls, let’s retcon everything and say that that’s just a spoof based on the real-life Powerpuff Girls, and this is the canon timeline here. That’s just a bad idea from the first place, and, like I said, thankfully, they did not go any farther than they did with this show.
Initial Concept and Its Flaws
I remember a while ago when this show was first announced, and we got the little synopsis of what it’s going to be. It was supposed to be a show following the Powerpuff Girls as adults and, essentially, them being disillusioned by the fact that they spent their entire lives as superheroes growing up, they didn’t really get to enjoy their childhood. Now, I remember when I read that synopsis, I was like, oh, that actually sounds like an interesting idea for a series. Like, I could get behind this if it wasn’t in live action.
But after seeing what that all entails, after seeing the direction they were taking that in, oh man, it makes me really think back to those videos and make me think, what was I thinking? But, to be honest with you, I really don’t think, inherently, that plotline’s a bad idea. Like, oh, the Powerpuff Girls are now in their late teens or early 20s, they’re disillusioned by the fact that their whole childhood was spent fighting crime, they didn’t get to have a normal life growing up, so they’ve all kind of stepped back from being superheroes and are trying to live normal lives until some threat threatens Townsville, and they all have to come out of retirement.
Potential in the Concept
Like, I don’t think that’s a bad plotline for a series. That, in and of itself, sounds like it would be much more dark, it sounds like it would be much more serious than, you know, a kids’ animated series would be, like the Powerpuff Girls back in the day. Like, it has a deeper, darker plotline, and, quite frankly, it kind of gives me some Ben 10: Alien Force vibes because the whole thing with Ben 10: Alien Force is, it takes place five years after the original series. Ben wanted to just live a normal life, so he finally got the Omnitrix removed from his wrist, and he’s just enjoying himself as a high school student. There’s very similar parallels between Alien Force and the plot of Powerpuff.
Where It All Went Wrong
But the execution is where everything falls apart for me. Number one, this should have never been a live-action series from the start, terrible idea to do so. Number two, we had that script leak a while back. I don’t remember exactly what it entailed because, quite frankly, at the point in time at which it leaked, I didn’t really think it was real, I didn’t even read it fully, but I looked at some images of it before recording this video. The script itself looked horrible, the things they were trying to portray in it, the things they were trying to execute, like, I saw a joke about Mojo saying that, oh, the way I won the election in the first place was with my monkey, Mojo Jojo, like, maybe we should bring him back, and then there was a joke about Harambe in there, which, it’s like, what are we doing at that point? Like, that is just, I don’t even know what to say there.
And number three, now we have this trailer leak here for The CW’s Powerpuff, and you can just see, everything we feared from the initial announcement when we learned this was live action, everything we feared from that script leak, all comes to fruition here in this three-minute and 20-some second long trailer that we had for Powerpuff. It looks absolutely awful, it looks absolutely horrendous, and, thankfully, this show is going to be a piece of lost media that never comes to light.
Speculation on the Leak
I wouldn’t be surprised, honestly, at this point, given that the script leak, given that we had a leak for the trailer, if the pilot itself ends up leaking one day. I’m kind of curious who exactly leaked this. Like, it has to be someone who either worked on the series or an employee at Warner Bros. Discovery, but I’m curious, like, why are they leaking this? Are they leaking it to show, hey, look how good this series would have been? Because if that was their thought process behind it, or that was their intent behind this, uh, this looks pretty awful.
Unless, if it’s someone at the network, like, yeah, this was a terrible idea from the start, so let’s show everybody how terrible this would have been and show the network, show Warner Bros. Discovery that, yeah, you shouldn’t attempt to do this with any other series again. Imagine if someone on the Ben 10 team actually is, like, oh, Warner Bros. Discovery is talking about doing this for Ben 10 right now, let’s leak the Powerpuff trailer so that everyone can see how awful this would have been, and people complain about it and talk about it again, so Warner Bros. Discovery decides not to do this for Ben 10 or any other franchise. That would be really, really funny if that’s why this thing leaked.
Conclusion and Call to Action
But, for now, we got our first and what probably will be our last look at the live-action Powerpuff Girls series titled Powerpuff, and, yeah, it’s worse than we could have ever imagined. Anyways, let me know down in the comment section below what you guys think about all this. If you guys haven’t seen the leaked trailer, it’s out there online for you to find, but if you have seen it, let me know down below what you think about it and just the whole idea of a live-action Powerpuff Girls in general. What do you think about the idea of Powerpuff inherently? If you guys enjoyed this video, be sure to leave a like and subscribe to see more content like this from DC Network. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you guys next time.
