Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus Trailer Released

[Creep3r]

I think Gaz in the show was more of a force of nature than an actual character. She was basically invincible whenever she actually cared about doing something, but keeping with the depressive nature of the show, she was uncaring about anything that wasn't a videogame, and she was also supposed to be a scary girl. Remember, in the show, there was no indication she even cared about Dib that much.

Gaz in the movie, and I assume the comics, is far more human. Heck I don't think she even cared about videogames at all in the movie. Something that would be out of character for tv Gaz

I am not complaining, but movie Gaz is very different.

She does mention her devotion to games early in the film, and in the comics she's even more obsessed with games and goes out of her way to become video game overlord. She also seems more edgy in the comics, like torturing Dib but eventually does let him go (I think). She does seem less prone to angry outbursts though and is less hateful towards Dib, only doing the whole gamer tyrant thing because Dib did something to piss her off I think. The movie made her more sympathetic though and I like that.

Edit: Found pages from it.

I definitely prefer the movie version of Gaz to be honest, but the drastic change in personality does feel off. Like at least start the movie off with her still being a prick but then have Dib do something or put him in a situation that makes Gaz mature a bit. Like they did with Membrane. He starts off similar but becomes more fatherly near the end. Their time on the prison planet would've been the perfect opportunity for something like that.

 

[FemalePresident]

I guess I prefer old Gaz, she was funnier. I mean, she contributed a lot to the tone and humor style of the TV show in my opinion.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Gaz still had some of her prickish attitude in the film, she clearly didn't want to go get Dib to bring him downstairs to eat with the family (but given what became of him, guess you can't blame her), but she also didn't seem to be all that supportive in helping him get fit. She just kinda looked at him funny, if anything. She's more of a "your business is none of my business unless you forcibly drag me into it" kind of girl, I think, then she vents by throwing things at others in retaliation.

My brother made the comment about how weird it was for Gaz' eyes to be opened more in the film, but she's had her eyes opened just as much in the TV series. I don't think I can blame him for misremembering it because most of the promotional art portrays her with her eyes closed.

 

[Sayon]

Knowing what Vasquez had in his pitch and what he's said within the fandom, you should see he wasn't satisfied with what the show did with the Membranes.

He wanted a busy and eccentric but still loving father, a son with serious flaws who wanted to please him, and a treacherous yet still loyal to her family daughter.

 

[SpergPatrol]

I am a bit shocked how well this turned out in all honesty
I was expecting after Rocko for this to also be a boring preachy thing about change with some good bits of animations occasionally that was made for the trailers with an ending where zim and dib stop being enemies and become friends.

Thank oh mighty christ I was wrong, it was so well made with only a few animation issues but holy cow it was written and drawn so well it improves on the original show.
I like that the people making this actually cared about making a good product and not just pandering to an audience.
You can see they actually tried to make something amazing that can stand on it's own even if you didn't like the show and that is an amazing feat they did.

It doesn't feel exactly like zim but it improves on so many other aspects it can be enjoyed in spite of that and that's how reboots of old properties should be like.

It feels like night and day between these two movies
Rocko is everything wrong with doing modern adaptions by forcing political relevant subjects that will be horribly dated years down the line, poorly written dialogue that feels as natural as a car crash because the writers have been away so long they forget what kind of tone the characters had, animation that will be dated in a couple of years, wasting time pandering to trends of modern audiences (like the opening scene most of that wasn't really needed and mostly pointless fanservice), not writing anything really interesting that warrants the run time, pointless filler, and making it has continuations from the show that make it inaccessible to a new audience who haven't watched the show to understand it or understand any significance of it.

Rocko had adult issues brought up but it didn't do them as "oh hey this is a thing," and then walk past it. it literally made the episodes centered around it to give it the respect it deserved.
But its reboot just went "oh hey Randell is trans now moving on," then rehashed a scene to reference the old show with Randell having no real reaction other than "dad," where in the old show he had a screaming match with his dad and show some actual emotion and character.

It like what to do and what not to do with reboots exactly mirroring each other in what is ok and what isn't

 

[Creep3r]

Neat fact I just found out. Turns out that Foodio robot was from an unfinished episode which was at one point considered a possible series finale where both Zim and Dib die in case the show didn't get picked up for another season, but Nick rejected it thankfully.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Also Gaz was on a handheld game a ton in the movie.

 

[Ruin]

After seeing the opening I now want a continuation of the series done in anime style. Anime Dib is great.

My name is Dib Membrane and I'm 12 years old!

 

[SnowBall]

To be fair that's how Jhonen was at the time. He was a huge edgelord. He is the creator of Johny the homicidal maniac and he sneaked out a bloody Gir, which doesn't seem like a big deal, but this was a cartoon meant for literal children.

View attachment 898589

Invader Zim was, underneath the humor, fairly pessimistic and edgy.

Seems like Vasquez has mellowed out over the years. And honestly, I like it.

Oh yeah I am definitely aware of Jhonen and his work. JTHM really pulled no punches mocking goth culture and criticizing fangirls who romanticized Johnny by adding the Jimmy character.

Someone mentioned a few pages back about Steve Ressel cameos. I don't think we will ever be seeing any in future works. He and Jhonen did not get along behind the scenes and a lot of the rumors of Jhonen hating the show and various other drama with Zim's cancellation were started by Steve. Yet again there is so much misinformation, lies, and narratives spun over the show's cancellation so it is hard to tell what is true or false. Though apparently the drama behind the scenes was bad enough that the DVD commentaries pretty much unperson Steve and references to his cameos.

Here is a discussion on TV Tropes. (I know it is TV Tropes but there is some pretty interesting information.)
Interview with Steve.
A blog entry from GIR's voice actor. (Go down to the character assassination entry.)

As for the movie it was incredible, everything I wanted from a revival and more. I would be perfectly content if it was the series finale. I highly doubt we will ever get any more animated Zim as the comics are still going strong and I am pretty sure Jhonen would be more at home in the comics scene. Plus I Feel Sick was basically him venting about his stress over working on the show back in the day.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

I just watched this right after watching the Rocko reboot, and man, this was WAY better.

This felt like the series finale they always had planned, but never got around to doing. It was great to see Zim do everything that he did, it was great to see Dib get back into action, and the Membrane Family dynamic added more to the film than I was expecting.

It was funny, creative, weird, and felt like it picked up right where the show left off.

This was really good! I mean good lord, this might end up being one of my top ten favorite films of 2019. The fuck? Never would have expected that.

 

[gachacunt]

Just got to watching this movie the other day! As somebody who was admittedly raised partly on the original cartoon, I can say that this was honestly fantastic: while IZ's dark brand of humor got watered down a bit, it was still recognizable and it added its own spin to it. I found myself laughing a couple times. Voice acting was fantastic too, also proving that Richard Horvitz's voice is timeless. Everybody sounded almost exactly the way they did back when the show still aired.

I think this was my favorite animated movie of this year. I'm not expecting anything to happen out of the movie being so successful, but this was a nice treat. Hopefully Vasquez has more in store for Invader Zim in the future!

 

[averagejane]

i'm probably going to have to rewatch because i was a bit drunk when i saw it (because i thought i'd need to be after what i heard about rocko).
i really liked it though and i'm not sure if it's the alcohol that did it haha. the humor was on point with the original series, it wasn't as LOLRANDUMXD as i feared it would be, and it honestly feels like if the show was never cancelled and just picked up on another episode.
it was also nice to see tak's ship, because tak the hideous new girl was my favorite zim episodes, it appears they even got her original voice actor. neat!

if i still like it while sober then that'll be even better.

 

[KillThemCrackasBabies]

Someone mentioned a few pages back about Steve Ressel cameos. I don't think we will ever be seeing any in future works. He and Jhonen did not get along behind the scenes and a lot of the rumors of Jhonen hating the show and various other drama with Zim's cancellation were started by Steve. Yet again there is so much misinformation, lies, and narratives spun over the show's cancellation so it is hard to tell what is true or false. Though apparently the drama behind the scenes was bad enough that the DVD commentaries pretty much unperson Steve and references to his cameos.

Here is a discussion on TV Tropes. (I know it is TV Tropes but there is some pretty interesting information.)
Interview with Steve.
A blog entry from GIR's voice actor. (Go down to the character assassination entry.)

I think I recall way back when (I think the show was even still running) Ressel going on one of the bigger message boards and posting long Jhonen bashing threads. I don't remember specifics or even if it was actually him or a really convincing troll, but I recall whatever board it was somewhat siding with him over Vasquez when the subject about them not liking each other was brought up.

 

[Coolio55]

Expected to hate it but after watching it I was very pleasantly surprised. After the first few comics after the first comic arc were kinda meh I was expecting disappointment.
It was pretty much spot on except for the modern technology and the new voices (Tak's ship, Zim's computer)
Yes the art style and colour theory was a bit degraded but it worked most of the time.

All in all, very enjoyable.

 

[SnowBall]

I think a lot of people forget that the reason the original show had such amazing animation is because it was stupidly expensive to make. Apparently each episode cost over a million dollars. The small handful of CGI walnuts in A Room With a Moose alone cost them over 300k to make according to a Twitter post floating around. I don’t know the budget most Nick shows at the time had but I wouldn’t be surprised if the cost of making Invader Zim was a huge factor in its cancellation.

I think that because we are all older and more discerning of details we can easily pick out wonky animation and off model moments a lot more. I went back and watched a lot of childhood shows that I used to think had amazing animation and spent most of the time pointing out all the glaring flaws and every single instance of off model moments and errors.

Zim took place in a fairly futuristic world from the start so modern technology isn’t out of place. Dib even asks the teacher why people hand out meat slabs for Valentine’s say instead of candy and cards like in the old days in the Tak episode, making it obvious that the setting had that “20 minutes into the future” trope going on.

 

[Stephanie Bustcakes]

I think a lot of people forget that the reason the original show had such amazing animation is because it was stupidly expensive to make. Apparently each episode cost over a million dollars. The small handful of CGI walnuts in A Room With a Moose alone cost them over 300k to make according to a Twitter post floating around. I don’t know the budget most Nick shows at the time had but I wouldn’t be surprised if the cost of making Invader Zim was a huge factor in its cancellation.

a million dollars is a pretty standard budget for a half hour episode of TV animation.

 

[BrunoMattei]

a million dollars is a pretty standard budget for a half hour episode of TV animation.

Which is why in the last decade or so we've been more shows take the ghetto route and dumb down the animation.

 

[SnowBall]

a million dollars is a pretty standard budget for a half hour episode of TV animation.

It is? Never knew that. All I heard was that the show was expensive to make due to the use of CGI.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Nickelodeon is and always has been a bunch of cheap bastards, I suppose. Or maybe they played favorites; Klasky Csupo shows practically dominated their network, after all, but then SpongeBob and Fairly Oddparents were raking in the big bucks.