Destiny: The Winx Club Saga: Nice Teenage Series, But Low Fantasy

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

You should definitely forget about the atmosphere of the original cartoon.

On January 22, a live-action adaptation of the famous Italian animated series Winx Club was released on Netflix streaming service. The original tells about a team of young fairies who fight all sorts of villains, and in parallel solve the typical problems of adolescents. The animated series has long become a cult in many countries, spawning a huge amount of merch, fan cosplay and drawings.

The Netflix adaptation is a harsher story with darker overtones. It is clearly intended for those who fell in love with the Winx Club as a child, but have now grown up. So from the original stories, only a general outline and rare references have remained here. This approach is quite logical. Still, the Winx Club Saga has a lot of problems. First of all, with a fantasy component.

Nice teenage project

Bloom Peters lived with her parents in the ordinary human world. Once the girl got so angry that magical powers awakened in her and she almost burned down the house. Therefore, Bloom travels to another dimension to the Alpheus School, where young fairies are taught to control their abilities.

In the institution, the heroine meets the students with whom she has to make friends: the arrogant Stella, the open Aisha, the talkative Terra and the introverted Muse. All of them do not immediately manage to find a common language with each other, but soon they are brought together by mysterious incidents. After all, there are many problems in the fairy world: in the distant past, there was a war with the terrible burned ones, and now the monsters have returned. And everything that happens seems to be connected with Bloom herself.

Already from the outset of the action, it is obvious that "Destiny: The Winx Club Saga" is built on the principle of typical teenage series. The newcomer finds herself in an unfamiliar environment, seeks friendship and love, and at the same time deals with her past.

Moreover, the project fully follows all the canons of the genre with their advantages and disadvantages. The plot seems to have come straight from the 2000s, except that the quality of the filming has increased greatly. Literally in the very first scene, gracefully filmed in a half-minute long shot, all the main characters are shown in glimpse. And this is a complete set of standard types, which gives each viewer the opportunity to associate himself with one of the heroes.

Then everything goes exactly the same way on the knurled one: love and rivalry because of a handsome guy, which will turn into vile deeds; a new acquaintance, revealing the soul of the most introverted character. It will not do without a noisy party with alcohol, confessions and awkwardness.

In general, "Destiny: The Winx Club Saga" captures literally all the stereotypes of teen projects. But we must pay tribute: the series does it quite well. At the very least, he does not go into obsessive sociality and moralizing, as happened with "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" in the second season.

By the way, the leading actress Abigail Cowan came from this particular Netflix project, where she also played a student of the school of magical arts, albeit with a completely different character. In general, the new series is clearly intended to attract all Sabrina fans. The platform does this on a regular basis, immediately offering viewers a replacement for completed stories.

"Destiny: The Winx Club Saga" sags only on prolonged dialogues. Not only do they sound unnatural, which can be explained by the abundance of newcomers to the cast, but they are also strangely filmed. The characters just look at each other for a long time and say phrases, which sometimes becomes literally awkward. Authors give too much information in text instead of visualizing it.

But in general, as a representative of teenage series, the novelty looks quite nice, gradually revealing the characters and changing their relationship.

A completely different atmosphere

The new project immediately refuses to comply with the Winx Club. This can also be understood from the target audience: the series has the age marking "18+" due to cruelty and obscene language (in the official dubbing it, of course, was removed).

But more importantly, the project is trying to bring the world of magic closer to human realities. Even the absence of fairies' wings is here called a necessary stage of evolution, and the heroines do not reincarnate and are dressed like ordinary teenagers.

And from the strengths and characters of the original characters, little is left. Stella has turned into an arrogant star. Flora was replaced by her cousin Terra, an obsessive talker. The muse is no longer a fairy of music, but an empath who feels the strength of others. Tekna disappeared altogether, and the triplet of Trix was compressed into a single Beatrix.

There is no need to talk about minor heroes. Most of them were simply not in the cartoon, they were invented specifically for the new series. In this case, it is rather good. If the authors tried to adapt the original, preserving its childish cartoonishness, it would be just silly: what looks acceptable in animation will seem ridiculous in the game version. And with the same wings and in the higher-budget "Carnival Row" coped with difficulty.

Therefore, the authors chose a style closer to the late Harry Potter films: everyday clothes and the atmosphere of an ordinary school, combined with magic. Plus, such changes add surprise: few people expect dark flashbacks about war crimes, intrigue and mortal wounds from terrible zombies from the heroes of the Winx fairy tale.

For fans, small hints remain, such as mentioning Flora or a vivid reference to the original in the last episode.

Distressed fantasy

But, unfortunately, the weakest part in the series turned out to be related precisely to magic. The beginning of the main events seems too hasty and does not fit well with the school atmosphere. As if Harry Potter faced Dementors on his first day at Hogwarts, and then calmly continued to get to know other students.

About the department for young men, who are called specialists, they do not talk at all very sparingly. The male part of the cast seems to be needed solely for the sake of decoration: students fight beautifully with sticks and serve as a catalyst for conflicts between students.

The very logic of building a magical world also raises many questions. It's better not to talk about this directly, so as not to spoil the plot. But a critical viewer will find it difficult to believe in some conflicts: it is too easy to collapse what supposedly has existed for decades.

And in the end, the special effects in the Winx Club Saga are too weak for a project about magic. Some elements, like Bloom's burning eyes or the sound that pursues the Muse, are well conceived. Small details are also handled while learning magic. But they try to hide larger-scale effects in the dark, but they still hurt the eye. Still, the visuals of most TV series are still far from the level of solid fantasy films.

The series "Destiny: The Winx Club Saga" turned out to be better than it could be. This is a truly unexpected project that does not just parasitize on nostalgia, but offers a new perspective on history, delighting with small references to the original.

But he still needs to grow up to an interesting fantasy. Given the popularity of the series on Netflix, it is likely to be renewed for a second season. Hopefully, the sequel will put a bigger budget and find a more interesting balance between teenage drama and fantastic action.